It’s fair to say, I don’t get out much these days, this whole downward dog at the desk thing leaves the senses craving something they rumour to be life, or a pale impression thereof. So it was with much surprise that I found myself conned into a comedy show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Lamenting my to do list, the never gonna get to do list and the list of other things that are yet to be allocated a fate, I found myself with an overwhelming sense of delayed spontaneity and decided decidedly later that I was going to put every nothing aside and do something other than nothing.
I drove to the station and doubled back half-way home to find a suitable car park. I was uncharacteristically on-time, as was the train and I set off with my chaperone to The Intensive Intensive Intensive. It wasn’t until I was past the breach that I was informed I was entering a make-shift drama class that was, to say the least, intensive.
It was intensive. If you’d not experienced the exercises essential to acting success before, you’d best work out what was happening fast and get involved, I joined in much like entering an advanced zoomba class with glass winkle-pickers and tight chino’s. All was fine until I was called up on stage, then I suffered some form of regressive paralysis and did the ungainly in this world very proud. Drew Carey and that man with the short neck would never give me a gig in theatre sports. If pressed on the matter, I was acting…a fine student, I am.
Stella Luhrmann is a mean mime, with an adliberal approach to teaching that is mimicked elsewhere in few of the finest academies mummy can buy. I was in awe, I must admit. If you’re not afraid of giving it a go, you will be after this. I enjoyed it as much as I enjoy breaking out into interpretive dance when the mood takes me. I felt liberated, violated and sated.
The thing about Fringe is there’s a very experimental, experiential, edge that defines it. There are so many acts I’ve seen across the years of being in Melbourne, almost without exception, I’ve never really read up on them before hand, but I’ve never been disappointed. To me, it’s been about taking you places to shake your comfort zone and probably test theirs too, all in the relative comfort and anonymity of a room full of strangers.
The Melbourne Fringe Festival ends on 02 October 2016, I recommend getting off your arse to see something.