Evolve Company presented Secrets History Remembers in the Student Centre ballroom. I have to say, for such an intriguing concept for the performance, it was certainly one of the worst shows of the festival.

This show is all done within a lifesize (what one could only describe easily as) mannequin of a female. She has on a Victorian dress, and various parts of her fold out; the top of her skull opens up, the centre of her chest (not to be rude, but the point in between her breasts), her stomach folds out, and the bottom of her skirt lifts up to reveal a small TV screen. Secrets History Remembers is a weird take on toy theatre, with all these fold out parts allowing for puppets to stand on/play with, and the TV screen provides an area for projection of imagery. 

The storyline, if you can call it that, are randomly strung together scenes that comment on the materialism of humanity, and particularly the 50s advertising era. As such, most of the script consists of ‘ads’ for various products. I really can’t describe the plot better than that, because I really couldn’t follow it. Although there were a couple of main characters - the mannequin for a start - it wasn’t clear who was doing what and why. 

The accompanying music/sound effects didn’t help either. Although it may have been appropriate for the show, the music would often stop suddenly (not a problem from the sound operator, seeing as I could watch him off the side of the stage pressing buttons on their laptop), leaving large and obvious gaps of silence… it would just make things feel awkward or unfinished; or like the actors forgot a line. Indeed, that sums up transitions entirely; there were so many puppets, objects and movements (working behind a mannequin for two people is quite a small space to perform within) that transitions were jerky amongst the scenes. The performers would emote well when using the puppets, but as soon as they left their hands or went to grab yet another prop from backstage, they had no connection with the play emotionally.

The puppets themselves, whilst well made and operated (a unique idea was to use the finger of the mannequin as the needle on a record player, and placing a record on the tip of an egg beater; by rotating the egg beater handle, the record would spin, hence playing the record), there was very little that I thought was interesting given the use of the mannequin. Rod puppets and object theatre were used, from small female rod puppets, to cereal boxes that had moving parts. But I honestly thought that if there was a more succinct storyline, they could have done better with smaller objects; mostly everything was large or just barely fit onto the mannequin’s stage areas. Had they used something that would have been itty bitty - 5 to 10 centimetres - it would have been more interesting… Like the storyline, it would also have been nice if the puppets they used were a little more connected style-wise.

Ultimately, I was so tired and so bored/confused, that I really started to fall asleep. When the show was finally over, no one in the audience knew when to clap - because of those large gaps of silence, when things went quiet onstage, we were confused. 

… By the way, I forgot to mention something important in Day Seven’s diary post: the awards that I’m confused about… they’re awarded based on reviewer submissions. There’s no judging involved and anyone can submit a review. Once a show receives three reviews, the award is given. … So this explains to me why so many bad or fair shows have received awards. (In my opinion, this is the stupidest idea ever. How can you possibly support the best of the best as a representative organisation - ie., UNIMA USA - and recognise true excellence in the field, when there is no weeding out of the chaff?)

Anyway, this show gets the lowest score, as even their novel use of the mannequin as a staging area loses points for them: