Ignis

Ignis is the intriguing new show by the ensemble team at Anthropocene Play Company, directed by Bronwen Coleman and written/adapted by Daniel Nellor.

Based on Arthur Schnitzler’s provocative play La Ronde (Round Dance) written in 1897, banned at the time for indecency and for its provocative sexual themes, Nellor has successfully re-written an original dramatic text, set around the southern NSW bushfires in 2019/20, utilising the landscape to explore anxieties, sexual tensions, betrayals, and political cover ups.

Ignis maintains the original (La Ronde) dramatic structure of ten interlocking scenes between two people; each of the ten characters appear in two consecutive scenes in separate locations. Nellor has crafted a uniquely Australian piece of work, utilising the bushfires to draw attention to climate change and its effects on the populace - the core of his text explores unfulfilled relationships and failed expectations.

Like the original text, the prostitute - Samantha (Catherine Morvell) appears in the first scene and in the last. The play begins with her taunting her client, a PHD student Jordan (Kulan Farrah). In the following scene he is a jealous lover arguing with his workaholic girlfriend Amy (Pia O’Meadra). Amy is the chief political secretary to the opposition leader James (Sebastian Gunner) who has other plans for her. The dramatic tension rolls into the next scene and is distinct from the last. Nellor has carefully composed his text with highs and lows examines personal hidden agendas, denial, latent homosexuality, and violence.

The show is performed in a nineteenth century Manor in Toorak with a limited audience capacity of twelve. We are provided with fold up chairs and are ushered around five rooms. Coleman chose to pay tribute to the original play by setting it in an old worldly location that is currently a boutique hotel. She spent ten years in New York and is a life member of the Actors Studio. Now living in Melbourne, she is a founding member of Anthropocene Play Company. Her directorial work is “character centered’ and draws on techniques and skills from her time at The Actors Studio, she has successfully managed to direct an ensemble cast of ten fine actors.

Ignis is a challenging new show, offerjng its audience a scintillating experience in a curious location.

Flora Georgiou