She Only Barks at Night

Performance installation is one of those theatre genres that often tiptoe a dangerous line between work that is evocative and inane. Living Room Theatre’s She Only Barks at Night slips back and forth between the two.

Not your mainstream sit-down-and-shut-up theatre, She Only Barks at Night uses a troupe of performers, musicians and a horse to guide audiences through the historic University of Sydney campus – all the while using music, text and movement to mark places with meaning. The natural history museum comes alive with frenzied girls building chair towers, the Veterinary Science building hosts a live taxidermy show, horse stables become the playground of a demented French girl tormented by memories. 

Everywhere the audience is led, haunting and evocative images are left in their wake. Are we in an asylum? A boarding school? A science lab? Why is there a live horse? There are no clear answers but there is clear imagery thanks to Matt Osbourne’s lighting design, Julia Reidy’s soundscapes (proficiently executed by Clayton Thomas on the double bass and Shota Matsumura on the trumpet), Rosie Boylan’s headware, Michelle St Anne’s direction and the ensemble of performers.

Where there are captivating moments there are equally inane and incomprehensible happenings. The show is disjointed, not because of the venue shifts, but because of the lack of sense conveyed in each moment and its transition. The piece would have benefited from either more narration to guide the audience’s comprehension (why are we moving from place to place? What are we searching for?) or a quicker place to trap the audience in a heightened sense of reality only to be broken when the show is complete.

She Only Barks at Nightis adventurous, explorative and evocative, but periodically drifts into the inane. The Living Room Theatre should be applauded for their unique contribution to Sydney theatre and the historic venues they bring alive with new colours and energies.

Maryann Wright