The reviewers are Anica Boulanger-Mashberg, Kylie Eastley and Stephenie Cahalan and Lucy Wilson Magnus.

Floating
Hoipolloi with Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands
The Playhouse Theatre
28-29 March, 2-5 April (various venues)

What a Connection
I’ve thought about it carefully, but I simply can’t think of a reason not to say this: Floating is the most wonderful evening I can remember ever having in a theatre.

It’s not just that it is pants-wettingly funny.

It’s not just that the wistful conclusion made me cry. And I’m not saying it generated Hallmark-poignancy. I’m saying that tears spontaneously surged out. In a good way.

It’s not just that Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands are irresistibly charismatic, have a remarkably strong collaborative presence on stage and a generosity, groundedness, and sincerity in even the most mirthful moments.

It isn’t just their invitation to their audience to become involved. And I’m not talking about that ugly phenomenon of ‘audience participation’. I’m talking about encouraging audiences to be aware of their role in the creation of theatre. Aware of the usually unspoken contracts between performer and audience. Aware of their connections to each other, and to the performers – this word ‘connection’ is so important that Hughes has it in crooked coloured letters on a little index card, which he charmingly pulls from his pocket at regular intervals.

It’s not just their capacity (particularly Hughes’s) to frequently shift between spontaneous comedy and sublime, poetic scripted moments, taking the audience with them.

Nor is it just their consummate willingness to be vulnerable on stage, whether by taking dramatic risks, experimenting with improvisation, or simply being comfortable enough to literally fall over with uncontrollable laughter, and consequently rewrite a section of the show so that they could get through it without dissolving into more giggles.

What’s so fabulous is that Floating simultaneously achieves all these things while creating an engaging, lovely, and thought-provoking narrative. The story is one of place, of islandness, of belonging, of home, of the desire to leave, and of one man’s epic and whimsical journey on an island that once floated around a map to bring him right back to the place he started. And I do mean epic – the joyous interaction between the packed house and the performers stretched the show an hour beyond its advertised length, and still we wanted more.

There isn’t a single aspect of this show that didn’t glow. I loved the idiosyncratic and beautiful imagination behind it. I loved its capacity to conduct a powerful philosophical analysis of the act of watching and creating theatre, while never losing its humour. Even the set is divine, comprising a motley collection of homely objects and lo-tech multimedia equipment from which the performers conjure a multitude of worlds. They actually pass objects around the audience, facilitating an even stronger connection with the show (out comes the little index card). I’m reluctant to carelessly splatter superlatives and create unreasonable hype, except that I have complete confidence in Hughes and Rowlands’s abilities to fulfil expectations.

Now, I know it isn’t ‘true’ that the Isle of Anglesey, Hughes’s home, detached from mainland Wales. But Hughes and Rowlands make such an honest connection with us (index card!), and give us such good reasons to trust the relationship they form with us, that I desperately believe that the island really did go on that drifting adventure. What a magnificent gift to take away from the theatre.

Anica Boulanger-Mashberg is a Hobart-based performer and writer.

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Floating
Hoipolloi with Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands
The Playhouse Theatre
28-29 March, 2-5 April (various venues)

Floating
The key to a good story is in the telling. Floating, the two person show by Welsh company Hoipolloi at The Playhouse Theatre, is a perfect example of this. This mix of recital, eisteddfod and stand up comedy produces what was one of the most enjoyable and resonant shows of Ten Days on the Island.

For the first 45 minutes of the show, two extremely likeable characters interact with the audience to create a connection that disconnects us from the outside world. Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands convey a genuine fondness for the audience; chatting, asking questions, welcoming stragglers with standing ovations and giving an overview of what is to come. They perform their convoluted story with such humour and wit that the audience continually erupts with laughter.

Together they tell their story; a blend of fact and fiction. It’s 1982, and while the world is focused on the Falklands, the small Welsh island of Anglesey is struck by an earthquake. The bridge to the mainland collapses and the island floats away on a journey from the Arctic to the Atlantic, before returning to where it began.

Hughes and Rowlands use simple props, multimedia, well-constructed dialogue and improvisation to connect with the audience in a most memorable way. The props are homely and useful: slide projectors, lamps, hallstand with fishing rods and umbrellas. Propped against the walls are fraying school maps and diagrams of the human body. For much of the audience this scene would recall early school years or a grandparent’s home; comforting and familiar.

It doesn’t matter what is real or fiction in this wonderful performance. Hughes is enigmatic and loveable, and is charmingly complemented by his co-performer Rowlands, who portrays the prudish and nasty school principal, Hugh’s best friend Gareth and his grandmother. They are so warm and honest in their performances that we want to believe that the photos and family in this production are real.

There is light and dark in Floating. At times the hilarity falls away to reflective moments that silence the crowd.

The focus of the play is on connection, individual choice, and disconnection.
This is not just reflected in the story, but through improvisation and interaction with the audience.

In an amazing moment, Hugh asks the audience to close their eyes as he counts to 10. By this time the relationship between audience and performer is strong and they oblige for what seems like two to three minutes. This is a clever and simple device to accommodate a change of set design, but it also reveals the trust that has been gained by the performers.

Hughes and Rowlands created Floating in 2005 and have won many awards. It is not difficult to understand why. No words can truly convey the hilarity and brilliance of this performance, or how it manages to connect with the audience so strongly. We need more experiences like this in the theatre.

By Kylie E Eastley a freelance arts consultant based in Hobart, Tasmania.

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Floating
Hoipolloi in association with Hugh Hughes
Playhouse Theatre
2-5 April 2009

As the audience enters the Playhouse Theatre, an old lady sits centre stage knitting with a friendly nod for anyone who catches her eye. An earnest looking man onstage waits patiently to start the show. The assembling crowd largely ignores them as they bustle to buy a drink, take seats and say hello to friends.

This is in vast contrast to the end of the show when the crowd sits in rapt attention, willing the engagement to continue, reluctant to leave. So, what changed in the hours in between? We went floating, that’s what.

Floating combines improvised theatre, stand-up comedy and multi-media presentation. Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands tell the story of Anglesey, a small island off the coast of Wales that drifted to the Arctic after the Menai Bridge collapsed in an earthquake in the 1970s, before returning to its original place. Whether the story is true or not is irrelevant, just as the significance of the old lady on stage is neither here nor there.

The meaning of the performance lies in the way in which Hughes and Rowlands endear themselves to the audience even before they utter a word. Later they show us out feeling like we have all just become dear friends. Underneath the lighthearted comedy of Floating is a sophisticated consideration of island mentality, the dilemma between having an identity and the desperate desire to get away. The reference to the myriad of the world’s islands comments on the shared mentality amongst people who prize their isolation, all the while demanding inclusion. This is something that Tasmanians can well relate to.

The houselights remain on through most of the performance, inviting the audience to enter into a conversation with Hughes, which happens surprisingly quickly. The show had barely begun before audience members were wading in and calling out. The actors exploit and ridicule time-proven devices such as goofy props, audience participation (both engineered and spontaneous), a swag of sight gags and even give-aways at the end of the show. The multi-media elements lean more towards the analogue than the digital end of the spectrum, and while it presents as simple, the whole production is a complex binding of acting, staging, costuming and lighting techniques.

The playbill sets the running time at one hour and ten minutes, but the duration of the show is in the lap of the audience, as the exchange between actors and punters over-rides the script. There is an account of one show that went for two and half hours with the audience virtually storming the stage. Yet at no time does Hughes ever lose his command of the space. He and Rowlinson artfully maintain the fine balance between holding the stage and inviting the audience into the performance. And while Hughes is at the centre of the piece, Rawlinson lavishes a playful and innocent energy on the production. She is, as Hughes rightly describes her, a generous actor. Together they are gloriously funny.

One word of warning: if you don’t want to become part of the show, turn off your mobile phone.

Stephenie Cahalan is a Hobart-based writer and editor.

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Floating
Hoipolloi
Playhouse Theatre
2 – 4 April at 8pm, 5 April at 6pm

Clouds of laughter
Standing in the shower this morning, I catch site of the ink stamp on my wrist: a map of the Isle of Anglesey, with ‘floating’ written in the middle. I collected it after Floating, a show by Hoipolloi Theatre from Anglesey in Wales.

My imagination floats up through the showerhead, and I visualise clouds drifting above. Clouds are a magic example of connection, and that’s what this show is all about. Hugh Hughes with his welcoming smile and scruffy casual hair was banging on about connection. He arrives at points of association and pulls a humble little sign out of his pocket with ‘CONNECTION’ written on it. I recall an evocative scene from the show, of clouds floating across the stage… it’s all connecting.

Floating bypasses the usual conventions of separation between performers and audience. It’s not a curtain-up-and-play, then curtain-down-and-clap scenario, with the ‘piece’ in-between. It invites an easy-going flow of communication and dynamic chemistry with the spectators, thanks to the lightness and ease of the creators and performers Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands. They perform with intelligent attentiveness, enabling them to be buoyant and responsive, while remaining anchored to the task of telling their story.

The introduction had such a natural yet edgy interaction with the audience we were encouraged to believe we were special, that this had never happened before. Apparently it has – a recent Sydney show was the longest ever, and people from the audience even went on stage and stayed till the end. But that’s hearsay. And anyway, we had an exceptionally good time. Only for a fleeting moment did I sense a small and silent groan of ‘please just get on with the show’.

The story involves a rudimentary yet entertaining introduction to what’s what. Then the lights dim and dry ice pumps the atmosphere. In ‘eleven episodes’ Hugh tries to leave the Isle of Anglesey to explore the world beyond. Yet in his endeavour he finds himself unbelievably connected. Or unable to disconnect: whether because of an earthquake, which is ingeniously conveyed by jiggling a teacup and saucer across a small table; a collapsed bridge; or by an unsuccessful attempt to swim.

Hoipolloi Theatre is driven by imagination and laughter, which refreshingly it delivers for nearly two hours. Hugh and Sioned approach everything they do with a positive. They say yes. Even when baffled, their reflex reaction is “brilliant”, ok that’s different, let’s go with it. And they’re busy. They share objects by passing them into the audience (including the grandmothers beefy-male wrestling magazines, a nifty photo box of her, and a plastic bounceable globe of the world); they enlist willing audience members to carry out duties; and operate a complex whimsical collection of props, projections, sound effects, microphones and set-changes.

The set is a quaint collection of furniture and contraptions from Hugh’s grandmother after she died. Hobartians could relate to the vibe by imagining a collection of tip shop beauties: old chairs, lamps, portable rollout projector screens (which at one random moment become dancing partners), a reel-to-reel machine and fishing rods. The potpourri of ‘stuff’ undergoes constant transformation from eccentric living room to clouds floating across the sky, to a freezing cold scene of fishing in the ice.

Simple and effective theatre has a lick of satisfaction. So do uncomplicated exercises that embody a concept for an audience. For example, we are asked to tilt our heads forwards and back to feel the weight of them, then multiply that by such and such, thus connecting us to the weight of the bridge. It’s advisable to get a grip, because the bridge and all its weight collapse.

A quote from Luis Bunuel is projected onto the back wall and echoed by Hugh, about how our memories are imbued with our imagination and fantasy, and so our lives transform our lies into truth. I won’t be surprised one day if I chat with a stranger who was also there last night, and enjoy a shared memory (that is the same and yet completely different). I recommend this show to my friends who delight in having fun, and who value the subtle details of life that bind us together.

Lucy Wilson Magnus is a Hobart-based Animateur & Creative Producer