Last Landscape: clowns at the end of the world and the dawning of the next 16 Jan 2025 - Photos by Fran Chudnoff
It would be convenient if I could reduce Last Landscape to a catchy descriptive phrase. Or even just two of them. A clown show about the end of the world and the dawning of the next. Creating art out of garbage. How theatre creation mirrors evolution. Mimicking the beauty of the natural world by artificial and comic means. Musing on how wonderful, fragile and irreplaceable this world is. Five characters in search of sunlight. None of them quite fit, though all are apt. Last Landscape is a moody, meditative piece of clown theatre. With inventive puppets that often steal the show. The plot is elusive and illusive: a man, Adam Paolozza (Italian Mime Suicide, Paolozzapedia, The Cave, Flashing Lights) who is also credited with concept, direction, choreography and co-design, enters a cardboard box domicile. He strips off layers of protective wear, much like a clown's endless handkerchief or standard pandemic gear, but it can't protect him from construction workers who wheel him, and his precious spider plant, offstage.
The workers—Nada Abusaleh, Nicholas Eddie (Italian Mime Suicide), Gibum Dante Lim, Annie Lujan, and Kari Pederson—dismantle the man's home and then proceed to create entire new worlds. Theatrical recreations of the natural world, most based around a park, complete with a versatile bench, by a waterfront. The humour, aside from the delightful puppet dog and seagulls, comes from the recreation, using fabric and cardboard, of waves, skipping stones, and the very seasons themselves. We have been told that all the elements of the set are recycled materials, taking the artificial that has been discarded and repurposing it to create a remarkable facsimile of the ordinarily extraordinary. All while drawing attention to how delicately and humorously the illusion has been devised. The set is shuffled, deconstructed and reconfigured several times, always at a steady deliberate pace accompanied by occasional brusque orders in what I will call 'clownspeak.' There is no dialogue. No monologues.
Between the set evolutionary revolutions, there are set pieces, bits of choreography, gags, and a heaping helping of symbolism. All of it stunningly beautiful if occasionally opaque and all taken at a meditative pace. These clowns do not do slapstick. As the reveals are integral to the charm and discovery of Last Landscape, no more details will be divulged beyond a note that the puppets by Puppetmongers Theatre, Graeme Black Robinson and Clelia Scala are magnificent. As is the scenic design by Ken MacKenzie which glows with life as it shifts from collected cast offs assembling into organic feeling settings, all enhanced by an electronic/organic soundscape courtesy of SlowPitchSound. It is important that we see the transitions, recycling is the big theme, and it is a wonder how dross is transformed into gold before, once used, being set aside for the next night's show. Paolozza is musing on nature and the planet, but filtering it through the joy of theatrical creation.
Not all the set pieces connect. A bit about electricity—sunshine is a major metaphor—is a funny running gag but stutters over the ecological emphasis. Paolozza makes another appearance in a twisted Jesus entering Jerusalem but perhaps being a Judas carrying the spider plant, that I suspect is a commentary on the art of directing. Or was perhaps just a visual that couldn't be resisted. Or the potent feisty spider plant metaphor needed to be reinforced. The five clowns, and make no mistake, clowning is a difficult art form to get right, are marvellous as they lug trees, transform into various creatures and plants, bicker, and express multitudes without resorting to words beyond clownspeak. Called upon to incarnate palm fronds, mushrooms that become high rises, and giant sloths, they never fail. And their delight when getting to interact with the audience is contagious. When the magic connects, Last Landscape is wondrous, it just, like evolution and devolution, moves at a deliberate and sometimes lugubrious pace. And it is heartening to know that what has been brought to mysterious life will continue and not return to a landfill.