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thesydneyplayroom.com, Richard Hayes-Marshall and Mask'Art present LIZA'S PSYCHZEIT a new Artplay. It's about dreaming and seeing things that we think don't exist, stirring our imagination and those parts of the brain so adept at creating this reality we all live with. An Artplay in the round, exploring the humor and beauty in madness, through surreal and absurd drama, featuring mask, proper clown, character personage, mime and acrobatic melodrama.
From 8:00 PM we begin to look behind the private show of mental illness. The results of this unique project are presented as a performance and exhibition which surrounds the arena with sculptures, masks, music, photographs and a time line of graphs, depicting the sometimes startling labile world of manic depression.
Act 1 starts on stage and travels to another reality, characters in full faced larval masks represent three different kinds of mental illness in a humorous and extraordinary way where acrobatic feats of daring are featured in this view of 'Miscreant Clients'
Act 2 is a self-medicated dance of madness where two parts of the same brain come to the same conclusion. Finding a way to end the predicament is a pas de deux developed in a style called 'Closh' - a form of clown. A solo clarinet accompanies this tragic dream of 'Left/Right Madness'
Act 3 begins late at night on the streets of Sydney. Three larger than life characters, a schizophrenic male, a manic drag queen and a young bipolar woman present a text as a sonal orchestration in time and space. Conflict between the disorders occurs when they all meet on a psychiatric ward in 'Mindtime'
Act 4 is a daydream played out by five gargantuan characters, each behaving outrageously, all costumed in fabric, feathers and props, they support hand painted half masks from another time, another place. The action is based on a grand text and is choreographed in a way that flashes along in glorious 'Technicolor' The giant antics and acrobatics reach a state where we ask it to 'Please Elapse Asleep'
The entire performance lasts 70 minutes.
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