“To sleep perchance to dream,” said Hamlet.
Well not if you’re a “guest” at the Dream Motel, a sleep clinic that forms the backdrop of Ian Sinclair and Renee Newman’s latest work Sleeping Beauty a contemporary re-telling of the classic fairy tale.
Sinclair and Newman have stripped back the whimsy, removed all traces of cute fluffiness and brought out more of the darkness of the original source material. Sure enough this Sleeping Beauty is dark and a little quirky, but dark and quirky did not necessarily translate to a satisfying theatrical experience.
Ultimately, despite there being elements of the work I enjoyed, on a whole it left me feeling a touch underwhelmed. Personally I didn’t find myself all that invested in either Tahlia or Oscar, or their “recovery”, but with a little bit more character background I may have done. Strangely, the character I found most interesting was the sleep doctor, who was enigmatic, intriguing and wonderfully theatrical.
It was disappointing that the work didn’t explore in more depth the reasons behind these character’s dreams and their significance. For all the talk and promise of drawing on scientific research into dreaming, there could have been more discussion of the dreams themselves.
One element of the piece that was enjoyable was Mei Saraswati’s sound production which really ramped up the creepiness of some of those dream descriptions and at times was quite un-nerving. ‘Silent Night’ won’t be heard the same way for a little while for those who see this production.
Sleeping Beauty had a lot of promise, but for me it didn’t quite live up to expectations. All along it seemed to be building to something, but it never quite eventuated. There were certainly elements I enjoyed, and some of the staging was quite brilliant and entertaining, but it just didn’t feel finished, and it certainly didn’t leave a satisfying feeling.
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Sleeping Beauty is performing at PICA for Perth Fringe World until February 6th. For more information and ticketing click here.
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