By Jennifer Beasley.
Utterly compelling, Director Fini Liu showcases his technical talents with a brilliant team of creatives in a mesmerising journey into a broken mind.
Let’s go on a journey. We’ll take a ship, named the SS Ariel’s Dream, and play some chess to while away the hours. You go first. You can be black. I can be white. Or we can be both.
The Ship, an astounding new play from Do Theatre, and now finished it’s run at The Meat Market, is based upon Austrian Stefan Zweig’s novella The Royal Game. Written in 1941 during Nazi occupation, the prose explores the effects of mental and physical torture upon the mind. Considering too that Zweig committed suicide a year later, will give you a hint on the themes covered in this production.
This play blurs the boundaries between reality, memory and self-awareness. Writer and Director Fini Liu allows his actors to flow and ebb, no one character dominating. The fluidity works brilliantly, with the dancing of the Narrator/Ship Ariel played by a graceful Yanjun Chen, infusing this work with an otherworldly element, that keeps the audience questioning, what is real? When a mind is deconstructed, how do you find a way out?
There are two conceits present here. The Ship, the SS Ariel’s Dream (as stated on the cute boarding ticket the audience is presented with on ‘boarding’ with the notation: On this ship, time and memory will betray you) which is personified by the Narrator. Chen’s flowing dance and commentary as The Ship, connects the other theatrical elements and themes. The other conceit, the Chess Game, presents as three personalities: The Master Chess player Czentovic, an idiot savant (a wild-hair fur coated astounding performance by Liu), Mr. B, a nervous wreck of a man who seems to be sliding into his own shadow, (acted by the scene stealing Yuan Lu), and the Chess Game itself. Because this is a strategic game, one with psychological pressure, and if you break, then what you lose is …well, everything.
In a stage split with the audience seated either side, and mock sails hanging overhead, which also feature as screens for sepia film projections and English translation when mandarin is spoken, The Ship commences as a liner heading out during World War II from China to the Southern Hemisphere. The World Chess Master, Czentovic, plays against the Captain (Tony Zhang) who, along with his first mate (Yufan Chen) discover that the mysterious Mr. B has a precocious knowledge of chess, although he has never physically played it, and decide that matching him against the Master would be a quick way to make a few bucks. Unbeknown to the Captain this triggers a psychological breakdown in Mr. B. Or does it?
The scene preceding the final game flashes back to China. Mr. B, cocky and arrogant, is detained by an Officer, a Hitler moustached Liu, who has discovered that Mr. B has some undisclosed funds secreted from the bank he works for, and the Officer wants the lot.
It is here that the hubris of Mr. B. shoulders Greek Tragedy, for we know his downfall is imminent. The set and repeat action of the silent Guard (Yufan Chen) delivering his food, depicts the loneliness and isolation. Threatened by the Enforcer (played by an energetic Zhang whose vocal change up impresses with his deepened voice as he speaks Mandarin) allows Mr. B to steal a book from the Enforcer’s pocket while being beaten. This book, famous moves by Chess Masters, helps the protagonist to hang onto reality. However, it is in the effort to play games against himself that he splits into two, and thus his fate unfolds. Utilising creative depictions of torture by the Enforcer, where the shirt of Mr. B. is pulled off and whipped, and then long acupuncture needles inserted into the material, while a shirtless Mr. B. writhes on the bed in agony, is truly astounding.
Yufan Chen excels as he changes from a fragile slip of nothing, into his previous vocal and cocksure ego, to his diminishing sense of self – right up to his psychological dilemma and the act of self-reclamation.
This esoteric piece is a master exercise into the effects of PTSD and trauma. When I asked the director post show what he had hoped to achieve, Liu said that ‘the body is an energetic universal core which breaks the language barrier’.
And that it does. Liu was nominated for the Green Room Award in 2023 for Best Direction, and that doesn’t happen for no reason. He is going places, something that my film director companion noted with great interest.
With exceptional sound, echoing just the right amount of dramatic flair by Zena Wang and Alex Zhou, to elevate pivotal moments, this production is fortunate to also have the skills of producer Sally Chen, who understands the value in marketing as well. Special thanks to the Melbourne Fringe Fund for their support. This production overshadows anything else I have seen this year and is a testament to the wonderful support of the creative team.
Brilliant and I hope it wins a Fringe Award, it certainly deserve to.
