Weddings and funerals have one thing in common: floral arrangements. The bundle of roses on a bridal table and the white lilies on a coffin share a common goal – to celebrate life. Or, as we’re told part-way through WAKE, The Rabble’s soaring new masterpiece for Melbourne Fringe, to remind us that “Death is part of life”.
There are blue roses and carnations arranged on every table in the Italian Social Club Altona when we walk in. “Tonight is a celebration”, we’re told over loudspeakers, “a night to commemorate the ordinary and the extraordinary”.
Eight women, all in their sixties and seventies, walk through the audience dressed in various white getups: a jumpsuit, a wedding dress, an Elizabethan costume. We have gathered to celebrate their lives and grapple with the joys, obstacles and questions that they have encountered while ageing.
WAKE is a collaborative project intended to platform these women, many of whom have never performed in a show before. Drawing on real-life discussions conducted in Melbourne’s West, it’s part verbatim theatre, part theatricalised round table discussion and performance art piece in one.
The Rabble is Melbourne’s pre-eminent...
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