🐼 If You Can, Have Everything Be Soft

I've been struggling to write reviews recently and I think that's got something to do the pressure I feel to write them 'impartially.'

So, to try and get myself out of that funk, I'm trying something new with this response (not review) to Tiny, Fluffy, Sweet. This was a show that myself and Georgie saw the other day as part of Asia TOPA.

For this response, I recorded our post-show debrief which I then edited for clarity and length. It was a lot more fun to write/edit/think through, so I hope you enjoy this little experiment.

We begin in the Arts Centre Melbourne's carpark. RH and GW are getting into GW's car. GW is driving, while RH is a passenger princess. They've both been biting their tongue on the walk to the car.

GW The interesting point in that whole show was not necessarily pandas, but loneliness, and that wasn't really apparent.

RH I'm confused about having two performers on stage. If you're going to explore loneliness and isolation on stage, why wouldn't she (Ran Chen) perform alone?

GW I liked the metaphor drawn from the woman who brought the first living panda out of China. She was a widow and an orphan and wanted companionship so she took a panda home.

RH Yeah, that absolutely foregrounded the themes. But I guess the description kind of pitched the show as a highly personal work.

GW It didn't feel personal, except for that one tiny section where she reflected on her father being in hospital while a screen-recorded FaceTime with him played on the screen next to her.

RH I'm also wary^[1] of the notion that artists need to mine their personal trauma to make art. I don't know to what extent we can criticise the work for not diving into her personal experiences.

GW But if the reason that you started researching pandas was because you’re alone and away from your family, then surely those themes should be more prevalent. I think it would have been really beautiful and interesting if there were more of those personal sections kind of peppered throughout. Even if they didn't have context, it would clarify the reasons behind her desire for fluffy and cute objects, and this need for distraction and warmth.

RH I wasn't even getting that fluffiness and cuteness were necessary for her to cope.

GW I kind of felt sorry for pandas.

RH Oh, yeah, pandas are mistreated. For sure.

GW But is the work saying that it’s wrong to mine them for content for people who feel lonely and want something fluffy? It felt unclear.

RH I enjoyed the sort of stuff that they were doing with the set. Having the fur cover the table and having it all be soft and bright green.

GW But I feel like, if you can… have everything be soft. Commit!

RH But you just can't in that context. I think they must not have much time in that space. Like they had what seemed to be a completely standard rig. So, like, I get it.

GW But if you had the dimensions of that space and your entire floor was fluffy, all you need is a giant piece of fluffy material that you've rehearsed on outside.

RH But I think, as you've learned while trying to drag fluffy material across the country^[2] … that's hard.

RH I enjoyed having the three different moveable screens: one small, one medium, one large. And there were some interesting configurations that they were positioned in, like when they were all stacked facing us, and when there were the two smaller ones facing the performers and the big one facing us. There were attempts to use the displays to kind of like undercut, or like, make humor out of what they were speaking about. Like ‘No Picture, No Panda, No Proof’ in reference to the relative mystery of pandas in the early 20th century, which was interesting.

GW But it always felt like they were waiting for the cues to happen. And then the joke had passed and it didn’t land as well.

RH It definitely felt under rehearsed.

GW There was something about them sitting on stage cueing everything themselves though. Like how all of the sound was live because he (Peishan Xu) was actively playing the piano.

RH Yes, the sound was great. The music was fucking good.

GW And they were singing on stage which was really lovely. But I just wish that they had used their interesting technical setup more.

RH The handheld smoke machine was fun. And that little gag with the smoke in the beginning… what was it?

GW They said something like ‘Because there weren't photos of pandas for many, many years, they used to talk about them disappearing in a puff of smoke.’

RH And then a spotlight appeared on a puff of smoke! That was fun—

GW —and that was right at the top of the show—

RH –right! Because it started like that I was like ‘Oh, I know what the show is gonna be.’ But then it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be.

RH The object puppetry was really great. Just that whole section, with the furry fabric covering the table which they did the puppetry on, which was being filmed and streamed to one of the screens.

GW I don't know why there were lots of props pre-set at the front of the stage though.

RH Yeah. They only picked up, like, two of them. Not everything was used.

GW And not everything connected either. I don't know why the recorder was there, except that he picked it up during the finale and started playing it.

RH I actually liked that. I also really did enjoy the slow, ritualistic washing of the panda baby. Like it was really beautiful how they handed the objects off between each other.

GW Like a child.

RH Yeah. That baby panda felt alive for 10 minutes. But at the same time, I couldn't connect with what it was meant to be doing in context of the rest of the work.

GW Yeah, it did go on for a very long time. Like if you had built up to this, and it was filled with emotion, and it was meant to be this huge statement then I feel like I could have sat in it longer.

RH But then, because none of the themes were fleshed out it just renders it another bit. A nice bit, definitely. But for what?

RH You know how China engages in panda diplomacy? There's not many pandas in the world, and they're really hard to breed. Pandas are a hot commodity, so China will gift pandas to its allies. And if it's pissed off with you it’ll take the panda back. That’s because they don’t technically gift pandas they only loan them. Like all the pandas outside of China are basically borrowed pandas. I think there was drama recently where Australia had our only pandas which are in Adelaide swapped or something.

GW There’s something really interesting about the fact that, like, you have to be good to get your panda.

GW There was that one moment where he was wearing the panda mask on the back of his head and she started FaceTiming him from the desk on stage. And that was happening for 30 seconds, barely even 30 seconds, and then it never came back. And I was like, 'Oh.' She also had that whole monologue about her parents and missing home—but it came out of nowhere and went away so quickly, but you could tell that she was very emotional.

RH Like, the themes were very much, like, thrown up into the air and never caught.

GW I think there is something there in that idea though, of like, being taken away from your home to be in a different place, like—

RH —the panda! Yeah, but then that metaphor wasn't explored.

GW But also, like the trying to get away from real life, through tiny, cute things, and the exploitation of cute things.

RH We just never went there...

RH There was the dance party during the finale.

GW There wasn't an end though.

RH laughs.

RH No, that show didn't feel like it had an end. I liked the cotton candy they offered us during the dance party though.

GW It just wasn't handled super well. I didn't feel like I could go up there and join the dance party.

RH No, there was no guidance. You can't just say 'You can come on stage.' You actually have to put some sort of guardrails in place.

GW Because an audience is never gonna feel comfortable coming onstage after an entire show with no audience interaction.

RH Maybe if they’d built to that it would have worked. I've definitely seen shows which have ended in a dance party—and they can be phenomenal. But you have to build to that moment. And that very much petered out.

GW It really felt like they were trying to push the dance on us at the end. And it's not that I didn't want to, it's that it didn't feel like the right time for it.

RH Yeah, I know what you mean in terms of the structure of the piece. I also didn't really get the link between the dance party and the rest of the show. I'm not sure why you'd want that show to end with a dance party.

GW I walked away with a lot of ideas.

RH Artistic ideas? Or like ideas that you have in response to seeing, like, really powerful theatre?

GW Artistic ideas.

RH spies some graffiti on the side of the highway.

RH Look! Pam. Two of them!

GW Pam, pam, Thank you, ma'am

Beat.

GW I walked away with ideas for how I would use their ideas in my own context and go further.

RH But that's because we're artists.

GW Not critics.

RH I think as an audience member, I didn't necessarily walk away with a changed perception or understanding of pandas, no.

GW I mean, it's hard, because at what point do we not count as audience members, because we are artists?

GW Yeah, I think all up the show had an interesting concept, but it didn't—

RH —coalesce.

GW No. The stars definitely did not align.

RH But God… the stars were beautiful.