Photo Credit: Matt Byrne
When: 13th – 28th Aug
Where: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
How much: $39-$79
The beginning of the 2020s has thrown us global curveballs from the outset, which has seen a worldwide shift in our collective reality. Exploring this shift and meditating on this collective act of restoration is the world premiere of Finegan Kruckemeyer’s Hibernation, the latest offering from the State Theatre Company.
In 2030, humanity makes its greatest sacrifice to date, a year of human life, as it undertakes a global hibernation. This movement (or lack thereof) acts as a penance for the destruction caused by human interference and to be a reversal just some of the damage. A gas sedates all human life for a year, as they lock their doors, release all the animals, and let nature reclaim the earth.
Told in three acts, Hibernation focuses in on corners of the world impacted by this confronting event, what happened during, and its consequences. While the intention of the Hibernation is environmental, it inevitably skews political from the outset, which is reflective of what would realistically unravel from such a polarising policy.
The stage is a crisp, bright white, with a central orb that reflects the aura of a scene. One of most futuristic and modern sets the company has executed in recent years, it really plays a distinct role in the storytelling.
The performances were varied as the players adapted to different characters, with some definite stand outs in the mix. Kialea-Nadine Williams effectively portrays the duality of a news reporter affected by a medical anomaly and a grieving mother, and Rosalba Clemente delivering a powerful monologue recapping the events of the hibernation.
While the concept of this play requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, it really initiated some provocative meditations of the morality, logistics, and the outcome of hibernation. If 2020 was impossible to fathom in 2010, surely it isn’t implausible that the year 2030 could have such a drastic impact on humanity?
4 out of 5 stars.
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