A decree on the artistic nature of Matter
Opera for a small mammal
Dates
2013
World Premiere Season - La Mama Theatre
Melbourne
(December)
2012
Creative Development
Melbourne
(November)
Opera for a small mammal explores the artist’s position in society from a rigorous, singular and disarming point of view.
After the big opera the stage is still alive with resonating ghosts. Scraps of The Faerie Queen, Henry Purcell’s 1692 operatic adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, resound. Regina Josefine del Mouse lives in the theatre, in the castles and forests of dramatic literature. She is the Mouse Queen. Her tail glints with thieveries from philosophy, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Beat Poet Michael McClure, Gertrude Stein and other scholarly bits and pieces. Her dominion is the lowercase letters of art (not the uppercase citadel of Art) and Her audience is the community of Mouse People who live in the dark behind the scenes. With an Elizabethan extravagance and classical economy, depending upon the musical and rhetorical powers of poetry, huffing and puffing theatre-dust from the questions of self and Art, She issues a decree on the artistic nature of Matter.
“With a linguistic and intellectual richness that is rare on our stages, her performance is redolent with wit, sorrow and sensual passion. Small, but perfectly formed.”
“Then almost without warning the audience is plunged into a free-fall of the soul, past grief and humiliation to land among the ruins of discarded identities.”
“… a wonderful journey into the indeterminacies of language and of art”
“It’s a love letter to art and the power of language… Cameron’s performance is intimate, intense and textured”
“Margaret Cameron’s ‘Opera for a Small Mammal’ ( at ) LaMamaTheatre makes you want to read, think and create again”
Awards
- Nominee for Sound/Music in Independent Theatre, Green Room Awards
Developed and presented by Chamber Made Opera and Bell Shakespeare Mind’s Eye in association with La Mama Theatre.
Supported by the Australia Council for the Arts through the Interconnections Initiative
Written and performed by
Margaret CameronDirected by
Margaret Cameron and David YoungSound design and operation by
Jethro WoodwardLighting design by
Danny PettingillStage management and lighting operation by
Georgia Rann