Theatre review: Me & My Shadow
As this Patch Theatre classic returns to Adelaide, it brings with it a sense of wonder, joy and creativity that delights its audiences, young and old.
As children excitedly line the edge of stage waiting for the production to start, they are already asking questions about what they see – “what’s that for?” is the most common.
They are asking about the paper bags of all different shapes and sizes scattered across the stage. A couple have little squares cut out of them, making them look like high rise building, while others are stacked to form towers. Collectively, it looks like a crafty-wonderland waiting for play and imagination. Throughout the 40-minute production, each one of these bags serves a function cleverly designed to support the performers in their storytelling.
Me & My Shadow is made up of a series of vignettes, exploring the emotional journey of friendship. It gently interrogates not only the joy of friendship, but the tensions and grief that can arise within these relationships. This plays out between two performers: Astrid Pill and her shadow Nathan O’Keefe.
Pill opens the show playing on her own, with nothing but an empty toilet roll and the sound effects she’s making – whether that’s replicating the sound of a car engine, or a rocket-ship. In response, the adults and children laugh, and a child in front of me says over and over again: “That’s so cool.”
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When O’Keefe joins Pill on stage, the energy in the room is elevated, and the pair’s playful chemistry is on full display. O’Keefe’s physicality is larger than life, and as he transforms into a robot – with paper bags on his feet hands and head – you hear delightful remarks coming from the audience: “that’s so funny!” Both performers are authentic in their play and emotion, and that resonates deeply with the audience.
One of the wonders of Me & My Shadow is just how much is communicated with so little dialogue. Pill and O’Keefe, who were co-creators and the original performers when the show premiered back in 2010, have mastered what it means to play and communicate through physicality. As Patch Theatre’s artistic director Geoff Cobham says, this production carries communication in the same way dance does. Zoë Barry’s original compositions soundtrack the production beautifully and help chart the emotional peaks and troughs.
Cobham’s lighting and set design is nothing short of magical. Lighting works as the third character on stage, as integral to the storytelling as the performers themselves. It is remarkable to watch how a shadow can tenderly interact with an actor, and how a friendship can be built across different dimensions. It has children in all corners of the theatre asking, aloud, “How are they doing that?”
Me & My Shadow is an astonishing display of how much joy and magic can be found with some paper bags, a pair of scissors, and your imagination.
Me & My Shadow continues at Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, until August 29
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