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LILITH: THE JUNGLE GIRL Genre-defying theatre from award-winning Aussie company These are politically fraught times. Fringe theatre, arguably, connects best with people when it effectively captures a sense of time and place, fusing the visceral with bold or radical ideas. In that spirit, award-winning queer Australian theatre company Sisters Grimm (known for staging shows in unusual settings like car parks) bring their production Lilith: The Jungle Girl to the Traverse this August. clichés seems to fuel Lilith: The Jungle Girl. With a cast that includes Hot Brown Honey’s Candy Bowers, and merging lo-i animation, satirical theatre and live art, it’s hard to categorise, but there is a serious subtext within the performance about the problem of ‘othering’ outsiders.
is why you’ll see talking lions, a wearable windmill, and a “wild girl” played by a 35-year- old naked man covered in pink slime.’ This wilful subversion of genres and
Fascinated by both skewering and
homaging cinematic tropes, they believe that the feral girl from famous melodramas is one archetype worth exploring. Co-artistic director Declan Greene explains:
‘a young girl is found in a jungle, and is then brought back to civilisation in order to be socialised. But then at a certain point, we strain and start to break these rules. Which
‘We hope it provokes the audience into looking at the world a little differently,’ continues Greene. ‘Be that a new perspective on a political problem, or just remembering that theatre doesn’t have to be dry or respectable.’ (Lorna Irvine) ■ Traverse, 4–27 Aug (not 7, 14, 21), times vary, £19.50 (£14.50). Preview 3 Aug, 9pm, £13 (£9).
P H O T O : J E F F B U S B Y
3–10 Aug 2017 THE LIST FESTIVAL 101