The Riddle of the Sphinx 2005, Sectrum Project Space, Northbridge, WA
The dramaturgical structure follows the myth of Oedipus and the Sphinx but offers a change in its traditional narrative. Instead of following Oedipus in his quest to Thebes, we are absorbed into the Sphinx's abandoned world of waiting at the side of the road for someone to answer her riddle.
This piece explores gender relationships at a core level. It is brought across confrontationally, but also with a sense of humour and compassion. 'The Riddle of the Sphinx' does not impose moral and philosophical judgments; its purpose is to make us question the world we live in and how we as men and women interact with each other in our daily lives.
Cast:
The Sphinx: Zoe Pepper
The Man: Maitland Schnaars
Crew:
Visual Design: Mia Holton
Light and sound operator: Patrick Cooper
Light design and sound design, dramaturgy, direction: Julián Fuentes Reta
Duration: 45 minutes
A Cow's Heart 2005, The Bakery - Artrage, Northbridge WA
'I like to think that every time you walk out of your work,
your house, or your cardboard bed in the park,
you can begin from scratch
and be happy
honestly happy'
A devised collaborative piece centred around two ideas: love and place.
A collection of moments in the form of actions, space, image, movement, dialogues and monologues about being here and there and what we can carry from place to place. And what we leave behind.
'A Cow's Heart' is the place that we all return to every now and then and get locked into. It is a shoebox full of photographs, buttons, movie tickets, cards, letters the things we hoard and sometimes have to burn.
Cast: Crew:
Half man 1: Richard Seidel Visual Design: Mia Holton
Half man 12: Maitand Schnaars Set Design, Sculpture: Andres Uribe-Hidalgo
Woman: T'Neal Maher Set Design: Daniel Alleck
Light design and sound design,
Duration: 70 minutes dramaturgy, direction: Julián Fuentes Reta
(Pieces of) a Cow's Heart 2005, Chung-Wah Hall, Northbridge, WA
This is a work that follows the line of 'A Cow's Heart / Corazón de Vaca', performed at the
Artrage Festival, 2005.
'(Pieces of) A Cow's Heart' asks questions about love and place, submerging the audience in a series of images and actions. It is a piece that creates a moving collage and reinvents itself in every performance, with every new audience and in every new space.
One and a half man : Richard Seidel
Half man : Maitland Schnaars
Woman: T'Neal Maher
Duration: 30 minutes
U.D. (Urban Dreaming) 2005, Spectrum Project Space, Northbridge, WA
'U.D.' is based on the poetry of Maitlan Schnaars, an indigenous man of mixed heritage. Schnaars' poetry talks with subtle whispers and brutal strength about identity. From identity the piece travels to love, the meaning of heritage, a possible future and to a bloodstained past.
'U.D.' addresses current issues prevalent to Australia, but also bares the open wounds of all
the human communities affected by racial and political intolerance.
Mixed heritage man - Maitland Schnaars
Nyungah - Samuel Pilot
White man - Richard Seidel
Visual Design - Mia Holton
Dramaturgy - Maitland Schnaars
Direction - Julian Fuentes Reta
Duration: 15 minutes
Phaedra's Love PICA, WA
A radical reworking of Seneca's classical tragedy of incest and unrequited love, 'Phaedra's Love' (first performed at the Gate Theatre, London, 1996) is a provocative interpretation of a woman's destructive obsession with her stepson and the misery that ensues. Kane drags the story kicking and wailing into the twenty-first century, presenting an unflinching examination of our societal fascination with sex, violence and celebrity.
Sarah Kane (1971-1999) offers a vision in which violence, pain, sex, joy and love are raw materials exposed to the spectator in the same way a surgeon exposes the internal organs. Her writing is a scalpel, cutting open ideas of right and wrong, beauty and horror.
She proposes a mixture of elements, from serenity to hysteria, order to chaos, from what is horrible to what is horribly funny, which Corazón;n de Vaca aimed to fully manifest in its staging of 'Phaedra's Love'.
Corazón de Vaca is the first company to have staged 'Phaedra's Love' in Perth, Western Australia.
Cast Crew
Phaedra: Caitlin MacLoughlin Assistant Director / Executive Producer /
Strophe: Mischa Ipp Stage Manager / SK: Richard Seidel
Hippolitus: Luke Ryan Visual Design: Mia Holton
Doctor / Priest / Theseus: Maitland Schnaars Light Design: Andrew Lake
Publicist: Sue Scrutton
Dramaturgy / Direction: Julián Fuentes Reta
Duration: 60 minutes Set design: Corazón de Vaca and Andrew Lake
Tears of Blood
This is a roughly 10 minute installation piece that is designed to loop a number of times, allowing audience memebers to come and go at any point during the loop.
Tears of Blood is written by Maitland Schnaars who perfomed the piece with Sam Pilot in Spectrum Project Space, 2008.
This work is about identity, within ourselves and within cultures.
Play Beckett
Play Beckett is a hybrid of Becketts particular language with the contemporary concepts of performance action and site-specific installation. With a powerful but simple visual environment and a sharp use of black humour, the piece travels through three Samuel Becketts short plays:
Catastrophe (1982), Play (1964) and Rockaby (1982).
Using the surgical precision of Becketts words, Play Beckett proposes an intense emotional journey leading to activate audiences here and now, by showing them the heart and the entrails of the human ability to comunicate.
'The farther he goes the more good it does me. I dont want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the shit the more I am grateful to him. Hes not f---ing me about, hes not leading me up any garden path, hes not slipping me a wink, hes not flogging me a remedy or a path or a revelation or a basinful of breadcrumbs, hes not selling me anything I dont want to buy he doesnt give a bollock whether I buy or not he hasnt got his hand over his heart. Well, Ill buy his goods, hook, line and sinker, because he leaves no stone unturned and no maggot lonely. He brings forth a body of beauty.
His work is beautiful.' Harold Pinter
Cast Direction, Visual & Sound design
Assistant - Woman 2 - Voice : Rosa de Guindos. Julián Fuentes Reta
Protagonist - Woman 1 - Body : Ana Eva Cruellas.
Director - Man - Shadow : Iñaki Rubio. Assistant Director & Visual Operator
Ena Fernandez
Dramaturgy and production Visual and Graphic Design Duration
Corazón de vaca. Javier Olariaga and Corazón de vaca 55 minutes
IF I Drown I Can Swim 2010, Yirra Yaakin Theatre, Perth WA
What makes a man? How do we unlearn things passed down from generations? How do men learn from love?
A Corazon de Vaca Production, presented by Yirra Yaakin Theatre Company, IF I DROWN I CAN SWIM is based on the poetry of Maitland Schnaars, who talks with subtle whispers and brutal strength about identity, what it is to be a man and the meaning of heritage.
Mixing styles of writing is as much a part of Corazon de Vacas vision for a contemporary theatre as is mixing performance styles and performance media. IF I DROWN I CAN SWIM combines an already hybrid text with movement, digital visual media and live music.
Cast: Director: Assistant Director:
Maitland Schnaars Julian Fuentes Reta Sarah Neville
Sam Murray
Anna Sarcich (cello) Lighting Design: Video & Set Design:
Joseph Mercurio Mia Holton
Sound Design: Technician & Lighting Operator: Audio Visual Operator:
Julian Fuentes Reta Karen Cook Mia Holton
Duration: 56 mins
