As the audience enter the room in which 'MKA: Kids Killing Kids' will be performed they are first offered some dried mango to chew on as they are directed to wander about the space for a few minutes, reading the pieces which have been posted on the walls and inspecting the various objects on tables before they take their seats.
An unconventional beginning to a show which is part lecture, part performance and part social commentary. The four actors on stage are the writers and producers of a production in the Philippines inspired by 'Battle Royale' - a book from 1999 by Koushun Takami and later adapted into a film - and the subsequent cult status it garnered, along with the consequent criticism including that from the UN. For those unfamiliar with 'Battle Royale', the story follows a group of teen students who have been drugged and dumped in an unknown location where they are given weapons and ordered to kill one another until only one survives.
This show, however, is the story of how a theatre group in the Philippines creates a production so involving for the audience that not only would getting too close to the action be hazardous to life and limb, but also that inspired near-obsessive levels of character worship from those who attended.
An unconventional beginning to a show which is part lecture, part performance and part social commentary. The four actors on stage are the writers and producers of a production in the Philippines inspired by 'Battle Royale' - a book from 1999 by Koushun Takami and later adapted into a film - and the subsequent cult status it garnered, along with the consequent criticism including that from the UN. For those unfamiliar with 'Battle Royale', the story follows a group of teen students who have been drugged and dumped in an unknown location where they are given weapons and ordered to kill one another until only one survives.
This show, however, is the story of how a theatre group in the Philippines creates a production so involving for the audience that not only would getting too close to the action be hazardous to life and limb, but also that inspired near-obsessive levels of character worship from those who attended.
Using a variety of media and performance styles - monologue, rap, dance, collage, video, slide-projection - to get their message across, the performers - David Finnigan, Sam Burns-Warr, Georgie McAuley, Jordon Prosser - eloquently and effectively convey the bizarre nature of what transpires in Manila and acknowledge their own complicity in what becomes a discomfiting craze of hero-worship for mass-murdering school kids. Albeit - fictional ones.
This is a thought-provoking piece which looks at the relationship between art and real life and the possible effect one has on the other. There is no final judgement here, only a statement of the facts and the audience is left to make their own decisions.
'MKA: Kids Killing Kids' is on at the Warehouse theatre in the Fringe Hub, North Melbourne until Thursday 3rd October.
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