Befallen
another crisp March evening in the southern reaches of lutruwita/Tasmania and
I’d been assigned an airport collection – Goldfish, 1 person, drop them at
their hotel. It seemed straight forward enough, and yet foolishly in my
unperturbed state I’d forgotten to take note of the artist’s name. Alas, it
seemed standard procedure to arrive at Hobart International collect Goldfish –
whomever this was to be – and return into the night of nipaluna/Hobart.

The mouth
of the sensor sliding doors labelled arrivals breathed me in from the coldness
of the autumn air. I emerged into, what might be funny considering the size of
the airport, a mass of humans scrambling for bags, tracking down loved ones and
signing elaborate documents rigorously constructed by the multitude of hire car
companies.

Amidst the
sea of organised chaos, it was a big, broad smile that caught my attention.
Returning the offering of welcome my reciprocity resulted in the meeting of
Mayu Iwasaki – protagonist and narrator of the play Goldfish, of whom I was
missioned to collect. 20 minutes in the car elapsed and I was preparing to
attend a performance of Goldfish the following week. Coincidental and rather
funny that a moment of humanness, of generosity in warmth amidst the hum-drum
of modern life led me to then attend a play designed to explore those very
themes.

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Goldfish
is a production that has spent years in the making preparing it for
performance. From versions written in Japanese, translated into English,
devoted set and prop design to finally finding audiences for it to be shared.
It is ground-breaking, and is a beautiful example of collaboration between Tasmanian
puppetry company Terrapin and Japan’s Aichi Prefectural Art Theater.

#

Walking
down into the seats my companion and I had been assigned the studio theatre was
brimming with chatter from a colour-wheel of generations. It seemed, at first
glance the team behind Goldfish had created a story relevant to all. And so, we
sunk into our seats, toes curling with anticipation.

Prologues
have played such a vital role in theatre for their ability to concisely prepare
the audience for what is to come, all the while building the tension, that
ideally is to be held for the duration of the show. Goldfish enacted a tribute
to such prologues as Iwasaki danced between various intricately constructed
(some being detachable) shadow puppets and props. There was a flowing beauty to
this, entrancing and timeless in its salve despite the content of the storyline
focusing on commercial and governmental manipulation of the natural environment
in order to support, for want of a better explanation, industrial growth and
capital gain. This was all told within the context of the narrative but the
parallels in contemporary experience bear no necessary naming.

And then
suddenly, jarring and shocking, a character ran down the stairs screaming,
yelling and blowing aggressively into a whistle looped around their neck. The
trigger word from Iwasaki being ‘Flood’. What ensued was a full-scale stage
reconfiguration – an interruption to the story in order to take action, this in
itself acting as a parable, despite its entanglement with the pitfalls of
‘following the script’ with exactitude when it comes to workplace health and
safety (an often contradictory and draconian enforcement).

And as the
play progressed the notion of community and supporting one another became starkly
apparent as Iwasaki slowly softened the otherwise rigid ‘safety officers’. The
newly assembled set was utilised in its full form in creative ways, with tarpaulins
acting as waves/water and bags of rice holding fortification against impending
rising sea levels. A generous helping of slapstick athleticism added a layer to
the theatrics whilst the dialogue remained witty, playful and interactive – rhetorical
and literal questions being asked of the audience.

Goldfish,
from start to finish, was, is an entirely captivating display of engaging
theatre that speaks to the importance of struggling for what feels right,
protecting the earth and allowing it to go about its natural way, calling upon
one’s community to find support in numbers and the mere fact that heroism is
innately in us, particularly when we allow each other to contribute to it.

Perhaps a
Goldfish itself could not save the world, but a tale whereby it plays a role in
a solution amidst impending ecological collapse encourages us to not allow
ourselves to feel so small in a dire, contemporary context.