Theatre / “At the End of our Street”, Rebus Theatre. At National Theatre, Braidwood, October 9. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

REBUS Theatre’s Playback Theatre process sets its work apart from most of other theatre that you’ll ever see.

It’s different from  another theatre format the company uses, “Forum Theatre”, because Playback Theatre is entirely unscripted, with a live musician, a team of five actors and artistic director Robin Davidson acting as moderator to elicit stories from the audience and then immediately “play” them back on stage, with a counsellor on hand in case of challenging moments.

Many of those in the audience had earlier been present for a community discussion with First Nations elders, part of the “Come – Together Braidwood  2022” event, which we heard had led to  some agitation and high emotions.

“We are tapping into some deep stories,” Davidson said.

The show has been on tour and through East Gippsland, Eurobodalla Shire and Bega Valley Shire as part of a project to build resilience and wherever it goes, it changes. Down at the coast, for instance, they sometimes heard stories from firefighters in the audience, but sometimes not.

As the title “At the End of our Street” suggests, this show is about community , and the Rebus actors kicked off by telling stories from their own streets – a Christmas party in the cul-de-sac and  the grumpy man fixing cars, for instance.

But that was just the start. As the afternoon progressed and the stories emerged, every so often Davidson would stop to say: “Let’s watch”.

It was time for audience members to step on to the stage. One such was Vera, a former early childhood practitioner from Canberra, who, two decades ago, moved to the safety of 100 acres on Mongarlowe Forest, an experience that first felt terrifying, but later satisfying.

“Let’s watch,” Davidson said, before a cast member became Vera, moving step-by-step to the forest,  encountering trees and fauna played by cast members  and learning the hidden secrets of the forest, including its dark history, before a reconciliatory ending.

A more unsettling part  of the performance came when another audience member,  telling us, “it’s hard to describe how I’m feeling,” expressed the separation she had long felt from nature, and her eagerness to connect with it.

This was harder for the actors to contend with in the improvised theatre format, so the physical movement and the instantly created music came to the fore.

Most of the stories were not so much stories as expressions of feeling, reflections on the graciousness of the elders and the movement from grief to hope., so when author, Craig Cormick who lives in Braidwood, took his turn to step up, there was a change of mood.

He told  the story of his fast-gentrifying Braidwood Street, where, post-covid, he’d been inveigled into participating in Halloween.  Another happy ending ensued as, having started on the rounds with a bunch of kids, he noticed how many houses had lanterns, even the houses of lonely, elderly people whose faces lit up as the children came to greet them.

This was grist to the mill of the Rebus cast, who enacted the whole story in  a light-hearted manner, bringing the performance to an end.

But there was more. Before we adjourned, Davidson asked us to sum up in a word the impression we had carried away – Forgiveness? Understanding? Connection? All of that and more, it seemed.

Rebus Theatre will conclude its journey through communities with a final performance at the Street Theatre on October 15.