Theatre-Dance/ “That Was Friday”, directed by Charley Sanders and choreographed by Eliza Sanders. At Belconnen Arts Centre until November 26. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

THIS extraordinary large-scale, multi-disciplinary work grapples with questions of identity, family, nationality and belonging. 

Charley Sanders and Eliza Sanders have drawn together a cast of accomplished dancers, actors, videographers and designers to produce a work that is, at times, puzzling, engaging, confronting, intriguing, moving, but ultimately satisfying and thought-provoking.

It is difficult to write without the risk of spoiling it for those audiences yet to experience the performance. Suffice to say, by interval, I found myself puzzling as to what I was supposed to think about what I had been watching, but intrigued as to where it was taking me. 

Then, by the disarmingly simple conclusion, when all the threads had been neatly drawn together, charmed, satisfied and keen to muse on the issues the production highlighted so effectively.

Intriguingly labelled as both autobiographical and fictional, “That was Friday” tells a relatively simple story about family. It’s about a mother’s efforts to keep her family together in a world where travel has never been easier, and communication even easier. It’s about a son keen to explore what that world has to offer, and a daughter equally set on achieving her full potential, all in different parts of the world. But it is how it is told that makes this production so remarkable

Through striking video captures the audience is privy to the video-link conversations between the mother (Sara Zwangobani) and her efforts to keep the lines of communication open with her son, Jack (Lachlan Martin) and daughter Eliza (Enya Daly) as they follow their dreams in different parts of the world.

Punctuating these conversations, dancers Billy Keohavong, Jareen Wee, Ella Williams and Ryan Douglas Stone provide an abstract representation of the swirling emotions and events surrounding these conversations; their every move captured on video by a fifth dancer, Alec Katsourakis.

The video design by Laura Turner and Mario Spate is quite remarkable in the way it creates intimacy between audience and actor, as well as providing additional spectacle, enhanced as it is by Tony Black’s thoughtful lighting design and the understated costume design by Monique Bartosh.

For those willing to extend their perceptions of story-telling, “That Was Friday” is a “must-see”. For House of Sand and Belco Arts it is a stunning achievement in brave and compelling storytelling, which deserves to be seen by a much larger audience than will have the opportunity during this brief season. 

However, it also needs to be said that despite its brilliance, at two and a half hours on opening night, it needs tightening and trimming.