Doomsday fun

Tim Blair on the Sydney Festival:

Like most normal people, when I think of modern performance art I immediately want the world to end.

Luckily for all of us, this year’s Sydney Festival presents a piece that brings both art and wish together. Nigel Jamieson’s As the World Tipped, to be performed at Parramatta this weekend, depicts a bunch of desperate actor types clinging hopelessly to a massive stage as it is slowly hauled from horizontal to vertical, casting the wailing luvvies into oblivion.

Well, not all of them. A few hang around, literally, as various planetary doom scenarios are played out on the stage-cum-screen behind them. Naturally, this is all about global warming.

“Combining dramatic film and visuals with breath-taking aerial performance, this work confronts climate change, one of the most pressing issues for the planet,” explains the Festival’s website.

“Suitable for all the family, this outdoor extravaganza features performers struggling to control an increasingly precarious world as the stage literally tips on its axis.”

Suitable for all the family, you say? Depends on how you look at it. The implied deaths of billions due to a global apocalypse might not be appropriate children’s entertainment, but nobody in my family ever objected to watching a few screaming actors get chucked off a stage. Bring the popcorn.

Read on at Tim Blair