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Playwright Robert Reid on 100% Melbourne by Rimini Protokoll
Part-theatre, part-game, part-reality performance, Rimini Protokoll drew on the perspectives of ‘experts in daily life’ to create 100% Melbourne so each participant represented one per cent of the four million people living in Melbourne.
Melbourne playwright Robert Reid ( author of the MTC's upcoming production of On the Production of Monsters) shares his thoughts on the performance:
The hundred percent series has been shown in Berlin, Vienna and Vancouver and now a short season in Melbourne. It’s presented by creators Rimini Protokoll, a german group specializing in Reality Trend theatre.
The actual experience of 100% is difficult to capture in words. Certainly a simple description of what happens doesn’t do it justice and probably gives most people the wrong impression.
One hundred people, selected randomly from the population of Melbourne, are invited to be the performers for the show. They introduce themselves one by one and then who they’ve brought with them. Among them the closest thing close to a professional actor is a morning traffic TV reporter.
Throughout the evening, they as a group are asked questions and they answer them individually, sorting themselves out in arrangements that display the statistic correlation of their answers.
They represent a reasonably wide spread of the population of Victoria and each answer shows you a little bit more about the city we live in.
On stage, they are all ages. Children run around at the beginning, the elderly sit and rest the stairs towards the end. Not a moment felt fake because these people were simply being who they are in front on an audience, however a subtle dramaturgical hand is present in the shaping and sequencing of the questions being asked.
We’re certainly lead to a conclusion. 100% is a powerful expression and celebration of shared humanity. There was a lot of hooting from the audience.
100% Melbourne was staged at Melbourne Town Hall on 4, 5 and 6 May, 2012.
Robert Reid's new play On the Production of Monsters opens on Friday 25 May, 2012 at the Lawler Studio. Details here.