ChamberMade
Phobia

Friday 20 April 8pm
Saturday 21 April 8pm

Saturday 21 April 1pm performance cancelled

Alexander Theatre

Phobia draws on aspects of film-noir, with particular reference to Hitchcock's thriller Vertigo, to create a hybrid performance that marries spoken music-theatre to physical-theatre.

Featuring performers from desoxy and the Ennio Morricone Experience, the production explores with irony, humour and suspense Hitchcock's tantalizing play of feigned madness, love and deception. The central character of the original narrative is the detective who develops a fear of heights after a gangster chase across the rooftops of city buildings involves him in a near fatal fall. His vertigo later prevents him saving a woman who he has been investigating. During his surveillance the woman commits suicide by jumping from a bell tower -- the detective is unable to climb to her rescue. In true Hitchcock fashion, the story has further twists. At the time of his investigations the detective had begun to fall in love with the woman. The woman also happens to be married to the detective's friend and colleague, the very man who has requested the investigation as a favour. The husband had become increasingly concerned with the uncertain state of his wife's mind. It is only at the end that we discover that the suicide is a sham, disguising a murder. The husband created the scenario to prevent his murder of his real wife being discovered.

"... indefinable brilliance ..."
Victoria Laurie, The Australian

"This was a night of captivating, almost hypnotic theatre, eminently deserving of the wild and sustained applause it received afterwards."
Wal Eastman, The Mercury (Hobart)

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