Art Smitten: Reviews - 2016

On Thursday night I showed up at La Mama ready to see The Ribcage Collective’s new work of experimental theatre. The Ribcage collective are a collaborative group of young theatre makers from varied theatrical backgrounds. For a second year running they have written, devised and performed works of immersive, sight-specific theatre at La Mama in Carlton. Their previous show was described by ArtsHub as “an intimate theatrical experience enough to reawaken a childhood sense of play”. That sounded pretty good to me. At the beginning of the evening we found out the recent arts funding cuts had just forced the closure of Platform Youth Theatre, the organisation that had brought these performers together. The kind of theatre we were about to see – youth-driven, experimental – is becoming harder and harder to make, even though it seems essential that young people have opportunities ambition, funded work. The show was based around a new Australian myth written by the group. It followed a f