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| Sorry scrolls |
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| Director and co-creative Dan Evans |
A few years back someone very close to me wanted to have "a talk". It was obvious it was about something serious. She came to say she was sorry. She was at Step 8 of the 12-Step Program "Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all". She said her piece. I looked blank. The fact is, I had no memory of the incident. This was not emotional baggage I'd been carrying around for decades. This was not even emotional baggage in the overhead locker, securely tucked away for the moment but always able to be pulled down. This was lost luggage. And the weird thing is I could list many, many other things that had happened between us I still hold in my carry-on emotional baggage. The whole business of forgiving, of saying sorry, of seeking forgiveness, of making amends is a complex and emotionally charged space. This was the subject of an extraordinary piece of theatre I witnessed as part of The Brisbane Festival tonight. The Brisbane-based production company The Good Room took to the world wide web to ask people to submit something they would like forgiveness for or something where an apology or attempts to make amends might help them forgive. They wove the responses into a piece of verbatim physical theatre held together with the story of Vitaly Kaloyev and his battle to forgive the unforgivable. Kaloyev's family was killed when an air traffic controller's mistake led to the death of his family. Using dance, perhaps the longest choreographed theatrical fight ever, smoke, 70,000 pearls and bags and bags of emotional garbage, the audience was taken on an emotional journey into what it is to forgive and to be forgiven. It gave no answers but raised a lot of questions. It shook me from start to finish. Now I just want an apology from the makers of the piece for seriously disturbing me.
Hear our podcast review
here
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| Performer Michael Tuahine |
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| Amy Ingram, performer and co-creator |
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| Performer Thomas Larkin |
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| Performer Caroline Dunphy |
A few years back someone very close to me wanted to have "a talk". It was obvious it was about something serious. She came to say she was sorry. She was at Step 8 of the 12-Step Program "Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all". She said her piece. I looked blank. The fact is, I had no memory of the incident. This was not emotional baggage I'd been carrying around for decades. This was not even emotional baggage in the overhead locker, securely tucked away for the moment but always able to be pulled down. This was lost luggage. And the weird thing is I could list many, many other things that had happened between us I still hold in my carry-on emotional baggage. The whole business of forgiving, of saying sorry, of seeking forgiveness, of making amends is a complex and emotionally charged space. This was the subject of an extraordinary piece of theatre I witnessed as part of The Brisbane Festival tonight. The Brisbane-based production company The Good Room took to the world wide web to ask people to submit something they would like forgiveness for or something where an apology or attempts to make amends might help them forgive. They wove the responses into a piece of verbatim physical theatre held together with the story of Vitaly Kaloyev and his battle to forgive the unforgivable. Kaloyev's family was killed when an air traffic controller's mistake led to the death of his family. Using dance, perhaps the longest choreographed theatrical fight ever, smoke, 70,000 pearls and bags and bags of emotional garbage, the audience was taken on an emotional journey into what it is to forgive and to be forgiven. It gave no answers but raised a lot of questions. It shook me from start to finish. Now I just want an apology from the makers of the piece for seriously disturbing me.
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