Medusa

Wednesday night rolls around again, and tonight we’re off to see something that is a bit off the beaten track. As part of WTF!, Medusa is billed as “performance art meets power pop politics”. Sounds interesting, I thought.

First up, we’re out to dinner. I managed to secure a park along Wakefield street and we went around the corner to Hot Sauce, the ground-floor dining establishment of Museum Hotel. They’ve recently had a bit of a revamp, both décor- and menu-wise, or so the maître d’ told us…didn’t look that different to me. Anyway, we ordered cocktails (wasabi bliss and 5 spice clover) before ordering a selection from their “asian-inspired” menu. The food was all tasty, although some of it was a little hard to manage with chopsticks. We manfully and womanfully persevered, though, without too much spillage or indecorum.

The dessert selection was uninspired so we headed round to Circa Theatre early, with the intention to get an ice cream from their café…an intention thwarted by their dismal lack of stock. They normally have a selection of Kapiti flavours, but all they had this time was Magnums. Get a grip, Circa!

We took our seats, the doors closed, the three performers sat on stage and…nothing happened. For about five minutes, they simply sat there in silence, with the lights up, so they could see the audience. Every time someone coughed or shifted in their seat, one of them would glance at the culprit. The lights went down, three microphones descended from the ceiling, and the next part of the performance started. This show is part performance art, and part…something else entirely. To find out more of what happens, read this review.

It wasn’t entirely what I was expecting. At the end I didn’t particularly want to smash the patriarchy, or change my white-cis-male privilege, or do something intersectionally aligned. Hey ho.

We got back to the car, and it wouldn’t start. I’m sure that’s a metaphor for something. Using my white-cis-male privilege, I called the AA, who gave us an object lesson in expectation management by exceeding our expectations twice in the space of one hour. The AA man was unable to fix it on the spot though, so we arranged for it to be towed to our mechanics, and got a lift home in his truck instead.

Next week, it’s La Bohème.