Sydney Fringe serves as one of the truest opportunities to fully immerse oneself into the experimentation aspect of the creative process. Creatives who want to build something sharp, raw, and never-before-seen will find a safe haven in this fast-paced festival. Out are the polished overdone works we’ve seen a hundred times, and in with the new, the fresh, the wonderfully innovative. Firehawk is right at home with Sydney Fringe in this regard, a bold and absurdist exploration of ideas done through a multi-genre, multi-media exploration of femininity and sisterhood through a 50 minute absurdist fairytale drama.

I stepped into Firehawk completely blind, knowing nothing of the thesis of the play or the world the performers were asking us to build and inhabit. In some regard, I feel now I did a disservice to the work by neglecting prior research into the questions the piece would then attempt to explore. Set in the cozy rooms of Erskineville Town Hall, the space is in some ways as bold and experimental as the work itself. Stripped back to necessary elements. Two boxes, two suitcases, a single basket of wood. As we settled in, a curling, eerie line of flute filled the space (played by Anna Rushmer), joined by a grounding piano score underneath it from Nathaniel Kong. The soundscape, paired with the flickering, fiery red of the lights, began to introduce us to the twisted fable we were soon to witness. The boundaries of the stage were created by us as the audience, seated in an L shape, which although often presents a blocking challenge for less experienced shows, was not a problem for this team. For an unconventional space and a tight budget, and without a dedicated set designer, the design of the space remains impressive in its decisive simplicity.

After thoroughly unnerving us through Firehawk’s composition, the piece began. In a gorgeous exploration of the unconscious dreaming of the play, Ella Roper took the stage in the leaps and bounds of reimagined ballet, immediately drawing us into the emotional world of the piece. In delicate white lace costuming, she resembled something just beyond the fingertip touch of reality. By the time Madison Chippendale peaked out from the curtain, we were transfixed by what the piece wanted us to feel, and so began the search for logic. Madison Chippendale is a strong performer- expressive eyes, complete and utter belief in her situation, a style just beyond naturalism but never painfully larger than life. This quality of performance never quivered, and in a piece this unusual, that must be credited. Indeed, all the performers were substantial in their own regards, strong representations of their form. Thus, my confusion throughout the piece cannot be credited at all to the performers themselves. The first speaking scene of the play defines the space we inhabit as a hotel in rural Australia, ravaged by consistent storms and the ever-present threat of the Firehawk, a destructive creature inspired heavily by the Brother’s Grimm Fitcher’s Bird. Instantly, the question in the room is “what is the Firehawk, and what does it mean for this piece?” My first guess - as scribbled down in my notebook - was “Climate ideas??” And yet, as the piece evolved, I understood my interpretation to be wrong, and yet was never truly given a ballpark of what was right, or perhaps, more importantly, what the creators of the piece were aiming for it to be. After researching the piece when I got home, the word “desire” crept out in the directorial vision. Thus, the “thirst” the Firehawk had created was of a more metaphorical sense and more literal sense than I’d understood it to be. In that regard, I wish I had been able to see the piece again with that framework of understanding, as I found the piece itself struggled to reveal that to me on its own.

The script, aside its flaws of clarity, did make up for it in beautifully evocative imagery. And indeed, the piece continued to be beautiful. Whipcrack moments of humour broke cleverly created moments of tension, and the relationships created on stage brimmed with clear trust and respect the performers had for one another. The composition work was incredibly strong, creating a story underneath the one on stage through motifs and bold dynamic work. Further, co-director Spark Sanders Robinson gleefully unveiled her expertise through the use of shadow puppetry in poignant moments of the show, never taking from the performers on stage. A particularly impressive example of such were the eyes of the hawk, and the flickering fire behind them. Ella Roper continued to impress with the delicate longing she created through her movement, and Madison Chippendale’s rising level of neuroticism kept the stakes high and her audience gripping their seats. Madison successfully played multiple characters and re-enacted full conversations, and Rushmer was a strong critical voice of realism throughout the play. Admittedly, when on stage together, a vocal strength disparity did emerge between the three women, and I found at points both Roper and Rushmer were struggling to keep up to the dynamics Chippendale was setting. Furthermore, both were slightly greener actors, and at times lacked the emotional nuance needed in specific moments. However, in a multi-media setting such as the one Firehawk was presenting, these discrepancies are easily forgiven through the showcasing of each performer’s primary medium. The story’s ever-evolving twists and turns consistently engaged the audience, and I was deeply intrigued by the idea of being forgotten that the story began to create through the back half - although somewhat ironically, seemed to also somewhat forget. In its final moments, the brutality of the play built to an explosive finish as Chippendale’s character is revealed to have been behind the mythical killings of the Firehawk, its imagery reminiscent of Lady Macbeth as she scrubs at her spots. The sisters, now reunited as a complete front, are prepared to tackle the storms of the future, and finally satiate their “thirst”, delivering a dark, grinning look to the audience as if tempting us to join them. This metaphor, although evident upon my later research, required a stronger foundation throughout the piece to be fully actualized for the audience in the room - especially when surrounded by other images that sway the connotations of the idea.

Upon reflection in the foyer, I was left with two final thoughts, firstly, that the play had succeeded in making me feel something, and second, that whatever it was trying to tackle, I hadn’t quite wrapped my head around whilst in the room with it. Many younger works often struggle with this issue, a desire to tackle a multitude of ideas vaguely rather than zeroing down into a crystal clear singular thesis. However, I will never be caught saying that this is some sort of cardinal sin in the act of theatrical creation. Sydney Fringe Festival is built for experimental works of theatre like Firehawk, and the piece was deeply enjoyable as the active work of creation that it was. As a self-devised work, Firehawk is an innovative and confident example of the opportunities of multimedia and absurdism in theatre, and is a deeply soothing example of the future of Sydney theatre at large.