Flect-Re-Flect

Flect-Re-Flect is on for just five days at Circa, closing Saturday. The official blurb is:

Bob Dylan’s blues harp will have a solo all of its own in Flect-Re-flect, the new multi-media work being created by Wellington composer Michelle Scullion and her company of musicians, singer-actors and dancers for the Wellington Fringe Festival in March. The harmonica was a personal gift to Scullion from the great man himself when he visited Wellington during the 80s and they met back stage after a concert at Athletic Park. Scullion has been creating the songs for Flect-Re-flect using the poetry of the well-known New Zealand poet, the late Alan Brunton and the words of the late Sally Rodwellj – both of Red Mole Theatre – as the basis for the lyrics. She wanted to pay special tribute to Brunton and decided to compose a solo that reflected Dylan’s trade-mark harmonica – playing in his honour.

The show is a fast 75 minutes of non-stop music and song all composed by Scullion and performed by some of Wellington’s leading musicians and singers. In addition there will be dance, short monologues and scenes, together with projected film and imagery to reflect a variety of moods throughout the show.

I went along on Tuesday night, and it was an enjoyable quirky performance. The two sopranos of Jacquie Fee and Sally Barratt-Boyes were excellent and by themselves worth attending for.

At first I tried to look for a great plot linking all the songs and scenes together. This made my head hurt, so I stopped. While there are some themes running through the show, don’t expect this to be a story with a plotline that resolves itself. It’s not that sort of production.

What it is is just really some good old fashioned music, dancing and fun. It’s timed just right at 80 minutes.