Obscene Madame D
Enter a shadow world of memory and madness with Madame D and Theatre Kantanka, an immersive and spellbinding environment of binaural sound, hand-crafted animation, and gripping live theatre.
Iconoclastic Brazilian writer Hilda Hilst’s hallucinatory Obscene Madame D has been called “shocking, exquisite, mesmerising, metaphysical” and “like Kafka but with the laugh of the Medusa”.
For this daring new adaptation, the audience wears wireless headphones to directly inhabit the psychological landscape of grieving recluse, Madame D. As she ponders ineffable questions, both familiar and absurd, we share the evocative sounds and voices of her singular life and mind.
Katia Molino is unforgettable as the taboo-challenging Madame D, living out her final days in fiery poetic prose and passionate debate with herself, her god and her ghosts.
Adapted: From the novel by Hilda Hilst
Director/Designer: Carlos Gomes
Performer: Katia Molino
Composer/Sound artist: Gail Priest
Video artist: Sam James
Lighting designer: Fausto Brusamolino
Photos: Heidrun Lohr
Producer: Intimate Spectacle
“Gail Priest’s hypnotic binaural sound design and Molino’s performance – ranges from the lurking to the electric” AUDREY Journal
“Stunning shafts of verbal beauty suddenly blaze on an alphabet soup of sometimes impenetrable prose made lumpy with scatology and creamy with obscenity.”
Sydney Morning Herald
“what a rare pleasure to have one's imagination teased and massaged by a work that dares to take chances.”
Sydney Morning Herald
“Directed by Carlos Gomes who orchestrates something enchantingly unique for his audience, often intriguing with its penchant for rousing curiosity”
Suzy Goes See
Supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, Riversides Theatre, 107 Projects and Performance Studies at University of Sydney.
