Caroline Lee

What is our project?

Undercoat: A Parafoxical Tale, written by Cynthia Troup, is a contemporary performance work which will be performed at La Mama Theatre, Carlton, in June 2017. We are using this campaign to raise $2,000 to create a stunning environment for our play.

A ‘humble bank clerk’ pays for a gorgeous fur coat in instalments, and finds herself transforming. Wearing the coat at last, she drives away from the city, and makes her first leap as a wild animal ‘into the depths of the forest’.

But what happens to this creature if her first, joyous leap is thwarted?

Undercoat is a supernatural tale of encounter with the Australian wilderness, in which the remnant wilderness ‘answers back’ as a provocative chorus of three red foxes. The piece examines human beings' relationship with, and responsibility towards, the environment; and it does this through the eyes, ears and nose of the fox. 

The goal

To make trees, leaves, a rusty old car, a full moon, fox tails, a sunset, locusts, and twinkling eyes...

The environment is a central element in this play. We intend to build a spellbinding and immersive environment within La Mama which excites the imagination and the senses of the audience and which allows the story of our foxes to be fully told. 

'You, you, you hear the bluest beetle glistening, wet mists flourishing their tails...a slug descending by its slime thread.'

Who are we?

We are an intergenerational team of 10 women artists who have come together to make a piece of theatre for our time and place.

Written by Cynthia Troup

Directed by Alice Darling and Bagryana Popov

Performed by Caroline Lee, Emma Annand, Jean Goodwin and Maude Davey

Set and costume design by Emily Collett

Sound design by Elissa Goodrich

Lighting designer and stage manager: Georgia Rann

Project coordinator and assistant stage manager: Kelly Harris

Images by Daisy Noyes, Georgia Rann and Emily Collett

History

We've been working on Undercoat part-time for three years, and we're very excited that this project is coming to fruition at last. The process started in December 2015 with an Explorations season at La Mama. The team then had a week-long artists' residency at the Bundanon Trust, NSW, exploring ways in which the natural world could intersect with the theatrical world.

Extracts of the play have been presented as part of the international conference PSi #22 in Melbourne and in Sydney as part of the 2017 Late Night Library series ‘Off the Page’. 

Working on Undercoat has also resulted in the creation of a wonderful audiophonic work, produced by the ABC and broadcast in December 2016. This piece has elicited delighted responses around Australia.

Further information

Cynthia's website has more information about Undercoat: A Parafoxical Tale, including a more detailed history of the project, the audio work, and further fascinating reading about foxes.

For tickets to the show, here is a link to the La Mama website.

‘It’s visceral, it’s jam-packed with ideas, allusions to half the dramatic literature of the last five hundred years, pertinent, impertinent, deep and yet very, very funny.’
– 3MBS FM 103.5, on Care Instructions, also written by Cynthia Troup

We are very grateful that our project has already received much-needed support from La Mama, the Bundanon Trust, La Trobe University and the City of Melbourne. The City of Melbourne grant stipulates that 80 percent of the grant has to be used for the salaries of the performers, which is great, but leaves us very little money for the making of our physical world.

So, we are using this campaign to raise $2,000 to build a stunning environment in which our foxes, and our half fox, will play; and to make their pelts.

We are working with a talented trio of designers: Emily Collett, Elissa Goodrich, and Georgia Rann, and they need some resources with which to create our world: trees, leaves, a rusty old car, a full moon, fox tails, a sunset, locusts, and twinkling eyes...

‘It is so rare to see such boldly poetic and haunting work out there.’
– Marion May Campbell, on What the Fox

Undercoat: A Parafoxical Tale is a complex, mysterious and topical work. It is a dense and poetic text, and at the same time is quite humorous. It demands a lot of the audience, but is also very rewarding. 

The subject matter and the form of the work demand an equally layered and complex environment in which to work to maximum effect. 

This story of a woman trying to become her fox, this story of metamorphosis in the contemporary era, this story of change and survival really needs to be supported by a properly constructed environment, a visual landscape and an audio world.

Without the funds raised through this campaign Undercoat: A Parafoxical Tale will not fulfill its full potential as an absorbing and memorable contribution to urgent conversations about our evolving relationship with animals and the natural environment.

fox image by crisallen1 (2014) https://www.flickr.com/photos/44705405@N08/14874113363/