Wednesday 1 October 2025

Seymour Centre

Clockfire Theatre Company 

Review by Paul Neeson (Arts Wednesday)

Having reviewed many contemporary dance performances, Ruins could have been devised by Bangarra Dance or Sydney Dance Company, only this theatrical work has a script and dialogue. Equally surprising there is no choreographer or movement director in the cast and crew list. Ruins is an incredibly interesting virtuoso performance of movement, story telling and metaphor, a modern yet timeless tale of rediscovery, suffering and disenfranchisement that points subtly to the ongoing conflict in Gaza. As co-devisors Emily Ayoub and Madeline Baghurst say in the program notes,  “through movement, memory is not just spoken, it is embodied and made tangible. Objects are thresholds between worlds; the mirror guides us both visually and thematically.”

The play is set in two time zones: Beirut in 1982 just prior to the Israeli invasion and massacre – it was also a civil war – and also in the present time. After her father’s (Tony Poli) sudden death, Amelia (Randa Sayed) travels back to Beirut to find out more about his journey there as a young man during the 2nd Lebanon War. She is also keen to search for the identity of her mother who is unknown to her. Her journey is an echo of her father’s journey of discovery when he was in his 20’s (played by Youssef Sabet), the action cutting continuously between the two, sometimes with both the old and young representations of the father onstage simultaneously.

The premier production was at Belvoir Street in 2024, and when Clockfire Theatre had the chance to expand the work to a larger stage at the Seymour Centre they ran with it. This Company is truly democratic in its approach, the entire company being involved in the play’s development. And what a polished final result they achieved. Equal importance is given to movement, script, soundtrack (Johnny Yang), lighting (Frankie Clarke) and design (Chris Baldwin). But what stood out to me was the continuous movement throughout the work. Doors, curtains and objects became characters, metaphors and dancers, yet somehow the narrative was crystal clear despite all the mayhem on stage. Even in the loud 80’s music during the scenes at the once illustrious Palmyra Hotel, the dialogue would momentarily disappear under a Blondie song, but we got enough essence of the words to understand their meanings. The forced joy and revelry in the face of an approaching war was palpable and reminiscent of 1930’s Germany.

From what I called ‘The Oracle’ delivering sage advice at the beginning of the play, to the riddles being set by Amelia’s daughter (Olive Magee in voice over) the script carried so many layers of meaning that kept our minds and imaginations constantly stimulated. The political message was only just below the surface and sporadically burst onto centre stage: “the Israeli forces lit up the night sky with flares so they could continue killing like it was daytime.” But it was the daughter’s final riddle that summed up the core meaning of the play: “What is large or small, near or far and everyone should have one? A home.” And into that, we all read a homeland; so timely and timeless, a stark reminder of what happened then but what is also happening now in Palestine.

Ruins أطلال is a play like no other I have seen. The theatrical language is foreign, but somehow familiar. It took only minutes to understand its peculiar dialect and delight in the exotic nature of its delivery, and what incredible rewards it delivered. Congratulations to the ensemble cast and crew for reinventing the very language of theatre. It may be considered experimental for now, but may well become the lingua franca of the future.

Season runs to 18 October

You can listen too a recent interview with Youssef Sabet below: