$5.40 – $15.00
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places captures the complexity of urban life as it hurtles down the track, celebrating the intersection of mundanity and passion. Over 18 months Director Anna Tregloan and Sound Designer David Franzke rode on trains, travelling from the bustling centre to the lonely ends of the lines and back again. The conversations and tirades they overheard were recorded and transcribed.
These collected, unadulterated public words are shaped and edited into poetically built theatre which complements them with startling visuals and extended physicality. The Imaginary Places are in the gaps, the seepage between what we know or assume and what could actually be true. An original work that vibrates a collection of humanity within a vital and effervescent theatrical form, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places inspires our imagination into a place where reality and possibility are inextricably intertwined.
"I had an image and an idea where I wanted to end up, but I had to give myself over to the process – which was about looking at found text. So I had to take what was found and build something from that."
"Words tell us a lot and they are often perceived as the most prevalent form of communication. However, what is rapidly apparent when we just take someone's words, as I have done here, is that the amount we don't know outweighs what we do manyfold."
"Part of the attraction of verbatim theatre is its ability to embody Bertolt Brecht's "distancing effect", offering the audience an objective point of view."
"The Dictionary of Imaginary Places is a view of Melbourne that could be imagined by none other that the creators, but still resonates with us who live on train lines, and even those who can only imagine the joys of public transport."
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