Week 37 - 'The Creature' review - a clever and dark depiction from debut director Azrah Sommers

Preformed at the Bay 3 Theater, Eora on the 6 of September, 2028.

It’s easy to tell that Sommers walked in the same circles as notorious artists Azazel, Vasira Chambers & Ezekiel. A rising star in the scene, their background in Drag and performance was exacerbated in their depiction of one of the most recognisable dynamics: The Artist, The Artwork, and The Muse.

Riffing off narratives like Pygmalion and Galatea, Prometheus, Frankenstein and more recently ‘Azazel/Clay/The Creature/Unknown’ by Azazel (2021), this performance dissects the nature of ownership and credit over creations.

The three-actor (Azrah Sommers, Penelope Sommers & Cassie Alphonso), three-act dialogue is irreverent towards its source material while still reaching the hard-hitting themes expected from production that tackles very contemporary problems. The actors swap roles between themselves, characters inhabiting the costumes or sometimes just props.

‘The Creature’ talks to the endless moulding and expectations put upon The Artwork, and by extension The Artist by The Muse. It’s evident that it’s us, the audience, is The Muse. Multiple voices speaking over the top of each other, unknowing of we collectively need from art, from creativity, in a time where corporation and individual alike claim AI is the future.

It’s difficult to write about a work like ‘The Creature’, as it is a critique of anything written about it before it’s been written. Criticts collectively expected better, different, more groundbreaking, less queer, more boisterous, less ridiculous. But works like Sommer’s debut production intentionally doesn’t make any attempts to satisfy everyone.

This cinetheater, drag-esque, messy, gorey production is well worth the watch if your willing to remove all your expectations of what you’re about to watch.