Carmilla by Adam Yee
After the novella by J Sheridan Le Fanu
“You are afraid to die?”
“Yes, everyone is!”
“But to die as lovers may – to die together, so that they may live together?”
Kle Zeyn Theatre’s fourth production at La Mama, Carmilla, is a ghost story for theatre. It is a spoken-word drama interwoven with a complex, hypnotic musical score performed by a live chamber orchestra. This adaptation references melodrama, operatic conventions, musical modernism and the grotesquery of horror cinema.
The source for this piece, J Sheridan le Fanu’s 1872 novella, is widely acknowledged as the first literary vampire tale and has cast a long and influential shadow over the genre until this day. Carmilla’s ferocious eroticism and thinly-coded portrayal of transgressive sexuality takes place behind a veil of Victorian naivety.
Indeed, today’s audiences will be astounded by what could in fact be said in the language of the pre-Freudian world. “Yee makes use of rapid and extreme changes of dynamics, microtonal intervals and extended instrumental techniques. The rhythmic and metrical density produces a kaleidoscopic texture; a new song indeed..” – Gordon Kerry 2009, New Classical Music, UNSW Press Composer Adam Yee’s music has been performed by the Libra and ELISION ensembles, featured in festivals such as Next Wave and the Melbourne International Festival, and he has been the recipient of numerous awards.
“Language that unifies the acerbic and the lyrical..” – Clive O’Connel, The Age November 2007 After the novella by J Sheridan Le Fanu
Thurs 8pm | Sat 11.55pm | Sun 2pm & 8pm
Approximately 60 minutes La Mama Courthouse | 349 Drummond St, Carlton
$25 Full | $15 concession Available via www.lamama.com.au or 9347 6142
Composed by Adam Yee Directed by Karen Wakeham
Performed by Hannah Aroni, Georgia Brooks, Joshua Porter, Amit Golder
Musicians Liz Barcan [flute], Pri Victor [tenor saxophone], Lyndon Chester [violin], Rosanne Hunt [cello], Eidit Golder [piano], Matan Franco [harmonium and quartertone glockenspiel]
Image by Jacques-Emile Blanche (The pink rose) 1890 (courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Gift of Alice Vaughan, 2008)
