Goodbye, Lindita @ Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide 29/2/2024
Goodbye, Lindita is exciting and surreal and a bold choice to start the 2024 Adelaide Festival.
Albanian director and actor Mario Banushi conceived it following the death of his stepmother, Lindita, and is a meditation on death and the grief that follows it as we watch this incredible cast commence mourning rituals. It is a wordless play that conveys the story solely through actions and the expressions on the wonderful actors’ faces. It is equal parts funereal and exorcism. The opening meandering of a family doing their chores and sleeping is soon contrasted with dynamic actions similar to the avant-garde surrealism in a David Lynch or Luis Bunuel film.
The scenario and behaviours of the protagonists become increasingly unearthly. The lighting of the performance is striking and the simple yet effective furniture and set used in the play, spectacularly and cleverly transform into other objects, not unlike a Transformers movie.
Goodbye, Lindita has a very striking music score with a recurring motif reminiscent of Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra. It is a haunting experience and maybe not for the faint at heart or those adverse to significant nudity.
At the end of the play during the rapturous applause, the director places bouquets on 2 chairs in front of the incredible cast to seemingly signify two people who are no longer with us.
This wonderful show comes to Adelaide after a critically acclaimed debut in the National Theatre of Greece and in my opinion, was an outstanding choice by Ruth Mackenzie and her team at the Adelaide Festival.
Adelaide Festival Review By Richard De Pizzol
Tickets and show information here…