EN ROUTE REVIEWS
CHICAGO 2011
Good theater can make the strange familiar. Great theater usually makes the familiar strange.
And what is more familiar than the city of Chicago? But if you take my fervent recommendation and go see "en route" I guarantee you'll see this city in a way you have never seen it before. ...the experience will be revelatory. This show is wholly immersive of the psyche. You are asked to explore your own feelings, find your own voice and, frankly, confront the way you can be in a place for maybe a lifetime and see so little. You get the chance to right that. On the walls, in your head, or out loud.
(4 out of 4)Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune
A deliciously devised, surprise-laden piece of theate. I found myself hyperaware of my environment and taking intense pleasure in the sense that I was on an adventure almost no one I passed knew about. Reaching its end, knowing I could never revisit the journey afresh, was almost heartbreaking. But I found myself newly alert to the supposed mundanity of the city; for those who need reminding of the everyday mysteries in which we swim, en route is a bracing reboot..
Kris Vire, Time Out, Chicago
With en route, One Step at a Time Like This gives the gift of sight. Their piece isn't about getting us to see the city but about getting us to see, period. And I'd say that in my case, for a precious interval that started during En Route but outlasted it by a couple hours, that happened. Somewhere along the line, the sound track, the changes of scene, the instructions, the indeterminacy of it all combined to tear me loose from my intentions and allow me to do the sort of seeing that starts with a willingness to tell yourself you've got nowhere else to be and nothing you need to do. I temporarily forgot to want anything.
Tony Adler, The Chicago Reader
EDINBURGH 2010
..their sheer loving attention to the fabric of the city and the way they range freely and imaginatively through the possibilities of 21st century and traditional media distinguishes the work of the artists who make up one step at a time like this. This audio work leaves you shaken and a little changed.
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
...a wonderfully atmospheric sojourn that gently but firmly forces you to confront and break through your own emotional shield as you create your own drama.
Neil Cooper, The Herald
The true beauty of en route is that it creates theatre in all that is around you. From the moment the experience begins you can’t be certain what is part of the performance and what is mere reality. With all of your senses heightened, you start to see everything in poetic detail and wonder where each thing fits in the narrative of the city. Was the perfectly clean toothbrush discarded in a smelly alley a prop, placed there for some significance? Was everyone I passed on the street secretly in on the adventure – from the man that winked at me as I smiled at him, to the family who followed close behind me taking my picture? Joy surges through your veins as you spot an arrow chalked on the pavement, and you follow it unquestioningly until you pass a phonebox and it rings from within. Is that for you?
Lois Jeary, A Younger Theatre
...a kind of euphoria and a breathtaking new perspective of the city.
Alice Jones, The Independent
BRISBANE 2010
A mind-blowing trip around our laneways and secret nooks …a revelation. I just took the en route tour and I’ve fallen in love with Brisbane all over again. I did things I never thought I’d do. For a short period of time I was Alice down the rabbit hole, seeing the world anew. I smiled non-stop.
Katherine Lyall-Watson : Our Brisbane
DARWIN 2010
Standing amongst the shops and luxury hotels of the Darwin waterfront you imagine hearing the wail of sirens, the crashing of bombs, the distant voices reporting death and destruction in this very place, 19 February 1942. Then you’re brought dizzyingly back to contemporary Darwin, walking up through the CBD's modern buildings, through little alleyways that juxtapose the old porcelanite English-style architecture with thirty and forty storey apartment blocks. This is theatre for one, en route, which is part of the Darwin Festival.
ArtsHub Australia
ADELAIDE 2010
As you listen to a wonderful selection of carefully chosen music you’ll find places you have never been (even if you’re local) and become immersed in a soundtrack that connects you to the places and people around you. ...This is a totally enthralling experience.
Final Word: Brilliant.
Michael Coghlan : Rip It Up magazine
You a solitary traveller drifting through some other reality as you walk the high roads and back lanes of the Adelaide CBD. Your companions are iPods, text messages, and the odd person who appears out of the crowd to hold your hand. En Route asks you and challenges you for your understanding of your place in the city.
Tim Lloyd : AdelaideNow
It throws you off-balance, and has you looking with different eyes at a city and yourself; without giving it away, there aren't many shows that would have you shouting from a multi-storey car park, or in my case buying a porcelain statuette in a record mart. En Route stood out as a true original.
Tim Cornwell : The Scotsman
MELBOURNE 2009
The most singular experience of the festival, however, was en route, a lesson in falling in love with the city. Walking down graffiti-coloured laneways, discovering speciality music shops, garage sales and messages from strangers, one was never sure what was constructed and what incidental to the experience. Soon enough, the modern-day flaneur was shouting on the street, writing on the walls and even running in front of a tram, holding hands with a complete stranger. ...few performances manage to so completely tear through the bubble of reserve in which we spend most of our lives.
Jana Perkovic : ‘ReadThis Space’ RealTime Magazine
Cities are in some ways about isolation. (…) we shut down our perception of the countless faces and movements and surfaces around us. en route gently strips away those blinders in a way that is nothing less than revelatory.
John Bailey : Capital Idea
My simple and overwhelming response is this: I feel blessed to have been able to participate in en route. Strange, and rare to have this response to a work, but very true. The very personal nature of the work has filled my mind and heart with thoughts and feelings of immense possibility. The brilliant and expansive that can be found in the quotidian and microcosmic. The boundless world found in the interior of consciousness, and the wonder and meditative energy that can be derived from walking the city. en route has inspired me to return once again to my long-lost pass-time of nothingness filled with fascination: the gentle joy of simply being une flâneuse.
Actual/ideal
As you journey along, the cityscape becomes the set, the passersby the actors and the iPod provides the soundtrack for your very own three-dimensional, fully sensory living film or performance. I felt like an invisible observer in a world that had been designed just for me. … an exuberant, exciting experience.
Erin Hutching : Buzzcuts + (audio review)