In April Katie was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery of Australia to devise a physical theatre piece to be performed in the temporary galleries before the institution closes for four months of renovations. Working with actors Jett Chudleigh, Christopher Samuel-Carroll and Ross Walker, as well as musician Jonah Myers, the team developed the work over two weeks and performed over three days, garnering fantastic responses.
“The Walls That Talk is an ingenious performance piece…..Director Katie Cawthorne is the Svengali of physical theatre, painting her images in physical form, stretching the imagination and encouraging her audience to travel through the space, viewing the work from different perspectives, imagining different characters and different stories and letting the walls talk in the silence of their space. Her three actors are skilfully complicit in the moving gallery of images. Expressive and flexible, their bodies morph into a moment that sparks the imagination, makes us think and possibly provides the answers to the questions that persist as we are drawn into the artist’s world.” Peter Wilkins, Canberra Critics Circle