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SITE RATING:  2/10 SITE REVIEW:  Dancing haystacks.  An empty suit holding a prawn on a leash.  Floating pieces of timber.  A diaper-clad dancer twirling on the stage.  And a spaceman.  While watching this production of Robert Wilson's Der Messias, I had the oddest feeling like I'd seen something like it before - and no, I wasn't thinking of Jean-Christophe Spinosi's similarly striking production, but something else.  Then it hit me: it reminded me of an old Monty Python sketch - Confuse A Cat - where a concerned couple are worried about their seemingly indifferent pet cat, and so they call "Confuse-A-Cat" - a service run with military exactness which produces a nonsensical stage show of non-linear buffoonery for their stoic feline audience.  This production needs a cat.  Marc Minkowski is renowned for his many off-target attempts at deconstructing Handel's Messiah, and, in pairing with stage auteur Robert Wilson, he again attempts to make abstract what is ostensibly the least abstract oratorio in existence.  There are divergent trains of thought about the interpretation of art - one, is that it should be left up to the audience to determine what a piece of art means; but Messiah never claims to be that sort of construct.  It's not abstract in the least - it's sole purpose was to prove that Jesus Christ was the foretold Messiah and Savior of all mankind; which makes productions like Der Messias so wrong-headed.  Robert Wilson's staging actively attempts to distract, dissuade, and obliterate the meaning behind the text.  He creates striking, icy cold tableaus, all set in monochromatic color schemes, with the singers, dancers, and actors so rigid and shorn of emotion that they might as well be life-sized marionettes.  I suspect that Wilson believes sincerely that Messiah means nothing, so his, or any other's interpretation, is valid - but that's a false assumption with Messiah, which is not abstract, but concrete in both its intent and careful construction.  Minkowski's tempos are all over the map, with some deadly slow, others too quick - Minkowski has never had an ear for how Messiah ought to be performed - at its best it is a deeply humanistic piece, brim full of emotion, but this production strips all feeling away.  Similarly, the poor soloists and chorus, painted and primped, often left in the dark or cast offstage altogether - seem unsure how to perform, even embarrassed at times - which is understandable - they've been stripped of their ability to communicate the message - which is the biggest sin of all.  The production is curiously interesting at first, then slowly becomes a glassy-eyed, gape-mouthed wreck.

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