Live Performance Review - How Long is a Piece of String?

Some shows you have to figure out what exactly is going on before you can get comfortable and settle in for the ride. This is par for the course with me, someone notorious for skipping trailers, blurbs, and even acting credits before walking into a bemusing couple of hours. Somehow as the lights hit the stage and performers began chasing each other around with clippings of string and other assorted fibres, I got the impression that I wasn’t the only one in the room who didn’t know what was going on. 

Before I knew it, I’d had a golden string tied around my wrist and I was sitting in a lecture, discerning the physics behind string theory. ‘Ah, a comedy science show’, I thought, ‘how quaint.’ Unfortunately, this is not the only time I was wholeheartedly incorrect tonight, but with each guess I inched closer to the play’s true meaning, until I surrendered my curiosity and accepted that a wholly satisfying answer to my question didn’t exist. Does that make sense?

That makes sense, that makes sense, that makes sense, that makes sense. How long is a string? How heavy is the sun… A string isn’t a string but is a string, which brings me to my original point: how long is a piece of string? 

Besides my assurance that the show does leave audiences satisfied, I will not hold it against you if you’ve got some restraint before floating off into the observations this troop make during the hour runtime. An hour which, may I say, takes its sweet, sweet time in the best of ways. I didn’t check my watch during the performance, but I was on the cusp of swearing it must’ve been running overtime. The amount of ground covered, both metaphorically, and in literal string, really gives you something to think about. 

The relation between string theory and a room full of strangers watching someone play literal guitar strings is drawn together in that first lecture, where the focus moves from distance and length to connection. The emotional weight of How Long is a Piece of String is hidden in plain sight, tucked away behind nonsense and chicanery. Real passion is wielded like a weapon by these performers and I left feeling cared for, appreciated, and kind of bewildered by its ending. 

Not one of my questions was answered in these sweet 60 minutes, but I left feeling contented regardless. 

How Long is a Piece of String? runs October 18th to 22nd at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. For tickets and more info, click here.