Jenny Nimon
A year after her death, Lilibet Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II sans crown branding) walks into a liminal second-hand bookshop stocked with texts on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, colonisation, and the reign of the British Empire, where she is forced confront the baggage from her life – in this case, cultural demolition. The show’s promotional material aptly describes it as ‘a play about sovereignty, manaakitanga, and the tales we tell ourselves’ – there is a great deal of power in narrative, and we can be prone to altering tales to absolve ourselves of guilt instead of facing our actions head on. Language can be a tool of deception, and this is both true of the things we tell ourselves to feel blameless and the words we choose to deceive others (as in the mistranslation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi).
I reviewed Ladanyi’s debut solo, Where the Water Lies, in NZ Fringe 2023, and it ended up being one of the more memorable shows of my year, so I was excited to see Continuum Theatre Co.’s next steps. In the current context of Palestine and the way language is being manipulated in media and politics, it feels a vital time for tangata tiriti (myself included) to remind ourselves whose land we are standing on (for me, as I write this: Te Āti Awa). The merging of these reflections with the liminal time-space exploration that Ladanyi brought to his debut makes for quite a special production.
The Eleventh Trip of Lilibet W. is staged in the round at Whiskey and Wood, and the set is well designed to cue that our bookshop sits somewhere outside of reality: the books float. While the audience is kept in check through the performance (asked to leave during the interval, even), we’re able to move through the space at the end of the show, and it’s a stimulating experience to look through the books and documents on the desk to see the level of detail that has gone into the staging. In keeping with the venue, the lighting is just the house lights on hand, but audio is used effectively throughout, with snippets of music and speeches from the late Queen.
Sullivan is spot on in her performance of Lilibet; the accent comes and goes at times, but the energy always carries. Canton as The Keeper (bookseller, custodian, spiritual guide) offers some juxtaposition in her relaxed and progressive characterisation and becomes a point of fascination in the show – I have so many questions about this character, some of which are still unanswered, but in a good way. The Keeper doubles as a narrator and brings a layer of omniscience; she seems to shapeshift in response to Lilibet, speaking te reo and finding access to any knowledge that is called for in a given moment. There are moments for both where lines feel a little stiff, like they’ve been overlearned, but the pair hold their dynamic and play off each other well.
Some parts of the script lean a bit on The Keeper’s preaching to convey the play’s message, and I would like to see some of it presented in a less obvious way, or for Lilibet to do more of the discovery on her own instead of being spoonfed the answers. But largely Ladanyi’s script is thoughtful and moving, especially in its meditations on language. There are some enjoyable meta lines, and the writing of The Keeper (though, Lilibet too) supplies plenty of humour to the end product. This lightness goes a long way in the overall blend, and we’re left with a well-balanced show that creates a gentle space for uncomfortable conversations.
The Eleventh Trip of Lilibet W. showed from 28 February to 1 March. For more information, visit the Fringe website.