Blushing | Zen Zen Zo

Images: Georgia Haupt

Blushing, by physical theatre company Zen Zen Zo, directed by Indiah Morris, bills itself as “a bold new physical theatre work investigating touch in all its shapes and forms”. There is a loose narrative throughout the show between the two lead characters/ideas of Shame (Shanne O’Leary) and Curiosity (Ebony Webb), but the show is mostly a series of vignettes exploring different contexts for touch. Blushing is quite an intense show, with large movements, hyperbolic facial expressions, and surprising vocalisations. With a balanced mixture of seriousness and levity, it is an engaging watch.  

The cast met the audience outside the church as a fifth space preshow, and this was a great set up well worth doing. The performers interacted with the waiting audience and the natural space, moving so close to people without ever getting to the point of touching anything or anyone. It was a joyful bit that broke the ice, effectively set the mood, and clearly signposted the theme of the piece.  

The strongest element of this show was how completely and fully committed the cast were to every emotion and movement. Each performer was equally captivating, and they worked so cohesively together you could easily forget who specifically had just done what. Strikingly choreographed, with engagingly over the top movements and reactions. These were recognisably human, but also sometimes exaggerated beyond normal expression like a hall of mirrors, performed in a stylised way that made me lean into the action. What’s happening in “the action”? Well, that’s up to the audience to interpret. Without a linear narrative, things are not always so clear as to leave any room for doubt. I enjoy this kind of uncertainty in art, but for audiences used to a very clear narrative, this may not be the easiest first experience of this kind of work - take your arty friends to see this one, there will be great discussions post show.

Images: Georgia Haupt

The costume and makeup design for this work was excellent, and super effective in its simplicity. White skirts, caps, and tape over the chest made the ensemble feel genderless, and the bright red lip, painted half on the mouth and half across the cheek, made them feel not quite human. The white face paint with highlights of red felt a little clown inspired, but in a kind of unsettling way that I really liked. Having the bright red skirt underside and trousers peek through the long white skirt through the performance achieved a lot visually as a relatively simple costume.

The piece is a promenade work that used four spaces within the Holy Trinity Church, however there didn’t seem to be a strong narrative or artistic reason for this. I don’t think the backdrops of each space were different enough or contributed to the scene enough to really warrant pausing the action to turn the audience. I don’t know enough about lighting to be sure, but I suspect that this moving to different spaces may have been done in service of having different lighting effects, or perhaps it is a stylistic choice designed to disrupt the audience a little throughout the performance, but to me the act of turning does feel a little random and jolting. A third option is that there were clear narrative moments/reasons for this, and I missed them.

Anytime I get to see contemporary physical theatre, I am drawn in by the hope that I will see something surprising, a little challenging, and delightfully strange. Blushing is that kind of show, and if you’re up for something different that commits to itself with a genuine intensity, make sure you catch something by Zen Zen Zo. Next up is Heat, directed by Associate Director Ebony Webb, to be shown in November.  

Blushing plays at Holy Trinity Church, Fortitude Valley, 19-29 June 2025.

Images: Georgia Haupt