Invisible Cities

59 Productions brings Italo Calvino’s novel, Invisible Cities, to the stage in a breathtaking piece of theatre of monumental proportions.

The setting for the Brisbane Festival season, a warehouse in Yerongpilly, barely contained this ambitious work.

From the opening to the closing, the audience is captivated and enthralled as the story – centred on the tense relationship between the great Mongolian warrior, Kublai Khan and explorer, Marco Polo – unfolds.

The combination of art and technology are pure mastery.

A collaborative effort between 59 productions, writer Lolita Chakrabarti, choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and famed dance company Rambert the production is spellbinding, to say the least.

The physicality of the performance was palpable, aided by the positioning of the audience around the stage bringing them into the production.

Fantastical cities unfold before the audience’s eyes through a combination of theatre, perfectly timed and choreographed dance, clever original music, beautiful visual projections and brilliant set design.

The entire production was three dimensional giving the audience a sense of being able to walk around it and touch it.

Details in Invisible Cities are constantly evolving according to Director Leo Warner – a book that one is not reading but rather re-reading.

Warner says Invisible Cities lives on in one’s head and body changing how you think and view things.

He has summed the production up perfectly.

If you want to know exactly what he means, then I suggest you go and see Invisible Cities for yourself.

It will blow your mind.