The Maze – Melbourne Fringe
You’re outside a bar in North Melbourne. It’s cold, you’re wearing a scarf and a stranger gives you a pair of headphones to put on. There’s a woman at a tram stop and you’re told to follow her. You enter The Maze.
The Honeytrap have devised an outdoor theatre experience that shook me up. I was watching this woman at a tram stop. Within minutes there are men harassing her; getting her to take her headphones out and telling her she’s beautiful. Strangers and their microaggressions.
The woman decided not to wait for the tram and I followed her down one of North Melbourne’s back streets.
It’s hard to talk about what The Maze is because I suspect it will strike every participant in this one-audience-member-only show very differently. But as a man, who rarely worries about being on the street late at night, actually following a woman on the street is very confronting. I was in the experience but also worried about how it looked to other people.
The Maze is a vital piece of theatre; it’s timely and confronting and I cannot recommend it more highly. It’s sold out, but I hope it finds more streets to walk down safely soon.
