Latest news with #MrBlank
The Age
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The discarded suitcase that unearthed a mystery
Our accidental sleuth sniffs out the trail from society pages to Long Bay Gaol registers; library records to Google and Trove. The musician's peripatetic lifestyle crisscrosses the cold trails of Mr Blank's many stunning lovers – models, actresses, a Penthouse Pet, a Japanese stage performer, a Spanish ingénue – whose letters yearn for matrimony or more playful connections. One Miss Cervantes really gets under his skin. 'However beautiful she remained, a troubled woman had stepped into her shoes, and the spirited young lady with the glint in her eye was gone,' Manning writes, deep inside her lovesick correspondence. 'The tissue paper she wrote on had almost dissolved … as if to echo her own unravelling.' Accidental? Well, not every flâneur would see a dead suitcase as a lost soul seeking understanding. Manning's artistic sensibility – visual, lyrical, forensic – drives the story. He's drawn not just to the mystery, but to the theatre of it all. As he dries, sorts and endlessly reshuffles his secret haul of handbills, headshots, Polaroids, newsprint and postcards, a voyeuristic fixation sets in. Soon, Mr Blank becomes a story not just about a flamboyant stranger but about the author's relationship with that man's shadow, and by extension, how we all relate to the ephemera of desire, glamour and secrecy. 'The suitcase was leading me down unsuspecting roads,' he writes as detachment surrenders to passion. 'Along the way, strangers were breaking my heart.' The few photographs reprinted – limited, no doubt, by various redacted parties – only intensify our fascination. We rely on prose to relish the wondrous aesthetics of the era. Via cars, clothes, stationery and architecture, Manning transports himself and his reader into a sumptuous, nostalgic past. How do we feel about Mr Blank? Touched, to see the young man's handwritten list of books for self-improvement. Mixed, when he's sent down, via a wonderfully reconstructed courtroom saga, for black marketing in liquor. Amused, slightly, by the sealed section of a men's magazine the older man saved to hone his boudoir skills. Manning's obsession flirts with madness as later chapters splinter into descriptions of a single photograph or character. Ghosts identified in eureka moments quickly bog down in more questions. 'There were secrets the suitcase would never surrender. No cajoling or sweet words could loosen its grip.' The finder doesn't have it in his heart to be a keeper. His goal shifts from personal enlightenment to the more gallant end of returning papers to identifiable survivors, not all of whom want them. Some hard-won phone numbers and email addresses lead to colourful gossip sessions, others to slammed receivers and lawyers' letters. Meanwhile, Manning's circumstances – writing through pandemic lockdowns in Greece, his music and art projects, the passing of his father, understated parallels with an enigmatic neighbour in his Athens flat – lend resonance. Past and present become a universe of tangents, of which Mr Blank is just one. Loading It all leads to a denouement that's more poetic than satisfying – and more haunting questions. If a single suitcase can spark such a quest, what might your sprawling footprint reveal someday? Whose business will it be, and why? Granted, few can boast a trail as intriguing as the remarkable Mr Blank's. But each of us becomes a puzzle, in the end, for someone else to find – maybe to wonder at, never to solve.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The discarded suitcase that unearthed a mystery
Our accidental sleuth sniffs out the trail from society pages to Long Bay Gaol registers; library records to Google and Trove. The musician's peripatetic lifestyle crisscrosses the cold trails of Mr Blank's many stunning lovers – models, actresses, a Penthouse Pet, a Japanese stage performer, a Spanish ingénue – whose letters yearn for matrimony or more playful connections. One Miss Cervantes really gets under his skin. 'However beautiful she remained, a troubled woman had stepped into her shoes, and the spirited young lady with the glint in her eye was gone,' Manning writes, deep inside her lovesick correspondence. 'The tissue paper she wrote on had almost dissolved … as if to echo her own unravelling.' Accidental? Well, not every flâneur would see a dead suitcase as a lost soul seeking understanding. Manning's artistic sensibility – visual, lyrical, forensic – drives the story. He's drawn not just to the mystery, but to the theatre of it all. As he dries, sorts and endlessly reshuffles his secret haul of handbills, headshots, Polaroids, newsprint and postcards, a voyeuristic fixation sets in. Soon, Mr Blank becomes a story not just about a flamboyant stranger but about the author's relationship with that man's shadow, and by extension, how we all relate to the ephemera of desire, glamour and secrecy. 'The suitcase was leading me down unsuspecting roads,' he writes as detachment surrenders to passion. 'Along the way, strangers were breaking my heart.' The few photographs reprinted – limited, no doubt, by various redacted parties – only intensify our fascination. We rely on prose to relish the wondrous aesthetics of the era. Via cars, clothes, stationery and architecture, Manning transports himself and his reader into a sumptuous, nostalgic past. How do we feel about Mr Blank? Touched, to see the young man's handwritten list of books for self-improvement. Mixed, when he's sent down, via a wonderfully reconstructed courtroom saga, for black marketing in liquor. Amused, slightly, by the sealed section of a men's magazine the older man saved to hone his boudoir skills. Manning's obsession flirts with madness as later chapters splinter into descriptions of a single photograph or character. Ghosts identified in eureka moments quickly bog down in more questions. 'There were secrets the suitcase would never surrender. No cajoling or sweet words could loosen its grip.' The finder doesn't have it in his heart to be a keeper. His goal shifts from personal enlightenment to the more gallant end of returning papers to identifiable survivors, not all of whom want them. Some hard-won phone numbers and email addresses lead to colourful gossip sessions, others to slammed receivers and lawyers' letters. Meanwhile, Manning's circumstances – writing through pandemic lockdowns in Greece, his music and art projects, the passing of his father, understated parallels with an enigmatic neighbour in his Athens flat – lend resonance. Past and present become a universe of tangents, of which Mr Blank is just one. Loading It all leads to a denouement that's more poetic than satisfying – and more haunting questions. If a single suitcase can spark such a quest, what might your sprawling footprint reveal someday? Whose business will it be, and why? Granted, few can boast a trail as intriguing as the remarkable Mr Blank's. But each of us becomes a puzzle, in the end, for someone else to find – maybe to wonder at, never to solve.
South China Morning Post
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Mr Blank 2.0 a dance piece that's visually dazzling but feels bleak, brutal and voyeuristic
'These premises are under CCTV surveillance for your personal safety and security.' Advertisement This ominous message on wall-mounted screens greets the audience in the auditorium of Kwai Tsing Theatre as they arrive to watch Mr Blank 2.0, by Hong Kong's City Contemporary Dance Company (CCDC). When the curtain rises, the same words appear on the back wall of the stage. The visually dazzling dance work, with its use of multilayered video projections and intense performances, offers a bleak picture of a world from which basic humanity has disappeared. There is no denying its visceral power, but ultimately its lack of hope or possibility of redemption make it more a work of horror than a moral tale. Multilayered projections help paint a bleak picture of a world bereft of humanity in Mr Blank 2.0. Photo: Carmen So Sang Jijia 's first creation since becoming CCDC's artistic director at the beginning of 2025 is the latest permutation of a work originally staged in 2018, then again in 2020, and most recently in a film version in 2021.
