DANTE…THROUGH THE INVISIBLE was a visual interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.

With its richness of imagery and universal themes, this classic text captured the imagination of Handspan when it was proposed to the company by Carmelina Di Guglielmo who was keen to continue to work with material that reflected her Italian heritage.

The work was originally proposed to be a co-production between Handspan Theatre and the Melbourne Theatre Company, following the companies’ partnership for Gulliver's Travels in 1992. The play's storyboard evolved from creative development workshops held in 1994 with a collaborative creative team from both organisations. However, the Melbourne Theatre Company withdrew from the production in 1995.

DANTE was designed and directed by Handspan’s artistic director, Ken Evans, written by Mac Gudgeon and created by the company ensemble for performance predominantly through abstract visual images, Choreographed to David Chisholm’s soundtrack. It followed the style of Secrets and several of Handspan’s Vignettes. Unlike those productions though, Dante followed a narrative line – that of the original poetic saga imagined in a contemporary context. Snippets of Aligheri’s original text were heard in a contemporary music and effect-based 'eerie score'¹ .

Lizz Talbot summarised its approach in her introduction to the play’s synopsis²:

Joe, or Dante, the central figure in the production was a soldier, found in a jungle battlefield confronting in his inner self and embarking on a spiritual odyssey through the underworld. The play followed his 'ghastly journey',³ an 'out-of-control hell ride'⁴ through Inferno and Purgatory to Paradise. Puppetry and animated imagery on stage visualised Dante’s subconscious in a powerful and confronting lighting design by Philip Lethlean that enveloped the work in Dante’s personal dark night of the soul.

Key figures were highlighted in the darkness, making use of ‘lights on sticks’⁵. These miniaturised lighting sources were used a puppets themselves, manipulated in concert with looming images conjured from Joe’s imaginings: bestial, phallic and ghostly, they forced Dante into torture and extremis.

DANTE was an ambitious and experimental venture for Handspan. Its dramatic and complex imagery was stunning, but proved to overpower the drama of the production, particularly for audiences unfamiliar with The Divine Comedy.

Or for those who knew it well enough to have decided views on the classic’s interpretation:

DANTE was Ken Evans’ last production with Handspan. By the end of the play’s first season, a new artistic director, David Bell had been appointed to the company and any future evolution of the project was shelved.