Review by Michelle Fisher
Eliza Sanders’ Manage Your Expectations is the latest show from House of Sand, a New Zealand based company that is the brainchild of sibling creative partnership, Charley Sanders and Eliza Sanders. Blending a mix of art forms, Manage Your Expectations is their 2025 Adelaide Fringe offering and is the show that marks their 10th anniversary of the company.
Having received great critical acclaim and a number of awards around New Zealand, I was enticed by this show’s description, proclaiming that it would be a ‘funny, deeply personal journey through history, heartbreak and selfhood.’
A solo performer in all white takes to the stage. There is a live camera that is recording her moving around the stage from behind, with the audience in focus in the background. The live cameras and screen stay for the duration of the performance, as if to remind us that every story and every experience has many angles from which it may be interpreted.
For the first part of the show, that runs for approximately 40 minutes, Eliza, as the solo performer, explains what is going to happen for the rest of the show. Well she tries to. But with every word she says, multiple meanings and/or double entendres seem to get in the way. What really could be said in about 10-15 minutes, takes the 40 as Eliza adds disclaimer after disclaimer and over analyses the descriptions of the performance ahead.
In the spirit of complete honesty, whilst I eagerly laughed along for the beginning part of this, the constant interruptions of sentences and building of over-explained phrases did quickly lose my interest. In fact, it was in a moment of a technical error where the team at the back paused the show momentarily that we got to see Eliza at her most dynamic. The monotonous script is well executed as a monologue deep with feeling and intensity, but even so, the script, for me, needed a big chop down.
From here, we transition into the second part of the production. A chopped tree trunk is brought on stage and the performer creates a clay model in front of us. She then leaves the stage and returns naked for a dance piece abut history - both personal and public, identity, humanity and feeling.
Part three of the production takes the form of an improvised dance where, as she dances, she tells you whether or not she wants to be seen or if she does not mind. It is an interesting provocation as to the position of a performer - if on stage, must they always want to be seen? I wish it had music associated with it so that we could have been transported more - Saunders is definitely a talented contemporary dancer but this three minutes of improvised movement with no music didn’t allow for us to be taken on a journey with her.
Finally, we finish with a dance and monologue piece and await the end of the show that we know, from the get go, will only be complete when we as the audience decide it should be.
It is fair to say that I enjoy more traditional theatre than what was before me in this production. This is certainly fringe work and I can appreciate the talent behind both the writing and performing of this piece. That it is not my style is not a factor here - I wouldn’t personally see it again but for those who appreciate alternative art, this work could definitely hold appeal.
Advertising itself as funny is probably not appropriate - it is not funny, though thought provoking. It is very alternative but at fringe I can appreciate the purpose of a production like this. However, this piece is just a too long, to the point that it loses some of the intensity of its intended meanings and instead becomes self indulgent where it need-not-have.
If linear storytelling is your thing, this is not for you. If alternative performance and mixed genre performance is your thing, you may find a diamond in the rough here.
