As behind the curtain, the stage is prepared for Mascarell’s “The Shell, A Ghost, The Host & The Lyrebird,” Bonachela springs into action before the audience and introduces the piece, and Hamilton’s to follow after interval. In the intimacy of the Playhouse, this conversation with the audience adds to the relaxed confidentiality of the experience, and, had you not downloaded the digital program beforehand, a guide. To the background sounds of hoisting, is it a shell, a ghost, a host, or a lyrebird that is taking form, or like its predecessor, will it be all things in chorus?

When the curtain rises on “The Shell, A Ghost, The Host & The Lyrebird,” with its set designed by Lauren Brincat and Leah Giblin, the effect is breathtaking. The soft, sail-like, swathes of suspended fabric are a considered patchwork of white and bone, with accents of red, ochre, and olive. Their billowy nature is in contrast to the two larger pleated forms that are also roped up, and thanks to the dancers, they are in near-constant transition, not unlike Bonachela’s sensory constellation. As dancers Emily Seymour, Jesse Scales, Sophie Jones, Liam Green, Luke Hayward, Jacapo Grabar, and Dean Ellio repeatedly pull and tug upon the many ropes that fall from the ceiling, they hoist the pleated forms into new configurations. The forms oscillate between being reminiscent of giant skirts, down-turned flower heads, and weather-proof tents, and they rustle like paper. Where one ripples, the other crinkles, and all of which is enhanced by the composition of Nick Wales, punctuated by bird calls. The expert mimicry of the Superb Lyrebird is surely behind the distinctive call of the Eastern Whipbird and the chittering sounds of the Crimson Rosella.[2] And it is to the Lyrebird I think of when the dancers navigate the space as if preparing a stage, the way the Lyrebird does. As such, a swathe of fabric is now a fern frond bobbing in the breeze, and a forest floor appears. As the dancers proceed to mark the passage of time with a ‘t-sst’ bird call of their own devising, by pressing their tongues to the roofs of their mouths, the impression, for me, intensifies.