Not so much a play as a performance piece, Manna, the latest offering from the Sydney Theatre Company’s ‘experimental’ arm, Wharf2Loud, is part soundscape, part opera, and all aural adventure.

With no semblance of a plot or narrative thread, Manna is a text written by Dan Spielman (who might be better known as Patrick Tidy from The secret life of us, but then theatergoers are probably not big soapie-watchers), which was originally intended to be a poem. Teaming up with composer Max Lyandvert, the result is a wafty, disjointed series of half-finished conversations and scenes happening to indiscernible characters.

The performance is laden with symbolism which allows the audience to read into it what they will. The cast is split – two males (one old, one young), three females (one old, one young, one ephemeral waif/ghost type who may or may not be really there). The young man sings a middle-eastern sorrowful sounding song, like an imam calling the faithful to prayer. The elder speaks in a language that is not English (Russian, perhaps?), showing the limitations of language. The words are not important, they do not hold any particular meaning, they are just another form of sound. The set is sparse - three padded walls, a mirror a workbench and a trolley into which manna falls.

The two men and young woman put makeup on the waif-like girl. The girl wheels a shopping trolley filled with manna towards a mirror. What this all means is up to the viewer. The whole effect resembles a type of dream-sequence, how I imagine voices in my head would sound if I heard them.

I found Manna hard to engage with. It led me to think about the bigger questions such as ‘what is performance?’ and ‘does a performance need a plot or characters to be engaging?’.

Manna was new and unconventional, but that wasn’t enough to sustain my interest throughout the performance. On Wharf2Loud’s website, the artistic directors, Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett promise me that after the show I will say “Wow.. I’ve never seen anything like it”. That much, at least, is true.