World Theatre Festival
Written by Dave Zwolenski
Theatre In Preview
The Brisbane Powerhouse pretty much has it all; a comedy festival, a queer film festival, more international musical acts than you can poke a fender at and now a theatre festival that is set to rival the best.
The World Theatre Festival - or WTF if you're hip - is bringing an exciting world of theatre to our doorstep with performances that defy traditional theatre conventions, demanding audiences become engaged in the works that herald from all over including Ireland, the UK and Australia.
In this, the first year of the festival, it seems fitting then that one of the event highlights is a play about trying to break into the big time. Lord knows we all dreamed of playing that starring role in the high school rock Eisteddfod. The cool dude in the Fonzie jacket doing a remake of ‘Grease’, the God of Lightning throwing thunderbolts from atop a mountain, or in my case the guy who introduced the school about to compete because his dance moves didn't quite cut it.
‘Eisteddfod’, written by Lally Katz and directed by Chris Kohn, is a story of a brother and sister confined to their rooms due to extreme agrophobia after losing their parents. One (Abalone) is battling to win the adulation of the auditorium at the annual Eisteddfod, but unable to do it alone. The other, Gerture is spending more and more time teaching in her imaginary classroom. Both are striving to confront their loss and isolation.
“Almost all of it happens inside two metres by two metres square,” Kohn explains. “What we've done is create a very claustrophobic atmosphere, not for the audience because they're outside of it, but they're seeing two people in that situation. There's a lot of shifts in terms of power and the audience is never quite sure what's real and what's not and where these fantasies are coming from, so there's a sense of intrigue about it.”
The play itself was written by Katz while she was studying at the Royal Court Theatre in London, and originally performed in 2004 where it picked up the prestigious Green Room award for best new production. Chris' passion is theatre and admits to staying up late “obsessing over the work” with his collaborators, a team who work for Chris' company Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Melbourne.
Chris tells me that Stuck Pigs is a collective of artists dedicated to the creation of dynamic, imaginative and disturbing theatre events. A driving force in the emergence of Melbourne's dynamic and adventurous independent theatre scene, the company has produced award winning theatre and other works for festivals in Australia and North America. Chris himself has worked in various different aspects of direction, but it's in theatre that he finds his home.
“My love of theatre is very much grounded in my youth and having some really quite amazing experiences of seeing theatre and feeling the very particular energy of theatre performance and sensing that it's really different from any other experience,” he says.
Chris is conducting this interview from Pittsburgh, but he plans on being front row centre when the festival kicks off in February. When you go to see a play there's a sense of passion that is put into a production. You can feel the hours the writer, director and actors have spent nutting out every little detail, every aspect, every moment of relentless emotion in the hopes of keeping and maintaining an audiences attention. With so much of yourself put into your craft, I wondered if Chris ever got anxious on opening night.
“I get very anxious but I'm not as anxious about the response as I am about whether the show is being itself,” he says. “Because there are nights when the show is absolutely what it was supposed to be, and other times when you know it's not quite happening. But with ‘Eisteddfod’, out of everything I've done, it's the most refined and every single moment is something we've worked really hard on.”
Chris says that the writer, Lally, has put enough twists and turns into the script to keep audiences riveted and she's even managed to write herself in as a somewhat ubiquitous God-like voice. “Trust a writer to depict themselves as God,” I say. “Lally thinks it wasn't her idea,” Chris replies “but I'm not so sure about that.”
The WTF is set to take Brisbane by storm in February with plays from all over the world delving into every corner of the human condition.
WTF is on at the Brisbane Powerhouse from February 2-13. For more info, head to www.brisbanepowerhouse.org
