THE SHOWS
JOHN ROBERTSON: THE DARK ROOM AND KINKLING
ou awake to find yourself at the Comedy Festival. Should you: check pockets; go to Town Hall; or buy ticket to The Dark Room?
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The only sensible option is all of the above, really, for The Dark Room is a YouTube gaming hit that has bamboozled and delighted more than 300,000 players since its inception by Perth-based comedian John Robertson. The game harks back to the old computer text adventures anyone in their 30s or older might remember – Robertson plays a disembodied, shouty floating head who is at once Gamesmaster and villain. This festival, audience members can play it live in a pitch-black chamber in the bowels of the Town Hall. “The Dark Room is a cross between a text adventure and a game show,” Robertson explains. “It’s so fast and so immersive; you won’t believe how invested people get in other people’s playthroughs of the game. And it has a narrative to unlock – a really harsh, bleak narrative that you only see glimmers of when people are playing the game badly. And people who play the game badly ‘die’, which is very entertaining for everybody. But if they succeed, my God, people get involved in it! They say video games cause violence, but this could be the first video game that causes a riot.”
The live show has been touring around the country and is a roaring success. Robertson says it’s recently attracted a following of hardcore gamers who have been trying to map the game into a flowchart – something the comedian shunned from the start. “The idea that you could map the game didn’t occur to me at any stage; I mapped the whole thing out mentally,” he says. “It leaves a more instinctive feel to the game, because it rewards skill and creative thought. It has a real prejudice towards practicality. It’s wonderfully Old Testament and very harsh but fair.” But take on the challenge and it is not without its dividends. Robertson says that everyone who plays gets a prize: “Whether it’s some crap from my house or something I planned to get rid of during kerbside collection. In Perth, I gave a little girl a machete. She was really tiny and I gave her this massive knife, told her thanks for playing and to go and have a good time.” Robertson is also putting on an 11pm show at the Portland Hotel, Kinkling. “It’s just a wild party – jokes, songs, crowd-surfing – in a 30-seat room,” Robertson says. “It’s a late night, fun show so I wanted it to be unhinged, mental, chock full of esoteric and cabaret stuff and old acting tricks. If it ends after an hour, it ends, but if it doesn’t, we’ll go into the foyer until we’re asked to leave.” Baz McAlister WHEN & WHERE: Kinkling – Thursday 28 March to Saturday 20 April, Portland Hotel WHEN & WHERE: The Dark Room – Monday 1 to Monday 15 April, Town Hall, Cloak Room
SCHOOL DANCE school dance. “Essentially it’s an amazing script written by Matt, [the Attenborough doppelganger referenced earlier] who’s kind of harnessed all these things and found them all in us. Even down to the way that we talk – it’s amplified in it – and our actions. It’s like seeing yourself in a weird mirror, a funhouse mirror.
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The play follows a tight-knit group of three losers as they attend the highlight of the early-teenage social calendar, the
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s sophisticated as we think we are, somehow we still love feats of raw physical prowess. What else could explain the phenomenal punter-pleasing, critic-dazzling success of New York superstar circus Empire? With top shelf acts like Elena Lev and the utterly astounding Addis Brothers, Empire is taking the already epic circus revival to new heights. Partly it’s because, behind the scenes, they work exhaustively on detail; and Australian choreographer John ‘Cha-Cha’ O’Connell is very much part of that effort. Having collaborated with Baz Luhrmann on everything from Strictly to Moulin and Gatsby, working with non-dancers in a tent might seem a little left-field; until you scratch a little. “I worked a lot on the various transitions between the acts,” he explains, “For instance, while one act is doing his German Wheel routine another will come out with ostrich feathers and do a Vegas showgirl routine.” In addition, O’Connell has been working closely with hula star Elena Lev on Empire’s bubble act. “She had not worked in the bubble before so we had to pull all that together, combining her skills with some very un-traditional bubble work.” Ultimately,
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HING “WE SHARED EVERYTUS E TO AB D FROM HOUSEHOL LITERALLY – IN HIDING AWAY Y– AND METAPHORICALL AT TH CLOSETS; IT’S ALL OF.” LD OR KIND OF W
“My sister was wearing the fashions of the ‘80s as a teen so I’ve got lots of memories of her clothing…” Oxlade trails off another hilarious revelation: “I remember having a pair of stone-wash jeans that were really too high. That’s why I’m wearing them now, I think.” Dave Drayton
Paul Ransom
Having already been written into the earliest draft, the creative team offered up stories from their awkward formative years to help shape the show. “We shared everything from household abuse to hiding away in – literally and metaphorically – closets; it’s all of that kind of world. We talked about how people treated us, bullies, having those first feelings towards someone, stuff like that.” Just as Whittet found inspiration from real-life characters, the content of the show required only a similar retrospective glance to a world of roller skates, Blue Light discos, high-topped sneakers and acid-wash jeans. For Oxlade (who also designed the show), who was too young to completely embrace the fashion of the ‘80s, the inspiration for design came from his older sister.
WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 10 to Saturday 20 April, Arts Centre, Playhouse
APARTMENTOCALYPSE While you may think that turning the entire and utter collapse of human society into comedy gold should be, figuratively speaking, a rather pleasant walk in the park, it seems that the team did have to overcome some creative challenges, none more so than maintaining the same energy and enthusiasm for the gags throughout the rehearsal process. “When rehearsing a comedy play, after about the third time rehearsing it all jokes seem to lose their shine – it’s only when it’s performed in front of an audience that we get to find it funny again.”
it’s all still circus and we’ve all seen it before. So why Empire? For O’Connell, the answer is obvious. “It’s the calibre of the acts, which is extremely high. We’ve got the Addis Brothers from Ethiopia, who are foot jugglers. On opening night it got something like five standing ovations, and that was during the act.” Indeed, the show’s Big Apple debut saw Spiegelworld pitch their antique tent on a prime lot “just down from” Times Square. As O’Connell recalls, they were playing opposite the theatre in which the musical Once was struggling for audiences. “At first business was a bit slow [for them] but we had quite big crowds outside ours. Then it won the Tony and you couldn’t get a seat.” Of course, part of Empire’s allure is the tailored venue. Although it has room for 700, the show happens on a handkerchief stage. “We’ve got these roller-skaters who are so fast and you’re, like, one foot away,” O’Connell enthuses. “The sweat of the acrobats is coming off in your face.” Even if a shower of carny sweat isn’t your idea of a great night out, Empire not only has spectacular bells and whistles (Oscar & Fanny, Gorilla Girls, Carrot Man) but a rowdy, intimate atmosphere. “It’s like being someone’s living room, but a very classy one. In fact, it looks a bit like Moulin Rouge with the mirrored panels and the velvet. It gives you something that you can’t get at a typical circus show.” Who said the Age of Empire was over?
“Matt nailed it. When I read the first three pages it was like, ‘Oh, I do sound like that! Oh my God, that’s annoying!’ I probably would have been written a little bit… different,” Oxlade cheekily concedes. e’s observed us for quite a while in secret, he was doing a David Attenborough,” says Jonathon Oxlade, sat at a table at the Wharf a few hours before he will portray an infinitely daggier version of himself on stage. School Dance was developed by South Australia’s Windmill Theatre Company following discussion between director Rosemary Myers and playwright/performer Matthew Whittet. Myers, Whittet, Oxlade and School Dance sound designer/ performer Luke Smiles had worked together previously on another Windmill production, Fugitive, and it was during its downtime that the seed for School Dance was planted. “Rose saw that we got along quite well, and maybe that we got along – and maybe this a good thing – in a slightly ‘juvenile’ way,” Oxlade admits with a sheepish laugh. “Matt and Rose have always been interested in writing stories about that liminal space between childhood and adulthood, and so this work sits in a similar space as Fugitive, which was a tale loosely based on Robin Hood but with all the characters as teenagers. This is a bit younger, more puberty-based.”
EMPIRE
WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 27 March to Sunday 21 April, Spiegelworld at Crown Casino Rooftop
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hen the apocalypse finally comes, what will all the idiots do?
This, Michael Kalenderian tells Inpress, is the critical question that Apartmentocalypse will answer. The show, bought to us by the creative team behind The Extraordinary General Meeting from last year’s Comedy Festival, is “a narrative about three housemates trapped in their apartment after the apocalypse. It plays on the absurdity of surviving the apocalypse while also having to deal with the mundane and frustrating reality of share house living”. The team, consisting of Kalenderian, Andy Matthews, Eden Porter and Joshua Porter (Kalenderian and brothers Eden and Joshua are acting in the show, with Christopher Bryant directing) originally got inspiration for the concept during one of their many writing sessions when one of them cried out loud, “kill him and take his beans”. From this simple line, Kalenderian tells us that they quickly realised that they had stumbled upon a veritable gold mine of “post-apocalyptic tropes which we could subvert and reference in a show”.
It’s not all hard work, however, dealing with the apocalypse every day. Kalenderian says that writing sessions have been a particular highlight of the process. However, as with all creative endeavours, sometimes you do end up in strange places. Kalenderian shares one particular instance that occurred one night at 2am when everyone was reduced to hysterics over the prospect of an apocalypse survivor making flavoured milk by filtering the liquid through a flavoured condom. The idea was quickly deleted the following morning. Indeed, you have to wonder that if being in such a morbid headspace does affect you in unexpected ways. If Kalenderian’s experience is anything to go by maybe it does. He reveals that in a recent dream of his he was flying through the air on a giant stingray (it wasn’t weird cause there were other people doing the same thing as well) when suddenly, he accidentally stabbed a creature that was the last of its kind. Things took a dark turn pretty quickly after that, apparently. However, he is quick to add, “please don’t try and analyse this. Most of the time, my dreams are incredibly mundane.” Benjamin Meyer WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 28 March to Sunday 21 April, Tuxedo Cat
THE OTHER BROTHER of RAW Comedy at the MICF, The Comedy Zone, the MICF Roadshow, the Sydney Comedy Festival, and the Adelaide Fringe.
letcher Jones and Roger David – high street fashion icons if there ever were some. The endless array of chequered shirts that somehow manage to come in about a thousand different colour and line-cross variations. The tan pants, with all tan colours of the tanbow. 60% synthetic, 40% polyurethane mixes. Awkward shirt-sleeve lengths (just above the elbow so they tickle your upper forearm). Weird 15% leather shoes that have sole thicknesses somewhere between a boat-shoe and a platform – ones that your unmarried uncle might have several pairs of and wear to family functions.
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I don’t think the ironical wearing of Fletcher Jones or Roger David has hit the streets yet. At Savers you kind of just bypass those ones. I’m not sure if they have a back-of-house filter system at Savers, but Fletcher Jones and Roger David would probably get caught in it. They’re brands for men that go to the zoo, and drink light beer, and write reports, and have dogs, and go to Rosebud for their holidays. Smart Casual, the comedy duo from Sydney, is made up of Fletcher Jones on guitar and Roger David on vocals (Ben and Nick Mattick for reals). They formed in 2006 and since then have performed as part
They’ve toured to Southeast Asia, renounced their Sydney heritage (to Melbourne comedy-loving audiences anyway), and explored the absurdities of all art, the merits of musical comedy itself, the use of nouns as verbs, precarious sexual practices, and boundaries of brotherly love. Their latest show, The Other Brother, charts the ominous insertion of a third brother, Doug, into the golden duality they had going on. It’s more of the dead-pan musical comedy the pair have excelled at, and they still play off their remarkable heritage as two simple, sensitive blokes who have the same mum, but different dads. But is three a crowd here? We’ll have to see. The pair make beigey pullovers and rash-inducing suits a fashion choice for the cynically observant. They run a kind of slow-burning comedy that constantly develops over the course of the show. The point mutates, the punchline drops out from nowhere, and songs abruptly finish. The boys won’t make you sit through a song just because it’s supposed to have five verses. I remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer’s brother came out from nowhere and back into his life. It caused nothing but trouble and heartache at the end of the day. Fletcher Jones and Roger David just need to keep things on the level, and dealing with a Doug, numerologically speaking (‘D’ especially is a bogey letter of the spiritual world), threatens to throw a right spanner in the mechanically rotating rack of well-ordered ties. Simon Eales WHEN & WHERE: Thursday 28 March to Sunday 21 April, Town Hall, Lunch Room