Malthouse Theatre Season 2015

For Season 2015, Malthouse Theatre will utilise all spaces in its iconic building with performances in the courtyard as well as its three theatres; present a new approach to the season with thematic chapters; premiere new work from Chunky Move, Ash Flanders, Nicola Gunn and David Woods, Declan Greene and Lally Katz; reimagine Sophocles’ Antigone; celebrate the large dancing body; hold a banquet for 39 people; and introduce audiences to Caryl Churchill’s new play.

Season 2015 marks a major new era in the life of Malthouse Theatre with the program offered to audiences as three ‘chapters’.

Artistic Director, Marion Potts explains: ‘We’ve noticed that our artists have some specific concerns to express. There are pressing interests in the zeitgeist, subjects that need to be articulated and creatively aired. So we have designed a new structure for artists to explore these over-arching concerns together’.

Replacing the linear, spinal chronology of seasons gone
by are three thematic chapters, which encompass all of the year’s primary and satellite events and the building’s various spaces into the program. The result is three acts, involving shows, panel discussions and Extra Events occurring in all the theatres, as well as the courtyard.

Opening the year is Blak Cabaret – the prologue to the season – a bold and irreverent party of massive proportions that will unite some of our greatest Indigenous artists. With music, stand-up comedy, dance and more, it will be an epic all ages celebration.

The first chapter is Body // Language, which asks questions about the relationship between our bodies and our identity: what is it about how we look – our colour, shape, age – that defines us? Artists including Kate Champion, Anouk van Dijk and Victoria Chiu will bringvery different perspectives to this question.

Next is Post // Love by
 Caryl Churchill, an Australian premiere, as Churchill offers her latest provocation about life and love in a post-digital era. Continuing the conversation is Lally Katz on post-culture and Ash Flanders on post-gender in the YouTube age.

The season’s final cluster of works sees a young Antigone looking for a way to honour her dead brother in a new adaptation of Sophocles’ play by Jane Montgomery Griffiths, directed by Marion Potts. Ritual // Extinction explores the things that unite societies – ancient rites of passage and modern-day rituals are investigated by artists including Matthew Lutton, Declan Greene and Nicola Gunn with David Woods.

An irreverent epilogue is provided by The Listies, who, with their particular brand of unadulterated sillin sess, will ruin Christmas for everyone.

Throughout the year, special events will bookmark each chapter. Panel discussions, presented in collaboration with Monash University, will invite experts and academics to dissect issues at play within specific works, while Subtexts, a conversation series presented in association with The Wheeler Centre, will elucidate the wider themes of each chapter with the help of artists and relevant guests.

Each chapter will also include a unique Extra Event. In Body // Language, Fitter. Faster. Better will pair adults with a personal trainer aged between six and ten in an experimental work that will refocus ideas about the body through the eyes of children. As part of Post // Love, A Singular Phenomenon sees Aphids create an epic game of 20 questions to investigate our fascination with the cult of personality and pop-culture. And for Ritual // Extinction, UK company Reckless Sleepers invite Melburnians to an exclusive banquet with The Last Supper – part meal, part performance, this experience is limited to just 39 places per session.

Images: Antigone and Meme Girls.

THE PRODUCTIONS

PROLOGUE

Blak Cabaret

10 – 22 February, Forecourt

Directing Consultant: Michael Kantor. Performers include Kamahi Djordon King

Presented in association with SummerSalt Outdoor Arts Festival 2015 – the spectacular new celebration of Melbourne’s creativity.

Proudly supported by VicHealth Arts About Us.

Blak Cabaret kicks off Season 2015 in the forecourt. Acting as the Prologue to the season’s three ‘chapters’, this outdoor party will feature some of Australia’s finest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander comedians, musicians, dancers and poets.

Blak Cabaret celebrates the oral traditions so fundamental to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Kamahi Djordan King as his female alter-ego Constantina Bush will spread love and mayhem as MC.

Blak Cabaret will form part of the inaugural SummerSalt Outdoor Arts festival, a six-week outdoor arts program set to transform the Melbourne Arts Precinct.

BODY // LANGUAGE

Nothing to Lose

11 – 21 March

Directed by Kate Champion
. Artistic Associate: Kelli Jean Drinkwater/ Additional Choreography by Ghenoa Gela. Set & Lighting: Geoff Cobham. 
Costumer Design: Matthew Stegh
. Text Dramaturg: Steve Rodgers.

A Force Majeure Production.
Commissioned by Sydney Festival and Carriageworks. Presented in association with Dance Massive 2015.

Nothing to Loseaims to challenge the dominant perception of what a dancer’s body should look like, in an undaunted exploration of fat bodies in motion. The Centrepiece for 2015’s first Chapter, Body // Language, Nothing to Lose sets the tone for a season that investigates the interplay between language, the body and our sense of identity.

Nothing to Lose investigates the interplay between language, the body and our sense of identity to celebrate the abundance, strength and creative capacity of these undeniable forms.

Nothing to Lose will investigate the relentless fascination with the fat body while abandoning stereotypes as it reshapes expectations.

Wot? No Fish!!

24 February – 8 March, Beckett Theatre

Written & Performed by Danny Braverman. Directed by Nick Philippou.

Wot? No Fish!! weaves family mythology with decades of history into a humorous and heart-warming narrative for all ages.

In 1926, London shoemaker Ab Solomons drew a picture on the wage packet he gave to his new wife Celie, a matrimonial habit that would continue until his death in the 1980s. Each week, he drew or painted a scene that documented the day-to-day events of their growing family. His artistic output chronicled the family’s growth as a young Jewish couple in London and encapsulated the births, illnesses, heartbreaks, deaths, wars and the changing city they lived in for almost a century.

Solomons’ incredible horde of Outsider Art was saved in shoeboxes by Celie and found years later by his great-nephew Danny Braverman, who himself features in the later drawings. Wot? No Fish!! is a story about love, art and history that begins with the shoeboxes opening and ends after an epic recounting and decoding of his great-uncle’s lovingly illustrated life.

Do You Speak Chinese?

18 – 21 March, Tower Theatre

Choreographed and performed by Victoria Chiu in collaboration with Kristina Chan


Music: Mindy Weng Weng. 
Lighting Design: Ben Shaw. Paper Artist:  Benja Harney


Presented in association with Dance Massive 2015.

Do You Speak Chinese?is a question many Australians are asked every day.

Choreographer and dancer Victoria Chiuis a Melbourne girl.
 She doesn’t speak a Chinese language and the closest thing she 
has to a Chinese cultural ritual is the odd weekend yum cha session. Nonetheless, people often see her as Chinese.

‘I have grown up with both a sense of shame about my Chineseness and awareness that because of my appearance as a member of a cultural minority my voice has been marginalised, both consciously and sub- consciously. My search for understanding about my cultural identity was the catalyst for beginning the work on this piece.’ – Victoria Chiu

This performance plays with the many ways our bodies speak for us, often before we’ve even had a chance to open our mouths.

Exploring the connection between physicality, language and race, Victoria Chiu recreates identity through language.

Depth of Field

6 – 15 March, Forecourt

Choreography & Direction: Anouk va Dijk. Performed by Niharika Senapati,
 Tara Soh, James Vu Anh Pham

Presented in association with Dance Massive 2015.

Depth of Fieldis a new, outdoor work directed and choreographed by Chunky Move’s Anouk van Dijk.

Depth of Field expands on years of collaborations between Malthouse Theatre and Chunky Move. Previous productions include 247 Days (2013), Connected (2011), Mortal Engine (2009) and Tense Dave (2007).

Over the course of an hour, as daylight turns to dusk, we will witness a playful and poetic interaction between three dancers and a city.

A chance meeting in the street switches our focus in a blink. These shifts in perception happen every day but pass us by without us noticing. Anouk van Dijk draws attention to the infinitesimal experiences that make up our day.

As light fades and the city changes tempo, this movement in time is reflected in a brilliant cascade of simultaneous realities, while awareness of everyday life shifts to reveal the unseen.

post // love

Love and Information

12 June – 4 July, Merlyn Theatre

By Caryl Churchill


Directed by Kip Williams. 
Set & Costume Design: David Fleischer. 
Lighting Design: Paul Jackson. 
Sound Design & Composition: THE SWEATS. Cast Includes / Glen Hazeldine, Anita Hegh, Zahra Newman, Alison Whyte, Ursula Yovich

A co-production with Sydney Theatre Company

Love and Information is the latest play from Caryl Churchill (Cloud Nine, Top Girls); a portrait of the post-modern condition and the Centrepiece of our Post // Love chapter.

In this quick-fire play, a heavyweight cast of eight will embody more than 100 roles in a series of vignettes. Each scene exposes a different facet of love, intimacy and information consumption in the digital age.

An exhilarating experience, this theatrical kaleidoscope questions how connected we truly are in this ever-connected age.

Meme Girls

8 April – 2 May, Beckett Theatre

Created by Ash Flanders, Stephen Nicolazzo and Marion Potts based on an original idea by Ash Flanders


Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo. Set & Costume Design: Eugyeene The. Lighting Design: Katie Sfetkidis. Cast: Ash Flanders, Art Simone.

Meme Girls construct their identities in real time – and demand an audience. With our voracious appetite for digital media, there seems an infinite audience only too happy to oblige.

In Meme Girls, pop-culture addict Ash Flanders points his satirical sense of humour squarely at the desperate voices crying out for attention in our online neighbourhood.

Blurring the lines between performance art, drag and cabaret, Flanders will be physically transformed live on stage by Art Simone as he presents a love letter to the bizarre and addictive women of YouTube who broadcast their lives to an online abyss.

Timeshare

23 April – 17 May, Merlyn Theatre

By / Lally Katz


Directed by Oliver Butler
. Cast Includes: Marg Downey, Fayssal Bazzi

Proudly Supported by Art Series Hotels

Timeshareis a musical fable by Lally Katz(Stories I Want to Tell You in Person, Neighbourhood Watch).

Directed by Oliver Butler from New York’s The Debate Society
, Timeshare is a comedic escape to a ramshackle resort that time forgot.

Straddling the International Date Line, Paradise was once a history- themed retreat providing the ultimate in glory-day getaways. Unfortunately, the years have been unkind. Today, it’s a dilapidated tourist trap filled with vagabonds and oddballs; a place where swindling layover-stranded cruise passengers is the only way to make a living.

With one foot in the past and the other in the present, Timeshare creates a fleeting slice of paradise.***

ritual // extinction

Antigone

21 August – 13, September, Merlyn Theatre

By Sophocles
, adapted by  Jane Montgomery Griffiths

Directed by Marion Potts
. Cast Includes Emily Milledge.

Antigonereceives a re-interpretation under the direction of Marion Potts as the Centrepiece production of the Ritual // Extinction chapter. A searing portrayal of a woman denied access to ritual, the play investigates the cultural rites that bind us.

Everyone has a right to bury their dead. Yet when the community leaders decide that they need to set an example, they deny Antigone her right to mourn. faced with the prospect of unresolved grief, she rebels and incurs the wrath of her powerful elders. Her fate is sealed: fall in line or be outcast forever.

Family connections and rites-of-passage mould both our collective and personal sense of identity; Antigone cuts to the core of our sense of belonging and lays bare the rift between the personal and political.

Emily Milledgetakes on one of theatre’s most enviable female roles.

I Am a Miracle

18 July – 9 August, Merlyn Theatre

By Declan Greene


Directed by Matthew Lutton. Composition & Musical Direction: David Chisholm. Set & Costume Design:  Marg Horwell
. Set & Lighting Design: Paul Jackson
. Cast includes Melita Jurisic.

Presented in association with Opera Australia.

An incendiary production stretching from Melbourne to the Texas State Penitentiary, I Am a Miracle grapples with questions of endurance and the possibility of transcendence.

Marvin Lee Wilson was convicted of murder in 1994. Lawyers argued his IQ of 61 meant he wasn’t competent to commit premeditated homicide. Yet in 2012, after 18 years on death row, he was executed.

‘I am a miracle. I ain’t left yet. It must be a miracle.’ The ever-inventive Greene uses Wilson’s final words as the genesis for a work of monumental scope, set to a stirring choral score performed by three singers from opera Australia.

I Am a Miracle is a cry for atonement that echoes on and on.

A Social Service

11 – 29 August

By Nicola Gunn & David Woods. Created & Performed by Nicola Gunn and David Woods

A Social Service is a new creation from Nicola Gunn, who, in collaboration with David Woods, takes a hilarious look at class, entitlement and privilege, with her utterly unique focus as sharp as ever.

This performance sticks its nose into the gap between rich and poor, and smells something funny. A satirical send-up of greed, status and the machinations of power, A Social Service points the finger at systems that claim to help the needy and people whose only concern is the sustainability of their own power.

When the people at the top have no understanding of ordinary worries, needs or wants, maybe their help is the kindwe’d be better off without.

They Saw a Thylacine

15 September – 4 October

ByANIMAL HUMAN EXCHANGE

Created & Performed by Justine Campbell, Sarah Hamilton
. Artistic Collaborator: Matthew Lutton. Costume Design: Chloe Greaves
. Set & Lighting Design: Nick Schlieper. Sound Design: Jethro Woodward.

A co-production with Performing Lines and HUMAN ANIMAL EXCHANGE

They Saw a Thylacineconjures the ghost of one of Australia’s lost beauties, the thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) in a feisty slice of campfire storytelling.

On an unseasonably cold September morning in 1936, the last known Tasmanian Tiger died in captivity at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart. Nearly 80 years after the disappearance of a species, Justine Campbell and Sarah Hamiltontell this lyrical tale of adversity and extinction.

The lives of a zookeeper’s daughter and a thylacine tracker intersect: while one of them attempts to track down the animal to sell it to
a zoo, the other works in a zoo where a rare thylacine is being mistreated.

EPILOGUE

The Listies Ruin Xmas

25 November – 13 December, Beckett Theatre

By The Listies


Devised & Performed by Richard Higgins and Matthew Kelly

A co-production with The Listies

The Listies Ruin Xmas is a show with a mission: to make families laugh as much as possible in 55 minutes.

A Frankenstein’s monster of a panto, the irrepressible Richard Higgins and Matthew Kelly (The Listies) throw away the out-dated Christmas fodder for something worthy of modern, multicultural Melbourne.

A double act in the mode of Morecombe and Wise, Rich is the sensible one and Matt his naughty, childlike foil. Their shows involve DIY props and references to pop culture.

http://malthousetheatre.com.au