Vikram and the Vampire

This was my first experience of Zen Zen Zo. Lynne Bradley and Simon Woods formed the company in 1992 and passed on the mantle to recent inductees to Brisbane’s Theatre Hall of Fame, Michael Futcher and Helen Howard.

As first production under their direction Futcher and Howard reworked their 1995 success The King and the Corpse, this time using stories from Indian folklore.  Hence Vikram and the Vampire.           

Physical theatre trains actors to involve their whole body in character development. It’s a cross between physical exercise weight loss programmes, storytelling and musical theatre. According to their training brochure they aim to establish an actor-audience relationship that is “intimate and shocking, compelling and confrontational, ritualistic and profane.”

Actors never leave the stage and when not portraying characters, meld into the surging eddies and waves on floor level or the wild stamping and clapping of the representational dances. The music never stops. Cieavash Arean, Guy Webster and Ravi Singh, on various combinations of nine different instruments, provided Indian rhythms and atmosphere to back the stories.

Most memorable were Sandro Colarelli (King Vikram), Lizzie Ballinger (Vetal – the vampire), Bryan Probets and Liz Buchanan (Parrot and Myna Bird), Alexander Forero (Youthala) and Lauren Jackson (Bahkti). Congratulations to the entire ensemble of sixteen, and all the creatives.

Jay McKee