“incisive theatrical technique, fine ensemble performance and brilliant direction… a potent and clinically performed work.”
THE AGE CAMERON WOODHEAD
“Van Badham’s tight, disarmingly imaginative and superbly acted production.. script is clever..and poetic….impressive, psychologically sound and a surprisingly staid piece.”
THE AUSTRALIAN CHRIS BOYD
2011 Green Room Award Nominations (Theatre – Independent)
BEST DIRECTOR & BEST ENSEMBLE
“poor theatre at it’s best…a wicked take on political delusion…Highly recommended…Get booking!”
THEATRENOTES ALISON CROGGON
“ the kind of mind f*ck that leaves you wobbly and wanting more”
AUSSIETHEATRE.COM.AU ANNE-MARIE PEARD
“the actors run a tour de force.. the skill of Manderson-Galvin and Badham create a thrilling spectacle.”
IL GLOBO DANIELE ZINNI
“Four Stars… Zoe Dawson does a terrific job with presence and complexity…a powerful, astute piece of of theatre.”
ARTSHUB.COM.AU LIZA DEZFOULI
”more interesting political theatre than anything I’ve seen in Australia in a very long time…. Something akin to The Sound of Music (in Zizek’s reading)…. a work wrapped up in multiple ironies, far and far beyond anything that was happening when David Foster Wallace was writing about irony.”
GUERILLA SEMIOTICS JANA PERKOVIC
“Four Stars…these guys are on the money…a highly engaging, energetic piece.”
THEATREPEOPLE ANGUS CAMERON
“masterfully directed by Van Badham…Zoe Dawson- first rate… an exceptional performance”
INPRESS ALICE BODY
“Good theatre was once defined as work that holds a mirror up to society to reveal its flaws. By that, and any other definition, this is good theatre.”
RHUM.ORG.AU LIAM PIEPER
“Five Stars…Pure Genius… An incredible piece of political satire.”
RUSHCROWDS BEN GETTLER
“the play is fascinating… script poetic and thoughtful…direction keeps the whole thing moving like a freight train.”
KEITH GOW.COM KEITH GOW
“Scintilating writing…A spine tingling climax…Theatre that is bold and unique.”
PROMPTSIDE EUGYEENE TEH
MKA PRESENTS
The Economist
NOV29-DEC10 [EXTENDED TO DEC16]
73 Nicholson Street, Abbotsford
PLAYWRIGHT TOBIAS MANDERSON-GALVIN
DIRECTOR + DRAMATURGE VAN BADHAM
FEATURING
MARCUS MCKENZIE / ZOEY DAWSON / JAMES DEETH / CONOR GALLACHER / SARAH WALKER / PETER PALTOS
ABOUT THE PLAY
Andrew Bolt Berwick, Justiciar Knight for the Knights Templar.
Andrew has been having nightmares. He’s been doing everything to stop them.
World of Warcraft. Neo-Fascism. Plastic Surgery.
When the girl next door starts coming around it seems like maybe they’ll stop. …and maybe they will.
THE ECONOMIST is based upon an horrific attack that could happen here at any moment. It happened in Norway on 22 July 2011 when Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb in Oslo killing 8 people and then used it as a diversion to trap and kill 69 people, mainly youths, on a Labour Party Youth Camp on the island of Utoya. First blamed internationally on Islamic terrorists, once it was discovered that a blonde, blue eyed enteprenuer had commited the crime Breivik was relegated by the press to another ‘lone wolf’ and another ‘psycho’. He was neither. He was a terrorist of the right who claimed John Howard was the greatest leader of the 20th Century and cited Andrew Bolt as one of his influences amongst other mainstream right contemporary political actors. Far from being one in a million The Economist argues that Anders Breiviks are everywhere.
ABOUT THE TEAM
It has only been a year since MKA’s first production, Artistic Director Tobias Manderson-Galvin’s Dogmeat. To close 2011 we bring you a work of collaborative AgitProp Theatre as Van Badham, the new Associate Artist (Writing) at Malthouse Theatre & former literary manager of the Finborough Theatre (London), teams up with Tobias Manderson-Galvin and a cast of Melbourne Independent theatre stars to bring you a play about the murder of 82 innocent people in a devastating terrorist assault and the distorted re-framing of events by right wing commentators.
PLAYWRIGHT TOBIAS MANDERSON-GALVIN DIRECTOR + DRAMATURGE VAN BADHAM FEATURING MARCUS MCKENZIE / ZOEY DAWSON / JAMES DEETH / CONOR GALLACHER / SARAH WALKER / PETER PALTOS STAGE MANAGER STEPHEN MOYLAN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR MARK PRITCHARD STAGE DESIGN DAVID SAMUEL COSTUME DESIGN CHLOE GREAVES LIGHTING DESIGN JULIA KNIBBS SOUND DESIGN NICK MCCORRISTON
ABOUT BEING THERE
PREVIEWS NOV29-NOV30
SEASON DEC01-DEC10 TUES-SAT8PM
SEASON EXTENDED DEC WED 14 THUR 15 FRI 16
DURATION 1H15M
TICKETS PREVIEWS+TUESDAYS $15 SEASON F$25/C$20
BE THERE
BOOK NOW
xx
MKA
FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
This is the fictional story of Andrew Berwick; a man very similar to Anders Breivik, who killed 92 people in Norway on July 22 2011. He first detonated a bomb in central Oslo killing 8 people and then used the subsequent chaos as a tool and a distraction while he captured and killed mainly youths at a Labour Party Youth Camp on the small island of Utoya. The playtext owes some debt to the source material of Anders Breivik’s extensive diaries, his 1500 page manifesto, his and others’ blog entries on conservative websites, his World of Warcraft characters, media commentary, the book ‘On Utoya’, discussions between the playwright with cast, crew, family, friends and conversations overheard in the playwright’s local Japanese restaurant.
MORE ABOUT THE TEAM
TOBIAS MANDERSON-GALVIN is a playwright, poet and performance maker based in Melbourne, born in Canberra and raised in Brisbane. He has been called “Toby” by his father,“Incredible”by Artshub and “Unstoppable” by the Age. In 2010 Tobias won the St Martins National Playwriting Competition for Dogmeat (Dir. Jessica Tuckwell, La Mama Theatre, MKA Melb Fringe 2010). For MKA he has directed the micro-tour, production & readings of David Finnigan’s 22 Short Plays; staged readings of Van Badham’s Swamplands, excerpts from his own plays An Afternoon with the Faun and Riding into the Sunset at Dawn and The Insane Love by Akira Matsumoto. His works have been published and performed from bootleg cds; Radio National; under a bridge in Westgarth to the Arts Centre of Victoria. Tobias has appeared to the better half of a post-punk-vaudeville duo with his sister, half of the Hobby Whores, and with his own Sample Theatre, Sixxxters Grimm, Black Lung Theatre & Whaling Firm and Family Of Strangers as a devisor and performer. Tobias sat as Chair of Platform Youth Theatre 2008-09. Since MKA’s inception in March 2010 he has held the position of Artistic Director. Talk with him.
VAN BADHAM is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, critic, social commentator, broadcaster, dramaturg and cabaret performer. Australian-born but based in London for 10 years, she has been called “a major talent” by The Guardian, “the brilliant Australian playwright” by The Independent and “one of the leading voices of her generation” by TimeOut London. Currently completing the Burnt Snow three-volume novel saga for publishers Pan Macmillan, Van’s plays, radioplays and works for music theatre have been performed across Australia, the UK, the USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia and Iceland. Her achievements include the first Australian selection for New York’s Summer Play Festival, a two-year, award-winning residency at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), the Harold Hobson Award for Drama Criticism in the UK and a Premier’s Award in Queensland for her much-lauded play Black Hands / Dead Section. The 2009-2011 Literary Manager of London’s renowned Finborough Theatre, in October 2011 she commenced her tenure as the Artistic Associate (Writing) at the Malthouse Theatre. Van is on twitter @vanbadham, and more information is available on her website atwww.vanbadham.com.
ZOEY DAWSON is a performer, playwright, director and one third of the female theatre collective I’m Trying To Kiss You. Her most recent work with I’m Trying To Kiss You, I Know There’s A Lot Of Noise Outside But You Have To Close Your Eyes, had it’s world premiere at Melbourne Fringe Festival to enormous critical acclaim. She has performed extensively around Melbourne, devising her own work with Spill Collective, The Last Tuesday Society and Self Cultivation. Her written work has been published in The Cordite Poetry Review and Shelf Life. Her play (the unspoken word is “Joe”) recently received a rehearsed reading as part of MKA’s Open Season. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts with first-class Honours from LaTrobe University and completed a Conservatory of Classical Performance at Shakespeare and Company in the USA. In 2012 she will direct an all-female adaptation of Romeo and Juliet for fortyfivedowstairs. Also in development is an adaptation of King Lear with Melbourne writer Nicola Trethowan.
JAMES DEETH is a graduate of the Flinders Drama Centre, (BA Performance and Dramaturgy) recipient of a 2004 Helpmann Mentorship grant and is a member of the Phrankly Theatre Ensemble. James has worked extensively across Australia appearing in the world premieres of The Altruists at Belvoir, Retail for the Melbourne Fringe and most recently Ambidextrous at Adelaide Fringe. Other work includes Mojo, Attempts on Her Life, The Boys, Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Three Sisters and two award nominated pieces in Short and Sweet 2008.
CONOR GALLACHER is a Melbourne based actor, performer and occasional writer. He has previously appeared in the MKA shows Dogmeat (2010), and 22 Short Plays (2011-Melbourne and Canberra productions), as well as working on the 2011 Open Season readings for Robert Reid’s The Burning Hour, and Nathaniel Moncrief’s Tinkertown. His other stage credits include Sunny Side Up (2009), Genesis (2009), The Inferno (2008) in which he was also a co-writer, as well as appearing in productions by the MTC, Theatre In Bars, Bolchaviks Theatre, and the Short and Sweet Festival. He is starring in the upcoming independent feature film Silentium.
SARAH WALKER is a Melbourne-based actor, photographer and designer who works extensively with several of Melbourne’s most prominent independent theatre companies, including AtticErratic, of which she is a founding member and key creative, and MKA, where she is in-house photographer. She has also worked with companies including Barking Spider Visual Theatre, Quiet Little Fox, St Martins, VCA, NIDA, Three To A Room, MIFF, The Danger Ensemble, Mutation Theatre and The Opera School, among others. After several years of design work, touring productions to the Melbourne and Adelaide Fringe Festivals, working as set and lighting designer largely in found spaces, Sarah has recently stepped back onto the stage. She performed in AtticErratic’s Ad Absurdum, which was awarded Best Production and Best Director in Short & Sweet 2010, and Tell Them That It Rained Too Hard at Gasworks in 2011. She has also performed for Barking Spider Visual Theatre in That’s My Turf and Beardo in 2011. After a year of producing MKA’s promotional and production photography and videography, Sarah acted in the MKA @ MTC script development of Isobel Roberts-Orr’s Twins, and in the rehearsed reading of Van Badham’sSwamplands.
MARCUS MCKENZIE Since graduating from The VCA in 2010, Marcus has performed in Pains of Youth, (Artisan Collective), Beautiful (Mudlark/Tasmanian Theatre Company);Dirtyland (Arthur); Honey Bunny’s Sagittarian Full Moon Finale (Julian Hobba); Womb Division (Adelaide Fringe), and the webseries Cop Hard and Shutterbugs. His VCA performance credits include O’Horo: The Dance of Death, Ghetto, Much Ado About Nothing, Mad Forest and Christie In Love. While studying at The VCA, he performed with Artisan Collective in the co-devised Breathe a Little and Call it Life for the Sydney Fringe Festival. Marcus was the 2010 recipient of the Orloff Family Trust Award.
NICK MCCORRISTON is a Melbourne-based sound designer and performer. He has just finished a Bachelor in Production at the VCA, and is moving on to study sound engineering at RMIT in 2012. Nick was tech for Glyn Robert’s Horror Face in MKA’s previous season, and has been involved with theatre in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra since 2001. At the VCA, his sound work has been showcased in St Kilda Tales (Contemporary Plays 2011), The Good People (Devised Work w. Richard Murphett), 69° South; The Shackleton Project(Phantom Limb 2009) and Daniel Schlusser’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Hollow (2010). Outside of the VCA, Nick recently worked on Julian Hobba’s Honey Bunny’s Sagittarian Full Moon Finale, as a technician/coordinator at the annual Crack Theatre Festival in Newcastle and also ACT Centenary’s You Are Here shopfront festival. Before coming to Melbourne, Nick trod the floorboards of small Canberra stages for 8 years, appearing in around 40 shows. He directed and funded his own production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party in 2007, was the lighting and sound designer for Bohemian Productions staging of Boris Vian’s The Empire Builders, and appeared in varying roles in independent stagings of Alan Bennet’s Kafka’s Dick and Bruce Robinson’s Withnail & I.
STEPHEN MOYLAN‘s Stage Management credits in Melbourne include work at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (2010, 2011), Melbourne Cabaret Festival (2010, 2011),Sleepyhead for MKA (2011), and Abacus for Monash University Student Theatre. Elsewhere, he’s worked with the Actor’s Centre Australia in Sydney on the 2011 Graduate Showcase & Reality Bytes and extensively on productions in his home town of Adelaide. Adelaide credits include Buried Child (State Theatre Company of SA), True West, Blackbird(Flying Penguin), The Share, The Under Room (five.point.one), Two, Boxing Day Test (Jungle Bean), Alice & Peter Grow Up (Milk Theatre Collective) and The Possibilities (Go Begging). Design credits include The Possibilities (Set/Lx/Sound), Oh, What A Lovely War, Mate at AC Arts (Sound), and Too Far Again, Not Far Enough by Daniel Jaber (Set/Lx).
DAVID SAMUEL is currently the designer in residence for MKA Theatre having recently designed set and lighting for Sleepyhead, 22 Short Plays, The Horror Face and the set forJ.A.T.O. This year he also designed set and costumes for Dreamsong and the set for West Side Story for VCA Music Theatre and the sets for Honey Bunny’s Sagittarian Full Moon Finale (written and directed by Julian Hobba) and Kassandra (written and directed by Marcel Dorney). David has previously designed the sets for Becky Shaw, The Possibilities, A Christmas Carol, Oliver! and High School Musical. In 2009 David completed a Graduate Diploma in Production Design at the Victorian College of the Arts where he designed the set for 10|01 (devised and directed by Sapidah Kian) and set and costumes for Christie in Love (written by Howard Brenton, directed by Fiona Hallenan-Barker). He was also awarded the 2009 Trina Parker Design Scholarship. During earlier study of the Bachelor of Production at the Victorian College of the Arts, David designed the sets for One For The RoadandToo Young For Ghosts. He also worked on Navigators (2006 Melbourne Arts Festival), Into The Woods, Top Girls, Boxed In and The Saint Plays (Melbourne Theatre Company) in varying roles
CHLOE GREAVES is a costume designer and maker working predominantly in the independent film and theatre arena in Melbourne. She is a graduate from the Victorian college of the arts school of production 2008. Her recent credits include
Theatre: Costume design: The Economist (MKA), The Juniper Tree (The Opera Studio) The Woman in his mind (Melbourne Writers Theatre) J.A.T.O (MKA) Kassandra (dir. Marcel Dorney VCA), Alice in Wonderland (Four Larks theatre and winner of best ensemble and production greenroom awards), The Master and Margarita and The Fate of Franklin and His Gallant crew (also Four Larks Theatre), The Possibilities(
THE CAST AND CREW WOULD LIKE TO THANK …
Hunter+Penny+Kerith as we rehearsed in your lounge room, Ben+Hunter+Hot Brad stars of the trailer, the authors of ‘On Utoya’ for telling the story without fiction, Anniene & Anthea for helping build flat pack furniture at Van’s Apartment, Malthouse Theatre, Yvonne at Monash, Alex at Uni High, Soren+Michelle+Scott for the workshop of inception, Peta Coy for her advice and provocations and Kate Wolfe for her insights into her life as an au pair in Norway
xx
MKA
Pingback: » MKA – The Playwright and the Economist PROMPTSIDE
Pingback: » RW: The Economist guerrilla semiotics