After a worker knocks on the door to give the go ahead, I enter the Temple, aka a small, dark room far from the characteristic frenetic hustle of Trades Hall during Melbourne Fringe Festival. Counterintuitively, there’s no religious paraphernalia here – just a hospital bed, a semi-transparent screen and a sad waiting room-style chair which doesn’t look particularly comfortable.
Theatre-maker and performer Oliver Ayres greets me warmly, even offering to help tuck me in under the thin medical blanket. He makes it clear that while the work he’s created is heavy, there’s no pressure to be a “good audience”. From offering fidget toys to providing easy-to-understand instructions on how to stop the show, it’s obvious that accessibility is central to Ayres’ practice.
Once the formalities are sorted and my noise-cancelling headphones are in place, the one-on-one performance art begins. Ayres calls I’m Ready to Talk Now a “radical act of connection”, but what exactly is he here to share?
As my eyes and ears are near-hypnotised by an engrossing combination of projections and soundscapes, Ayres’ voice melts through the headphones relaying the harrowing experience of finding himself in the grasps of a severe mystery illness, just months after starting to take testosterone as part of his gender-affirming care.
Before creating this work (which features thoughtful and highly effective design from Iz Zettl and Rachel Stone) Ayres had shared his diagnosis of a rare, chronic and severe immune condition with few people in his life. Now, he’s sharing it with me in an intense moment of intimacy and openness.
Through projections that would look just as at-home in a gallery as in a theatre, I come to better understand the liminal isolation of an extended hospital stay. Via creative and intricate physical theatre, lighting and in-headphone narration, Ayres crafts a devastatingly emotional encounter that lifts the curtain on his experience as a disabled, trans theatre-maker, reorienting a tiny corner of Trades Hall into a slice of pure loneliness.
A check-in afterwards is not only welcome but necessary, such is the impact of I’m Ready to Talk Now. It’s no surprise that an earlier version of the production was nominated for Best Experimental Work at the 2023 Melbourne Fringe Festival. In its newly expanded form, this immersive experience cements Ayres as a forward-thinking creative to watch.
I'm Ready to Talk Now has finished its limited Melbourne Fringe Festival season, but we'll keep you posted if a return season is announced.
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