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[title]Fifteen years after collaborating on a scintillating cult production of The Rocky Horror Show, internationally acclaimed powerhouse director Gale Edwards is reuniting with legendary performers Paul Capsis and iOTA for an unhinged and searing reimagining of absurdist masterpiece The Chairs. Designed by Brian Thomson, in the pressure-cooker intimacy of the electric Old Fitz Theatre, this is your chance to witness two Australian trailblazers like you’ve never seen them before.
The water is rising. The world outside is crumbling. Technology is fast evolving. Freedom? Progress? Or a return to something more sinister? Alone in a room, a couple sets out chairs ready for the arrival of a special audience. They’ve invited everyone. The artists, the media, the money people, those fleeing, those staying. Everyone is gathering to hear their final message to humanity.
I can't think of any play better for right now. Because I don't know about you, but I think I'm living in an insane asylum.
First performed in Paris in 1952, Eugène Ionesco’s one-act play is described as an absurdist "tragic farce". A searing and hilarious look at what it means to live a life in the face of it all, Edwards’ new production of The Chairs echoes the anxiety, turbulence and unexpected humour in our present moment. Time Out Sydney’s arts and culture editor Alannah Le Cross headed down into the theatre in the basement of the Old Fitzroy Hotel to learn more about this timely production from its visionary director.
“When we were going to cast the play, it's written for an old man and an old woman, and I thought, wouldn't it be wonderful in this modern world to be gender nonspecific?…I couldn’t think of anyone better than Paul Capsis and iOTA to play these parts,” said Gale Edwards.
“Theatre of the absurd comes from vaudeville, and old Hollywood like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, and even back in history to the Italian commedia dell'arte. And I have two famous and highly accomplished cabaret performers – these two are the triple threats. It just seemed that we needed to do a production for now, not a museum piece.”
So what makes this play so relevant in the current climate? The Chairs is essentially about the end of the world and the questions that arise in chaos. Ionesco was part of a group of writers called the Theatre of the Absurd, which also included Beckett and Satre. As Edwards explained:
“These writers saw the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they saw six million Jews killed in the concentration camps. They lived through these unspeakable crimes against humanity. And it made them ask the question, what is life all about? What defines us as human beings? Where is our morality? Where is our law? Where is our care?”
The director added: “I can't think of any play better for right now. Because I don't know about you, but I think I'm living in an insane asylum. I can't believe we're all sitting here, and civilians are being killed in Ukraine right now. And we've got Putin with his finger on the button. And we've got climate change…”
It's important to note, this play isn’t all gloomy – hilarity and absurdity is deployed in an 80-minute “big dipper ride” where physical and spoken language is stretched to extremes. Edwards explains: “Language can't communicate any more. It doesn't carry the moral message anymore. The actual language we speak is failing us, and that's also in the play, because there are times when the language breaks down and they speak gibberish.”
With a career spanning 40 years, Edwards has done some big stuff – she was the first, and only, Australian to direct on the main stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon, UK, and the first Australian director to open a musical on both the West End and Broadway. However, she couldn’t be more thrilled to be pushing boundaries and working with her friends and Red Line Productions in a tiny indie theatre in Sydney. She said: “The intimacy of this theatre is fabulous. So I think people are in for a really good time.”
You’d be doing yourself an act of service by taking chance on this wild, one-act play. And it’s a good thing it's in a pub, because you’ll probably want to wander upstairs and debrief about it over a refreshment.
The Chairs plays at Old Fitz Theatre, Wolloomooloo, until October 8. Tickets start at $55 and you can snap up yours over here.