Above: Promotional material for The Anarchy [1138-53]. Featured image: Kerith and Tobias Manderson-Galvin. Photo credit: TNS Studios.
Hear ye ! There is more than one way to skin a theatrical cat. Hear ye!
This is currently being dynamically demonstrated by Doppelgängster, whose two players are carving up the sideways stage at bAKEHOUSE Theatre’s salubrious KXT on Broadway space. This is a history lesson with a difference, with instant shock value pushing audience back in their raised side seats at the venue.
Known for often outdoor, lengthy, innovative and challenging pieces, this crew from Melbourne creates live performance art, lengthy time-based location-based projects and game-inspired comments on events. Their confronting, progressive works boldly attack passers-by in the vein of the group with who they share a long-distance twinship to – a sibling Doppelgängster company in the UK, both in existence since 2015.
Blasting us with shifting firecracker full-on scenes, and a rarely felt casual spontaneity, Doppelgängster’s KXT audiences are swept up in a sprawling role-play-gamer type event. And it a wild ride. A wild time of history- The Anarchy from 1138-1153 with unstable and fierce leadership battles between Stephen de Blois and the Empress Matilda. The death of King Henry I hurled England into a dark period indeed.
Using song, streamed prompts in their ears, garnishing props, gothic costuming and spikes of multi-hued planned or reactive humour, this piece solidly unwinds in the hearts, heads and hectic vocal plus physical kick-ass energy of siblings Kerith and Tobias Manderson-Galvin.
Above: A grim portrait showing the stars of Doppelgängster’s the Anarchy [1138-53]. Photo credit: TNS Studios
Kerith and Tobias amaze with rapid-fire description of the darkness, shifts from their headset prompt to the next description adventure choices through the years between 1138 and 1153 AD. The onstage chemistry between this pair, and bold, unrelenting commitment to their in-theatre madcap model is to be admired. So too is a discovery, activity based, left-of-centre sequence of storytelling and a stop-start, act or escape, Dungeon s and Dragons on stimulants style of a show currently sans pareil in Sydney.
This performance art-meets video or role play game piece traverses time, leadership drama, landscape, human and non-human creatures with a nod to chaos, darkness, dark wit and easy, charming humanity. It shocks and overwhelms with the length of its 2.5 hours without interval, but is quite the New Age, post-Covid, post-election, dramatic-radition-morphing, audience-expectation-denying, theatresports or charades-on-steroids event.
Stage dimness or darkness comes and goes and there is an edgy super-effective soundtrack loop wedded to this festival of darker almost undecipherable, speedy rants or game updates. This brave romp with huge performances from the gamemasters/protagonists/duet-chorus, leading us by perhaps a confused, reluctant but ground-breaking nose through the bad times of old England sizzles in the bAKEHOUSE oven.
Strap yourself in – use chains and leather if you like- and try out this frenetic ingenuity. Be as brave as the performing punters showing us how to survive history-and the plan to return for two more instalments in an inimitable trilogy, of with this season is just the first instalment. More large-scale sweeps through the focus chronology with hectic feeling transferrals and sidestepped tropes from this pair’s energy will return.
Do not abandon all hope ye who seek entertainment from this progressive package. Doppelgänster are accustomed to audience burnout-walkouts from the fun yet frightful frisson of their tales. But when you stick it out, the pace the energy and passion is right royal.
The Anarchy 1138-1153, in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre must close Sat 31 May Tickets available at: https://events.humanitix.com/the-anarchy-1138-53
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