Wild creatures. Plane crashes. Mysterious happenings. Stranger Things meets Twin Peaks in this darkly comic sci-fi thriller. Direct from Dark Mofo, descend into an unrelenting otherworld that will not let you go. Not even if you resist.
Rosie spoke with this writer and performer Adriane Daff about this enthralling performance will seep into your imagination for days. Read the full interview below:
Along with Zoe Pepper and Tim Watts, you wrote The Irresistible, a work that’s been described as a reckless, intoxicating love letter to the subconscious. What inspired the creation of this work and why did you think this was a work that needed to tour Australia? Zoe, Tim and I have all been working together for a long time so any excuse to get together and make something is a real treat. I think with The Irresistible we have been working on it for so long and it’s gone through so many iterations and creative developments that the initial inspiration is almost long forgotten. And although that sounds kind of vague what I like about that is that we constantly inspired one another throughout this process to continually ask- what are we trying to say? What does this show need to be? How is it going to satisfy us as artists and how is it going to satisfy our audience? I feel incredibly lucky with Tim and Zoe that we all grew so much artistically since the beginning of the making of this show but we’ve all grown together and have wanted to go in the same direction. Around December of 2016 when we decided on exploring unconscious gender bias with this show, it was a number of years since we had first started working on it but we all went ‘yep let’s do it’. So that’s sort of the most relevant inspiration even if it wasn’t the first! In terms of touring, I sort of take what I can get. There’s certainly things you can do when you’re making a show that will make it easier to tour (like being mindful of how your set will pack down) but nothing is ever guaranteed to tour so you can’t count on it. After the initial season and response our producer Gemma Pepper did a wonderful job of capitalizing on that and getting the show out there so that we could be lucky enough to share it with more people. Over the course of the production, you and Tim Watts shift rapidly through multiple characters, most notably when you have a conversation with yourself, playing the roles of both exotic dancer and client in an utterly mesmerising scene. What has been the greatest challenge in playing so many characters? Who is your favourite character to play? Well the problem is, I now love playing so many characters so much that the challenge is going back to shows where you just play one! The form of changing characters is something Tim and I explored on the floor at length when we were developing this show- Zoe guides us through this for hours on end- which means the practice really gets into your body. So it feels pretty effortless. I would say with the dancer/client scene maybe the hardest thing was not playing two characters but the physicality. It was a real brain crunch. Sometimes I’m talking as her and moving as him or vice versa or talking and moving as her and talking and moving as him. And it constantly changes, line to line. In terms of a favourite character- I could never choose! I love them all like my children, even the problematic ones! Each new character that you and Tim play is marked with voice modulation, meaning that at the flick of a switch the sound operator can change your voice and create a whole new character. How has this changed your rehearsal process, and how did you develop such an innovative concept? The discovery of that form really defined the show. Because of it we can have conversations with ourselves or play a three character scene with only two actors and the audience can still follow along. Tim had done a bit of playing around with the microphones and the voice modulation software before and then in our creative developments we just pushed it as far as we could to see what we could get away with. It was also a great fit with our desire to explore unconscious bias – so the tech helping us making this theme theatrical was a great sign we were heading in the right territory. I think it’s interesting to point out that most of the ‘switch flicking’ is not actually a sound operator but me and Tim (we both hold wii-motes that allow us to change). This was really important because it meant we were practicing that from the very first day we put the microphones on and I think it adds to the effortlessness of sliding in and out of characters. The Irresistible completely sold out at Dark Mofo this year, and will be continuing on a national tour after the run at the Opera House. Why do you think this work has been so well received? I think the experience of watching The Irresistible is a pretty unique one in that you have to remain active to put all the pieces together. The story isn’t linear in some parts and we are constantly changing characters so it’s a rollicking ride for an audience member. Ultimately though, if you strip away all the cool bits -all the bells and whistles and ideas from the show, we set out to make a piece of entertainment. I think what people connect to is something that is funny, hopefully thought provoking and has a big heart. The Last Great Hunt has a reputation for creating boundary-pushing works that change the way audiences perceive theatre. How does The Irresistible fit into this production company’s billing? Anyone familiar with the work of The Last Great Hunt will know that we have everything from one on one performances set in a caravan, shows for families, shows in hotels, text-based stuff, non-verbal stuff, faux-foreign films made live on stage… I could go on. It’s a wide array of theatrical experiences, which makes sense because at the heart of the company you have six individual artists who all want to make different things. We just strive to make shows that are world class and so The Irresistible fits into that billing because we’ve made a show with Side Pony Productions’ that is a really excellent show. RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS: Favourite production you have ever seen? Cockfight by The Farm. I’m so obsessed with them. I just saw a pitch of another one of their shows called Throttle and it just made me more obsessed. You’re getting on a plane tomorrow and you can go anywhere in the world, where do you go? Greece or Toronto. I’d have to flip a coin. Dream show to create? Whatever the next show I’m doing is! I feel ridiculously lucky that I get to do what I do. That feels like the dream as corny as it sounds. Plays or musicals? Plays. A hobby you have beyond the theatre? Drawing, plants, learning Japanese, trying to get good at wine and doing red carpet reviews on my Instagram. What’s next for you after this show? Two developments for brand new shows with The Last Great- watch this space! The Irresistible opens at the Sydney Opera House as part of Festival UnWrapped on September 11, 2019. You can get your tickets here.
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