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COUNT DOWN TO OPENING NIGHT = 14 DAYS Two weeks to go until we open! Things are are all coming together nicely for all aspects of the production.
Rehearsals
This week the director and cast ran the show in it's entirity. It's an opportunity to see the transitions between scenes. All character development is progressing well. It's looking good! Technical Aspects
This is a prop heavy play > almost all props are sourced. Costumes are being finialised by our inhouse costumier, Mavis Armstrong, who is doing a splendid job having to consider the many changes the ensemble need to make throughout the play. Projection and sound design is scheduled to be finalised this week, with set construction ready for bump in at MIPAC in a weeks time. Our lighting designer is sharing his ideas and visions with the director and artistic director this weekend. It's a collaborative effort > that's all coming together nicely. Marketing & Publicity
The production is being received postitively by the media. This week Wayne Pearn (Hoy Polloy Artistic Director) and David Passmore (actor) were interviewed on JOY FM on the Behind The Scenes program and Fin Kennedy's (playwright) interview with Inpress was published this week. We have other exciting media opportunities planned. Look out for our posters and postcards - even posters on some of the tram routes (thanks Yarra Trams!). 
Commentary > Actor: Michael F Cahill
Mick studied drama at The University of Hull (England); performed at the Arts Centre (Short & Sweet) and worked with La Mama (The True Amazon Adventures Of Roger Casement) and Theatre In Decay (The Taking
Of Ramsey Street). In How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found, Mick plays a number of roles. He recently made the following comments regarding his experience and approach to this production: "I have to admit that I have never seen a Hoy Polly production. In my defence I haven’t been in Australia that long. I was, however, aware of the very positive reception they received for Boston Marriage last year. Unfortunately, at that time, I was actually rehearsing the show that followed it into MIPAC and was unable to see it. But when a fellow actor was kind enough to forward me the audition notice for their new show I knew that this was a company worth working with and that I had to investigate further.
"Paul King was kind enough to forward a script to me and on the first reading it gripped me from beginning to end. I can’t actually remember the last time I have read a new play that excited me this much. The writing is, by turns, confronting, intriguing, compassionate and, a lot of the time, very funny. In telling the story of one man’s fall from (a kind of) grace, it asks questions fundamental to the human condition; what makes us who we are, and what makes a ‘good life’? As an actor you want to tell a good story and, preferably, you want that story to have a point. This play has both.
"So I wanted to do it. I really wanted to do it! But that means getting the gig, and that means auditioning. When you train as an actor and the subject of auditions comes up the advice is always to,“Look at it as an opportunity to perform. You love to act and this is another opportunity to do what you love. They are an audience and they want you to be good!”
"All well and good. But it rarely feels like that. Especially when you really want the job! I don’t enjoy auditions, and never will, and as a way to judge actors I think they are probably the worst method you could devise. But I haven’t come up with a viable alternative; yet. Suffice to say I thought I did a terrible audition and my poor wife had to sit through the statutory half hour self-flagellation as I dissected, dismembered, and regretted, what I’d done. Obviously I got the gig. Which is a reminder of another fundamental of acting; if there is one person who has no idea how good or bad your performance was, it’s you. You didn’t see it.
"The play has a lot of characters (I count 31. But I may have missed some…) and I play 9 of them. Theatre history, particularly relatively recent theatre history, is full of plays with multiple characters intended to be ‘doubled’ by the cast. This hasn’t always been successful, often leading to a parade of stereotypes appearing and disappearing, propelling the story but never wholly inhabiting the stage. Not this time. What appealed to me, as an actor, was that from the first reading each of these characters had their own voice. The accents, manner, and physicality of each of them seemed to be there on the page from the first. And I recognised them. I lived in London for 20 years and, for my sins, spent some of that time working in ‘The City’; I knew these people. I have met them, spoken to them, been at parties with them. In capturing them so well Fin Kennedy has done a lot of the hard work for us.
"But not all of it. With so many characters, and a commensurate number of locations, this is a play with a lot of ‘business’. There are many, many props. Many, many costume changes. There is furniture to be moved. There are technical challenges which have to be addressed that I am very happy are being addressed by our marvellous technical team and not me! Rehearsing such a ‘busy’ play can be frustrating since you want to get to the story; the text. You want to interact with your fellow actors but you have to get the technical stuff right before the play can flow and the process of getting to the point where all that ‘stuff’ is taking care of itself and the story emerges can seem to take a long time. But you get there, and we are now into the exciting stage where the relationships between the characters are developing. Where the nuances of scenes are beginning to emerge. Where the connections are being made.
"Now if I can just remember my lines and not fall over the furniture ..."
Production Details
Hoy Polloy presents the Australian première of
How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found
by Fin Kennedy
Directed by Paul King
Featuring David Passmore, Tory Rodd, Michael F Cahill, Glen Hancox and Helen Hopkins. Season Information
• 23.05.08 - 07.06.08 • Tuesday to Saturday 8.15pm • Sundays 5.00pm Venue
• Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre • Corner Sydney & Glenlyon Roads, Brunswick Tickets
• $30 Adult • $20 Concession / Groups 10+ • $18 Tuesdays Bookings
• 03 9016 3873 •
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Blog
• hoypolloytheatre.blogspot.com
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