BACKSTAGE AT FRINGE with Jessica Fallico | Brothers bare

In today's 'Backstage at Fringe', we spoke to Jessica Fallico, Director of Brothers Bare, which opens on October 7 at Explosives Factory as a part of our Fringe 2025 season.

"Gather ‘round children, no that isn’t right,

This story would give them a terrible fright.

Your small children should be tucked into bed,

With their night-lights on and their bellies fed.

We’re bringing to light what lurks in the dim

Festering and vile, all slimy with sin.

This story’s unfitting for your little runts

’Cause this story’s about some gawd awful c*nts.”

Set in a modern dystopian world—dressed in concrete and graffiti—three vignettes explore ideology, gender, body image, addiction and abuse, all told through the foggy lens of fairytales. An electrifying night of theatre, featuring song, dance, poetry and exquisitely crafted performances. This disconcerting piece will lull you into the familiar, before leaching into your fears.

Q: Take us back to the start. When did this show first drop into your head? How did it get to where it is now?

A: This idea has existed somewhere in the shadows of my mind for some time. My work has always been led by creating gender parity and giving females a voice. I used to teach drama to young girls and they always gravitated towards fairy tales as the stimulus for their play-building. I would encourage them to challenge their storytelling and fracture the tale—raising the stakes, changing the point of view or context— for me this made for exciting opportunity but for the kids, they often just wanted to stick to the status quo and play the typical princesses to which they felt akin in their familiarity. It got me thinking a lot about the influences we take on board as young people, how they can skew our perception of the world and how they shape and often hinder our expectations in adulthood. We navigate the modern world dealing with so many internal and external obstacles based on these influences and that felt like the perfect foundation to begin to dissect a dystopian fairytale of sorts—one where trolls loomed, rabbits ranted and our conscious spoke in rhyme.

Iley and I met in a year-long writing program we'd both been selected for with NToP under the mentorship of playwright Donna Abela. I was drawn towards Iley’s perspective, her off kilter characters and sense of humour within her work, we began collaborating and developed 'Brothers Bare'. Iley and I are both Sydney based creatives, so to be able to share the premiere of this work with a Melbourne audience, who feels like the right audience for this work, is truly exciting and something really special.

Q: What will audiences find in your show that they won't find anywhere else in fringe?

A: The writing is unlike other works in a really exciting way. Episodic in its framework, the fractured nature of the storytelling is compelling, while resting on pillars of tradition, which grounds the text in familiarity. Fairytale has been an interesting way to explore darker themes in a modern context, leaning into imagination and creating a whimsical world.

‘Brothers Bare’ delivers fanciful elements onstage which the creative team and actors have brought to life with a sense of play and fun. The heightened characters and amplified stakes make for captivating storytelling which will appeal to our adult sensibilities as well as our youthful dispositions. The setting of this work, being within the rabbit hole, is a figurative space for the internal trappings of our mind, intertwined with the external choke hold of the things that we can't otherwise escape. It’s been an interesting playground in which to explore and create and will result in an enthralling night at the theatre—we can’t wait to share it with you.

Q: What will surprise audiences about this work?

The content of the work itself feels surprising. We're all too familiar with fairytale and nursery rhyme as it's so much a part of our cultural zeitgeist. We’ve been raised on these pillars, but there was always something a little uneasy about these works and often they stuck out as being a little untoward. As we came of age, it was glaringly obvious as we cringed and giggled at the content, clear double entendre or tawdry deeds. When you look closer, there is a very present, sordid undercurrent to these works. The female lens through which we're viewing these stories will magnify the sinister nature and the duplicity they possess. Fairytale texts have stark and unpleasant origins that are grisly and macabre but the modern, popular-culture re-imaginings that preoccupy our childhood are sparkly and shiny, skewing our perspective. They take dark content and sprinkle them with glitter, while at the core of the storytelling sits highly problematic, gendered characters that begin to define our identity and establish psychological limitations. This work is a collective f-you to traditional limitations we’re no longer willing to accept.

Q: You're on a blind date. Nervously, you walk into the bar. Across the smoke and pool tables you see them - there they are. Your exact target audience member, personified. Can you describe them?

A: You like to watch. You know it. I know it. I like it too. We're a match made in heaven. It's a kink... we're people watchers. You're perched there, drink in hand, watching the couple across the way as they try and stifle an all too public argument, it’s delicious. The girl near the toilets, pretending to text, in that uncomfortably tight dress catches your eye. There’re three guys nearby on the prowl, peacocking as they try to smother their insecurity with broad-chested bravado. You’re into these characters, their little worlds and what’s ticking in their head. I get it. I get you. You’re in your twenties, you’re beautiful, even if you don’t own it yet and there is so much unsaid looming behind your eyes. Let’s meet at the theatre where you can talk dirty to me—tell me about the shows you’ve seen.

Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your process to this point?

A: Bringing together this team of people has been a joy. The first-read and listening to the language come to life was so exciting. The text has a strong, clear voice that marries contemporary and historic language patterns which is intended to put the audience a little off balance and it’s wonderful to see our actors embrace the work and relish working in that creative space. This piece was very much designed for artists to collaborate and to find a platform to flex their artistic muscles and seeing this company do that has been really wonderful. There are a lot of layers to delight in within this work, it’s felt like a playground, imaginations have been put to good use as we’ve created this weird, somewhat coarse world.

I hope that audiences come along to see what these wonderful creatives have achieved and to celebrate their artistry and that this gripping and twisted work gives them an enjoyable night at the theatre cause that's what fringe is all about!

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Brothers Bare plays at Explosives Factory from October 7-11. Stay tuned to the Theatre Works Backstage Blog, where we have loads more Backstage at Fringe content on the way!

Click here to get your tickets!