In Conversation with Tobias AND KERITH Manderson-Galvin | The Anarchy (1138-53)

In this week's Backstage Blog, we spoke to Tobias AND Kerith Manderson-Galvin about their latest work The Anarchy (1138-53), dubbed "POSTMODERN GENIUS ★★★★★" by Timeout. Fresh off a fantastic Sydney season, this outrageous work finds a Melbourne home this September 3-13 at Theatre Works.

A duel is taking place. St Kilda is now the fictional medieval town of Cross Roads. UK/Australian theatre company Doppelgangster invite audiences to select a character and face-off in two rough grandstands as Theatre Works transforms into a deadly jousting arena. Arrows whiz through the theatre, actors climb a siege tower, crash through castle walls, and attempt the dark art of necromancy. This spectacular show is part anticomedy, part historical folk-horror, part psychedelic ritual, and impossibly a live RPG videogame walk-through guide.

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Q: Out of the gate - your show description simply refuses to stop twisting and turning. How do you even begin to formulate these ideas? Do they build and grow over time or does 'onstage jousting arena videogame walk-through' just hit you one day?

TOBIAS: The ‘twisting and turning’ of our promotional copy is necessary to avoid AI, cops, and theatre reviewers from comprehending the sedition, heresy,  and obscenity at the heart of our work.

KERITH: I'm answering these questions on a bench outside of a suburban Time Zone that I took two trains to get to because I'm picking up a prop for the show. I find the word prop embarrassing. Anyway, I keep thinking, what if B. from marketplace takes my $25 and hands me The Prop (fully functional but doesn't have the wheels anymore hence the price, B. says.) and asks if now I want to go play some games at Time Zone? And I think I'd have to say yes, because I'm right here. I'm not sure what might happen after that. (I don't need the wheels. I'll make do.)

TOBIAS: To your first question- The Doppelgangster Formula™ is a closely guarded corporate secret, that we’re happy to teach to activists, graduate & undergraduate students, and other theatre companies at standard professional rates. Most venues are stressed enough when we’re getting walkouts from our shows, and we get them from the workshops too, so I won’t promise insight on first engagement.

To your second question- Yes, ‘Onstage jousting arena videogame walk-through' just hit us one day, extremely hard, which is why ‘The Anarchy (1138-53)’ is part one of a trilogy that runs for approx 15hours total. This show should probably be called ‘The Anarchy (1138-41, with some of 42-44)...’ or The Anarchy (1138-53): Part 1: 1138-41 (with some of 42-44)’, but Wicked only added the Part 1 on screen, and what’s The Anarchy (1138-53) if not at least as good as a $150million blockbuster musical that Elle (UK, online and print) called ‘a much-needed escape".

KERITH: The marketplace person just messaged: on my way to Time Zone now. 

This Time Zone is huge, maybe we'll go on the bumper cars. 

Q: Dopplegangster have proudly accepted the title bestowed upon them 'theatrical saboteurs'. What kind of theatrical sabotage might we expect in this show?

TOBIAS: A reviewer from The Age called us ‘theatrical saboteurs’ and what more can one expect from the self-proclaimed ‘independent. always,’ tabloid arm of Channel 9. Still, it was nice to be called ‘theatrical’.

KERITH: I'll leave this question to you because I think I'm a guest here at Doppelgangster. I’ll say this of previous Doppelgangster shows - I think they love theatrics. And theatre and performance, there's a deep respect and love for what performance might be able to do, and be, and what can be experienced together.  Which - I saw their show Cold War 20 plus times? And it's weird to say this because Tobias is my brother, but I would see it 100s of times more and find new things every time. It's phenomenal. Edge of seat, brain expanding, I don't know what's next even though it's timed and planned to the second, phenomenal, and there’s always more to discover in it. There’s so much room. And Titanic I can still remember the way I was sitting while I was watching that show. Which is very strange, but yeah, I remember it perfectly in my body. So, no, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Just that I think Doppelgangster’s work is very thoughtful to the live experience. 

TOBIAS: You know, a popular but false history of the word Saboteur is that 19th Century Belgian factory workers would throw their ‘sabots’ (a type of wooden shoes) into the machinery as a means of industrial action. We honour this by going shoeless in most of ‘The Anarchy (1138-53)’.

KERITH: B. from Marketplace arrived by the way and gave me The Prop. They said it has three modes but it's been sitting in the garage for years, and it's dusty. I've been carrying it to the train station and, they're right, it is dusty. 

Q: This isn't the first time The Anarchy (1138-53) has tread the boards. Tell me about the life this show has had thus far.

TOBIAS: It was Spring 1154 in a small, mysteriously haunted market town in Essex that we first sprung this show on an audience of seditionist protestors, barely concealed spies, and local market stall owner-operators. We also performed the show at KXT-on-Broadway earlier in the year which is in Gadigal Country slash the Sydney suburb of Ultimo, near the Wenty dog track, home of the Glebe District Rugby League Football Club, also near Broadway Shopping Centre where we shoplifted most of our consumable items and a tea-strainer that looks like a hackling black cat.

KERITH: I just passed a building, and with The Prop in front of my face, I thought it had the business name “Violent Message”. 

TOBIAS: Violin Master?

KERITH: ‘The Anarchy 1138-53’ earlier in the year was very special. I guess, I don’t want to influence what happens here -  I hope it lives in new ways at Theatre Works. 

Q: This feels like a silly question for such a wild concept, but I always ask - what will surprise audiences about this work?

TOBIAS: As we always say at Doppegangster: There’s no silly questions, only silly billies; and if we told you of ‘the surprise’ that ‘will surprise audiences’ then it would no longer be ‘a surprise’; and in not telling you ‘the surprise’ we still imply that there is ‘a surprise’, and your subsequent expectation of ‘the (potential) surprise’ would make ‘any surprise’ ‘unsurprising’; yet if we say ‘we are unable to indicate’ if ‘anything’ is or isn’t ‘surprising’, it leaves audiences open to ‘anticipation of surprise’ and ‘the inevitable lack of surprise’ upon the (potential) unveiling of ‘a surprise’ and even the (potential to) ‘surprise’ if there was (potentially) ‘a lack of surprise’. So we must inform you that there will be both: absolutely no surprise at all, and an endless everlasting surprise (a relentless event-horizon paradoxical duality of ‘all surprise’/’no surprise’). 

KERITH: Wow I really love what Tobias has answered, that feels like a series of trap doors going nowhere. I keep pushing for a trap door but it’s not going to happen. There is no big reveal.

I think they might be surprised by how much we have dedicated ourselves to narrative this time. Hyper-narrative. We are moving through a wall of text. 

It’s hard to know what an audience expects in ‘the theatre’ and in ‘contemporary performance’. I’m surprised by audiences - actually I hope to be surprised by the audiences every time, I think that’s one of the best parts. None of that part is really known, no matter how controlled it is and I like that space, I like the part where we are all in this room at this same time together - and that will always be surprising, and I guess that’s why we make and go to live performance. Like maybe live performance is a series of continuous moments constantly bordering on hope and failure and impact. Lots of in-between breath moments. Really happening. I mean that of performance in general, not of this show. And you have to be a risk taker to do live performance, and a bit of a gambler to go to it. 

Q: What has been the most memorable moment of your process so far?

TOBIAS: It’s important to know that we use the verbatim-inspired postdramatic performance technique of having the written - and subsequently spoken - text, and also the instructions for our performance and actions, fed to us through in-ear audio devices. During the performance - as a result of this process - we’re constantly taking in information, acting on it/speaking it, and our short term memory is immediately trashing it in order to take in the next packet of information. And what this means it that we very rarely remember anything that happens on stage - what any of the audience do or who they were and this includes our own unscripted impulses/inventions/interventions. We film the show sometimes, and watch it back, and it’s as new as if we were the audience, and then we have to pay ourselves ticket fees for the privilege. 

KERITH: That’s true, each night we miss parts of our memory, it’s an incredibly strange experience to not know what you’ve done. But there is a feeling that happens in the show that is unforgettable for me - The show is moving very quickly and in other ways it’s slow and heavy  - long and relentless, it’s Hard for us and the audience, and there’s no way to be in the show without really being in it - if that makes sense. And sometimes you (me) just move one step in front of the other to get through it, but you can’t avoid it or take a rest from it. And so that feeling first hitting me, is memorable. 

And the day we realised the world of the performance was so big it couldn’t possibly all happen in one show and made the decision it would be a 15 hour trilogy, and that felt like a really big relief, and invigorating to go, okay, we don’t have to stop here, we can keep going. I feel very lucky to get to spend more and more time with this work. 

Also just before, two doors down from Time Zone was another place called Flip Out that had go-karting and trampolines, so you could really make a day of it, next time you're putting on a show, twisting and turning around in circles. 

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Death is certain. Tickets are limited.

Playing September 3-13 at Theatre Works.

Click here to get your tickets!