In a post-apocalyptic future of storms, disease and disaster, a scientist named Mary is split between two worlds. During waking hours she works to rescue a species of birds from extinction, while at night she dreams of flying. Such is the strange premise of Falling Through Clouds, one of several independent theatre productions on the program at this year’s Sydney Festival.
“It’s always exciting to come to the Sydney Festival,” says the show’s co-creator, Arielle Gray. “It’s such an honour to be one of the Australian companies performing, and Sydney audiences are great.”
A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Gray is part of the Perth-based theatre collective The Last Great Hunt, whose members previously collaborated on Sydney Festival shows including It’s Dark Outside and The Adventures Of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer.
Speaking to the BRAG ahead of the group’s latest Sydney debut, Gray explains that the seeds of the project – which combines live performance with puppetry, animation, music and video – came from two very different sources. The first, strangely enough, was the nocturnal activity of her partner and fellow Great Hunter, Tim Watts.
“Tim sleepwalks,” says Gray, “and there was a certain point, around the time we were working on the show, that it got really bad. We were sleeping in a loft bed, and he had a dream where a truck was coming at him, and he leapt off the side of the bed. So we became quite fascinated with the idea that your dreams, and your imagination, could affect the world around you physically, without your knowledge.
“At the same time,” Gray continues, “we heard this podcast on This American Life called ‘Raising Cranes’, about a program in America where a group of scientists were trying to save this crane species. There were only seven left, so they devised this very interesting program where from the moment the little baby cranes were born, they completely raised the birds without the parents … [The scientists] would dress up in these ridiculous outfits, and cover their faces, and use these puppets to teach the baby birds how to eat, and eventually how to fly.”
Although the ridiculous costumes didn’t make it into the final production, Gray assures us that there will be plenty of puppets. “We work very visually,” she says. “All of our birds in the show are different paper puppets. In some ways you attach to them more than you attach to humans, because they are so pure and imaginative – you’re just watching a pile of scrunched up paper, but you place such emotion on that paper. There’s something really wonderful about that.”
Gray also credits a big part of the show’s success to music composer Ash Gibson Greig. “Ash is an absolute genius,” she says. “We’ve got a couple of pop songs in there, but other than that it’s all original music. We make huge demands of him … He’s given it a sense of wonder and emotion, and it really lifts the show.”
Asked if she ever feels overworked, Gray’s response is simple. “The thing is, when you’re doing something that you love, it isn’t really working. If I have a week off I enjoy it, but if it goes on for longer I start to get a bit itchy. The company is also doing five shows at the Fringe World Festival in Perth, which is happening in February, so we are keeping super-busy, and that’s really exciting. It’s always nice to have something else on the go, ready to dive in to.”
Catch Falling Through Clouds as part of Sydney Festival 2015 at Seymour Centre from Friday January 16 – Sunday January 18.
