Publicity Pics > Democracy

Please find below our publicity pics for Democracy available for publication.

Click on the image to access the high resolution picture.

Credit: Fred Kroh

World Premiere > Democracy

World Premiere > Hybrid Theatre: Data Jamming
Presented in partnership with Feedback Loop

Democracy
by Feedback Loop

Information is power.

As the distribution of information, freedom of communication and the accessibility of technology expands into the hands of ordinary citizens around the globe, Democracy explores and demonstrates the consequences of this rapid manifestation of information technology.

Politics, economics, communication and culture are examined within this genre expanding sound and motion production.

Feedback Loop takes control of real-time information, open-source software, raw data and consumer technologies to explore the changing forms of democracy.

One moment the audience is privy to the whims of the stock market expressed through reactive architectural lighting – the next, they will sink lucidly into a sea of deep affected electronica.

By exposing the powerful reality of people's ability to access, utilize and distribute, Democracy invites the audience into the reality of our future – today.

Feedback Loop are pioneers in this relatively new hybrid theatre genre called data jamming, which involves data sampling and re-contextualising information from "the cloud" and filtering it through into the lens of technology.

Creative:
Creation & Design – Tim Bright and Nick Darling

Preview: Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Season: 12 – 23 May 2010
8.30pm Wednesday – Saturday
3.00pm Sunday

Venue:
MIPAC, Brunswick – corner Sydney & Glenlyon Roads

Tickets:
$20 General Admission
$15 Preview

Bookings:
03 9016 3873
hoypolloy@bigpond.com

Announcement > Season 2010

Welcome to our Season 2010. We have worked diligently to put together a diverse and different program that is sure to entertain, challenge and raise discussion amongst our audiences.

First up we’re very excited to present the world premiere of Democracy in partnership with Melbourne based sound and motion outfit – Feedback Loop. Feedback Loop principals Tim Bright and Nick Darling have put together what we consider a thrilling way forward in performance in the new hybrid theatre genre called "data jamming".

In August, Matt Scholten will direct American playwright Christopher Shinn’s provocative and moving Dying City. This is Matt’s first production with Hoy Polloy – he comes to us with an excellent reputation directing an extensive body of work around Melbourne.

As part of the Berlin Dayz festival presented by the Goethe-Institut Australia in November, I will direct the Australian premiere of Electronic City by Falk Richter translated by Daniel Brunet. This is a fantastic piece that hurtles at the speed of sound – hang onto your hats!

To all of our supporters – thank you for sticking with us. 2010 promises to be a ride you won’t forget.

Wayne Pearn
Hoy Polloy Artistic Director

Hybrid Theatre: Data Jamming – world premiere
Presented in partnership with Feedback Loop
Democracy
by Feedback Loop

Information is power.

As the distribution of information, freedom of communication and the accessibility of technology expands into the hands of ordinary citizens around the globe, Democracy explores and demonstrates the consequences of this rapid manifestation of information technology.

Politics, economics, communication and culture are examined within this genre expanding sound and motion production.

Feedback Loop takes control of real-time information, open-source software, raw data and consumer technologies to explore the changing forms of democracy.

One moment the audience is privy to the whims of the stock market expressed through reactive architectural lighting – the next, they will sink lucidly into a sea of deep affected electronica.

By exposing the powerful reality of peoples ability to access, utilize and distribute, Democracy invites the audience into the reality of our future – today.

Feedback Loop are pioneers in this relatively new hybrid theatre genre called data jamming, which involves data sampling and re-contextualising information from "the cloud" and filtering it through into the lens of technology.

Creative:
Creation & Design – Tim Bright and Nick Darling

Preview: Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Season: 12 – 23 May 2010
8.30pm Wednesday – Saturday
3.00pm Sunday

Venue:
MIPAC, Brunswick – corner Sydney & Glenlyon Roads

Tickets:
$20 General Admission
$15 Preview

Bookings:
03 9016 3873
hoypolloy@bigpond.com

Theatre – Victorian premiere
Dying City
written by Christopher Shinn

Set in the aftermath of 9/11 New York City, Dying City follows a therapist who is confronted by her husband's identical twin, who suspects that his brother's death in Iraq was not an accident.

Dying City is a quiet, unsettling play about grief, identity and violence in the human psyche – the lies, betrayal and self-deceptions and the centrality of hate in human existence.

Everyday, directly and indirectly, we all perpetrate or allow violence to occur in some form.

Some of us are troubled by this, some of us driven by it and most of us don't really talk about it.

Christopher Shinn writes about the violence we can see and an even darker violence located within.

“Anyone who doubts that Mr. Shinn is among the most provocative and probing of American playwrights today need only experience the ... sophisticated welding of form and content that is Dying City.”
The New York Times

"Shinn is able to take the political and humanize it – transforming the stuff of daily news stories into a devastating statement on the unforeseen and often hidden consequences of war."
AP News

Creative:
Director – Matt Scholten
Set & Costume Designer – Kat Chan
Composer – Ben Keene

Preview: Thursday, 5 August 2010
Season: 6 – 21 August 2010
8.15pm Tuesday – Saturday
5.00pm Sunday

Venue:
MIPAC, Brunswick – corner Sydney & Glenlyon Roads

Tickets:
$30 Adult
$20 Concession / Groups 10+
$18 Tuesdays
$15 Preview

Bookings:
03 9016 3873
hoypolloy@bigpond.com

Theatre – Australian premiere
Presented as part of Berlin Dayz by the Goethe-Institut Australia
Electronic City
written by Falk Richter
translated by Daniel Brunet

Globalisation, communication, digitalisation, standardisation, disorientation ... disintegration.

Electronic City is a burgeoning, all encompassing, uber techno metropolis where flexibility and resilience is paramount for success and survival.

BER: Berlin, MEL: Melbourne, TPE: Taipei, JFK: New York, FCO: Rome, MAD: Madrid – Tom hasn’t any idea what city he is in ... he’s moving so fast he’s going nowhere.

Tom's great love, Joy, is working the check out at the ‘ready to eat’ store in an airport – she dreams of George Clooney and longs for Tom ... her life is being filmed in a reality documentary soap.

Joy's infrared scanner has broken down as the queue of impatient corporates grows larger ... the system has crumpled.

The global conveyor belt has ceased – this is Electronic City.

“A fairy tale for media times”
Fischerverlage – Theater & Medien

“... a panic-stricken farce from the inner mental world of contemporary busyness ...”
Theaterheute

Creative:
Director – Wayne Pearn
Set & Costume Designer – Kat Chan
Lighting Designer – Ben Morris
Sound & Motion Designer – Feedback Loop

Preview: Thursday, 11 November 2010
Season: 12 – 27 November 2010
8.15pm Tuesday – Saturday
5.00pm Sunday

Venue:
MIPAC, Brunswick – corner Sydney & Glenlyon Roads

Tickets:
$30 Adult
$20 Concession / Groups 10+
$18 Tuesdays
$15 Preview

Bookings:
03 9016 3873
hoypolloy@bigpond.com

Subscriptions > Season 2010

Two or three play subscriptions are available for Hoy Polloy's Season 2010.

For more details regarding subscriptions, please contact:
03 9016 3873
hoypolloy@bigpond.com

It is coming – our Season 2010 announcement

... we're close to finalising the season for this year – and we are considering a new interesting initiative. Please stay tuned!

Theatre Notes > Top Shows 2009

Hoy Polloy made it on Alison Croggon's Top Shows 2009 on Theatre Notes.

Update > 11 Paterson Street

Due to circumstances beyond Hoy Polloy's control, we regret to announce that 11 Paterson Street by Bryan Davidson Blue has been cancelled.

Unfortunately, due to the late nature of this cancellation we have not had sufficient time to find a suitable replacement and, therefore, Hoy Polloy is unable to present a fourth play as part of Season 2009.

3CR Review > The Cat's Paw

Reviewed by Frances Devlin-Glass on Sunday, 27.09.09 for 3CR’s “Curtain Up” Sundays at 1.00pm on 855AM.

Hoy Polloy seems to exist to challenge its audiences. The Cat’s Paw is no exception. A docudrama by new and local playwright, Christine Croyden,it is in your face in terms of its subject matter. Prostitution, pimping, suicide and drugs in the dark lanes of St. Kilda. It’s a strangely hybrid play, with heavily realistic elements in a dirty realist style, but also a layer of non-naturalism.

The non-naturalism takes the form of a highly interpretable tatterdemalion angel, with a glorious Irish accent (listeners, I feel sure will allow me to indulge my enthusiasms in this small matter), who also acts as narrator at times. Stephanie Lillis spews out all sorts of religious sentimentalism, piety and idealism, which I take is intended ironically, but she cannot at all deal with the scene of horror and self-loathing that the dead streetgirl represents. The prostitutes are a powerful assemblage of drug takers, self-mutilators, suicides, sometimes naïve and sometimes exceptionally hardened women. But they all have their backgrounds and stories, and these are painful - the runaways, the cast out, the adventure-seekers who don’t fit in, those curious about their sexual power, and we feel for them. One of the mysteries and marvels of this script is that it does not compromise on reality but that does not stop it from being compassionate. One had the sense we were being given a tour of hell, by a very sympathetic guide who understood its pathologies well.

There were four main prostitutes: Brigid, Zoe Ellerton-Ashley, the main focus, played her role as seductress very compellingly – she was credibly the warm, approachable whore with a heart of gold, but equally, a hard-bitten woman who knew how to allay male anxieties and was performing in a mask for her client, a man who had been dumped by his girlfriend. Her vulnerabilities and her danger to the man were also not skimped on – her skills with a scalpel applied first to herself, and later to the client were horrifying. Her timing and poise were exceptional and at every point and in every mode, she was utterly credible. One really felt for the kid who was different and alienated. Indeed, the keyword in the play was, I think, disconnect. None of these women were able to enter into relationships, but they were often good at faking it.

Her pimp, Esther played by Kylie Bell, was a wonderful foil. A woman who masqueraded as a private investigator in order to promote the business, and acquire more clients, she did a fine line in hard-boiled ex-cop, a line of patter with words falling out the side of her mouth, to suit the role. Unlike her dependents, she dressed in short trenchcoat and adopted the body-language of the self-enclosed. Her demise was a surprise, but justified by the action of the play.

Daniel Rice as the client was open-faced and naïve about the prostitution racket and an easy prey for the pimp and Brigid, and even he was a sympathetic character. His search for comfort and his intention to make things better for the woman he was also prepared to pay for was again credible and heart-warming. He had a stunning repertoire of non-verbal responses to his situation, and also half-uttered responses. A strong and understated role.

The two support roles were also well contrasted with the ones I’ve mentioned. One of these roles played by Emma Lhyne, involved a very young child, her inexperience tagged by her bobby-sox. She had slipped into the drug scene and was doomed not to survive. Her arrival in heaven and confrontation with the somewhat mad angel was a fine climactic moment of disconnect between these two characters. Her older mentor, Cecilia Condon, was dressed brassily and spoke knowingly of the dangers of the scene, which were well exemplified in the earliest scenes of the play, but she too proved to be highly vulnerable despite the veneer of carelessness.

The set was grungy St. Kilda, complete with neon-lit devil’s head and raunchy woman, with curtains of white plastic which I think were meant to represent a degraded version of the billowy opulence of bordello interiors. I speak here with a very little knowledge, having recently seen an early morning scrub-out of such a place in Townsville’s dank redlight district, with white silky curtains billowing in the wind after a hose-out. The set was not at all elegant, however, and the playing spaces resembled caves and dugouts, chambers of hell.

An intriguing script, and a compelling and evenly cast performance. My only criticism is that it was sometimes hard to hear the actors, and they could have taken it at a slower pace. A very brave undertaking by Hoy Polloy, and one that is not for the faint-hearted. However, those called by curiosity about the St. Kilda scene and those who want a think-piece, this is a highly engaged and engaging theatre-piece.