MISTERMAN (2016)

Directed by Kate Gaul, performed by Tom Campbell.

1 – 4 June 2016
Theatre Royal Backspace

A Siren Theatre Company production.
Co-presented in Hobart by Siren Theatre Company and Blue Cow Theatre.

WHAT PEOPLE SAID ABOUT “MISTERMAN”

“Sydney’s small independent Siren Theatre have remounted their acclaimed production of Irish playwright Edna Walsh’s ferocious, darkly humorous theatre of alienation set quite literally to the soundtrack of a fictional village life. It is a rich, often confounding experience generated by a performance of staggering conviction via solo performer, Thomas Campbell as Walsh’s extraordinary creation – Thomas Macgill.

“A rough curtain, numerous reel to reel recorders (a nod surely to Samuel Beckett’s, Krapp’s Last Tape) and a mass of Fanta cans create much of the material world of Campbell’s Magill. It is a most singular world for a most singular individual, a man both damaged and damaging. Profoundly observant of the good folk of Inishfree and just as deeply shunned, Magill is capable of describing great beauty and reacting with such violence.    

“Kate Gaul’s assured direction is brilliantly unsentimental, pushing and pulling the audience from the darkly humorous to the genuinely chilling.  But it is Campbell’s performance that must deliver and it surely does. This is a performance of exceptional technique with Campbell’s superb vocal skills and muscular physicality capturing both the spiritual highs and the base instincts of the tormented Magill.

“Hartley Kemp’s lighting is one of the best designs I’ve seen in the Backspace bringing a painterly tone of muted colour to the stark staging. Nate Edmondson’s soundscape brilliantly scores the intense drama of the evening.

This is a challenging and exquisitely realised piece of theatre, not to be missed.”- The Mercury