the KNIFE, the FORK and the STRANGER

‘The KNIFE, the FORK and the STRANGER’ is an ambitious play with no script. It is an improvised piece under the supervision of actor and improviser Will O’Mahony being presented by Curtin’s Performance Studies and the Hayman Theatre.

The one-hour improvisation shows are enacted in the Hayman Theatre upstairs, Curtin University building 102, Kent Street in Bentley nightly at 7.00 pm until Saturday 10^th August.

The seven brave actors – selected from a team of ten - have volunteered to develop a show each night, as they go along! This means that the audience discover the character’s personality and traits only seconds after the actor has created them.

 

The stage is black and situated in the centre is a pile of old milk crates. Stage left were the musicians, Tristen Parr on electric cello and Savannah Wood on keyboard, providing the background music and sound effects.

The director introduces himself and then asks the audience to answer three or four questions, the answers to these become the backbone of the evening’s script.

The team of actors were :-

Catherine Bonney, Michael Collins, Georgina Cramond, Erin Craddock, Madeleine Currie, Holly Dodd, Melissa Dusting, Sarah Healy, Emily Kingsley, Daniel O’Brien and Mary Soudi.

 

The director, Will O’Mahony (assistant director Dylan Searle, with dramaturg by Danen Engelenberg) sits at the side of the stage and shouts out situations. A couple of actors will get up and enact the part. Some of the actors have names and their situation will become the skeleton on which the play is built. The poor lighting operator (Jack Middleton) of course had to create the atmosphere as he went along.

The standard of the improvisation was remarkable. Considering the obscure topics that the team had to work with, the fun, drama and actions that resulted were most impressive. A few props or costumes items could have been beneficial, but the pace may have been interrupted.

With tickets at $15 it is a fun cheap night out. Every night will be different, but the evening that I was there, the humour - at times it was hilarious – was little blue and so the show was probably classed as 15+.