“In the slums, workhouses and sewers, terrified Cockneys huddle against the chilled winds of pure evil as the blood begins to run in rivers and the gates of Hell slowly creak open.”
After several runs of ‘The Terrible Account Of The St Fiacrius Orphans’, The Laudanum Project are back with an even darker show ‘The Penny-Toy Man’. On the eve of the premiere, Nick Ravenswood answered a few questions about the twisted trio.
Could you give a brief account of how The Laudanum Project came into existence.
The Laudanum Project came into being about two years ago when myself, Tas Dimitrikakis and Michael Colcheedas got together and wrote ‘The Terrible Account Of The St Fiacrius Orphans’. Tas and I have been Theatre Mechanists for a good fifteen years and have collectively seen and heard a lot of AWFUL musical theatre. As opposed to good? Not sure. Michael has been playing in local bands for many, many years. It was in one of these bands where we first met.
It was only a matter of time that all of that hokey singing and overblown acting was regurgitated in one nasty steaming lump. Hence ‘Orphans’
As this show features the same characters as ‘The Terrible Account Of The St Fiacrius Orphans’, is this show a sequel or a self contained story?
Penny-Toy Man is a self contained story. The Laudanum Project are always Alphonse, Dr. Dorian & Heapus but on this occasion it will only be Alphonse & Heapus due to the fact that Dr. Dorian is in northern Greece collecting medical artifacts. He will return soon.
Will an encore of “The Penny-Toy Man” occur in the future (ie. at Melbourne Fringe or elsewhere)?
At the moment there are no more plans for the show beyond the 6th & 7th but we shall see…
What has drawn you to the theatre / comedy of the macabre?
We are HUGE horror fans and love being scared and repulsed but more importantly we understand the absurdity of the genre. Whether it’s Nosferatu or Martyrs the physical and emotional discomfort one can go through while watching one of these films makes us fall about. With horror you really can’t lose. If the movie is cheap and crap it’s funny. If it scares seven shades of shit out of you, you end up laughing in disbelief, and if it’s genuinely disturbing you get to laugh at the guy next to you. We try and get all of that into our shows.
How have audiences responded to your previous shows? Have there been any extreme reactions?
When we first did ‘Orphans’ at the Butterfly Club one woman told us she felt physically ill. That was great. Then we did the MICF at Dante’s. On seperate nights one woman nearly had a panic attack and another walked out because she was too freaked. She actually sat outside for 50 minutes and waited for her friends to come out at the end. On another occasion at The Butterfly Club we finished the whole show and were greeted with a total and utter wall of stony silence. Brilliant. We laughed for hours over that one.
Do you have any influences that may not be apparent in your performances?
I am a HUGE avant garde jazz and noise fan. Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Xenakis, stuff like that. Tas loves Almodovar films and does LOTS of tai chi and Michael is a total techno junkie. Now that I’ve said all that, a show about a Spanish transvestite prostitute who gets stalked and murdered by a martial arts cyborg sounds excellent. The zombi of John Coltrane could score it. I’ll get to work.
Your only chance to see ‘The Penny-Toy Man’ the foreseeable future will be at The Butterfly Club (204 Bank St, South Melbourne) on the 6th and 7th of July. The show starts at 8pm, tickets are $22 ($17 concession) and can be booked through the Butterfly Club website
Visit The Laudanum Project website , follow them on Twitter, and befriend them on MySpace or Facebook for further information and additional ghoulish tidbits.
Many thanks to Nick Ravenswood for his time.