• 
• 
• 
• 

The Feast offers a smorgasbord for the mind and stomach. Renee Liang interviews co-creators Nikki Bennett, Antonia Stehlin and Ash Jones.

* * *

The Feast, on at The Basement for five nights only this week, is a theatrical smorgasbord: three emerging theatre companies (Le Petit Workshop, Refiner’s Fire and Nikki Bennett and Company) offer three different plays in one night, enticingly titled The Soldier’s Heart and The Feathered Girl, Halfatasi and The Clowns That Ran Away From the Circus. The shows are all the result of Red Leap’s Incubator workshop, a yearly opportunity for emerging and established theatre makers to collaboratively explore ideas and to make them theatrical reality.

Metaphorical dishes rich with puppetry, Pacific theatre and delightful clowning are promised. But on the Friday night the feast for the mind is complemented by a feast for the stomach as well.  Innovative dining company POPdining serves up a three course meal, one course after each show and tailored to the show it refers to.

Renee Liang interviews creators Nikki Bennett (NB), Antonia Stehlin (AS), and Ash Jones (AJ) about the show.

Why do you make theatre?  What are your backgrounds.... actor, writer, director...?

NB: There’s nothing better to see your characters come alive on stage.  I love the art of storytelling - whatever forms that inspire on the day. My background is working in devised theatre; creating things from scratch; I am an actor, improv performer and entertainer. I studied at the prestigious school of Ecole Philippe Gaulier and have travelled the world performing.

AS: Theatre is our God gifted voice and talent that give us the power to creatively speak our hearts. As a collective, we all have a heart for history and testimony and truly find value in sharing other people’s, if not our own, experiences for the benefit of the following generations. We make theatre because we love the vast possibility  of delving into the impossible, utilizing our strengths and collaborating with all that we have to offer to explore the creative vastness of our original voice.

AJ: My main background is as an actor. That’s where the majority of my creative outputs lie. It’s a hobby I've had since a kid and thanks to some great mentors and some good fortune and a lot of dogged determination, its become a career. Although an actor cannot really just be an actor in this day and age, an actor’s gotta be a writer and director too. Le Petit Workshop uses all three of these determinations to create our little stories. And why do I make theatre? Because I like it of course. Because there is nothing else like it. That sharing of a story that has been meticulously pre-prepared and then because it has been prepared without that integral 5th element in the rehearsal room (the audience) it can't help but change and twist as teller of tale and listener of story work together to create understanding. And that’s entertainment, baby.

What draws you to a story?

AJ: Something that intrigues me. I don't know really. My gut makes decisions in that regard. It isn't until after that my brain catches up.

AS: The storyline and its originality - especially one that has been very meticulously woven together, the journey of the protagonist, elements of surprise, great conflict/tension, relationships within the story and being able to identify with them, comedy/humour  - witty humour preferred, creativity with story telling, how they tell the story, good music (singing included), elements of dance and movement - but it's all about the storyline and how well they show the story in the end. :)

NB: I like images, watching people and listening to people tell their stories. I like stories that connect, and if I start to dream around this, find something beautiful.

How was your experience at Incubator? Was there anything you didn't expect?

NB: Totally buzzy! The more I played with my idea and with the injection of the groups’ energy I got really excited with where I could go with such a simple idea. 

AS: Incubator was the best workshop I have been a part of. I didn't expect the opportunity to devise other people's ideas. That was really awesome. They were an awesome lot too. Everyone was so giving and sharing and I didn't expect to have my idea chosen in the end.

AJ: Incubator was wonderful. All of the artists were there to collaborate and had that real collaborative spirit. And that was culminated through the passions of our overseers Julie Nolan and Ben Crowder.

How did Incubator help your work to grow?

NB: It made me believe in myself and my stories in my head. Not only did it help me as a creator but as an actor and helped bring back the fight of wanting to do this.

AS: I went in with a poem and with the help of others, came up with possibilities of what could be in the show if I were to develop the idea, what I could explore, how to explore them, and to think outside the box.

AJ: It aided us in the loosening up of our devising process. Giving us a language we could use for future devising. And it showed us ways to speed up our processes, to get out of our heads and just do!

What happened after Incubator?

AS: I was then invited back to the second phase of incubator where we had two weeks to develop the original idea alongside three other works. It was then that we came up with a 15min physical theatre piece open to an audience for feedback and discussion. Their written feedback was collected on paper, and given to the individual groups to help further develop their pieces.

NB: I pushed hard and really thought about my ideas. I wanted them to jump off the page and onto stage.  I may not be “savvy”, but I know what I like. So I took a deep breath and applied for Short Works.

AJ: After Incubator we were asked to take part in Red Leap's Short Works Programme. After our acceptance was a flurry of devising and creating on our end. Because some of our team couldn't make the dates and we'd have to employ artists to create with those of our team that could attend, we wanted to make sure we had heaps of things to play with. Making that time as productive for the piece as possible.

What was the idea behind Short Works?

NB: Short Works was a great intensive two weeks that brought my ideas alive. With a fantastic showcase and forum it gave me the confidence to go on and show the work to the general public.

AJ: Short Works is a chance for practitioners to further ideas discovered during Incubator. We were given a budget for materials etc, a space with which to work and two weeks with Ben and Julie to work towards two showings to public and theatre professionals.

How did you hatch the idea of The Feast?

AJ: It actually came from the wonderfully lucid brain of Antonia Stehlin. We were having a meeting of everyone, coming up with ways we could make this season as innovative as possible. It began as making the entire evening a Samoan feast and each show a meal. We just went from there. Was certainly helped by Charlie and Sam at The Basement. When we told them the idea they got really excited. When that happened we knew we were onto a winner.

AS: I was actually sitting in church when the idea came to me. I go to a traditional Samoan church and banquets are always a big thing for us. With the thought of our three shows in mind, and them all being so different, food was probably the best way to go about combining the three without having to play around with the essence of each show to try to make sense of the night. With food you can have anything and with the way we run our banquets, I could envisage it being a great way to mould the three shows neatly into a one night performance. I brought the idea to the table, we all agreed we liked the sound of feast and bam! The Feast.
 
NB: It was the concept of Samoan culture - giving food back, saying thanks and sharing with others. In theatrical terms, it’s very much the similar theme.

Tell me about the food!

AJ: Keeping with the idea of The Feast we have continued to be influenced by the traditional practices of a Samoan banquet. We will welcome the audience into our space, and share with them three metaphorical 'meals' - the three shows. After each show we will give out an edible treat that will match the flavours and themes of the show just been.

There is a really exciting collaboration between The Basement and POPdining, a pop-up restaurant, for one exclusive night of The Feast. The chefs of POPdining will work with us to design a three course menu, one meal per show. Again, each meal will reflect the show you've just seen. It's going to be pretty yum and a great night out.

AS: Where can you go wrong with food? For the POPdining night every show has a set meal that is based on the contents of each show. Exciting! And it's just going to be delicious! I can't wait to try them myself!

What have been some of the challenges with making these new works?

NB: Finding people that work strongly in this field of performance… and on a frayed shoe-string budget!  Keeping your energy up and repeatedly telling yourself, “it’s all going to work out in the end. You can do this.”

AS: How to show what I want to say, without being too literal. Running into walls time and time again with trying to honour my culture in terms of my work - pushing boundaries with things I know I shouldn't do but at the same time not crossing the line and going too far. So I guess in essence it's knowing where to draw the line. That's probably been the biggest challenge for me.

AJ: The same challenges with making any new work I imagine. Different minds coming together to create a vision in unison. Also, simply the logistics of forming a unified front for the season from 3 theatre companies! That’s a lot of people to organise!

The works seem really quite different...how will the different 'tastes' combine for the audience do you think?

NB: I’m sure there will be some audience members that will be engrossed in the three performances and others will have their favourites.  You can't please everyone, but there is something for everyone in these three performances.

AJ: I think it’s going to be wonderful. The pieces are so different. I mean, they are all very physical, so that’s a unifying element, but they all have such different flavours! There will certainly be something for everyone. I’ll be curious to see how polarising the three works will be!

What are you all working on next?

AJ: Well we love making this style of theatre and we feel we have a lot of stories to tell so, if we continue to get positive feedback were going to continue to put out quality stuff! Bigger and better every time! In the future, we'd love to work with musicians and other creatives and there has been talk to make this a summer, outdoors, family friendly, kind of affair. Something for Silo Park or the Domain.

NB: I’m currently working on programmes with the Healing Through Arts Trust; a wonderful organisation that creates theatre and workshops. The company is very rewarding and I enjoy working on the different projects that we create.

AS: We have two scripts (separate from this one) that we are working on at the moment - still in the paper work process but we hope to get on its feet in terms of workshopping in the upcoming year. We also will be devising a children's show for the end of the year as well, all of which are based on testimony and history. Alongside which all of us will be working on other projects with different companies and shows. However, it's only upwards and onwards from here. :D