Festival Of The Dead, two shows over two nights, builds up to something along the lines of reality TV meets The Walking Dead. What gaveRedmondthe idea for the weekend? “It’s a bit long-winded to explain,” says Redmond, who is the Festival Of The Dead’s Creator and Director, as well as one of it’s performers. “The idea comes from theUniversityofMichigan’s Lifeboat Debate, where different faculties – maths, philosophy, science – make their case about why they should be kept alive in an imaginary lifeboat, rather than thrown overboard, and the audience decides which one survives.”
The Festival of the Dead offers three separate performances, all improvised, where at any given time five actors are in the room for an hour. In the last segment, Zombie Rockalypse, also a musical, only one performer is going to make it to the end of the show. The audience votes on who lives, and who dies (to be reborn as a zombie, naturally). “Audiences are very good at punishing bad impro,” continues Redmond. “It comes down to who’s the most convincing, who’s holding their ground on the night.” Anything could happen, including big scares: Redmondis hell-bent on frightening the bejesus out of audiences. “We know we can make them laugh,” says Redmond. “They know they’ll get the comedy, the drama, the silliness, so we’re really having a crack at scaring them.” What will be so scary? “My face!” he answers. “And the rest is to be determined.”
The Festival of the Dead is described as “a journey into the heart of darkness, exploring stories of terror, intrigue and suspense”. The night’s offering consists of Shadowlands, the Fifth Dimension and Zombie Rockalypse. “In Shadowlands the scenes are in the dark, with small focused pieces of lighting. We’re trying to recreate the effect of a graphic novel,” Redmond explains. Inspiration for the stories comes from classic horror tales such as Tales From The Crypt, The Twilight Zone, The Walking Dead, and masters of the macabre like Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King, and John Carpenter. “The 5th Dimension is a 20 minute improvised episode of The Twilight Zone, a little bit comedy, a little bit serious,” the Director continues. “The Zombie Rockalypse is the final show of the night – a big full-on experience with big songs, lots of bodies on stage, where things could turn like a flock of sparrows.”
How do the Impro Melbourne performers prepare for something like this? “We practise in beats,”Redmond explains. (A beat is like a miniature scene within a scene.) “It’s like performing a five minute chapter. You highlight what’s already there. The challenge is to be enough prepared to hit the stage running with what’s already there.” Experience gives performers an instinctive sense of timing and knowledge of when to shift. Being present is all. “You feel it, when to move the story on. You’re inside the story and often you don’t realise, you don’t feel stress or the impulse to move the story on; it just happens.”Redmond says comedy is inherent in impro. “The comedy is inbuilt. You can’t help it. Laughter is a response to many emotions. It’s happening in the moment.” Why aren’t more women performing impro? “In my opinion,”Redmond answers, “it’s because at the bar end, there’s a more comedic energy, interruption, an energy of masculine hostility, and not many women enjoy that sort of thing. But some of the best improv peformers I’ve worked with are women – Patti Stiles and Rama Nicholas, for example. They have key skills, like listening and moving at the same time.”
The musical element of the show is also improvised with musician Gordan Dorin on keyboards. How does that work? “It sounds like it wouldn’t work,” answers Redmond. “But the musician is tuning into the work. He can lead, the musician can lead the actor, the actor can lead the musician and when it’s at its best you can’t tell who’s leading who.”Redmondsaid he hooked into performing improv straight away. “I hit a technical wall after about two years. But push through that and improv is the greatest fun there is. We’re playing cops and robbers, playing dress-ups. It’s addictive,” he says again.
Good news folks: you can learn to perform improv yourself with Impro Melbourne. See you there.
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
