I had such a unique, almost surreal experience entering the loading dock theatre at Qtopia this last week. I was watching the theatre’s debut show, it’s very first public performance. Ever. It’s very easy to prepare yourself for something both fresh and exciting when the sawdust has only just settled on a freshly carved stage, still smelling like woodwork and paint, and Michelle Carey absolutely lived up to the expectations set by this brand new theatre. Toy Symphony is a complex, wonderfully absurd, and incredibly moving examination of the creative process, its virtues, and its pitfalls. A show with so much to say about the act of artistic creation - in the world of theatre, no less - was without a doubt the best way to kick off the Loading Dock’s smash hit season. Carey takes Michael Gow’s first full length show and sets it onto the stage with vitality and dynamism, carried by some amazing performers.

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Image by Bojan Bozic

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Gregory Wilken is the show’s smarmy, cynical lead, infusing the role of Roland Henning with a humanity that shines in every scene he’s in - and Wilken deserves an especially big props for swapping from a grizzled, drug addicted playwright to a bright eyed, socially awkward 11 year old with fluidity and grace. In these fluctuations between Roland Hemming’s past and present, we learn about the playwright’s potently australian childhood in the sixties, his unique gift to conjure up brief flashes of any person, living or dead, he puts his mind to, and the events, harrowing as they were, that set him on his path to illustrious success as a writer.

 

In many ways, this play is Australian absurdism at its finest, a boy with an inexplicable gift, a world trying to reckon with it, and with all this strangeness and surrealness at play, Carey still hones in on the classic, kitschy every day stuff that make up the day to day as an Australian kid. Mostly, this is shown through the incredibly emotive performance of Bernadette Pryde, who plays Hemming’s fifth grade home room teacher, Mrs Walkham. Pryde does a fantastic job making Mrs. Walkham as loveable as possible while imbuing her with a palpable nostalgia (even as someone whose parents weren’t even alive in ‘66, Pryde asking an audience member to have picked up five pieces of rubbish by the end of recess unlocked some forgotten trove of childhood memories in me). Mrs. Walkham’s lesson on the history of Como does overstay its welcome a touch, losing that same sort of driving pace the show has up until this point, but the other actors on stage - all adults portraying primary school kids in slack jawed awe at their town’s origins, lends a decent helping of comedy into the scene to help it go down smoothly.

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Images by Bojan Bozic

 

The other actors, most of whom fill a myriad of roles that all represent these fleeting moments on the peripheries of Henning’s life, were all sublime in whatever person they were currently portraying. Wendi Lanham is exceptional as Nina, a therapist colliding against Henning’s mistrust of the psychiatric profession, and while part of me wishes there was more of a concrete resolution to the work she and Henning were doing, I think it says a lot of Lanham’s power on stage that I felt the same desperation she did as she was trying to reach a breakthrough with the troubled Henning.

 

John Michael Narres, who was jaw-dropping in Alex Tutton’s “Come Again” as a constable, once again shows he’s a pioneer in playing utterly discomforting, shiver-down-your-spine characters. His role as the headmaster, a brutal foil to the imaginative and playful 11 year old Henning, show Narres knack for getting under the audience’s skin.

 

Similarly, Sam Webb does a fantastic job as reductive 60’s psychiatrists, or blustering, unpleasant bullies, or oddly enough a drug dealer with some insane delusions of grandeur regarding the place of his profession is in society. Webb and Wilken have this unique chemistry that makes every conflict between them filled with tension and emotion, even with Webb’s range spread across multiple characters, and Wilken’s across multiple ages.

 

Chantal Elyse and Adam Dakin fill in the gaps of the show, a pair of essential actors that bring life to Australia in the 60’s or the present as whatever role currently needs filling. These actors’ performance as the childhood friends of Henning in particular show how they’re quickly able to form an emotional bond with the audience with only a handful of scenes. Felix Jarvis similarly shows amazing range in his ability to play at one moment a sleazy lawyer, meant purely for laughs, and in the next a character essential to Henning’s emotional and personal arc.

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Images by Bojan Bozic

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Carey has done more than simply reflect Michael Gow’s work onto a fresh, inviting new stage. She’s given these actors an opportunity to become part of this living, breathing narrative unlike any other, and not a single player has wasted this opportunity. There might be some pacing issues in the show’s middle, and a few plot points I would have loved to see expanded upon, but all these issues are indicative of the enthralling, utterly addictive performance of Wilken, Lanham, and the other actors that left me wanting more. Use this show as a chance to explore the fantastic Qtopia queer theatre in Sydney and get tickets today, you might never be able to see a work of Australian absurdism this fresh for a while.

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Toy Symphony runs The Loading Dock Theatre - Qtopia, Sydney until 27th April 2024.

Get tickets here.