A performance created and performed by artists and ex-offenders.
“An astonishing collaborative work that leaps into the deeper reality of justice.. like many of those in the room I could have stayed in this realm for many more hours. It will stay with me for much longer. “
The Chat is a unique collaboration between J R Brennan and renowned writer-performer David Woods of award winning cult comic duo Ridiculusmus (UK). Ignited by Brennan’s experience working as a parole officer in Sydney’s Long Bay Gaol, the work emerged from a series of performance workshops that Brennan ran with performance maker and choreographer Ashley Dyer for ex-offenders in the Melbourne area. Created in collaboration with participants from these workshops and leading criminologists, it is a work that fundamentally challenges our notions of criminal identity, and asks the audience to play judge.
The theatre becomes the tense, liminal space where an offender stands on the brink of freedom. In the tough, frightening beauty of the heavily surveilled interview room, ex-offenders co-create a live performance score that is littered with improvisatory mind bombs and reels kaleidoscopically around the threshold of entrapment and freedom.
“I was laughing, aching and close to tears … The Chat skilfully captures the impossibly fine line parole officers must tread…“
“This is an important piece of theatre; it is brave, it is unfair, it is harrowing.”
Winner: Green Room Awards 2016
Best Male Performer (David Woods), Contemporary and Experimental Performance
Nominated: Green Room Awards 2016
Best Production, Contemporary and Experimental Performance
J R Brennan – conceived by / performer /sound & set design / lead artist
David Woods – co-creator / performer / script wrangler
Ashley Dyer – workshop facilitator / performer / collaborator
Alex Davies – systems designer / control box engineer
Nick Maltzahn – performer
John Tjepkema – performer
Arthur Bolkas – performer
Tye Luke – performer
Nick Apostilidis – performer
2016 marked the beginning of a new partnership with Dr Anna Errikson and Monash University’s Criminology department to explore the possibility of the artistic work feeding into new research around the working alliance between performance, corrections and offenders.