Review: Zombatland

Zombatland

Arts House & The Suitcase Royale

14 March 2012

North Melbourne Town Hall

to 18 March

book

Aussie Aussie Aussie loves big things. From Kingston's Big Lobster to Goulburn's Big Merino, we flock to tacky ugly giant critters, but it's taken The Suitcase Royale to show us how much we need a giant zombie wombat to visit in the middle of nowhere.

Indie style meets 70s ozploitation at the Blue Lagoon caravan park. Brothers Mayor and Daryl Grogan are still running the holiday spot and programming its Danish film festival, but they're the only ones left alive after attacks by zombie wombats. When a Stranger arrives with his crumpet gun, it's time to take control and face their demons – and the zombie wombats.

Zombatland is the newest experience from Joseph O'Farrell, Miles O'Neil, Glen Walton and newest Royale Tom Salisbury, on lights. It's not possible to passively watch a Suitcase Royale show. They play live music, acknowledge each other and invite the audience share their wonderful game of pretend, which is so real that you'll never again look at a cuddly wombat without a slight shudder of fear.

Its out of town try-out was the Edinburgh Fringe and there are only a handful of performances in their hometown. This is cruel and unfair. The chaotic joy as they nipple-cripple the zeitgeist deserves to be shared with as many people as possible.

Hundreds of thousands will see the squizillion-dollar animatronic dragons in the sports arena, but only hundreds can share the unbridled awesomeness of father and son zombie wombats made from what looks like a fuzzy beanbag that survived too many teen parties and was dragged out on hard rubbish day by the family dog who refused to sleep on anything so hideous. 

And it possibly was. Cruising hard rubbish collections and haunting op shops, the Royale's aesthetic has developed from creating props, sets, costumes and instruments from found and recycled objects. This loving of the disguarded layers unknown and unspoken stories into their world and lets junk become art.

Zombatland is part of the wonderful Arts House program and is on at the North Melbourne Town Hall until Sunday. Its madness is magnificent and will leave you grinning all day and heading to a bakery for a bright yellow pineapple doughnut.

originally on AussieTheatre.com

A chat with the JofMilesGlen.

Chat: The Suitcase Royale

Zombatland
The Suitcase Royale
Arts House
14–18 March 2012

review

Zombie wombats attack a caravan park. What more do you need to know? Except that Zombatland is the new show by The Suitcase Royale. With wonderfully insane stories, live original music and sets made from found and ‘junkyard’ objects, they have created style so unique that it’s rare to see the Melbourne troupe perform in their home town as festivals all over the world demand their inventive gorgeousness.

AMP has a quick chat to Joseph Neil O’Farrell, Glen Lawerence Walton, Miles Henry O’Neil and new Royale Thomas Salisbury. Zombatland has a very short season at Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall, 14–18 March.

 If you’re not scared of zombie wombats, what are you scared of?
“An eight year old with a badge.”

If you lived in a caravan, where would your next stop be?
Heathcote Caravan Park. Best caravan park in Central Victoria. Ask for April, she’ll sort you out.

After so much touring, what’s it like to be home?
It’s great, we get to hang out with our legendary friends and get to enjoy our record collections. Touring is pretty much the best though.

What festival has been the most surprising?
We just played the Perth International Arts Festival. We always knew it was going to be great, but the crowd reaction and turn out just blew us away!

What was your first trash/found prop?
An old gramophone we found out the back of an Italian restaurant.

Where do you find the best junkyard props?
Hard rubbish collection month in Hawthorn.

Where is the best op shop in Melbourne?
Good question, but we will never tell.

What was your best op shop purchase?
On the same day we got a full penguin outfit and miniature motorbike for the penguin to ride on….awesometown!

What do you always buy new (not second hand or found)?
Sandals. Never buy second hand sandals, it’s not natural.

How did the three of you meet?
There is a fourth member now and we all met at Deakin University, or as we like to call it: The Dream Factory.

What was the first album (or possibly CD) that you bought with your own money?
It was a cassingle. “Three Little Pigs” by Green Jelly.

 What song are you embarrassed to know the words to?
“Drops of Jupiter” by TRAIN.

What song will you always dance to?
“Born to Run” by the boss

North or south of the river?
North side for life baby. (Or until the developers kick us out of Northcote.)

Beer or cider?
There is nothing like an ice-cold beer after running from Zombats all day.

Tell me a tour story that should really stay on tour.
There is a long one that took place in the Arizona desert. It involves a coyote cave, being bogged in a river bed, flash flooding and impending death. Lets just say US Border Patrol did get called and we are thankful to be alive. Don’t ever drive out into an unfamiliar desert without a map.

What’s next for The Suitcase Royale?
Very exciting things are in the works. But for now we are pumped to tour Zombatland around Australia for the rest of the year.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

The Ballad of Backbone Joe

ARTS HOUSE IN AUGUST
The Ballad of Backbone Joe
The Suitcase Royale
15 August 2006
North Melbourne Town Hall

As the season of The Ballad of Backbone Joe sold out, I’m thrilled to know that more and more of Melbourne are lining up for the fabulous madness and unexpected beauty of The Suitcase Royale.

With the beliefs of anarchists and the souls of poets, this Melbourne-based trio (Joseph O’Farrell, Miles O’Neil and Glen Walton) recycle junk, pop culture and their love of old film to tell stories like no one else could dream of.

Ballad is homage to film noir, but imagine the Marx Brothers staring instead of Humphrey Bogart. Detective Von Trapp from Sandringham is given a letter by woman with legs “just like cigarettes ... long, thin and white” and heads to a small town to deliver it to her husband, boxer Backbone Joe, who has no memory of the night he last saw his wife.

The gorgeous stage world is created from cardboard, ropes and venetian blinds from a hard rubbish collection, but looks like a forgotten black and white film that was delicately hand coloured frame by frame with shades of sepia and traces of red. A suitcase is transformed into the best car ever put on a stage, a cardboard skeleton almost steals the show and all is accompanied by live music – also played by the three performers.

Much of Suitcase’s appeal is that they love performing as much as we love watching them. They happily break out of character and improvise, without compromising the poignancy or tension of their story. It will be interesting to see if this can be maintained as they move into bigger theatres, are given their own telly show and become ridiculously famous.

The original music from The Ballad of Backbone Joe is on The Suitcase Royale’s debut CD, which is being launched on 10 September at the East Brunswick Club.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

The Suitcase Royale Space Show

Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2009
Space Show
The Suitcase Royale
4 April 2009
Melbourne Town Hall

Semiotics, Campbell and universal archetypes aside, The Suitcase Royale Space Show has the best fart joke of the festival.

Now the fart may represent the hero’s vulnerability and public downfall, but this late night must-see isn’t about serious ponderings – it’s about trying not to poo from laughing.

The Suitcase Royale (Jof, Miles and Glen) have been rummaging though Melbourne and international junkyards for theatre since 2004. With a fan base developing in Europe and the UK, locals can still see their ideas developing at Last Tuesday Society gatherings.

Anarchistic, absurd and a little bit naughty, they fill their suitcase with painted foam and fake wood panelling and blast their way through the final frontiers of art, as the universally manly space travellers Kevin Bacon, Kerry O’Brien and Chuck Norris.

Motivational space-guru Pizza Box Space Man reminds a disillusioned space rock god that, “To be bad you have to be sensationally good”. Working with found objects (arty talk for junk), the set and costume design makes a 1970s episode of Dr Who look like the new Battlestar Gallactica, and their script feels like a collage of grade seven space essays. The Suitcase Royale Space Show is atrocious – which must mean that it’s better than sensational.

One reviewer said that The Suitcase Royale could be the Aussie Mighty Boosh. Bugger that – these guys are better. See them before they are whisked away by the lure of television fame.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.