Part of the Mere Mortals series at Arts House
Lara Thoms, artist
Scott Turnbull, funeral director
on until 2 December
artshouse.com.au
 |
| The Director. Lara Thoms, Scott Turnbull, Photo by Bryony Jackson |
A funeral director, a site-specific performance artist and a journalist walk into a bar…
It’s not the set up for a joke, but there’s been lot of laughing and unexpected joy at Arts House this month with the Mere Mortals program about death and dying.
So far, live art experiences have included dying in a hospital bed in The Infirmary, talking about end-of-life choices and going to a wake in vigil/wake, and lying under a tree listening to a description of how a body decomposes in Bushland (which also runs on 1 and 2 December – book; it's so cool).
This week, the wonderful Ridiculusmus present a show called Die! Die! Die! Old People Die! and there's the premier of a new work called The Director, created and performed by a funeral director and a theatre director.
I interviewed Scott Turnball and Lara Thoms, who will be co-artistic director of Aphids next year, for The Age.
The first thing Scott Turnbull asked me was if I'd brought beer to the interview. No. So, naturally, we went to the pub and talked about death and funerals. And laughed, a lot.
