Real life meets fiction and film in an inventive new production from British theatre company 1927, writes Katrina Fox.

Once upon a time a visit to the theatre comprised watching a play, usually with a storyline, spoken by one or more actors. Now in a time when ‘multi-media’ is the buzzword, theatre companies are striving for ways to push the boundaries of performance and offer audiences something different.

British troupe 1927, it seems, have done that with their show Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Combining live performance, music and animation, it took out five awards at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival last year and is set to dazzle Australian audiences next week.

Tim Burton, David Lynch, Edward Gorey and the Brothers Grimm are the influences cited in a show that began with the performance poetry of writer/director Suzanne Andrade who was eventually joined by animator Paul Barrit, musician Lillian Henley and actor Esme Appleton.

“Suzanne was going round poetry cafes doing stories and she used lighting and pictures,” Appleton tells SX. “Paul heard her on the radio and asked for a CD and she said instead of payment she’d like images, so they started working together. I saw them doing small gigs of live poetry with animation.

Battersea Arts Centre asked her to do three days so she wanted something more theatrical. I’d just finished my Masters [in Performance] and came to London, then Lillian joined and it became a more theatrical show.”

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is about being caught between a rock and hard place, Appleton continues. “It’s neither here nor there. It’s where you don’t feel comfortable; it’s a different world for the audience to come into.”

That world features Andrade’s sinister fairytales including a hapless cat’s countdown of his nine unfortunate deaths to seamen, STDs and Satan in many guises.

Using the aesthetic of the silent film era to create a noirish Weimar cabaret feel, the line between what’s real and what isn’t blurs as scratchy pencil drawings morph into vintage film sequences and Appleton and Andrade use the rolling film as a set, crafting accounts of gun-toting gingerbread men, cross-dressing devils and a menacing pair of homicidal twins.

The company named itself after the year the first ‘talkie’ film came out and is committed to developing new writing and using different art forms and media to push the writing into new places, while at the same time being entertaining, says Appleton.

“We want to have fun and we try to be inventive. We get picked up a  lot of time that we’re three women on stage and a lot of feminist writers come up and say, ‘you look strong together’ but it’s just how it’s ended up. I think there’s always underlying politics but that’s just through Suzanne’s writing, which is satirical slants on English sensibilities.”

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, June 17-28, The Studio at Sydney Opera House, times vary, $35/$25. Bookings: (02) 9250 7777 or www.sydneyoperahouse.com

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