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Lesbian actor Johanna de Ruyter heads up improv theatre group Playback. She spoke with Katrina Fox.
Imagine going to the theatre, telling the actors a personal real-life story, then watching them act it out. This is the process that takes place during a Playback Theatre show.
“Playback was birthed in New York by a group of actors in the ’80s, who were looking for different theatre forms that tapped into that history of oral storytelling,” explains Johanna de Ruyter, the driving force behind Playback Sydney.
De Ruyter has been with the group for 17 years and has seen it gradually gain more acceptance as a theatrical form. “We’ve sort of existed on the periphery of the theatre scene,” she says. “People tell their personal stories and we use them to bring [the performance] to life. For some reason it’s seen as not quite theatre because of that interaction but that’s certainly changed over the years and more and more it’s grown and become more sophisticated as a form.”
Although there is a theme to each performance night, nothing is scripted and the actors have no time to prepare, other than to listen. “It’s a highly trained form and practice for any actor, because you have to be your own script writer and choreographer, you have to work as an ensemble, you have to work with music,” de Ruyter says. “We decide and brainstorm and come up with themes that are interesting – the next one is ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time’.
We have to think of themes that provoke stories and we’ll use that provocation to draw stories from the audience, which happens through a very experienced and specific role we call the conductor – they’re like a facilitator.”
Each 90-minute show incorporates around three to four stories, with men playing women, women playing men and even dogs. “The other night one of our female actors who’s small and blonde was chosen to be this big bouffy bloke,” de Ruyter laughs.
For the audience, the telling and watching of their personal story can be therapeutic, she says. “We have feedback at the end. Because we are improvising we don’t want to misrepresent anyone so if anything stands out as not being right, we want the audience to tell us after the performance.”
De Ruyter’s background is in alternative theatre, including working with masks, clowns, storytelling and Commedia dell’Arte. Despite working nationally and internationally for years, the award-winning actor admits she still gets nervous before a Playback show. “You have to be a bit nervous, even with scripted theatre,” she asserts. “As an actor you don’t know what’s going to happen. If you’re not nervous you’re not on your edge.”
So what is it about improv work that attracts her? “It’s so complex and diverse,” she responds. “As an actor you don’t know what you’re going to be doing, you’re always being tested and challenged in so many different ways – in scriptwriting, in choreography, in thinking about how you’re moving, in the staging – so I just find it endlessly challenging and interesting because you just hear so many diverse stories.
We work in the theatre and we also work with refugees hearing their stories, we hear priests; we go everywhere so it’s a very rich form in that way and I love that it breaks down those barriers and I love how we keep trying to keep the theatrical edge to it because it lifts our stories into that larger perspective that theatre can do.”
Because she’s worked predominantly in non-traditional forms of theatre, being an out lesbian hasn’t been an issue for de Ruyter and has even offered advantages in some cases.
“I do remember once an amazing experience,” she recalls. “It was a big conference with high-school kids about discrimination and I came out to all of those kids because I thought it was the appropriate place for it and that was pretty amazing. I told them experiences of when I’d been discriminated against for being a lesbian and it just brought it all home. It was really dynamic actually because we got them up to perform with us, and one had to perform against me and they knew I was a lesbian so it was all very ‘wow’.
“I’d like to do something more with the gay and lesbian community in terms of stories because there’s so many stories where people can tell them and really be listened to in that way and create dialogue.”
Playback’s shows with different themes run until July at 5pm on the last Sunday of each month at Newtown Theatre, cnr King and Bray Streets, Newtown, $20/$17 at the door. Bookings: 0417 065 664 or email
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The next one is March 30. Visit www.playbacktheatre.com.au.
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