Come Away With Me To The End Of The World

Come Away With Me To The End Of The World is a voyeuristic theatrical performance that explores the interactions that take place between three strangers in different contexts. Milk Bar Magazine had a chat to the director of the show, Adriano Cortese, all about the character dialogues and the themes embedded in the show.

Adriano discusses how the performance doesn’t really centre around a storyline, but rather the characters’ dialogues: ‘It is more of a series of dialogues that gently play with the ideas of change and endings. We conceived it after a few long chats with the cast about where we were at in our lives.’

What makes this show so distinctive is that it doesn’t have a plot, since the narrative is fragmentary: ‘I guess watching people share personal thoughts can be voyeuristic, but the performers are well aware that they are being watched so in a sense they are sharing with the audience as well.’

Ranters Theatre tends to focus on conversation between strangers, which plays a role in creating a tension of everything being new: ‘For this show, the performers are playing themselves so they are friends rather than strangers,’ Adriano says. ‘There is still a sense of the new as they are sharing things about themselves that that are private, so the same sense of things being new is there.’

Adriano expands on the juxtaposition of the characters’ actual lives with their dream counterparts: ‘The inspiration for how they express their dreams and desires or how they want to live came through sharing their private stories in the rehearsal room.’

As for the themes, they are quite broad.’ Adriano explains that they ‘cover things like change and the desire for change, endings, death and the strangeness of everyday life.’

I also asked Adriano whether he felt as though any of the characters displayed elements from his own personality, to which he answered that he could identify with each of them in different ways: ‘The process of making the work included all of us. We are all approximately the same age and have experienced similar things in our lives.’

‘I am part of the decision making process, so I feel very close to the material even though most of it has come from the performers,’ he continues. As for what he finds the most fascinating about human behaviour, he answered: ‘That’s a big one. At the moment, it would be how resilient people are.’

Come Away With Me To The End Of The World
Malthouse Theatre, Beckett Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank
Tuesday July 5 – Sunday July 24
malthousetheatre.com.au/the-venue/events/come-away-with-me-to-the-end-of-the-world