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Death Match: Interview with Morgan Rose

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Death Match is a dynamic and challenging new piece of physical theatre looking at triumph and failure, all within the confines of the sporting arena. Milk Bar Mag was lucky enough to sit down with playwright Morgan Rose to discuss her work, winning, losing and everything in between.

In Death Match, you’ve taken seemingly mundane parts of life and re-drawn them as life and death struggles. Can you talk about where your inspiration for this concept arose from?

When Fleur Kilpatrick, Director of the Monash Academy of Performing Arts, commissioned us to create a performance work, she suggested we use sport as inspiration. After much consideration, we decided we would juxtapose sport and death — looking at the common adage, “winning at life”. We knew we wanted this to be a very, very physical show, so we have created a physical game on stage the actors can actually win or lose at every night.

We’ve divided the show into 4 rounds, in each round one or more people can be eliminated. For the purposes of creating dialogue for each round we thought about the cycle of attempting to achieve something. We broke it into 4 stages. Stage one is hope, identifying the thing you want. Stage two is comparison, noticing all the people around you and figuring out how you measure up. Stage three is violence/drudgery where you potentially do things you didn’t think you would to get the thing you want. And then the final stage is winning/losing.

Death Match is in part produced by Monash University and the ensemble cast is rounded out by 3rd Year students. Can you talk about what that collaborative experience is like?

When Kat and I work together we always work in an extremely collaborative way not only with each other but with the entire cast. We devise work, which means we come in with an idea, but then we create the actual show together with the cast. It’s very different to a playwright having an idea, writing a script and then handing the script to the director.

The work we make together is all about the people in the room. It would be an entirely different piece if any member of the team were not there. Typically, our process looks something like this: it starts with a lot of brainstorming. Then we do hours and hours of long form improvisations with the cast. We video record everything. I take the recordings and transcribe the things that were working, and I create the script from these transcriptions. The transcriptions are a starting point, but they aren’t sacred. Then we bring in bits of script and work with the actors to stage it.

Do you think this story has a particular resonance with today’s generation, perhaps more so than a decade ago?

It certainly seems to me the world is more success driven at the moment than it was 10 years ago. I’m not sure if this is truth or simply due to my age. 15 years ago I was in my early 20s and placed equal weight on achieving my life/career goals and getting drunk with friends. Although, Kat and I both do a lot of work with teenagers and I’ve heard them talk about ‘time running out’ or ‘being too old to start’, and they are 16! Too many 16-year-old pop stars and internet moguls making us all feel like we are behind in the game. But that’s the thing isn’t it?! It’s not a game.

Why do you think today’s society places so much emphasis on success and competition?

I think society has always been obsessed with success and competition. Sports go way, way, way back. Think gladiators. The difference now is we know about the WHOLE WORLD’s successes rather than just our neighbour’s. So suddenly rather than just being in competition with the people I personally know, I am in competition with people on the other side of the world. The impulse to win, to be the best, is the same as it’s always been, it’s just been globalised.

What is your aim with this work? How do you want your audience to feel when the lights go up and they walk out?

I hope they feel energised and perhaps a little confused by their own emotions. I like theatre that makes you feel so many contrasting things at once, it takes you a while to sort it all out after you leave the theatre.

I guess what we are saying is: you can’t win at life but you have to try anyway, don’t you, otherwise what’s the point of anything? We definitely aren’t implying we have any answers. We are just asking some questions.

Death Match 
Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank
Till Saturday, 7 October 2017
malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/death-match


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