Back to Back Theatre has been incredible over the last few years.
At this year’s Venice Biennale they became the first Australian theatre company to receive the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in theatre.
Just two years ago, they were awarded the International Ibsen Award, considered the Nobel Prize of the theatre world, with a prize of $384,000.
“We wanted to give an award to a game-changer, and Back to Back is a film that changes the way you see things,” Ingrid Lorentzen, the award’s chairwoman, said at the time.
It’s worth noting that Back to Back is not a traditional state theatre, ballet or opera company – they’re based in regional Victoria, about an hour outside Melbourne.
They have built a reputation for creating work that subverts conventional expectations and have become one of Australia’s leading international performing arts exports.
For almost 40 years, Back to Back has been entertaining and inspiring audiences with shows conceived and performed by an ensemble of artists who identify as having neurodevelopmental disorders or disabilities.
They premiered their latest production, Multiple Bad Things, in their hometown of Geelong, before taking it to Brussels and then to Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre.
The origins of back-to-back
Back to Back Theatre was founded by playwright Cath Anderson as an offshoot of Geelong’s now defunct Mill Theatre Company.
“This started in 1987 during the deinstitutionalisation period. They were trying to bring artists like me and others into the theatre and it just grew from there,” ensemble member Scott Price explained to ABC’s Victorian Afternoon.
Deinstitutionalisation in Victoria has seen many disabled people leave larger centres such as Sunbury/Carora and Kew Cottages, and Anderson, along with several other artists, have begun running workshops with people who have recently returned to the community.
“I really wanted to work in tech, but I never got bored of connecting with people and performing on stage,” Price told ABC News in 2022. (ABC News: Rachel Clayton)
From the beginning, performers told their own stories that explored their experiences in institutions: their first play, “Big Bag,” premiered in 1988 and depicted a relationship between two mentally disabled people.
Bruce Gladwin, artistic director and co-CEO of Back to Back, told ABC RN’s The Stage Show that he first saw their work in the late ’80s, fresh out of a university drama course.
“I was really moved. It was the opposite of what I’d been trained to do; it was wild and free-flowing and really spontaneous and instinctual,” he says.
During Gladwin’s decades-long tenure, Back to Back has worked with many collaborators, including local, national and international artists. (ABC News: Rachel Clayton)
Back to Back currently operates out of a spacious space in the old Geelong Courthouse after operating out of a small room in Geelong Library for many years.
In addition to producing amazing theatre productions, the company also runs workshops (including an annual weekend-long workshop), a writers lab and education programs. It is through the workshops that most of our members first encounter the company.
Shock and praise
The work in Back to Back is striking in many ways: visually, emotionally, and politically.
Gladwin says their work often plays on “audience discomfort around disability”, but ultimately they’re “just trying to make the best art we can make”.
In 2011, they began performing “Ganesha vs. the Third Reich,” the story of the Hindu god Ganesha’s attempt to reclaim the swastika from Nazi Germany.
2019’s Shadow of the Hunter’s Prey was the first production in the Gladwin era in which the theatre company featured disability as an explicit theme in the work.
The work questions our understanding of “intelligence” in an automated world and includes passionate debates about language and identity.
He has racked up theatre awards, including every Australian award, from Green Rooms to Helpmanns.
While the company has produced film productions before, Shadow, a 2019 adaptation of the show, was its first feature film. It premiered at South by Southwest in Austin in 2022, where it won the Audience Award.
Price has been a member of the Back to Back ensemble since 2007 and has appeared in “Ganesh,” “Shadow” (both the play and the film) and the latest production. He considers himself an activist and works to advocate for people’s rights.
Speaking to ABC News in 2022, he said the company’s work has always been “candid and no-holds-barred.”
Gladwin says that as a registered NDIS provider, their company is one of the few in Australia with a full-time ensemble producing works and repertoire, meaning they have the time and staffing to create consistently innovative work.
Price said that consistency has been very important to him.
“I feel very lucky just to have a job. Not many people with disabilities have this opportunity…My long-term experience with Back to Back has paved the way for people with disabilities… [and] “It’s a testament to what people with disabilities can do,” he says.
“[But ultimately] I never get bored of performing. That’s natural. If the audience isn’t satisfied, then I’m not satisfied either.”
Back-to-back approach
Each piece in “Back to Back” is conceived by members of the ensemble in collaboration with directors, playwrights and designers, often through numerous improvisation sessions.
Gladwin says:[It’s] We aim to empower our ensemble actors and have them become the creative core of the organization.
“[As was the case when Back to Back started] We continue to explore the idea of creating new and original stories that are inspired by and born from the ensemble.”
“When we’re creating, we get a script and think about what would happen within it. We improvise, and then we discuss it afterwards,” explains Simon Lahti, an ensemble member who has been with the company since 2003.
“Food Court” premiered in 2008 and will be performed at the Venice Biennale later this month, where the theatre company is set to win the Golden Lion. (Courtesy of Rising/Francis Roney)
For example, in his latest film, Multiple Bad Things, Lahti says the cast interviewed each other about their boundaries, likes and dislikes.
“[For example]”I love drinking Coke. I love eating cheese. I love playing solitaire. And I love all kinds of ingenuity,” he says. All of this has influenced his personality.
“Multiple Bad Things” co-director Tamara Saar said:[After the improvisation sessions] Then we shape and carve the text. [throughout] We’re trying to maintain the freshness and energy that was in the improvisation in the first place.”
This method is time consuming, with each piece usually taking around three years to create, but it creates timeless pieces that travel the world.
The ensemble tours up to 20 weeks a year and has performed at London’s Barbican Centre, Holland Festival and Vienna Festival.
Ingrid Forent, co-director of “Multiple Bad Things,” said traveling with the ensemble was “great because it opens up conversations.”
“You will find…” [how different cultures and languages] The words people use to describe disability vary and are always different and nuanced. Through these interactions, we learn more about the world and disability.”
“The more jobs there are and the more places to go, the more doors open for them,” Price said.
Several negative points
“Back to Back” ensemble members Lahti, Price and Sarah Mainwaring are part of the larger group that came up with “Multiple Bad Things.”
It’s a horror comedy in which Price plays an employee in what he describes as “a workplace at the end of the world.”
While Mainwaring tackles an abstract structure centre stage, Lahti sits off to the side, playing solitaire, and Price lounges on an inflatable flamingo.
“Multiple Bad Things” is the first film that Gladwin hasn’t directed since 1999. (Courtesy of Jeff Busby)
Conflict erupts between Price and another employee (played by award-winning playwright Bron Batten) and Price’s unnamed character ends up being made a scapegoat, something he can empathise with.
“I am often called a problem child and slandered because of my behavior and my autism…” [and I wanted to say] “Hey, I’m not a defiant person. I’m a person!” he says.
Mr Voorent said the piece was inspired by Arthur Boyd’s Australian Scapegoat series of 1980s paintings, which show humans being transformed into goats.
“There are victims, perpetrators and perpetrators. In the workplace, it is often unclear who is at fault in a conflict.”
“I love the opportunities and the freedom that comes with it,” Mainwaring (centre right) told ABC News in 2022. [from] “Back to Back, the doors that it opens, it’s like it’s its own little community.” (Courtesy of Jeff Busby)
Mainwaring’s character pleads for help but his voice is drowned out by the bickering of other workers – “The cry of self-righteous indignation too often drowns out the cries of the disenfranchised and vulnerable,” the film’s promotional material states.
This returns the company to its goal of telling stories that originate from veteran storytellers who have now traveled to an incredible number of countries.
“That’s what we were trying to elicit – what they think is important, and indeed that statement of self-righteous indignation came from them,” Forent said.
As for what’s next for this unstoppable company, Price is keeping it secret: “That’s a secret. I’m not going to reveal what the next big project is!”
Multiple Bad Things runs at the Malthouse Theatre until June 9th.