Flying Penguin breaks through theatre boundaries in Sea Wall

Flying Penguin Productions is still finding new ways to make and deliver intimate theatre in a world where all the rules have changed.

Renato Musolino in Sea Wall by Flying Penguin Productions. Picture: Shane Reid

A s its 15th year came and went, with venues shuttered by a global pandemic, Flying Penguin Productions artistic director David Mealor found himself pondering the very nature of theatre.

“The last thing I wanted to do was a play about COVID,” says Mealor, who will remount the company’s production of Sea Wall leading into this month’s Adelaide Fringe. “What we’ve missed is connection, and being with people, and coming together.

“I would never have thought that the primary function of theatre was not the stories that it tells, but the actual coming together of people.

“That’s what you’ve missed: being in a group, in a room. We want to be close; we need that as people.

“Even before COVID, this is one of things that was really amazing about Sea Wall. The intimacy of how we staged it and the intimacy of the story had an effect on people that I really hadn’t seen before.”

The one-man, 30-minute monologue was written by UK playwright Simon Stephens, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which had hit seasons in London’s West End and on Broadway, and came to Adelaide as part of a national tour in 2018.

Flying Penguin artistic director David Mealor and Sea Wall actor Renato Musolino. Picture: Shane Reid

Sea Wall was created back in 2008 as part of the Broken Space Season to raise funds for London’s Bush Theatre, when a series of leaks had made its lighting rig unsafe to use. Stephens wrote it especially for actor Andrew Scott, who played Moriarty on the BBC series Sherlock, to meet the season brief of working without a set design or lighting rig.

Adelaide’s Renato Musolino made the role of Alex his own when Flying Penguin first mounted the play as part of a double bill with Bitch Boxer at the Goodwood Institute in 2018.

“What we love about the play is that Alex, the character, is just an everyday person who goes through a very horrific incident,” Musolino says.

“Hopefully the audience will see someone that they recognise in their everyday life – and realise that such horrific things could potentially happen to them at any moment, in turn making them appreciate what they’ve got. It’s not every day that you look at the small things, and appreciate those small things.”

However, he says there is an uplifting spirit which underpins the play.

“In telling that grim story, there is a sense of joy in acknowledging what you have … and remembering what you had,” Musolino says.

“For all the drama of the piece, it’s actually very charming and funny in places. That’s the genius of Simon Stephens.”

For this return season, Sea Wall will move to the Festival Centre’s Space venue, which will be reconfigured to maximise the play’s sense of intimacy.

“For me as an actor, seeing the (audience) reactions, getting the reactions … with this one you are very much asking a particular question and really looking them in the eyes,” Musolino says. “This one does feel like a duologue.”

It is the fourth production, and sixth season, on which Musolino has worked with Mealor, whom he says concentrates on the performer, “which makes it wonderful when you are an actor”.

Renato Musolino in Sea Wall by Flying Penguin Productions. Picture: Shane Reid, supplied

“There’s a real focus on honesty, there’s a real integrity towards the work which – I can’t believe I’m saying this – is refreshing,” Musolino says. It’s really wonderful.”

Before he flew solo with Flying Penguin, Mealor was one of seven Adelaide actors who founded Brink Productions as an ensemble company 25 years ago.

“Brink was established by a group of actors who were also producers … we thought we’d choose the shows for the development of the actors in the company, and invite individual directors to come and work on projects that suited them really well,” he says.

“It got to a point where the company decided to bring an artistic director on … Brink wasn’t really a place for me to learn that.”

Some of Mealor’s mentors had suggested he should further explore his talents as a director. “I don’t think I was ever a born actor … having been able to step back and see how actors like Renato respond to plays, it’s very different to how I do,” he says.

“The big picture was always something that I was interested in – and annoying for other directors, because they were really wanting me to get into the role, not spend all day deferring acting and discussing the plays.”

With a small grant from Arts SA, Mealor put a dozen professional actors in a rehearsal room “to see if I had the chops”. He did, and Flying Penguin’s debut play, Translations, won such acclaim it went on to a season at Melbourne’s Malthouse theatre.

“I just had a really overwhelming response to my work – in a way that no-one had ever responded to my acting,” Mealor laughs.

Sea Wall, Space Theatre, February 16-21. Book at BASS.