Why the world’s watching what this company does ‘in our little studio in Geelong’

The members of Geelong’s Back to Back Theatre had no idea they were about to be awarded the so-called “Nobel Prize for theatre” – the International Ibsen Award – when they sat down for a Zoom meeting in March with the Norwegian Ministry of Culture.

“We thought we were talking about an international collaboration with the National Theatre of Norway,” recalls Back to Back artistic director Bruce Gladwin, who will travel to Oslo to pick up the award next weekend. “And that sounded like a pretty amazing offer. Then in the midst of the conversation, they went, ‘Aha! The smokescreen is dissipated. This is what we really wanted to talk to you about!’ It was a real super-surprise birthday moment – like someone popping out from behind the furniture.”

What made it even nicer, Gladwin says on the Good Weekend Talks podcast, was that “then they said, ‘Now we want to introduce you to the international jury,’ and then they popped up on the screen: someone from the UK, someone from Sweden, someone from Moscow, someone from North America, someone from South America. And it was really humbling to feel that what we do in our little studio in Geelong in regional Victoria is noticed by other people, elsewhere in the world.”

The International Ibsen Award honours an individual, institution or organisation that has brought new artistic dimensions to the world of drama or theatre. Like other international prizes awarded by Norway, it comes with a hefty cash booty – some 2.5 million Kroner (A$340,000) – making it one of the richest artistic prizes in the world.

Back to Back Theatre is built around a core of actors who are neurodiverse or have intellectual disabilities. For 35 years, it has been staging theatre pieces concerned with universal themes such as friendship, power and identity. “Who the actors are really determines the meaning of the work,” says Gladwin, who has been artistic director since 1999. “We set out to try and create a transformative experience for the audience members – which is a very bold, ambitious task to do, and you don’t always achieve it, but it’s worth trying.”

The company has long been recognised internationally, touring to festivals for more than two decades. Having lost the chance to perform live during the pandemic, it has been back on the road with a vengeance since travel restrictions eased, touring to Vienna and Brussels earlier this year and performing in Basel or Zurich now. “And then another component of the company will go and join them in Oslo next week,” says Gladwin, “and then we have a UK tour in November as well.”

The prize money from the Ibsen will allow the company to take its time creating new work. “It just means that we can go into the studio and we can start playing with ideas without the pressure of having to justify what we’re doing to potential funding partners.” But, he adds, whether it’s to an international awards committee or an Aussie audience, “the thing that sells the work is the work itself.”

Gladwell was speaking on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks – a “magazine for your ears” featuring conversations between the best journalists from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and the people captivating Australia right now.

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