So there’s a musical about cancer

A musical about cancer? It certainly wasn’t on the list that Bryony Kimmings put together when she was asked by award-winning UK theatre company Complicite to pitch ideas for a new show. But then something changed.

A scene from The Pacifists Guide To The War On Cancer. Picture: Mark Douet

A MUSICAL about cancer? It certainly wasn’t on the list that Bryony Kimmings put together when she was asked by award-winning UK theatre company Complicite to pitch ideas for a new show.

But during their meeting, Kimmings discovered that Complicite’s producer Judith Dimant was being treated for breast cancer. They had a lengthy discussion about the disease and the idea of a show around the subject was born.

“It didn’t come as quickly as, ‘oh cancer, let’s write a musical’. It was like, ‘OK I want to talk to you about that’,” says Kimmings, a London-based performance artist whose previous shows have tackled issues such as clinical depression and the sexualisation of children in an idiosyncratic and personal way.

Picture: Mark Douet

“Judith seemed interested in the political conversation we were having around (cancer) and I said, ‘do you want to make a show around that?’ ”

Kimmings approached her friend Brian Lobel, who had had cancer and had already created a lot of work about it, and he came on board as co-writer.

The resulting show, A Pacifist’s Guide To The War On Cancer, features songs but also includes verbatim theatre, dialogue and direct address, not to mention dancing tumours.

It premiered at London’s National Theatre in 2016 and is now in Australia, having come directly from a UK tour. Audiences on both sides of the world have been moved to laughter as well as tears.

“It starts off quite light, just a woman trying to understand (cancer), trying to laugh at it, trying to simplify it, and singing songs. It’s quite frivolous but purposeful so that we can get down to the darker stuff,” says Kimmings.

Before she began writing, Kimmings did 18 months of research, talking to oncologists and nurses, reading a lot of feminist literature about it, and interviewing a range of people with different forms of cancer.

Picture: Mark Douet

Along the way, she was introduced to a woman called Lara Veitch. “She was only 25 at the time and she had had cancer five times at that point. I expected her to be very different to what she was (which is) savvy and political. She’s just a bit of an oracle really and I thought, ‘oh, she’s going to be my friend!” says Kimmings with a laugh.

Veitch, who had never performed before, is one of the cast members.

“She just plays herself and tells her story. If I want Lara to tell us about what her body has been through, well the easiest way and the most plain and shocking way is for her to just tell us,” says Kimmings.

While the show was being written, Veitch was diagnosed with cancer again, and Kimmings’ young son, Frank, also became seriously ill.

“(The show) is kind of about that really, how two friends (are) swanning along, trying to write this musical guide, thinking they can do something good for the world. And then we both get dragged into hospital at the same time and you realise there is no guide and you are hurtling toward the infinite abyss,” says Kimmings.

“But it is a fun and uplifting show as well. It’s not a cry fest. It’s quite life-affirming, I hope. That was the intention anyway.”

A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer, Seymour Centre until Thursday. Book: 9351 7940