Backs to the wall, heroes are acting up

For these actors, the challenge of life is strengthened by the challenge of theatre.

Back to Back theatre’s artistic director Bruce Gladwin with cast members at their Geelong rehearsal studio. Picture: David Geraghty

“Bring it, Sarah,” artistic director Bruce Gladwin whispers.

So she does. Arms flailing, actor Sarah Mainwaring glowers at ensemble member Simon Lahert­y.

“We are treated as second-class citizens,” she says, her voice rising but the words slow and disjointed, the result of a brain injury from a car accident when she was six years old.

“Overmedicated, poor employment prospects, subjected to training techniques for animals.”

The actors, part of the acclaime­d Back to Back Theatre Company, are deep in rehearsal for their new production, premiering at Carriageworks in Sydney­ on Wednesday.

It’s hard to watch the rehearsal without an involuntary smile, or a lump in your throat, or both at the same time.

The production, The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes, has been 2½ years in the making, created by the actors themselves through a series of workshops and improvisation.

It is set in a town meeting, where a Siri-esque entity translates everything the performers, all with intellectual disabilities, say on to a screen scrolling above the stage. The actors reference everything from AI to human rights, and they play with the fourth wall, wondering aloud if the audience are picking up what they say.

“One of the central conceits of the piece is the characters have concerns the audience is actually understanding them,” Gladwin tells The Australian during rehears­al at the company’s base in Geelong­.

“It’s the first time we’ve constructed a performance where the actors are directly addressing the audience.”

Gladwin acknowledges that the performance uses the audience’s tension about how to react to the actors’ disabilities for drama­tic effect: “The audience is forced to deal with the concept of otherness. The play definitely utilises this.”

Back to Back was formed in 1986 to make contemporary theatre by actors with disabilities to promote social inclusion and form a career pathway for these actors into mainstream theatre.

Gladwin has been the artistic director for 20 years.

“I first saw the company as an audience member and young theatre graduate and I thought it was the most exciting contemporary theatre company in Australia,” Gladwin says.

“My desire to work for the company is driven by the skill and intelligence these actors bring to the work.

“We create a different kind of discourse around disability. It’s not an academic discourse, but one built on feeling.”

Mainwaring, 38, says acting gives her the opportunity to “better­ understand who I am and what I am capable of, and not capable­ of. And it gives audiences the chance to engage with me and understand my world”.

“I like giving the gift of art to people — and I receive their warmth in return.”

Laherty, also 38, has been acting­ since he was a six-year-old performing in school plays. He lives with myotonia, a congenital condition, but it hasn’t stopped him performing on stage and screen, with previous roles in Home and Away and Blue Heelers.

Like all actors, money can be a struggle, he says. “It’s a challenge making a living as an actor, but I like a challenge.”