The Brag

The Birthday Boys
Darren Gilshenan Takes A Surprise Turn
By Simon Binns

If you’ve seen a Sydney Theatre Company or Bell Shakespeare show in the past decade, chances are you’ve seen Darren Gilshenan. Add memorable recent performances in Our Town, Loot, The White Guard and his own show Fool’s Island, and he’s a more than familiar face to Sydney audiences.

Sydney is perhaps less familiar with Gilshenan’s work as a director, which so far has largely involved helming NIDA graduate shows. This month, however, Gilshenan helms the Sydney premiere of The Birthday Boys, for new theatre company Ion Nibiru.

Written by young American playwright Aaron Kozak, The Birthday Boys is about three US marines who find themselves captured in Iraq after an attack by insurgents. As they await their fate, blinded and tied up, the trio find themselves struggling with fear, betrayal and a hefty dose of boredom. It debuts in Sydney off the back of numerous awards in the States.

One of the most notable features of The Birthday Boys – and the most interesting, given that Gilshenan is known for his physical comedy – is that the three protagonists spend the majority of the play blindfolded and with their hands and feet tied.

“I don’t think I’ve ever come across a piece of theatre where the actors are so physically limited and having to do so much,” says Gilshenan. “We generally read theatre through the eyes (the windows to the soul) and the body in space: it’s kind of a head-to-toe camera shot in theatre. [Whereas] the dynamic of this piece is all in the language and the desperateness off the situation that these guys are trapped in.”

To try and bring that desperation to life, Gilshenan got a bit ‘method’ with his actors, putting them through some serious paces from the first rehearsal – starting with a two-hour long activity known as ‘The Wolf Game,’ which is designed to push actors to emotional extremes.
“Basically all the actors are blindfolded, holding a balloon, and put in a corner of the room filled with cushions etcetera, and as long as they’re in there, they’re safe,” he explains. “Then I tell them the story about this wolf that’s terrorising the community and they’re all that’s left and the balloon they’re holding is their soul and as long as they hold [their balloon], they exist.” The actors are then required to venture out into the unknown, to collect food.

“I watch them start to venture out of this safe place and I start to torment them as this wolf character,” Gilshenan continues, with obvious enthusiasm. “By the time you’re two hours in, what people go through and what people express is so incredibly revealing… Some people scream like crazy men, some people swing and punch, some people laugh, some people just walk around offering their balloons so they can be executed.”

As the game goes on, the group diminishes as Gilshenan pops their balloons and takes them out of the game to observe the survivors with him – leaving the rest of the group to wonder as to their fate. “I really wanted [the actors] to truly understand what it was to be powerless in the situation.”

Gilshenan’s passion for the play is obvious, and no more so than when he’s talking about the ending, which in his humble opinion (and for a man who must have read several hundred, if not thousand, plays in his life it’s probably an accurate one) is one of the best twists you’ll ever see. “I will never give away the twist, it’s got a fucking awesome twist, when I read it I burst out laughing.”

What: The Birthday Boys
When: December 13-23
Where: NIDA Parade Theatre / 215 Anzac Pde, Kensington
Tickets: $22/$30 from ticketek.com.au