The Brag

A History Of Everything
By Simon Binns

Between the genuinely fantastic Next Stage program and main stage shows like Benedict Andrews’ The City, the open, warehouse-style stage of Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf 2 has hosted some of Sydney’s best theatre over the last few years.

Two theatre-makers who know this better than most are Alexander Devriendt, artistic director of the Dutch company Ontroerend Goed (whose astounding exploration of adolescence Once And For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen barely left the place standing in 2009), and Cameron Goodall, who since bringing Highway Rock ‘n’ Roll Disaster to the space with Adelaide group The Border Project, has practically set up camp on the stage as part of STC’s acting ensemble, The Residents.

This January, Devriendt and Goodall are teaming up at Wharf 2 for A History Of Everything, an ambitious collaboration between Ontroerend Goed and STC that sees three residents thrown in with four Dutch actors, under Devriendt’s direction.

Ever since Ontroerend Goed brought The Smile Off Your Face to the Sydney Festival in 2009, a show that saw audience members blindfolded, bound in a wheelchair and led around various ‘stations’ of a performance maze by the actors, STC has been courting them. The deal was sealed after the success of Once And For All, and working with The Residents seemed an obvious choice. “I wanted to work together. I didn’t want to be here alone as a director,” Devriendt explains.

Presenting an actual history of everything on stage in under 90 minutes is ambitious, but that’s exactly why Devriendt wanted to do it. “I have this book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – it’s this Christmas gift that everybody reads – but he doesn’t even try! It’s just seven scientists talking about fungi and stars… I wanted to do it from zero to 2012.”

The resulting work takes a layperson’s perspective on a number of scientific works – Richard Dawkins’ texts on evolution, Briane Greene’s writings on cosmology, Sum by neuroscientist David Eagleman, and E.H. Gombrich’s A Little History of the World – to try and come up with a snapshot of history, from the big bang to now.

For Goodall, one of the most exciting things about working with Ontroerend Goed is their commitment to “live-ness”.

“[Their work] has a vitality that comes from the fact that it’s happening right now; if you recorded one of their shows and watched it the next day it would lose its meaning – and this one’s the same: we’re going to have to re-rehearse the first five minutes of the show almost every time we play, because we have to take on the events of the current day.”

Where: Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company
When: January 13 – February 5