Have performers become disposable?

Branch Nebula’s new work is one of several recent productions to shift the focus away from professional actors on stage.
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Branch Nebula’s ARTWORK. Photo credit: Zan Wimberley.

An ambitious new production by cross-disciplinary company Branch Nebula, ARTWORK places eight ordinary, unemployed job-hunters on stage each night, in a work which interrogates what is real, what is performance, and what it means to watch.

Like Lucy Guerin Inc’s Untrained and post’s Oedipus Schmoedipus before it, the production’s strength lies in the unpolished performances of everyday people, which raises the question: do we no longer need trained performers?

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Richard Watts is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM, and serves as the Chair of La Mama Theatre's volunteer Committee of Management. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, and was awarded the status of Melbourne Fringe Living Legend in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize. Most recently, Richard was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Green Room Awards Association in June 2021. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts