THE BLOK! – quick links
THE BLOK!, by Melbourne-based independent First Nations theatre collective A Daylight Connection, is a whirlwind existential tragic farce about human hubris, humanity’s complicity in our own inevitable destruction, and the endless pointlessness of the universe.
While that might sound a bit like getting kicked in the face by a wet donkey, in the hands of the production’s co-devisor and protagonist Carly Sheppard (Takalaka), it is entertaining and hilarious, hiding its sharpness behind fart, poo and bum jokes – and proof that the best theatre is rooted in the physical, not just the cerebral.
At Northcote Town Hall Arts Centre, presented by Darebin Arts Speakeasy as part of Melbourne Fringe, Sheppard plays a disillusioned, success-obsessed artist with a creative block, a blocked bowel and a massive ego.
Well behind on delivering a major art commission that’s literally meant to save the world (‘no, the universe!’) from destruction, Sheppard’s character flits, flips and flops between despair at the impossibility of the task before her, the even greater impossibility of ever being able to give her grant money back, and various failed attempts to goad her muse into visiting to help solve all her problems.
Her only companion is her AI voice assistant, ‘Alexis’, performed – at least for the first half of the show – offstage by actor Alexis West (Birra Gubba, Wakka Wakka, South Sea Islander and Anglo Australian), manifesting on-stage as a pulsing blue light emanating from a box.
Sheppard – referred to as The Master – fires orders at Alexis, whines at her, abuses her and generally treats the AI with the pouty disdain of a spoiled child – or a tortured artist (same same?).
THE BLOK!: brilliance
This first part of the play shines with brilliance, delivering some serious satirical punch – the state of the arts and arts funding gets a go (‘don’t ever give the money back!’); cultural capital in the arts, a burn (The Master is ‘too poor to have inherited confidence, too rich for Centrelink’); critics a bashing (‘those who cannot do, review’); while Master’s dogged pursuit of financial success belies any purity of artistic intent, despite the lofty expectations of the art commission from those holding the purse strings.
Sheppard’s physicality is where much of the magic happens. She writhes and wriggles, effervesces and collapses – she’s a skilled clown, dancer and physical comedian, and her embodiment of The Master’s various drug-induced trips alone are worth the ticket price. She punches and kicks her rage, melts with despair, retches and strains against her creative (and bodily) constipation. This ‘blok’ is solid, and unyielding, and no picnic to pass.
Sheppard’s performance is a reminder of the sheer breadth of physical language of the human body, something rarely given such free expressive rein in contemporary theatre. It’s true her character is audacious, giving her licence to really let it all loose – but my goodness, she is a proper force (a farce?) of nature.
THE BLOK!: Carly Sheppard
I last saw Sheppard perform in Chase, at the Malthouse in 2023, a one-woman work she also co-devised with THE BLOK! director and co-devisor Kamarra Bell-Wykes (Jagera/ Butchulla). The duo form A Daylight Connection, along with musician and composer Andrew James (Quandamooka), known professionally as ‘small sound’, who in THE BLOK! performs live soundscape on stage.
In THE BLOK!, many of the themes from Chase, return: both are temporally located in a near-future end-of-times that has been brought on by humans and our selfishness, egocentricity and hubris. Both feature a central, larger-than-life character holding their increasing frayed mental health together by creating characters (often using dolls and puppets) around them to talk to, and devising elaborate rituals for them to perform.
Technologies of social media (in Chase) and AI (in The Blok) become replacements for human connection and serve as magic mirrors – reflecting their loneliness and isolation back at them.
In Sheppard and Bell-Wykes co-devised works, these artistic throughlines are there, they’re compelling and signify a strong point of view about the state of our world, the environment, human connection and human frailty. And Sheppard is just so absurdly funny and watchable on stage.
THE BLOK!: God
It’s in the second half of THE BLOK!, as Alexis is made manifest, that the play is on shakier ground.
It’s not a bad premise: the muse, Alexis, becomes God-made-flesh. She arrives as a middle-aged First Nations woman, long grey hair loose, frozen in a statuesque pose. Her flowing brown and blue First Nations art printed dress mirrors that worn of The Master, and she holds two rolls of toilet paper in her outstretched arms. ‘We look exactly the same’ says The Master, in awe-filled wonder (they don’t).
God’s job, it seems, is to help unblock the artist – in more ways than one. To fertilise, incubate and birth this universe-saving art-shit that The Master can’t get out by herself.
I mean, in a play like this, you might as well go big. But even God doesn’t have all the answers, and the bowel baby – when it comes – doesn’t come easily.
While the second half of THE BLOK! forces some much-needed character introspection from narcissistic art-monster, The Master, it suffers from the disconnect in energy between the two actors.
While I don’t envy anyone who has to share the stage with Sheppard, and the role of Alexis (God) requires a counterpoint to her blazing clownishness, the scenes with the two bring a flat earnestness that feels out of place with the play’s first half, and there is a chemistry mismatch that dampens the play’s forward motion.
The energy does pick up, and the ending, in its embrace of nihilism, feels achingly moving – the final tragedy of humanity’s hubris, meeting its deserved fate.
While stories about artists with a creative block run the risk of being hackneyed (what else does a writer with a creative block write about?), THE BLOK! is an exception to the rule. It’s big, it’s bawdy, it’s bananas, and it’s another whacked-out, whip-smart piece of contemporary theatre by all-First Nations, all-women theatre company A Daylight Connection, who are truly creating some of the best new theatre in Australia.
I am a big fan of what these women are doing and what they have to say. Hard recommend.
