The Great Travelling Médecin Show was an uninhibited multicultural cornucopia for the senses. Actors and creatives worked together to adjust the spectator’s micro and macro lenses while tuning their sound waves through the full spectrum of human experience.
Concept producers for the performance, Catherine Hassall and Guillaume Brugman, used their vast knowledge of live performance techniques from across the globe to transcend the generic theatre form.
In this experimental performance piece, a loose narrative ran throughout explaining that gods do exist, but are not able to intervene into all human matters that occur. Due to this inaction, people look to more tangible sources for comfort, with many now putting their belief into medicinal science. But is it a placebo effect or the simple human connection they get from a salesperson that is the real societal cure?
The set was the first element the audience saw upon entering the auditorium, which set the tone immediately. It was designed by Zachary Barclay, with the stage divided up between three separate spaces. Stage right was the realm of the divine, represented by a raised dais showing the elevation of the gods. Juxtaposing the elements of the divine on the opposite side of the stage was the performance space directly in front of the curtains of the vaudevillian wagon inhabited by the travelling medicine “doctor” and the entourage of entertainers.
These pedlars were plying their trade to the weary and disenfranchised. Finally, centre stage was where we found surrealism and the final layer of meaning.
The ensemble cast was made up of seven eclectic performers of varied ethnicities – all of whom played three or four different characters apiece. Their songs whether whale-like or rollicking, were both tonal and a tonic.
Musical composers for the show, Trish Molloy and Johannes “Hanzi” Selhofer, created an entrancing soundscape for such a quixotic and absurd world. Pre-recorded sounds intermingled with live music from the aforementioned pair, plus fellow musician Jen Fengler.
Costuming by Linda Jackson, assisted by both Sally Anne Heron and Varsha Lieber Brisbin, was eye-catching and included lavish layered robes of Eastern-inspired gods.
Props were very minimal and mainly used in the “social surrealism” area centre stage. A small crowd toted the trappings of modern society, with each character carrying a suitcase that later opened to reveal their repressed inner self inside. The ensemble cast were both judging and being judged by one another for their outward appearance. All the while the audience remained an accomplice voyeur, replicating our real-life collective choice to dwell within social media screens.
Lighting and projection completed the rich tapestry of The Great Travelling Médecin Show. The projections in the show, skilfully created by Blake Hudson, were provocative and mirrored whatever the characters were feeling throughout the performance. Blank surfaces to reflect these projections were offered up by a duality of switches and set transformations that renewed the audience’s delight in the age of steam and gadgetry.
The Great Travelling Médecin Show players offered audiences pageantry and social commentary, lyrics and music, and whatever they could salvage from their own suitcases and skin, to sell their salves from the back of the wagon.
The Great Travelling Médecin Show
Created and produced by Centre for Australasian Theatre
Cairns Performing Arts Centre
Artistic Director: Guillaume “Willem” Brugman
Concept and CfAT producers: Catherine Hassall and Guillaume Brugman
Musicians: Trish Molloy, Johannes “Hanzi” Selhofer, Jen Fengler
Projections: Blake Hudson
Kuroko/Stagehands: Varsha Lieber Brisbin, Cosmo Senang Brugman, Laxmi Lieber Brisbin Costume Consultant, Design Collaborator and Sometime Sewer: Linda Jackson
Set Design and Construction: Zachary Barclay
Visual Artist: Set Painting, Design and Merchandise: Caroline Lieber
Visual Artist: Set Painting, Design and Costumes: Varsha Lieber Brisbin
Construction & Painting Projections: Dan Joseph
Costume assistant: Sallyanne Herron
Mask: Kathleen Zarafonitis
Cast: Catherine Hassall, Daniel Joseph, Leonard Donahue, Maya Thiango Hassall, Miyako, Ola Adamczyk, Zachary Barclay
The Great Travelling Médecin Show was performed on 7-9 March 2024, before being staged in Kuranda on 19 April.
