Presented by Ferknerkle Productions
@ The Maid
WEDNESDAY 7 March (until March 11)
We all know the saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”…well, the Sydney-based team at Ferknerkle Productions took it literally. They have created a unique show where you are encouraged to have your head buried in your phone, where tweeting won’t get you ridiculed, and where whatever wild dreams you tweet about, will actually come to life.
Tweatre is a magical combination of old-style theatre with no props and improvisation at its best, and the social media network Twitter. The audience is given a hashtag, and told to tweet in suggestions to the theatre group. Here’s where it gets fun – your tweets actually form the subject of the acted scenarios. Example: I simply tweeted the words ‘cake’ and ‘hatred’, and suddenly the talented crew made it come to life. Fan-freakin’ tastic. Or should I say fan-tweetin’-tastic. #dadjoke.
The four actors and MC give you guidelines for what they want you to tweet; a secret you’ve never told, a quote, an emotion and an object, and so on and so forth. Phones at the ready, the audience taps away at their screens, the tweets come up on a projector on stage in real time, and the performers spring into action.
It is truly a marvel to watch, the Ferknerkle team improvising everything in such a short time, with most of the skits given a one minute turnaround. Their scenario building and character development is incredible, and the actors are clearly blessed with wit beyond their years, delivering lines in seconds that some TV shows cannot achieve in years (*by some I mean all).
To give you a taste, the show included a dad in love with a grandmother, a man who confessed his love for musicals, a hostile cooking class teacher, and a facebook-jealous murderer. But, as they will tell you, no one show is the same, dependent completely on the audience and their tweets. Oh, the power.
The show is very intimate, held in a small building adjacent to the Maid of Magpie. Brenton, Claire, Elliott and Olivia, along with MC Lewie, deliver a very personal show with only three rows of seats for a small audience. It is as if you are privy to one of their acting classes, as you watch them take turns hopping on and off the stage in trios, duos or alone. Watch their minds tick over with ideas, and giggle at the product, their characters utterly hilarious and disturbingly relatable (that’s right, I’m talking to you Facebook-jealous murderer types!)
Do yourself a favour though and make sure you actually have Twitter installed on your phone. Contributing is half the fun. Plus, you may look less than smart if you go to a Twitter show without Twitter. Just sayin’.
All in all, this is a fantastic show to see, and one that I would highly recommend. The performances are a joy to witness, and it is a fantastic example of the collaboration between old and new, something we need to embrace. So go on, support the talented folks at Fernerkle, and get tweeting. It’s hashtag #awesome.
