Mutation Theatre Presents
As part of the 2011 Melbourne Fringe Festival
So Blue, So Calm
Devised and Performed by Matthew Epps and James Tresise
Designed by Ashlee Hughes and Patrick McCarthy
Lighting Design by Sam Mackie
Dramaturgical Support/Mentorship Angus Cerini and Robert Reid
Production Manager Bek Berger
Check out the So Blue, So Calm Trailer
In a dream-like suburban backyard, two young men contemplate the state of the world and their place within it. Multi-award winning company Mutation Theatre (The Arrival, Habitat) present an intimate new work exploring happiness, masculinity, and the nature of coexistence.
A gentle and delicate conversation about everything and nothing, So Blue, So Calm exposes the dreams, anxieties, desires and realities of two young men trying to connect in a brief corridor of time and space.
After winning the People's Choice Award and Theatre Works Award at the 2010 Melbourne Fringe Festival, Mutation Theatre are proud to be presenting So Blue, So Calm as part of Melbourne Fringe 2011.
This production will be the first work created and performed in the company’s beautiful new theatre space in Collingwood.
This production will be the first work created and performed in the company’s beautiful new theatre space in Collingwood.
So Blue, So Calm was developed during Mutation Theatre's time as the first Company in Residence at the MTC's Lawler Studio in June 2011.
"It was as if I suddenly stumbled off the street to find a tiny piece of paradise waiting to comfort me. James Tresise and Matthew Epps transport the audience through an honest and sensitive collection of stories, questions and thought...Tresise and Epps both have a vulnerable quality about them as they lure you into their lazy afternoon in the backyard...Patrick McCathy has crafted a beautiful piece of theatre. It is gentle, raw, heartfelt, exposing - And what a glorious set design!...I found myself thinking about personal memories; ones I hadn’t thought of in years...Time stands still; and has never felt so inviting. You feel a sense of freedom to the soul, listening to conversations and expressions of wonder, heartbreak and happiness."- AussieTheatre.com
"Mutation Theatre's So Blue So Calm is a low key, reflective theatre...Patrick McCarthy's promising script floats through memory and probes labile emotional territory...An ephemeral piece, it creates a quiet sense of male bonding stripped of homo-eroticism. Matthew Epps and James Tresise achieve a winning chemistry. They're both fine actors...a charming show."- The Age
"This is a study in distance...beautifully designed by Ashlee Hughes and Patrick McCarthy...So Blue, So Calm is very much a piece of its time...this is an attempt, stricter than most, perhaps more self-conscious, to provide an index of the moment, to be present, somehow, now. That is to say, with it’s overt references to Beckett, Grotowski and Ranters inter alia, this piece attempts to connect the tradition, or a tradition, with its own moment, to make the tradition present for the present. A study of presence conducted at a distance. It is the great Eastern problem of philosophy, is it not?"- Andrew Fuhrmann (Neandellus)
"It’s like I’m sitting on a cushiony wedge of sun in the audience of So Blue, So Calm. It’s dark and cold outside, and I can hear a lonely weeknight tram rattling past, but I’m not there – I’m in Mutation Theatre’s backyard. I’m sprawled out on a lawn, in on a secret conversation between two guys I’ve never met before but I feel like I’ve always known...you are washed in the warm glow of the performance...Here are two characters breathing the thoughts of the essential twentysomething male, not in hyperboles or terror, but off the cuff and funny. In this one-hour slice of a lazy, utopian afternoon, we get an equally funny and heartbreakingly wistful conversation – and we feel lucky that we’re in on it...Transcendental."- Express Media
"FOUR STARS. Mutation Theatre continue to demonstrate their sensitivity and craftsmanship...(So Blue, So Calm) is good for its exceptional performances, and the contemplative simplicity of its writing. McCarthy has grafted the cadences of what is not simply a conversation, but an interaction, between two young men superbly...In sporting terms, they’re seeing this play like a watermelon; or, as Tresise actually does at one point, they have it on a string...a beautiful and extraordinarily well-made production"- Melbourne Fringe Reviews.
"Mutation Theatre's So Blue So Calm is a low key, reflective theatre...Patrick McCarthy's promising script floats through memory and probes labile emotional territory...An ephemeral piece, it creates a quiet sense of male bonding stripped of homo-eroticism. Matthew Epps and James Tresise achieve a winning chemistry. They're both fine actors...a charming show."- The Age
"This is a study in distance...beautifully designed by Ashlee Hughes and Patrick McCarthy...So Blue, So Calm is very much a piece of its time...this is an attempt, stricter than most, perhaps more self-conscious, to provide an index of the moment, to be present, somehow, now. That is to say, with it’s overt references to Beckett, Grotowski and Ranters inter alia, this piece attempts to connect the tradition, or a tradition, with its own moment, to make the tradition present for the present. A study of presence conducted at a distance. It is the great Eastern problem of philosophy, is it not?"- Andrew Fuhrmann (Neandellus)
"It’s like I’m sitting on a cushiony wedge of sun in the audience of So Blue, So Calm. It’s dark and cold outside, and I can hear a lonely weeknight tram rattling past, but I’m not there – I’m in Mutation Theatre’s backyard. I’m sprawled out on a lawn, in on a secret conversation between two guys I’ve never met before but I feel like I’ve always known...you are washed in the warm glow of the performance...Here are two characters breathing the thoughts of the essential twentysomething male, not in hyperboles or terror, but off the cuff and funny. In this one-hour slice of a lazy, utopian afternoon, we get an equally funny and heartbreakingly wistful conversation – and we feel lucky that we’re in on it...Transcendental."- Express Media
"FOUR STARS. Mutation Theatre continue to demonstrate their sensitivity and craftsmanship...(So Blue, So Calm) is good for its exceptional performances, and the contemplative simplicity of its writing. McCarthy has grafted the cadences of what is not simply a conversation, but an interaction, between two young men superbly...In sporting terms, they’re seeing this play like a watermelon; or, as Tresise actually does at one point, they have it on a string...a beautiful and extraordinarily well-made production"- Melbourne Fringe Reviews.
Season Details
September 27th - October 8th 2011
Tues-Sat 8pm
Mutation Theatre
Enter through Travellers Bookstore
Adult $20
Conc $15
Bookings: Online- http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/so-blue-so-calm
Fringe Tix- 03 9660 9666
Developed with the support of:
Production Shots- Photo's by Sarah Walker (click to enlarge):
