LOADED AUDIO EXPERIENCE
By Christos Tsiolkas and Dan Giovannoni after the novel by Christos Tsiolkas, Malthouse Theatre, 2020
The 1995 debut novel from Christos Tsiolkas (The Slap, Dead Europe, Barracuda) makes its mainstage premiere 25 years after the fact.
Ari (Roy Joseph, Five Bedrooms) is 19, unemployed and aimless. He doesn’t want to be gay. He doesn’t want to be Greek. He doesn’t want to be anything. He finds an escape, of sorts, via sex, drugs and dance clubs. But, he doesn’t really fit in with the queens at The Peel any better than with family in his theía’s backyard.
This is the story that established Tsiolkas as a provocative master of the written word. Adapted for film in the 1998 underground hit Head On, and now, in close collaboration with playwright Dan Giovannoni, Tsiolkas rewrites Ari’s odyssey for the stage with a 21st century perspective.
Directed by Stephen Nicolazzo (Merciless Gods), this queer migrant history comes spilling out across the four corners of Melbourne.
Loaded was originally to be presented at Malthouse Theatre, 30 October-22 November, 2020, but due to COVID-19, the project was re-imagined as a four part audio experience and video portrait collection. It received rave reviews and won two Green Room Awards- Outstanding Sound Design (Daniel Nixon) and Outstanding Writing/Adaptation for the Australian Stage (Christos Tsiolkas and Dan Giovannoni)
It is available to purchase here:
With: Roy Joseph
Adapted By: Dan Giovannoni & Christos Tsiolkas from the novel by Christos Tsiolkas
Director: Stephen Nicolazzo
Set and Costume Design: Eugyeene Teh
Lighting Design: Katie Sfetkidis
Composition and Sound Design: Daniel Nixon
★★★★ "Packs a visceral punch... a superb performance by Roy Joseph. Joseph, under supple direction from Nicolazzo, navigates the single day of Ari’s crisis of love and belonging with expert dynamism and control...It recalls the raging self-abjuration of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground or Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, where young men rail against their own fracturing selves. As a reminder of the pulsing heartbeat of Melbourne, its dingy and dangerous crevices, it’s exhilarating." Tim Byrne, The Guardian
★★★★ "Astounding...A queer odyssey across all corners of the city, it’s all the more vital for our current 25km demarcated boundaries. Joseph commands our attentions...This is as hot as radio gets" Stephen A Russell, Time Out.
★★★★ "A triumph of imagination…explosive…the writing works brilliantly” Cameron Woodhead, The Age