Nicola Gunn On Making A 'Foolish Endeavour' Work

17 July 2014 | 3:12 pm | Daniel Delahunty

We delve inside the world of Gunn's new piece Green Screen.

Nicola Gunn is one of those artists who is so innately in touch with what her audience wants she finds it difficult to summarise her own work. However there’s no doubt the company she formed with Gwen Holmberg-Gilchrist in 2009 has had an enormous impact on how Melburnians conceptualise contemporary performance.  Although ‘Sans Hotel’ has only a handful of shows to its name, as a company it’s quickly risen to prominence and reliability for the kind of work that presents theatre as an active, unpretentious, accessible and utterly engaging artform. Now Gunn and Holmberg-Gilcrhist are preparing their first ensemble piece, Green Screen, to be presented as part of MTC’s second Neon Festival of Independent Theatre.

“It’s the first work that I’ve made with an ensemble cast,” Nicola explains. “Normally I make solo work, so it’s kind of a social experiment that has shaped this show in unexpected ways. I’m still interested in the same themes – in the fragility of human existence – and so we’re looking broadly at the impermanence of the planet and this really far-fetched theme of saving it and trying to solve the problems of the world.” Not the most humble of thematic aims to say the least, but Nicola is under no illusions that she’s bringing a clear solution to the world peace table, as she makes clear.

"I’m still interested in the same themes – in the fragility of human existence"

“We realised a couple of weeks into the development process that it was the most foolish endeavour anyone could embark on. It was very challenging, but when you start looking at how things interconnect and how the problems are just so entrenched and deep, it kind of makes your head explode, to the point where you feel helpless and completely ineffectual.

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So the work has become a little bit about that: the feeling of uselessness and being ineffectual to make change or take action. The premise is: what if a group of people were all in a room together because they had answered a call in a newspaper to protest the extinction of the human race? There is no leader, no one is taking responsibility and they’re not solving any problems, just protesting them.”

One thing is definitely clear – Green Screen is unlikely to be your average ‘well made play’ by any stretch. And if you’ve seen or heard of Nicola’s recent work, such as Hello My Name Is or the Melbourne Festival hit, In Spite Of Myself, this will come as no surprise. Sans Hotel has evolved into a contemporary performance-making machine that creates work that defines the artists’ own unique expression rather than what everyone else is doing, and as a result the shows they produce are entirely unlike anything their audience has seen before.

“I want people to be awake to the wonderment of the world, to see everything glow again – whether that is an interaction with a stranger, or catching  public transport… or carpet… but just to imbue things with a little bit of value, appreciation and gratitude.”