Everything You Need To Know About This Show Is In The Title

The static of a speakerphone providing a buffer, Booth, Gooley and I count aloud under our breaths before delivering results: 13, 13, 19. By some six words, then, the upcoming world premier production of A Sri Lankan Tamil Asylum Seeker's Story As Performed By Australian Actors Under The Guidance Of A Sinhalese Director, by Dhananjaya Karunarathne, is officially the longest titled play in which either have performed. Stephen Sewell's Myth, Propaganda And Disaster In Nazi Germany And Contemporary America: A Contemporary Study, which Booth acted in during his first year at NIDA, is the close second with 13 words in the title.

All raw data aside, it's an arresting name for a theatre show. "The great thing about the title is everything you need to know about the show is in the title; you know what you're in for," jokes Gooley.

Well you do, and you don't. Despite years of development and workshopping at Merrigong Theatre as part of its independent artist program Studio Sessions, the thematic concerns of Karunarathne's play mean that new material is arriving all the time.

"One thing that they've been very diligent about is constantly updating references and adding in new sources as things have developed."

"A piece like this is as important if not more important now than when it was first put into development," Gooley feels, "but one thing that they've been very diligent about is constantly updating references and adding in new sources as things have developed along the way." 

"And as artists," adds Booth, "to be in a work which can be so responsive to the political environment around it is a great opportunity."

Both are also aware of the unstable ground they occupy as white Australian actors in a thorny theatrical comedy.

"The play itself is about two things," Booth explains. "On the one hand it is about a Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seeker's journey to Australia; on the other hand it is about two completely hapless and somewhat useless white Australian actors on stage trying to navigate his story and find a way to tell it under the guidance of our Sinhalese director. They're bouncing ideas off each other, off the audience, they've got completely different approaches to acting and beliefs to what theatre actually is and what it should be."

"They're trying to tell an interpretation of his story that they feel is culturally sensitive and informed," Gooley expands, "but the reality is I think what they're ultimately trying to do is alleviate themselves of their own middle-class guilt.

"One of the really fun things about this production is that we're up there as Adam Booth and Anthony Gooley but we're playing particular sides of our personalities. When we stand up there as white middle-class Australians pretty comfortable people in terms of where we fit into Australian society, we're up there as a reflection of a large portion of what the audience will be and is for most theatre, so in that sense the challenge for us becomes quite clear, so as a result you're willing to sacrifice yourself because you understand the purpose which you are serving for this piece."