Out Of The Box

"I'm Your Man went down so well at the Sydney Festival, sort of like a surprise underdog hit of the festival.” It's unclear how many, if any, of the puns in that statement from Roslyn Oades were intentional. There's more pride than humour in her voice, but that too, is not immediately obvious.

The show was such a hit (absolutely intended) that it was selected for the Mobile States tour – an established circuit funded by the Australian Council for the Arts, which supports one innovative, independent show to tour Australia, from Darwin to Hobart, with ten stops all up.

I'm Your Man was the final instalment of a trilogy of verbatim theatre works by Oades that examined notions of courage. Shadowing Western Sydney boxer Billy Dibs for 18 months in the lead up to his world title fight, Oades offers an invitation to a world where courage is everything, and it's tested before a crowd.

“I really think to be a boxer in that hyper-masculine world takes immense courage,” explains Oades, “because the only thing that's certain: no matter how great your career becomes, eventually you will lose in a really public, humiliating way, and you've got to find a way to get through that.

“So much verbatim theatre is like talking heads, talking about things that have already happened. I wanted to make a work that was happening in the present tense, so we don't know what's going to happen to Billy, we follow him over 18 months – I interviewed him before and after every fight in the lead up to his world title fight just attempting to capture adrenalin on tape. I love this idea of action in the work, and this sense of present tense.”

First performed in the intimate surrounds of Belvoir's Downstairs Theatre, patrons were certainly treated to a performance that was present. Entering the room, eyes adjusting to bright gym lights spotted a pastiche of boxing posters on the wall, and nostrils were stung or stimulated by the smell of anti-inflammatory gel and sweat. Boxing bags hung limp from thick chains drilled into the roof.

Recreating this immersive environment in ten different theatres was no small task.

“I live in Melbourne and there's this great boxing gym here called The Fighters Factory, in Blackburn, and for some reason they can't rig the bags off the ceiling. It's one of those beautiful old school boxing gyms, and they've got this whole system of frameworks that they've built in the space to hang everything from, and to keep that real authenticity I had to find a way to recreate that factory feel where everything is really functional and practical.”

Oades has found her fair share inspiration in boxing gyms; a summary she uses for the show was taken verbatim from a wall in Tony Mundine's gym: 'The more you sweat, the less you bleed.'