Who We Are

"This time last year Chris and I were working on a show that was part of Fringe World called The Wives Of Hemingway, a devised work with Zoe Pepper. Chris was the dramaturge on that; well, he was a bit more than that actually, because he helped us completely dig out and build a makeshift outdoor theatre at the North Coast Bowls Club, so he was pretty much digging holes during the day and then watching us run the show at night and giving us notes and feedback!”

Twelve months on and Chris Isaacs has replaced his shovel with a pen as he and Daff, alongside her castmates – Joshua Brennan, Samuel Delich, Will O'Mahony, Whitney Richards and Rose Riley – and director Adam Mitchell, prepare Flood for Fringe World 2014.

Flood tells the story of six Perth 20-somethings taking a camping trip to the mid-west that quickly turns sour, giving rise to questions – what is the Australian identity? What binds friends? Who can keep a secret? What should we do with the body?

“We're now in air-conditioning in the State Theatre Centre, our rehearsal room overlooks the Horseshoe Bridge, there's tea and coffee! We've really graduated into some luxury for this fringe show!” jokes Daff.

The switch is thanks, in large part, to the Black Swan Lab, an initiative that provides a working environment for emerging artists. For Flood, the only work by a WA playwright in Black Swan's 2014 season, it meant keeping Isaacs close at hand throughout the development of the work by the actors.

“It's a rare opportunity that we have with Flood and with Chris being in the rehearsal room, because normally if you're doing like a Death Of A Salesman or you're doing a script where it's written some years ago and the writer's not around, you just have to make work what you're given - so this is a really luxurious position we're in and I think we may as well make the most of it.”

For Daff, who plays the headstrong and stubborn Frankie, it was an inability to articulate her opinions on issues raised in Isaacs' script that convinced her of its importance. “That's when I realised it had some real meat on its bones. I consider myself to be quite an eloquent person, at times, but this is something where it was like the cat had got my tongue – I thought other people might have a similar reaction. When we started rehearsing I was very interested to see that I wasn't alone in not really knowing how to put words to how I felt about some of the things that happen in this country and some of the really bad things that have happened in this country.”