Why It Takes Drive, Passion And Intuition To Find Your Path

The influence of Chekhov permeates Kit Brookman's new play, The Great Fire. There's the sprawling network of family converging on the old estate, a family middle-class enough to have "the family home" and the time to argue about the art they make or don't. All that's needed is to substitute the rural countryside of Russia for the rugged yet handsome Adelaide Hills.

As a practicing artist and an astute observer of family dynamics Brookman's perfectly positioned to pen this new play, and as one of four brothers it was the exploration of family interactions that first drew Marcus McKenzie — the second oldest of four, and only actor in his family — to The Great Fire.

"My brothers are all football players — I don't know the first thing about football! I'm definitely the odd one out..."

"Sibling life has been a big thing in my upbringing: the love that the siblings have for one another, which is often masked under various layers of other things, that struck a chord with me off the bat. I am definitely the 'artist/actor guy' out of a family from Tasmania, so a family that put a lot of value on sporting and athletic achievement. My brothers are all football players — I don't know the first thing about football! I'm definitely the odd one out because that's a huge thing culturally where I'm from.

"It's funny though, I don't see myself as the black sheep; I have another brother, he's kind of the wildcard of the family and I think a lot of what I relate to in the character I play in The Great Fire, Tom, I see through the lens of that brother. He's the illusive one in our family, the slightly more wayward one."

By a large gap — the youngest of three siblings — Tom is in his mid-20s and a prodigiously talented poet from a family of creative types that have not only nurtured his knack for words, but given him enough insight into the creative life to realise that, despite his promise, it might not be for him.

"It's a family full of artists; they're involved in theatre, in writing, in directing, in producing, even the in-laws are both in that world! Tom is the one who has tried to reject that the most, so he's trying, in a family where that's been very much the assumed path, he's trying to find out what his path is amongst that. You might even say trying to resist his fate a little bit.

"Tom is a poet, but his mother is a writer and he's seen the pain and the struggle that his mum has gone through in that life choice and so I think he's struggling to decide whether he really wants to go down that road of difficulty and broken dreams."

It's a perilously paved road that parallels the path taken by many creative types, says McKenzie, actors included:  "In terms of me relating to that, when you do find yourself in this strange, unpredictable, foolhardy occupation there's a huge part of you that's always doubting it and questioning it, but there's a real passion and drive and a strange intuition that tells you it's the right road to go down."