By MICHELLE HERBISON
ROSES and carnations filled the masks of medieval plague doctors to protect against germ-ridden air as they performed treatments as quirky as bleeding and covering patients with toads.
The methods may have failed at staving off death and despair for patients and doctors alike but they certainly make for some gory tales.
So says Nick Ravenswood of The Laudanum Project, a self-described “theatrical monstrosity” that is bringing Ballad of the Plague Doctor to the darkened walls of Geelong Gaol over two evenings in March.
The one-act, 90-minute performance features Ravenswood as narrator of a hellish poetry recreating the final days of Dr Marroc Corvus Rapere, Medieval London’s first community plague doctor.
“We get into the guts of what it would’ve been like to live back then,” Ravenswood explained.
“Usually the doctors that were employed and selected weren’t particularly top-end at what they did. There was a massive risk of infection and death and they got paid three shillings a month.”
Keyboardist ‘Lady Sophronia Lick-Penny’ will accompany the entire performance with melodramatic soundscapes, producing a cinematic quality that has led audiences to comment they could “almost smell” the experience.
The narration’s “evocative, florid and descriptive” prose took inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens, while the overall style featured elements from Grand Guignol, the French theatre of terror, Ravenswood said.
“While they did performances that were extraordinarily graphic and gory, we rely heavily on storytelling. It’s not particularly graphic.
“Sometimes you feel like you’re attending an old radio play. Although the story is narrated by myself, I’m in character as Alphonse Cheese-Probert.”
The production of Ballad of the Plague Doctor is The Laudanum Project’s third play after forming in 2009 out of a theatrical boredom Ravenswood developed working backstage in London theatre.
“I’ve worked on a lot of very boring musicals,” he laughed.
“I try to make this as far away from Sunset Boulevard as I can.”
The Geelong Gaol setting would switch audiences onto “high alert” creating a “much more potent” experience, Ravenswood teased.
Geelong Gaol will host Ballad of the Plague Doctor opens at Geelong Gaol on Thursday 13 and Friday 14 March.
