Matt Hewson
Internationally lauded Geelong theatre company Back to Back will premiere their newest major work at the Geelong Arts Centre this week.
Multiple Bad Things is a dark comedy focused on three employees struggling to work together, starring long-time Back to Back actors/creators Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring and Scott Price and award-winning performer Bron Batten.
Laherty, who has been creating at Back to Back Theatre for the past two decades, said the workers faced challenges concerning “discrimination, challenging behaviour, fighting, arguing and, of course, work”.
“We’ve got a great team of collaborators, two fantastic directors and a great cast,” he said.
“(Shows like this are) very, very important. We’re a team, we work hard, and we just make great theatre.”
Tamara Searle, who co-directs Multiple Bad Things alongside Ingrid Voorendt, said the work explored broader themes of conflict and social upheaval through the microcosm of the workplace.
“We think of this work as being about a workplace culture war; whilst some of the wars in the world at the moment are obviously physically violent and genocidal, there’s also other wars going on which are much more micro level, but are dealing with similar things,” Searle said.
“It’s like climate change, it’s like the glaciers melting, it’s like the war in Ukraine; they are so big, we can’t really understand them.
“And so that’s kind of why we went, let’s make it small, let’s make it local and personal and see if we can understand more by doing that.”
Back to Back Theatre features the work of artists with disabilities and has won prestigious international awards such as the International Ibsen Award and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre.
Multiple Bad Things is at the Geelong Arts Centre from April 11 to 13 before heading to Brussels in May.
