Madcap comedy The Popular Mechanicals will bring Geelong Performing Arts Centre’s (GPAC) theatre season to a riotous close next month.
Shakespeare’s greatest clowns – the rude mechanicals from A Midsummer Night’s Dream – take centre stage in this wild reimagining of what might have happened off-stage during the Bard’s beloved comedy.
The troupe bumbles its way through rehearsals of Pyramus and Thisbe, somehow surviving the misadventures brought on by their own sheer idiocy.
The result is a mix of Shakespearean verse, songs and dance that is lewd, rude and ingenious.
Clowning, vaudeville, slapstick, stand-up comedy and bad puppetry combine with wit and fart jokes to create an anarchic and unhinged carnival that revels in its own theatricality.
First directed by Geoffrey Rush in 1987, The Popular Mechanicals holds a special place in the Australian comedic canon.
The State Theatre Company of South Australia revives the show with a cast of theatrical clowns, under the direction of Sarah Giles.
The Popular Mechanicals is a perfect romp that promises to lift the roof in the silliest ways imaginable, promoters said.
The show has also received rave reviews from Stage Whispers magazine.
“Monty Python eat your heart out; what a hoot this show is… I give it five rubber chooks out of five,” the magazine’s reviewer said.
The Popular Mechanicals will be in Geelong for five performances in GPAC’s Drama Theatre, from October 11-14.
