Vodka stimulates a creative cocktail

The cast of Did I Believe It (left to right) Toni Potter, Adam Gardiner, Brett O'Gorman and Dan Musgrove. Photo / Supplied

Did we believe it when Silo Theatre stalwarts Shane Bosher and Oliver Driver, full of Christmas cheer, tumbled out of a taxi and declared they'd been researching a show about vodka?

Probably not, but if there's a theatre company with the capacity to surprise beyond measure, it's Silo, which at last begins this year's season with Did I Believe It?, a play about vodka created in collaboration with 42Below.

While art and commerce frequently mix, Silo's artistic director Shane Bosher acknowledges that partnering with a known and noted brand was always going to raise "interesting" questions about artistic integrity, audience development, funding and sponsorship.

It's no secret that last year was financially tough for Silo. The 14-year-old company had to rethink and rework some of its plans and strategies. Bosher doesn't shy away from discussing the economic realities he says are ever present in the arts sector as a whole, painfully so in recession.

"You programme a year out and you can't see how the world is going to shift and change in between deciding what to stage and getting it on stage. But that's very much the nature of this business.

"If you're a theatre company trying to push into the future, you may hit some financial strife because you take risks and they don't always pay off. If we knew the recipe for guaranteed financial success within the performing arts, well, we'd be working in the commercial sector presenting safe shows. That's not what we're here to do, though. We are here to present audiences with challenges, to encourage people to think."

He says the collaboration with 42Below prompted the Silo team to consider carefully how it tells stories - indeed, what stories are told and for whom - before agreeing to the partnership. In the end, he decided it was worth taking a punt.

"We are known for pushing the envelope and taking risks. This project raised a whole lot of questions but in a really exciting way. It meant the company had to re-evaluate what we believe our mission to be. Ultimately, that's to challenge, to explore unknown territory, and this collaboration certainly is that."

The venue, a downtown bar, is pivotal to the creation of Did I Believe It? Director Oliver Driver has long been interested in breaking down barriers - he calls them inhibitors and blockers - which deter people from going to the theatre. He didn't want to create a show akin to a dinner-theatre or theatresports experience. Instead, he liked the idea of bringing theatre to a place where people already are, like a bar, but Bosher was adamant he didn't want a hagiographic or straight biographical retelling of 42Below's famous founding and development.

"Of course, I had questions about how we were going to do this," says Bosher. "I wanted to know, 'How could 42Below have a conversation with an audience that wasn't going to look like a paid advertisement?' They want to spark and ignite the imagination as much as we want our audience to leave having had a great time."

The result is a show variously described as mad, silly, action-packed and fascinating. Written by Jodie Molloy, who scripted TV3's The Jaquie Brown Diaries, it pays homage to the educational programmes British TV network ITV created in the late 1970s.

The premise is that the cast of a fictional TV science infotainment show, called Did I Believe It?, are doing a live filming in a bar of a show which happens to be about the what, when, why and how of vodka.

Clad in polyester gabardine circa 1978, science journalists Gavin Bachelor (Adam Gardiner), Ms Lilith Skies (Toni Potter), Chad-Lee Window (Dan Musgrove) and Dr Gwyn Cunny (Brett O'Gorman) arrive to stage the inaugural live transmission. Bosher is confident Did I Believe It? fits with Silo's aim to explore the ways we engage with each other and the importance of direct communication.

In his programme notes, he says: "YouTube has become a new kind of theatre. We read newspapers online in lonely offices whilst wolfing down our breakfast. We convince ourselves that we can communicate through status updates." But he reckons what we're really wanting is conversation and connection. The plays programmed for this year, all contemporary, explore these ideas.

They include:

* The Brothers Size, which mixes West African myth and ritual with a traditional tale of brotherly rivalry.

* I Love You, Bro, the true-life story of a lonely 14-year-old boy who conspires online to murder himself.

* The Only Child, a contemporary examination of modern love and dashed dreams.

* Tartuffe, a retelling of the play which almost led to the destruction of its playwright, Moliere.

Performance

What: Did I Believe It?

Where and when: 1885, 27 Galway St, Britomart, April 9-30