“A magical delight for the whole family…be enchanted by one of the most exciting pieces of theatre to hit Brisbane in a long time” City News

With no venue and no budget to mount its second production, Matrix thought outside the square and decided to present The King and the Corpse! outdoors. With generous support from Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens and the Brisbane City Council, Matrix devised the piece in six weeks through improvisation by an ensemble cast. It was a colourful, physical, exotic re-telling of ancient Sanskrit tales of Vetal and King Vikram, full of humour, horror and familiar themes of love and honour, gender ambiguity, mistaken identity, age and youth, order and chaos – all exploring the intricacies of the human spirit. Their plots have been revisited for centuries in new forms, including 1001 Nights, The Decameron and most notably in Shakespeare’s plays. A critical success, and winner of a Matilda Award, the show was enhanced by live music, and a rooftop of stars. The production was re-mounted a year later in the City Botanical Gardens as part of the inaugural Brisbane Festival, with some cast changes. The script has since been published by Playlab.

PRODUCTION DETAILS

The King and the Corpse! was first performed by Matrix Theatre at the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens, (Bamboo Grove) Brisbane,  July 11-29th, 1995.

CAST
Sandro Colarelli, Barbara Lowing, Irina Haze, Danny Murphy, Dushyant Kumar, Theresa Menchise, Caroline Kennison, Brendan Glanville, Helen Howard.

WRITERS
Michael Futcher, Helen Howard, and the ensemble with additional material by Danny Murphy.

DIRECTOR
Michael Futcher

CHOREOGRAPHY
Guy Webster, Helen Howard

LIGHTING DESIGNER
Tony MacDonald

DESIGNER
Helen Howard

COSTUMES
Sue Cox

STAGE MANAGERS
John Futcher, Kathryn Pearson

MUSICIANS
Guy Webster, Cieavash Arean, Sirus Imani, Sirus Alavi, Virag Antal, Maria Kananghinis

1996 Re-mount

The King and the Corpse! was re-mounted by Matrix Theatre, in co-production with the inaugural Brisbane Festival, in the City Botanic Gardens (Royal Palms Lawn), August 28th – September 7th, 1996.

CAST
Sandro Colarelli, Danny Murphy, Dushyant Kumar, Brendan Glanville, Helen Howard, Julie Eckersley, Angelina Quick, Justine Anderson

DIRECTOR
Michael Futcher

CHOREOGRAPHY
Guy Webster, Helen Howard

LIGHTING DESIGNER
Tony MacDonald

DESIGNER
Helen Howard

COSTUMES
Sue Cox

MUSICIANS
Guy Webster, Cieavash Arean, Sirus Imani, Virag Antal, Maria Kananghinis

PHOTOGRAPHER
Rob Maccoll, Vincent Long

STAGE MANAGER
John Futcher

The King and the Corpse!

Reviews

 Some shows are simply too good to be performed once … directed with loving energy and clarity by Michael Futcher, this is such a show. It’s pure theatre.”

 A magical theatre experience”

Time Off Magazine

 The King and the Corpse has been produced dazzlingly at Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens…a production of flippant elegance with the lush beauty, multiple layers and irony you would get if Peter Greenaway directed an Indian movie.”

 An exceptionally entertaining and different night out…a clever, comically risqué dramatization with music – not to be missed.”

 Under Michael Futcher’s inspired direction, nine of Brisbane’s finest young actors experimented in a way that is rarely seen here…this production of the King and the Corpse! is as good as anything I’ve seen in Brisbane.” 

 Director Michael Futcher and the cast match the imagination in the tales with a fervent imagination of their own…one is reminded of Peter Brook’s experiments in presenting Indian mythology… a playful Mahabharata.”

 A magical delight for the whole family…be enchanted by one of the most exciting pieces of theatre to hit Brisbane in a long time.”

 Michael Futcher has created a number of moods using minimal props and lots of movement. The choreography is spectacularly tight and effective.”