Disney Off Ice | Observatory Theatre
All Images: Images by Anderson
Disney Off Ice is a new original play by Oliver Gough, directed by Lachlan Driscoll and commissioned as part of the Telescope New Writing Program from Observatory Theatre. The play imagines a not too distant future where the famous Walt Disney is reanimated from a cryogenically frozen state into a world that wishes to use him and the nostalgia he represents for monetary and ideological gain. Television entertainment, religiously fanatic Disney adults, and corporate execs all want a piece.
In Disney Off Ice, Joanna, played by Rebekah Schmidt, works for the cryogenics company that has stored Disney for decades. The company is not doing well, and she tries to use the reanimation of Disney, played by Chris Kellett, as an opportunity to pull in more clients. In a world where the nostalgia of the idea of Disney looms so large, is this future more than he can handle?
The idea of selling a shared cultural experience in a world without anymore shared media moments thanks to generative content is interesting one. However, ‘Disney Off Ice’ had a very cynical tone throughout and ended without hope for the future. I personally don’t find as much value in dystopias without hope, as I do ones that explore redemption and change, and the story of Disney Off Ice was slightly too defeatist for my tastes.
When asked by Catherine Lawrence in a recent interview with NEHIB if this play was more about the man of Walt Disney or about the world in which we live in now, writer Oliver said “I think it’s a bit of both, but perhaps more about the world we might live in and what a Disney can represent.”. I think that this work does deliver on that, but at the detriment of having a main character that the audience may struggle to connect with and care about. I ultimately found character of Walt Disney to be too unlikeable, and not as fully fleshed out as he could have been. I also found his vocabulary to somewhat be incongruent for someone frozen in time in 1966.
All Images: Images by Anderson
I ended up being more interested in Joanna than the main character. Perhaps this is on purpose. If so, I would have loved to see Joanna’s storyline expanded if Gough and Observatory Theatre does some more development on the play. Joanna for me was the most sympathetic character in the play, with Schmidt portraying her frustration and fear convincingly. Actors Ophelia Novak and Audrey Allen-Moore were also highlights, playing multiple roles and providing much needed levity in what is mostly a serious story. They are particularly delightful as members of the press relaying “crowd-sourced” questions to Disney live on air.
This first season of the show is taking place at Studio 1 in Yeerongpilly, a dance studio/intimate black box space, which worked really well for this show. I hadn’t previously been in this space set up in this way, and it was really nice and is a great option for small plays. Some of the actors were projecting their lines like they were in a much larger space, which was quite distracting at times and pulled me away from the story, but I’m sure this will level out over the season as they get more used to the small space.
In addition to the six actors and a simple set consisting mostly of tables, chairs and doorframes, there was a large projection screen that was used to great effect. Silhouettes were used effectively to comedically portray the reanimation process of Disney at the beginning of the play. Pre-recorded videos of the actors' faces were later projected on screen during moments of tension while the actrs were performing live in front of the projections, This was a really impactful stylist choice for the work, which heightened the performances of the actors.
Disney Off Ice is an original new work that will capture the attention of audiences with interest in dystopian worlds and a hatred of capitalism and nostalgic cultishness.
‘Disney Off Ice’ by Observatory Theatre plays at Studio 1, Yeeronga until 1 September 2024.
