How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse | Dark Stories, Brisbane
How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse (HTSAZA) is the latest development by the Brisbane chapter of Dark Stories, best known for running guided walking tours that retrace the steps of some of most infamous criminals of cities around the world. A departure from these tours, in HTSAZA the team brings us an interactive comedic seminar that tests the audience’s potential to survive the end of the world through the most appropriate ways possible - their knowledge of horror and fantasy tropes and their eye for detail.
HTSAZA pitches the audience as survivors of a zombie apocalypse, attending a seminar run by the School of Survival on how to escape the undead hordes. Upon entering the hall, the audience members are each given a dot to signify their single chance to survive the walking dead. Our teachers are the School of Survival, led by Dr Dale and his team of Dr Judy, the medical expert and over-enthusiastic experimenter, Donald Straite, the self-styled survival expert, and Kristen, the ... intern (?). Their advice, questionable, and crafted to be confusing even for our team of presenters. This often leads to the tried and true screwball comedy of ‘rabbit season, duck season’ that Looney Tunes has been giving us for years. But the world outside the seminar is falling apart and we’ll take whatever tips and tricks we can get to survive almost certain doom.
The team quickly established their very particular rules and statistics for surviving the undead hordes outside the building and reminded us to pay attention, because we’re about to be tested. And test us they do, as those of us who don’t follow their advice drop like flies over the course of the evening, until only a few remain. I, for one, definitely did not survive.
As a concept, a seminar on how to survive a zombie apocalypse led by an incompetent team of self proclaimed experts is full of potential, which the performers were able to mine to some extent in its first run in front of an audience. The troupe leaned into an old-school, screwball aesthetic for the humour of the piece that was moderately successful. Being only the second night of the show, the rhythm between the performers had yet to be completely established, and the confusion and stubbornness of the characters quickly became too predictable to draw too many laugh out loud moments.
Clocking in at almost 1.5 hours, there were definitely moments where the performance felt quite repetitive and where the jokes fell flat. It also took more time than was needed to establish the concept and for the hosts to start testing the audience’s survival skills. This wasn’t helped by the troupe performing without microphones in a big hall that also took away some of the energy of the piece. If I would recommend anything to the performers it would be to cut about 20 minutes from the show, particularly some of the drawn-out introduction and repetitive jokes, to keep us engaged throughout the whole piece. This first run in front of audiences should give the team an opportunity to see what works and what to trim for any future runs.
The performance comes alive though in the second half when they finally started the test the audience. From this point, the troupe was able to showcase their physical comedy skills and embrace the stupid so hard that they had us all giggling. Those in the audience who were obvious fans of horror and fantasy seemed to particularly geek out at the multitude of references to these genres in our ‘tests’.
Full points to the HTSAZA team for the concept, for embracing the genre and for the inherent silliness of the show. And props to the team for embracing the physical comedy and stupidity of it all with a straight face. I think it still needs some work and a good edit for it to reach its potential, and a few more nights in front of the audience to tighten it up and find all of the funny in the script. That being said, by the time this show hits its stride it will be a great night out for fans of horror and fantasy genres and physical comedy.
