HURRAH FOR HURRAH HURRAH
A few months back we went to see The Cardinal Rules, a play written by Alison Bennett and Rose Maher that was simultaneously the funniest and most meaningful piece of theatre I’d seen, probably ever. So when Rose told me she and Alison were working on another show, alongside their Hurrah Hurrah team, I was naturally quite excited. She told me about Dolly’s Miracle Hoard, a show that explores the life of Dolly, a woman who exists in the isolated world of her hoard, and what happens when the outside world encroaches. We asked the Hurrah Hurrah team a few questions about Dolly, and about what they do as a team overall. They’re an incredibly talented and knowledgeable bunch who we can’t wait to see more from. Dolly’s Miracle Hoard will be showing this weekend in Darlinghurst, you can grab your tickets here!
WANDERER: Who are the people behind Hurrah Hurrah and what are their roles?
HH: Hurrah Hurrah is headed up by our Artistic Director, Alison Bennett. Ali started the company in 2014 and has been the creative life force behind all of Hurrah Hurrah's earlier devised works; TRADE, Roomba Nation and Introducing Aunty Jude as well as experiments with the text-based works, Frenzy for Two (Ionesco) and The Seagull (Chekhov). Under Ali's creative direction these works have been presented at venues and fringe festivals across the nation, and pop up performance spaces in Sydney's The Rocks. In 2023, Rose Maher and Alex Travers joined the company in their respective roles as Associate Artist and General Manager. Last year, we produced our first work as a trio; The Cardinal Rules which was Rose's original brainchild and brought together heartfelt personal storytelling and visual theatre to explore one woman's reckoning with her faith from within and beyond the Catholic Church. As General Manager, Alex is our producer and admin guru, and is generally the person who fixes things when we inevitably need to paint a set or find 14 sandbags at short notice. Our next project, Dolly's Miracle Hoard will have its premiere season at Brand X from Friday 21 - Saturday 22 February at 7pm at the East Sydney Community and Arts Centre and is supported by Brand X's Flying Nun Residency. Ali will be performing at the helm as Dolly, while Rose plays Dolly's neighbour. Alex has produced the show and we're excited to have Fernando de Miguel Fuertes join us as Director, Andy McDonell as Clown Director, Lập Nguyễn performing in the role of Del, Christine Pan as Composer and Live Musician, and Amy Norton as the Lighting Designer and Tech Operator.
Describe Dolly's Miracle Hoard in three words.
Pathos. Neighbours. Humanity.
What has been your favourite HH project to work on so far?
When Alison brought the original creation of Dolly's Miracle Hoard to Rose and Alex, we really couldn't contain our excitement because as a company, we're very invested in all of the contradictions that make up our very messy and human existence. As Dolly isolates herself from the world in her tiny flat, it only follows that when she's faced with a persistent new neighbour, she finds herself yearning for connection. On this show in particular, we've only deepened our understanding of the ways in which we make our work together - we're very insistent on collaboration, on deep listening, on making our works accessible to audiences, and on play. There's also a lot of laughter. For Dolly's Miracle Hoard, we also have live music performed on stage by Christine Pan which just makes the whole experience even more magical. When we initially suggested to Christine that she have the creative freedom to improvise live, we couldn't have imagined that she would bring Dolly to life in such a beautiful way. As we stitch the final threads of the work together ahead of this first development season, we hope it invites audiences into a world of magical realism centred on the connective tissues of hope, humanity and laughter.
What do you like most about being a part of the HH team?
Well, there's the joy of it for a start. I think we're three very different and creative individuals who can, at times, find ourselves on the fringes of what a majoritarian society tells us is the respectable way of doing things. Together, we can be ourselves even if that means we let slip a bit of weirdness we hadn't let loose before, and that really shows up in the work that we make. It's very freeing. Because we all trained at clown school in France (Ali and Alex at Ecole Jacques Lecoq and Rose at Philippe Gaulier), we also have this shared creative language that brings us together and makes us very willing to play and collaborate together. But making theatre is also a tremendously difficult business so it helps when you have people you can share it with. It's so lovely to not feel like the only clown at the party.
