Felix Writings

Source: dBmagazine adelaide

Author: Steve Jones

Date: Feb 2006

Felix Listens To The World
The Suitcase Royale Company
Bosco Theatre
Garden Of Unearthly Delights
Season closed

There's very much of an absurdist approach and child-like simplicity to 'Felix Listens To The World', as micro cardboard sets within suitcases are used, and very little consideration is given to the proportions of pretty much the rest of the cleverly interchangeable junkyard props used throughout this strange, but very intriguing and totally engaging forlorn fairytale.

The mere fact that Felix, the only actual human character is simultaneously acted out, often in separate corners of the stage, by three identically dressed bearded men also adds to the barrage of sounds and fast paced despair and lunacy. Felix lives an ordinary life atop of his 28th floor apartment block - that is until he decides to skip work at his office job one day and go to the seaside. There he meets Rose and the pair instantly fall in love and marry soon after. Then, for no given reason Rose (played by a Russian Doll) up and leaves Felix by sailing away in a teacup. Heartbroken and desperate, Felix sets sail in a suitcase in search of his wife only to become marooned on an island where he slowly descends into madness.

It's there that Felix begins to listen to his inner voices and begins to regain the strength and determination to continue his quest of love. Despite being a tragedy as such, there's a steady thread of comedic moments that are brilliantly accentuated by the continual shifts in both time and perspectives, not forgetting the acute sense of timing provided by Felix; all three of him.

Source: Vibewire.net

Author: Catford Coles

Date: 25 Oct 05

Someone has released the independent theatre bacillus into the Arts Centre...

Felix Listens to the World infected me with glee. The play was produced by a group called The Suitcase Royale; a group of three multiart performers who call their work ‘junkyard theatre’ because of the home-made and found objects of their sets. It is the first play that I’ve ever seen that excited me through the use of props. When the play started the stage looked like bohemian heaven. It featured typewriters, a talking gramophone, hand me down furniture that didn’t match and lots of old suitcases that doubled as boats when the actors climbed inside to row them across the seas. The Suitcase Royale work across a broad range of disciplines including “theatre, dance, film, visual arts, music, puppetry, design, poetry, politics and graffiti" and all of these elements were present in the play. The story was whimsical: Felix Louis Belljar is looking for the woman he loves who has sailed away in a teacup. There is no actress in the play; the character of Felix's love, Rose, is played by a Russian matryoshka doll controlled by the actors. The lighting was imaginative. It was too dark to see at the beginning but it soon became highly experimental and crafted. During the opening scenes the three actors (who all play Felix) controlled the lighting from onstage using a choreographed turning on and off of desk lamps. In my favourite scene one of the Felix’s finds a letter written to him by Rose. The spotlight fell on him and the stop motion flickering of light and distorted sound effects really gave the impression of someone whose psyche has been fragmented by the longing of a broken heart. The Suitcase Royale succeeded in depicting a feeling of love induced insanity with a jerky horror film aesthetic. In another part Felix holds up a white circle of cardboard and a technician followed its path across the stage, making it look like the moon. The opening credits were a cut and paste movie projected onto the side of one of the suitcases that reminded me of the opening credits of Napolean Dynamite in its playfulness. There were so many instances throughout this play where I delighted in the unexpected props, such as the knee high cardboard city complete with mini lights that fit into a suitcase or the suitcase that doubled as a postbox. Felix Listens to the World was only forty minutes long but its effects will prove long lasting. It alerted me to the fact that you don’t need a lot of money to put on a good play- you need lots of heavy imagination and suitcases to carry it in. I like seeing independent theatre at the Arts Centre. There are less Rose Handock mining magnate wives in the audience, and more aspiring artists. The Good: Imaginative props and energetic acting made me want to write a play this summer. The Bad: Some of the action took place too close to the ground making it difficult to see. And I hate it when actors pretend to be using a typewriter but don’t hit the keys realistically! The Vibe: Theatre is about imagination above all else. Quirky play about love reminded me of the film Amelie.

Source: The Age

Author: Helen Thomson

Date: October 22, 2005

Felix Listens to the World
By Suitcase Royale and Gilgamesh by Uncle Semolina and Friends,
Fairfax Theatre until tonight .
Running time: 120 minutes
THIS double bill of award-winning Fringe works is a welcome addition to the Melbourne Festival, bringing two local, contemporary performance groups to wider notice. They make a good pair, sharing as they do an artful naivety that plays on notions of childhood and innocence.
Felix Listens to the World, created and performed by Joseph O'Farrell, Miles O'Neil and Glen Walton, employs a set of junk, found objects and toys, as well as a complex lighting design, to tell its story of Rose and Felix Louis Belljar. The story is simplicity itself: boy meets girl, loses her, goes in search and happily finds her.
But the ingenuity with which it is told and illustrated contains the real theatricality. A miniaturised world is animated, and the tiny doll figures are as endearing as the human counterparts who alternate in the role of Felix.
It is at times like a puppet show for adults, child-like rather than childish, inviting us to delight in the cleverness of the three Felixes, whose fidelity to Rose is as touching as their inventiveness is impressive.
Gilgamesh also inhabits a child's world. It is played in a dirt pit — significantly, not a sandpit. The three actors end up very dirty indeed, symbolising the less-than-innocent dimension of the story they tell.
This is the ancient Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh, the superhuman tyrant who brutally oppresses his people, finds a friend in the form of the wild man Enkidu, loses him to death and then must come to terms with his own unexpected mortality.
The three actors — Richard Pyros, Mark Tregonning and Katherine Tonkin — subtly switch in and out of the modes of childish play and an adult story. At one minute we are watching the hubristic pretensions of powerful men, the next they are no more than playground bullies, little boys with big chips on their shoulders.
The work is intricately layered with simple shifts between imaginative modes. Toys are dug up out of the dirt, and, as in Felix Listens to the World, a miniaturised representation of the characters and actions is revealed along with the life-size operatives.
This is richly imaginative, skilfully performed and enormously rewarding theatre.

Source: The Herald Sun

Author: Chris Boyd

Date: October 24 2005

Fringe theatre in comfort? What a concept! I hope the people that couldn’t (or couldn’t afford) tickets to Theatre du Soleil’s blockbuster shows found their way into this amazing double bill of local theatre at the Melbourne Festival last week.
Small budget, few resources, tiny cast… but in terms of imagination and ingenuity, the half hour show Felix Listens to the World by the Suitcase Royale would eclipse just about anything seen before in this theatre.
Given that this is a show that hails from the fringes of Melbourne theatre, the execution was flawless.
Using torches, shadow puppets, Russian dolls, a coiled sun dress, mime, projection and a pile of old suitcases, the cast of three (who all play Felix) spin a wonderous yarn about a man who finds the love of his life then loses her. The moral? “A quest for love is never hopeless.”
Shrewdly paired with Felix is another show with its roots in Melbourne’s fringe theatre: Gilgamesh, by Uncle Semolina (& Friends).
This is definitely the main dish: weighty, narrative-driven and far, far darker.
Christian Leavesley and Phil Rolfe take one of the most famous stories of ancient literature (close to 5000 years old) and turn it into a punk parable of testosterone and absolute power.
In the original, the Sumerian king Gilgamesh seeks immortality. Here, Gilgamesh is a vile and childish ruler who does exactly what he wants, who he wants, when he wants.
So, bravo to the Arts Centre for two nuggets of pure gold. No one who went along left disappointed.

Source: Alison Croggon Theatre Notes

Author Alison Croggon

A large part of the delight of this show is in its ingenuity: Suitcase Royale employs performer-operated lighting, puppetry techniques, sound and clever inventions to continually surprise you with a shift in perspective. These techniques, like the comedy, depend on sharp timing and placement for effect, and the performers unobtrusively get it right.

Source: Edmonton Sun

Author: Jenny Fenniak

Date: August 23 2005

“Imagination takes Flight”
FELIX LISTENS TO THE WORLD - STAGE 9
This not a children's play adults will enjoy, or an adult production suitable for children.
Felix Listens to the World is an endearing performance that will warm over any heart in just half an hour.
Felix is played by three men, all wearing black slacks and vests, matched with red shirts and socks. Almost silently, they act out his humble life, highlighted by a job on the 28th floor of a building in the city. But one day while at the seaside, Felix spots Rose on the end of the pier - the most beautiful woman he has ever seen - and they are married a couple of months later.
Soon though, the colour begins to fade from her cheeks and she is forced to sail away from Felix in a tea cup. And Felix sets out to find her again.
The trio of young men from Melbourne, Australia, who are responsible for this magnificent performance have obviously put a great deal of consideration and energy into the piece.
Aside from acting out Felix himself, the bigger picture is portrayed, using creative props and intelligent puppetry. Dioramas in suitcases, a miniature city of lights and shadow work along with genius lighting are all used to create the magical world of Felix and his hunt for Rose.
The talent demonstrated in Felix Listens to the World is almost beyond description as audiences are enraptured by this simple and innocent yet intricately engaged world of the heart's imagination.
5 SUNS (OUT OF 5)

Source: Montreal Gazette

Author: Vincent

***** Possibly one of the best shows I have ever seen, at the Fringe or otherwise. Performed with junk that the actors have collected and transformed themselves, this piece has three gents tell the story of love lost in a unique and magical way. A wonderful bit of theatrical genius that should not be missed.

Source: CBC Winnipeg

Author: Al Rae

Date: July 20

Don't let the time in the program fool you, this sixty minute show clocks in at barely forty. This is normally a harbinger of ill tidings, but in this case it appears to be a mere misprint. This small gem plays as Wallace and Gromit meets Samuel Beckett with some of the minimalist cinema tricks of F.W. Murnau and Lynch's Eraserhead.
For forty too short minutes we are in the hands of three talented Aussies who refreshed my memory that theatre is meant to create a slightly bent and breathtaking look at the wonder of the obvious, using only the power and industry of the human imagination and a few well-placed nesting dolls.
Brilliant!
5 Flower Power

Source: The Buzz Montreal

Felix Listens to the World' by the Suitcase Royale boys, hailing from Melbourne, takes you into a surreal, miniature, magical place you never thought existed. Through the use of junkyard props, innovative self-lighting, delicate paper cut-outs, shadowplay, old gramophones and super8 film, we see a tiny love story unfold between Felix and Rose, the matriochka-ed object of his affection. These guys are utterly amazing and truly different from anything you will ever see onstage. At once absurd, poetic, lyrical, choreographed urban solitude and the ultimate journey of the heart.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

Junkyard Theatre charms with simple pleasures: Witnessing the performers control every element of the show (lights, sound, etc) allows you to sink deep into a fantastical world.

Misc.

I second the recommendation for “Felix Listens to the World”. It’s very rare you see a Fringe show that could honestly be described as beautiful, but this is one. A simple story told with startling imagination, breathtaking visual creativity and a childlike sense of wonder. Though only a half hour, it gives you more theatrical delight than almost any one hour show. This one may end up being the dark horse hit of the Fringe.
Posted by pursuedbybear on 08/21 at 06:59 PM