Sheffield, Prague, 2022
OVERVIEW
UK/Australian performance company Doppelgangster (Doppelgangster’s TITANIC, Puntila/Matti, Everybody Loses), develops its first major stage work in the city of Sheffield. Doppelgangster’s ATLANTIS is a surreal retelling of a timeless tale of the hubris of nations, not being able to find your keys, and environmental catastrophe.
“Theatrical Saboteurs*” Tobias Manderson-Galvin and Dr Tom Payne, surf back two and half thousand years to the cradle of civilisation to present an extraordinary and hilarious spectacle about disaster, escape, and catching the perfect wave.
Drowning, waving, and larking about amid shark attacks, military parades, sinking islands, mass migration, nuclear winters and endless summers, Doppelgangster blend epic myth with climate science, pop culture with global events, music hall with surf rock.
Doppelgangster’s ATLANTIS continues the company’s trademark iconoclastic, political, and riotously entertaining performance style. Fractured narratives, infinite personas and multiple genres collide in a legend that’s been thousands of years in the sinking.
SYNOPSIS
An aquamarine sky, an endless horizon.
The President of Atlantis fronts a 60s surf rock band. An angry flood is coming. The citizens are life-size promotional cutouts, and so are the the backing singers.
To thrilling sounds from the bazaars of Ancient Egypt and the foreshore of Venice Beach CA; a shark recounts the epic tale of a lost civilisation, though he won’t say where it is.
A dance sequence. An audience with God. A pillow fight. Rolling in on the waves come palm trees, a ‘Man Who Knows’, and a dog on roller skates. The 1% plan their escape, with rocket ships, man made islands and cryonics. While the rest perform the final concert with no land, no power, and no bottled water.
ATLANTIS by Doppelgangster
A breathtaking surf-noir catastrophe.
CREDITS
Concept + Design + Performance by
Doppelgangster
aka
Tobias Manderson-Galvin
+ Dr Tom Payne
Composition + Musical Direction by
Jules Pascoe
Dramaturgical Consultant
Kerith Manderson-Galvin
aka Unofficial Kerith Fan Club
Script Consultant
Erin Kavanagh
Photography
Becky Payne Photography
+ Wilson Liew aka KTAZTROFK
Role
Performer / Deviser
HISTORY
Prague, 2022
Sheffield, 2022
DEVELOPMENT
Making Room Residency, Sheffield Theatre, July 2018
Performance Lab Residency, Sheffield Hallam University, August 2018
Public Showings, Performance Lab, 17 + 18 August, 2018