Klutz – A Tragicomedy will be showing at Brisbane Festival next month. Let us in on your biggest fear for opening night …
Well a whole bunch of things usually go wrong on opening nights, that’s half the fun! There’s always so much strange pressure put on ‘the first official night’. I try to treat them as I would any other run of the show – as much as possible anyway. The set design for Klutz is an entire rooftop of a building, so I guess actors falling off the roof would be a fear. But we have that covered. Sort of.

Who would you most like to see in the audience?
Stalter and Waldorf from The Muppets – the ultimate grumpy disagreeable theatre-goers! And my grandad Neville Schostakowski – some of the show is inspired by his piano-accordion-playing shenanigans at family parties. He also sourced some guttering for the roof set for me.

What other shows or artists are you hoping to catch at this year’s Brisbane Festival?
There are a lot. I’m looking forward to seeing The Perfect American – the new Philip Glass opera. Orlando by The Rabble – they’re in the Theatre Republic after Klutz. The Good Room and Queensland Theatre Company’s new show I Want To Know What Love Is. I also love heading to The Telstra Spiegeltent after a show, no matter what is on there – there’s usually a good party crowd.

What can you tell us about your character Melchior Klutz and the pickle he’s gotten himself into?
Melchior still lives with his parents in their family bookstore. It’s set in a sort of cinema version of New York or maybe some regional European town – it’s kind of a mystery. Anyway, he’s been helping the family with the store – he’s the guy who manually turns on the electric ‘Klutz Books’ sign on their roof every night. He thinks he’s alone and is finished with going on. He likes to theatricalise and fantasise about his death. This gets to a kind of ludicrous point, just before he’s abruptly met by a complete stranger on the rooftop, Hendrick Nacht. She loves badminton, kippers and cigarettes. The two characters decide to work together on a particular project. It gets horribly awkward and then something unexpected happens …

What first planted the seed for the plot?
One starting point was the old Atavist Books (now Künstler magazines and books) in Winn Lane, Fortitude Valley. I wanted to do a show in that bookstore. The other is a specific image from the movie A Serious Man by the Coen Brothers: a man standing on the roof of a 1970s suburban American house, hands high on his hips, standing next to a TV aerial. I loved the idea of seeing an entire story unfold on the roof of building. And so ideas started to pool from there. The first version of this show premièred as graduation show at NIDA last year; this new version is similar but at the same time very different. Visually, artist Gregory Crewdson has been a huge inspiration for me. His strange, theatrical versions of suburbia are phenomenal.

We enjoyed the disclaimer about ‘adult themes, haze effects, drug references and pyrotechnics’ … Please explain?
It’s a type of sexed-up misery made theatrical. I like these disclaimers as well. I’m not going to talk through all of them at risk of ruining the show, but these things placed in the hands of Melchior Klutz and Hendrick Nacht on a rooftop are a lethal combination.

Talk us through the essential ingredients for a tragicomedy …
Tragedy + comedy = tragicomedy. Simple. I think true tragedy leads to true comedy. They go hand in hand. The funniest things in life are often the saddest, and vice versa. I’m a big fan of socially awkward characters; I guess it’s a result of seeing way too many plays and films with over-confident characters screaming their way through a story. Socially awkward characters suit tragicomedy as a genre quite well I think; no matter how outrageous they are in thought, their imperfections are what make them endearing. Actually, come to think of it, all of the shows I’ve made have been a type of tragicomedy. I guess with each show, I try to understand how they work a bit more. 

What’s the biggest challenge in your line of work?
Making shows or entertainment of any sort is draining physically and emotionally, so you need to keep a level head and treat it as any normal job as much as possible. It’s important to make things and then walk away from it and let others decide what they want to decide about it. It’s also what I consider one of the best jobs in the world. There’s always the burning idea you have for the next big show or film or what have you – and it propels you forward.

What usually comes first – a theme, a character, a storyline, or a hazy blend of all of them?
A hazy blend. Sometimes a show might start with a title you think is good or you’ll stumble across an image or idea from another artist that ignites a chain of other ideas for a whole new story. I like to collect things for shows. Soon enough, a bunch of them work together. And music. I often make playlists of specific songs to build a show around.

What were you like as a child?
This is actually a direct line in Klutz! I don’t know, I guess I was a bit of a weirdo. I had giant Stuart Little-style glasses. I was pretending to be a spy a lot of the time. Either a spy or a magician. In any movie I watched, the villain was nearly always my favourite character. I had a cat who was my best friend, slippery palms and a love for caramel tarts.

You graduated from directing at NIDA just last year; was there a particular piece of live theatre that really resonated with you and first attracted you to the industry?
I remember seeing a version of John Gabriel Borkman at Queensland Theatre Company when I was in high school that I thought was particularly good. The first big-scale live performance I ever saw was a Rolling Stones concert with my dad when I was 15. I’ll never forget that feeling of watching them perform live in front of you – old and cool in equal measure.

Do you have any embarrassing onstage moments to share?
Two immediately spring to mind. The first was when I was performing in a show I made called The Glorious Nosebleed. I was being assessed on the show one particular night – it was ‘the big night’ and 12 minutes into the show a lady fainted in the back row. We froze awkwardly on stage for 10 minutes as she was attended to. Another was in Cosi earlier this year at La Boite Theatre. There was a moment where Trevor Stuart who played Roy was really late for his cue. After we covered with some meaningless banter, he ran onstage without his pants on – he was late because couldn’t find them. We had to just barrel through and pretend it was meant to happen. I love these moments though; they can’t happen in film or TV. It’s what makes theatre so exciting. Everything can go wrong.

You’ve won Matilda Awards, been appointed Associate Artist with QTC and received critical acclaim for your productions, but what do you personally consider your greatest achievement so far?
I am proud of these things but my greatest achievement so far would be meeting Myfanwy Kernke. We did an improvisation as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger in a high-school acting class when I was 15. We’re getting married in December.

How do you personally define ‘success’?
Being able to do the things you love most as a job.

What are your words of wisdom?
I don’t think I have that much wisdom. I do follow a personal mantra though – to think of the best possible thing you could do and just do it. Just make it happen. Just do it anyway. I should work for Nike. 

Only a Brisbane local would know … Marilyn Monroe is alive and well, and can often be spotted in the Queen Street Mall. 

FAVOURITE WEEKEND SPOT TO:
Perk up … Room 60 in Kelvin Grove. Good coffee and friendly weirdos – my kind of wake-up.
Relax … home probably, watching a movie from the 1980s where giant plants eat people or something.
Catch up … Scout in Petrie Terrace is the spot I go to meet people most.
Be inspired … Archives Fine Books in Brisbane City.

Image by Robert Koch.