Kiss Of The Gallery Guard

A young country girl becomes an art gallery guard working in Sydney, London and New York, and discovers life, love, forgery and theft.

This new play by the relentless and adventurous writer, Carol Dance, is innovative, exciting and “really quite sweet”, at least according to actor Chloe Schwank, one of three actors (along with Justin Amankwah and Jesse Northam) playing multiple roles. Cara Severino plays Amber, the ingenue mentioned above, and musician Philip Eames will sit at a piano amidst the audience providing mood music, interludes and cues.

The play is minimalist, with the multi-roled actors all in basic costume and using props, accessories, voice and physicality to denote various characters.

“There are scenes where I start as one character, leave, and then come back as a different character,” says Schwank. It’s a tough gig: not only do her characters range from 24 to 90 years old, but “there’s an English woman and a French woman and a New York Brooklyn woman – so very different accents, very different energies for these characters.”

However, Schwank enjoys the challenge and thinks it’s quite fun for the audience.

The set itself is also bare, with dialogue and music providing clues to the location and to the paintings being observed. The performance space itself is within a warehouse. There’s no raised stage and little in the way of structural elements.

Schwank and some of the cast went to the Art Gallery of NSW to “check out the gallery guards” as well as look at the artworks. They were also fortunate enough to get a behind the scenes tour and lots of background information to help inform their characters. Schwank emphasises, however, that the audience doesn’t require any prior art knowledge.

“It’s a very accessible play,” she says.

May 11-26. Philharmonia Choirs Hall, Hickson Rd, Walsh Bay. $35-$45+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.kissofthegalleryguard.net.au

By Rita Bratovich.