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The Last Great Hunt to premiere new production, Telephone, at PICA Performance Space

Tanya MacNaughtonThe West Australian
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Courtney Henri stars in Telephone.
Camera IconCourtney Henri stars in Telephone. Credit: Tashi Hall

At 24 years old, Perth actor Courtney Henri might not have quite the same stress-induced reaction to the sound of internet dial-up like many pre-noughties kids, but that does not stop her from embracing the 1990s vibe of The Last Great Hunt’s newest production, Telephone.

Continuing the theatre company’s partnership with PICA, following innovative works like New Owner in 2016 and Le Nor (the rain) in 2019, the world premiere of Telephone is set to break more theatre-making ground in a show that combines analogue technology, 90s trance music and lo-fi light refraction using a top secret screen material.

“I’m not going to say what it is because it keeps it a surprise,” Henri says adamantly.

“It does some really wacky things with light and every time we think we’ve done everything we could with this material, we’ve come back for another creative development and find out something completely different that it can do.”

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Henri was invited to collaborate with the Telephone team after The Last Great Hunt founding member Gita Bezard saw her in 2019 production, Playthings, at The Blue Room Theatre.

The recent WAAPA graduate jumped at her chance to work with theatre makers she had long admired.

“They’d already done a development of the show where they’d played for hours with microphones in telephones; that’s where it all started,” co-creator and performer Henri shares.

“From there we did another four two-week developments over two years. The process really involved a lot of improvisation and playing around with the material, and then putting phone calls on top of that to build the story.”

WAAPA graduate Courtney Henri in Telephone.
Camera IconWAAPA graduate Courtney Henri in Telephone. Credit: Tashi Hall

Henri describes the resulting 80-minute show, weaving love and loneliness, as being a symphony of phone calls, as hundreds of curated calls on landline phones build a story of connection, along with the miscommunications that can also sometimes result through phone calls.

“There’s a kooky thread through there about this ragtag Scooby Doo gang of kids who try to use phones to connect to ghosts in a seance,” she adds.

All five performers — Henri, Grace Chow, Jeffrey Jay Fowler, Arielle Gray and Tim Watts — in Telephone undertake multiple characters as the production, directed by Bezard, explores the human experience.

From what it means to be an adult, to being separated by distance from the people you love and how technology has played a role in our advancement.

“And how important it is to connect to people but also what it means to be able to do that while not being in the same space as people,” Henri says.

“It was something so incredible but is now also something that’s keeping people away from each other. Phones connect people but they can still feel so alone. I think it’s an experience that everyone will understand.”

Telephone is at PICA Performance Space, August 30 to September 10.

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