Queensland Theatre and the Brisbane Arts Festival present Boy Swallows Universe
Playhouse, QPAC
30th Aug- 3rd Oct 2021
Author Trent Dalton
Adapted by Tim McGarry
Directed by Sam Strong
Dr Gemma Regan
Boy Swallows Universe is exquisite, thrusting you into an exciting and emotive whirlwind of memories and impressions.
The long-anticipated adaptation of Trent Dalton’s sensational debut novel Boy Swallows Universe finally had its World premiere at the QPAC as part of 2021’s Brisbane Festival 2021, after a delay due to the COVID outbreak. Adapted by Tim McGarry and directed by Queensland Theatre’s Sam Strong, Boy Swallows Universe delivers a stunning production encapsulating growing up in the 1980s surrounded by drugs and violence in Brisbane. Trent Dalton is a journalist who has won a Walkley and four-time winner of the national Feature Journalist of the Year Award. His moving multimedia documentary Love Stories with Brisbane-based quintet Topology is also playing at the Brisbane Festival.
The bestselling book won four ABIAs: Book of the Year, Literary Book of the Year, the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year and Audio Book of the Year in 2019. However, the adaptation to the stage is even better! The deep underlying theme which pervades nearly every scene and lifts the plot from the mundane to the spiritual is the contemplation of the perception and manipulation of the time-space continuum and the liminal point between life and death. Dance scenes and the use of multi-media displays exquisitely slow time at important junctures in the play as the characters defy physics and logic.
Dalton’s semi-autobiographical bestseller Boy Swallows Universe follows the escapades of a young Eli Bell growing up in the Western suburb of Darra. Young Eli Bell is hurled into a maelstrom of misfortune precipitated by poverty, drugs and circumstance. His mother winds up in Boggo Road Gaol, his older brother refuses to speak only writing with a finger in the air, and he has a convicted murderer as a babysitter. With profound social commentary and a premise that all men have some bad and some good in them. The local drug lord Tytus Broz overshadows all that happens in suburban Brisbane, terrifying adults and children alike. There are also fascinating insights into the mind of Trent Dalton main character Eli Bell such as the character’s name can be written backwards and upside down on a calculator using numbers which is also the phone number to his inner psyche.
The adaptation of the 500-page book by Tim McGarry translates brilliantly to the stage using a simple set and a multimedia projection designed by Renée Mulder. The attention to detail in each scene was so accurate that each set was recognisable. The audience was instantly transported from the streets of suburban Brisbane to Boggo Road Gaol, to a party in one of Darra’s iconic Vietnamese restaurants complete with the balcony and glitter balls. The sound design of Steve Francis also helped to recreate the 1980’s including the music of Cold Chisel, Bon Jovi, and Cyndi Lauper.
There are also many enjoyable references to places and events such as Eli’s desire to live in a cul-de-sac in the Gap which was welcomed with many guffaws, Indooroopilly’s El Dorado cinema had pockets of the audience gasping as the memories come flooding back. The cultural references also include the formation of the Brisbane Broncos and the police corruption at the time with the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
The interpretation of each character from the book using a large cast of 13, still had many actors doubling up. Anthony Phelan was terrifying as the psychopathic philanthropist Tytus Broz and his contrasting character of mentor Slim Halliday was so convincing, I hadn’t realised that they were the same actor! Local Joe Klocek, recently in the Australian movie The Dry, was incredible as Eli Bell, with intricate lines and displaying a plethora of emotions he was onstage for most of the nearly three-hour long play.
Ngoc Phan is also fantastic as the sinister Vietnamese drug queen and mother of the hilarious but equally sociopathic Darren Dang, played by Hoa Xuande. Both use the combination of dangerous personalities and Vietnamese/Brisbane patois to great effect.
Boy Swallows Universe is exquisite and one of the best executed and most entertaining productions ever produced by the Queensland Theatre blending multimedia, theatre and dance thrusting you into an exciting and emotive whirlwind of memories and impressions.