THE BIRTHDAY BOYS

The Australian premiere of award-winning dark comedy The Birthday Boys, penned by American playwright Aaron Kazak, follows the experience of three US marines who are captured in Iraq in 2006, during an infiltration of the Al Asas Airbase, and are bound and blindfolded in a remote warehouse. “It is fundamentally a war play, but we wanted to approach it on an emotional level,” says director Darren Gilshenan.

The rehearsal process began with a game where the actors had to pretend they were blind and engage in situations where they felt trapped. “It was about taking the actors’ sight away to get them to understand what it would be like to be in an experience like that,” says Gilshenan. “I suppose you could say it is method acting in a way. To me this play has a kind of bleak comedy with it, but it’s also terrifying for the guys in it, and very moving at times, and also romantic.”

While based on politically charged events, The Birthday Boys it is a more personal and non-partisan look at universal themes. It is a play about the human spirit in the modern age, about men and masculinity, and ultimately about what it is to be confronted with these issues with other men in the kind of situation there is no escape from.

BY MARILYN HETRELES