An Imaginary Life
ABOUT THE SHOW
Based on the novel by David Malouf and Adapted by Humphrey Bower
This is a story about learning to live wherever we find ourselves. To coexist with people who are already here. And learning to belong here by coming to terms with who we are, and who we can be here.
Seminal Australian classic novel An Imaginary Life by David Malouf has been adapted by actor Humphrey Bower (Things I Know to be True, Mary Stuart, The Tempest) and is performed by Humphrey and live musician Pavan Kumar Hari.
An Imaginary Life is about the Ancient Roman poet Ovid living in exile on the edge of the Black Sea, and his encounter with a ‘wild child’. He teaches the child to speak and learns about the latter’s connection to nature and life.
An intimate duet for actor and musician, the show is presented in found spaces with great acoustics, with the audience seated in close proximity around the performers.
It contains no recorded or amplified sound, and has no rigged lighting. Just the performers, the space, and one small flood light on the floor.
An Imaginary Life is a site-responsive work tailor-made (and re-made) for found venues and their communities.
Creative Credits
Created by: Humphrey Bower & Kingsley Reeve
Co-directors: Humphrey Bower & James Berlyn
Performers: Humphrey Bower & Pavan Kumar Hari
Sound design/composition: Kingsley Reeve & Pavan Kumar Hari
Visual design: Zoe Atkinson
Creative producer: Libby Klysz
Artist Biographies
Humphrey Bower
An actor, director and writer based in Perth. He’s worked across the country in theatre, opera, dance, puppetry, film, TV, radio, and is in high demand as an audio book narrator. His impressive performance, writing and directing CV includes a number of literary adaptations for the stage. These include The Apparatus, WISH, Raising the Dead/Fyodor’s Demons and The Red Shoes.
His awards include the 2021 Performing Arts WA Award for Best Independent Production (The Golem); 2020 Performing Arts WA Award for Best Actor (Male) and 2019 Blue Room Award for Best Performance (The Apparatus); 2013 Equity Guild Award for Best New Play (Skin); 2012 Blue Room Award for Best Production (Skin); 2011 Blue Room Members’ Choice Award and Best Performance Award (Wish); and 2010 Helpmann Award for Best Supporting Actor (Richard III).
Kingsley Reeve
Kingsley is a professional sound storyteller with over 28 years experience. He graduated from the Sound discipline at WAAPA in 1995 as a sound designer and then from the Theatre discipline in 1998 as an actor. He has been designing sound and music since his youth. He forges collaborative relationships with story makers in Australia and abroad. Between 2014-18, he was the lead sound design lecturer at NIDA. He is the recipient of several industry awards for sound and music design. Recent works include: “Boorna Waanginy: The Trees Speak” (PIAF), “Australian Outback Spectacular” (Village Roadshow Gold Coast), “Renew: Forest Experience” (Scitech Discovery Centre), “Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn” (WA Museum).
Zoe Atkinson
Zoë Atkinson studied Scenography at The Prague Academy of The Performing Arts and The International Institute of Figurative Theatre (Czech Republic) under Petr Matásek; and at the Institut International de la Marionette in France, under Josef Svoboda. Since returning to Australia in 1997 she has designed nationally and internationally for theatre, dance, puppetry, opera and exhibitions. She has worked extensively over many years with Perth Festival, and in 2016 was Designer and Artistic Associate to Nigel Jamieson on the opening event HOME, and again in 2017 and 2019 on BOORNA WAANGINY: THE TREES SPEAK. In 2017 and 2018, she was also cultural translator and designer for UK artist Amy Sharrock’s Perth Festival iteration for THE MUSEUM OF WATER. She was Head of Design at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and she continues to lecture there.
Pavan Kumar Hari
Pavan Kumar Hari is a composer, performer, dancer and director who creates vibrant, dynamic, expressive and dramatic music for theatre, film, dance and the concert hall. Pavan has been performing since the age of three in dance and music productions and has always loved the performing arts. He began to study dance and music in Perth at Saraswati Mahavidhyalaya, the Indian School of Performing Arts. He then progressed to study Composition and Percussion at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where he plays percussion and piano, and is currently completing the fourth year of his Bachelor of Music degree (Honours). As a performer he was recently in Once (BSSTC/ Darlington Theatre Co, 2022) and The Tempest (BSSTC, 2022), for which he was also the composer. Many of his works have been premiered by the award-winning Defying Gravity percussion ensemble. Pavan has been a member of the Western Australian Youth Orchestra, Western Australian Charity Orchestra, Western Australian Wind Symphony, and Defying Gravity Percussion Ensemble, and the Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Music Camp. He has also performed with the Perth Symphony Orchestra as a guest artist on the Indian drums known as tabla.
Libby Klysz
Libby Klysz is a producer, director, teacher and performer. She was the WA Producer of the Year, 2023. She has worked with companies such as Perth Festival, The Blue Room Theatre, The Last Great Hunt, Black Swan State Theatre Company, Barking Gecko Theatre, and WAAPA over the past 20 years. A freelance producer of both touring and non-touring works for over a decade, recent projects include An Imaginary Life (Humphrey Bower 2024), Under Fluoros (Performing Lines WA, 2024), I’m With Her Darwin Festival, Ten Days on the Island & Perth Festival (Half the Sky 2022, Midwinter Productions 2023-24), Performing Arts WA Awards (2023-24), Hide the Dog Perth Festival (Performing Lines Tasmania, 2023), The Hypotheticals (The Last Great Hunt, 2023), JULIA and Savage Grace (Steamworks Arts, 2021-22); Creative Weekender (Perth Festival 2022), The Golem and The Apparatus (Humphrey Bower, 2020 & 2019), My Robot (Barking Gecko Theatre, 2019), Wonder Woman (Laura Boynes, 2019), and BANG! BANG! (Scott Elstermann & Shona Erskine, 2019-2022).
Libby heads up Variegated Productions, creating award winning theatre shows such as Ragnarokkr (2020), Frankie’s (2018), The Man and The Moon (2016), Ramshackle & Kitsch (2017). She was the Associate Director on Black Swan’s The Tempest (2021), most recently directed Kaitlin Tinker’s theatre show Earthside (2022) at The Blue Room Theatre; and directed Charlotte Otton in the heavily lauded touring show Feminah (2019). Libby is an original and ongoing cast member of The Big HOO-HAA!, and currently sits as the Artistic Director. Libby lectures at ECU and WAAPA; advocates for the sector a lot; and is on the current boards of CircuitWest and Chamber of Arts & Culture WA. She champions WA talent at every opportunity.
Partners
