Bega Valley actor and theatre artist Patrick Dickson is preparing to take his acclaimed one-man play Victor Ego or The Brainstorm overseas to its spiritual home, the Island of Guernsey in the UK.
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So where better to refine and refresh the production before embarking on the world stage than back at the Murrah Hall, where Victor Ego had its debut season in July last year?
Dickson, who conceived, wrote and also performs the play, now has the exciting opportunity to take the production to the island where he grew up, and where the play’s subject Victor Hugo lived and wrote for 15 years from 1855.
Growing up on Guernsey, Dickson became fascinated with the story of Hugo’s 15-year exile on the island and with the novel he wrote there, The Toilers of the Sea.
Hugo is known for Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but unlike his contemporary Dickens, very little is known about his tumultuous life and career.
The play is a distillation of a Gothic romance and an exploration of the imagination and alchemy of one of the greatest literary and political forces of the 19th Century.
The return season at the Murrah Hall is an opportunity for theatre lovers who missed the production last winter to see this unique play in an intimate space.
In the play, Hugo is at work in his studio as he pulls together the essential ingredients of a ripping yarn, which will become his next best-selling novel. He conjures up a cast of characters and spices their relationships with betrayal, obsession, love, sacrifice and a dash of skullduggery. The beautiful, rugged seascape of the Norman Archipelago isn’t simply a back-drop; for Hugo it’s a powerful and unpredictable player
in the drama of life and death.
Inter-cut with the brainstorming of his latest romantic adventure the audience is with Hugo as he pens letters to his friend, to his mistress and to his publisher, the audience discovers how the lived experience of the writer impacts the creative process, how his own love, pain and frustration finds its way on to the page.
Hugo was a ground-breaking writer and he was also ahead of his time as a visual artist. Bermagui projection artist Scott Baker brings Hugo’s own drawings to life illustrating the "brainstorm" of the author.
Maeliosa Stafford directs the work, which will appeal to audiences across the country and around the world.
Dickson’s acting career has spanned over four decades and includes stage, screen and radio.
Audiences may recognise him from Seachange or Bell Shakespeare productions, or they may know his work on the independent theatre scene with O’Punksky’s and other companies.
Victor Ego or The Brainstorm will be performed at the Murrah Hall at 2989 Tathra-Bermagui Rd on March 28 and 29 at 7pm, and March 30 and 31 at 3pm.
It runs for about two hours including an interval.
Tickets are $25/$15 and are available here or at the door.