Providing a rich view into the violent and compelling world of boxing, I’m Your Man – currently playing at Waterside in Port Adelaide – is well worth the journey to the end of Port Road.
Creator and director Roslyn Oades continues her incredibly successful use of headphone-verbatim technique, in which performers do not deliver lines but instead speak along to recorded voices played to them through headphones – in this case, recorded interviews with real-life boxers. It sounds like it might be clunky; instead, the opposite is true. The technique allows the speaker to capture all of the speech patterns of real life – the accent, the stutters, the pauses, the nuance of words and sighs, the awkward laughter that covers nervousness. This is the closest you can get in theatre to a documentary and, as with all documentaries, success relies on how interesting the subject matter is.
With I’m Your Man, the subject matter is wonderful. Built around a series of interviews with professional boxers, trainers and former greats, the show explores many aspects of ‘the sweet science’. Why do people start? What is it like to be in the ring? How do you deal with a boxing death if you were the one who landed the punch?
Which is not to say that I’m Your Man is all doom and gloom. A world with so many colourful characters and infamous stories makes for plenty of comedy, too, and the audience is laughing as often as gasping. There’s the description of a street brawl by the ‘totally innocent victim’. There’s the everyday banter in the training gym. There’s the needling about who’s got a hot date that weekend. I’m Your Man shows a world that achieves something like a balance between horror and anger on one side, and the totally mundane or humorous on the other.
Although this is partly due to the excellent editing on the interviews, a lot of credit must also go to the performers. All of them are able to inhabit the people coming through their headphones, taking the voices and funnelling them into rich fully-embodied characters. They also bring excellent timing and direction to the stories they tell, allowing the mood to turn strongly between comedy and tragedy, creating a sort of hyper-real version of the original interview.
I’m Your Man is a chance to see interesting theatre techniques used to tell fabulous stories. This is one hour in the gym that you won’t regret.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Vitalstatistix and Mobile States present
A Belvoir production
I’m Your Man
Creator and Director: Roslyn Oades
Sound Design: Bob Scott
Lighting and Set Design: Neil Simpson
Movement: Lee Wilson
Performers: Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Billy McPherson, Katia Molino, Justin Rosniak and John Shrimpton
Waterside, Port Adelaide
7 – 11 August
Additional dates:
Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart: 15 – 17 August
Browns Mart, Darwin Festival: 23 – 24 August
Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse: 28 – 31 August
Arts House, Melbourne: 4 – 8 September
Hothouse Theatre, Wodonga: 11 – 15 September
Riverside Theatres, Parramatta: 20 – 21 September
