Jordan Armstrong | Actor 
Jordan recently finished shooting principal photography for Offbeat Pictures new short film, English Blood, where he played boxing trainer Robby. English blood was written and Directed by Darren L. Downs.
Set in Leeds, England, artistically gifted, Adam Ritchie, 17 must comply with an overbearing father, Joe Ritchie, a former local boxing champion who has raised his son to make up for his own lost dreams. Priming him for the national title, Ritchie is determined after missing out 20 years earlier, that Adam brings home the bacon. Even if it means losing everything he has.
Featuring: Andy Rhodes, Tyla Giles Watson, Naomi Lisner, Jackson Tozer, Bailey Barbour, Belinda Sharp and Justin McLeod.
EXPECTED RELEASE: AUGUST 2015.
Two statements that are generalisations but nonetheless true.
1) Great theatre is exhilarating and transcendent. It touches something deep inside, enlightening and elevating each member of the audience.
2) Great theatre is as rare as hen’s teeth.
Well it maybe rare, but it’s not difficult to find – in this case it’s just a short trip to Chapel off Chapel.
The Exonerated – constructed in the same style as The Laramie Project, from interviews with actual ex death-row prisoners – is a harrowing but ultimately uplifting play. Six prisoners, who were innocent but sat on death row for years before they were freed, tell their stories simply and without histrionics, which makes them even more poignant. The denouement of “Sunny”s story is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. But it is the production itself that makes this stunning theatre.
Producer/Director Andrei Schiller-Chan, whose background is in film, not stage, has assembled a superlative ensemble of ten actors and then directed them with taste and passion and with a confidence that belies his lack of theatre experience. This is fine work, and it’s clearly an act of integrity too. Chan believes in the cause, no more death penalty – and seeing the play makes it doubly difficult to raise any objection to that stance even if one felt inclined (I certainly don’t). He has also drawn from his cast exceptional performances that come from truth. No overt technique at work here – just honesty, and that’s what good acting should always be about.
It’s rare when an entire cast is so good that there is no weak link at all, and it’s impossible to put labels of BEST or OUTSTANDING on anyone. So I will try to encapsulate each performance in a few words. Garikai Jani, a mountain of a man, plays the artist; the poet caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is powerful and charismatic, yet full of gentle spirituality – Superb. Jordan Armstrong, the heartbreaking innocent suspected of being gay and thus brutalised in prison – Superb. I cried openly at his pain – and so did he. Vuyo Loko, as a successful man whose career and future were stripped from him in a wrongful conviction – full of authority and Superb. Are You seeing a pattern here? Diana Brumen plays a variety of roles, all of them beautifully drawn and tempered with honesty – also superb; Karla Hillam as the hippy who nonetheless forgives and tries to give something back in her husband’s name (his is perhaps the most horrific execution in history) – just marvellous. Noray Mohammed, with the sad and defeated eyes of the man who has given up on life and yet somehow, deep inside, still believes in miracles – stunning. Joseph Green – the hillbilly who is tricked into believing perhaps he actually did kill his parents – wonderful. Ben Taylor, in a variety of roles – all of them calling for very different characterisations is fabulous, but especially good as the monster who cuts a deal and blames someone else for his crimes. Sam Lavery – a skilled actor who impresses in each of his roles; Noelle Roeg, beautiful and talented and totally convincing throughout. It’s an exemplary cast.
Travis McFarlane has given us a lighting plot that is integral to the storytelling. Though monochrome, it provides movement and colour to what could otherwise, in lesser hands than his and Chan’s, be quite a static production. I can’t speak highly enough of his understanding of the text, and the emotional depth of his lighting. It’s quite extraordinary and integral to the overall excellence of the production.
Hanna Read’s set – with its upstage dais in darkness behind a black scrim, and its grouping of chairs and suggestion of six different homes – is masterful. Paul Raine’s sound, including the background effects, is perfect.
It’s rare to see a production that reaches for the stars and manages to harness them in its quest for excellence. This is Sol3’s first production but I hope it won’t be its last. You will be touched and made to feel humble, angry, ashamed, heartbroken, and a hundred other emotions you didn’t see coming. Is it relevant in Australia, where we don’t have the death penalty? (I can’t believe some “reviewers” have actually asked that question). Is the Holocaust still relevant? Is injustice anywhere at any time relevant? Those questions are rhetorical. You have just one more week to experience The Exonerated. Don’t see this play because it has a message….see it because it is superb theatre!
Coral Drouyn
Source: Stage Whispers
The Exonerated is a powerful play about death row and is being performed at Chapel off Chapel in The Loft. Directed by Andrei Schiller Chan, this play takes real life stories of people who have been sentenced to death only to be later exonerated of the crime – their life having been stolen from them even though they are still living.
This play is so powerful that it was turned into a TV movie in 2005 with an all star cast including Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn, and Susan Sarandon. The original stage play was written in 200 after Blank and Jensen attended a conference about the death penalty and listened to stories about wrongful convictions and confessions gained via torture, threats and deception. For their efforts, Jensen and Blank received the Champion of Justice Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The play follows the stories of six real life cases of people who were exonerated of the crimes for which they were imprisoned and includes personal recollections, court manuscripts and media excerpts. The stories are told from the victims perspectives, as they recall the horror of the arrests, the trials and the endless years of imprisonment – all the while knowing they are innocent and yet understanding that the world does not want to hear it.
For some, the time in prison was unbearable – being stuck in a cell only the width of their arms, fighting with rats for their food, being raped and physically scarred for life (beyond the ability of plastic surgery to correct the graffiti). These stories are painful, but the honesty, matter of factness, and humour with which they are presented makes it bearable – and, in fact, made me unable to turn away for a single moment.
Chan knows his subject and these people, and it shows in the delicacy, grace and impact of how he has directed this performance. Chan has been involved with Rubin Carter’s organisation Innocence International for years. His company, Sol III Company created The Hurricane Hall to raise awareness and funds for prisoner rehabilitation and wrongful convictions. The company is also an affiliate of Liberation Prison Yoga New York.
Chan’s direction is masterful, and the ensemble live up to the complexity of the stories they are telling. Jani, Loko, Rego, and Brumen in particular are luminous, with subtelties and balance in their performances that are rarely seen.
With ten actors on a small stage, it would be easy for this show to become confusing and meandering, but between Chan’s direction and Read’s clever set, I never spent a single moment not knowing who was speaking, or what was being said, nor the status and relationships which were being presented. This is really important because most of the actors played multiple characters.
MacFarlane’s lighting was incredibly well done – again fighting a tiny space, yet able to create a plethora of ‘zones’, textures, and impacts. MacFarlane and Read shared the load well in terms of how to make the space read for each scene. The benefit of this is that it allowed the pace of the work to be crafted by the director rather than it being dictated by the architecture or technology.
I rarely say this, but for me this show was almost perfect, and the one complaint I have is just about it’s questionable relevance in Australia – or at least in Victoria. The play ends with a bit of moralising about why the death penalty should not exist, but we already know that, and we don’t have it any more which makes this part of the play redundant for us.
Having said that, the stories are still important to hear so that we continue to remember why we no longer have that barbaric practice in our society. The Exonerated really is one of the best plays you will see this year.
5 Stars
Source: Planet Arts Melbourne
Powerful stories from escapees of the death penalty
By Myron My
The death penalty has, and probably always will be, a contentious issue. There will be one side that states you have to pay for your crimes, while the other would say no-one has a right to take anyone’s lives. While no side can be universally claimed as “correct”, the Sol III Company‘s production of The Exonerated will have even the most staunch believer in the death penalty questioning their stance.
Writers Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen spent the year 2000 interviewing a number of people who had all been wrongfully convicted of murder and placed on death row. After spending years and sometimes decades in prison, these people were later exonerated with Blank and Jensen using six of these people’s stories in this production.
The six actors portraying the exonerated prisoners could not have been better cast. Even with the added pressure of playing real-life people as authentically as possible, each one is able to draw us into their world and have us really feeling what it must have been like for these former convicts. Vuyo Loko and Jordan Armstrong in particular shine in their roles, showing their characters as equally strong and fragile under their circumstances.
Director Andrei Schiller-Chan excels in The Exonerated where, despite having to contend with up to ten people on stage at any time, he has contrived that you are never left overwhelmed with the stories. Schiller-Chan uses the limited space to the fullest in developing how the actors move and interact on stage. In a way, this supports the type of claustrophobic environment that we could only begin to imagine that these narrators experienced from their time in prison.
The death penalty is not the lightest of themes to handle, with productions all too often heading straight for the emotional jugular. In The Exonerated, Blank and Jensen allow those who have experienced the threat of execution to speak for themselves, which in turn allows for the stories we hear to be told honestly, with sensitivity and at a pace where the audience have the opportunity to not only digest all that is happening on the stage, but also to reflect and consider. This is what powerful and moving theatre should be.
Source: Theatre Press
Written by Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen
The #1 play of the year…intense and deeply affecting… — NY Times
Jordan has been cast as Kerry Max Cook in The Sol III Company’s production of The Exonerated.
Directed by Andrei Schiller-Chan, The Exonerated will be showing at Chapel off Chapel between May 20th – June 7th
A visceral drama illuminating the true stories of six survivors of death row. Unapologetic in its approach ‘The Exonerated’ portrays a world of brutality coinciding with human triumph and transcendence.
Going from the darkest abyss of human degradation to surviving a violent system, these six people give us hope for a brighter future. Witness a raw and delicate surrounding into a world just outside of ours. It may be closer to home than you think.
Artful and moving… Pays tribute to the resilience of human hearts and minds… – Variety
To this day Kerry Max Cook is fighting the state of Texas to clear his name, despite the plethora of evidence supporting his unquestionable innocence. Please take a moment to visit and sign Kerry Max Cooks Petition. Thank-you
Chapel Off Chapel, 12 Little Chapel Street, Prahran 3181 Tickets: $37.50 | $32.50 Concession | $30 Group (minimum 10) | $29.50 Preview (+ transaction fee) Bookings: 03 8290 7000 | www.chapeloffchapel.com.au
COMPANY TICKET PROCEEDS ARE DONATED TO INNOCENCE INTERNATIONAL AND LIBERATION PRISON YOGA
By Cheryl Threadgold
Mockingbird Theatre’s founder Chris Baldock, challenges traditional performance boundaries, treating audiences to innovative theatre experiences.
The former Meat Market in North Melbourne is the atmospheric venue for the company’s latest production, Quills, by American playwright Doug Wright, set in 1807 in the French lunatic asylum, Charenton.
Now operating as Arts House, the well-preserved 19th century building with meat hooks still protruding from walls, provides the ideal setting for re-creating the final months of the Marquis de Sade’s life in the asylum, his obsessive prolific writing with sadistic, perverse, paedophilic and incestuous themes, and his challenges to authority, religion, sanity and humanity.
Asylum inmates mingle pre-show with patrons and we feel part of the culture of this chaotic institution. This is a clever touch by Baldock, and his troupe of NIDA, VCA AND BAPA graduates adds a Greek chorus-like influence, while immersing the audience in their debauchery and bedlam.
The audience is seated ground-level in rows either side of the performance area. The set includes de Sade’s west wing room at one end, and Dr Royer-Collard’s office safely distanced at the other. This layout risks impacting on audience clear vision and audibility, but worked fine for me.
Baldock has followed the playwright’s suggestion to return to the nineteenth century stagecraft style of French Grand Guignol theatre, which presented entertaining live stage versions of horrific happenings.
“ … complete with the shadowy lights, suspense, comedy, gory special-effects and melodramatic acting style,” says Baldock.
Adrian Carr is sensational as the Marquis de Sade, switching from flamboyant theatricality of the Grand Guignol to his character’s powerful challenges to authority, and vulnerability.
Adam Ward commands the stage as Dr Royer-Collard, and Dylan Watson beautifully captures Abbe de Coulmier’s gentle humanity and the transition as his mind becomes corrupted.
Strong performances are also delivered by Lauren Murtagh (Madeleine LeClerc), Andi Snelling (Madame Royer-Collard), Andrea McCannon (Renee Pelagie), and Jordan Armstrong (Monsieur Prouix).
Quills is not for the faint-hearted, but take courage and go see this theatre experience with a difference.
by Antony Steadman
A play about the final days of the Marquis De Sade? We know immediately that the piece will be sexually charged, confrontational and debauched. Yes it is all these things, and so much more. Whilst the piece is not immediately loveable, it is certainly enjoyable on a more challenging, thought-provoking level. Chris Baldocks direction is bold and daring. Whilst some of the more intimate scenes are played at opposite ends of the space, creating distance from the audience, the overall design of the show (conceived by Baldock) creates a large playing space in which our asylum inmates can play and move. The cavernous space of the Art House Meat Market creates some issues with some dialogue being lost in the reverberation around the large space. These issues are minor, considering the ingenuity of the production.
Once again, like in his production of Equus, Chris Baldock has created a Greek-Chorus like ensemble. Equus had horses, this time we have the lunatics of Charenton. His knack for ensemble work and creating moments that are unscripted really make the piece take flight. Each member of the lunatic ensemble do not let their characters waiver for a second, even when they are not centre stage. They create an eerie presence throughout.
The opening moments of the show perfectly strike the balance of what is to proceed for the rest of the piece.
As Dr Royer-Collard, Adam Ward gives a suitably pompous performance. He has a balance between malice and humour. His booming voice fills the space every time he speaks.
Andrea McCannon’s absorbed performance as Renee Pelagie draws many laughs. She is strong and consistent throughout.
Lauren Murtagh’s Madeleine LeClerc is not as naive as she could be. Murtagh grounds her character in a knowingness that borders between coquettish and almost worldly. Her act 2 monologue is a highlight.
Dylan Watson tends to underplay the melodrama as Abbe de Coulmier, which creates a notable difference between himself and the rest of the asylum. This is not necessarily a bad thing in terms of the tale being told.
Jordan Armstrong brings a strong presence to the role of Monsieur Prouix, the Architect. His scene with Andi SnellingsCollard is a comic highlight. Both fully commit to the scene, and the result is quite funny.
Adrian Carr‘s Marquis is flamboyant and showy. He balances this with his silent performance for most of act 2 (after the Marquis has had his tongue removed). No easy feat to be silent and naked, but Carr’s presence that he has created earlier in the piece certainly makes sure the audience know he’s there.
The melodramatic feel of the piece is a smart choice. One that once again, director and cast should be commended for.
The play certainly raises many questions about sex, religion, politics and (in)sanity. It is an important piece about the nature of humans.
Yes it is challenging and thought provoking. Yes it is disturbing. Yes it creates an emotional response from its audience. It may take a while for it to sink in, but once it does, it stays with you.
by Nick Pilgrim
Written in 1995 by Doug Wright, Quills is an Obie award – winning, multi – layered, cerebral tug o’ war. The American playwright and screenwriter is also a Pulitzer Prize winner for I Am My Own Wife (2004). His other works of note include Interrogating the Nude (1992) along with the book musicals, Grey Gardens (2006), and Hands on a Hardbody (2011).
Based on the final days in detainment of the Marquis de Sade, Quills is a daring study of sexual perversity, freedom of speech, political corruption, religious salvation, class status and questionable madness. The play’s intellectual crux asks why some artists are compelled to push boundaries, and how they ignite society’s inner darkness in the process. That paradox holds true to this day and debate still runs hot, as to whether the notorious Marquis was a genius or in fact completely insane.
In a major coup for Mockingbird Theatre, Wright personally granted the independent company special permission to perform his script. This is the first time local audiences will see Quills presented live in full on the professional stage.
Chris Baldock is Mockingbird Theatre’s founder and artistic driving force. As the visionary responsible for both direction and set concept, Baldock brings this challenging labour of love to life. His experienced production team includes Soren Jensen (Assistant Direction), Merinda Backway (Set Design), Jason Bovaird and Ben Howlett (Lighting Design), Kellie Bray and Victoria Haslam (Costume Design).
The Arts House at Melbourne’s historic Meat Market Craft Centre could not be a better choice of venue. As Quills is set inside France’s Charenton asylum fortress, much of the atmospheric ground – work for this production is already in place. For the most part, the building’s vaulted interior appears to paint the space in varying shades of candlelight. Running the full length of the auditorium, the deceptively simple set is made up of three distinct sections. Divided by a central stage, at one end is the Marquis’ cell and at the other is the Doctor’s office.
Perhaps drawing on Peter Weiss’ Marat / Sade (1976) and that show’s original title (The Prosecution and Assassination of Jean Paul Marat performed by the play-acting group at the Charenton Asylum under the direction of the Marquis de Sade), the performance details here are similarly drawn.
It has been historically documented that as part of his patients’ ongoing therapy, the real Abbe de Coulmier encouraged and allowed Charenton’s prisoners to stage their own productions. So in possible self – reference, the entire cast of Quills appear to be playing lunatics putting on a show. A deliciously twisted take on Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, instead of noble students storming the barricades, crazed inmates are running the mad house.
Keeping this in mind, Mockingbird Theatre’s cast walk a Grand Guignol path lined with blood, copious amounts of flesh, heated melodrama and lashings of black humour. At two hours in length, even in the play’s quieter moments, Quills’ pulsating tension is never once relinquished or its delicate spell broken. Adorned in rags or period costumes with a dress – up box appeal, the cast perform as if they are all slightly unhinged.
Imperative to this production’s success as the lunatics of Charenton, the twenty-one strong ensemble exhibit fearless commitment. The group’s movement, framing and placement are also given a choreographic importance in relation to the pandemonium playing around them.
Dylan Watson (as The Abbe de Coulmier) and Adam Ward (Dr Royer-Collard) made terrific sparring partners not only with each other, but the Marquis as well. Watching Watson’s slow descent into madness was very convincing.
Andrea McCannon gave Renee Pelagie, the Marquis’ long – suffering wife, a good balance of pride and shame. She played the role with a sense of impending collapse that made one really feel for her.
Andi Snelling (Madame Royer-Collard) seemed to be having a ball with Jordan Armstrong (Monsieur Prouix). Their bawdy scene together particularly outlined the hypocrisy surrounding the cause and effect of censorship.
Lauren Murtagh gave the Marquis’ young ally, Madeleine LeClerc, both vulnerability and sexual empowerment. Her character walked into the spider’s lair, meanwhile knowing exactly what she was doing.
Adrian Carr IS the Marquis.
Part Jack Nicholson’s Randle McMurphy (from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and John Malcovich’s Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont (from Dangerous Liaisons,) he is charming, seductive, dangerous and hypnotic all at once. As it his character’s task to carry most of the taboo themes that the show addresses, in Carr’s hands one never doubts the threat the Marquis was to society. Like Geoffrey Rush from the film, Carr is as comfortable in his own skin as most actors are in full costume.
Melbourne’s Mockingbird Theatre has quickly earned a reputation for presenting poetic yet radical, cutting edge drama. Recent hits include The Laramie Project (by Moisés Kaufman), How I Learned To Drive (Paula Vogel), Equus (Peter Shaffer), Kiss of The Spider Woman (Manual Puig), and The Judas Kiss (David Hare).
Hot on the heels of these provocative choices, the repertory company has gone all – out with their most ambitious, confronting and powerful production to date.
Macabre. Debauched. Thrilling. Hilarious
It’s finally here!
Mockingbird Theatre presents the highly anticipated Melbourne premiere of Quills by Doug Wright
BUY TICKETS HERE
1st – 15th August
Meat Market Pavilion, 5 Blackwood Street, North Melbourne, VIC 3051
Mockingbird Theatre has just cast Jordan in their up and coming production of Quills by Doug Wright, and it is set to be their largest production to date.
“Exuberant theatre-making…gory, depraved, revolting and—uh-oh—sentimental. On top of all that, the play has something to say about censorship and what happens when you try to suppress art…Smirky, gross-out fun with a purpose. It’s an amazing show” – Variety
Quills is a play about the last days of the Marquis de Sade, and it is a mind-wrenching and macabrely funny look into the dark recesses of man’s soul, Nietzsche’s abyss, the “terrible beauty” that exists within it, and society’s attempts to turn the common people away from it.
Quills premiered at Washington, D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in 1995 and subsequently had its debut Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. Quills garnered the 1995 Kesselring Prize for Best New American Play from the National Arts Club and, for Wright, a 1996 Village Voice Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting. In 2000, Wright wrote the screenplay for the film version of Quills that starred Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, Kate Winslet and Michael Caine.
“Cunningly structured and gorgeously written, with every phrase turned to a high, gleaming polish. Quills is a superb piece of writing” ~ Village Voice
This will be the Victorian premiere and directed by award-winning Mockingbird Artistic Director Chris Baldock, assisted by Soren Jensen.
Cast
Marquis de Sade – Adrian Carr
Doctor Royer-Collard – Adam Ward
Abbe de Coulmier – Dylan Watson
Madeleine Leclerc – Lauren Murtagh
Monsieur Prouix – Jordan Armstrong
Renée Pélagie – Andrea McCannon
Madame Royer-Collard – Andi Snelling
Director: Chris Baldock
Assistant Director: Soren Jensen
Executive Producer/Publicist: Kris Weber
Lighting Designer: Jason Bovaird
Set Designer: Merinda Backway
Production Managers: Emma Walmsley, Kellie Bray
Jordan Armstrong | Actor 