SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD EXCUSE FOR A PARTY

YOU’RE invited to a birthday party like no other next week, when Melbourne theatre-maker Roslyn Oades brings a warm, funny and deeply human show to Hobart. Hello, Goodbye & Happy Birthday celebrates two milestone birthdays, 18 and 80, which can be major transition points of adult life.

Eighteen represents untold potential, while 80 can be a chance to reflect upon a lifetime of experiences.

Eighteen is the threshold from childhood into adulthood, and 80 can mark the transition from selfsufficient adult into aged-care dependency.

After attending an 80th birthday party and then an 18th a short time later, Oades was inspired by the juxtaposition of the two celebrations to start thinking about entrances into, and exits out of, adulthood.

She set about conducting a series of extensive interviews with community members aged 18 and 80-plus, with their intimate real-life conversations providing the source material for Hello, Goodbye & Happy Birthday. The production employs Oades’ groundbreaking “headphone verbatim’’ documentary theatre technique: rather than reciting memorised lines, the actors wear headphones and are fed edited audio interviews, which they speak aloud word-for-word — including every inflection, cough, stumble and breath — as they hear them, creating a hyperreal performance style.

Featuring actors who play across ages, genders and ethnicities, Hello, Goodbye & Happy Birthday

won two Green Room Awards and was short-listed for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award last year. Now it’s coming to Hobart.

Roslyn Oades presents Hello,

Goodbye & Happy Birthday at the Theatre Royal at 7.30pm nightly from July 6-8. Tickets are $30-$65, go to www.theatreroyal.com.au or phone 6233 2299 for bookings.