By Nick Dent
It is a truth universally acknowledged that drinking on the job is rarely a good idea.
But when Brigitte Freeme drank five shots of tequila and a glass of prosecco on stage on a recent Sunday afternoon in Brisbane, she was simply following stage directions.
Brigitte Freeme (left) and Chloe Stojanovic in Woodward Productions’ Plied and Prejudice. One cast member gets drunk on stage in each performance.Credit: Woodward Productions
Freeme was playing the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in a 90-minute parody production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice titled Plied and Prejudice.
She occasionally collapsed into giggles. At one point she riffed with a pair of audience members who had come along dressed in high-waisted Regency dresses.
“You made more of an effort than we did,” she quipped.
Plied and Prejudice is the first show in the “drunk theatre” genre from Brisbane’s Woodward Productions.
Originating some 20 years ago at the Edinburgh Festival, the format always has one actor in the ensemble getting inebriated, for real.
Freeme (Elizabeth) and Stephen Hirst (Darcy) star in this broadly comic adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel.Credit: Woodward Productions
Off-Broadway’s Drunk Shakespeare has been combining booze and the Bard since 2014, and Britain’s venerable Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare toured Australia with a sloshed Macbeth in March.
“It brings an element of theatrical excitement and risk, because something could change in the moment,” said producer Alex Woodward.
To prove the actor really is drinking, the first round of tequila is always shared with a random audience member.
Drama and debauchery: Stephen Hirst, Juliette Milne, Tom Pocilujko and Brigitte Freeme. Credit: Woodward Productions
“People ask if we’re faking it, but things happen that you really can’t make up,” Freeme said.
Queensland Health advice is that adults should drink no more than 10 standard drinks in a week and no more than four on any one day.
Woodward said drunken cast members were provided with travel vouchers to make sure they got home safely after shows.
“There’s a roster so that after the first month every actor only drinks [in the show] once a fortnight,” he said.
One actor, Stephen Hirst, plays both Mr Darcy and three of the Bennet sisters, which guarantees laughs whether Hirst is intoxicated or not.
Another, Tom Pocilujko, plays the charming Mr Wickham, the loathsome Mr Collins, and also Mr Bingley, who is portrayed as crushing on his friend Darcy. Cue plenty of gags about Bingley’s fondness for “holding balls”.
Austen purists could be, in the words of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, most seriously displeased.
Woodward, whose cabaret A Very Naughty Christmas has been running every December for seven years, said his aim was to attract audiences that normally wouldn’t think of going to the theatre.
“The whole cast has a duty of care towards the drunkard, so you do feel very taken care of,” said Freeme.Credit: Woodward Productions
“You’ve got to get them in with comedy and fun. And then if they enjoy that, then maybe they’ll see a musical, and if they enjoy a musical, maybe they’ll see a play.”
There is also a business consideration. Drunk theatre encourages the audience to order drinks during the show via a QR code, which improves the production’s bottom line.
With six weekly shows performed on weekends only, the cast is able to pursue their day jobs and attend auditions.
“This was the craziest rehearsal process and opening weekend I’ve ever been a part of,” Freeme said.
“You become extremely self-aware that you’re doing a show drunk. You’re delving back into the deepest part of your brain to try and find the line that you’re supposed to say.”
Which gives new meaning to the words of Elizabeth Bennet in the novel: “Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind.”
Plied and Prejudice is playing at The Shed, Dock C, Northshore Brisbane, Fri-Sun, until August 18.
If drinking is a problem for you, contact the Alcohol Support Line on 1800 198 024.