Q&A with talented Playbacker – Michael Pooley
1. Where and when did you first come across Playback Theatre?
I saw my first playback show in 1985 (no that’s not a typo – it was 1985) and I remember being completely entranced. I was a student at the Drama Action Centre at the time and we were doing a term focused on storytelling. We learnt some playback skills during that term but it is the first performance that I saw, that really stays with me.
2.What attracted you to it and when did you join the ensemble?
I loved the landscapes the actors created as they played back the stories. I still remember two of the actors creating a wonderful Amazon jungle full of birds and animals. I also loved the connection with the audience and hearing the extraordinary stories that ordinary people told. I joined the company in 1987 and then left after about 18 months to travel overseas. Kids and jobs dominated life for a while but I kept contact with the company and rejoined in 2003.
3.What’s the most outrageous character you’ve improvised onstage?
I don’t get chosen for it very often but the sexy, full of themselves male is a role that is wonderful to play with. I have always convinced myself that the laughter from the audience is as a result of my wonderful impro rather than the incongruity of me playing a sexy male. Inanimate objects are also great to explore and it was particularly wonderful playing a teenage girl’s diary that was read secretly by her mother.
4.Is there a story that moved you that you still think about today?
I think about stories all the time but if I had to pick one it would be the story of a woman’s courage in speaking up. It was in 1988 at a conference of the Movement for the Ordination of Women. It was a story about the personal cost to women in the church who stand up to male clericalism. There was something about the way we played that story back that touched a deep nerve in the audience and their response was so emotional and so strong it was like releasing a pent up geyser.
5.What do you like doing when you’re not doing Playback?
I love folk music and indulge that love yearly up at the Blue Mountains Folk Festival which is an overdose of all things folk and blues. While I don’t do it nearly often enough, live theatre is wonderful and I enjoy everything from home grown productions at Belvoir through to the mega musicals like Wicked and Les Mis.
6.Where do you think Playback makes the greatest impact?
I’m not sure about greatest impact but I love it when an audience connects through the power of an individual’s story. When the experience of one person offers something that everyone identifies with, or at the least appreciates, it reaffirms us all as part of one community and it celebrates the power of our stories. While it often happens when we work with particular groups or organisations it can also happen at a public performance with an audience that have only their humanity in common.