A Completely Improvised Zombie Apocalypse throws Bren Carruthers into mayhem at Melbourne Fringe

Zombies have never been especially interested in following the rules, and neither has improvisation. Put the two together and you have a theatrical experiment where anything can happen, including who survives the night. A Completely Improvised Zombie Apocalypse takes the familiar conventions of the zombie genre and hands them over to a rotating cast of improvisers, with the audience helping determine where the story goes.

With humans being indispensable to any zombie production, it is only natural that this one has a large cast of victims. We managed to get hold of one of them, Bren Carruthers, while they are still human, and picked their brain on our obsession with zombies and what happens when you throw a group of improvisers into the apocalypse.

Given the challenge of surviving, let alone depicting, a zombie apocalypse, I was curious how Bren rates their own survival skills. "I’m only one member of a cast of nearly a dozen, but I don’t think any of us would be likely to survive!" they laugh. "But I think good zombie narratives aren’t about surviving, they’re about the attempt to survive, and what arises in the meantime. They’re a unique vessel for exploring parts of the human experience, society, and what happens when the normal rules no longer matter."

Because the zombie genre provides them with some of the broad strokes before they even step on stage, the way Bren and the rest of the cast improvise story, character and suspense differs from how they would normally do so. “Improvising a show like A Completely Improvised Zombie Apocalypse means taking a different approach to most improvised performances because we already know that the general overarching narrative is one of survival, with minor variations," they tell me. "We’re really focusing our energies and attention towards our characters and their relationships, as well as incorporating and subverting all those classic zombie tropes we know and love, finding and revelling in the ridiculousness and fun. Quite often, it means that something as simple as a throwaway line can send the cast spiralling off into some unexpected, highly satisfying direction."

For Carruthers, the best zombie films balance genuine emotional stakes with the humour and absurdity that make the genre such a joy to play with. “A great zombie movie has to have characters the audience cares about, tension and a compelling threat, but juxtaposing that existential drama with humour, absurdity and self-awareness," they say. "The zombie genre has such a rich bed of tropes and clichés to honour, exploit, and subvert - the final girl, the bite that some character keeps secret, the car that doesn’t start until the last possible, terrifying moment - they’re small fragments of popular culture we can all identify and appreciate."

With the audience guiding the action through their suggestions, Carruthers explains how much sway those contributions can have on the show, and whether giving the audience that much power during a zombie apocalypse is as risky as it sounds. "One of the real pleasures of improvising a show is having the opportunity to cater to an audience’s tastes. As performers, we’re constantly assessing the audience’s reactions and appealing to their sense of humour, directing our performance and unfolding the narrative accordingly. It means that no two shows are the same, even varying wildly in style. It does give the audience an unusual amount of influence, but we still stay thoroughly in control ... hopefully!"

And we can’t end without knowing what Carruthers’ favourite piece of zombie pop culture is, and their answer suggests just how unpredictable A Completely Improvised Zombie Apocalypse can be, with the show capable of veering into an entirely different genre or direction from one night to the next. "I have to go to the movie that really started it all: George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. I’ve even slipped a couple of subtle references into the show soundtrack. But I also have a massive soft spot for dumb, silly, zombie-adjacent stuff like Black Sheep and Død Snø," they tell me. "Our producer Carla is a huge fan of Dawn of the Dead, and I know other members of the cast love the midnight horror movie era, or the more recent big-ticket items like The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. It’s fair to say that we’re collectively drawing our inspiration from a very wide range of zombie media!"
     
FRINGE FIVE FAST ONES

1. My pre-show ritual is getting to the venue about 20 minutes before I need to be there, because I have an absolute trust in public transport in Melbourne. Listen to a little music to get into the mood, warm up with the rest of the team to lift the energy and lock into the mindset, and then it’s showtime.
2. If a song was to play each time I entered a room, it would be likely to alert any zombies in the area! Maybe for that reason I’ll choose John Cage’s '4’33'.
3. If I could instantly become amazing at one skill, it would be falling asleep on command, instead of the half-hour of staring at the wall I usually endure every night.
4. If I were forced to eat one meal for the rest of my life, it would be wedgachos with all the toppings.
5. The hill I will die on ismperforming on stage is for everyone. Yes, it absolutely takes courage, humility, resilience and diligence, but everyone is capable and deserving of the opportunity to take the stage and share their perspective, their feelings, their creativity, their story, their voice, their joy and laughter… a fragment of their humanity. It’s such an important way to understand each other and ourselves.

SHOW DETAILS

Venue: Club Voltaire, 14 Raglan St, North Melbourne
Season: 30 September - 6 October | 7:30pm
Duration: 80 minutes
Tickets: $28 Full | $15 Conc / Preview | $21 Hump Day Wendesday
Bookings: Melbourne Fringe Festival

Images credit: Ece Mustoff