Arielle Gray and the magic of The Last Great Hunt’s Night Night

by | Jan 29, 2025

Night Night, the latest work by iconic Australian theatre makers The Last Great Hunt, is fascinatingly described as a story of life, death and other dimensions.

The work began as an online collaboration between The Last Great Hunt’s Arielle Gray and Tim Watts with Hannah Smith and Ralph McCubbin Howell of Trick of the Light Theatre in Wellington NZ back in 2019. “We wanted to collaborate online without creating carbon miles flying back and forth to one another, says Gray, one of The Last Great Hunt’s five theatre makers (the other being Gita Bezard, Adriane Daff and Jeffrey Jay Fowler. “We started with the seed word ‘Antarctica’. Through many developments two companion shows began to emerge: sharing a world, assets, tools and lore, but separate stories. The form of the work echoed how we were collaborating, separate, yet together. We became interested in the shows haunting each other, parallel universes within the work and in the form of the two shows. In 2023 Trick of the Light put a pause on their version and we decided that The Last Great Hunt would make our version of Night Night with Trick of the Light planning to make a companion piece/response later down the track. We gathered our team, brought on Luke Kerridge as our co-creator/co-director and Rachel Claudio as our composer and took what we already had and grew and evolved it into the show it is today.”

Going beyond the limits of traditional theatre performance, the show is a unique blend of puppets, animation and DIY digital magic – it’s a live film experience in the iconic style of The Last Great Hunt!

“Tim and I have been playing with all of these elements in our creations for years now,” says Gray. “With puppets, we love the freedom that a puppet has, the ability to do things that human actors can’t do (like glow, fly or be made of paper). With animation, projection and live film – we love the ability to transport an audience visually to other worlds, to be able to move from one location to another without needing to build a new set. With live film it’s the ability to play with scale, gravity and access to the actors (with extreme close-ups).

All of these elements do take a long time to weave together, it’s essentially tech week every week in the development room… But it’s so exciting for us to take storytelling methods from all these different mediums and forms and find a way that they can sit together in a live format to tell a story visually that still has heart and connection with the audience.”

The story follows Pip, a downtrodden Antarctic scientist on a quest to discover the origin of life, who is haunted by visions of an albino penguin, and stumbles upon a hidden plane of existence that challenges everything she thought she knew.

Gray explains that Antarctica was definitely an inspiration for the show. “A cold, barren and eerily magical place that seems somewhat untouchable and completely lit our imaginations on fire. It felt like a place where the veil between other worlds might be at their thinnest and where life and death were closer at hand. A perfect setting to explore humanity, nature and how and why we are here (and what else might exist just beyond reality) – explored through a flawed and deeply human character. Without revealing too much, we hope to inspire connection, emotion and hopefully some fun.”

In their endeavor to create the most delightful and surprising experience for audiences, Gray says the creative team worked super collaboratively and were very interested in stripping out more traditional hierarchical systems within their creative process. “In fact, at The Last Great Hunt we have recently shifted to a non-hierarchical, collaborative structure for the business side of our operations, to better reflect the way we work creatively (and it is going great).

The responsibility for creating the work rests with those of us who are creating it. We all have a passion and drive to make the work the best it can be. One of the best ways to do that is to not let ego get in the way and trust your fellow collaborators, there is a certain magic that can exist if you manage to get to a point where parts of the show are emerging, and you can’t pinpoint who did what and where. There are no hard ‘lanes’ that we stick to, Luke and I would often be making props or focusing lights or creating some baseline assets that Tim was turning into animations. Claudio made all the music but sometimes we would find a wind sfx to add or something little like that. Tim did most of the qlab programming and animations, but often we all feed into each other’s work.”

The Last Great Hunt are a team of creators, innovators and above else, explorers. With each new theatre experience, they hunt for new ideas and new ways of connecting with their expanding audiences across Australia and the world. “Joined by our Director of Operations Jac Low & Producer Georgia Landré-Ord, we create high quality, rigorous, relevant and entertaining original work,” explains Gray. “We make theatre on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja, honoring the rich traditions of storytelling that have been passed down through generations. Our shows feature an eclectic variety of forms, styles and experiences. We strive to give our audience an engaging, challenging and moving night out at the theatre.

The groups aim is to be recognised as a sustainable, Perth-based global theatrical force, regularly creating acclaimed, invigorating, original work. They take a leadership role in the development of the arts in Perth, while offering opportunities, resources and development to their artists and staff.

The intriguing name, The Last Great Hunt, comes from the team wanting to capture the way they make work. Says Gray, “The definition of hunt is ‘pursuit with intent to capture’ and that is what our process is, constantly moving forward, pursuing an idea, an image, a moment with the intent to capture it. Last and Great come from the intention that every process happens as if it is our last and always with the motivation for it to be great.”

In terms of touring, Gray says the most enjoy getting to share their work with as many audiences as possible and the teams truly treasures all the amazing conversations and moments they get to have with people after the show.

Perth Festival Artistic Director Anna Reece says, “Night Night is a truly precious and unique show that without a doubt will leave Perth and tour the world. The show will captivate all who experience it, and absolutely everyone should. If you want to believe in the magic of theatre, this is for you.”

Reciprocally, Gray feels the Perth Festival is incredibly important to the local community. “The festival’s support of us and our work has been, and continues to be invaluable,” Gray says. “They provide an opportunity to present work locally with support and provide great opportunities for that work to catapult into the rest of the world. It is also incredibly valuable for local artists to be able to see and access international artists and their work. There is always something that I see at Perth festival that is incredibly inspiring and fills up that creative cup.”

Always prepared, Gray says the company constantly has shows in their development pipeline, led and created by different artists within TLGH. “There are lots of exciting ideas and shows bubbling out and I can’t wait to continue working on them and seeing the brilliant work my fellow hunters create. This year we also have Night Night hitting the road in Aus and a few more shows popping up around Australia and the world throughout the year. Follow The Last Great Hunt on our socials to keep up to date or sign up to become one of the greats (on our website) and get our email updates!”

A visually transcendent adventure, Night Night will surprise and delight audiences as a film is created live on stage each night

Says Gray, “A theatrical film created live on stage, Night Night is highly visual, playfully cinematic, with a DIY feel and a sprinkle of heart. We are close to sold out at Perth Festival so come see what the fuss is about.”

February 26 – March 2

perthfestival.com.au

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