OCTOBER 30 2016
Kids lose their minds in Fight
With All Your Might the
Zombies of Tonight
Every year, Halloween celebrations seem to get
bigger and bigger, scarier and scarier. But did you
know that this year's fright fest coincides with a
terrifying
once-in-every-two-centuries
phenomenon that turns ordinary kids into
zombies?
We're not talking your common-or-garden, braineating Dawn of the Dead zombies, either. No,
these are zombies who dress alike, think alike,
dance in unison and meet after school to sip decafmocha-latte-soy-frappuccinos.
dead," says Rosy Cardis, 11, who plays a sharpeyed leading character named Alex. "They are
people who have lost their identities, so it's like
they have lost their brains. The moral of the story
is all about being yourself."
Alex is the leader of a bunch of school misfits, one
of whom is Leo, played by 10-year-old Jasper
Reucassel. "Leo is a dork who has a lot of opinions
and won't stop talking," Jasper says. "He uses a lot
of big words. He's a wimp but he's very smart. The
narrator says we are all weird but some of us are
better at hiding it than others."
Whittet has set the play on Halloween night. "It
plays on the idea of everyone dressed up in
costume. You've got kids dressed like zombies who
see that other kids are acting like zombies, and
then everyone seems to be becoming zombies.
Th en
yo u
h av e
th e
o dd -b o d
k ids
in Ghostbusters costumes and a banana suits
running around trying to save their town."
Will it be scary? "It's not super scary, like MA15+,
but it has a few scary scenes," Rosy says.
"There are some pretty funny jokes, too," adds
Jasper. "It has child humour and some adult stuff
that I don't get myself. I'm saying lines that I don't
get!"
If you saw the recent Australian movie Girl Asleep,
it might not be all that surprising to learn that
these zombies are the product of the imagination
of that film's writer, Matthew Whittet.
"I really like genre stories and then subverting and
playing with them," he says. "So I asked my son
Jasper, who is 10, about his favourite stories. At
that point he was really into zombies, and that got
me thinking. There is a plethora of films about
zombies – but I couldn't think of a play. I thought
writing one would be awesome."
The Australian Theatre for Young People agreed.
Whittet's new play, Fight With All Your Might the
Zombies of Tonight, walked away with the 2015
ATYP Foundation Commission Award. Now it is
about to receive its premiere, a production
featuring actors aged 10 to 13 and directed
by Robert Jago.
"The zombies in the play aren't back from the
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/stage/kids-lose-their-minds-infight-with-all-your-might-the-zombies-of-tonight-20161026-gsb0md.html
Whittet says there will be a few "jump scares" if
everything goes right on the night. "There are
some special effect moments where people pop out
from behind things or jump out of a box. And
there are 20 kids in the cast so there are a lot of
zombies."
Whittet's association with ATYP goes back many
years. He was an ATYP kid before he went to study
acting at NIDA. "I've wanted to come back and do
something with the company," he says. "The kids
are so great to work with. I enjoy the craziness in
it. It's wild and woolly but at the same time loaded
with meaning so that it's not just silliness."
Fight With All Your Might the Zombies of
Tonight plays at ATYP, Walsh Bay, November 919, atyp.com.au