Stranger Things:
Christopher Samuel Carroll
BIG IDEAS by Allan Sko
IN A SMALL SPACE “I’ve read The Stranger four or five times over the years, and it gets under my skin. It jolts my perspective of how I go about interactions for the weeks during, and afterward.”
So says Irish-born, Canberra actor Christopher Samuel Carroll about French-Algerian writer/ philosopher Albert Camus’ 1940s classic The Stranger (also know as The Outsider). He is taking on the daunting task of turning the text into a one-man show. Throw in a two-month break for lockdown, and it’s an even more perilous exercise.
The existential, absurdist story explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. Meursault, the anti-hero, will not lie. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society, and the law. It is, in short, a real thinker. Carroll, a talented mainstay of Canberra arts, is known for his physical theatre. His upcoming show marks his sixth solo venture. “Solo work is a very particular form of theatre to do as an actor,” Carroll explains. “It’s rewarding in that it connects you in a very pure way to the audience. There’s incredible freedom in it. You’re lacking other performers, of course, and the reciprocal energy generated. But it means you become sensitised to everything the text is giving you. And everything in the atmosphere of the room that particular night with the audience, what you’re doing, how that’s landing, how that’s resonating in the space.” So of all the world’s stories, and with complete autonomy of choice that a one-man show provides, what led Carroll to The Stranger? “It’s different to the solo shows I’ve done before,” he reveals. “I’m known for doing physical work. But fundamentally, I trained as a classical actor and have a strong relationship to great text, great words, well written characters. Complex, sensitive, challenging stories. PAGE 28
“The Stranger is all about the text, and the acting of the text, and bringing the honesty of it,” Carroll continues. “I have an image in mind of this slow burning cigarette; this contained smouldering energy that carries through this subtle, meditative journey of this character. There are still moments of high emotion, and high drama. It’s theatrical. But it’s not all explicit. “Personally, with theatre, I love being able to suggest; to make an offer to an audience to come and lend their own imagination, and participate imaginatively on stage. Become co-creators.” Co-creators we may be, but the fact remains that Carroll is alone on that stage. As such, he is able to examine the material in the most intricate of ways. “I find The Stranger darkly funny,” he says. “It’s dripping with an irony that really appeals to me. It’s an Irish thing as well. It’s deeply human, and I feel that sense of heaviness. It’s something I carry with me. I’m a foreigner in this place. I’m someone who emigrated. So to an extent, I felt like an outsider. And the place that I came from, I never really felt like I belonged there either.
“But then again, maybe that’s part of an artistic disposition as well. It’s taking a step back, looking at things from a different angle, because you don’t really feel a sense of belonging.” @bmamag
