THE Orchid and the Crow is autobiographical but creator and performer Daniel Tobias says there is a lot of artistic licence in how he tells the stories of his life.
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Reflecting on Tobias’ real life experiences, The Orchid and the Crow is a solo performance: part storytelling, part cabaret and part theatre swinging seamlessly between 80s rock, pop and contemporary opera.
“In some ways it’s like a one-man variety show,” he says, “but in that there’s these stories that I’m telling.
“Even though it can touch on some dark things, it’s a fun night out.”
Tobias grew up in a Jewish-atheist household.
In 2004 he found out he had stage-four testicular cancer and went searching for God.
Enter Lance Armstrong, seven-times winner of the Tour de France and legendary cancer survivor.
“Even though I do talk about my experience going through cancer treatment, it is really talking about how faith affected my outlook, particularly with Lance Armstrong, and how that gave me the strength to go through it,” Tobias says.
“I can’t image going through that experience without his story and so I make these parallels between growing up with a Jewish God and I kind of explain how that paradox of being Jewish and being an atheist is possible.
“I kind of see similarities between the Jewish god and Lance Armstrong being this modern messiah kind of figure.”
His view of self-confessed drug cheat Armstrong is complicated and definitely “not black and white”.
Despite Armstrong’s fall from grace, he still remains an important and inspirational figure as Tobias dealt with the life-threatening cancer diagnosis.
“If someone said to me before 2013 ‘I’ve got a friend going through cancer what should I do or how can I help them?’ I would have just said read Lance Armstrong’s book It’s Not About the Bike,” he says.
“Quite quickly he became the most important person to me other than my family or friends. It was just crucial to my positive outlook.”
“… Whereas now, you might suggest the book but he’s a different figure.”
It took Tobias 18 months to develop the award-winning show, which has been well received around Australia and joins the 2016 HotHouse Theatre season after a successful 12-week tour of Canada and the UK.
Tobias shared the songwiting duties with Clare Bartholomew and the play is directed by Christian Leavesley.
The Orchid and the Crow opens on Tuesday, September 13, at the Butter Factory Theatre, Gateway Village, and runs until September 17.
