“If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man” – Tom Waits

Roll up, ladies and gentlemen! A dark carnival is coming to town.

A carnival sideshow in an army barracks, our military band will pump out rousing surrealistic songs and other fairground entertainments providing sarcastic comments on the human condition and the act of civilisation.

The third in the acclaimed Tom Waits and Robert Wilson musicals, which began with The Black Rider and Alice, Woyzeck is a “fragmented, nightmare-like fable”.

Tom Waits says:

“…it’s like a hammer or it’s a tool or it’s a vehicle. It deals with madness and children and obsession and murder - all the things that we care about and care about now as we did then. It’s wild and sexy and curious and catches your imagination and makes you wonder about the people in it and it makes you reflect on your own life.”

The story shows how a good man is turned by society into a murderer. In our version Woyzeck is played by a woman. This gives the actor the opportunity to also explore man and male behaviour, discovering that “man is an abyss - you get dizzy when you look down into it“ (Georg Büchner, the original playwright).

Woyzeck is played by Hester Ullyart who is joined by a mix of experienced local performers: actors - Hillary Moulder, Tom Trevella, Aaron Boyce, Chris Carrow, Marian McCurdy and Greta Bond; and musicians - Reuben Derrick, Sam White, Nicole Reddington and Doug Brush.

Directed by Peter Falkenberg with design by Stuart Lloyd-Harris and costume and make-up by Jenny Ritchie, the recently restored heritage Pump House provides the perfect setting.