Christopher The Powerful
Michael Gray Griffith
Creator and host of podcast Cafe Locked Out Recording Courageous Australian Voices And Playwright for The Wolves Theatre Company
In the sixties a sex worker plying her trade on the Sydney docks gave birth to a boy whose father could have been either an American or Nordic sailor. Immediately, she put him up for adoption and decades later Christopher Grant with his body build physic and exuberant and disarming smile walked into our lives.
We, The Wolves Theatre Company, were trying to produce our new play, Marooned. We only intended to do a short season in a small and cheap theatre, more as a dedication to the man the play was dedicated to, and his mum. But the play had other ideas and we have travelled it far and there is further to go.
Marooned is a suicide prevention play.
It has four characters and one of them needed to be a big alpha male who was confident with his size but could also reveal how big his heart was. But try as we might we couldn’t find one. We finally got to a point where we were going to re-write the character when in walked Chris.
We were all thinking please be able to act, as we handed him the script and then he said, “I can’t read this, I’m dyslexic.”
He then told us to give him a few days to study it and he’d come back and he’d know it, and he did. He not only knew all the lines but he was already the character and his ideas and passion have helped craft the performance that our audiences love.
His presence on stage, particularly in this play is huge, engaging and most importantly authentic and believable. Effortlessly flipping from rage to humour, to poignancy he keeps the boards alive and tense.
Relatively new to acting, Chris Grant playing the role of 379, is something not to be missed.
Thursday 4 March 2021 7:30 PM and Friday 5 March 2021 7:30 PM
Paddo RSL ( Paddington) 220-232 Oxford St, , Paddington , NSW 2021
Michael Gray Griffith: Producer