Founded in Sydney almost four decades ago, physical theatre company Legs on the Wall is renowned for their use of visual spectacle to confront hard issues and prompt deeper reflection. At this year’s Sydney festival, the company’s artists performed on top of a 2.5 tonne iceberg suspended 20 metres above Sydney Harbour in a commentary on climate change. And in 2018 and 2019, they toured Man with the Iron Neck, a powerful show that used aerial theatre to explore suicide among Indigenous Australians.
This week, in a headline show for Brisbane festival, the company premieres a new co-production: Holding Achilles, a queer reclaiming of the Iliad that tells the love story of Achilles and Patroclus through a mix of ultra-physical theatre, visual spectacle and puppetry on a grand scale.
