That performance occurred at the equally real Barnett Levey Theatre Royal, Sydney's first professional theatre. This is definitely not biographical drama, though brief summations for Knowles and Barnett are printed in the program. Performance in-jokes and references abound and there is an overarching sense of the absurdity of acting, all this adult dressing up and pretending for the sake of supposed art. As the play progresses, the nonsensical museum disappears, quite literally as the stage set moves up to reveal the proscenium arch behind. Koca has always enjoyed playing spatial games in the Pilgrim and this is no exception.
Identity is as shifting as the set.
David Sedgwick as the actor playing Conrad Knowles playing Hamlet oscillates between accepting and disputing his multi-layered identity. He re-enacts a far less stagy Hamlet than would have been likely in 1834 but can do 19th century cod performance when required. At its heart, this is a partial reclamation of a forgotten pioneer. Forgotten because, after all, he was an actor. And partial because what remains of performances after 166 years apart from a few lines in dusty, tearing newsprint.