Belvoir Theatre rises from the ashes with remount of The Book of Everything
After a fire destroyed its Marrickville warehouse, the company is rebuilding its ‘rough magic’ aesthetic through hand-painted canvases and community support.
Sydney theatre company Belvoir is remounting Neil Armfield’s 2010 production of The Book of Everything following a fire in June that destroyed its storage warehouse in Marrickville. The blaze, which broke out on the afternoon of 22 June from unknown causes, wiped out the company’s inventory of sets, props, and costumes. This collection, described by artistic director Eamon Flack as a “library of things,” formed the basis of the company’s distinctive “rough magic” aesthetic and its ethos of recycling, repurposing, and reusing materials.
The loss was particularly acute for the production team, which had to recreate the sets for The Jungle and the Sea in just 11 days. To achieve this, the team established a makeshift workshop in a former furniture shop beneath the company’s Surry Hills headquarters, working around the clock to ensure rehearsals continued without interruption. Flack noted that the rapid adjustment by the production staff meant not a single hour of rehearsal was missed, describing the experience as a moment where “something horrible brings out something wonderful.”
For the remount of The Book of Everything, the challenge shifted from reconstruction to reproduction. While the original sets designed by Kim Carpenter were not directly destroyed in the fire, the company lacked the in-house workshop capacity to rebuild them. Consequently, Belvoir outsourced the work to specialists, featuring hand-painted canvas recreations of Carpenter’s original designs by scenic artist Russell Carey. These recreations, which include a giant illustrated book with pop-outs and turning pages, are currently being prepared in the company’s temporary workshop space.
The production, which opens on 22 August at the Surry Hills headquarters, stars Belvoir regulars including Peter Carroll, Rebecca Massey, and Julie Forsyth. Armfield, who helmed the company for 17 years, described the loss of his personal items, such as a plastic-coated wire washing basket and a doorbell, as feeling like “my work had been erased.” He views the remount as thematically appropriate, citing the show’s focus on healing and community connection in the aftermath of hardship.
The event highlights the broader financial pressures facing Australian theatre, with executive director Aaron Beach noting that the company runs “pretty close to the wire financially” amid declining arts funding and soaring production costs. Belvoir’s strategy has traditionally favoured investing in people rather than physical assets, but the fire has necessitated a multi-year period of financial recalibration. The company has been supported by colleagues in the sector who have offered space and tools, a gesture Flack described as moving given the widespread struggles within the industry.
The Book of Everything is based on a story about a boy in postwar Amsterdam finding joy after Nazi occupation. The production will run at Belvoir from 22 August to 20 September, serving as a testament to the company’s resilience and its ability to transform scarcity into artistic possibility.
