Round 2
Wanderlust
AFO FEST
WANDERLUST
Written and Performed by Martin Dockery
Directed by Jean-Michele Gregory
October 2011
After a dead-end decade of working as an office temp, Dockery buys a one-way ticket to West Africa with no plan other than to trek from the Atlantic to the Sahara, hoping for an amazing epiphany. Or any kind of epiphany, really. Whatever epiphany. But as happens when one expects something to happen: nothing happens. WANDERLUST, then, is the story of what exactly does happen when there’s no story to tell.
Performed extemporaneously, with Dockery acting out the story as much as narrating it, WANDERLUST sweeps audiences down a sun-scorched desert track towards a wide-open expanse of even more desert – an anti-story that barrels towards an anti-climax that mirrors the mundane adventures inherent in our everyday, exotic lives.
Press
“Storytelling at its best.”
Adelaide Theatre Guide
“You can virtually feel the crazy momentum of it blowing through your hair.”
Edmonton Journal
“An astounding feat of storytelling… blisteringly funny… Very close to perfect.”
Toronto Eye Weekly
Pick of the Fringe Award
at the Vancouver Fringe Festival
Adelaide Critics Circle Award
at the Adelaide Fringe Festival
Best in Venue Award
at the Orlando Fringe
Breakthrough Performer of the Year
at the soloNOVA Arts Festival
Trailer
MARTIN DOCKERY (performer/playwright) is a frequent performer in New York’s storytelling scene. Over the past three years, he’s created five monologues and one play, performing them all across North America, Britain, and Australia.
Wanderlust, directed by Jean-Michele Gregory, is about a 5-month trek through West Africa in search of a moment of Epiphany. It’s received 5-star reviews in many newspapers, and won top honors at fringe theater festivals in Orlando, London, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, & Adelaide. The Surprise, also directed by Jean-Michele Gregory, is about secrets unveiled during a trip to Vietnam. It won Martin soloNOVA’s 2009 Breakthrough Performer of the Year, as well as selling out its entire run at The Edmonton Fringe Festival. The Bike Trip, Martin’s third autobiographical monologue, is about the creation of LSD, and it was chosen as “Best of Festival” in both Orlando and Winnipeg. Throughout 2011, Martin has been performing in his own two-person play Oh, That Wily Snake!, with runs in Fresno, Orlando, London, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, & Vancouver, with an up-coming run in New York in 2012. He also debuted two new monologues. His first fictional piece, Bursting Into Flames, is about an excursion through the afterlife, and was awarded top honors by The CBC. His other new work, The Holy Land Experience, about a faithless pilgrimage through the land of the faithful, was chosen by The Orlando Sentinel as one of their “Best of Festival.”
