A chicken’s-eye view of a world on the brink of catastrophe, not unlike our current world, from author, playwright, and former Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company, Andrew Upton.
Written for his unborn daughter on a smallholding in Nazi Germany just before the war, Krank Fuss (‘sick foot’), tells the story of one of a brood of chickens recently acquired by a WWI veteran from a neighbouring farm.
Ostracised because of her deformed limb, Krank Fuss befriends Gibby, a toad who considers themself a frog, and together they explore the world of the farm around them.
Over the course of the tale, she learns the biggest dangers are never as bad as she imagined, and that even though she has no say in the conditions of her life, she must still make decisions, because terrible cruelty and violence are much closer than she had thought possible.
Part allegory in the spirit of Animal Farm, part Art Brut parable, Krank Fuss unfolds against the background of an impending social catastrophe, unsettlingly echoing the world today. It is the story of the innocent discovering the cruelty of the natural world, seeking for another way that might allow the delicate Wonder of Life to peak above the nastiness, brutishness and brevity of her apparent Fate.
Andrew Upton was born in Sydney in 1966, the youngest of three children to John, a former navigator in Mosquitoes with the RAF during WWII and later a G.P., and Patty, an Australian-born woman of Irish descent.
He has written a couple of plays (Hanging Man and Riflemind) and many adaptations of the classics (Hedda Gabler, Cyrano De Bergerac, Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters and The Seagull amongst them).
He was Co-Artistic Director of the Sydney Theatre Company for eight years. He currently lives in the UK with his family, three dogs, two cats, endless Chickens and Occasional Pigs.
Krank Fuss is published by Puncher & Wattmann and is available from all great book sellers.
Andrew Upton will be touring Australia this August. For events and tickets, visit: www.krankfuss.com for details.
Image: Krank Fuss – courtesy of Puncher & Wattmann