The Crying Room: Exhumed

Created by Marcus McKenzie in affiliation with Club Greg International

Commissioned by The Substation,

The Substation, March 2024
Liveworks, November 2024

AVAILABLE FOR TOURING 2025/2026

Marcus Ian McKenzie - Lead Artist / Performer
Anna Nalpantidis - Creative Producer / Dramaturg
Romanie Harper - Set / Costume Designer
Richard Vabre - Lighting Designer
Derrick Duan - Cybernetics and Oracle Engineer
Ciaran Frame - Technical Consultant (SensiLab)
Jacinta Anderson - Production Manager / Technical Stage Manager
Justice Georgiopoulos - Stage Manager (Sydney season)
Maria Moles - Musician
Jacob Abela - Musician
Daniel Szesiong-Todd - Musician
Lauren Tsamouras - Musician
Chloe Kim - Musician
William Strom - Performer
Malcolm Whittaker - Performer

A crying room is a small, soundproof chamber at the back of a theatre auditorium where you can experience an event via one-way glass and live audio feed. As the name suggests, it’s a place you can go if you are crying so as not to disturb the audience. But what if a crying room was actually a site dedicated to emotional extraction? A place not to conceal tears, but to invoke them?

The Crying Room: Exhumed conjures a world of hyperspiritualists, clairvoyeurs, psychobabble and cybergrief. Prophecies will be scried and spectres will be divined - all for a nominal fee. But some fortunes ought to remain untold, and even the dead are buried with their mobile phones.

In this deeply personal and form-bending adaptation of his award-winning online work The Crying Room, Marcus Ian McKenzie scours infinite planes in search of his lost brother.

“One of the most complex unpackings of grief and loss that I’ve ever seen.”
- Anador Walsh, Performance Review

“Immaculately conceived and heartbreakingly executed.”
- Anastasia Dale, Honi Soit

“McKenzie demands attention, here and in the future.”
- John Bailey, RealTime (on Hyperspirit)

“Glitched out, hilarious, touching, terrifying… just absolutely fucking mind blowing.”
- Cara Donnelly, Across The Aisle (on Subliminal Massage)

“...a cluster-fucked grief spiral”
- Chelsea Hopper, Memo Review (on The Crying Room)

“Grief. Ritual. Digital haunting. And I’ve never see The Substation used to its full potential like this.”
- Sarah Walker, Independent Artist

“An ingenious remount... This is a sprawling solo performance reminiscent - in its use of technology and its focus on memory - of the work of New York’s experimental Wooster Group. The show has no real form: it’s just one coup de theatre moment after another.”
- Andrew Furhmann, The Age

“The finale of The Crying Room: Exhumed is intense and heartbreaking with a rawness and genuine vulnerability that catches you off guard and sits with you for quite some time after the show has concluded. Shows like this site-specific work at The Substation don’t come around often and not only is The Crying Room: Exhumed a stunning work on time, trauma and memories but it also solidifies McKenzie's exceptional skills and knowledge around language, performance and experimental theatre.”
- Myron My, My Melbourne Arts

“Marcus McKenzie is one of this country’s cleverest brains, most tender hearts, and most audacious artists. This work is just delicious - turning on a knife’s edge between sublime beauty and brutal irony. Grief. Ritual. Digital haunting. And I’ve never see The Substation used to its full potential like this.”
- Sarah Walker, Independent Artist on The Crying Room: Exhumed

Photography: Damien Raggatt, Amelia J Dowd, Liz Ham

life indeed is a
precious gift
but i often think
it seems to send the wrong man
- Ren Hang