Image by Kate Williams
Three generations of women, a house handed between them, and a long history of illness and trauma. Alice Birch traces the legacy of loss and the intergenerational experiences of motherhood in a family across decades in her Anatomy of a Suicide.
Image by Yure Covich
In the modern world, where it seems chaos reigns, the indeterminacy of the future can have many people clinging to the certainty of discrimination, exclusion, and hatred tighter than ever before. For loyalist Protestant Eric, the trauma of a past broken by terrorism and fear collides with the intimidating future of freedom and unlimited possibilities with devastating effects.
Image by Robert Catto
Everyone’s been there; at a Halloween party, trying to have a spooky time, and accidentally opening a portal to Hell. Writer Qui Nguyen’s work is well-known for integrating gore and horror tropes with puppets, humour, and a lot of fight choreography. This Australian premiere of his play Alice in Slasherland sees the Lewis Carol story turned on its head.
Image by Clare Hawley
Suzie Flack has eschewed “women’s” sport for the real, original, men’s league of AFL. She has always been as good as the boys, ie better than the girls, and she wants her chance to prove herself as the first woman to ever play for the men’s team. Fierce is a complex examination of gender, bodies, ability, and want within the all-Australian realm of professional sport.
Image by Robert Catto
Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is a piece of the queer canon for the way it depicts the state of America, specifically New York, during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. Tony Kushner’s remarkable script overlaps the lives of five gay men and their families, nurses, coworkers, and neighbours over two parts, approximately six and a half hours of stage time, while also establishing these stories deeply within the political, economic, and social framing of the Reagan years.
Image by Marnya Rothe
Eurydice was a young woman on the cusp of happiness. She’d found the love of her life and she was ready to get what she wanted. Until she was tricked into the Underworld where her choices aren’t quite what they once were. In a hazy retelling of the Greek tale, the boundaries of responsibility and desire blur as a young woman finds her place between heaven and hell.
Image by John Marmaras
The 2016 election of Donald Trump was a rude global awakening that the West had quickly forgotten what Fascism looks and sounds like. In the two years since, still, little has been done to address the insidious ways dangerous ideas and attitudes infect policy and perspective on all shores, including our own. Rich white men (and women) continue to cut funding to necessary sectors like health and public schools, detention centres are active and normal, and, yes, Australia is still racist. That’s why we’re seeing Nazis on stage with more frequency and more urgency; as reminders.
Image by Clare Hawley
The modern world is shifting and changing, becoming ever more unstable with increased house prices and rental numbers, the casualisation of the work force, and an overall rough globe politically. The Humans takes an honest look at how these changes are affecting a middle-class American family where everyone’s goals and dreams seem to be moving out of reach. Everything spills out over the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Image by John Marmaras
This year has seen a number of staged examinations of domestic violence and violence against women in time with the #MeToo movement and a global recognition of the violence and abuse faced by so many women. Steve Rodgers’s new work fragments his examination across four different stories. The unnamed cast trace three violent relationships from meeting to testifying and illustrate the often subtle ways power is abused to sometimes deadly ends.
Image by Robert Catto
Miss Polkadot has won Children’s Album of the Year and producer Martin and manager Jim want to get a head-start on the celebrations of what will be the launch of a global franchise. Spirits are high, drugs, alcohol, and money are involved, but Miss Polkadot, or Cristobel, wants out. The reoccurrence of a traumatic ethical confrontation means Cristobel wants to walk away and start again, costing her management everything they’ve hoped for.
Night Writes 