PRODUCTIONS
OCT 27 - NOV 7
EXPLOSIVES FACTORY, ST KILDA
Four short plays about love, loss, reconciliation and acceptance.
Kevin Nemeth has shaped his domestic and everyday material into delicate, profound and gently funny explorations of human nature. Set in regional Victoria, Crapbox is narrated by a recently widowed man who has discovered that his ‘tree change’ home is haunted. The tension between his blunt pragmatism and the need to deal with his situation leads him on a surprising journey. In Early Morning, a couple wake too early and are beset by anxieties and paradoxes as they lie in bed - hoping that the other one will get up and make the coffee. The Letter is a bright memory-picture sparked by a long-lost letter, and the final text, Good Daughter is a wry look at the muddy terrain of assisted dying.
WRITER
Kevin Nemeth
DIRECTORS
Anne Browning
Tom Gutteridge
PERFORMERS
Anne Browning
Peter Houghton
Tom Gutteridge
LIGHTING AND VISUAL DESIGN
Harrie Hogan
COMPOSITION AND SOUND DESIGN
Ethan Hunter
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT
Ethan Hunter
STAGE MANAGEMENT
Amy Gray
This play is handled with empathy and care through the genius writing by Kevin Nemeth. He masterfully handles each life topic with sprinkles of dark humour, compassion and empathy.
Selected Reviews
Each tale resonates, but it wouldn’t be so without the acting prowess of three excellent performers and the direction that Gutteridge and Browning bring to bear.
What makes Crapbox particularly affecting is its exploration of death and its aftermath without resorting to melodrama, instead finding insight in the complexities of grief,
There is a down-to-earth honesty about these no-frills plays. Aside from (…) Early Morning – in which the central issue is simply but so believably evaded – the other plays are monologues in which the storyteller confides in us in a way that is immediately engaging. A good story is hard to resist.
But then the performances are likewise no frills and utterly honest - which makes the characters touching but not for a moment sentimental or overheated – and delivered by quiet, very experienced performers and directors.
SMOKE
NOV 18 - 28
EXPLOSIVES FACTORY, ST KILDA
SMOKE
By Hugo Gutteridge
Directed by Bagryana Popov
BY HUGO GUTTERIDGE | DIRECTED BY BAGRYANA POPOV
An early morning in an inner city club starts to meld into the surreal as its smoking area becomes a stage for ghosts of the past, inter-dimensional drug dealers and good old fashion existential dread.
Follow several partygoers at the end of their night as the come to terms with their relationships, their fears and desires, their place in the world, and why the hell this last 5 minutes before closing has gone on for 5 hours.
What happens to these people as they realise 5 AM doesn’t seem to want to arrive, as strange spectres from Australia’s bloody past stalk the dance floor and beings of divine ability begin to posses the people around them. When the fabric of reality starts to melt away and they briefly glimpse the stage their lives exist on and the audience that watches them.
Will any of them even care at this point?
SMOKE is Hugo Gutteridge's debut venture into playwrighting, much of its content is based on true events, much of the dialogue is verbatim from the mouths of friends and strangers met or overheard on similar nights out. Meant to reflect the feelings of young adults of the city’s night life, to reveal the anxiety, the apathy and confusion, as well as the hope, and the desire for connection and love.
It is a love letter to Melbourne’s club culture and to those hours before dawn when almost anything could happen.