11.08.15
Theatre makes news.
Sometimes the safety of fiction allows us to tell terrible truths. In The Bleeding Tree Angus Cerini has built a sharp and brilliant chandelier of fantasy that refracts and fractures our dark truths into brilliant, fantastical light, illuminating the Stables to transfixed audiences. The show made the news before it had even opened. Why? Because Angus is writing into the heart of what matters, in his own utterly original and startling style. Last year’s Griffin Award winner is on now. But if this is sounding too much like an insider’s review, here’s a bit of what audience and critics have been saying: Furious, ‘muscular poetry, great direction’… ‘Not for the queasy’… ‘New Australian work that gets you excited…’
Another award winning play, the Patrick White Award, that has us excited is Anna Barnes‘s Minusonesister, now in rehearsals, and coming soon with a fabulous young cast including Kate Cheel, Lucy Heffernan, Liam Nunan and Contessa Treffone.
A plague of rabbits is heading to Melbourne, and Griffin is doing its part; Masquerade (acknowledged recently at the Helpmann Awards with two nominations for Best Original Score and Best Costume Design) is coming soon to the Melbourne Festival, tickets available now. (And I know, it’s a hare, not a rabbit.) The Helpmanns also gave a nod to our very own Steve Rodgers with a best actor nom for his work in Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, so I think we can officially say we are punching above our weight this year…
Ben Winspear
Associate Artist
