An adulterous husband, a meddlesome neighbour and a dropped ice-cream cone are among the circumstances that combine to shatter the life of suburban housewife Rhonda Russell.

Everyone has their own story to tell about the day that Rhonda went beserk in the shopping mall. And who’s to know where the truth lies? With the best friend who might have egged her on? With the husband who denies responsibility? Or with the victim’s family whose lives were changed forever? And then there’s the story of the vengeful redhead herself, but she’s probably the least likely to know what really happened.

In this gripping adventure, the world is turned upside down in a disastrous and comic sequence of events. As the intrigue unfolds, seven different characters give a fresh twist of perspective – all played by one multifaceted performer.

   

Six monologues made famous by the diva Caroline O'Connor, exposing six women balancing their inner and outer lives with humour and often desperate cunning. They range in age from a feisty teenager to a 64-year-old widow yearning for the unexpected.

   

Photographer-storyteller William Yang returns to a motherland he never knew - the Australian-born Chinese a stranger in his homeland

Yang takes his audiences from the streets of Beijing, where electronics superstores jostle with echoes of the Cultural Revolution and the Ming Dynasty, to the sacred mountain Huang Shan, a must-climb for every Chinese pilgrim-tourist; from a wild night in a Mongolian herdsman’s hut, to the apartments of ordinary Chinese, a few months after the Tiananmen Square incident.

Part social documentary, part personal observation, China creates a meditative space, a journey of reflection on the meaning of culture and belonging, for performer and audience alike.

  

Review

Yang's China offers fascinating insights and paradoxes…  a polished, wryly observed and low-key monologue - Bryce Hallet, SMH

Three early plays from Jack Hibberd which continue to be performed, studied and read for pleaure. 

White with Wire Wheels (1967) 

Hibberd satirises the culture of masculinity expressed in cars, booze and work, a world in which women are marginalised and ultimately disposable. This provocative and unconventional comedy throws a spotlight on a society that can tolerate the intolerable.

Dimboola (1969) 

Playfully vulgar, bawdy and boisterous,  Dimboola plays out the wedding reception from hell, with the audience actively playing the roles of the guests. A celebration as much as a satire, the play joyously takes a familiar ritual and turns it uproariously on its head.

A Stretch of the Imagination (1971) 

Love Potions

Three couples negotiate their way into intimacy, aided by tea, wine and chocolate. Love Potions has a pre-coital first half and a post-coital second, intercut with some naughty and very sexy verbatim revelations. More than a celebration of the nexus between sex and food, these clever, short plays are tender and passionate glimpses of human nature at its most vulnerable. Why do some people develop a sensuous relationship with their world and others remain indifferent to the subtleties of flavour, texture and taste?

Savage Grace

During his residency at an Australian hospital, Dr Tex Cladakis, an American HIV specialist, meets bioethics professor Robert Bavaro. They clash over ethical issues, but despite or perhaps because of this, a passionate sexual affair develops between them. As Cladakis considers assisting the suicide of one of his terminally ill patients, the moral ground shifts and the stakes escalate, threatening their personal beliefs and the trust and love that is growing between them.

From a chance meeting between a man and a woman in a café, to the prodigal son who returns home to enslave a helpless older man, this fiercely intelligent writing illuminates moments of cruelty and beauty so often hidden when two people interact.

Review

It is modernity without formal structure, or even a hint of didacticism, but has a power that can make everyday language resonant with emotion and meaning ... [it] may well be pointing to the future of Australian playwriting. - Helen Thomson, The Age

Citizens

Set at the dividing wall of a war-torn country, conflict is an unseen force which disrupts the everyday tasks of people,  battling to survive.

Soldiers

Set in an Air Force hangar far from the battlefield. But for five families, who gather to receive the bodies of their sons, brothers and friends, war does not seem so far away.

Keene's astute and probing insight into the insidious effects of global tensions give us cause to reflect on the true human cost of armed conflict whether it is close to home or not.

 

Awards

• 2009 NSW Premier's Literary Awards - Play Award

Over three years, Australia's new writing theatre, Griffin Theatre Company, presented fourteen unique short plays across its mainstage seasons. Seen for one night only, The Fates, Seasons and The Seven Needs were three play-cycles provoked by the classical mythology of man's inescapable destiny, the seasonal patterns and Maslow's Pyramid of Human Needs. 

Now, this eclectic and fascinating collaboration of ten-minute plays by some of the country's most established and emerging playwrights becomes Short Circuit. 

‘I should like a new man to come. A perfect villain to come and fascinate me. And I should ask him quite humbly to lead me to my ruin.’

Promiscuous prophet or philandering fool? Mary MacLane is a woman you’d be mad not to meet.

More than one hundred years ago, The Story of Mary MacLane set America aflame. A shocking confessional from a 19-year-old girl who refused to succumb to the corset-bound prudery of her age, Mary’s scandalous memoir broke all the rules—and sold over 100,000 copies.

The Story of Mary MacLane by Herself will whirl you through a kaleidoscopic tale of the greatest genius you’ve never heard of, defy you to look deep within and dare you to dance with the devil.

   

Raw, candid, and shot through with warmth and humour, this beautifully poetic piece takes the audience on a journey inside a young woman's soul, mind and heart as it explores her relationship with her severely disabled brother and her first love.

•   Learn more about Unspoken - its creation, meaning, and resonance - with this study guide
•   Watch Rebecca Clarke in 'The Lost Repertoire' -  on remembering, recognising and rejoicing in our Australian theatrical repertoire.