EXCITING INDEPENDENT AUSTRALIAN PLAYWRITING UNDER ONE ROOF
The Factory Theatre’s Boiler Room will become a hothouse of theatrical experiment and innovation for six Australian playwrights during The Sydney Fringe, which runs from 10-26 September.
Following recent concerns about the lack of Australian productions in theatres around Sydney, The Sydney Fringe @ The Boiler Room umbrella of works reveal that the fringe is where it’s at for exciting and independent new Australian playwriting.
Ranging from a noir detective thriller masquerading as a live radio play, to an eccentric comedy that mixes science and business, all six of the Boiler Room’s under-an-hour productions showcase not only the existence, but the variety and dynamism, of Sydney’s theatre world.
The writers, directors and actors are an exciting mix of established and emerging talent hailing from various places around Sydney and beyond. Binding them together during The Sydney Fringe is the Boiler Room, a fringe venue for theatre, comedy and cabaret within the Factory Theatre, a purpose-built, multi-arts space in Marrickville in Sydney’s Inner West.
If you’re wondering what’s hot at The Sydney Fringe Festival in its inaugural year, make sure to check out the six new Australian works bubbling away in the Boiler Room this September.
THE SHOWS
A Thing Of Beauty
Written & directed by Paul Gilchrist
Naomi and Ruth are travelling together. But constant change is such a challenge and all those people can be just too difficult. Ruth craves simplicity. She finds it in the uncomplicated beauty of the mannequin. She’s taken to photographing them. Naomi’s taken about enough! And when Naomi finally does have her “dummy spit”, their trip turns into one you won’t find in any travel brochure.
Jo Richards, who trained at the Jacques Lecoq theatre school in Paris, creates two hilarious characters in A Thing Of Beauty, which is a hilarious mix of movement, multi-media and razor-sharp comedy about chaos and order. Written and directed by Paul Gilchrist (Catherine at Avignon, Before the Embrace, Two Gates), the production was designed as a “pop-up” theatre experiment, able to bump in and out of non-traditional venues in under an hour. Previewed earlier this year, Australian Stage called A Thing Of Beauty “a thing of affecting comedy and incisive social commentary… it doesn’t get a whole lot better than that written, and directed, by the affable Paul Gilchrist”.
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Dates & Times
Friday 10 September, 8pm; Saturday 11 September, 9:30pm; Sunday 12 September, 8:00pm; Thursday 16 September, 9:30pm; Saturday 18 September, 5:00pm.
Combat Fatigue
Written by Alison Rooke & Directed by Ian Zammit
Come down, come down to the strawberry patch… A dark incantation, a letter that shouldn’t be read, a blood sacrifice. A golden couple in a toxic city on Valentine’s Day. A husband, an artist, a girl, a murderer with a poet’s heart. The battle for possession of a woman’s soul. Love, art, sex, poetry, death. What happens when the honeymoon ends and you begin to play with fire?
Workshopped at Fraser Studio’s Off The Shelf, Combat Fatigue will premiere at The Sydney Fringe, exploring how dangerous it can be when fantasies overtake your life. Alison Rooke, whose works in Stories From The 428 were described as “two very touching scenes about secret love” by Time Out Sydney, holds a Masters of Arts in Creative Sydney from UTS and is a graduate of the NIDA Playwright’s Studio. Ian Zammit (Brand Spanking New, Stories From The 428, In Stereo) has emerged as a talented director in Sydney after studying directing at Middlesex University in the UK. Combat Fatigue stars Brett Heath, Naomi Livingstone, Stephen Peacocke, Salman Shad and Bridgette Sneddon.
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Dates & Times
Monday 13 September, 8:00pm; Friday 17 September, 9:30pm; Saturday 18 September, 1:00pm; Sunday 19 September, 8:00pm; Thursday 23 September, 8:00pm.
Cuckoo
Written by Margot Politis & directed by Kate Gaul and Fiona Malone
The haunting and beautiful tale of a woman doll trapped in a deconstructed Cuckoo clock. The man doll with whom she was created has gone missing, but how? Did she destroy him? Did he leave? Was he ever actually there? As she pushes through the hour, we see her amuse herself with daily ritual, drench herself in stillness and inertia, and dance with the pain of absence. Poignant, engaging and endearing; we follow this woman’s brave journey towards an ultimate pursuit of strength and clarity, as she clings to her steadfast belief in love.
Margot Politis wrote and developed Cuckoo, a one-woman show that is premiering at The Sydney Fringe, under the mentorship of US choreographer Tricia Brouk in New York last year. The highly acclaimed Kate Gaul is the rehearsal director and Fiona Malone has directed the dance components of the piece. Politis works in many performance genres, including movement, dance, and spoken word. She has worked with dance companies in California and New York. Reviewed by The Adelaide Advertiser in a previous show, Ewart Shaw remarked that “Margot Polotis has an engaging presence which instantly gains the audience’s sympathy… you can’t take your eyes off her… she’s ready for her close-up.”
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Dates & Times
Tuesday 21 September, 8:00pm; Thursday 23 September, 6:30pm; Friday 24 September, 9:30pm; Saturday 25 September, 6:30pm; Sunday 26 September, 8:00pm.
Sexy Tales Of Paleontology
Written by Patrick Lenton with Daniel East and Bridget Lutherborrow & Directed by Anne-Maree Magi
When an innocent group of scientists are taken over by an unselfconsciously evil corporation, a clash of ethics and robots ensue. Audiences can expect hysterical geologists in pit fights with paleontologists, flamboyant glam-pop mercenaries breaking out in song and the world’s worst narrator.
Premiering at The Sydney Fringe, Sexy Tales Of Paleontology is Patrick Lenton’s hilariously eccentric new feature play created during Fraser Studio’s Off The Shelf hothouse theatre residency. It is a hysterical, flamboyant and ethically dubious meeting of science and business. With robots. And puppets! Lenton is a writer of comedy, prose and theatre who was once the wackiest quarter of Australia’s only poetry boyband. His first full-length feature play, Implausible People, was reviewed as “one of the funniest plays to have graced Sydney’s stages in a long time”. Sexy Tales is directed by Anne-Maree Magi (Brand Spanking New, Stories From The 428, The Lonesome West) and assistant-directed by Gavin Roach. It stars Shalane Connors, Lincoln Hall, Patrick Magee, Laura Munro, Jovana Miletic, Teik-Kim Pok, Scott Selkirk and Will Snow. Music is composed by Patrick Weyland-Smith, from the Australian Institute of Music.
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Dates & Times
Thursday 16 September, 8:00pm; Friday 17 September, 6:30pm; Saturday 18 September, 9:30pm; Sunday 19 September, 6:30pm; Friday 24 September, 8:00pm.
Starry Comet Night
Written & directed by Con Nats
Four housemates discover a comet is about to rock their world, the pizzaman wants more than a tip and the streets are ablaze. The CIA is stopping the word getting out, people are mysteriously disappearing and the world is in danger. They debate whether the human race should know or if they should just join the silence. Should they tell the world or party like it’s 2099? This radiant comedy asks the hard questions and occasionally tries to answer them.
Con Nats is a writer and director of mainly short plays from Sydney, whose work Haircuts was performed at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Starry Comet Nights stars a number of successful actors from Sydney and beyond, including Lynden Jones (The Jungle, S27, Push Up), Barbara Gouskos (Haircuts, Take Away Coffee, Someday Suddenly), Kym Parrish and Matt Blackworth Hume.
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Date & Times
Sunday 12 September, 6:30pm; Friday 17 September, 8:00pm; Saturday 18 September, 8:00pm; Sunday 19 September, 9:30pm; Friday 24 September, 6:30pm.
The Hideous Demise Of Detective Slate
Written by Alli Sebastian Wolf & directed by Jane Grimley
The Hideous Demise Of Detective Slate is a live production masquerading as a radio play, with a brilliant live band and a set halfway between a 1930s recording studio and noir production. The actors stand before microphones but toss them away for passionate embraces, with the band and foley artist as characters in their own right, interacting with the cast and adding to the self-referential layer cake Slate has become. It’s a fast, sexy and hilariously funny new form of theatre, turning archetypes on their head and using them for yoyos.
Playwright and artist Alli Sebastian Wolf has guided The Hideous Demise Of Detective Slate through its many stages of development, including readings at cult literary night Penguin Plays Rough, Newcastle’s This Is Not Art (TINA) Festival, High and Dry Festival, and a residency at Off The Shelf, where director Jane Grimley came on board the project. The words are written by Alli Sebastian Wolf and performed by Marty Donohoe, Peter Buck Dettman, Kathleen Hartigan, Tim Meredith, Ben Ellwood, Robert Gadsbey, Alice Williams and Ben Storey. Foley is produced by Michael Wickens and the live music is by Eric Hutton, Matt Williams, Lachlan Williams and Alan Forsyth. Costumes by NIDA graduate Gemma Larkson and illustrations by Anna Wilkenfield.
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Dates & Times
Tuesday 14 September, 8:00pm; Sunday 19 September, 5:00pm; Wednesday 22 September, 8:00pm; Thursday 23 September, 9:30pm; Saturday 25 September, 9:30pm.
KEY INFORMATION
VENUE The Boiler Room, Factory Theatre, 105 Victoria Road Marrickville NSW 2204
ALL TICKETS $20 Adult / $16 Concession (plus booking fee), on sale Monday 9 August
IN PERSON – Enmore Theatre Box Office, 130 Enmore Road Newtown NSW 2042
ON THE PHONE - 02 9550 3666
