Play One: POST DRAMATIC TROY DISORDER – ‘AFTER THE FALL’

Imagery by Naz Mulla

By Michael Beh. After Aeschylus & Charles Mee’s Remaking Projects.

From 15 – 30 November, for 7 Performances Only (including one Saturday relaxed performance at 2.30pm)

The Curators’ return to our pop-up theatre venue, ‘The BARNEY’, in the heart of Red Hill.

This is the bare truth about a most famous legend of Love Gone Wrong.

Re-introducing The HOUSE OF ATREUS: Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Iphigenia and Cassandra like you’ve never seen them before.

This is A Love Story out of Time! A Tragedy for the Ages! It is where the Blood Lies!

POST DRAMATIC TROY DISORDER 1: ‘AFTER THE FALL’ is the perfect Revenge Cocktail of Ouzo, Love, Truth, Beauty and the picture of you. This is an aphrodisiac for your soul. A 60 minute elixir of passion, hot summer nights and luminous beauty that asks the age-old question: what would happen if I really loved you.

This is a new play. It responds to Aeschylus’ famous ancient tragedy, Agamemnon and Charles Mee’s compelling reworking of that same mythic story in his Remaking Projects. Putting Clytemnestra (the wife) at the heart of the action, it explores a most ferocious cycle of love, war, sacrifice and recrimination.

After 10 years, Clytemnestra can finally enact her revenge. Her husband, that bold, swashbuckling soldier, Agamemnon is back from the wars. He is still all alpha – gorgeous, rugged and sexy. She hasn’t forgiven him for his sacrifice of their eldest daughter, Iphigenia, years earlier, to embolden his Trojan campaign. Since then, Clytemnestra has taken a beautiful, younger lover (sensitive, masculine and abundant) and has gloried in their relationship. But he isn’t part of this story.

Now Agamemnon has returned. He is not alone. With him comes that divine oracle of the Temple Apollo, the Trojan Princess, Cassandra, who he has abducted as the spoils of war. She knows all the terror that will befall them all, all the heartache and all the heartbreak, and cannot enact any change. So, she dances on the edges of insanity.

They are watched on by the manifestation of their slain daughter, Iphigenia, and the Angel of the Century of God (of love, life and death), the singing soothsayer. It is through her commentary and his song that this contemporary reworking of a tale as old as becomes a fable for the modern world.

Set somewhere between now, the dying embers of the 20th century and that mythic age of legends from long, long ago, POST DRAMATIC TROY DISORDER 1: ‘AFTER THE FALL’ will propel you into a curated world of make believe and truth through spoken text, song, opera, poetry and heightened movement - all so very up close and personal, in our intimate studio venue, The Barney.

CAST & CREATIVES:

  • Natasha McDonald is Clytemnestra, Queen of Argos, demi-goddess and great beauty, heroine of our story.

  • Brent Dunner is Agamemnon, her husband, famous soldier/lover of Trojan Fame, murderer of their daughter Iphigenia.

  • Sherri Smith is Cassandra, the captured princess, seer, past Priestess of Apollo, past Princess of Troy and current sufferer of Stockholm Syndrome.

  • Cam Scurrah is Iphigenia, the dead daughter, all cop-in-the-head, ghost, judge and narrator who can speak directly to the audience and guides us through the maelstrom.

  • Philip Pratt is the Angel of the Century of God: Voice of the Immortals, blind prophet and tragedian, the operatic orator of Wagner, Schumann and Dowland.

Directed and Designed: Michael Beh

Movement/Combat Director: Sherri Smith

Stage Manager & LX Operator: Crystal Griffiths

ASM: Shay McInnes

Marketing & Promotion: Sarah Pember

Photographer: Naz Muller

Thanks: St Barnabas Anglican Parish, Anne Grant-3BCreative, Bennie Carpet and Vinyl Warehouse.

Staging: Transverse

Length: 60 min.

Ticket Prices: $42 Adult, $32 Concession/Seniors/MEAA/Students.

Preview $30 Adult/$20 Concession/Seniors/MEAA/Students.

Styles: Contemporary, Post Dramatic, Fantastic Realism, Realism, Expressionism, Opera, Physical Theatre, Tragedy.

Performance Dates (total of 7): Friday & Saturday nights 7.30pm | 15 – 30 NOVEMBER

• Friday 15th PREVIEW, Saturday 16th OPENING NIGHT

• Friday 22nd, Sat 23rd Nov, 2.30 pm RELAXED PERFORMANCE MATINEE, 7.30 pm NIGHT WITH THE ARTISTS

• Friday 29th GODDESS NIGHT, Saturday 30th Nov CLOSING NIGHT

All seating is unreserved.

This performance contains the use of some sexualised language, as well as reported and stylised violence. It is recommended for people over 15.

Due to the heritage nature of the surrounding precinct, and its hilly topography there is limited disability access. There is ramp access to the actual performance space.

Imagery by Naz Mulla

PLUS: A SPECIAL EVENT: THE FINAL VEIL

A 25min Prologue THE FINAL VEIL is performed before shows on each of the 3 FRIDAY nights of the run at 6.30pm as well as on Saturday 30th (Opening Night) by The Sublime Ensemble. It is a reaction to the Salome story.

The main performance will begin at precisely 7.30 pm. There is no cost to attend The Sublime Ensemble performance, though if you attend only it, we will welcome an appropriate donation.

The Sublime Ensemble are a group of emerging artists, mainly over 60 years in age, who have been learning and training together through The ARC Acting Program with Michael Beh, to explore “isness” in acting and making heightened drama with a difference.

Featuring Kate Godfrey, Michael Holliday, Colleen Saunders. Maureen Todhunter and Debbie Tippet.

More on this exciting project to come.