From Page to Stage in 2023

Image: Kimie Tsukakoshi and Merlynn Tong in The Poison of Polygamy. Photographer: Rene Vaile.

Mainstage theatre companies are offering a smorgasbord of World Premiere Australian plays in 2023, with forbidden love among the many themes of the productions. Adaptations of novels and films feature in the heady mix. David Spicer surveys the dramas and comedies.

 

The Poison of Polygamy. 

An epic gold rush drama sprawls across Qing Dynasty China, to Victoria’s nineteenth century goldfields, and the laneways of Melbourne’s Chinatown, traversing love, sex and adventure.

Anchuli Felicia King adapts the first Chinese-Australian novel, written by Wong Shee Ping and originally published in 1910, for the stage.

It tells the story of Sleep-sick – an opportunistic young man from Guangdong who has his sights set on amassing a fortune in Australia’s goldfields. He leaves behind his faithful but long-suffering wife Ma and sets out to try his luck.

He charms and cheats an eccentric cast of characters until he’s challenged by the temptation of beautiful women and opium.

La Boite – May. Sydney Theatre Company – June/July.  Read more

 

Image: Sunday. Photographer: Jo Duck

Sunday 

Sunday Reed and her husband John were famous for founding Melbourne’s idyllic utopia which became the Heide Museum of Modern Art, and for their love entanglements.

Playwright Anthony Weigh explores the stories and myths of the menages a trois that evolved between them and a circle of young painters.

The play focusses on the arrival of struggling artist Sidney Nolan at Heide in the 1940s, and his prevarication over whether to leave his wife for Sunday.

Melbourne Theatre Company – January.

 

Image: Sex Magick

Sex Magick 

By Nicholas Brown

After a workplace indiscretion shatters his elite physiotherapy career, Ard Panicker ends up working at a metaphysical health spa, giving Ayurvedic rubdowns to yummy mummies in Bondi.

When his estranged father dies, Ard begins to shake and shudder with mysterious full-body seizures—accompanied with waking visions of a terrifying, all-powerful deity. 

Desperate to find a cure for his phantasmagorical condition, Ard travels back home to South India, where he finds an enlightened tantric guru who cracks open his sense of identity, sexuality and his grip on reality.

Griffin Theatre Company - January/February.

 

Image: The Weekend

The Weekend 

A new adaptation by Sue Smith of Charlotte Wood’s bestselling novel of friendship and the wisdom of age.

Adele - a once-well-known actress, Wendy - a high-profile academic, and Jude - a celebrated restauranteur, meet for a weekend to pack up the beach house of their recently departed friend.

Fraying tempers, an elderly dog, unwelcome guests and too much wine collide in a storm that brings long-buried hurts to the surface—and threatens to sweep away their friendship for good.

Belvoir - August

 

Image: Nosferatu. Photographer: Kristian Gehradte

Nosferatu 

Keziah Warner’s gothic drama is based on the iconic 1922 silent film Nosfertatu: A Symphony of Horror, but moves the story to a mining town called Bluewater in Tasmania.

Desperate to restore the place to its glory days, the locals put their faith in a mysterious investor with a green thumb and an appetite for blood.

Vineyards are planted and money flows for the first time in years—so when people start disappearing, no one dares to ask why.

An ensemble of mouth-watering townspeople become wary of who they let in their door.

Malthouse - February

 

Image: On the Beach.

On the Beach 

In 1957, Nevil Shute’s classic novel On the Beach introduced the world to a post-apocalyptic vision that sees Australia as one of the last surviving outposts of civilisation on a planet destroyed by nuclear fallout. It later became a classic film starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire.

A small group of friends in Melbourne – some local, some survivors from the US Navy – are living out their lives and loves in the wake of World War III. But when a mysterious distress call rings out across the Pacific Ocean, the characters are called to choose between duty to the ones they love and duty to the human race.

Adapted for the stage by Tommy Murphy, Director Kip Williams promises a production of “sumptuous innovation”.

Sydney Theatre Company - July

 

Image: My Sister Jill. Photographer: Victoria Zschommler.

My Sister Jill 

Patricia Cornelius adapts her own novel, set in 1950s and 60s suburban Melbourne in the wake of the Second World War, for the stage.

The youngest of Jack and Martha’s five children, Christine idolises her father, especially his stories of wartime heroics. She cannot understand why her siblings don’t share her love for their dad and one by one start to rebel against the tumultuous environment they are growing up in. 

Once fascinated by her father’s war stories, they slowly start to lose their shine as the conflict in Vietnam intensifies and war once again becomes front of mind for the family.

Melbourne Theatre Company - September

 

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Adapted by Verity Laughton from the novel by Pip Williams.

It’s 1886 and the very first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is being compiled. Four-year-old Esme Nicoll is hiding under the sorting table.

As her father and his male colleagues decide which words stay and which go, Esme collects the discarded (often gendered) scraps to compile her own far more radical, far more magical dictionary.

A sweeping historical tale, The Dictionary of Lost Words follows Esme from her childhood in the 1880s, into adulthood at the height of the women’s suffrage movement and the beginning of the First World War

State Theatre Company South Australia – September. Sydney Theatre Company – November. 

 

Image: Drizzle Boy

Drizzle Boy 

Playwright Ryan Ennis tells the story of a young autistic man navigating misunderstandings, blending satire and magic realism with a Kafkaesque journey of self-discovery. 

Drizzle Boy is poked, prodded, and diagnosed by a world that wants to change him and a family who doesn’t understand him. 

Then he meets Juliet — his very own star-crossed love. Could she be a safe space for a man who just wants a calm centre to his universe?

Queensland Theatre Company – March.

 

Image: A Broadcast Coup.

A Broadcast Coup 

Cut-throat journalist Jez Connell is out for her next sting. It’s been a year since she brought down one of TV’s most lauded stars for behaving badly. Now she’s got Michael King, the top-rated darling of public radio, in her sights. This time, it’s personal.

With the loyalty of his longstanding producer wavering, and a hip up-and-coming podcaster eager to take the mic off Mike, has the plug been pulled on Michael King’s career?

This new comedy from Melanie Tait, the writer of The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race, uses her own experience as a broadcaster to provide a unique insight on the media.

Ensemble Theatre - January

 

Image: Girls in Boys' Cars

Girls in Boys' Cars 

Felicity Castagna’s novel about a complicated friendship and a road trip through NSW in a stolen car is adapted for the stage by Priscilla Jackman.

Asheeka and Rosa are two funny, sharp, adventurous young women who refuse to be held back any longer.

When they end up on a Thelma and Louise-esque road trip in Western Sydney, a series of escalating events land Rosa in juvenile jail, living her life through books and wondering about her best mate, who has disappeared.

Riverside's National Theatre of Parramatta - October

 

Image: Dirty Birds. Photographer: Frances Andrijich

Dirty Birds 

The creative minds of the multi-award winning McElhinney sisters Mandy (Wakefield) and Hayley (Mystery Road: Origins) have come up with a comedy about two other sisters, Mart and Martha, who are forced to leave their home.

Food is scarce, bills haven’t been paid, and nature is giving them an ultimatum. But there’s a problem - they can’t seem to get it together to do what needs to be done and they are not even sure who they are.

They search through memories, familiar rituals and endless cups of tea, looking for something that will shake them from their predicament before it’s too late. 

Black Swan – November.

Image: Wittenoom

Wittenoom 

Dot and Pearl live in Wittenoom; the blue asbestos mining town in WA’s Pilbara. So begin glorious days, when the Pilbara’s stunning landscapes, magnificent wildlife and close-knit community shaped an idyllic lifestyle. Wild-natured Dot makes the most of every second, while teenager Pearl tries to make sense of what her own life might be. 

Wittenoom by Mary Anne Butler follows Dot and Pearl’s personal story, with humour, sorrow, and the friends they make along the way.

Butler weaves their journey into the frame of the Wittenoom tragedy, asking questions about accountability in an era where the health and cultural impacts of mining ricochet as heavily in 2022 as they did in 1962. 

Red Stitch - February

Click here to read more about 2023 Mainstage seasons