Loaded. A Double Bill of New Plays

Loaded. A Double Bill of New Plays is a Black Swan Lab Production, the more experimental arm of the Black Swan State Theatre Company.

A showcase and training ground for emerging artists, both of the plays are World Premieres and all eight actors make their debut with the company in this production.

Girl Shut Your Mouth, by Gita Bezard, features four 16-year-old girls. Fashion and boy obsessed, they are familiar and recognisable, except that they live in a world where they can't go out after dark, one of them has been shot because she wants to go to school, another has been attacked with acid and they are desperate to get away from where they live.

A clever juxtaposition between the life of local teenagers and the challenges facing their contemporaries around the world, I feel this would have particular resonance with young women. It features energetic and likeable performances from Jessica Patterson (Katie), Brittany Morel (Darcy), Shalom Brune-Franklin (Grace) and Stephanie Panazzo (Mia) in the story directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler, which balances fun with poignancy.

With the exception of directors and writers, the two plays share a production team and a performed on the same, simple, versatile and barely recognisable, set. Set and costume designer Lawrie Cullen-Tait's design for Girl Shut Your Mouth celebrated the femininity and youthful exuberance of their characters, and underlined the theatrical undertones of Tonsils and Tweezers. The darker aspects of both stories were brought to the fore by Mark Howett's lighting and Joe Lui's startling sound design.

Tonsils and Tweezers also features a young cast but straddles the time between high school and the characters' ten year high school reunion. Huo Xuande plays Lewis, who has a very complex relationship with best friend Tonsils (a dynamic Lincoln Vickery). A play about ghosts and grief, its power is extended by very strong intwined performances from Huo Xuande and Lincoln Vickery and excellent support from Adam Sollis and Megan Wilding.

Playwrights Gita Bezard and Will O'Mahoney (who also directed his work) are both products of the Black Swan Emerging Writers Group. Tonsils and Tweezers and Girl Shut Your Mouth both have a lot to say and are really well presented. Loaded will be a highlight in this very dynamic and competitive festival season.

Kimberley Shaw

Images: Stephanie Panozzo, Jessica Paterson, Shalom Brune-Franklin and Brittany Morel. in Girl Shut Your Mouth; Shalom Brune-Franklin, Brittany Morel and Jessica Paterson in Girl Shut Your Mouth; Hoa Xuande, Lincoln Vickery, Megan Wilding and Adam Sollis in Tonsils + Tweezers. Photographer: Daniel James Grant,