Sprout

Lockdown was hard and the future was grim for new theatre company 7th Floor Theatre, founded in 2019, yet they continued their work with play reads via Zoom, and along the way they bumped into the dystopian futuristic award-winning play Sprout, written by Jessica Bellamy in 2011.

Directed by Catherine Ward and Hayden Burke (co- founders of 7th Floor), Sprout is set in Australia, ninety years from now. It is a grim dystopic vision of a lost world. Climate change is now a reality. There is a scarcity of the natural flora or fauna - almost a remembrance of things of the past. The oracle Weather Reporter (Hayden Burke) predicts poetic weather patterns. He talks of memory, history, touch, a smell, the wind in one’s hair, sunlight - recites Emily Dickinson and quotes A.D Hope’s Australia.  

The landscape is burnt, barren and dusty - survival is hard, while memory plays havoc around two intertwining stories that collide and evolve between four characters who live in a small austere community.                   

John (Alex Duncan) overseers his colony; he is hopeful of the future and is determined to give his pregnant wife Nicole (Lucy Lovegrove) a better life. Duncan offers a well-crafted performance as the stern, yet gentle and overprotective husband. Lovegrove is superb as the flighty and uncertain expectant mother. Nicole retreats, gaining autonomy and strength   by attending to her secret sprout garden and going at it alone as a single mother-to -be.

Emily (Catherine Ward) and Tom (Manav Shrivastav) are both in their teens; their concept of the old world is vicarious and innocent. Ward gives a feisty and vibrant performance and Shrivastav is comical and yet serious. They develop amorous feelings for each other, hoping for a better future despite their hunger and energy for a lost world.

Sprout is a marvellous play, performed by an exceptionally talented group of performers. The entire team at 7th Floor have created a hopeful interpretation that is also hauntingly real. The lighting (Dane Travers) is dramatic and atmospheric; sound (Josh Mitchell) is joltingly haunting, with naturalistic wind and bird sounds along with a riling ambience. The set design/costume (Cortnee Jarvis) creates earthy warmness with minimal props and all materials sourced as reusable and for repurposing.

Flora Georgiou

Images: Dane Travers Photography