Category: Colder

When we enter the space thirteen actors are standing in a flat straight line across the widest part of the Griffin stage. The walls are black. The floor is black. There are some bricks full and whole, strewn across the stage. Later are revealed a few precast plastic chairs with metal legs. The people on stage are cheaply dressed. The clothes of the “working poor” (Maybe Target or K Mart).The lights dim down in the auditorium and a projected slide appears on two walls. “THE AIDS GENOCIDE. …THE PRESCRIPTION” Later another projection for another scene says “A CHILD SOLDIER” and…

This is another of the curated independant theatre co-operative productions presented as part of the Stablemate season. This is the best new Australian play I have witnessed this year. Developed with the financial assistance of the R.E. ROSS TRUST, Philpott not only breaks with traditional structure and form in his style, he creates a world with a keen eye for authentic detail and depth, has a masterly control of plotting and character revelation with a musician’s ear for rhythm and cadence, the ability to set a theme or subject and to know when to repeat it, develop it, contrast it.…