Three confronting and provocative plays about women. Muff by Van Badham -- Winner of the 2014 NSW Premiers Award, the Nick Enright Award for Playwriting, Muff explores women, sex and relationships; a horrific, random rape of a young woman and the threads from this event that continue to wrap and bind their way into lives years after the physical injuries have healed. MinusOneSister by Anna Barnes -- Sophocles & Electra is furiously wrenched into the present and told from the point of view of the teenagers. Eternal obsessions mingle with the obsessions of our times, bloodshed goes hand in hand with Bacardi Breezers and Facebook, and a chilling portrait emerges of a family irreversibly shattered by grief and guilt. Shit by Patricia Cornelius -- Shit takes us into the world of three women -- Billy, Bobby and Sam -- three women from a violent, impoverished underclass who have landed in prison together after a vicious incident. These are the underbelly of womenhood we as a society so rarely want to admit exist.
Van Badham is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, critic, social commentator, broadcaster, dramaturg, director and cabaret performer. She has been called a major talent' by The Guardian, the brilliant Australian playwright' by The Independent and one of the leading voices of her generation' by TimeOut London.
Anna Barnes is a writer and playwright. A recipient of Sydney Theatre Company's Patrick White Playwriting Award (2012), her book Girl! The Ultimate Guide To Being You (Penguin 2012) was named one of the 2013 Eva Pownall Notable Books by the Children's Book Council of Australia.
Patricia Cornelius is one of Australia's most awarded and celebrated playwrights. Her confronting plays deal with people living on the margins of society, struggling with poverty and prejudice.
An intelligent, challenging, deeply thoughtful and highly original piece of work. In a world where gender relationships remain the minefield they always were, and where male violence towards women remains writ large
this is a play for our time and a groundbreaking piece of theatre. -- NSW Premiers Award judge's report
Anna Barnes MinusOneSister is a contemporary retelling of Sophocles classic tragedy, Electra. The teenage siblings take the stage, and loyalties are challenged as each confronts their own grief and guilt. Barnes challenges patterns of blame that persist today when dealing with violence and sexuality. Winner of the 2013 Patrick White Playwrights Award.
Barnes has tapped into something essential and immediate about young women, about anxiety and terror and anger and a constant, destructive lack of control over their own bodies and lives. -- Time Out
Patricia Cornelius Shit is rife with ugliness. Billy, Bobby and Sam speak with the voices of those whove survived foster care, institutionalisation, and neglect. They love no one and no one loves them. They believe the world is shit, that their lives are shit, that they are shit. Winner of the 2015 Green Room Awards for Independent Theatre: Best Production and Best Writing and shortlisted for the 2016 Victorian Premiers Award for Drama.
Cornelius looks deep into the hearts and minds of those who have been pushed aside, and finds contradictions that are at once complex, difficult, admirable and scary. Ben Neutze, Daily Review
