In the nineteenth century, aboard a rat-infested barque, upon a vast becalmed ocean, four highly disparate characters find themselves interacting - serving as symbols for the basic impulses that drive humanity. Their various natures fuel a curious, unpredictable and sometimes violent drama. Aboard are Hepsiba, a priestess of the Cult of the Ab-Virgin; Ratbone, a devoutly superstitious jack tar, for whom temporal wealth is paramount, and Haeckel, an obsessive natural philosopher who trawls the abyssal deeps, seeking clues to the riddle of existence, but finds his answer hidden in the instincts of a ingenuous young stowaway, Nectar, in whom the energies of life are encapsulated..
The Hive is an impressionistic composite of the life of the war poet Rupert Brooke, best known for his poem 'The Soldier'. It is a surreal ensemble piece that works with verbal sound textures and a fluid theatrical reality. The motif of insects is the binding force, Brooke is assailed by an invisible cloud with changing attributes, actors assume the personas of metaphorical insects, scenes degenerate into sinister hiving.
It's theme is media exploitation, and the tension between the public and private realities. W. B. Yeats called Brooke "The Handsomest Man in England" - and he seemed to live a blessed and golden existence. He died during the great war and was lionised as a hero. Though the manner of his death - an insect bite - was hardly noble, it seems that it was necessary, for the English psyche of the time, that this embarrassing fact be ignored. The play considers the possibility that this was an example of media-hype before media-hype existed. An embryonic form of the phenomenon, handicapped only by an Edwardian lack of communications technology.
A one hour science fiction comedy set in a near future where the human heart is unaccountably weakening in an overwhelming percentage of the population. The central character, Pincus, an out of work actor, successfully auditions for a part that draws him, unwittingly, into the rarefied world of the corporate super-rich, who are throwing billions at the cardiac degeneration problem. He becomes part of a plan to travel back to the time of the Aztecs,in order to capitalise on their fondness for removing the healthy harvestable hearts from the chests of human sacrifices. Pincus is to assume the character of the white-skinned god Quetzelcoatl and preach a new canon of sterile surgical technique
Two characters, Jay and Justine, are separately and cunningly drawn under the influence of a shadowy religious organisation, which reveals the extremity of its beliefs by degrees. Its enigmatic leader - Quirke - believes in extreme discipline, total hygiene, ultra low temperatures, cutting edge science and black holes. As the cult completes its Great Work, we follow the indoctrination of Jay - who is relegated to the most menial of chores - and Justine - who becomes Quirke's consort. Simultaneously, we chart the progress of Perry and Arabel, long time 'associates' whose lives are pared to an absurd minimum, governed by equally absurd strictures. Sex is surreal and only legal with the use of a bizarre manual. The play concludes with the large -scale cryogenic storage of its members. Some characters are redeemed, others are frozen in the hope of resurrection in a colder less chaotic universe.
A stark, challenging portrayal of the lives of eight heroin addicts in Melbourne, Australia. Their experience is woven into a descending spiral in which desire and death provide the touchstone for events that could only occur in the marginalised desensitised world of the addict. John and Karen are the central characters, both prostitutes, who entertain an increasingly bizarre stable of clients as the play progresses. Their attempts to set their lives in order are continuously eroded by desperate junkies with stolen collateral, fatal overdoses in their loungeroom, sociopathic drug dealers, jealous ex-girlfriends with anger management problems and unseasonably hot weather that worsens each day. Breaking up the scenes is the story of Jan and Shane, gentle impoverished hippie addicts, who piece together the folds of paper in which they buy their heroin to find they have the title deed to a million dollar mansion.
An absurdist domestic comedy, pivoting on the relationship between a gentle but dissipated mother (Elise) and her adult homebound son (Darius]. As Darius determinedly, scientifically, seeks out the truth in the minutiae of his surroundings, Elise becomes increasing bewildered and disassociated from her life, which includes continual phone communication with Clementine, a hospitalised friend, whose treatments, over the course of the play, cause her to change into something beyond human. Carny, Darius's lackadaisical love interest assumes characters from the twenty-four hour soap opera - Inframind - entering each time with a different personality in an attempt to capture Darius's interest. Another of Darius's friends, Jasper, is on a spiritual search which takes him through various extreme cults and then finally into the adoration of Clementine in her final awe-inspiring form.
As Elise finds her way towards death, and Darius's investigations near resolution, the love between mother and son creates solidity in the chaos.
