'On the banks of the Georges River, Radha and her son Siddhartha release the ashes of Radha’s mother – their final connection to the past, to Sri Lanka and its struggles. Now they are free to embrace their lives in Australia. Then a phone call from Colombo brings the past spinning back to life, and we are plunged into an epic story of love and political strife, of home and exile, of parents and children
'Counting and Cracking is a big new play about Australia like none we’ve seen before. This is life on a large canvas, so we are leaving Belvoir St and building a Sri Lankan town hall inside Sydney Town Hall. Sixteen actors play four generations of a family, from Colombo to Pendle Hill, in a story about Australia as a land of refuge, about Sri Lanka’s efforts to remain united, about reconciliation within families, across countries, across generations.'
Source: Belvoir St Theatre.
Additional Awards:
2019 Helpmann Awards
Best Scenic Design (winner).
Best Sound Design (winner).
Best Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play (winner).
Best Male Actor in a Play (winner).
Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play (nominated).
Produced by Belvoir St Theatre, 11 January - 2 February 2019, Sydney Town Hall. co-produced with Co-Curious.
Director: Eamon Flack.
Cultural Advisor: Anandavalli.
Set & Costume Designer: Dale Ferguson.
Sound Designer & Composer: Stefan Gregory.
Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper.
Cast: Prakash Belawadi, Nicholas Brown, Jay Emmanuel, Rarriwuy Hick, Nadie Kammallaweera, Monica Kumar, Gandhi MacIntyre, Shiv Palekar, Monroe Reimers, Hazem Shammas, Nipuni Sharada, Vaishnavi Suryaprakash, and Sukania Venugopal.
Performed at Carriageworks, Sydney : 28 June - 21 July 2024.
Director: S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack.
Cast: Rodney Afif, Prakash Belawadi, Antonythasan Jesuthasan, Nadie Kammallaweera, Ahi Karunaharan, Abbie-Lee Lewis, Gandhi McIntyre, Shiv Palekar, Sukhbir Singh Walia, Kaivalya Suvarna, Nipuni Sharada, Rajan Velu and Sukania Venugopal.
Musicians: Kranthi Kiran Mudigonda, Janakan Raj, and Venkhatesh Sritharan.
Costume and Cultural Advisor: Anandavalli.
Set and Costume Designer: Dale Ferguson.
Lighting Designer: Damien Cooper
Sound Designer and Composer: Stefan Gregory.
'No theatrical wizardry is needed for this compelling drama about a woman’s journey to Australia from war-torn Sri Lanka and the generations that follow.'
'The Melbourne season of S. Shakthidharan’s multigenerational drama is being co-produced with University of Melbourne Arts and Culture.'
'Five years since its debut, this gripping intergenerational story is still going in Australia and heads to New York this year. So why do we love S Shakthidharan’s play so much?'
'Belvoir's 2024 season will be a "gift" for audiences, says artistic director Eamon Flack, who has designed a distinctly accessible program headlined by tried and tested audience favourites — including new productions of Broadway and West End juggernaut The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning American hit August: Osage County.' (Introduction)
'One of the characters in this political family drama sums up the crisis in Sri Lanka in 1957, when the United National Party proposed removing Tamil as a language and adopting a Sinhala-only policy, as “two languages, one country; one language, two countries”.' (Introduction)
'Belvoir's 2024 season will be a "gift" for audiences, says artistic director Eamon Flack, who has designed a distinctly accessible program headlined by tried and tested audience favourites — including new productions of Broadway and West End juggernaut The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning American hit August: Osage County.' (Introduction)
'Five years since its debut, this gripping intergenerational story is still going in Australia and heads to New York this year. So why do we love S Shakthidharan’s play so much?'
'The Melbourne season of S. Shakthidharan’s multigenerational drama is being co-produced with University of Melbourne Arts and Culture.'
'As epic and Australian as Cloudstreet or The Secret River, the multilingual play charts a family from Colombo in the 50s, through the Sri Lankan civil war, finally arriving in western Sydney in the 21st Century.' (Introduction)
'Speaking to The Adelaide Review after Counting and Cracking's premiere season in Sydney, director Eamon Flack is overwhelmed by the response to the three-and-a-half hour Sri Lankan/Australian epic written by S. Shakthidharan [Shakthi] that features renowned actors from across the globe.'
'Diversity has finally triumphed in Australian live entertainment, with key categories of the 19th Helpmann Awards going to a Sri Lankan immigrant family saga and a rollicking Indigenous musical.' (Introduction)
S. Shakthidharan and Counting and Cracking
Dino Dimitriadis
(presenter),
2021
25305976
2021
single work
podcast
'When S. Shakthidharan first told his mum that he wanted to look into their family history, she quickly shut him down, telling him: "That is a very stupid idea."'
