Cirrus@Austlit

'Showfolk duo Joan and Peter defer the usual pre-lunch cocktail and anxiously await the arrival of their bright new young director. Reviewing their career high and lowlights to date, this exciting new project promises them a big break in the face of their comically fast-maturing professional viability. At this point, when their careers are about to go over the top, the action of the play retreats 40 years to the world of personal and professional security they enjoyed in the 1970s. Married less to their respective spouses, Ian and Audrey, than they are to the spotlight, Joan and Peter are about to discover that they have been paying no attention to what has been going on in the real world back-stage. Shock and bemusement are bits of business they can perform, but little convinces us that Joan and Peter achieve any insights about love or life in this backstory to the show that inevitably and incessantly goes on.'  (Publication summary)

'A hillside with an ocean view seems an ideal spot to spend a lonely Christmas Eve. When Jessica, a journalism major, and Beth, a high-profile politician, discover they both have the same idea, they exchange the sort of explosive little gifts that are usually left wrapped. Although barely acquainted, over the course of the day they discover that through their mutual relationship with Jeff, a Government Minister, their lives are intimately connected. This discovery and the substance of their connection leaves their shared past looking like a nightmare. When the shocks of the afternoon turn to violence in the evening, both Jessica and Beth have to decide how to go on in a world where politics and personalities have never been more intimate.'  (Publication summary)

'It is December 1948. While their husbands self-sacrificingly remain at work in town, Sarah and her sister-in-law Jennifer spend yet another summer by the sea, watching the children in the deep water and trying to avoid the annual judgement-by-mother-in-law at the hands of the indomitable Alice. Secret relief comes for Jennifer when she meets an older man, Henry, who listens to her and provides an occasional oasis of sanity in the midst of her holiday madness. At the same time, Sarah is determined to put their family back on track by smartening up its image and exposing its atavistic ills to the disinfectant of sunlight and the open air. When Henry is discovered to be at the centre of this family's business, the dynamic daughters-in-law have to stand firm and defy Alice, who guards their tragedy with all the calmness of the self-justified.'  (Publication summary)

'Athena, an Australian nurse working overseas, is raped and murdered. Her father, John, must decide whether to grant clemency to her murderer facing execution by beheading. Margaret, an ex-school teacher on a career change as a junior Australian Government official, is sent in to counsel and assist the grieving man. When the situation proves predictably challenging, Margaret's daughter, Nina, provides a clarity of counsel and assistance which is so irresistibly logical that it may well prove to be the most practical solution.'  (Publication summary)

'Helena, the grand dame of the Melbourne and Sydney theatre scene, thinks she has settled nicely into a restful performance regime of comedy classics in judiciously subsidised spaces. When her somewhat intense undergraduate daughter, Emmeline, hurls an asylum seeker/detention centre drama at her, Helena's professional certainties are not so much shaken by the play's contents as by its lead actor, Violet. A student of Australian theatre, Violet has chosen Helena for her mentor and she sets about procuring her idol with disturbing intensity. Besieged and exhausted by the emotional demands of these two passionate young women, Helena finds herself facing a choice between biting on the burnt chop of desire and doing something really reprehensible.'  (Publication summary)

'Every weekday April has the 4WD waiting at the school gate well before 3.30pm and a raft of after-school activities in hand to keep them all occupied. But seven years' worth of long lunches with her single friend Louis and two half-days a week at the gallery have left this doctor's wife wondering if there is anything else. When Jeremy the private tutor comes into her life, and her foster daughter May comes of age, April begins to feel like a hothouse orchid, although she really longs to be a wildflower.'  (Publication summary)

'When internationally renowned and self-confessed soloist Rachael Marlin comes to live with Holly and James in their Salon d'Art, everyone falls madly in love with her. Only Joy, a young doctor, sounds a note of caution when she sees Rachael's effect on her fiance, Matthew, and her potential to turn their little Salon d'Artinto a large theatre of the absurd. As Joy anticipates, when Rachael's affections and creative energies turn closer towards her instrument than to her hosts, she reveals herself to be not quite the promised protege. Spurred on by Holly, all have to work quickly to meet the danger and construct a menage in which art and, above all , honour can be satisfied.'  (Publication summary)

'Finally, the new play is up and running but Ellen's problems are just beginning. Imogen, her daughter and primary theatrical asset, is tiring of the spotlight. Glenn, her co-producer with privileges, is demanding something more. Then on opening night, Lana appears. Ten years ago, she walked into Ellen's life, changed it and left. Ever since Ellen has been wondering why. Now she is also wondering what Lana wants with Imogen.'  (Publication summary)

'Max and Marion are usually the sorts of friends who can go for a year without seeing each other and catch up on everything in a second once they do. In these four strange and amusing encounters, however, something new seems to be happening. Max finds himself increasingly flummoxed by his interesting friend, as Marion plays about with various scenarios in which she side-steps work, suspends the kids and liberates her life partner while making a direct and long overdue approach towards more time meditating under the Me Tree.'  (Publication summary)

'Ellen hasn't done a show since well before she had kids. Why she allowed herself to be roped-in at the last minute to sing, play the cello as well as the lead in Glenn's one-night stand production of Shakespeare's As You Like It is a mystery. By the end of the first rehearsal she is floundering, by the end of the second, she is in love. Or, at least, she has a crazy thing for Lana, an utterly relaxed and experienced actor with no apparent responsibilities. The problem is, with one rehearsal to go, Ellen can't really fathom her own heart, or Lana's. All she can say for certain is, "I'd really just like to get her into a hotel room for a weekend and see what happens!"'  (Publication summary)