Cirrus@Austlit

'Muse and mentor, Sunday Reed was the founder of Melbourne’s Heide Museum of Modern Art, and the heart of a circle of artists that included the likes of Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester. In this world premiere MTC commission, Nikki Shiels (Home, I’m Darling) embodies Reed’s passionate and unconventional spirit, bringing to life an audacious fantasy of her fateful affair with Nolan, her unbroken devotion to her husband, and the devastating price she paid for living and loving on her own terms as a woman in mid-20th century Australia.

'Sunday Reed isn’t like most women. In fact, she’s not like most men. Outspoken, uninhibited, adventurous, she has a laser eye for the new – in life and in art. When struggling artist Sidney Nolan arrives at Heide, the idyllic utopia Sunday is creating with her beloved husband John Reed on the outskirts of 1940s Melbourne, what ensues will haunt all three to their dying days. And in the aftermath, Australian art will never look the same.'

Source: Melbourne Theatre Company.

'Edward II / is a leader who fails to lead - a king who loses everything because of his addiction to another man. Newly crowned and convinced he's invincible, he flaunts his affair and in doing so, affronts the nation.

'Anthony Weigh's new play gives Christopher Marlowe's 14th century king a facelift, leaving the Elizabethan language behind, to meld the lust and politics of the 14th and 21st centuries to dizzying effect.

'Edward is the narcissist you'll stay up all night for, but there will be blood on the dance floor when the sun rises.

'Marlowe's tale of obsession and revolution has fascinated artists for centuries. Reinvented by Brecht, reimagined by filmmaker Derek Jarman, and now radically revamped by director Matthew Lutton, expect a collision of danger and fabulous extravagance. A perverse, sexy and provocative look at a leader who / pays the ultimate price for making the personal political.'

Source: Malthouse Theatre.

'A remote valley. An unspeakable crime. A prominent architect is commissioned to design a memorial to the victims.

'On the eve of the presentation of the memorial to the public, a blind woman comes out of the rain and into the architect's studio. She is the mother of one of the victims and she demands to be heard. Over the next hour the two women do battle over what it means to memorialise the dead, what it means to be a mother and what it means to believe.

'Like A Fishbone is both a psychological thriller and a haunting puzzle about faith, compassion and the danger of telling the truth.' (From the publisher's website.)

'In November of 2005 the Iowa State Legislature passed a bill making it a criminal offence for a registered sex offender to live within 2,000 feet of a school. Many towns in Iowa and nearby states have added to the list of prohibited places: day-care centres, parks, shopping malls, public swimming pools, bus stops and libraries. Due to the systematic eviction of sex offenders from their homes, 20% of known sex offenders in Iowa have now disappeared from the public record.

'In a brave and compelling story, writer Anthony Weigh asks us to examine how seemingly reasonable legislation can have awful consequences, as one small town deputy sheriff struggles to enforce the law and protect the innocent from the fear, revulsion, violence and rage surrounding child sex offenders.'

Source: Belvoir Street website, http://www.belvoir.com.au/
Sighted: 12/11/2007