Cirrus@Austlit

'A mother, in a time of war. She loses members of her family, one after the other – but she never loses hope. A rich, sweeping new play from the team that made the acclaimed Counting and Cracking. The Jungle and the Sea leans on two great pillars of literature – Antigone and the Mahābhārata – to forge a new story about surviving loss and the possibility of reconciliation.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Once considered ‘exotic’ trophies of antiquity, the bodily remains of Indigenous men, women and children served scientific theories of evolution and were prized objects displayed on mantelpieces. In the cover of darkness, grave robbers would pillage burial grounds, to sell Ancestral remains to the highest bidder. Thousands were sold.

'Today, they are still locked away. Some are on display in museums, while others are hidden deep within the bowels of museums, universities and would rather forget. But now it is time to bring our people back to country.

'Through an epic story spanning 250 years, writer John Harvey (Heart is a Wasteland) draws us in with untold perspectives of macabre true histories and false justifications. In a directorial debut, Jason Tamiru joins forces with our Artistic Director Matthew Lutton for this immersive theatrical event that will give rise to how the repatriation of Ancestors can bring us closer to homecoming and healing.'

Source: Malthouse Theatre.

'Like a smack in the face.  That’s how I’d describe it.

'On the precipice of something life changing, a young Palawa man plunges into an exploration of self and Country. 

'Carried with the winds of a metaphysical Flinders Island, the land of his mob and the place where it all happened, he is drawn back to the dawn of colonization. To a woman who bore the brunt of the oppressors’ violence and then forward to her granddaughter, who buried the truth as a means of survival. Stirring up stories together, with parts both  achingly sad and unexpectedly funny, what unfolds reveals by slow degrees painful but important truths.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Wonnangatta Station, 1918. Two men arrive at a dark and empty farmhouse looking for the manager, their friend Jim Barclay. No one’s heard from him for more than a month. Something’s amiss. Then a grim discovery sets the men off on a journey across the harsh Australian terrain, looking for answers, maybe for revenge.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company.

'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.