| her holiness | Bakehouse Theatre Company |
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He doesn’t know it yet, but His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will be
appearing on stage nightly downstairs at the Seymour Centre from May 29
to June 14. The pontiff will also be performing matinees – after all,
he is coming “für ze youth!”!
Also appearing will be none other than Australia’s soon-to-be first
saint, Mary Mackillop. Add to this unlikely duo a young Catholic
feminist recently converted to Islam, and you have, if not a blessed
trinity, then at least a bizarre dramatic trio guaranteed to ignite
theatrical fireworks!
Each of the above is a character in a daring and controversial new
Australian play her holiness by Justin Fleming (The Cobra, Harold in
Italy, Burnt Piano, The Department Store) and Melvyn Morrow (SHOUT!,
Dusty, A Song to Sing O).
“The lower case is deliberate,” says Morrow. And all will
(miraculously) be revealed in the play which works in the double
time-frame of nineteenth century Australia and Rome in 2008.
One hundred and forty years after Mary Mackillop’s death, another
feisty young Australian woman, Anna, goes to Rome with a passionate
mission to seek an audience with Pope Benedict in order to push for the
final steps of Mary Mackillop's case to be Australia's first Saint. But
Anna has a few boundaries to cross. Her conversion from Christianity to
Islam is not guaranteed to thrill the German pontiff, but when, owing
to a terror alert, the American President is forced to cancel his visit
to the Pontiff, Benedict suddenly has some rare time on his hands and,
captivated by the young visitor from Australia, grants her a longer
audience than either expected. What begins as a confrontational
conversation quickly becomes a detective story with the Pope as an
unlikely sleuth.
Says Fleming: “We set out to write a drama about life and death battles
and survival in Australia - then and now. It’s intriguing how little
changes.”
“Mary Mackillop really was a ‘modern’ woman in just about every sense,”
adds Morrow. “When it came to glass ceilings, none was thicker - in
every sense - than nineteenth century Irish-Australian Catholicism.
Some bishops behaved like feudal barons, and none of them took kindly
to an independent Scottish girl with her own view of the way things
needed to be done on a new continent.”
her holiness is produced by Bakehouse Theatre Company and presented by
Stage Directions under the direction of Suzanne Millar who has directed
plays at SBW Stables, Parramatta Riverside Theatres, Bondi Pavilion and
the Zenith Theatre Chatswood.
A strong cast of ten is headed by Bernadette Ryan as Mary Mackillop and Alan Dearth as Pope Benedict XVI.
Bakehouse Theatre Company presents
her holiness
by Justin Fleming and Melvin Morrow
Venue: Seymour Centre Downstairs
Previews: 29 and 30 May 8pm
Evening performances: 2,4,5,6,7,12 and 14 June 8pm
Wed 3 June 6.30pm
Tickets: $27 / $17 concession.
Bookings: 9351 7940 or www.seymour.usyd.edu.au
Generous group & fund-raising concessions also available.
Special school matinees by arrangement
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Thursday, 08 January 2009
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