| her holiness | Bakehouse Theatre Company |
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Producers of the acclaimed new Australian play ‘her holiness’ have announced a return season at Riverside Parramatta from 19-28 June.
The play, which garnered rave reviews in its Seymour Centre debut earlier this month, will play at Rafferty’s Theatre for a limited season of nine performances.
The daring and controversial play is a collaboration between two fine Australian writers: 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. 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 presented by Bakehouse Theatre Company 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. Other featured actors include James Lugton, Tony Stock, Cat Martin, Megan Thomas, Kate Shearer, Alisa Hawkins, Matt Treddinick and Ben Wood
“Topical, thought-provoking. Australian work at its finest.” - Arts Hub
“A confronting, moving and very entertaining piece of theatre.” – Australian Stage
Stage Directions and Bakehouse Theatre Company
her holiness
by Justin Fleming and Melvyn Morrow
Rafferty’s, Riverside Theatres Cnr Church and Market St, Parramatta
19-28 June 2008
Thursdays to Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 2pm, Tues & Wed 10am
Tickets $27 / $17 concession. Generous group & fund-raising concessions available.
Special school matinees by arrangement
Bookings 8839 3399 or on-line www.riversideparramatta.com.au
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Thursday, 08 January 2009
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