The Arts

The Arts Centre is in dramatic full swing with two controversial shows opening on the same night.

Whilst the drama is usually reserved for the stage, MTC’s The Heretic and Red Stitch Theatre’s Laramie Project – 10 Years Later on have both generated controversy off stage.

The Heretic

Firstly, The Heretic (about climate change debate) is presented by The Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) which, at its season launch, the programming team (Robyn Nevin, Pamela Rabe and Aidan Fennessy) said: “Theatre is the great temporal art form, experienced by the audience from moment to moment, and it’s the moment that stays with each of us.”

Of course not all plays will have the same effect on individuals but it did get me thinking about the divisive nature of The Heretic in regard to the ephemeral nature of theatre which prompted this year’s MTC’s theme “Don’t Miss The Moment.”

The Heretic is a provocative and stimulating black comedy written by English playwright Richard Bean and directed by Matt Scholten.

It approaches climate change through its lead character Dr Diane Cassell (Noni Hazlehurst) who is the lead academic in earth sciences and, although far from being a climate change sceptic, she is nevertheless a serious scientist who likes the facts to speak for themselves.

She has spent years in the Maldives measuring sea levels and when her data contradicts a key doctrine on global warming theory the head of the earth and science faculty, Kevin Maloney, puts the pressure on Diane to conform.

But as the issue starts to become not only political but personal, Diane’s life really heats up.

“None of us denied the blistering wit in The Heretic.

Richard Bean has written some of the best sequences I’ve ever read.

And as it deals with climate change, the piece examines a subject which will be part of the political agenda in Australia for decades to come. The subject felt pertinent and right.

However, the play is contentious because, as the title says, it’s about a heretic in the climate change church,” said Aidan Fennessy.

Cast: Lyall Brooks, Shaun Goss, Noni Hazlehurst, Andrew McFarlane, Anna Samson, Katy Warner

Creatives: Director - Matt Scholten, set designer - Shaun Gurton; costume designer - Esther Marie Hayes; lighting designer - Lisa Mibus; composer/sound designer - Jethro Woodward; and assistant director - Katy Warner.

The MTC Theatre, Sumner

May 12, - June 23

www.mtc.com.au

The Laramie Project

After a sold-out season in 2011, Red Stitch Actors Theatre revisits The Laramie Project – Ten Years Later at the Arts Centre.  Returning to the shocking hate crime that led to the creation of one of the most performed scripts across the world, The Laramie Project – Ten Years Later is a play that investigates the ripple effect of a single, senseless murder and exposes how we tell our own history.

In 1998, a young gay student, Matthew Shepard, was brutally bashed and left to die, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. 

One month after Shepard’s murder, members of the Tectonic Theater Project arrived in Laramie and set about conducting a series of interviews that formed the basis of The Laramie Project (1999).

In 2008, the creators returned to Laramie to see how the town had changed since Shepard’s death.

Originally intended as a short epilogue, this entirely-new play includes interviews with Shepard’s mother, his killers and follow-up interviews with many Laramie residents from the original work.

It unmasks a community wrestling with stigma, denial and social change and offers some compelling insights into our own construction of history.

The Laramie Project – Ten Years Later is the stand-alone sequel to one of the most performed plays of the last decade and a leading example of verbatim or documentary-style theatre.

Cast: Ella Caldwell, Brett Ludeman, Paul Ashcroft, Terry Camilleri, Hester Van der Vyver, Rosie Traynor, Kate Cole, Chris Connelly and Roderick Cairns.

Creatives: Written by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project; and directed by Gary Abrahams.

Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio

May 16 - 19 and May 24 - 26