'no matter the cost, no matter the consequence.
'“He’d been shoving her around for a while now. I knew that. Sometimes she’d tell me, sometimes not, but I could always tell when they’d had a blue. But she was my girl and sometimes things were better left unsaid.”
'Well-meaning, teenage misfit Millie comes home from work one day to discover her old childhood friend Annie bruised and bloody on her doorstep. Millie picks her up, dusts her off and puts her in the bath. Lying in bed together, the two reminisce on a childhood that occurred a lifetime ago and recall an old promise to care for one other “until the end of the earth, no matter the cost and no matter the consequence.” As Annie sleeps, Millie vows to honour her friend in the one way that seems fair; revenge.
'Set in the outskirts of metropolitan Melbourne, KEROSENE is a relentless and unsympathetic character study exploring the complex, ugly and dangerous symptoms of love. It is a homage to the blind loyalty that accompanies lifelong friendships and the realities of what it means to grow up young, quiet and forgotten in modern day Australia.'
Source: Theatre Works.
'What of the women and girls who defy gender demarcations, who transgress the boundaries and restraints of social order and expectation?
'When a girl spits, or swears, or screams, or shouts, or pulls down her pants to moon someone from a car, or she laughs too loudly, or she’s too shrill, or she pulls up her t-shirt and flashes her tits, or she fights, really fights, head butts and with her fists, or she fucks too much or cuts her hair too short, and wears too much lipstick or none at all, or tells everyone she’s got a dick and she’s not a girl at all, all we want to do with this girl is lock her up and throw away the key. Out of control girls – angry, nasty girls – are a sight to behold. They’re terrifying, electrifying, they’re everything girls shouldn’t be, and we hate them.
'This is a work about these girls.
'Their names are Billy, Bobby and Sam.
'There’s not a single moment when the three young women transcend their ugliness. There’s no indication of a better, or in fact any, inner life. They don’t believe in anything. They’re mean, foul-mouthed, downtrodden, hard-bitten, utterly damaged women. They’re neither salt of the earth nor sexy. They love no one and no one loves them. They believe the world is shit, that their lives are shit, that they are shit.' (Production summary)
'One night, during a performance of "Elektra", an actress falls silent, and from then on, refuses to speak. The nurse assigned to her recovery, takes her to a remote seaside cottage. Very quickly, this safe house transforms into a site of terror and isolation, as patient and nurse grow dangerously close. A nightmarish poem about identity, intimacy and the limits of the spoken word.'
Source: http://www.theatreworks.org.au/ (Sighted 24/05/2012).
'A holiday. A time for conversation and distraction, a time to wind down and to dream...
'In a moment of relaxation and quiet reflection, two men unwittingly engage. Spontaneous, unaffected and thrillingly real, innocent discussion becomes an exploration of private fantasy, hidden anxiety, personal mythology and the most inexplicable behaviour.
'What lies behind the most unconscious gesture? How do power struggles play out in the politest of exchanges? Is there hope in the blank spaces between strangers?' (Publisher's blurb)