A funny, heartfelt one-man show about cycling and obsession, envy and ambition, winning and losing, and finding the inner grit to dominate the mountain stages of life.
Hew is a passionate wannabe cyclist. But Hew is in a malaise. Stuck in a cycle of dead-end jobs and missed opportunities he has long harboured a pathological envy of his more successful high school friend, now professional cyclist, Jake.
Told in parallel with our hero’s tale is the story of the great Gino Bartali (1914 – 2000), winner of the Tour de France in 1938 and 1948, who, in WWII, risked his life to save Jewish lives in Northern Italy by secretly transporting documents in his bicycle.
In Symphonie of the Bicycle these stories combine to create an absurdly hysterical yet ultimately moving portrait of the quest for glory and heroism.
In this richly layered theatrical experience, Alice Oswald’s powerful poem is performed on a grand scale, embodied by one of Australia’s most celebrated actors Helen Morse, alongside Golden Globe nominated composer Jocelyn Pook’s transporting, otherworldly score. Stripping the narrative from the Iliad, Memorial is an intense and urgent elegy for each of the 215 dead soldiers named in Homer’s epic.
A word for word adaptation of Patrick White’s short story Down at the Dump, featuring Zephyr Quartet.
Actors, musicians and audience share the space in a circle of burnt earth beneath a canvas Australian sky. The work shifts and swirls, drawing the audience into the sensual immediacy of a strangely familiar world – the suburb of Barranugli – where the Whalley family are getting ready for a day at the dump, while next door the Hogbens prepare to bury the scandalous Daise Morrow.
Australia’s towering literary genius Patrick White had a well-documented love for the theatre. His language is pure performance and we tap into its power. There is no sentimentality here. Brutally funny, profound in its understanding of human nature, and filled with magic and wonder.
Alice Springs in the year 2039. A fish falls from the sky and lands at the feet of Gabriel York. It still smells of the sea. It's been raining for days and Gabriel knows something is wrong
On a hot, rain-sodden afternoon in 1966, in the glutinous mud of a rubber plantation in Phuoc Tuy Province, South Vietnam, 108 Australian soldiers clashed with approximately 2,500 North Vietnamese troops. In the ensuing battle, 18 Australians were killed and more than 245 North Vietnamese.
Taking reference from the remarkable story of Adelaide woman Gill Hicks, who lost her legs in the 2005 London bombings, Thursday explores the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
At the click of a finger, the lives of strangers are both knitted together and blown apart. Flawed and self-absorbed existences float in and around an Australian woman at the centre, who finds herself confronted by an horrific reality. Through this moment, Thursday unravels time to reveal the strands of unconditional love that bind us all, as strangers, together.
Taking reference from the remarkable story of Adelaide woman Gill Hicks, who lost her legs in the 2005 London bombings, Thursday explores the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
At the click of a finger, the lives of strangers are both knitted together and blown apart. Flawed and self-absorbed existences float in and around an Australian woman at the centre, who finds herself confronted by an horrific reality. Through this moment, Thursday unravels time to reveal the strands of unconditional love that bind us all, as strangers, together.
Skip Miller doesn't take pretty pictures but he collects good music. A celebrated frontline photojournalist, he has spent years documenting the war zones of Africa and the faces of the dispossessed. A homeless wanderer amidst millions, Skip is on an endless search for the next assignment - the next best shot.
Meanwhile in a refugee camp, Basil Mgembe searches for his missing family and, in Australia, the newly arrived Patience Lugor comes face to face with her own image on bus shelters and billboards, in newspapers and magazines.
This multi-narrative ensemble work for African and Australian actors and musicians is an intimate, honest and open-hearted exploration of lives caught between two worlds.
The Great War is over. Berlin is in chaos and Anna must finally accept that her lover Kragler, missing in action for four years, will never return. Until one night, as the moon hangs red in the sky, he appears like a ghost to discover her pregnant and engaged to another man. In the boozy battle of wills that follows, she banishes him to the darkness where he is swept up into the street riots consuming the city.
Funny, passionate, complex and confused, Brink Productions' audacious new Australian translation by Finegan Kruckemeyer is a blistering and beautiful parable that says much about a world at war with terror.
The Hypochondriac is a luminously life-affirming rage against the dying of the light. Written at the end of Molière’s richly colourful life when he knew that he was dying, this gloriously bilious theatrical comedy (here adapted by Paul Galloway) is a passionate exposé on the fear of mortality and humanity’s wondrous capacity for self-delusion and hysterical leaps of faith.
A group of more or less ordinary people go about their lives: Anna makes toast, Henry dresses for work, Milla catches the train to school, Moses deals drugs. But hovering above this unholy parade of life is the sobering fact that Milla will die before her 15th birthday. How do they continue to manage the mundane aspects of life—getting to work on time, helping the neighbour change a light bulb, returning a violin bow—when their world is shattering?
Babyteeth, 16 August - 7 September, 2013 Space Theatre
Chris Drummond was Artistic Director of Brink Productions for 19 years. This is part of that story.