In association with Sydney WorldPride, Griffin Theatre Company will present the world premiere of Sex Magick, from the brilliant brain of Nicholas Brown (Lighten Up). This tantalising story of enlightenment and identity will take to the the SBW Stables stage from 17 February 2023.
After a workplace indiscretion shatters his elite physiotherapy career, Ard Panicker ends up working at a metaphysical health spa, giving Ayurdevic rubdowns to yummy mummies in Bondi.
When he receives word that his estranged father has died, Ard’s world is thrown into turmoil. He begins to shake and shudder with mysterious full-body seizures – accompanied with waking visions of a terrifying, all-powerful deity.
Desperate to find a cure for his phantasmagorical condition, Ard travels to the village in South India where his father was born. Instead, he finds an enlightened tantric guru who cracks open his sense of identity, sexuality, and grip on reality.
Featuring a mind-melting breakout performance by Raj Labade (Belvoir’s Tell Me I’m Here) and starring award-winning actress Blazey Best (Dogged), Stephen Madsen (Muriel’s Wedding the Musical) and Catherine Van-Davies (TV’s The Twelve), Sex Magick is a wildly funny (and just plain wild) tale of queerness, masculinity, and South Asian-Australian identity.
Griffin Artistic Director, Declan Greene (Green Park, Dogged) teams up with Nicholas Brown to co-direct a tantalising mix of live video and ancient Indian Kathakali dance theatre.
“Nick [Brown] speaks about the play as an effort to look at the pre-colonial history of the Hindu religion, which has a gender diversity – what you would call queerness – built into its mythologies and deities,” said Greene.
“But that’s something that got scrubbed or censored as part of the colonisation of the country… and it’s going to be a six-hander, which also in the Stables is huge, it’s going to be expansive and complex.”
Nicholas Brown has forged an international career as an actor, singer, writer, and Bollywood leading man since graduating from NIDA.
Brown recently featured in Belvoir St Theatre’s Counting and Cracking, which won the Helpmann Award for Best Play, and The Long Forgotten Dream and Still Point Turning for Sydney Theatre Company.
His writing credits include Lighten Up for Griffin, The Unlisted for Aquarius Films and Tantra 2 for Playwriting Australia. In Sex Magick, he has created an experience that will be like nothing else on Sydney stages in 2023. Guaranteed.
Co-Directors: Nicholas Brown, Declan Greene | Featuring: Blazey Best, Raj Labade, Stephen Madsen, Thanizhvanan Veshnu Narayanasamy, Mansoor Noor, Catherine Van-Davies | Choreographer: Raghav Handa | Set & Costume Designer: Mason Browne | Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee | Video Designer: Solomon Thomas | Stage Manager: Isabella Kerdijk
Sex Magick
SBW Stables Theatre, 10 Nimrod Street, Darlinghurst
Season: 22 February – 25 March 2023 (previews: 17 – 21 February)
Information and Bookings: www.griffintheatre.com.au
Image: Raj Labade stars in Sex Magick – photo by Brett Boardman and Alphabet Studio