It’s a weird and wild time as our world changes around us. The Blue Room Theatre is doing the best it can to keep audiences, artists, and staff safe during Covid-19. Last Thursday they digitally launched their full 2020 season. This was a combo of Facebook and Instagram live videos, plus a big Zoom disco party with outgoing Executive Director Julian Hobba at the decks.
The big news is the first eight productions of the season are postponed. Those productions will be offered a slot in the 2021 season. The Blue Room Theatre hopes that most of those productions will be able to fulfill this offer.
“It might seem a bit silly to launch some shows when they’re already postponed but we did this with intention,” said The Blue Room Theatre in a statement. “Productions are more likely to have a greater life if they have been previously programmed.”
“Who knows what the future holds for performing arts but we want to celebrate Western Australia’s artists and hope that their works can have long lives. Even though eight are down that currently leaves us with the same amount on the table. It’ll all kick-off after Winter Nights (which is going fully digital, more on that later) in August.”
For more information about The Blue Room Theatre’s 2020 Season, visit: www.blueroom.org.au for details.
Image: small & cute oh no – photo by Duncan Wright
The Blue Room Theatre’s 2020 Season:
MoR
11 – 29 August 2020
Enter the circle, breathe in the incense and spice, be enveloped by the loving embrace of MoR: An exploration of brown motherhood through the eyes of the migrant daughter. Through a series of vignettes Dureshawar Khan will weave a rich tapestry of experiences punctuating the journey of brown womanhood and the lessons lovingly passed down from mother to daughter. Told in both English and Pashto MoR is a love letter to every person we’ve ever called mum.
The Greatest of All Time
18 August – 5 September 2020
A goat, an abduction and an online community. Worlds collide as Angel becomes the most famous goat in Australia. Farmers, vegans and anyone with an opinion go head to head. And at the centre? A small goat farm in rural Australia. A chaotic play exploring wills and opinions, told through the weird world of Facebook arguments. The Greatest of All Time is an ethical labyrinth of questions in a world with too many answers.
Hard Body Bcup
8 – 26 September 2020
Lilith was 12 the first she saw two women kiss, on screen. Now she has romance fizzing in her stomach. She sits and interviews actors to play the role of the woman she wants to love but hasn’t met yet. Watch us snatch the scissors and slice the celluloid films of the past and present, as we dissect the false idols of the silver screen. Take our hand as we tear down the built world and journey you from crowded pubs through to queer utopias.
Heed the Spark
29 September – 17 October 2020
In the karri forests of the South West, Theresa and her partner Ellie find an unfinished manuscript by a famous author. Theresa is drawn into the world of the manuscript, one of sex, secrets, and ghosts. Ellie is less worried about literary mysteries and more about Theresa’s interest in violent colonial romances. As the tropes of the dashing widower, the whispering trees, and the mysterious animal deaths mount, Theresa must make a choice about how the story ends and how she sees the past.
The Underground
6 – 24 October 2020
Fisher and Gia have been living in the bunker for as long as they can remember. It’s not that they can’t recall the world above and what forced them down there. It’s just that some events are so traumatic that it’s better not to dwell. They’ve made a new life. Together. The games and stories they tell to pass the times are becoming darker, and more complex as secrets start bubbling to the surface. Time is altering their perceptions of themselves. Will their world end for a second time and who will tear who apart? Let’s play.
The River of Grace
27 October – 14 November 2020
Based on the fragrant story of the smelliest man in India, The River of Grace is a new Australian play by Patrick White award-nominee Vernon Pua. Balakrishnan has forgone washing for decades, since his Swami has decreed that he will only conceive sons by avoiding water. His wife Lakshmi desperately tries to have him wash by seducing a politician, sharing a deep confession and manipulating a sacred river. This fable-like tragi-comedy is set in Goa and performed in the style of the Malayan pantoum. It explores how woman are shackled by the traditions of society, and must be resourceful to free themselves, even now in the twenty-first century…a big innovative play about love, denial, politics, magic, and gender power balance.
small & cute oh no
3 – 21 November 2020
A woman working as a mall Santa searches desperately for a lost child, and a young queer man spins increasingly ludicrous lies to his white lovers. Their lives intersect in the banal melancholy of a shopping mall, until the realest part of their lives is the Pokemon, Detective Pikachu, stalking their growing deceptions. A strange and compelling new work by Melbourne playwright Vidya Rajan (The Lizard is Present), small & cute oh no dives through the excesses of contemporary capitalism in search of the tragedy of truth and fiction.
The Golem: or, Next Year In Jerusalem
24 November – 12 December 2020
The Golem was a legendary creature made of clay and brought to life to defend the Jews of medieval Prague. Then things got out of hand. Part myth, part memoir, part personal/political/spiritual confession – the team who brought you The Apparatus (The Blue Room Theatre Best Performance Award 2019) are back with their most monstrous creation yet, featuring poetic and absurd text, bizarre physicality and haunting images from two of Perth’s most devious and twisted theatrical minds.