Past Season

LAND + SEA

By NICKI BLOOM

A gun. A bath. A telephone. An island.

The island is all Vera has ever known. She lives with her father, a man who lights stars in the darkness, paints clouds in the sky and conjures the evening tide. One night after a storm a young man washes up on the shore, half dead, and everything Vera knows is turned upside down.

Intimate and immersive, Land & Sea is a rich and intoxicating theatrical ‘strange loop’. Reality expands and contracts. Time and space are not what they seem as multiple fragments of the same story twist and tunnel into a kaleidoscopic world of wonder and absurdity.

View the Land + Sea program here.

CREATIVES
Writer
Nicki Bloom
Director
Chris Drummond
Designer
Wendy Todd
Music Director Hilary Kleinig
Lighting Designer Geoff Cobham
Producer Kay Jamieson

CAST
Danielle Catanzariti, Thomas Conroy, Jacqy Phillips, Rory Walker + musician Hilary Kleinig

‘Once in a while something new and exciting turns up on the Adelaide theatre scene, and this is most definitely one of those times. If you like your theatre to be much more than just an evening of light, frothy and highly forgettable entertainment, then this is for you. You will not forget this work in a hurry and you will find people talking about it long after it closes, so make sure that you see it while you can.’ Glam Adelaide

‘Bloom has a written a work brimming with intensely powerful intimations of the richest drama in which worlds of land and sea collide.’ dB Magazine

‘This is thought-provoking theatre and a refreshing alternative from the usual formats, imbued by Drummond, Wendy Todd (designer), Hilary Kleinig (music), and Geoff Cobham (lighting) with ephemeral beauty.

In the final tableau, a character reaches out with one hand with great intensity toward something, perhaps meaning, like I was.  But then I realised I didn’t have to find any meaning, there was nothing to do but enjoy the experience.  Or connect the dots, the choice is yours.  I wouldn’t miss it, but bring lots of warm clothes.’ Barefoot Review

‘There are very few opportunities in Adelaide to produce new works on the mainstage… and of those few that do arise, Brink Productions is at the forefront, charging ahead to bring Adelaide (and the world) something fresh and hopefully memorable.’ Aussie Theatre

‘For Brink and Bloom the Queen’s Theatre is a perfect launch pad for Land & Sea. Many visceral nooks and crannies in dim light hang in Australia’s oldest theatre; it almost whispers mockingly at you as you walk inside its cavernous space and dares you to feel any comfort at all like a wrecked galleon creaking on a reef.’ Australian Stage

‘Sometimes theatre is not linear, it’s not clear cut. It’s confusing and surreal and beautiful. Brink Productions’ latest offering, Land & Sea, from writer Nicki Bloom, is this type of show.Kryztoff Raw

‘Land + Sea lies somewhere between a full-length play and a series of short plays. Nicki Bloom’s script is a series of scenes where soft strands ricochet off into new scenes in new worlds. These stories are softly interconnected, strands form and dissolve, visual images and text reoccur in changed states.’ No Plain Jane

‘As ever, Drummond’s production is beautifully fashioned. Wendy Todd’s white canopy set (on a disc of yellow sand) lifts away, later, to reveal a carefully detailed European hotel room. It is all delectably lit by Geoff Cobham, and Hilary Kleinig’s evocative music, played live on cello and piano, uses themes from folksong to Gluck and Satie.’  The Australian

‘Land + Sea explores the nature of reality through the physical depiction of a psychological world. It is simultaneously cryptic yet vivid, disorienting yet absorbing, challenging yet precise.’ Fringe Benefits

‘All four actors are excellent, each playing a mix of roles from clown to villain to tragic hero. Walker is compelling as a broken, distant father. Catanzariti and Conroy are both enchanting as young people who are at once battered by, and interested in, the world. Phillips is fantastic throughout, but especially as an exquisitely sad hotel guest.’ Arts Hub

‘The old Queen’s Theatre is the perfect setting for such a mysterious and fragmented play. There is an icy chill in the cavernous building and the lighting by Geoff Cobham plays on this casting eerie shadows. Adding to the extraordinary nature of this play is Wendy Todd’s atmospheric set which peels away layer after layer just as the actors do.’ Entertainment Hive

‘Wendy Todd’s design for Land and Sea is beautifully conceived. The Queen’s Theatre is Adelaide’s oldest; its old walls and iron roof enclose a deep expanse of space. Our chairs are arranged half-way around a circle of pale sand enclosed in billowing white drapes.’ RealTime


12 - 26 May 2012

Queen’s Theatre
Adelaide


We acknowledge that the land on which we live, and work is the  traditional land of the Kaurna people and pay our respects to their  Elders - past, present and future. Brink supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart and enshrining a Voice to Parliament in the Constitution. 

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