A woman stands before a mirror. The trains hum. A plane flies overhead. This woman is hunted. Pursued by a man with eyes of ash...
Coming to fortyfivedownstairs this March is CUT, a solo play performed by Christina McLachlan and directed by Laurence Strangio (L’amante anglaise, Krapp’s Last Tape, and The Year of Magical Thinking at fortyfivedownstairs).
CUT – by Australian playwright Duncan Graham – is a jagged and disorienting psychological thriller, featuring a tense and disturbing solo performance that will leave you questioning where the danger really lies.
CUT at fortyfivedownstairs
- Thursday 16 March
- Opening night: Friday 17 March
- Duration: 60 minutes
- Times: Tuesday – Saturday 7:30pm, Sunday 5pm
- Ticket price: $30 – $45
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A female flight attendant is being stalked. But what is real and what is jet-lagged fantasy? CUT traverses the edges of truth, desire, imagination and violence.
Solo performer Christina McLachlan highlighted the complexities of this one-person show: “The biggest challenge of a solo show is just that, it’s solo. You have no other actors to bounce off. The important thing is how you build your relationship with the audience. Instead of building a relationship with the other actors, you need to build a relationship with the audience.
“As an actor and a viewer, I like flawed characters because as humans we are flawed. We make mistakes, we make bad choices, sometimes we make bad choices for good reasons or reasons that no one else will understand. And I like exploring that. You will experience a lot of this in CUT.”
Award-winning director Laurence Strangio described the art of directing a solo artist on stage: “I relish the experience of directing a solo work – I have ever since alias Grace back in 1999!
“There is something very particular in that relationship – a directness, an immediacy of connection. It is always more challenging in many ways, particularly for the performer – there’s just them and the space, them and the audience. And as a director there is the satisfaction of engaging with that challenge in new ways: sharpening it, not allowing any easy way out – for the performer, for the audience, or for myself,” said Laurence.
Developed by the independent company floogle in 2010, CUT premiered at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre in 2011, and was revived at the recent Adelaide Fringe in 2015. This is the first time CUT has been performed in Melbourne.
CUT is on at fortyfivedownstairs from 16 – 26 March. For further information visit fortyfivedownstairs.com.
