The latest production from the West Australian Youth Theatre Company opens tonight.
Seven of Western Australia’s freshest, most skilled emerging actors will perform playwright Caryl Churchill’s bold and provocative post-modernist play, Cloud Nine under the guidance of local director Jeffrey Jay Fowler.
Isaac Diamond, Philip Lynch, Phoebe Sullivan, David Mitchell, Cam Pollock, Lexie Sleet and ‘Ana Ika feature in the production.
British writer Churchill is the author of almost 50 plays, her best known work is the feminist drama Top Girls. In 2013 the now defunct Perth Theatre Company performed her play A Number.
Cloud Nine is described as depicting the heavy burden of colonisation for both the colonised and the colonisers, it satirises with a carnivalesque pastiche of stereotypes and clichés about the British Empire. Act One is set in colonial Africa. Act Two is set 100 years later in 1979 London, though the characters are only twenty-five years older.
The play was first performed in 1979 by the Darlington College of the Arts in Devon, England.
The WA Youth Theatre Company has evolved over the past 28 years to become a vibrant home and hub for young artists to explore, create and claim opportunity. Generations of local actors have now passed through its programs. The company received critical acclaim and box office successes this year Yourseven, which was presented as part of Fringe World.
Cloud Nine is on from 19 – 27 July. Tickets are available from Perth Theatre Trust.
OIP Staff
