St Kilda Tales

"stories of a city: sunshine and shadows at the edge of an era"

WORLD PREMIERE

Playbox in association with Melbourne Festival presents Ranters Theatre.

Ultra-urban, high-density St Kilda is the catalyst for this large-scale work commissioned for the celebration of the Centenary of Federation.

In two extraordinary acts - Day and Night - Cortese sweeps across age, culture, profession and class. Numerous stories cross like tramlines to build up a many-facetted picture of city life. This is epic and profuse theatre, kaleidoscopic in construction, monstrous and exquisite in the same breath.

St Kilda Tales chronicles a subculture where pollies and yuppies live shoulder to shoulder, where sex workers and tourists descend like seagulls for the last chip of the picnic. The huge character list includes some startling creatures: angels, ghosts, Zork, Tasso, Tinkerbell, the Man Who Stands Still and the Woman Who Whistles.

A remarkable new theatre event from the author of Roulette, The Indestructible Corpse and the internationally cult hit Features of Blown Youth. Director Adriano Cortese brings a company of ten actors - including Kristina Bidenko, Heather Bolton, Beth Buchanan, Zoe Burton, Paul Lum, Patrick Moffatt, Robert Morgan and Kelly Tracey - together with musician/performer Shane Thornton.

Cortese's wit, intelligence and pungent imagination are an essential basis of arresting theatreÂ… great verve, potent rhythm, a bracing sense of theatricalityÂ…' Sun Herald

"Frankly, I think half the time we're hoping for a demon to leap out of the ground and spin a coin. Heads we are given a magnificent palace - tails we burst into flamesÂ… I'd risk it, why not?"