Image: Photo: Ben Brockman
The task of raising a child is daunting to any parent, but how do you toe the line between control and creativity with your kid?
Emily Calder presents this parental dilemma and more, in her hilarious, surrealist production, Cough.
Set in a childcare centre, the play focuses on a group of parents and their children as their lives are thrown into chaos, causing them to question their reality.
“My main message is that childhood is that kind of mix of wonder and occasional chaos, it’s about allowing that chaos to exist as well because it is so important for creativity,” Calder says.
Based on Calder’s experiences of working in a childcare centre, director James Dalton says the imaginative production is about showing the increasing anxiety of parents in an overly regulated world.
“The element of fantasy is being presented to trigger the emotional response of anxiety,” Dalton says.
The entertaining production switches between naturalism and surrealism, placing the characters into increasingly absurd situations, where the audience will respond to the different parenting styles.
The play questions the changing nature of parenting, anxiety and the complexities of unconditionally loving tiny humans.
“Children live in this crazy world where they are uncensored with no manners, they are sort of like little animals,” she says. (SOC)
April 10-20, 107 Projects, 107 Redfern St, Redfern, $16.50-26.50, 107projects.org
BY SHAUNA O’CARROLL
