Merciless Gods

Following a successful season in Melbourne with sold out shows and raving reviews, Merciless Gods is coming to Sydney for its first ever performance.

Merciless Gods is the first stage adaptation of the multi award-winning Christos Tsiolkas’ short story collection, which he published in 2014.

This production showcases a series of eight vignettes with each representing one story. They are all connected thematically, dealing with migrants, sexuality and queerness. Director of Merciless Gods, Steven Nicolazzo explained, “My vision for the work was creating a space that was sacred and that had a deeply theatrical aesthetic. The main thrust was how to tell eight very different stories and present a work with 25 different characters with only a cast of six, while interweaving that successfully on stage.”

Inspiring Nicolazzo’s work was filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and the way he “wonderfully juxtaposes theatrical language and cinema. Because we are doing a work in eight small segments, some of which are monologues and some which are ensemble, I have to think really hard about the visual language and I guess from me that all came from cinema.”

Taking over three years to develop, this “passion project” is one which was “completely driven by love from everyone involved and everyone has an equal stake in how much time, sweat, blood and tears have gone in to it.”

Nicolazzo hopes that audiences can connect with the performance on an emotional level. Audiences will experience a series of voices that are not heard or shown on the Australian stage.

“It’s an incredibly moving work, but it’s also incredibly funny.  It has a really dark sense of humour and you’re going to meet characters that are completely unique, completely absurd and twisted, but also loveable at the same time,” Nicolazzo concluded.

Nov 4-25. SBW Stables Theatre. 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross, NSW. $30-$38. Tickets & Info: www.griffintheatre.com.au

By Jade Morellini.