The Children

The Sydney Theatre Company is bringing a compelling story, The Children, to the theatre, confronting audiences and encouraging them to question the choices they have made in life.

The story follows Hazel and her husband Robin, who after working hard and raising a family of their own, have retired in a cottage near the ocean. Then the nuclear power plant they used to work at gets torn apart by a natural disaster and they face the consequences of their decisions from long ago. Designer, Elizabeth Gadsby said,

“The writing is so tightly structured that all the key pieces of information are revealed in a really beautiful way, but basically it’s a generational story about responsibility and how one generation deals with the results of their choices for the following generation.”

The play has been extremely popular and is on its way to Broadway after playwright Lucy Kirkwood amazed millions with her thriller Chimerica in 2017.

“It’s a really interesting mix, there is a slight thriller quality and it’s very funny, the characters all have really sharp wits and great senses of humour, but that humour is sitting on top of something that is deeply tragic and very traumatic,” Gadsby said.

Pamela Rabe, Sarah Peirse and Willian Zappa bring this story to life under the direction of Sarah Goodes, who worked alongside Gadsby in her careful consideration of the performance space design.

“I’ve created a very small pocket of reality which is surrounded by a void of blackness and that was to do with this sense of really needing a threshold between that internal space and then this greater natural world outside. We wanted to create a sense of the relationship between that human made structure and then the greater environment,” Gadsby said.

This new and exciting drama will keep audiences hooked with laughter, but also make them think about the larger issues in life.

Until May 19. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point, Sydney. $81-$108+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.sydneytheatre.com.au

By Jade Morellini