An outrageously funny new play about sex, literature and spiralling out of control, Sydney Theatre Company presents Michele Lee’s Going Down in a world premiere season at the Wharf 2 Theatre until 5 May, before heading to the Malthouse Theatre from 10 May 2018.
Natalie Yang has just published her memoir, Banana Girl – a sexually explicit look at life as a twenty-something woman in millennial Australia. It isn’t the heart-warming migrant story that people expected. Nor is it a feminist call to arms. And it certainly isn’t on the best-seller lists.
Her next book, 100 Cocks in 100 Nights, could be the scandalous reboot her career needs. Or it could be a complete disaster. Cue the quarter life crisis as Natalie searches for meaning in her sexuality, identity and career.
In her first full-length play for the Sydney Theatre Company, and co-produced with Malthouse Theatre, one of Australia’s most exciting young playwrights, Michele Lee delivers a sexy, brutally frank and funny examination of flawed characters failing at life in the most outrageous ways possible.
Lee predicts that audiences enjoy the humour and entertaining nature of her new work, but also take away a deeper message. “It’s about success and ambition, it’s about being Asian and Australian, it’s about family, it’s a love song to Melbourne, it’s sort of a riff on Girls meets Sex and the City – it should sing with the messy hybrid feelings that make me, me.” says Lee.
“I hope there is this somewhat subterranean feeling of discomfort that has slipped in under the mirth. Because the play is asking you to think about how you participate in stereotyping/reducing minorities.”
Michele Lee is an Asian-Australian playwright and theatre maker working across stage and audio. Her works are about female identity, otherness, intimacy and chaotic worlds, usually through a non-Anglo perspective.
Lee has been commissioned by Griffin Theatre Company, Arts House, Darwin Festival, Malthouse Theatre, Next Wave Festival, Platform Youth Theatre, Radio National, Sydney Theatre Company, St Martin’s Youth Arts Centre and Westside Circus. She is a member of the Melbourne-based New Working Group.
Lee is the recipient of the Queensland Premier’s Drama Award 2016-2017 for Rice, the 2015 Malcolm Robertson Prize for Going Down, and the 2013 Australian Writers’ Guild Award for her radio play See How the Leaf People Run. Her play, Moths was the inaugural recipient of the Betty Burstall Commission. Lee’s memoir, Banana Girl was published by Transit Lounge in 2013.
Director: Leticia Cáceres Featuring: Paul Blenheim, Catherine Davies, Josh Price, Naomi Rukavina, Jenny Wu Designer: The Sisters Hayes Lighting Designer: Sian James-Holland Composer & Sound Designer: THE SWEATS
Going Down
Wharf 2 Theatre – Pier 4, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay (Sydney)
Season continues to 5 May 2018
Information and Bookings: www.sydneytheatre.com.au
Image: Catherine Davies features in Going Down – photo by Rene Vaile