The story of the world’s most-loved action heroine, Ellen Ripley (Alien, 1979), is re-imagined 40 years later in EARTHSIDE: a radical piece of confessional theatre premiering at The Blue Room Theatre this April.
EARTHSIDE re-frames the wildly true account of one woman’s quest to survive pregnancy, birth and trauma, through the cinematic lens of Ellen Ripley’s own dire attempts to escape the Nostromo alive.
This is the darkly funny debut play from award-winning ex-showgirl Kaitlin Tinker (Size Queens, Club Briefs) who experienced a gruelling 30-hour labour and birth at a public hospital in 2018.
“The thematic crossover of my experience with Ripley’s was eerie,” says Kaitlin. “Survival, alienation, agency of female bodies, parasitic beings inside hosts of blood and bone. There’s a reason these kinds of movies and myths stay with us. But the creature that burst out of me was very, very real.”
EARTHSIDE brings together some of WA’s most in-demand and vital creatives. Accomplished director Libby Klysz (Feminah; The Tempest) joins forces with highly acclaimed “art doula” Emma Maye Gibson (aka Betty Grumble, Love + Anger; Sex Clown Saves The World) and dramaturg Geordie Crawley (Bus Boy) to guide Tinker through the birthing of EARTHSIDE.
The immersive, audio-visual world of the play is shaped by sound designer Jeremy Turner (Panawathi Girl; Projections at City of Lights – Perth Festival) and lighting designer Chris Donnelly (Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories; I Am My Own Wife).
EARTHSIDE is a vital, urgent piece of confessional theatre that explores the far reaches of step-parenting, stripping, C-sections, PTSD, and all the things that eat us inside out. It’s an exhilarating, cinematic odyssey for modern times that asks: Do we create trauma by hiding it?
How does popular culture from the greater universe allow us to grapple with very earthly narratives of our own? And can we re-write our stories, the ones burnt into the very muscles of our being?
Director: Libby Klysz | Writer / Performer: Kaitlin Tinker | Sound Designer: Jeremy Turner | Lighting Designer: Chris Donnelly | Dramaturg: Geordie Crawley | Art Doula: Emma Maye Gibson | Stage Manager: Emily Stokoe | Producer: Sarita Leal
EARTHSIDE
The Blue Room Theatre, 53 James Street, Northbridge (Perth)
Season: 22 April – 7 May 2022 (preview: 21 April)
Information and Bookings: www.blueroom.org.au
Image: Kaitlin Tinker – photo by Nicolee Fox