The Bleeding Tree at Adelaide Festival Centre
After a sold-out season in 2020, Theatre Republic is bringing back its staging of Angus Cerini’s Gothic Australian masterpiece The Bleeding Tree for a limited season at Adelaide Festival Centre’s Space Theatre this month.
The Helpmann Award-winning play is a roaring rampage of revenge in a dusty outback town that follows a mother and her two daughters after they shoot dead their abusive husband and father. As they try to hide the body, a knock at the door unravels a complex, brutal and searing examination of abuse, power and control that also manages to weave in some darkly funny moments.
“Our initial season was greatly impacted by Covid-19. Our rehearsal time was severely cut short and our capacities were halved due to density limits. It very much felt as though we’ve only scratched the surface of what we can do with this play,” says Theatre Republic’s artistic director Corey McMahon.
“Cerini’s script is remarkable. It’s poetic and dark and gives theatre-makers the opportunity to strip everything back and present storytelling in its purest, most visceral form. It’s a privilege to be able to bring this complex and daring work to the Space Theatre with this incredible team of artists.”
The production will see the original cast Elena Carapetis (A View from the Bridge, The Hunting), Miranda Daughtry (Things I Know To Be True, Macbeth) and Annabel Matheson (Terrestrial, How To Kill Your Hamster) reprise their roles as the three fierce and complex women.
“Last time we staged this play it felt like we started a really important conversation with audiences,” says Carapetis. “As women’s bodies all over the globe continue to be sites of violence and control, it feels vital to bring this story back and to have audiences reckon with the lives of these women.”
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