Landed

By Frumpus

Three shifty women, wordless but with plenty to say, take an unnerving and rib-tickling excursion into silliness and power play. Crashing to earth, camping under the stars, carrying a load of frothing tankards, Frumpus and their fanged sock puppets navigate anarchy and inanity, all for a great night out / time of your lives / actual salary.

2 – 4 Nov 7.30pm

Bruce Gordon Theatre

Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

Approx. 1 hr 10 mins (no interval)

Recommended for ages 12+. Reserve your spot at merrigong.com.au merrigongx

Alana Valentine is a librettist, playwright and director with a solid track record for making works about tragic public events in an evocative, dignified and deeply moving way. Dead Man Brake and Letters to Lindy, both commissioned by Merrigong, were enthusiastically embraced by local and national audiences. She recently co-wrote the oratorio WATERSHED: The Death of Doctor Duncan for the Adelaide Festival in 2022 and WUDJANG: Not the Past, co-written with Stephen Page and composer Steve Francis. Her new work is based on the 2014 Lindt Cafe Siege and the lives impacted by the tragic loss of Tori Johnson.

“My Beautiful Man is a play with songs which memorialises the sacrifice of Tori Johnson as seen through the eyes of his partner Thomas Zinn, his mother Rosie Connellan and the little boy Henry Hinchcliff, now sixteen years old. Since 2021 I have been conducting interviews with Thomas, Rosie, Henry and Mercedez (Henry’s mother) and I have their blessing and encouragement to undertake this project. Both Thomas and Rosie have been enormously supportive, speaking candidly and openly about their continuing love and grief, with Thomas even sharing with me the last text messages on the night of Tori’s death out of which I have started to respectfully write beautiful and haunting lyrics. The work chronicles the incredible outpouring of grief and pain by Australians and others in the days and years after the siege and ends with the gift of new life, given to Wollongong resident Henry in the form of a chocolate Easter egg, and lifts this act of kindness into a metaphor of hope for humanity in the face of trauma and loss. Tori, a bona fide 21st century hero, is gone, but his act of generosity lives on in Henry and all the other people who meet despair with love.”

- Alana Valentine