Caesar and Cleopatra

By George Bernard Shaw
April 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12 at 7.30, Matinees April 6 @ 4.00 & 12 @ 2.00, early April 8 @ 6.30
The Odeon Theatre, Queen Street, Norwood 

“I will make all the men I love kings. I will make you a king. I will have many young kings with round, strong arms; and when I am tired of them, I will whip them to death. But you shall always be my king, Caesar: my nice, kind, wise, proud old king.” 

Egypt. 48 BC.

On campaign in Egypt, and pondering the riddle
of the Sphinx, the ageing Julius Caesar stumbles across the beautiful, young and capricious Cleopatra. Enchanted, he promises to turn the girl into a true queen for Egypt, and tutors her in the ways of power.

But Rome’s ways are not Egypt’s. Caesar quickly discovers that, while he may have conquered Egypt, he can never hope to rule Cleopatra. Childish, impulsive, irtatious, Cleopatra is her own woman – and a good deal more dangerous than Caesar realises!

Caesar and Cleopatra will be the fth in a succession of highly popular IT Shaw plays – Mrs Warren’s Profession, Heartbreak House, Pygmalion and Major Barbara.

Full of uproarious humour and challenging wisdom, this neglected masterpiece remains brilliantly topical in its criticism of the politics of revenge. 

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Master Harold...and the Boys

by Athol Fugard
May 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 at 7.30pm, Matinee May 31 at 2.00pm
Goodwood Institute, 166a Goodwood Road Goodwood

“If you really want to know, that’s why I made you that kite. I wanted you to look up, and be proud of something. Of yourself.” 

Johannesburg, 1950. The start of the Apartheid era.

Seventeen-year-old schoolboy, Harold, lives with his mother. His brutal, alcoholic father is in the hospital. His best friends are Sam and Willie, two African waiters in his mother’s tea-room. His fondest childhood memory is of Sam making, and teaching him to y a kite.

One rainy afternoon, with no customers, Sam and Willie are practising ballroom dancing, while Harold tries to do his homework. His mother rings to say that his father is coming home from hospital.

In panic, the boy unleashes on his two friends years of anger, pain and the vicarious racism from his father – threatening to damage forever the only relationship that has sustained him.

The play is considered Athol Fugard’s masterpiece. 

Peter & Alice

by John Logan
August 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 at 7.45, Matinee August 30 at 2.15 early August 25 at 6.30
The Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre 

“In a hundred years, no one will ever remember Alice Liddell. And no one will ever forget Alice in Wonderland. . . Now you tell me who’s more real.” 

London. 1932.

When Alice Liddell Hargreaves met Peter Llewelyn Davies at the opening of a Lewis Carroll centenary exhibition, the original Alice in Wonderland came face to face with the original Peter Pan.

What on earth did these two iconic “dream- children” talk about?

In John Logan’s new play, enchantment and reality collide, as this chance encounter lays bare the lives of these two extraordinary characters, exploring the agony and the ecstasy of inherited fame.

The play had its world premiere in London in March 2013, with Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw as Alice and Peter.

John Logan is well-known to Independent Theatre. Now a brilliant screenwriter – Gladiator, The Aviator, Sweeney Todd, Skyfall – he has returned to playwriting. As with his Tony-Award-winning Red in 2011,

he has generously granted Independent Theatre the exclusive rights to his beautiful new play’s Australian Premiere. 

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Bracken Moor

by Alexi Kaye Campbell
November 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22 at 7.30, Matinees November 16 at 4.00 & 22 at 2.00, early November 18 @ 6.30
The Odeon Theatre, Queen Street, Norwood

“And so the machines took over and robbed us of some of the better things that made us human to begin with, the best of our natures and our imaginations.”

 Yorkshire. 1937.

Harold Pritchard is a wealthy, pragmatic mine owner, intent on sacking 140 miners for the sake of technological progress. His wife, Elizabeth, has been a recluse since the death of their 12-year-old son, Edgar, 10 years ago. They agree to a visit from their old London friends, the Averys, whom they haven’t seen since the tragedy.

When the Averys’ mystical 22-year-old son, Terence, becomes overwhelmed by the spirit of the dead boy – his childhood best friend – a host of old memories come to the surface, and everyone’s values are challenged.

Alexi Kaye Campbell made his name as a dramatist with The Pride in 2008, followed by Apologia (2009) and The Faith Machine (2011). Part ghost-story, part thriller and part intensely moving exploration of grief and responsibility for others, Bracken Moor premiered in London in June 2013. 

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