THE ORPHANAGE PROJECT

Synopsis:

The Orphanage Project is an epic gothic fairytale, told in a mythical, timeless Australian orphanage. The work tells the histories of six women and their experience of institutionalisation. Grace is a woman from the Female Factory fighting for survival on the Frontier in 1820. Emily is a traumatised victim of Victorian repression.  Min is a young Indigenous girl, stolen from her family and taken to an island missionary settlement in the 1850’s. Maude is a working class kid living in the urban slums during the Great depression, Rosie a stolen Aboriginal woman raised in foster care during the fifties and searching for her mother, while Debra, is a modern urban Aboriginal woman angry and grief stricken after the suicide death of her son in detention. Like ghosts trapped within institutional walls, these characters are perpetually doomed to live out their stories time and again.

Mark Connaghan and Jodie LeVesconte. Photo by Stephen Henry

Season:

Queensland Theatre Company, Billie Brown Studio, Brisbane, October 2003.

Reviews:

“Betzien’s script is a model for theatrical writing, with dialogue intervening only when action and Pete Goodwin’s atmospheric score alone can’t suffice”.
                                                         

  Martin Buzacott, The Australian

“There is some quite remarkable theatre locked up within these micro-narratives. Betzien’s script often crackles with understated tension and barely concealed violence… The Betzien-Cáceres collaboration represents much of the best new theatre that has emerged in Queensland over the past five years…”
                                                          

Ben Eltham, The Courier Mail

“Old School story telling techniques like shadow play, tableaux, ‘live’ music and puppetry gel with the play’s 19th century-like preoccupation with horror and abjection, but seem thoroughly modern and inventive in application”.
                                                          

Jo Walker, Scene Magazine

“Cáceres’ direction proves flawless as the disciplined ensemble members take up their individual stories and metamorphose-flow- into and out of their many characters. Goodwin’s soundscape is equally fluid- mesmerising and evocative as it not only creates rain, bird and bush sounds but feeds into characterisation and illuminates the ‘old land’ versus the ‘new’ ”.
                                                                    

   Mary Nemeth, Time Off

Kellie Lazarus, Fiona Doyle and Mark Connaghan. Photo by Stephen Henry

Awards:

Del Arte’ Award
Best Female Performer: Jodie Le Vesconte

Creative Team:

Writer: Angela Betzien
Director: Leticia Cáceres
Composer: Pete Goodwin
Designer: Tanja Beer
Lighting Designer: Jo Curry
Stage Manager: Chris Philippi
Cast: Jonothan Brand, Laurel Collins, Mark Conaghan, Fiona Doyle, Kellie Lazarus, Jodie Le Vesconte