Malthouse Theatre returns with their signature envelope-pushing stage productions in 2018, with a series of confessions, music, comedy and bold iterations of sprawling tales of the old and the new.
Coming to the stage for the first time include Peter Carey’s award-winning novel Bliss, a hallucinatory tale from suburbia to the asylum, and Lars Von Trier’s iconic Melancholia which bring the psychological tale of two women facing off against an impending apocalypse to an all-new stage adaption.
The Malthouse program will feature collaborations with theatre companies around the world, including the UK’s Complicité with the raw musical drama A Pacifist’s Guide to the War, and the illegal Belarus Free Theatre company for two unique productions defying strict Soviet regimes. Trustees and Generation Jeans will tell tales of oppressive authority and the search for liberation through thought-provoking dialogue about jeans and rock music as rare tokens of the free world.
Back by popular demand is the haunting tale of Picnic at Hanging Rock, reimagined for the theatre in an enthralling adaptation of the Australian classic, of which previous installments have had audiences on the edge of their seats. Further highlights include the critically acclaimed Blasted, which has been hailed one of the most notorious plays of the last century.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Witness Dr. Jacqueline Brown discover a mystical skull and a become kick-ass Indigenous superhero in Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death, a Melburnian version of Sex and The City-inspired tales in Going Down, emotional displays of love, life and the passage of time in Brothers Wreck and revealing confessions in the form of Fleabag’s filthy comedy from the BBC’s sitcom of the same name.
