The Skriker by Caryl Churchill

Lily and Josie are teenage girls, one pregnant, the other, in a psychiatric institution for killing her baby. They are best friends, yet their relationship is strained by circumstances, and by what life hasn’t offered them. The vivacious Skriker enters their lives, an ageless shapeshifting self-professed fairy who charms, manipulates and taunts them, seducing them into the messy darkness of the underworld. But Lily and Josie need the Skriker as much as she needs them. Who is the Skriker? Is she a victim, a perpetrator or a saviour? Is she a symbol, a myth or a reality?

The Skriker by eminent playwright Caryl Churchill was written in 1994. Director Linda Luke the cast and the creative team have catapulted The Skriker into contemporary 2020, addressing critical concerns about our mental health, the pandemic and the looming terror of an environmental catastrophe. We hold multiple views about who the Skriker is. One of them is that she is the all-powerful symbol of the earth, and yet, she is disempowered, lost and in need, because of human activity and hubris. Our process has been a rapid unravelling of ideas strewn out on the rehearsal room floor. In amongst the intellectual debris, we have explored physical embodiments of a raft of bizarre characters who occupy the play. With video, dead trees, lighting, sound, tulle, wire, sticks and stockings, we are figuring out how to turn the world upside-down. The UOW second year undergraduate presentation of The Skriker promises to be a shocking yet rollicking ride into the unknown.

• Cast: Toryn Biester, Tegan Blanch, Lu Bradshaw, Byron Davis, Michael Ianni, Ashleigh James, Tyler Munday, Georgie Nicholls, Bailey Tanks, Veronique de Havilland
• Production and Stage Manager: Kaylee Ashton and James Sutherland
• Assistant Stage Manager: Kiara Smith
• Sound Designer: Kiara Smith and James Sutherland
• Lighting Designer or design team: Karen Norris and James Sutherland

This production has a COVID-Safe plan in place to reduce risk of potential virus transmission. Patrons are advised that they will not be permitted entry if they are showing signs of flu or cold symptoms.

For more information contact the School of the Arts, English and Media
E: taem-admin@uow.edu.au

Details on past and present productions in the School of the Arts, English & Media UOW.