To all those who came to The Magnolia Tree at The Alex thank you so much and here is our newsletters if you’d like – Rohana
“Marooned At The ALEX”
This coming Friday 28th May
After two well received performances at the Alex Marooned is back. Written by the renegade playwright Michael Gray Griffith Marooned stars Darren Mort as the iconic 379, Rohana Hayes as the mysterious, 768, Ben Griffiths as the modern day unsung hero, known only as 1620 and Daniel Hurst as the country lad 134. Our last review. “Is it only last week Australian of the Year Grace Tame told us, “History, lived experience, the whole truth, unsanitised and unedited, is our greatest learning resource. It is what informs social and structural change” Marooned is a play that fulfills this urgent purpose, using communal story-telling, aka theatre, to confront Australia’s epidemic of life-threatening despair, shame and grief. It does so with humour and compassion and honesty. It needs to be seen.”
~Harriet Cunningham The Sydney Morning Herald
More Reviews
“Marooned is undoubtedly the finest piece of theatre I’ve seen in many years. It had me in tears and belly laughing. Beautifully written and expertly performed. Stunningly good.” ~Megan Watts.
“This is an important play,”
~Alan Hopgood.
“While I can see the influences of Harold Pinter, this is not Pinter.
This is an original voice”
~Bruce Beresford
I laughed, I cried, I felt. It’s raw and extremely real. The actors are beyond amazing, the writing is phenomenal. It was an occasional shifting of bodies that brought you back to the reality that reminded you that this was a play.
~Natalie Powel
Date and time Fri 28 May 2021, 7:30 pm Doors open 7:00 pm
Location Alex Theatre two 1/135 Fitzroy St St Kilda, VIC
Marooned in Launceston
- Saturday, 05 June 2021 | 07:30 PM – 09:00 PM
- Sunday, 06 June 2021 | 02:00 PM – 04:00 PM
The Magnolia Tree Regional Tour Continues
Kaniva
“It was a cold Monday night in Kaniva, a small town on the boarder of Victoria and South Australia. I didn’t think we’d get anyone, but an hour before the show the town’s folk started pouring through the door and as the road-trains rumbled past, like dinosaurs trying to hum lullabies, I sat at the back of the Grand Hall, built in a lost time, richer than now, as The Magnolia Tree Wolves, Tottie Goldsmith, Ezra Bix and Rohana Hayes, performed, and my son did the tech. And if Australia has a minor regional God of theatre, then I swear they were sitting next to me on the army bench seat smiling as I watched all of this, and wondered what I had done to be gifted such a momentary beautiful and real dream.” – Michael Gray Griffith
Moyhu King Valley
We arrived in our snazzy hire car at dusk and dragged the last bits of props and personal bags across the country grass and through the open door of the public Hall.
The sun was just setting, a brilliant orange and the buzz of the locals setting up their hall was in progress. With barely a skerrick of phone reception and a hunt to find where the toilet lights were we actors studied our new shrunken stage.
The couch had had to go and now Vicky’s anchor, the side table, with its flyers and vase and statuettes had been moved to the back of the stage, that left us with a dot of room a new smaller coffee table borrowed from the Hall and 2 armchairs.
Segway armchair and couch story. Before we left Melbourne we had a dilemma. The couch had lost its leg. We’d already had the same issue with one of our armchairs and had to ditch that before our incredibly successful Alex show on Friday. But here we were Saturday morning without ¾’s of the set! I manically got onto facebook marketplace messaging random people at 6 in the morning. At 10.30am I got a couch nearby…they were about to demolish the house and everything in it! Wait, I yelled through messenger.. ., we’ll pick up the couch and chairs!!!. So, Michael drove to get it and the van arrived in Moyhu with a new floral couch and chairs.
Meanwhile in the kitchen and large room adjacent to the Hall lay a wonderful spread of hot cups of vegetable soups/ cut up sausage rolls and various cakes and brownies. There was the now familiar smell of this country hall and its heritage stage and side rooms filled with old butter making machinery, old phones, radios and photos of the original hall managers dated back to the 1920’s.
After loosely re-shuffling our blocking on this little stage we did one of our best performances yet. And towards the end in eyeshot of Tottie a friendly little bat started to weave back and forth above us. Tottie (as Vicky) amidst her emotion, noticed the bat. It’s Dad’s spirit she decided.
Once off stage and getting ready for the end and then the bow I looked across at Tottie offstage and not even knowing fully why I had the giggles and then so did she…we couldn’t stop until we had to push it all down and go back onto this cute little stage and take our bows.
The small country towns are magic and the people are so grateful that we come to them. – Rohana Hayes
BIG NEWS COMING!!!
See you next week – The Wolves
