Why we produced a play that tackles Suicide HEAD ON 

Marooned is not a suicide awareness play. We are all aware that suicide is a massive problem. What it is, is an attempt to be a powerful suicide prevention play.

Not for profits were set up in order to make it ok to fail. They exist to tackle difficult problems for all the easy problems have been solved.

The Wolves Theatre Company is trying to see if a theatre company made of mainly mature creatives can produce plays that target the issues of the mature demographic and our era in an engaging entertaining and relevant way.

To date, we are having some success.

Suicide is one of our greatest problems, and so our play Marooned tackles that head-on.

As Jodie Myintoo said in her review, “There are no Elephants in this room.” And she’s right, the language is raw and confronting and often doesn’t let up and instead uses humour and empathy to make it palatable.

Yet despite all the rules it breaks and it’s pain, the one comment we are hearing the most from the audience is that it leaves them feeling uplifted.

Now whether you agree or disagree with our approach that is an interesting discovery.

Now, let me be clear, we do not claim to have the cure for suicide, all we are doing as a group of artists are exploring the one idea that gave birth to the play.

And nightly we often change things. Tweaks here and there.

But now, since the play appears to have a future before it beyond The Lawler, we intend to travel with it.

OPENING NIGHT REVIEW

by Meridith Fuller

“Cleverly choreographed, blocked, and lit, this is riveting theatre. It is palpable waiting with them in their waiting room. Initially, in their silence, the actors effectively reveal their personalities somatically. In the tension, we eavesdrop on what they did, as they exchange information about methods undertaken in their attempts to flee their unbearable pain. But then they realise that they must talk – to interpersonally and intrapersonally communicate their despair. We go deeper.” 

READ REST OF REVIEW

The Song we wrote for the play

The Brief Background Story of Marooned

A middle-aged actor, Guy May, contacts a mate, an emerging playwright, Michael, late one night saying he’s suicidal.  Michael is on the phone with another friend who is drunk because they had just found out that their cancer is terminal. Michael had to choose who to talk to, and he chose this friend and advised Guy to call the helplines. No one knows if Guy did or not, but now he’s gone. Both men are. Basically, a shitty tragedy.

A short time later Michael was in a meeting with the Artistic Director of a local theatre. She asked him if he had any new plays and he started pitching Marooned. She shut him down instantly by saying,

“You don’t write plays for men, only women buy tickets, men don’t care.”

Angered by this and full of guilt Michael wrote the play in two days.

Then there is the story of Michael calling Felicity May, Guy’s mother, and Guy was her only child, to see if she would give the play her blessing. He wouldn’t stage it unless she did. She did. Recently she told Michael, and they get on very well now, that she is often feeling suicidal yet the evolving story of this play has been giving her life some purpose.

Now the play is seen by many not only as a play that raises awareness about suicide but an actual Suicide Prevention Play.

And after starting rehearsals in a living room it is now in the Southbank Theatre’s Lawler Theatre, thanks to an astonishing deal with The MTC.

And The Journey Continues:

The Australian Defence Force has purchased two shows.

So has The Town of Corowa.

We are in talks with Shepparton and Ballarat  

We are also going to Frankston 

So far that is the unfolding story,

“The lonely death of one struggling actor appears to have given birth to a brilliant play that could save lives.”

We have aligned with The Hayden Butler Foundation

NEW MAJOR SUPPORTERS

The Synopsis

Four souls, one woman, and three men are Marooned in a waiting room in the afterlife.

They have no connection other than they have all tried but failed to take their own lives.

They don’t know how they survived, but as time passes they start to yearn to go home but begin to fear that they won’t.

This rising fear and this yearning will manifest into a hunger to live.

But despite this hunger, they are still Marooned.

Is there something in this room that they have to do or address before the gods will send them back?

If so, what? The only thing in here is each other.  

Click the image below to read about the remarkable short history of this play