Multi-Award Winning Play SHlT Comes To The Edinburgh Fringe For Its UK Premiere

Coming directly from the incredibly prestigious theatre festival VENICE BIENNALE TEATRO 2019, MILKE are delighted to bring the UK premiere of SHIT to the Edinburgh Fringe.

When a girl spits, or swears, or screams, or shouts, or pulls down her pants to 'moon' someone from a car, or she laughs too loudly, or she's too shrill, or she pulls up her t-shirt and flashes her tits, or she fights, really fights, head butts and with her fists, or she f-cks too much or cuts her hair too short, and wears too much lipstick or none at all, or tells everyone she's got a dick and she's not a girl at all... We hate them for it. We want to lock them up and throw away the key.

Longtime collaborators, writer Patricia Cornelius and director Susie Dee, have made a work about these out of control girls, angry, nasty girls. Girls we rarely ever see on stage, who're rarely given space to laugh back in the face of a world that despises them.

Their names are Billy, Bobby and Sam and they are performed by Peta Brady, Sarah Ward and Nicci Wilks. They're terrifying, electrifying and everything girls shouldn't be. Vitalic writing, powerful and often obscene language, and visceral, physical performance eat the audience for breakfast, spitting them out without remorse. This raw indictment of the intersections between class and misogyny shines an unflattering, uncompromising and yet ultimately empowering neon striplight on women and girls who defy gender demarcations and transgress the boundaries and restraints of social order and expectation.

There's not a single moment when Billy, Bobby and Sam transcend their ugliness. There's no indication of a better, or in fact any, inner life. They don't believe in anything. They're mean, foul-mouthed, downtrodden, hard-bitten, utterly damaged women. They're neither salt of the earth nor sexy. They love no one and no one loves them. They believe the world is shit, that their lives are shit, that they are shit.

SHIT, on the other hand, is most certainly not shit. It is gut-punching, provocative and tragic, heartbreaking, bracing and also bitterly funny.

Writer/director team Patricia Cornelius and Susie Dee are the first Australian artists ever to be invited to the Teatro Biennale di Venezia in 2019. They have worked together for thirty years, winning multiple awards for Savages including the 2014 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Drama (Cornelius) and four 2013 Melbourne Green Room Awards including Best Direction and Best Writing for Independent Theatre and most recently four awards for the production of SHIT at the 2015 Melbourne Green Room Awards including Best Writing, Best Ensemble, Best Set and Costume Design, Best Production for Independent Theatre.

Patricia is a founding member of Melbourne Workers Theatre. She's a playwright, novelist, film writer and dramaturge. She's a recipient of a Fellowship from the Theatre Board of the Australia Council and the 2012 Patrick White Fellowship. Her plays have earned her 10 Awgies for stage, community, theatre for young people and feature film adaptation. She has written over 25 plays, the most recent being Big Heart, Savages, Do not go gentle..., Slut, Love and The Call.

Susie has developed new work with other writers including Angus Cerini and Melissa Reeves. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Australia Council residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where she observed the work of Theatre du Soleil and other French companies. She has been the Artistic Director of three theatre companies: Melbourne Workers Theatre, Union House Theatre and ICE (Institute Of Complex Entertainment). Awards include a 2013 Green Room Award for her direction of Patricia's award-winning Savages and a 2014 nomination for her direction on The Long Pigs.

SHIT runs from 3rd - 25th August (not 12th or 19th) at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. For tickets and more information: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/shit

 

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