Class, conflict, and changing technologies come into direct focus in polarising dark new comedy Puntila/Matti from 25 September to 14 October at Kings Cross Theatre.
This troubling, terrifying, and entertaining world premiere adapts Brecht classic Mr Puntila and his Man Matti in a post-modern deconstruction of corporate greed in the 21st Century.
Mr Jack Puntila is a logger. He owns polar bear rugs, rugby league teams, media empires, ex-wives, cigars, and an oil spill that spells out the words 'foul, destructive, and fading patriarchy'. Matti Flint is Puntila's right hand manservant; an uber driver that hasn't closed the ride yet, ever attentive to Puntila's disgusting, sinful barbarism.
Set between whisky-soaked limo rides and shady world-leader meetings in underground carparks, Puntila/Matti is satirical, anti-capitalist, and as funny as it is bleak.
Leaders in iconoclastic, political performance, Doppelgangster and Melbourne's MKA - last seen in Sydney with The Unspoken Word is 'Joe' at Griffin Theatre, and The Eternity of the World at Bondi Feast - present Puntila/Matti with controversial theatre mavericks Tobias Manderson-Galvin and Dr Tom Payne at the helm.
"Puntila/Matti looks at the inherent problems of class and power, but it also looks at the personal responsibility of those with power. This isn't a happy ending kind of show; to quote Brecht, first there's eating, then morality," said playwright Manderson-Galvin.
"Puntila/Matti is being performed across from Sydney's most iconic symbol of Enjoyment the Coke Sign of Kings Cross at a time when the only nightlife is whatever's approved by government officials and the casino, and where almost noone under 35 will ever own a house."
Take a class-war battlefield flashback in the sadistic, prophetic spectacle that is Puntila/Matti and get shockingly intimate with one of the most ground-breaking live performance companies in Australia from 25 September to 14 October at Kings Cross Theatre.
For more information visit mka.org.au.
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