Christine in her senior role, is unsupported and alone which seems to exacerbate her problems. She holds a Masters Degree in Arts Science and degrees in Business Management. Her role as the Divisional Manager for an international manufacturing company of truck engines and farming equipment in the European Union region dissatisfies her career goals. Christine suffers from mental illness and a personality disorder, exacerbated by her addiction to a cocktail of cocaine and alcohol.

 

Christine celebrates her fortieth birthday with an outlook to alcohol, cocaine and a male prostitute. Christine settles in for the night by ordering a home delivered five-star meal, home delivery of wine, bored with this she unsuccessfully telephones her fair-weather friends. Amy’s skeletal remains neatly tucked away in her bed; her bedroom a shrine to the memory of what she once meant.

 

Throughout her drug binge she discloses moments of physical abuse by her father, emotional abuse by her mother and the witnessed accounts of her brother’s sexual encounters, on their family-run cattle farm at Milking Yard Creek in the middle of the desert.

 

Christine’s prostitute, Oscar arrives to make a quick buck and to service his client well, only to discover Christine has another agenda; keeping him for the night. With some intelligent manoeuvres he endeavours to fill his pockets. Christine wrangles out of Oscar his dirty little secrets; his boyfriend Benjamin and his talents as a sketch artist. To keep her amused, Christine demands Oscar draw a portrait of her and to invite Benjamin for her entertainment.

 

In the height of her drug induced psychosis, Christine becomes Amy. Benjamin learns of Christine’s hallucinations and stories of a make believe cattle farm, an adored helicopter pilot and incest. Benjamin discovers Amy’s skeletal remains in her bedroom and confronts Christine.

 

In Christine’s drug induced state of confusion, she blames Amy for her unhappiness, her lack of friends and other minor incidents. Christine and Amy battle for ownership of Benjamin and Oscar. The fighter in Christine proves fatal, stabbing herself with a knife. Oscar and Benjamin make their escape, with Christine bleeding she pleads for Oscar to return, so they can fall in love.

 

First produced in the 2008 Melbourne Fringe Festival

 

Direction by Elizabeth Penny

 

CAST

Elizabeth Penny          …          Christine

Carolyn Masson          …          Amy

Luke D'Emanuele        …          Oscar

Dean Tyler                    …          Ben / Shane

 

VENUE
Guild Theatre

Union House

University of Melbourne

Melbourne, Victoria

Australia

 

PERFORMANCES

September 2008

Wednesday 24th to Sunday 28th

 

CREW

Lighting                              …          Julian Brignell

Set Design                           …         Elizabeth Penny

Set Construction               …          Ian Brealey

Make Up                             …          Jack Willie

Production Assistant        …          Shane Way

Music Design                     …          Darren Brealey

Producer                             …          Darren Brealey

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