By Mary Anne Butler
Drama Currency PressBroken

'This is some of Australia’s freshest and most exciting work and it manages to peer into and reexamine some of the iconic and romantic images we have of the Australian identity': Kyle Walmsley reviews Knock-em-Down Theatre's production of Broken for ArtsHub.
'… a brutal and bare-knuckled play that kicks you in the head–and the guts–from the first minute': Bob Gosford reviews Knock-em-Down Theatre's production of Broken for Daily Review.
'Broken is a powerfully immersive production which deserves to be seen nationally': Nicola Fearn reviews Knock-em-Down Theatre's production of Broken for RealTime.
A car crash in the Central Desert. A broken man, about to leave his wife, who has a deep, dark secret of her own. Broken entwines the stories of three complex lives as they unfold on a single fateful night in the heart of the NT’s desert country.
Judges’ report
Australia’s top end – the land and its people – comes alive with tension, sadness, and humour in this extremely well crafted work. The evocation of an Aussie bloke in the play is both old fashioned on some levels (laconic, competent, rough) and new (emotionally intelligent, educated, kind) and the other two characters are equally well drawn.
The emotional journey is beautifully plotted and moving, with an opening sequence that is theatrically alive and full of inventive dramatic links – played out in a great, dark expanse of earth beneath the stars – and a finale that draws its power from the claustrophobic domestic environment of the family home.
Extract
Read the excerpt (7 pages, PDF)
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist