By Patricia Cornelius·Drama·Melbourne Theatre Company

SHIT

'Shit is provocative and tragic, bracing and bitterly funny. It's the sort of bold theatre that will have us confronting our own prejudices; that forces us to acknowledge these things of darkness ours': Cameron Woodhead reviews the Melbourne Theatre Company production of SHIT for the Sydney Morning Herald.

'Cornelius’s particular talent for turning flat, realistic speech into a kind of heightened street verse is on immediate display': Tim Byrne reviews the Melbourne Theatre Company production of SHIT for TimeOut.

'Patricia Cornelius’ Shit smacks you in the face and commands you to sit up, strap yourself in and FINALLY start paying attention to the women and girls who defy our social order and expectations': Deborah Langley reviews the Melbourne Theatre Company production of SHIT for Theatre Press.

When a girl spits, or swears, or screams, or shouts, or she laughs too loudly, or she’s too shrill … Out of control girls, angry, nasty girls are a sight to behold. They’re terrifying, electrifying, they’re everything girls shouldn’t be, and we hate them.

This is a work about these girls. Their names are Billy, Bobby and Sam. There’s not a single moment when the three young women 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.

Patricia Cornelius

Patricia Cornelius is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter and dramaturg. She has written over twenty five plays and they include: Do Not Go Gentle...(FortyFive Downstairs), The Call (Melbourne Workers Theatre, Griffin), Love (Hothouse/Malthouse) Fever (co-written, Melbourne Workers Theatre), Boy Overboard (ATYP) Slut (Platform Youth Arts) and Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? (Co-written with Andrew Bovell, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves and Irine Vela – Melbourne Workers Theatre).

Patricia is a founding member of Melbourne Workers’ Theatre. She’s received the prestigious Patrick White Fellowship (2012), and a Fellowship from the Australia Council’s Theatre Board. Her other prizes include the 2011 Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary Awards, the Patrick White Playwright’s Award, the Richard Wherrett Prize, the Wal Cherry Award and an impressive ten Australian Writers’ Guild awards (AWGIES) for stage, community theatre, theatre for young people and feature film adaptation. Patricia has won the AWGIE Major Award three times. In 2013 her play Big Heart was given a Highly Commended in the Griffin Prize. Patricia's play Savages was produced at Melbourne’s 45Downstairs Theatre in 2014 and won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award’s Prize for Drama, the Green Room Award for Writing and was nominated for an AWGIE and the Griffin Prize. Her play Shit was produced by herself and director Susie Dee as part of the MTC’s Neon Festival of Independent Theatre.

Patricia co-wrote the feature film adaptation for Blessed, based on the play Who’s Afraid of the Working Class?. Her novel My Sister Jill was published by Random House and many of her plays are published by Currency Press. Patricia also regularly works as a dramaturg and mentor to young playwrights.

Judges’ report

While deceptively simple in its form – a conversation between three women – there is an inventiveness in this play’s depiction of the central group of social outcasts, which plays subtly with the positioning of the audience within the action. The playwright skilfully uses violent language to reveal hidden emotional depths and political and moral complexities.

Cornelius structures the character journeys so that no hint of sentimentality or pity is permitted, and yet we are led to empathise at least on some level with these violent, self-hating women. This is assured and accomplished writing, where the playwright’s uncompromising political vision forces us to question our assumptions about theatre and society.

Extract

Three young women in a room.

SAM: Do you think anything could save us?

Pause.

BIL: No.

BOB: Like God, do you mean?

Pause.

BIL: No.

BOB: Like someone puts their hand in and pulls you out before you drown?

BIL: Like someone says, you’re right, you’re right, I got you.

BOB: Like someone shoots a crocodile just before it gets you.

BIL: Like a doctor cuts out the rot before it infects you.

BOB: Like when you jump someone’s going to catch you.

BIL: Like someone puts their mouth on yours and blows air in you.

BOB: Like someone says, keep away from her or I’ll kill you.

BIL: Like when...

SAM: Alright, alright.

BIL: Sam, nothing’s going to save us.

BOB: Too late to save us.

BIL: Way too fucking late.

BOB: We’re past saving.

BIL: Way past saving.

SAM: Maybe someone could’ve saved us when we were little.

BIL: Doubt it.

SAM: When we were three.

BOB: From the moment I came out nothing could save me.

BIL: From the moment my mum got knocked up nothing could save me.

SAM: Nothing at all?

Pause.

BIL: A bedroom with a lock on the door.

They laugh.

BIL: There are ones who listen to music all the time.

SAM: I did that.

BOB: Well?

SAM: It cut down the shouting.

BIL: In one of the houses I was in a girl read books.

SAM: Did that save her?

BIL: Sort of. For a while. I saw her off her fucking face when she was about twelve.

BOB: Drugs can save you.

BIL/SAM: Drugs can save you.

SAM: When they’re in good supply.

BIL: I used to think someone was going to save me.

SAM: Me too.

BIL: Pick me up and carry me off… somewhere.

SAM: Me too.

BIL: And tell me good things.

SAM: Like, you’re a good girl.

BIL: Well done, you did real good,

SAM: You sat up straight.

BIL: You didn’t pick your face.

SAM: You ate, good girl, you ate.

BOB: You laughed in the right place.

SAM: You’re pretty when you smile.

BIL: You enjoyed yourself didn’t you?

SAM: You thought about someone else for a change.

BOB: You didn’t spit in anyone’s face.

BIL: Like someone who gives a shit, who says, I’m here for you, you know that, don’t

you?

BOB: And says, do you understand, are you listening to me?

SAM: Look at me.

BIL: Look at my face.

All: You’re … worth … something.

Pause.

SAM: What’s her name?

BIL: What?

SAM: Got to give her a name, this woman who could’ve saved us.

BIL: What?!

BOB: Caitlin. How about that?

SAM: Caitlin cuddles us.

BIL: She bounces us on her knee.

BOB: I can’t stand being fucking touched but I’ll let Caitlin have a bit of a squeeze.

BIL: Caitlin’s got enormous tits and all she wants is to take us in her arms.

BOB: Oh yes please.

SAM: To make us happy.

BOB: To smooth away the pain.

SAM: To love us.

BOB: To stop Billy from saying fuck.

BIL: And from Bobby calling her a cunt.

SAM: And from biting her neck and draining her blood.

BIL: Caitlin might have saved us.

BOB: I had a Caitlin. For about a year I had her. When I was about eight, maybe nine, I know I wasn’t with her when I was ten. She had these huge tits and she’d grab me and tuck me into them. I’d be standing there and she’d grab me. I’d be on the couch watching tv and she’d grab me. On my way to bed, to school, just have to move and she’d grab me and squeeze the fucking shit out of me. Squeeze me every chance she’d get. Squeeze the life out of me. Squeeze me to death. I used to have to hold my breath. Then when I was ten someone else had me.

SAM: Couldn’t she save you?

BOB: No, too far gone.

SAM: What she doing squeezing you all the time?

BOB: Loved me I guess.

SAM: Fuck me!

BIL: I never had one of them Caitlins.

SAM: Neither did I. I love her. I love Caitlin.

BIL: I had cold fucking fish bitches.

SAM: The sit up straight, don’t touch that, that’s enough you greedy guts kind.

BIL: The stop that, and stop that, don’t do that kind.

BOB: One I had treated her dogs better than me.

BIL: I had one I liked. She was nice.