SPOTLIGHT

<< Back to SPOTLIGHT Live Showcase Program

Posts in the Paddock
My Darling Patricia

Venue: Space Theatre
When: Thu 1 Mar 11:45 AM - 01:05 PM
Genre: Interdisciplinary / Hybrid Arts
Main Audience: Adults (18+)
Producer: Marguerite Pepper
No. in touring party: 6

Posts in the Paddock

“My Darling Patricia is a company that uses an astonishing range of performance styles and techniques to explore the way we look back, from the 21st century, on what we have lost, forgotten and need to recover. But even for the company this story is extraordinary.” John McCallum, The Australian

Jimmy Governor was an Aboriginal Bushranger who murdered nine people in NSW in 1900. A consummate bushman, he evaded capture in rugged, inhospitable terrain for 99 days; the longest manhunt in Australia’s history. When he was finally captured, he was sentenced to death and executed in January 1901. His story was most famously told in Thomas Keneally’s novel The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and the Fred Schepsi film of the same name.

Relatives of My Darling Patricia’s Clare Britton were among those murdered by Governor one hundred and eleven years ago. Leroy Parsons is Governor’s great-great-grandson. Together, with Aboriginal Elder Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor and performer Sam Routledge, they recount Governor’s story from a new perspective. Taking it's name from the ruins of the abandoned house where the murders took place, Posts in the Paddock is a powerful theatrical experience that combines installation, animation, puppetry, performance and oral histories.

“Inheriting 223 years of the IRA (Invasion, Removal and Assimilation), the journey that the Posts in the Paddock process has taken us on is truly healing of spirit, land and families. To reflect on histories of the past together truly demonstrates reconciliation at work in community, not as a government directive, but as a human need for forgiveness to move forward for a better Australia.” Lily Shearer, Cultural Collaborator, Posts in the Paddock

My Darling Patricia

Is a multi-award winning independent company that creates highly visual, original theatre. As well as staging work in a three bedroom apartment, a two-storey custom-built scaffold structure, a converted shipping container and to audiences peering at each other through the frame of a burned and collapsing house, My Darling Patricia has performed in Australia's leading theatres.

Founded in 2003 the company work as artists in residence to create theatre through a rigorous, collaborative process led by artisic directors Halcyon Macleod and Clare Britton. My Darling Patricia is a highly mobile ensemble based across Sydney and Melbourne. My Darling Patricia is managed and produced by Marguerite Pepper Productions.

Posts in the Paddock was produced in Association with Moogahlin Performing Arts

Moogahlin Performing Arts was formed in Redfern in November 2007 by a group of Indigenous theatre artists, educators and community workers in honour of the late Kevin Smith's request and in memory of the founding members of the Black Theatre.

Moogahlin is based at the Redfern Community Centre in the Block in the heart of the local Redfern Indigenous comnmunity. It aims to create and tell community-based stories, develop a comprehensive youth theatre program and mount large scale main stage productions. Moogahlin supports both emerging and established Indigenous theatre artists, nurturing work created, developed and performed by Indigenous people for Indigenous people. Moogahlin is a Bundjalung word meaning to play or fool around.