★★★★.5 Sydney Morning Herald
★★★★.5 Stage Noise ★★★★.5 The Scoop ★★★★ Limelight
There’s something extraordinary at Sydney’s KXT On Broadway Stage whispers
as riveting as anything you’re likely to see this or any other year Di Simmonds
Exceptional That Show
compelling … a must-see Kate Prednergast
“He's got zero empathy. You could be having a conversation and start choking to death and he'd just think, 'Well, this conversation's over.' He'd probably just sit there and finish eating whatever you were choking on.”
For the first time on the Sydney stage, Duncan Macmillan's (People, Places & Things and Every Brilliant Thing) Monster asks what responsibility we bear for the violence of our boys and men - and how far empathy can truly reach.
A teacher is given the job of saving a lonely, violent teenage boy on the brink of permanent expulsion. Alone in the classroom, an intense battle of wills takes place - but what can be done when a child is afraid of nothing and cares for no one? As this story unfolds we watch a misguided teenage boy's actions ripple through the lives of all of those around him.
What begins as a seemingly ordinary conversation escalates into a raw examination of violence and culpability. Gripping, provocative and urgent, Monster doesn’t offer easy answers, instead challenging audiences to consider: Are monsters inside all of us? Are they born, or are they shaped? What do we owe the monsters we’ve made? And what responsibility do the systems and societies around them bear?
Director Kim Hardwick with Campbell Parsons, Tony J Black, Romney Hamilton, Linda Nicholls-Gidley
Set Design Victor Kalka Lighting Design Topaz Marley-Cole; Sound Design Charlotte Leamon Dialect Coach Linda Nicholls-Gidley; Assist Directors Jo Booth & Poppy Cozens; Stage Manager: Bede Curran Marketing/Social Media Manager Liminka Pather; Photographer Abraham De Souza
Executive Producer Romney Hamilton; Assoc Producer Mel Jensen; Assist Producer Celine Widjaya
Presented by Tiny Dog