HOME INVASION by Christopher Bryant
21 March - 7 April at Old 505 Theatre
(Production photography by Robert Catto - click to scroll through)
An obsessive Paula Abdul fan, June, auditions for American Idol in an attempt to impress her hero. A young girl named Sam enters a relationship with her mechanic, Anthony, and cultivates a dangerous obsession with brutally confronting his wife, Carol. Carol, meanwhile, has reoccurring dreams in which a ghostly Jon Benét Ramsey visits her, prophesying about the future.
Equally disturbing and humorous, Home Invasion explores celebrity infatuation and our culture's obsession with the relentless mediatisation of violent acts, weaving together three incidents from real life.
Content warning: Adult themes, sexual references, coarse language, suicide themes, loud noises and impersonations of Simon Cowell.
Home Invasion is available for purchase from Australian Plays.
Credits:
Director & Lighting Designer: Alexander Berlage
Det Designer: Jeremy Allen
Costume Designer: Ellen Stanistreet
Producer: Ruby O’Kelly
Stage Manager/Operator: Paisley Williams
WITH: Chloe Bayliss, Kate Cheel, Yure Covich, Morgan Maguire, Wendy Mocke, Cecilia Morrow
PRESS:
Audrey Journal (by Christopher Bryant)
"The Old 505 has a real hit on their hands with Home Invasion. It's a smart, electrifying production that punches well above its weight in the realms of indie theatre." - Emma Caldwell/Weekend Notes
"For a play to balance dark, worrying concerns about consumer and patriarchal brutalism with a laugh-heavy pop confection is no easy feat, and this production of Home Invasion comes together like a dream. You’ll never have more fun exploring the many ways our society sells itself out." - Cassie Tongue/Timeout
"A powerful collaboration offering a series of striking imagery... Home Invasion depicts female subjugation in contemporary terms, as an operation inherent in processes of commodification and of the media. It is true that we are in danger of having our minds clouded and capitalised by institutions that will benefit from our delusions, but we must believe that resistance is possible, and necessary. Where the show ends, is where we begin deducing alternatives for our aftermath." - Suzy Goes See (Home Invasion)
"Christopher Bryant pulls them together in a coup that successfully marries pop culture with social satire" - The Buzz from Sydney
"Christopher Bryant's HOME INVASION is a deliciously constructed work that has a savvy eye on the 'networks' of influence of our daily life, and not only satirises, but critiques that, with a humanist concern for the handcart, that we have sat ourself in, and are permissively unconcerned about - perhaps, blithely unconcerned about - the gathering speed of the careening of our culture - species - towards hell... catch this remarkable play and production. You will be challenged. You will be rewarded." - Kevin Jackson's Theatre Diary
"Caustic, cruelly funny and handsomely delivered in a spare but technically pin-sharp production" (3.5 stars). - Jason Blake, Audrey Journal