Babelle Theatre opens 2018 Season with new work that examines millennials at the crossroads of cynicism and hope.
After being fired from her marketing job in Toronto, Alison (Olivia Hutt) returns home to the Sunshine Coast to spend some time with her father (David Bloom) and re-evaluate her prospects. The situation transforms as news about her father’s health and a re-encounter with an old lover (Sara Vickruck) forces Alison to imagine re-settling on the west coast permanently. But a fantasy dreamed in despair is never so bright as the thing being lived, and Alison quickly comes to realize that returning to her life in Toronto may the only practical choice.
Inspired by the writing of English professor and scholar Lauren Berlant, This, Here aims to investigate the ‘cruel optimism’ of our contemporary society – how this generation of young adults is forced into accepting impossible debt-loads and bleak career prospects and how it is impossible to imagine new ways of living.
Speaking about the personal inspiration for the work, playwright James Gordon King says, “I think of my parent’s [now-dissolved] marriage as a metaphor for the millennial ethos: my mother’s side of the family is very practical, very career focused; while my father’s side of the family is more artistic or whimsical. So I understand both sides and I feel inside myself their struggle to co-exist. With This, Here my hope is to lead audiences to question their own values in relation to contemporary career culture; and to question, if we are to work, then what are we to work for?
This, Here
By James Gordon King
July 18-28, 2018 at The Culture Lab (1895 Venables Street)
8PM Wednesday-Saturday
Tickets from $20 at thecultch.com/events/this-here/
