Platform Youth Theatre, the inaugural presenter of Tenderness – Slut (2008, 45downstairs), congratulates writer Patricia Cornelius as the winner of both the 2009 Theatre for Young Audiences AWGIE and the 2009 Richard Wherrett Prize: Rewarding Excellence in Australian Playwriting supported by the CAL Cultural Fund.
PYT also congratulates Patricia, Christos Tsiolkas (Tenderness – Ugly), Melissa Reeves (Shimmer, 2001) and Andrew Bovell for winning the Feature Film Screenplay – Adaptation AWGIE for Blessed. Blessed also starts Anastasia Baboussouras who appeared in Slade in Tenderness – Ugly.
VENUE: fortyfivedownstairs
SEASON: 7-15 March, 2008
By Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas
Direction Nadja Kostich
Set and Costume Design Marg Horwell
Lighting Design Richard Vabre
Sound Design Kelly Ryall
Design Trainees Sarah Trevorrow and Chris Williams
With performances by Members of Platform Youth Theatre
What if there was a place that contained every thought you will ever think, or every action you will take, every secret you’ll keep? A record of every slip, stumble and moment lost? In a mysterious and haunting room, two stories play out.
Tenderness is an original double-bill by an award-winning creative team, written by Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas (Fever, Who’s Afraid of the Working Class?).
In Ugly (Christos Tsiolkas), Slim and Slade love Sil. Sil loves them both. Friendship is the only thing they possess that isn’t ugly, the one thing they have which is beautiful. Then Slim plunges into a desperate course of action that marks them all. In Slut (Patricia Cornelius), Lolita is crowned the queen of sluts. And no matter how much she thinks her life’s her own and she thinks she can do whatever she wants, a slut’s a slut. A mob of young women take a stick to the piñata and watch Lolita’s final devastating fall.
Created from research with young people in the Northern suburbs, these two modern morality plays, distinct from each other in their voice and form, invite you into a holding bay for judgment. Here, young people who not long ago played with plastic swords now brandish steel and forge moments that shape character, erode character or drown it. Can tenderness exist in this world?