Geoffrey Sykes’s play BLOOD ON THE WATER has just completed a successful season in Sydney and in Bathurst. Audiences have been both intrigued and entertained by this play, which evokes an Australia in flux between established political and cultural bastions and new, exciting influences, often coming from the crucible of overseas experiences, both celebrating where we’ve been as a nation but looking for depth and direction inside the country and also in world affairs.
With a multi-cultural cast – Annishka Oksa, Vince Melton, Tonia Davis and Tisha Keleman (four actors allowing more touring practicalities), the play dramatises international concerns, such as the turmoil of Ukraine and Russia, under the microscope of how an Australian rural electorate views immigration, refugees, politics and authenticity. Yet is it able to do this with a deeply personal story about an older politician from a political dynasty facing change without understanding it, and an immigrant wanting change but using her own dynastic manipulations to gain that voice. There is heart in the piece, and potential for hope and love. At the play’s end, there is a sense of great potential for an Australia that is willing to share what it has learnt and is learning, and willing to play a greater role in helping shape a better world.
The show, like Auden’s quote, has the special quality “to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere”. The Australian-ness of being weary with politics, then excited by new opportunities, of being opened by new feelings but also suspicious of motive, and sensitive and susceptible to cultural misunderstandings, all add up to a play that clearly represents facets of contemporary Australian life but link them to the bigger contemporary world – which makes the play capable of finding and intriguing an international audience.
Geoffrey Sykes is a theatre practitioner who for many years has evoked Australian experience, aspirations and history. He has utilised many forms, such as realism mixed with Brechtian approaches of story and song, and he is adept at utilising gripping images and projections to enhance poetic theatre or to anchor a domestic scene in a wider, wilder world. Geoffrey has produced gripping documentaries, for example about south coast mining communities, or on Lawrence Hargraves’ ingenious experiments with flight. He has also produced sound recordings and commissioned songs to enhance his creative work and always to encourage the creative work of others: actors, stage designers, media creatives, musicians, dancers and composers.
This theatre piece demonstrates a continued commitment by its creator to multiform style. Immersive large scale digital imagery is used throughout, along with songs by Tisha Kelemen, Ukrainian and original poetry, and war documentation.
There are plans to remount the show at Gatehouse Theatre Yetholme.
Steven Goldrik
Steven is a playwright, composer, actor and musician. He was head teacher of Creative Arts at St Mary’s Secondary School in Wollongong for many years, and will have a season of his latest musical at Workshop Theatre Wollongong in 2026.
