An array of great new Australian plays is being presented each month at the Stables Theatre, in the form of Sunday afternoon playreadings.
“Parnassus’ Den was founded in the belief that new Australian writing should be encouraged and developed. To this end, the aims of Parnassus’ Den are to nurture and work with the writers of performance texts so as to enhance the Australian Performing Arts”, says artistic director Drayton Morley, who has nurtured PD for two decades, since its inception in Glebe.
The PD administrative committee of five select the best play each year to win the Mitch Mathews Award.
Judging by Con Nats’s play HAIRCUTS, presented on Sunday 12th May 2013, the standard of writing is very high and the presentation professional.
Nats’s short plays have won many awards and he has written and directed in over 15 Short & Sweet festivals, where HAIRCUTS first appeared.
It certainly works in the full length, three act play format. Shortlisted for the 2012 Rodney Seaborn Playwriting Award, it is mostly set in Guiseppe’s barbershop, ‘where for just a few dollars you’ll get a stylish haircut, some cutting humour and sharp insights’. The bittersweet humour is very ethnic and the barbershop becomes like a symbolic home, a ‘refuge where you can unload your worries, leave them on the floor and walk out afresh, ready to take on the world’s challenges’.
Guiseppe the barber, his wife and his ambitious daughter Gina – a clever girl in a male dominated world, are the main characters introduced in the first act.
The play’s eleven characters also include the Father, estranged from his wife and his son Stanley, who doubles as the narrator, “There were more characters than Disneyland at Guiseppe’s. And just as colourful…like Kosta..” he tells the audience. The larger than life Italian, Greek and Anglo characters in the barbershop are delightful.
As Westfield moves in to build a new level of shopping that will threaten their local businesses, the families pool together for a solution.
The relationships are very real and counterpoint the big/small business theme throughout the play. There are insights into broken marriage, illness, friendship and the warmth and intimacy of the family business.
I hope to see HAIRCUTS in its full production at a theatre soon.
The next playreading for Parnassus’ Den is FLY IN, FLY OUT by Robert Kronk on Sunday 16th June, 5pm at The Stables Theatre.