Attempts on Her Life
A note from the director
‘Attempts on Her Life’ by Martin Crimp is a work that has intimidated me for 30 years. It is a play I always wanted to direct but found too daunting. I still recall the feelings it stirred in me way back when I was a young drama student in the late 1990’s. I recall the ferocity of the play that spoke with such urgency about the socio-political climate of its time, and which blasted the very idea of theatre apart. Inventive, deeply political, darkly humorous and prophetic, ‘Attempts on Her Life’ was and still is a hard work to command.
When the VCA gave me the opportunity to direct it, I suspected the play had not dated, I hoped it would still speak to our world, and boy, did it ever! I was blown away by its resonances, it felt bleakly current. Re-reading it now was a confronting experience; it felt like staring directly at the sun. But it was also exhilarating, a theatrical adventure like I’d never worked on before.
First staged in 1997, ‘Attempts on Her Life’ narrows the privileged distance between us and the dehumanising effects that our political landscape is having on our real-life relationships.
Through the telling of stories about an absent character called Anne, a series of familiar and resonant characters construct and deconstruct Annie’s identity and lay bare for us the conditions for cruelty and violence we enact against ourselves and each other, in an ever alienated world.
Our production depicts a dystopian game show which is part detective story, part capitalist vaudeville, part theatrical puzzle. Our actors perform in 17 scenarios, simultaneously representing and deconstructing our reality, drawing from mass media and using pop culture references. Our hope is to create paradoxes - both playful and horrific - and leave lingering images that are reverberant, driven by the sinister undercurrents of the text and its scathing criticism of our current world order.
I want to thank the VCA staff for inviting me to collaborate with the next crop of theatre makers, and for the chance to direct ‘Attempts on Her Life’. I want to thank my incredible teams - my design team who first came up with such exhilarating and bold offerings for us to house this production and bring its characters to life, the technical team who worked tirelessly keeping up with our mad ideas and my immensely brave and talented cast, who have been a joy to work with on this unflinchingly work. This show has tested our endurance and humanity as we have faced the themes of this work with open hearts, full of compassion, humour and theatrical vigor. It’s been a remarkable journey.
- Leticia Cáceres, Director
Cast
Tanaka Bofu
Karissa Chowdary
Ranveer Harsh
Piper Jones-Evans
Indra Liyanaarachchi
Natalia Nour
Ellen Pennell
Indigo Salisbury
Manav Shrivastav
Samantha Thompson
Nathan Wright
(cast listed in alphabetical order)
Creative Team
Director
Leticia Cáceres
Set Designer
David Wotherspoon^
Costume Designer
Mia Gionfriddo*
Lighting Designer
Lily Mae Harrison*
Sound Designer
Lachlan Jones*
Voice and Dialect Coach
Mark Wong
Intimacy Coordinator
Isabella Vadiveloo
Choreographer
Colin Sneesby
Student Dramaturgy Attachment
Francesca Gordon+
Production Team
Stage Manager
Marcus Lew*
Assistant Stage Manager
Alessandra Alessio
Workshop Head of Department
Alex van den Bergen*
Workshop Head of Department (Props)
Wing Hei Natalie Lau*
Workshop Assistants
Grace Hicks
Eli Ismail
Melody Keys
Grace Lucas
Georgia Maynier
Anneka van der Velde
Toby Vasilić
Zac Waddington
Senior Costumier
Alannah Citino*
Costume Manager
Shelby Grace Palm
Costume Assistants
Courtney Dole
Alicia Price
Head Electrician/Lighting Operator
Jessica Philp
Sound Technician
Stefan Jarosz-Setiawan
*Third year Bachelor of Fine Arts (Production) student
^Second Year Master of Design and Production student
+Master of Theatre (Dramaturgy) student
Professional Staff
Artistic Operations & Planning Manager
Abe Watson
Producer
Ang Cuy
Production Coordinator
Millie Mullinar
Stagecraft Project Coordinator
Alan (Alby) Logan
Set Construction
Taylor Chen
Workshop Supervisors
Taylor Chen
El Lyons-Dawson
Workshop Technicians
Tait Adams
Al Brill
Charlie Craft
Jack Milne
Mungo Mckenzie
Em Van Dyk
Costume Supervisor
Eleanor Hutchinson
Production Photographer
Drew Echberg
Academic Staff
Head of Theatre
Chris Mead
Head of Design and Production
Anna Cordingley
Design and Production Academic Consultants
Jess Keepence, Jake Kirby, Jen Langford
Theatre Academic Staff
Sarah Austin, Keith Brockett, Maude Davey, Nazaree Dickerson, Kat Henry, Amy Hume, Joe Paradise Lui, Chris Mead, Georgina Naidu, Alice Qin, Colin Sneesby, Kate Sulan, Isabella Vadiveloo, Mark Wilson, Mark Wong
Design and Production Academic Staff
Kris Bird, Jo Briscoe, Marco Cher-Gibard, Dr Emily Collett, Anna Cordingley, Martyn Coutts, Jo Evans, Dale Ferguson, John Ford, Nell Hansen, Amanda Hitten, Lisa Mibus, Lisa Osborn, Professor Richard Roberts, Leon Salom, Matt Scott, Christina Smith, Jethro Woodward