A fairytale for adults

The name symbolises the marks and scars we leave on those we love. Set inside a gingerbread house, Tattoo is a fairytale for grown-ups.

This tale by Dea Loher is a dark and discordant fairytale, in the tradition of the brothers Grimm, that tackles the misuse of power within the family unit.

The action focuses on a family and the demons lurking beneath the surface. Most people will recognise this, as we all have or come from family units of some description, director Rochelle Whyte said.

The joy, but also the struggle, is the way the play reveals itself more and more when you are working closely and deeply with it on the rehearsal room floor.

The writing is extraordinary. One minute you think you’ve got it, really understand it, and the next it’s confounding again. That’s the fun part, unravelling the puzzle.

Whyte hopes the audience experiences the recognition of real characters trapped in an unreal world.

Like people who could’ve walked off the street into the story, this [Tim] Burtonesque fairytale world, she said.

There are a few things the play deals with, as with any good writing. The things that happen in the play are extreme -” that is dealing with a cultural taboo -” and it would be easy to get hung up on that, but the extremity of the events serve to show just what can happen when power goes unchecked. The family is used as a metaphor for society in miniature.

However, there’s been plenty of public debate, outcry and scandal in the last 12 months dealing with a range of issues including teenage sexuality, the hideous Fritzl case in Austria, and the role of art to provoke debate. You would have had to have been in a coma to have missed the fracas surrounding [Bill] Henson and his extraordinary photography.

info: Tattoo opens at the SBW Stables Theatre on Friday 6 March. Bookings on 8002 4772 or visit griffintheatre.com.au