Playwright crosses suburban breakdown

Playwright crosses suburban breakdown

BENJAMIN RILEY

A meditation on death and social conflict, Crossed is a new play from young local playwright Chris Summers exploring the gritty realities of life in suburban Melbourne.

Summers received a commission from Platform Youth Theatre in 2009 to write a play about death, and was drawn to examine the shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy by police officers in 2008.

However, rather than explore the incident directly, Summers used it as a launching pad to look at broader themes.

“I was responding initially to this idea of death and suburban breakdown and suburban decay,” Summers said.

“I guess from that point on it’s just been about finding a link between five very separate characters who all narrate their own story in the course of one day.

“It’s the death of a character in the background that ends up linking all the characters.”

One of the characters, played by Ioan Roberts, interacts through an online hook-up service with the young man who is killed.

“I play a young gay man who lives in a bit of a dream world in his own room,” Roberts explained.

“He comes in contact with the boy online and doesn’t really leave his room but imagines the experiences he’ll have with them should they meet.”

Roberts said although the two young men never meet, Crossed treats their online relationship with a degree of dignity that he thinks is lacking from many representations of gay relationships.

“This young man gives great value to what he sees could be a relationship between this character and another young man,” he said.

“He sees it as a totally valid experience, which of course it is. There’s no tokenism in the exchange between them.”

Although the play may hold specific appeal for a gay audience, Summers said it really focuses on a diverse group of characters.

“A lot of the ideas the play raises are about socio-economic standing, mental illness, race, sexuality, gender — they’re all thrown into the mix,” he said.

“I think the play is not trying to show links between those things but to show a cross-section of what it’s like to live in the suburbs in Melbourne.”

info: Directed by Matt Scholten, Crossed is at La Mama Theatre, June 9 -June 19. Book at www.lamama.com.au

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