Reigen (2022)

Periscope Productions, Meat Market North Melbourne

18-21 March 2022

REIGEN showcases the fleeting close encounters of nine characters seeking intimate connection while falling in and out of lockdown. From lockdown puppies to falling for your delivery driver. From gig workers, to working from home, to out of work actors clinging to a dream. And an astronomer that looks to the skies to reflect on this moment of time, a blip in the history of this planet. It’s a play about the power of touch, how holding a hand or sharing a hug can feel like the whole world after months apart. The play is all the more impressive considering it was written by 9 playwrights in isolation, passing the play like a baton to the next in line. A resulting daisy-chain play is our most ambitious collaboration to date.

REIGEN is in fact a loose adaptation of a classic text of the same name. First written by Arthur Schnitzler in 1897, the daisy chain of sexual encounters examined the transfer of Syphilis in Viennese society, a disease that didn’t discriminate between social classes. We were fascinated by the form of the original play, and we have maintained this structure of a round dance; a ring of encounters. The play has inspired numerous adaptations, but none with quite so many writers! And we have refocused the work to examine the profound impact Covid has placed on our lives, particularly as this relates to physical intimacy.

Presented by: Periscope Productions
Written by: Amarachi Okorom, Ang Collins, Danish Sheikh, Fiona Spitzkowsky, Georgia Symons, Jake Stewart, Jean Tong, Thomas De Angelis and Vivian Nguyen

Director: Jessica Dick
Concept and Producer: Benjamin Sheen
Production Manager: Sian Halloran
Musical Direction/Composition: Joshua Bliss and Samuel Bliss
Stage Manager: Lou Howard

Set and Costume Design: Ella Butler
Lighting Designer: Georgie Wolfe
Intimacy Coordinator: Isabella Vadiveloo

Musicans: Samuel Bliss and Tyler Cahill
Cast: Chenturan Aran, Sebastian Lamour, Rachel Kamath, Andrea Mendez, Ruby Duncan, Zelman Cressey-Gladwin, Joanne Nguyen, Ryan Stewart and Josiah Lulham

Season:    18 March – 21 March 2022