There’s An Animal In My Play

Two of Australia’s brightest female playwrights have made animals the centre of attention in new productions debuting on different sides of the country. In Hannie Rayson’s case the furry creature looks cute but has a nasty personality. For Lally Katz a cuddly pet cat is the star, but it’s the owners that have issues. David Spicer reports.

Hannie Rayson suspects that she might have the power to bring a species back to life.  Her latest play, Extinction, which will debut at Western Australia’s Black Swan State Theatre Company in September, is about the ubiquitous Tiger Quoll. It is a cute looking (but savage) creature that is native to the western part of Victoria at Cape Otway, where the rainforest meets the Great Ocean Road.

“In the course of writing the play there had not been a sighting of a Tiger Quoll in about 25 years.  When I pressed send on my second draft, I opened the paper and read on page five that there had just been a sighting,” she said.

“It was so spooky and exciting. I was thrilled to bits.

“It was in someone’s porch, climbing around and running off. They caught a picture on their phone.”

Since then they have set up a project and there have been four sightings. As with other endangered animals there is the dilemma about what can be done to save it from extinction. What an animal looks like can impact on public sentiment.

“You need to feel for them to lament their loss. I think they are quite sweet looking. Big eyes like possums.

“But they’ve got incredible sharp fangs. They are carnivorous. The fangs have evolved to rip flesh. You would not want it to bite you.“

There are different types of quolls all over Australia. Some (friendlier varieties) are kept as pets.

In her play Extinction an executive from a coal mining company is driving when he hits a tiger quoll. The animal dies on the operating table at a wildlife sanctuary and the executive is inspired to do something to save the species. His company offers two million dollars to a regional University in a bid to help save it.

Hannie Rayson says this raises ethnical issues about the implications of ‘getting into bed with a coal company’.  Lest you suspect the play is entirely earnest in its subject matter, there is a healthy dose of sex, intrigue and corruption. The characters “are getting in and out of bed literally and allegorically”.

Another ‘fascinating’ issue dealt with in the play is the viability of species that are endangered.

“An index has been developed about whether a creature is worth saving. If numbers in a species fall below 5000 there might not be enough to survive a flood or natural disaster.

“It takes economic rationalism too far. It’s like saying will we save the Javan Rhino or the Sumatran Tiger.”

Due to the rarity of the creature and its personality there will be no actual tiger quoll on stage.

“There have been no animals or children in my plays before. There may not be ever again.”

There is an appearance of some bones of a specimen and she might be on the lookout for someone to donate their cat as a prop.

Instead there is the haunting beat of a heart throbbing away in the background.

Hannie Rayson has big ambitions for the play. She’s hoping that Extinction, commissioned by the Manhattan Theatre Club, is every bit as successful as some of her other plays including Hotel Sorrento and Inheritance.

On the east coast Lally Katz is also premiering a new play with animals (of the more cuddly variety) as the focus. It’s part of a double bill called Dog/Cat downstairs at Belvoir.

In the first act Brendan Cowell writes Dog, described as the “not-so-flattering portrait of the tricky line between mateship and romance, and of the insatiable appetite of Jack Russell terriers for the most disgusting things they can find.”

In the second act Lally Katz moves to the feline side.

“The pet is shared by a married couple who break up and have to share custody. In my play an actor plays a cat. In Brendan’s the dog is off stage.”

Lally loves the ideas of including animals in her plays.

“Most of the time directors make me cut them out. They say things like I don’t know if you need the bear or the dolphin.”

In her recent play Timeshare, which debuted at the Malthouse Theatre, she managed to squeeze in a talking turtle, but only for a brief monologue.

This comes from her upbringing.

“When I was a kid I had heaps of pets. They are great as they change the energy of the house. They help you meet other people. You come home in a bad mood and your dog is there. They clean the energy in a home. They lift the mood. It is nice having pets as long as your cat does not kill native animals at night.”

But real animals on stage – that is another issue.

“They can be good but are attention stealing. They are unpredictable and the trouble is everyone is watching them.

“They are also very expensive as you have to pay for a trainer to be there.”

Lally Katz wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag about exactly how the actor will portray the feline but she promised that Andrew Lloyd-Webber will not be an influence.

Extinction plays from 19 Sep to 4 Oct - Black Swan State Theatre Company - Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre Centre of WA. Dog/Cat played downstairs at Belvoir during July.

Images: (top) Andrea Demetriades and Benedict Hardie in Cat - Photo by Brett Boardman; Myles Pollard and Hannah Day - Extinction - Photo by Robert Frith Acorn Photo, & Lally Katz - Photo by Brett Boardman.

Originally published in the July / August 2015 print edition of Stage Whispers.