by Matthew White
Caught in the headlights of her 15th birthday, Greta wishes she could be anywhere else. And strangely enough 'anywhere else' is exactly where she finds herself - a peculiar Through-the-Looking-Glass existence that transforms the weird hypocrisy of the adult world into something absurdly beautiful. The bitchy twins who make school a misery, her almost too-romantic imaginary boyfriend, her hyperventilating parents...they all crop up in her tour of her own subconscious. But eventually, even a girl asleep has to wake up.
From the wry, warm and wonderfully distinctive voice of Matthew Whittet comes a play about being lost in the jungle of teenagerdom and coming out the other side.
Cast : 10F, 5M + extras (doubling possible)
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<strong>Recommended for ages 14+</strong>
Greta Driscoll is on the cusp of her 15th birthday and grappling with first kisses, a new town and cliques at school. Then there’s her parents, who want to throw her a birthday party. How awkward.
In recent years we’ve come to know and love Matthew Whittet’s distinctive voice (<em>Seventeen</em>, <em>Cinderella</em>, <em>Old Man</em>). Now, from its season at the Adelaide Festival and the film version’s triumphant tour of the world, we present his hit collaboration with Windmill’s Director Rosemary Myers a play about being lost in the jungle of teenagerdom and coming out the other side. Brace yourself for an explosion of hormones, imagination run wild, and the kind of 1970s design that would make Wes Anderson squeal with delight.
Part fable and part lipstick-smeared vigilante escapade, this is a girl’s own adventure. Heroism and gender implode in a gaudy and gawky rite-of-passage story like you’ve never seen. Or have chosen to forget.
Don’t think you’re too old for this happy mayhem. Fifteen never dies.
<strong>Writer's Note - Matthew Whittet</strong>
<em>Girl Asleep</em> is about closing the doors of childhood and opening up the strange and incongruous doors of adolescence. Of the vast changes that occur inside the minds, hearts and bodies of kids at this crazy time of life. Of how truly difficult it is to be a teenager. Of how enormous things are. Of how emotional things can be, and how exhilarating the ride can be. The peaks are high, and the troughs are not. They’re the times I look back on as an adult, and know that the seeds of who I am now were planted at those exact moments. That only now can I see how important certain moments were when I was 14 or 15. That some of the battles I fought then were the ones that define so much of who I am now.
<em>Girl Asleep</em> started with a handful of elements. We knew that we wanted it to be a young girl’s journey. That she’d be a hero, and do incredibly brave things. We knew that we wanted to set it in the 1970’s. We knew we wanted to look at the ideas behind the tale of <em>Sleeping Beauty</em>, and at this strange time in some young kids’ lives where they seem to retreat. Like sleepwalkers. Eyes lowered, voices at almost a whisper, looking for all the world to not even be there. But beneath this somnolence and quiet, a storm rages. One that often threatens to swallow them whole. One that involves impossible challenges and fierce battles. Battles that they must face whether they like it or not. Otherwise they might remain asleep forever. Trapped in the challenges they never managed to overcome. And for Greta, our chronically shy hero, all this happens. And more. On the night of her 15th birthday, a party happens that she never even wanted. A party where everyone is invited. Even her worst fears and nightmares.
The journey of this story has been a long and incredible one. It started as the third play in a trilogy of teenage stories, along with <em>Fugitive</em> and <em>School Dance</em> which were all performed in repertory at the 2014 Adelaide Festival of Arts. Then it transformed its way into becoming a screenplay, which was made by the same team along with some excellent new additions, and has gone on to find a whole new life and audience. Greta’s story has had a life and an energy all of its own. For which I’m eternally grateful.
All these works <em>Fugitive</em>, <em>School </em><em>Dance</em> and both permutations of <em>Girl Asleep</em> have been made with an immense amount of joy, silliness, craft and heart. They are all about friendship in one way or another, and they have all sprung from a friendship amongst the most excellent bunch of theatre brains. Generous, excitable and infinitely imaginative people, who all know the value of a good fart joke. Seriously.
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