by Raimondo Cortese
Directed by Conrad Blakemore and Anna Ledwich
Cast includes: Paul Ellis. Debra Low. Barry Rocard. Alexandra Williams.
Presented by Jacaranda Theatre

New Writing from Australia -
The UK debut of the acclaimed Australian playwright's provocative duologues

Sunday, 23 July & Monday, 24 July;
Sunday, 30 July & Monday, 31, July;
Sunday, 6 August & Monday, 7 August 2006

Jacaranda Theatre returns to the Finborough Theatre with the UK premiere of a selection of Raimondo Cortese’s Roulette series. These raw, gritty, witty duologues have a dark edge of black humour and menace, illuminating the moments of beauty or cruelty that are inherent in any encounter between two people. Sometimes they are chance meetings between strangers, at other times between friends, colleagues or family. Collectively they present an epic display of human frailty… Presented throughout Australia, they mark the debut of playwright Raimondo’s Cortese in the UK.

Hotel: Tara and Jane, two “rough as guts” hotel cleaners discuss the intricacies of work relations, theft and Kylie Minogue - with violent consequences.

Fortune: After the death of his partner, Terry, an old age pensioner, is enslaved by an aggressive prodigal son.

Borneo: Angelica, a psychotherapist befriends a young passenger on a return flight home to learn precisely how it feels to have a monkey on her back.

Sickness: There is nothing fantastical about a dying man’s confessions to a put-upon priest about his Oedipal tendencies.

Playwright Raimondo Cortese is a founding member of Melbourne’s Ranters Theatre. Established in 1994, the company is committed to producing contemporary, text-based theatre in an urban context that is pared-back, raw, and immediate.

Jacaranda Theatre's mission is to produce innovative, cutting-edge Australian Theatre to the UK and abroad. It made its debut in 2004 with the London premiere of Europe by Michael Gow at the Finborough Theatre. Since then, Jacaranda has presented many highly successful readings including Patrick White’s The Ham Funeral, the Sex, God and Red Tape Australian playreading season at RADA and Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year at the Imperial War Museum for the Anzac commemorative weekend. They were also shortlisted for the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for Sam Sejavka’s The Hive.

Director Conrad Blakemore's credits include a trilogy of critically acclaimed plays by Paul Birtill - Happy Christmas, Squalor and The Lodger (Time Out Critics' Choice). Son of acclaimed international Australian director Michael Blakemore, he has made award winning documentaries for the BBC and Channel Four. Director Anna Ledwich recently directed Poet No.7 (Theatre 503 and the 2006 Dublin International Fringe Festival).

Paul Ellis is best known for his TV work in New Zealand on Shortland Street where he was a member of the main cast for five years. He recently played Benjamin in the NZ premiere of The Graduate and has appeared in several UK drama series including Dream Team and Mile High. Debra Low wrote, directed and performed Debbie Does Divas - A Cabaret Frockumentary in Melbourne . Her Australian television appearances include SeaChange, Janus and Blue Heelers. Barry Rocard has been a BBC journalist, radio announcer, newsreader, interviewer and London correspondent of various Australian radio networks. Alexandra Williams’ credits include Cloud Street and her Australian television appearances include Wicked Science.

PRESS ACCLAIM FOR RAIMONDO CORTESE
“Universally relevant, theatrically engaging and very much of the day” Director, Berlin World Theatre Festival
“Raw theatre at its most basic and brilliant” Craig Clarke, The Sunday Mail
“A power that can make everyday language resonant with emotion and meaning” Helen Thomson, The Age
“Language-based drama at its best ” Liz Jones, La Mama Theatre, Melbourne

“A young priest is pushed to breaking point by an exasperating wind-up merchant, chambermaid bitchiness turns violent, a presumed-dead son returns to haunt the living, and a friendship on a jet takes a sinister turn.
Aussie playwright Raimondo Cortese’s quartet of duologues, under the portmanteau title Roulette, are built around twists.
The audience tune to the wavelength, and the tension builds as they try – like readers of cracking thrillers – to anticipate the catch.
It’s a stirring UK debut for Cortese, and a real feather in the cap for directors Conrad Blakemore and Anna Ledwich, who cleverly steer the versatile cast.
Sickness, the first half-hour drama, sees terminally ill patient Carlos (Barry Rochard) push sympathetic young priest Brendan (Paul Eillis) to breaking point with a story so shocking that the man of the cloth forgets himself and explodes in a burst of rage.
Hotel sees seasoned cleaner Tara (Debra Low) verbally spar with younger colleague Jane (Alexandra Williams) in an exchange which also races up the confrontation scale.
Ellis and Rocard come together again in Fortune, as Vince, a long-lost son, staking a claim to the family home, and Terry, the man who lives there, having co-habited with the lad’s mother in the last years of her life. Laden with menace, it makes for superbe theatre; provocative and uncomfortable.
The four scenes are completed by Borneo, in which Low and Williams combine again as passengers in side-by-side seats on an aircraft. Once again, nothing is quite as it seems.
The plays explore transference of power and human manipulation in a way which draws the audience in and forces everyone to confront a string of genuinely unsettling situations. Great stuff.”
Tim Harrison, Kensington and Chelsea Informer