The Gabriels

Subsequently produced at the Summer Play Festival at Theatre Row, 42nd St., New York, in July 2007.

After the success of Fair at the Finborough Theatre (‘An evening that’s as close to bliss as you can get’, Aleks Sierz, The Stage, ‘A very good play for today’, Michael Billington, The Guardian), Finborough Theatre Associate Company Floodtide return with a specially commissioned new play from Australian playwright Van Badham.

Lisa ‘Bonnet’ Nolan, is a cult comic writer. Her work’s a mixture of future sci-fi and alternative lesbian graphic novels. She and her partner Jane have teamed up with a couple, Jerry and Allen, to parent a desperately wanted child through IVF. In her latest comic she’s exploring a dreaded future of embryonic experiments, unstable genetic creations and the human products of ethical dispute. A Christian fundamentalist government has been elected, laboratories have been raided and scientific research has been shut down. The watchful gaze of an authoritarian state patrols everything from explicit literature to sexual behaviour but their puritanical society can’t hide its genetic secrets forever. Meanwhile in Lisa’s kitchen, her son from her previous marriage, has just arrived to visit with his profoundly Christian new girlfriend……

This play was commissioned by Floodtide, with support from the Peggy Ramsay Foundation. Floodtide have worked with geneticists, faith leaders, ethicist and campaign group leaders to explore the complex world of contemporary genetics. The result is a brilliant new play that sweeps from comic book characters to biblical figures in a fast-paced, visual display of theatrical styles. The seven-strong ensemble play over thirty characters in a play that spans 3000 years of religious and scientific history.