Black Swan State Theatre Company Presents OIL

BLACK SWAN State Theatre Company presents Oil by Ella Hickson - the audacious, vivacious, time-bending masterpiece that fired up audiences in London. Follow May and her daughter Amy as they traverse countries and centuries, from the dawn of the oil age to a dystopian, post-oil future and discover our most precious natural resource is love. THREE WEEKS ONLY, 5 - 27 November at The Heath Ledger Theatre.

How do we manage our finite resources? Is there any resource more infinite than love?

From the stage of London's Almeida Theatre, a hotbed of new writing, hails Ella Hickson's modern day epic and explosive play about empire, history, and motherhood. It charts the lifespan of one of our most precious commodities in a mesmerizing night, millions of years in the making.

Starring Hayley McElhinney (Mystery Road: Origins, How to Please a Woman) with a formidable ensemble of ten actors playing 17 characters, under the direction of Adam Mitchell (Every Brilliant Thing, When the Rain Stops Falling), Oil is an exciting and relevant new work for our time and place.

Spanning more than 160 years, the play moves from pre-industrial Cornwall to present-day Iraq and decades into the future.

At the centre of the play is a woman called May (Hayley McElhinney) and her daughter Amy (Abbey Morgan). Other characters appear within each new era yet retain an echo of past characters.

We first meet May in 1889 as a pregnant Cornish farmer's wife. The family is preparing dinner by candlelight. An American salesman arrives at their farm to demonstrate a wonderful new discovery - the kerosene lamp. The age of oil is beginning. For May this newly invented kerosene lamp becomes a source of personal illumination.

We next encounter May working as a servant in 1908 Tehran, at a time when the British are desperate to exploit Persia's natural resources. By 1970, she has risen to become CEO of an international oil company threatened by Libya's proposal to nationalise its assets.

But as May rises in the world, difficulties with her daughter, Amy, intensify and become deeply problematic as they head into a nightmarish future.

"Oil is everything great theatre should be; ambitious, exciting and brimming with heart. Spanning empires and centuries, it takes us on a journey of big ideas in the search for light. It's the kind of play that comes about once in a decade." Adam Mitchell, Director