Brooke Satchwell Will Return to the Stage in OIL at Sydney Theatre Company

AACTA Award-winner Brooke Satchwell will make her return to the stage and Sydney Theatre Company debut in a scorching new production of the century-crossing epic, Oil.

Playing the Wharf theatre from November, Oil will see Satchwell lead a sensational ensemble cast featuring Saif Alawadi, Violette Ayad, Jing-Xuan Chan, Callan Colley, Charlotte Friels, Josh McConville, Benedict Samuel, Damien Strouthos and Anne Tenney.

Written by boundary-pushing British playwright Ella Hickson and directed by STC Director of New Work & Artistic Development Paige Rattray (Do Not Go Gentle, Blithe Spirit), Oil sends its protagonists on a captivating quest charting the rise and fall of two of modernity’s most powerful players: crude oil and the British Empire.

Oil will be presented in the Wharf’s breathtaking in-the-round configuration as it transports audiences through a sweeping, time-bending journey from the Industrial Age in Europe to the Middle East in the 1920s, to our present moment and into the future.

Anchored by an intimate exploration of the bond between a mother and daughter, Oil drills deep into our social foundations, taking an audacious look at colonialism, capitalism and the inevitable march of progress.

In a remote English farmhouse at the end of the nineteenth century, a young woman witnesses the blinding light of an oil lamp for the first time before running into the midwinter night. She’s sacrificing the world she knows and the man she loves to build a better life for the daughter she’s soon to have. So begins the story of May and Amy.

The creative team includes Emma White (Set Designer), David Fleischer (Costume Designer), Paul Jackson (Lighting Designer), Clemence Williams (Composer & Sound Designer), Nicole Pingon (Assistant Director), Nigel Poulton (Fight, Movement & Intimacy Director), and Maryam Evans (Farsi Language Consultant).