New Theatre Will Reopen in November With THE LOVELY BONES

New Theatre is reopening in November with the Australian premiere of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, adapted by Bryony Lavery.

After almost four months in lockdown, it's wonderful to be coming back, albeit under restricted conditions. Our capacity will be capped at 75%, masks will be mandatory, and there will be both QR code and vaccination checks as a requirement of entry. But we finally get to once again share the joy of live theatre with our audiences, so it's a small price to pay.

The Lovely Bones is a coming-of-age story with a supernatural twist.

Susie Salmon is a typical 14yo girl, with all the usual preoccupations: she wants to be gorgeous, she has secret crushes, and favourite things. There's just one small difference: Susie is dead, lured into a hideaway in a cornfield, and subsequently raped and murdered.

From beyond the grave, she now observes her grieving family: her father, obsessed with finding her killer and getting justice; her mother, looking to escape the unbearable pain of losing her child by forging a new life; and her clever sister, discovering boys and embarking of the journey that Susie herself never had the chance to take.

And Susie is trying to find a way to help.

Alice Sebold's best-selling novel turned the horror-thriller trope of a crime and its aftermath into an elegiac meditation on life, love and loss. As she herself wrote: "the line between the living and the dead could be murky and blurred."

Award-winning British playwright Bryony Lavery has taken Sebold's beautiful novel and created a visceral performance text, both sparse and dense, that also surprises with its humour and verve.

New Theatre will be presenting the Australian premiere of this work.

New Theatre welcomes back director Deborah Mulhall, well-known to our audiences for her productions of Pygmalion and The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

"Years ago I became aware of the popularity of the novel," explains Deborah. "It's authentic voice struck a chord with adolescent girls everywhere. Last year I stumbled across Bryony Lavery's stage adaptation and brought it to the attention of Louise Fischer, Artistic Director of New Theatre. I'm thrilled that the Play Assessors gave it the 'thumbs up' to program it for production and that I've been entrusted to guide it to the stage."

"Sebold's novel a profoundly insightful study of a life unlived. Susie's authentic adolescent voice resonates throughout, and Lavery's adaptation is faithful to the novel's intent and meaning," continues Deborah.

"Underscoring the story, and using the myth of Persephone, is a social commentary about how women are captured and imprisoned in 'cages': cages of expectation or houses in the suburbs or relationships which inhibit freedom. Essentially, this is a story about grief, about family and about a society which denies women even the knowledge of options."

Performances run 23 November - 18 December 2021.

Learn more at https://newtheatre.org.au/the-lovely-bones/.

Purchase tickets at https://aunewtheatre.sales.ticketsearch.com/sales/salesevent/10860.