The press release calls Holy Day a powerful piece of gothic storytelling. The play takes place against the isolation of the mid-19th century Australian landscape, where the tale begins with the arrival of three mysterious travelers and a stolen child. The relationship between white European settlers and the First Peoples is already fraught, and when an Indigenous woman is accused of taking the child, the act puts in motion a series of tragic events, as the intersecting lives of four women and four men help shape the history of a nation.
Political, complex and frighteningly current, this award-winning work deals with themes of race, gender and justice, exploring the conflict between new beginnings and forgotten pasts.
A traveler’s rest on the ruthless colonial frontier. A child is missing. A man is dead. A church is burned to the ground. When strangers take the law into their own hands in a land that is not their own, history will be forged and stories will be told in the name of survival.
The cast features: Connor Delves, Jillian Geurts, Daniel Holme, Shane McNaughton, Chenoa Deemal, Leah Gabriel, Pia Hagen, and Matthew Vitticore.
Playwright Andrew Bovell is an award-winning Australian writer for theatre, film and TV. His AWGIE award-winning play Speaking in Tongues has been seen throughout Australia, Europe and the United States. His play When the Rain Stops Falling has been performed internationally, including at the Lincoln Center, New York and the Wilma Theatre, Philadelphia.
His most recent project, Things I know to be True, was co-created with the British physical theatre company Frantic Assembly and is currently touring the UK. His other works include After Dinner, Scenes from a Separation, Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? and Secret River.