Winner of three Green Room Awards, 2024
THE CROCODILE
by Tom Basden. After Dostoevsky. Directed by Cassandra Fumi.
fortyfivedownstairs. September 21st - October 1st, 2023.
Green Room Award Winner for Best Direction (Cassandra Fumi), Best Costume & Set Design (Dann Barber), and Best Performer (Cait Spiker)
“★★★★½…every element of stagecraft merges with guillotine-sharp synergy”
- Cameron Woodhead, The Age
“★★★★½…everything about Spinning Plates Co’s The Crocodile works”
- Anna Hayes, Theatre Matters
“★★★★½…if you want to step through the looking glass into all the delights Melbourne theatre has to offer, you couldn’t find a better place to start”
- Vanessa Francesca, Arts Hub
“This is such a clever, thoughtful piece of theatre…It should be remounted and toured interstate”
- Richard Watts, 3RRR Smart Arts
“impeccable…a polished, professional, coruscating, very entertaining evening that speaks to our times now. See it.”
- Michael Brindley, Stage Whispers
“It was really invigorating to see something that was so impressively itself and distinctly different from anything that I have recently seen.”
- Jake Stewart, Praise Dionysus!
SYNOPSIS.
"I’m not angry with you, Zack, I’m angry in general. I’m an artist, that’s my job."
After a sellout February 2023 season and back by popular demand, Spinning Plates Co. is proud to present the Australian amateur premiere of The Crocodile by award-winning UK playwright Tom Basden. Adapted from the short story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Crocodile is a ferociously funny, eye-poppingly theatrical play about art, animals and what happens when you try to take on the system from within... a crocodile.
An amateur production by arrangement with ORiGiNTM Theatrical, on behalf of Nick Hern Books.
Included on the 2023 VCE Theatre Studies 3 & 4 Playlist 2023.
DATES.
September 21st - October 1st 2023 at 7:30pm (5pm on Sundays) fortyfive downstairs, 45 Flinders Lane Melbourne
ACCESSIBILITY.
Please email boxoffice@fortyfivedownstairs.com to register for this. The fortyfivedownstairs theatre is wheelchair accessible. Click here for further details.
DURATION & CONTENT WARNING.
Advisory running time: 85 minutes Content warning: Moderate coarse language & the suggestion of, but no actual, nudity
CREATIVES.
Directed by Cassandra Fumi
Performed by James Cerché, Joey Lai, Cait Spiker & Jessica Stanley
Set & Costume Design by Dann William Barber
Design Associate Savanna Wegman
Costume Supervisor & Maker Alexandra Aldrich
Sound Design by Gabriel Bethune
Lighting Design by Spencer Herd
Associate Lighting Designer Natalya Shield
Lighting Mentor Rachel Burke
Stage Managed by Luci Watts
Assistant Stage Managed by Finn McLeish
Produced by Spinning Plates Co.
Photography by Jack Dixon-Gunn
CAST.
James Cerché as Ivan
Joey Lai as Zack
Cait Spiker as The Swing
Jessica Stanley as Anya
BOOKINGS.
To book via phone, please call 03 9662 9966.
To book online, please click here.
INFORMATION FOR SCHOOLS.
For access to our VCE Support Materials, please email us.
If you’re booking on behalf of a school group, please get in touch with Philippa at fortyfivedownstairs by clicking here to arrange reservations, payment and invoices, or if you’d like to ask us further questions, get in touch with us at spinningplatesco@gmail.com. Alternatively, you may book via the above phone number or website, and get in touch Philippa to arrange your complimentary teacher’s tickets.
ADVICE TO SCHOOLS: The production contains satire, political themes and explorations of capitalism. The production contains infrequent use of coarse language and the suggestion of, but no actual, nudity.
The Crocodile is a play based on an 1865 short story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The play is about a struggling actor (a civil servant in Dostoyevsky’s story) who begins to receive the recognition he feels he deserves only after being swallowed whole by a crocodile at the zoo. Tom Basden turns Dostoevsky’s allegory of capitalist inhumanity into a sharp satire on political celebrity in the Twitter age… by turns absurd, charming and subtly sinister. The play includes the styles of theatre of the absurd and comedy and has been described as an allegory of capitalist inhumanity and a sharp satire on political celebrity. The script as written incorporates three main characters, and multiple other roles ‘all played by the same actor in different hats’.
The script is available through Nick Hern Books.
GALLERY.
Images by Jack Dixon-Gunn.