highly recommended

— REVIEW of ‘The Economist’ | Sunday’s Child

The Economist | Response

Maeve Marsden + Phoebe Meredith | Sunday’s Child Theatre Company
7 Aug, 2012

One of the great things about being in C-Aquila this year is getting a C-pass, which lets you get access to all the C-venues for free! We’ve been taking advantage of it loads so far. Today, among other things, we dropped into C-Nova to see The Economist,  a play by an Australian theatre company about the Norwegian shootings by Anders Behring Breivik last year. The drama is a fictionalisation of the case based closely on Breivik’s testimony and diary entries, and sees the main role of Andrew Berrick played by a female actress. The play quickly changed from scene to scene and used the atmospheric underground space to its advantage. It was an extremely impressive and well researched piece which most of those I went with loved. I wondered however if the casting of a female in a male role (intended to contextualize Berrick’s actions as a symptomatic of a social problem, rather than the actions of a lone lunatic) was more distracting than thought-provoking. I also thought that considering the horrific nature of Berrick’s crimes,  the extremely talented cast and directer could have created a more harrowing piece. All in all though, the Economist is highly recommended.

“highly recommended”