“I thought I’d let her know I made it after all.”
Tilly and Egg have been waiting for their mother to find them. They haven’t seen her since she disappeared during a game of hide-and-seek when they were kids.
They’re middle-aged when Tilly receives two letters from her. She’s dead. Egg’s in prison, and Tilly needs special permission to visit and let her know.
Tilly was supposed to keep Egg close but it’s only the spectre of their mother that now brings them back together.
my sister feather had a two-week season at La Mama Courthouse as part of its Autumn Program (May 30 – June 10 2018). You can find some of the critical responses to this work below.
“Satchell’s text masterfully crafts these characters in this moment. Very little in this play is extraneous to this fragment of these women’s lives, but they are such complete portraits that we feel like we know their whole story, even though we really don’t. It’s not a prison play, despite its setting; it uses the prison yard as a crucible to distil this relationship between these sisters.” (Witness Performance)
“[T]his is a play of intensity and courage that swims in a sea of complex femininity” (Theatre People)
“As the sisters, Tomlins and McClory are simply superb. ” (Timeout Melbourne)
“My Sister Feather is a terrific play, fully resourced in terms of theatricality, sensitively understated and well- constructed.” (ArtsHub)
“It was my first time attending a show at La Mama. With its proud history of fostering and supporting great Australian talent (Cate Blanchett and Judith Lucy among their alumni), my expectations were high and I was not disappointed.” (Stage Whispers)
Written and directed by Olivia Satchell
Performed by Belinda McClory and Emily Tomlins
Dramaturgy by Emma Valente
Sound Design by Tom Backhaus
Set/Costume Design by James Lew
Lighting Design by Jason Crick
Assistant Directed by Fiona Spitzkowksy
Stage Managed by Julian Dibley-Hall
Produced by Anna Kennedy
Images by Sarah Walker
my sister feather was developed with the support of a Lonely Company Residency in 2017 and was shortlisted for the Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award 2017 and the Max Afford Playwrights Award 2018.
If you’re keen for some more information, there was a four-part series about the ideas behind this work produced by Fiona Spitzkowsky.
part one: phallacy of dramatic action
vimh 