Bladderwrack

Theatre Works

Two pirates – trapped for eternity in the bowels of a cursed and living ship.

TW Explosives Factory

With Theatre Works

Shows in the WITH THEATRE WORKS stream align strongly our values and missions - these works we co-produce and co-present with independent artists and/or companies.

“One of the most bizarre yet cleverest plays I’ve seen this year... Running at sharp 60 minutes at the well named Explosives Factory, this will definitely blow your mind.” - Theatre Matters ★★★★“A salty mix of Lovecraftian beasts, seriously stupid comedy, stupidly clever writing, opera, pantomime and seafaring scallywaggery – the debut of this new Australian work has plenty of ghastly delights to behold." - Limelight“It’s like Waiting for Godot, but with sea shanties and the most delightfully grotesque puppets. There’s a lot of fun on stage being had by both and it’s infectious... A final act that is calamitous, near-incomprehensible, and utterly glorious. More than worth a visit!” - Australian Arts Review

Bladderwrack is exactly the comedy horror science-fiction pantomime pirate show with bits of opera you’ve been waiting for!If it takes place in a small setting, it’s a big story -- so big that it has spilled alarmingly off the stage and into the realm of literature…Now the bolder theatre goer might “enjoy” the dark insights afforded by the BOOK OF THE PLAY.Including contributions from one of the leading pirate-journalists of the era, the book features the full script, copious illustrations, poetry, shanties, a scientific paper, and several additional stories -- all further illuminating the inky world in which you find yourself, alas!For your delectation: <a href="http://bladderwrackplay.com.au/" title="http://bladderwrackplay.com.au/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">bladderwrackplay.com.au</a>

In the chilldrippery of a sunken galleon, two ancient pirates dwell in extravagant misery: Saucy Jack and Bagfoot, their lives sustained by the ecosystem that has overtaken the bilge around them.Thanks to the bile-green phosphorescent bladderwrack that thrives in the ship’s bowels, their air refuses to run out – and thanks to the eyeless, dark-adapted ghastlies that swim among those weeds, their food refuses to run out also.So the men have existed for decades.Although they might prefer otherwise, their lives are not without incident.There are monsters and monstresses sharing the deeps with them -- a parasitic ventriloquist fish -- a living galleon which was once another type of ship, which was once another type of ship in turn -- swarming invertebrate horrors you can see only when your eyes are closed -- and more, each worse than the last.In fact, as the audience will discover, they’re the worst of all things. But there’s something still worse to come: the unveiled memory of why they're down there at all...

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