Andrée Lanthier
AUSTRALIAN
Premiere
STO Union
7 Important Things
Written And Directed by Nadia Ross
and George Acheson
A wonderfully touching and idiosyncratic work that is part
theatrical monologue, part PowerPoint presentation, part
psychiatrist’s couch and part variety show
Concerning a Baby Boomer’s stark epiphany, 7 Important Things is a deeply
personal and offbeat autobiographical work from STO Union, the acclaimed
Canadian company that presented its Recent Experiences as part of the 2002
Melbourne Festival.
In 7 Important Things, STO Union’s founder and Artistic Director Nadia
Ross collaborates with George Acheson who, at the age of sixteen was
kicked out of his house because he refused to cut his hair. Now a barber
by profession, Acheson faces the irony of his fate and looks to the past in
an attempt to reconcile a life profoundly marked by the times.
Born in 1950, Acheson was an active participant in two counter-cultural
movements of the last half of the 20th century. He immersed himself in the
social and political upheavals of the 1960s and after the movement fizzled
out, he found himself working in London just as the Punk movement was
starting to build. He has spent his life trying to find ‘a way to live’ in a society
with which he feels no kinship. Now in his mid-fifties, he sees himself as an
invisible, generic, middle-aged man. And as such, he has a story to tell.
the Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio
Thu 16 – Sun 19 Oct at 7.45pm
Sat 18 Oct at 2pm
1hr no interval
Full
Groups (8+)
Conc
Student / MF-Y
$40
$36
$30
$25
Here is a man who has seen his share of failed utopias; a man who has
fought for change in the face of wars and political manipulation of the
public; a man who, despite all those battles, continues to watch as the current
generation struggles against the same forces he’s spent a lifetime fighting.
Ross’ work and that of STO Union in general is often free form, playing with
narrative and theatrical conventions. Acheson’s story