PLAYS with titles like bash and The Wolves might seem unlikely to attract large audiences.
But bash (all lower case) which is a collection of three one-act plays by renown American playwright Neil LaBute, and The Wolves, a comedy by another American writer, Sarah DeLappe, which looks at teenage girls rehearsing for a soccer match, have been hits worldwide since they premiered.
The two shows will be the final ones in this year's Newcastle Theatre Company Indie Season.
It's a format that gives people involved in theatre the chance to put together for short seasons plays that are not well-known, but which have very engaging qualities.
The works will follow each other at NTC's theatre in DeVitre Street, Lambton.
Bash has four performances between August 31 and September 3, and The Wolves can be seen at six performances between September 7 and 17.
Melody Thorburn, the director of bash, said that its plays, which run between 30 and 40 minutes, have very different and interesting natures.
And, while they are contemporary, the titles suggest that they were suggested by classic Greek plays.
The first play, Iphigenia in Orem, has the play's eponymous character as a baby girl who is suffocated by her father while she is asleep in her parents bed after he has become the victim of a practical joke by one of his workmates.
The story has him talking to an unseen person in a Las Vegas hotel room, with his reactions showing what his words have done to his mate.
Zac Smith plays the father.
In the second play, A Gaggle of Saints, two attractive college-age adults, John (Carl Gregory) and Sue (Samantha Lambert), alternatively address the audience, never speaking to each other, about experiences they had at a New York celebration.
When Sue and the other unseen people go to sleep, John heads to Central Park where he meets friends, and, as they move around, they come across two middle-aged gay lovers on two occasions, with dire things happening the second time.
How can John make himself more comfortable with Sue?
The third play, Medea Redux, has a woman (Anna Lambert) sitting alone at a mental hospital and chain-smoking while she describes a sexual relationship she had at age 13 with her junior high school arts and sciences teacher, subsequently becoming pregnant and giving birth to a son.
But when she takes the son to meet his father, who is married but has no children, very unexpected things occur.
Actor Carl Gregory notes that while elements of bash are very much like a party it has a gripping nature.
Neil LaBute, the writer of bash, has an interesting background.
He studied theatre at Brigham Young University, where he joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and produced plays that weren't acceptable at the conservative religious university, with some shut down after their premieres.
But he also was honoured as one of the "most promising undergraduate playwrights" at the BYU theatre department's annual awards.
Bash has 8pm performances nightly from Wednesday, August 31, to Saturday, September 3.
The Wolves, which is directed by Phoebe Turnbull, is mainly set in an indoor soccer facility where the nine teenage girls, who make up the title's soccer team, are conversing while they warm up before their weekly game. While they chat, they do stretching and practice exercises.
The things they say are very different. They look at global politics, gossip about each other unseen people, and refer to their bodies, their coach's obvious hangovers, their desire to play soccer in college teams, and speculate about a new girl who is home-schooled and new to the area. And secrets are often revealed.
The girls also go by their team numbers, rather than their names, which makes for an interesting cast list which features Sharna Harris, Lara Worley, Evie Laurence, Lotte Cottes-Jenkins, Emily Williams, Shae-Lee McDonald, Daynah Simmons, Xanthie Pagac and Liv Harrington.
The Wolves soccer team is headed by an adult trainer known as Soccer Mum (played by Jan Hunt) whose daughter is one of the players.
The Wolves was initially developed in association with secondary school students at Clubbed Thumb, a downtown theatre company in New York City that commissions, develops, and produces "funny, strange, and provocative new plays by living American writers", and had a three-week season in 2016.
It was reworked by theatre workers and students and won the 2017 Obie (Off-Broadway) Award for Ensemble Work. It was also a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
The committee wrote that, "for a timely play about a girls' high school soccer team that illuminates with the unmistakable ping of reality the way young selves are formed when innate character clashes with external challenges."
The Newcastle production has a running time of 90 minutes without an interval.
The Wolves has 8pm sessions on Wednesday, September 7, Friday, September 9, Saturday, September 10, Wednesday, September 14, Friday, September 16, and Saturday, September 17.
Tickets for both the productions are $25. Call 4952 4958 or visit www.newcastletheatrecompany.com.au.
