The Gift

Presented by Hamley Productions

The Gift

Presented by Hamley Productions


Presented by Hamley Productions


Times and dates:

Friday 26th May 8pm
Saturday 27th May 2pm
Saturday 27th May 7pm
Thursday 1st June 7pm
Friday 2nd June 8pm
Saturday 3rd June 2pm
Saturday 3rd June 7pm

Tickets:

Adults $45
Concession $40
Student (full time under 21) $30

Earlybird offer until 7 April

An unlikely friendship, a generational battle and an ingenuously crafted twist that challenges moralistic values and social integrities. Wrapped in Joanna Murray-Smith’s glinting dialogue, The Gift is a witty examination of our modern moral confusions. This play has a secret. A preposterous gift. A life-changing proposition. Would you accept?

Self-made millionaires, comfortably middle-aged Ed and Sadie meet Martin and Chloe – he a struggling conceptual artist and she a wannabe writer – on a thousand-dollar-a-night resort in the tropics and instantly hit it off.

This unlikely friendship develops over drunken conversations about moralistic values and social integrities. Effervescent conversations are lined with pure envy: money and security vs. youth and vibrancy.

These self-obsessed characters expose the tedium of a life of consumerism, the narcissism of contemporary values, the emptiness of the commodification of art, the guilt that seems hard-wired into middle-class parenting, and the poisonous nature of nostalgia.

Wrapped in Joanna Murray-Smith’s glinting dialogue, The Gift is a witty examination of our modern moral confusions.

This play has a secret. A preposterous gift.  A life-changing proposition. Would you accept?


  • CAST

    Andrew Casey, Chris Jackson, Tia Landeg, Clare Pearson

  • Directed by: Chris Hamley

  • Lighting Design: Jason James

  • Set Design: Katharine Hamley

PRAISE FOR ‘THE GIFT’

“….it is no longer easy to fashion any moral quandary that can truly shock an audience, and Murray-Smith has managed to grab hold of (something) rare and original..” — The Hollywood Reporter

“Fresh imagination, shimmering wit and emotional honesty.” — Time Out

“The questions (Murray-Smith) poses are familiar, even if nobody is brave enough to utter them aloud. She is, unquestionably, a ribbon-wrapped present to public theatre.” — Crikey (MTC Review)

“There’s a secret — a preposterous gift — that is revealed near the end of Joanna Murray-Smith’s play, and it’s a real doozy.” — Variety Review