DIRECTOR
Presented by La Mama
La Mama Courthouse, December 2015
"To win the vote they are intending to kill the thing they love
Which is me the Irish-looking guy
The square-jawed and the boxer’s nose and the fitness like a long-distance cyclist Like a man
They need to kill the last living man
To win the election they shall kill the last living no-hoper!"
Which is me the Irish-looking guy
The square-jawed and the boxer’s nose and the fitness like a long-distance cyclist Like a man
They need to kill the last living man
To win the election they shall kill the last living no-hoper!"
February the 3rd, 1967. Ronald Ryan waits alone in the condemned cell in Pentridge Prison in Coburg, Victoria. In an hour, he will either be pardoned for a crime he insists he never committed, or executed for it. As the clock ticks and voices outside scream his name for pardon or life imprisonment rather than death by hanging, he suffers to see whether he shall be spared or etched into the history books as one of the darkest moments in Australian criminal history.
Inspired by further research into the case and in the wake of the recent debates into capital punishment, award-winning playwright Barry Dickins returns to the subject of his acclaimed play Remembering Ronald Ryan in a a haunting monologue, a portrait of a man on the edge of oblivion, pulled between accepting his fate and holding onto hope.
Ronald Ryan: Syd Brisbane
Production Design: Nathan Burmeister
Lighting Design: Brendan Jellie
Sound Design: Raya Slavin
Stage Manager: Kevin Turner
NOMINEE
Male Performance (Independent Theatre) for Syd Brisbane
Sound Design (Independent Theatre) for Raya Slavin
Green Room Awards 2016
Photography: Sarah Walker
"Daniel Lammin’s direction effectively focuses on the fraught, inner world of Ryan’s mind and Brisbane captures the ramblings of this child-like man as he wrestles with the incomprehensible notion of imminent death."
Kate Herbert, Herald Sun
Footage of this production is available, please request a link.