CARE INSTRUCTIONS

DO NOT TUMBLE DRY! EXPOSURE TO DIRECT SUNLIGHT MAY CAUSE RAPID DETERIORATION.

“In Margaret Cameron’s hands, and with her marvelous trio of performers, Care Instructions becomes an enchanting evening of theatre … Some kind of magic is going on in this incantatory language; a summoning of the sensual pleasures of clean sheets and crisp linens, the smell of washing in sunlight.”
– Alison Croggon, Theatre Notes

“Not so much a play as a spell. It enchanted me at its premiere at La Mama last year, and it’s no less enjoyable to revisit. This production is sharper, its theatrical gestures heightened and thrown into relief.” – Alison Croggon, The Australian, July 13th 2009

“I loved watching and listening to Care Instructions. As someone who hates washing, it was almost cathartic to see the white sheets, the pink knickers and the black t-shirts cast aside with an intriguing mix of love and irreverence. The design is beautiful, the performer trio (Jane Bayly, Liz Jones and Caroline Lee) are divine and the language flows, splashes and meanders like a creek made of music…” – Anne-Marie Peard, Aussietheatre.com

In a post-Beckettian, dream-like laundry, the Sleeping Beauty’s thirteenth godmother is re-imagined as a triptych of washerwomen, possessed of a language that is at once melodious and daringly potent. In anticipation of the perfect drying day, performers Jane Bayly, Liz Jones and Caroline Lee (Alias Grace, La Douleur) shine as the mythical trio of women in-waiting, and women at work, as they delve deeply into rhyme, sing-song, and the allusive poetry of piles of washing.

Following on from a season at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre, the cast of Care Instructions folded up their linen and, with their washing bucket in tow, travelled to the Odeon Theatre in Holstebro, Denmark to present as part of the Transit VI Festival. Transit is an international theatre festival and meeting organised at Odin Teatret, and directed by Julia Varley, one of the founders of The Magdalena Project, a network of women in contemporary theatre that has existed since 1986.

CREDITS

Director – Margaret Cameron
Writer – Cynthia Troup
Music – David Young
Lighting – Danny Pettingill
Production Manager – Dario Vacirca
Production Assistant – Emma Gillingham
Video – Eugene Schlusser
Photography – Yatzek
Cast – Jane Bayly, Liz Jones, Caroline Lee

The tour of Care Instructions to Denmark in August 2009 has been made possible through the Aphids Sans Frontières Travel Fund which supports Aphids’ international projects.