Season 2025

37

Contains coarse language, racially sensitive commentary, mature themes, loud noises and the use of smoke, haze and organic dust effects.

There is a brief depiction of marijuana use.

Recommended for ages 15+ / Years 10-12

Coarse language

• Frequent use of the words  ‘cock’, ‘prick’, ‘arse’, ‘cunt’, ‘piss’, ‘shit’, ‘tit’, ‘dickhead’, ‘fuck’, ‘wanker’.

Racially sensitive commentary

• The content of the play concerns itself with the relationship between Aboriginal people and white Australians. As a result, we see two Aboriginal men Jayma and Sonny grapple with their identities and place within ‘Australian’ society in comparison with their teammates who are largely of Anglo-Celtic backgrounds. Characters at times express views that range from ignorant to explicitly racist. None of these references are condoned in the overall context of the play and its exploration.
• Throughout the play, non-Aboriginal characters make derogatory references to the skin tone of the Aboriginal characters, make offensive generalisations about Aboriginal people and alcohol abuse and reinforce dangerous stereotypes about the lives of contemporary Aboriginal people including about the totemic system, ability to track and relationship with ‘the bush’.
• The character of Woodsy makes many explicitly racist statements during the play and there are references to previously said racist remarks and his use of blackface. During the play he uses the term ‘Abo’, accuses a First Nations character of not being Black because of his skin tone and makes hateful remarks related to the genocide, death and rape of Aboriginal people.
• There is a discussion at several points in the play about the racism incident at the Sydney Swans’ game of 2013 and Adam Goodes’s response. During the discussion there are a variety of opinions expressed including some in defence of the racist taunt. Another part of the discussion references the genocide of Aboriginal people during the frontier wars.
• A character refers to his desire for Black and/or brown women as liking his “meat a little seared first”
• A white character suggests one of the Aboriginal characters ‘blames everything on (his) Aboriginal heritage.’
• There are discussions of reverse racism where Woodsy is offended by his perception of a double standard towards racism about white people.
• A white character refers to one of the Aboriginal characters as ‘a good one’ as he perceives him as not being as much ‘trouble’ as his cousin.
• Jayma and Sonny refer to a time where they were racially profiled as having stolen something and were stripped to their underwear in the store.
• A character calls a character of Italian ancestry a ‘wog’, ‘greasy wog’ and a ‘wog cunt’ in jest.
• A player says that China ‘owns this country’ and that ‘they’ can’t drive.

Production elements

• The production utilises atmospheric, theatrical smoke and haze effects throughout.
• There is a brief depiction of marijuana use. This moment utilises a tobacco-free and nicotine-free herbal cigarette.
• Several brief, loud football game sirens are heard throughout. At one moment, two compressed-air confetti cannons are fired, producing a sudden, brief loud noise.
• Vermiculite and Fuller’s Earth are used throughout the performance to generate onstage dust effects. Both products are organic. More information on these products is available on request.

Mature themes

Vulgar and crass language

• The banter between the teammates often involves crass dialogue that includes reference to ‘vomiting’, ‘shitting’, ‘heads up arses’, ‘mother’s arse hairs’, ‘toss pot’, ‘piss’ etc.

References to animal cruelty

• In one scene two of the new players in the team undergo an initiation ritual whereby they need to stick a finger up the rectum of a bull. This happens offstage and it is presented as a comical moment.

References to suicide

• Jayma mentions the suicide of his father when he was 15 and the manner of suicide.

Depictions of violence

• Woodsy and Jayma have the beginnings of an altercation with verbal threats that escalates until the men are physically held back from one another and escorted away.
• When Woodsy says a particularly heinous and racist statement, Sonny initiates a fight which leaves Woodsy bloodied and bruised. The players have to pull them apart and it is later remarked that he could have been killed. This is a moment choreographed with actors with the assistance of a fight/movement coordinator.
• References are made to injuries sustained on the football field including broken bones.

Sexual references

• There are several moments of mimed sexual activity on stage for comic effect. They contain the portrayal of graphic acts upon one another or, at one point, about The General’s wife. All of these moments are choreographed with the assistance of an intimacy/movement coordinator. There is no naturalistic representation of sexual activity on stage.
• Dazza simulates placing a lottery ticket in his rectum for comic effect.

Depictions of sexual violence

• In the stylised scene in which the team are drunk and pretending to commit lude sex acts on one another, one of these involves a player pretending to violate another player. This is not depicted in a naturalistic manner and is highly stylised and choreographed.

Depictions of drug and alcohol use

• There are several moments in which alcohol is consumed including to the point of becoming drunk.
• In a scene, several characters are depicted smoking and being affected by marijuana.

Never Have I Ever

Contains frequent coarse language, sexual references and drug and alcohol use.

Coarse Language

• Frequent use of the word ‘fuck’. Occasional use of the words ‘shit’ and ‘cunt’.
• Infrequent use of the words ‘spaff’, ‘nob’, ‘vag’, ‘shag’, ‘arse’, ‘cock’ and ‘twat’.

Sexual references

References to and depiction of sex

• Kas and Jacq make fun of how Tobin has sex. Kas parodies Tobin describing himself transitioning from ‘Missionary Position to Reverse Banker’.
• During a drinking game, Kas makes Jacq reveal that she had sex with her philosophy tutor. Adaego says that the tutor was fired shortly after.
• During a drinking game, Tobin and Adaego reveal that they had sex in a plane.
• During a drinking game, Jacq, Kas and Tobin all reveal they had sex in the library at uni.
• Jacq, Kas and Adaego reveal that they had a threesome together. Tobin feels betrayed and demands to have a threesome with Jacq and Adaego as compensation. They both refuse indignantly.
• Jacq reveals that Tobin was Adaego’s mentor when they got together, and points out the conflict of interest. Tobin defends himself.
• Tobin performs oral sex on Jacq. The sexual act happens in the dark. When the lights come back up, Jacq puts her jeans on.

References to sex work

• Tobin offers to pay Jacq £500,000 for sex. Jacq counter-offers that ‘you only get to go down on me’. Tobin increases the offer several times, and he and Jacq negotiate a final price together. To help her decide, Kas briefly enacts the moment of offering payment for sex. Jacq accepts the offer.

Depictions of kissing

• After drinking, Jacq and Adaego ‘grind and have a little snog’.

Mature themes

Depictions of violence

• Adaego and Jacq’s verbal altercation becomes physical when Adaego pushes and slaps Jacq, and Jacq throws a drink at Adaego.
• Kas pushes Tobin and Jacq gets between them to stop the fight.

References to and depictions of alcohol use

• The play features drinking games throughout. The characters chant and pressure each other to drink. They become uninhibited, sing, dance and do tequila shots.
• Kas says the restaurant failed because people are now ‘licking Snakebite and Black out of the gutter at 2 am’.

References to and depictions of drug use

• Tobin and Jacq take cocaine.
• Adaego says that she, Jacq and Kas took MDMA years ago. She emphasises that they got very high as an explanation or excuse for the threesome.

Sensitive commentary around racism and sexism

• The play deals with racism throughout as the characters discuss their experiences of racial discrimination and privilege and how they navigate them.
• Tobin, who is white, objects to his wife Adaego, who is Black, calling him ‘woke’ and describes it as cultural appropriation because only African Americans can use the term. Adaego objects mildly.
• Tobin talks over Adaego while demonstrating his knowledge of women of colour. Adaego and Jacq notice and ridicule him for doing so.
• Tobin repeatedly refers to ‘women and people of colour’ and is corrected by Adaego, who reminds him that ‘women can be people of colour’.
• Jacq and Adaego joke about the idea of bringing diversity and inclusion to hell, saying as women demons they never get to torture ‘high profile cases like Jimmy Saville or Hitler’ but that Eva Braun is a ‘good fit’ for them.
• Tobin is frequently dismissive of Jacq and Adaego, occasionally referring to them as ‘ladies’. He patronises Adaego and minimises her activism. She takes offence.
• Tobin claims he is being attacked for being a ‘white man’ and defends himself as ‘one of the good ones’, not like ‘Harvey Weinstein or Louis CK’.
• Adaego describes attending an event as a guest and people assuming she was staff. She points out the racism of the assumption and Tobin’s efforts to minimise it and smooth it over.
• Adaego accuses Jacq of making her ‘feel fetishized’ and exotic because she is Black.
• Jacq claims she is ‘not a white woman’ because of her family heritage. Adaego dismisses Jacq’s cultural ties to her Jewish and Turkish grandmothers and accuses her of cultural appropriation. Jacq disputes that Adaego is queer.
• Kas reveals that he has experienced racism as the subject of ‘random’ searches at airports.
• Kas reveals that Jacq’s mother ‘clutched her handbag under her arm’ during the Black Lives Matter March, implying that she was afraid of someone stealing it. Adaego finds this funny and Jacq finds it fair.

References to nudity

• Jacq, Adaego and Kas describe a Christmas card featuring a family photo in which everyone is naked, even the children, the youngest of whom is 9. They are all outraged by it.
• Jacq confesses that she used to wonder if Tobin was naked under the coat he always wore, and Adaego says he was.

References to financial insecurity

• The play’s opening premise is that Jacq and Kas’s restaurant, financed by their friend Tobin, has failed. They are now facing bankruptcy, and they have lost Tobin’s investment of £120,000.
• Jacq confesses that she shoplifted tampons as a teenager. Kas reveals that her family was poor, and she sometimes went hungry when she was growing up.

Sensitive political commentary

• Tobin, who is white and a financially successful hedge fund manager, repeatedly declares himself left-wing, woke and ethical. The other characters challenge him on this.
• Adaego says she suspects Tobin may have voted for the UK to leave the European Union and everyone gasps, taking this as a terrible insult. Kas confesses that he didn’t vote at all, and everyone else takes huge offence.

Sensitive commentary around sexuality

• Tobin refers to someone as a ‘he/they’. Jacq tells him he shouldn’t do that.
• Tobin describes Jacq as ‘sort of bisexual’. Jacq corrects him and declares she is bisexual.
• Jacq accuses Adaego of having sex with her as experimenting so she could ‘say she’d done it once’ and ‘seem like a more interesting person’.
• Jacq assumes Adaego is straight. Adaego asserts her identity as ‘a queer Black woman’, which Tobin disputes.

References to and depictions of crime

• Adaego and Jacq both confess to shoplifting.
• Adaego smashes through the glass doors of the restaurant on a motorbike.
• Tobin deliberately spills whiskey, and the restaurant goes up in flames as though he set it on fire on purpose.

Depiction of vomiting

• Tobin throws up into a bucket from drinking.

References to bullying

• Kas suggests that Adaego is bullying Jacq. Adaego takes offence.

The Removalists

Contains frequent coarse language, mature themes and strong violence.

Coarse language

• Frequent use of coarse language, including ‘arse’, ‘shit’, ‘bastard’, ‘balls’, ‘twot’ and ‘prick’. Single use of the words ‘fuckwit’ and ‘cunt’.
• Frequent use of coarse sexist and ableist insults, including ‘slut’, ‘tart’, ‘bitch’, ‘bike’, ‘bonebrain’, ‘halfwit’ and ‘neanderthal’.

Mature themes

Depictions of bullying

• Simmonds bullies Ross, his new direct report colleague, throughout the play. He repeatedly belittles, undercuts, contradicts, entraps, judges, insults and ridicules Ross. When Ross needs his support, Simmonds withdraws it.

Depictions of racism and religious intolerance

• Simmonds disparages Catholicism and uses the insulting term ‘Mick’ to refer to Catholics.
• The removalist disparages ‘wog bastards’ for undercutting him with shoddy work.

References to and depictions of death and dying

• Simmonds refers to ‘stiffs lying in shallow graves’.
• Ross and Simmonds discuss several ways to make Kenny’s death look like a suicide, including with a gun and a rope.
• Kenny dies from a catastrophic cerebral haemorrhage caused by his injuries.

Depictions of sexism and misogyny

• Simmonds describes a reported rape as a prank and a lie a woman made up to ‘square it with her old man’.
• Simmonds is overly familiar and flirtatious with Kate and Fiona when they report an assault. He ogles Fiona, makes her reveal her body to him, comments on her not wearing a bra, lifts up her skirt and inappropriately touches her under the guise of doing his job. He puts his arm around Kate and Fiona.
• Simmonds describes a deliberate process of the police minimising and dismissing intimate partner violence as ‘never arrest a wife basher if his missus is still warm’.
• Kate and Fiona are depicted as sexually competitive with each other for the attention of the police while reporting an assault.
• Simmonds declares that Kate and Fiona are sexually available to him and Ross. Kenny identifies Simmonds’ intentions.
• Kenny is insulting and aggressive towards Kate throughout the play and hurts her by accusing her of promiscuity. Simmonds judges and harasses her about her private life, which upsets her.
• Kenny taunts Simmonds by bragging about his sexual prowess.
• Kate calls out Simmonds’ predatory behaviour. He calls her a liar and accuses her of trying to ‘seduce’ him and Ross.

Depictions of and references to family dysfunction

• The action of the play follows Fiona leaving her husband Kenny and taking their child with her. Kenny violently objects to her leaving and argues with her over access and support payment.

Depictions of violence and abuse

• Kenny is abusive and violent towards Fiona throughout the play. He kisses and gropes her without consent. He insults, belittles and accuses her, gives orders, and shouts at her. He repeatedly denies, justifies and minimises his physical violence against her.
• Simmonds repeatedly threatens, abuses and assaults Kenny, asserting that he can do so with impunity. He restrains Kenny with handcuffs, punches him in the stomach, slams him against a door, beats him in the face and knees him in the groin. Ross attacks and beats him so hard that Kenny sustains life-threatening injuries. Simmonds deliberately withholds medical care.
• Ross goads Simmonds into fighting him to avoid taking responsibility for Kenny’s death. They hit each other in a ‘frenzied ritual of exorcism’.

References to and depictions of alcohol use

• Kenny arrives home ‘singing boisterously, carrying half a dozen beer bottles’. There are frequent references to Kenny’s drinking and drunk behaviour.
• Simmonds, Ross and Kenny drink beer together.

References to sex work

• Kenny says that if he hadn’t married Fiona, she would be ‘peddling [her] twot’.
• Simmonds bribes Kenny by promising to provide free access to sex workers.
• Simmonds describes sex work as ‘better … than raping little girls in the streets’.

References to medical conditions

• Simmonds says his wife had ‘kidney fits’ during childbirth and then was unable to have sex for 5 years.
• Ross attacks Kenny and severely injures him. Kenny describes his injuries as ‘me eyeball feels like it’s pressing against me skull’ and ‘something wrong in me gut’. The injuries lead to a catastrophic cerebral haemorrhage.

The Black Woman of Gippsland

Contains occasional coarse language, mature themes and references to and depictions of violence and colonial violence. 

Coarse language

• Occasional use of coarse language, including the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.

Mature themes

Depictions of distressing scenes

• A woman is washed up on the beach and appears to have drowned.
• Rochelle makes a missing person’s report for her niece Jacinta, who has disappeared without explanation. She is very distressed about Jacinta’s disappearance throughout most of the play.
• Jacinta is depicted alone in a hotel room, working under the pressure of a deadline. She is stressed by the history she is uncovering and the difficulty of her research. She is visited by ghosts. The pressure mounts to a nightmarish situation, where breakfast and newspapers are repeatedly pushed through the delivery hatch. She is unable to stop it, and she runs and hides under the blankets in bed.
• Jacinta accidentally sets fire to the hotel room.

Depictions of vomiting and bodily fluids

• A woman coughs up water and vomits as she revives from almost drowning.

References to and depictions of racism and violence

• The police sergeant is dismissive and reductive about Rochelle’s specification that Jacinta is Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai, and writes down ‘Aboriginal’.
• The play depicts and refers to European settlers’ violent colonisation of First Nations land and aggression against First Nations people, including rape, dispossession, introduction of lethal disease, murder, a massacre of 150 people, kidnapping a child, coercion, taking hostages and chaining people to a tree.
• The play depicts and refers to racism and the ongoing effects of colonisation, including the difficulty researching an inherently racist record, increased police scrutiny of First Nations people, unfair treatment by police, increased and unfair imprisonment, deaths in custody, police deliberately avoiding responsibility for deaths in custody, anger and the desire for revenge.
• The play depicts and refers to historical acts of resistance against colonisation, including theft, murder, kidnapping, rape, spearing and killing livestock.
• Jacinta quotes historical documents referring to Gunaikurnai people as ‘Blacks’ and ‘ruthless savages’.
• Jacinta describes a war zone between Tatangalung and Gunaikurnai as ‘bones and dead people everywhere’.
• Devilliers, the ghost of a colonist, refers to Gunaikurnai people as ‘athletic savages’ and says ‘the Worrigals extermination will at no very distant day be accomplished, as all intercourse with them is with powder and ball’. He points his gun at Willambulung. Jacinta intervenes.
• The police sergeant appears about to use the term ‘walkabout’. Rochelle calls him out.

Reference to drug use

• Kyle refers to a place where ‘some of the fellas go … to have bongs’.

References to and a depiction of death and dying

• Jacinta makes a shrine to her dead mother.
• Jacinta refers to a colonial settler finding the body of a dead baby in a bag.
• Jacinta’s mother is imprisoned for unpaid parking fines. She dies in custody from an asthma attack because she doesn’t have access to her inhaler.

Reference to self-harm

• Rochelle says she is ‘terrified’ that Jacinta will harm herself.

The Wrong Gods

Contains occasional coarse language and mature themes. 

Coarse language

• Occasional use of the slurs ‘bastard’ and ‘idiot’. One use of the word ‘fuck’ and one of ‘motherfuckers’.

Mature themes

References to and depictions of violence

• Nirmala asks the goddess to drive rich Americans away and ‘cut off their heads’ or ‘balls’ if they refuse.
• Nirmala advances on Isha with a scythe and attacks her. Isha defends herself with a sharp tool. Devi and Lakshmi get between them and physically stop the fight.

Culturally sensitive commentary

• The play depicts a clash between traditional Indian culture and Western capitalism. Nirmala is a traditional farmer who reluctantly agrees to try new farming methods. Traditional life includes arranged marriages, hard physical labour and limited opportunities for education; the new methods lead to dispossession, environmental destruction, social collapse and, ultimately, existential threat. Nirmala’s daughter Isha is caught between allegiance to her mother and her life as a scientist.

Reference to drug use

• Appa is described as being ‘high on ganja’.

Mother Play

Contains occasional coarse language, sexual references and mature themes.

Coarse language

• Occasional use of the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.

Sexual references

• Carl describes a sexual encounter with a man. The encounter is framed as though he is Anastasia Romanov captured by a soldier. The soldier threatens to kill him but then lets him go after they have sex.

Mature themes

Depictions of family dysfunction

• The family has insecure housing and is depicted moving frequently. Phyllis tells the children that the family has no money. When their home is infested with cockroaches, Phyllis pays the children to kill them and then puts them in an envelope with the rent for the landlord.
• Carl and Martha often appease their mother by facilitating her drinking and smoking.
• Phyllis describes how she only became a mother because she couldn’t afford an abortion and her father told her ‘marrying a Jew was still better than being a whore’. She describes motherhood as ‘a life sentence’.
• Martha expresses her intense disappointment in Carl and makes him move out and live with Martha after he becomes unwell with Aids. Martha says she will never forgive her.

Depictions of smoking and alcohol use

• Phyllis is often seen drinking and smoking. Alcohol and cigarette use are depicted as calming and comforting her.

Sensitive commentary around sexism

• Phyllis delegates household tasks to Martha and encourages her to take typing lessons. Martha objects. Phyllis repeatedly envisages Martha’s future as an unhappy wife and mother.
• Carl and Phyllis instruct Martha on how to walk. Carl encourages her to walk aggressively, while Phyllis encourages her to walk ‘like a woman’.

References to suicide

• Carl says that his mother’s music ‘makes me want to slash my wrists’. Phyllis makes a joke of it by asking Martha for the knives.
• Phyllis says the children’s father threatened to drown himself if she didn’t marry him.

References to bullying and assault

• Martha arrives home upset with a torn shirt. She describes how the usual catcalling she receives on the bus escalated. A group of boys held her, lifted up her shirt and rubbed themselves on her while the bus driver watched.
• Phyllis says the children’s father used a faulty condom, lied repeatedly, cheated on her and was physically abusive.

Depictions of and references to homophobia

• Carl says that ‘Edwardians believed that lesbians were men trapped inside women’s bodies’. Carl says Phyllis is trying to scare Martha into ‘being “normal”’ with books about lesbians. He claims that The Well of Loneliness and The Children’s Hour made him suicidal.
• Phyllis disparages feminist writers Betty Friedan, Simone de Bauvoir and Gloria Steinem as ‘frigid’ and calls them ‘dykes’.
• When Carl comes out to Phyllis, she throws him out of the house, calling him ‘dirty’, ‘filthy’ and a ‘faggot’. She denies Carl is her son and forbids Martha to ever see him again.
• Phyllis reacts badly when she sees Martha kissing a woman. She says, ‘was it too much to ask for one normal child?’ and tells Martha that she must move out.
• Phyllis describes how her neighbours avoid her and Carl because he has Aids.

References to illness, death and dying

• The family reconciles in grief after the funeral of Phyllis’s parents.
• Carl is diagnosed with Aids. Carl becomes physically weak and has Karposi’s lesions on his face. He gives Martha instructions for his own funeral. His death is depicted figuratively, with him disappearing into light.
• Living in aged care, Phyllis is disoriented, forgets Carl is dead and fails to recognise Martha. She is aggressive and insulting towards Martha, who spends money and time taking care of her.

Depictions of racism

• Phyllis describes her building as ‘going to shit’ because she will soon be the only one there who speaks English.

Depictions of nudity

• Phyllis undresses and has a bath. Martha washes her body.

Kimberly Akimbo: A Musical

Contains occasional coarse language and mature themes.

Coarse language

• Occasional coarse language, including the words ‘fuck’, ‘shit’ and ‘cock’. One use of the word ‘cunt’. Swearing is usually for comic effect, as the family has a swear jar.

Sexual references

• Debra offers Seth a hand job for $20, but withdraws the offer when she finds out he’s a teenager. The effect is comical.

Mature themes

References to and depictions of medical conditions

• Kimberly has what is described as a rare genetic condition that ages her body rapidly. As a teenager, she looks like a woman in her 70s, and she is not expected to live long past the age of 16.
• Pattie’s hands are bandaged from operations for carpal tunnel syndrome.
• Pattie is in the late stages of pregnancy.
• The teenage characters do Biology presentations on scurvy and fasciolosis. The diseases are described in detail for comic effect. Seth and Kimberly describe Kimberly’s genetic disorder. She finds the scrutiny hurtful. She challenges the other teens by judging their flaws and acknowledging that she will probably die soon.
• Kimberly suffers a cardiac event and is hospitalised. She appears unconscious but later admits to Seth that she was just avoiding her family.

References to death and dying

• Pattie sings to her unborn baby that she may be dead soon. Buddy later debunks this.
• Pattie refers to their former neighbour Mr Zwicky who dropped dead ‘out of nowhere’. Buddy points out that ‘he was a thousand years old’. Kimberly later discovers that Mr Zwicky died of a heart attack.

References to and depictions of alcohol use

• Buddy’s alcohol use is depicted as problematic for the family. He is hours late to pick up his daughter Kimberly and lies to his wife about where he has been. He comes home ‘very drunk’. He gives up drinking for Kimberly’s sake, but then regresses.

References to gambling

• Buddy turns up with a Gameboy and tickets that he says he got from winning bets.

References to and depictions of homelessness

• Debra says she lived in the woods after the family moved away and has been hiding in the school library for 10 days. She moves into the family’s basement, despite Buddy and Pattie’s objections. Debra is a comic character whose situation is not distressing for her.

References to and depictions of crime

• Debra hatches a criminal plan and recruits Kimberly, Seth and 4 other teens to help. She brings cans of chemicals and a stolen mailbox to the house in order to retrieve cheques from the mailbox, dissolve the ink, rewrite the amounts, change the payees, and forge the signatures. Kimberly agrees to participate as long as the amounts are ‘not big enough to hurt anyone. And small enough that we can eventually return the money’.
• Kimberly insists to the others that she will cash the fraudulent cheques alone. Afterwards, she appears with a duffel bag of cash. She reveals that she took Debra’s share of the money and stole her father’s car and her mother’s camera.
• Debra reveals her previous criminal and fraudulent enterprises, including a sham marriage, stealing a dress and tricking a dementia sufferer into giving her jewellery.

Reference to bullying

• Seth says it’s nicer to drive to school than catch the bus, because ‘no one is farting in my tuba’. The reference to bullying is comic.

Depictions of family dysfunction

• Kimberly’s parents are dismissive of her, which she finds hurtful. They don’t acknowledge her birthday, Buddy is rude about her wearing makeup, and they redecorate her room for the new baby while she is in hospital.
• Buddy is aggressive and rude towards Seth because he doesn’t like Kimberly forming a relationship with him. His insults are played for comic effect as Buddy drives them to school. He speeds and drives recklessly, which upsets Kimberly. She yells at him ‘I hope you swerve into a tree and … die’.
• Seth describes his home life. His mother is dead, his father is disengaged and his brother is in rehab. He laments that ‘being good’ has not been helpful in his life.
• The adults reveal to Kimberly that Pattie became pregnant by Mr Zwicky so she could have another baby without the risk of Kimberly’s genetic condition. Buddy hired Debra to ‘beat up’ Mr Zwicky, but Mr Zwicky died of fright when Debra climbed through the window in a pig mask. The reveal is comic and tragic, as the emotional reality hits and Kimberly suffers a cardiac event.

Destiny

Contains mature themes, sensitive racial commentary and references to and depictions of violence.

Sexual references

• Ezra and Della kiss passionately and are interrupted.
• Rocky kisses Ezra.

Mature themes

Sensitive racial commentary

• The play is set in South Africa in 1976 during the apartheid era. The story follows a family whose life opportunities and freedoms are restricted by the government on the basis of race. Ezra points out the unfairness of the system.

References to and depictions of violence

• Della tells her father that Ezra knows how to make a petrol bomb.
• Rocky likens life under apartheid to milk souring in a bottle and declares the only way to stop it is to ‘smash the bottle’.
• Ezra engages in political resistance, including writing activist articles, distributing illegal material and a march. He describes to Rocky the consequences of participating, including ‘tear gas, dogs, bullets’ and the risk of being killed.
• Della and Ezra describe Ezra’s father as being dragged away to prison. Ezra says ‘All Dad wanted was freedom, but was granted something else’.
• The police arrive at the house looking for Ezra, and the family denies having seen him. The police assert their dominance over the family. They demand ID, help themselves to food and then spit it out, describe the house as a ‘dump’, and warn the family to ‘stay in line’.
• Rocky is described as engaging in ‘an unconscionable act’ during the resistance march. The consequences are so severe that he has to run away.

Reference to a medical condition

• Mirna, Della’s mother who died years before, is described as having lupus.

Reference to death and dying

• Rocky says he had thought his mother died of lupus, but he now believes he was the cause.

Depictions of alcohol use

• Cliff sneaks into the kitchen late at night in order to drink alcohol alone.
• Ezra and Rocky (aged 17) drink Cliff’s whisky together.

Rebecca

Contains mature themes.

Mature themes

References to suicide

• The narrator drives with Maxim to a high clifftop, where she observes him standing close to the edge looking down. She says ‘he had the face of one who walks in his sleep’ and wonders whether he is ‘sane or normal’. The implication is that he is contemplating taking his own life.
• Mrs Danvers encourages the narrator to throw herself out a window.
• When Rebecca’s body is discovered, suicide is suspected.

References to death and dying

• Mrs Van Hopper tells the narrator that Maxim’s first wife, Rebecca, drowned in a sailing accident.
• The inquest into Rebecca’s death reveals that Rebecca was sick and dying of cancer at the time of her death, which confirms for the coroner that she took her own life.

References to murder

• Maxim confesses that he murdered Rebecca and disposed of the body in her sailing boat to cover up his crime.

Depictions of bullying and verbal abuse

• Mr Danvers continually patronises and undermines the narrator.
• Mrs Danvers encourages the narrator to wear a particular costume to the ball. The narrator puts a lot of effort into the outfit to please Maxim, but when she appears, Maxim becomes angry and yells at her. The narrator then discovers that Rebecca had worn the same outfit, and Mrs Danvers knew that the choice would be disastrous.
• Maxim reveals that Rebecca was cruel, manipulative and unfaithful and that he hated her.

Much Ado About Nothing

Mature themes

Culturally sensitive references

• The character Don John is referred to twice as ‘John the bastard’. His status within the play and his character as a ‘plain-dealing villain’ are based on outdated cultural codes around legitimacy.
• Benedick says, ‘if I do not love her, I am a Jew’. This metaphor is based on outdated and offensive cultural stereotypes.

Depictions of misogyny and sexism

• The main action of the play follows a series of plots to facilitate or prevent Claudio’s marriage to Hero without her knowledge or consent. Don Pedro pretends to be Claudio in order to win her over and give her to Claudio. Borachio and Don John trick Claudio and Don Pedro into thinking they see Hero being intimate with someone else. Claudio attends his wedding to Hero in order to publicly reject and humiliate her. Her father, Leonato, publicly says that Hero has died in order to expose the wrongdoing that will clear her name. If her name is not cleared, he plans to send her away ‘in some reclusive and religious life’. After Hero’s name is cleared, Leonato offers Claudio his niece to marry as compensation.
• When Don Pedro and Claudio slander Hero, Leonato does not believe Hero’s protests of innocence. Benedick and Friar Francis change his mind.

References to violence

• Beatrice asks Benedick to kill Claudio as revenge for rejecting and humiliating Hero.
• Leonato and Benedick each challenge Claudio to a duel for slandering Hero and causing her death.

Dying: A Memoir

Contains frequent strong references to death, dying, terminal illness and mental health.

Mature themes

References to death and dying

• The play is based on Cory Taylor’s memoir, which she wrote in the late stages of terminal illness. The text includes frequent references to and detailed commentary on death, dying and associated issues, including voluntary assisted dying (euthanasia), suicide, the death of a child, the death of a parent, sudden death, slow death, cremation, burial and funerals.

References to medical conditions

• Cory describes her diagnosis of melanoma, subsequent treatment and associated symptoms in detail, including the severe deterioration of her condition.
• Cory describes her mother’s experience of dementia as painful and humiliating.

References to mental illness

• Cory describes the mental challenges and symptoms of experiencing a terminal illness, including sadness, fear, a sense of loss and the loss of pleasure.
• Cory describes symptoms of mental illness in family members, including breakdowns and depression.

References to family dysfunction

• Cory describes strained relationships in her mother’s family when Cory’s uncle inherited the family farm, leaving her grandmother and mother with no share in the inheritance.
• Cory describes her father as emotionally and verbally abusive towards herself, her mother and sister. She describes family fights, her parents’ marriage breakdown and acrimonious estrangement from her father and brother.

Sensitive racial commentary

• Cory refers to the historic violent dispossession of First Nations people on her grandparents’ farm.
• Cory refers to family objections to relationships with people of colour.

The Robot Dog

Contains occasional coarse language and mature themes.

Coarse language

• Occasional use of the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.

Mature themes

References to and depictions of death and dying

• The play opens with Wing Lam accepting her own death.
• Dog recognises its own impending obsolescence and quotes May Sarton: ‘I am not ready to die, but I am learning to trust death’.
• Hus contemplates ‘existential dread’. Dog imagines a change in form that Hus dismisses as ‘simple materiality’ that humans have interpreted as reincarnation.
• Dog dies and becomes Heavenly Dog.

References to and depictions of grief and bereavement

• The main action of the play follows Wing Lam’s daughter Janelle, who has 8 days to sort through Wing Lam’s belongings and decide what to keep.
• Dog explains that ‘grief is a serious human condition that affects [people] in unforeseen ways’. Dog points out that Janelle is ‘stress-eating to deal with her complex grief’.
• Harry and Janelle argue over whether and how she is processing her grief.
• Janelle sees Wing Lam as a ghost or spirit and reconnects with her.

References to medical conditions

• Dog lists the side effects of a ‘language augment’, which are tissue reaction, electromagnetic interference, risk of cancer and diarrhoea.
• Dog reveals that Wing Lam had painful fibromyalgia.

Sensitive commentary around racial issues

• Janelle and Harry are unable to speak their parents’ languages, which is a point of tension and regret. A product called a ‘language augment’ enables them to speak those languages. Harry specifically uses it to help him get a promotion so he ‘wouldn’t feel like such an imposter cosplaying a blackfulla’.
• Janelle and Harry separately recognise that the language augment isn’t enough to meaningfully connect them to their culture.
• Harry describes checked bags as ‘blackfella bags’ and calls it ‘cultural appropriation’ when Janelle points out that they are from Hong Kong.
• Dog reveals that in Cantonese, the word for ‘Westerner’ is literally ‘white ghost’ or ‘white devil’.
• Harry describes how he got a police record when he was young because he was with friends who damaged property. The record prevents him from getting a promotion, and Harry recognises this as systemic racism.
• Harry reveals that the Luritja word for Chinese people is literally ‘eyes slanted’. Janelle takes offence and refers to other slurs for Chinese people, including ‘Ching Chong Chinamen’. Janelle reveals that the Cantonese word for Harry is literally ‘black devil’. They agree that languages are racist ‘relics … static ways of thinking and seeing’.

References to suicide

• Dog reveals that Wing Lam took her own life to escape the pain and avoid burdening Janelle with her illness.

Depictions of blood

• Harry rips the language augment off his ear, causing it to bleed.

Legends (of the Golden Arches)

Contains frequent coarse language, sexual references and mature themes.

Coarse language

• Frequent use of coarse language, including the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.

Sexual references

• Strippers feature in a funeral procession and ‘sexy backup dancers’ in the underworld.
• Underworld characters are described as ‘making out in a hot, but extremely over the top manner’.
• Merlynn is described ‘making out’ with the god Guan Gong in a way that is ‘slow and sensual at first and then suddenly fierce and furious’.

Mature themes

References to and depictions of death and dying

• The main action of the play involves Merlynn and Joe confronting cultural issues around death. The play depicts a funeral, funeral rituals and death.
• Joe tells a legend about the death of 2 guards. One drowns while waiting at an agreed meeting place under a bridge, and the second guard hangs himself.
• Merlynn tells a story about a fight at her mother’s funeral during a ritual of waiting for the dead to return. She later reveals that she had prayed for her mother to never come back, and says she ‘wished my mother would die when she was on her deathbed’.
• Joe and Merlynn are consumed by a fire. They understand that they are now dead and in the underworld. Their death is depicted figuratively.

Sensitive cultural commentary

• Throughout the play, Joe’s attitude towards his family’s culture and religion is ambivalent, dismissive, challenging and occasionally hostile. He describes cultural rituals around honouring the dead as bribery and corruption. He says ‘these stories and lessons [are] toxic’. He questions why characters in folklore don’t have sex.

References to and depictions of violence

• Merlynn tells how she shielded her brother from a knife attack with a bag of rice, and the rice spilling out stopped the fight.
• While in the underworld, Merlynn and Joe experience the following episodes of heightened violence:
  • They are arrested by supernatural guards who threaten them with paddles, hit them in the head and tie them up.
  • Bao Gong judges Merlynn and Joe and sentences them to death. They are beheaded by dog guillotines.
  • Merlynn’s face is erased. She looks at herself in a mirror, and her reflection comes to life, emerges from the mirror and consumes her.
  • Backup dancers skin Joe alive, revealing him as a ‘shrivelled ugly lonely monster’.

References to suicide

• Joe refers to a legendary guard who took his own life by hanging.
• Merlynn says that her mother took her own life.
• Merlynn says ‘I also wish I’m not alive’.