5 Questions with Chelsea Needham and Cassandra Sorrell

Chelsea Needham

Cassandra Sorrell: Did you always want to be an actor and musician?
I always wanted to be loud and untameable. There is nothing more exciting than sitting across from other humans an expressing yourself in the rawest way possible. Nothing more exciting for both parties.

Why do you think it’s important that these characters are both women?
I think it’s more important that these two figures identify similarly. The play is a universal exploration of the gray area between truth and lies that is essential to functioning human interaction and relationships.

What has been most challenging about this play?
Leaving rehearsals with an adjusted idea of what your truth is.

What’s your favourite line in I (Love) You?
‘It tastes like spinach but chunky.’

If you could design a piece of technology for the future what would it be?
An endless plant based goats cheese growing machine!

Cassandra Sorrell

Chelsea Needham: So I hear you write and act and do all sorts of amazing things, is there one thing that draws you in the most?
Cassandra Sorrell: Acting had always been my main drive until I discovered a confidence in my writing. Now the two ebb and flow in regards to what serves me more as an artist at any given time.

What’s the best and worst thing about being in a play set in the future?
The best thing is having the luxury to create a world in the room, throw around ideas and explore what could be possible. The worst thing is not having definitive facts to rely on.

Would you implant a ‘truth chip’ in your brain to stop you from lying?
Potentially. I would like to know who that person is and how I would relate to the world. I feel like I would be more authentic. At the same time…would it be to the detriment of creative license, as an artist?

What do you think is most important message about I (Love) You?
That truth must first be discovered in oneself before demanding it from another.

Is it true that the playwright’s dog comes to rehearsals?
No comment.

Chelsea Needham and Cassandra Sorrell can be seen in I (Love) You by Eliza Oliver.
Dates: 18 – 29 Jun, 2019
Venue: Old 505 Theatre

Review: Late: A Cowboy Song (Ladylike Theatre Collective)

ladylikeVenue: Erskineville Town Hall (Erskineville NSW), Sep 27 – Oct 1, 2016
Playwright: Sarah Ruhl
Director: Sarah Dunn
Cast: Andreas Lohmeyer, Annabel Mathieson, Eliza Oliver

Theatre review
The simpler the story, the deeper we can delve into the nature of being human. We have a tendency, in life and in art, for complication. Believing in the more the merrier, we cloud up our transient existences with illusory fixations that distract from the truth. Sarah Ruhl’s Late: A Cowboy Song takes the shortest distance between two points, and in the process, deconstructs some of the biggest myths that govern our every day. It questions the meaning of things like marriage, reproduction, money and work, central tenets that dictate how we live from minute to minute. We see Mary fall pregnant and marry Crick, who goes to get a job to provide for the family. It all happens without thought and passion, completely automatic. Their lives take shape as though controlled by an external entity, until they chance upon something else that truly moves them.

It is a funny play, though not always overt with its humour. Delightfully sarcastic, with a distinctly queer sensibility that informs its representations of gender, sexuality and relationships, Sarah Dunn’s work as director is very charming indeed. Mary is played by Eliza Oliver who brings nuance and poignancy to the piece, through an understated style that encourages understanding of her character’s peculiarities. Less quiet with his presentations is Andreas Lohmeyer whose eccentric approach provides great amusement, along with an intriguing but bizarre aura appropriate to the subversive material being explored. The eponymous cowboy is a mysterious figure, with Annabel Mathieson cast against type to bring focus to the text’s interest in exploring issues of identity and conformity.

Who we think we are, may not always be an accurate estimation of the person who walks the earth, but that self-perception must always be allowed to change. To know oneself can be a difficult process, but what is infinitely harder, is to pretend to be someone else. Mary and Crick try to come to terms with their own desires, but arriving at that state of honesty proves to be an elusive privilege. The cowboy is completely out of place, but what they experience, is a serenity and fulfilment that many others fail to attain. It is human to want to fit in, but it takes courage to stake one’s claim for a share of the world, without playing by all the stupid rules.

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