new theatre

Patron: Tom Uren AO
542 King Street Newtown 2042
Media Enquiries: 9519 3403
Fax: 9519 8960
Email: mail@newtheatre.org.au
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News Feed NEW DIRECTIONS - SEASON 2008 - 4 PLAYS OVER 4 WEEKS (11 July 2008) Director Leigh Rowney explains why he was drawn to Corpus Christi (20 January 2008) Help Save New Theatre (14 January 2008) CONFUSIONS (5 November 2007) TRAITORS (3 September 2007) NEW DIRECTIONS Season 2007 - "ROOM TO PLAY" 3 plays - 3 weeks - 3 of Britain's best contemporary playwrights (6 August 2007) The Man from Mukinupin (21 June 2007) Oh, What A Lovely War, Mate! (11 May 2007) Life After George (30 Mar 2007) new theatre honoured by NIDA (21 Mar 2007) new theatre to host refugee children at Saturday Kids' Club (9 Feb 2007)

MEDIA RELEASE: Monday 3 September 2007

TRAITORS
by Stephen Sewell

Set in Russia at the dawn of Stalinism, TRAITORS explores the conflict between the personal and the political, and charts the destruction of truth and innocence in the face of paranoia and fanaticism.

Sardonic, confronting and compassionate, TRAITORS is both a brutal social parable and a profoundly human story of love and idealism gone tragically wrong.

Written in 1979, TRAITORS established Stephen Sewell as a challenging new voice in Australian drama. Nearly 30 years on, the play continues to resonate, as our leaders tell us to be alert by not alarmed, and citizens can be locked up and disappear without charge.

Sewell has been called 'the conscience of Australian theatre' and certainly his trademark has been an uncompromising courage to be the voice that questions, rants against and lays bare the foibles of those who wield power at the expense of those who hold none. His prolific output has ranged across many subjects, from the intimate examination of troubled family dynamics in The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea to an expose of the down and dirty nature of national politics in The Blind Giant is Dancing to revealing the truth about the destruction of freedom being enacted in our name post 9/11 in Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America.

"Your relationship with power, how you manipulate power and how power manipulates you. That definition makes politics a central part of all human life." So commented Stephen Sewell in 2004 at the time of the 25^th anniversary of TRAITORS, and it stands as a testament to what is the defining characteristic of his work. As an artist, he feels a connection to the painter Francis Bacon, the subject of his play Three Furies, who embraced an energetic extremism in his life and art. "He wanted to confront reality and the world in all its brutality and rawness, vitality and vigour. And those are artistic goals that I share."

Stephen Sewell is available for interviews.

For all media enquiries, including arranging interviews and photo shoots and obtaining pre-production images, please contact: newtheatre@bigpond.com / 9519 3403

TRAITORS
by Stephen Sewell
20 September - 27 October 2007
Thursday - Saturday @ 8pm, Sunday @ 5pm
Tickets: $27 / $22 / $10 Preview Wednesday 19 September 2007
FREE performance for unwaged: Sunday 23 September 2007
Bookings: 1300 306 776 / www.mca-tix.com