Hotel Bonegilla is a play by Melbourne playwright Tess Lyssiotis. It was originally produced as Community Theatre by the then Murray River Performing Group in 1997.
A video survives of that original performance: disconcerting, to say the least, to see your 20 year younger self!
Yes, from November 16 to 18, Hothouse is doing it again!
On the premise that the refugee issue is as topical now as it was then, Hothouse is returning to its community theatre roots and re-presenting the play. As a member of the original cast, I was contacted… and rashly, recklessly said yes. There again, we only live once…
It’s been fun catching up on people you haven’t seen for 20 years, as well as meeting the new young performers of the 2017 production.
So… I’m reviving my schoolgirl German, singing on my own in the car, highlighting lines.
And remembering… walking in through the big corrugated iron doors at the back of the Butter Factory stage and looking up into the dark auditorium with no idea how we would be received… not unlike the newly arrived migrants stepping off the train from Melbourne into the darkness of Bonegilla siding…
Riparian 