Former Eumemmerring Secondary College student Hayley Cafarella has helped form a new production company and is directing the company’s first play, Rhinoceros.By Rebecca Fraser
TWO former Eumemmerring Secondary College students are about to begin their assault on Melbourne’s theatre scene with a play about wandering rhinos.
Hayley Cafarella and Michelle Knox completed their VCE at the Hallam Campus in 2000, and are founding members of the new alternativemainstream production company Laughing Monkey.
Next Thursday, 25 August, will signal the premiere of the company’s maiden production, when nine actors take to the Monash University Clayton stage in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros.
The play is set in an odd French town that is being overrun by an everincreasing number of rhinos and is a surreal take of the political landscape of mid 20thcentury Europe.
Ms Knox said it soon becomes clear in the performance that the rhinos are actually townsfolk who have been infected with rhinoceritis.
She also said that through his work, Eugene Ionesco aimed to express the human condition and man’s attempt to cope with it.
Ms Knox’s boyfriend Aaron Richard is the third founding member of the company and she said the theatre had always been a passion of hers.
“Even since I was little I have been involved in productions either acting in them or behind the scenes,” she said. “We started to form the company in February and everything is going really well and we are all very excited.”
Ms Knox is the production’s set designer and has created a comicbook streetscape to complement the onstage antics of the actors.
She has also constructed the Laughing Monkey website and the play’s promotional posters.
Ms Cafarella is the director of Rhinoceros and has also directed three short films.
The Berwick local said both she and Ms Knox had always enjoyed Ionesco’s work.
“We saw a production by this same author when we were at high school and really liked it and thought this would be a great first play,” she said. “I am really enjoying the creativity and the collaboration with the actors and everyone else involved in the production.”
Former Eumemmerring Secondary student Hayley Milz is the lighting designer and Berwick actor Sam Pearce is a cast member.
Rhinoceros includes a score performed live by threepiece band the Blue Cheese Jazz Orchestra, featuring stripped down versions of Latin and jazz standards mixed with Hawaiian and Easter European folk influences.
Rhinoceros runs from 25 August until 3 September in the Student Theatre Space (Building 10) at Monash University, Clayton. Performances start at 8pm and there are no shows on Sunday or Monday evenings.
Tickets are $14 for adults or $9 for concessions with tickets on Tuesday 30 August are $5.
For bookings call 9905 8173 or for further details go to www.laughingmonkey.net
