Mayhem & Madness

Amusement and laughter are antidotes to living in a time when the world seems constantly out of kilter, and beautifully crafted short works are ideal in an era when everyone’s time is squeezed and precious.

Bittersweet Productions has curated a triple bill that explodes in mayhem and madness!

In one visit to the magnificent art deco surrounds of the Independent Theatre, North Sydney, we present two comedies and a short drama at affordable prices.

Alice Gerstenberg’s The Pot Boiler is a satiric take on the construct of producing a play – with farcical and physical comedy a plenty. Director, Sarah Carradine.

Bertolt Brecht’s The Jewish Wife is a 10-minute sketch where we feel the full weight of history and its madness and glimpse the scale of the disruption that dictatorship may produce in a simple domestic world. Director, John Grinston.

Alan Ayckbourn’s Gosforth’s Fete is a riotous exploration of small-town life – when no matter what peoples’ best intentions are everything goes stupendously wrong, and the comic gods are unleashed. Director Christine Firkin.

Gerstenberg is a playwright celebrated in America as an early experimental and feminist dramatist but is hardly known in Australia. Bittersweet undertook the Australian premiere of her gentle comedy, Ever Young, in 2024. This time we present her in full comic mode – in a work that was last performed in Australia in 1926 and was once presented in the trenches of the First World War.

Brecht is well known as one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century. Here we present his perfectly distilled mini drama that articulates the insidious nature of dictatorship. It is one of a series of playlets first performed in France in 1938 – Fear and Misery of the Third Reich – following his exile from Nazi Germany. It constitutes a visceral and forensic analysis of the personal costs that are paid when a democratic society disintegrates into madness.

Ayckbourn is one of the great comic writers of the late 20th century. He understands the fallibility of human beings and the comic potential of that fallibility. The dogged determination of people to survive and seek some semblance of happiness is beautifully layered in this glittering farce. Ayckbourn presents his audience with real personal tragedies but also mines laughter from its presentation.

The Jewish Wife and Gosforth's Fete are presented by Arrangement with ORiGiN™ Theatrical on behalf of Samuel French a Concord Theatricals Company.