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HOW TO SURVIVE AN EARTHQUAKE

$5.40$15.00

How to Survive an Earthquake is a reunion drama about sisters, Steph and Jane.

Steph is a UN peacekeeper and trained nurse, who suffers from PTSD and has been on a mission in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. She returns home on the eve of her mother’s funeral to her estranged sister, Jane.

The action moves seamlessly from earthquake-stricken Haiti to suburban Melbourne and gradually, through a series of revelations, develops into a complex study of betrayal – not only of the genetic and metaphorical sisterhood but also of its ideals and principles.

  • non naturalistic drama
  • 0
  • 4 total
  • 2 female identifying, 2 male identifying
  • women
  • 18+
  • adult, young adult
  • Australian Script Centre


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Jane

Female | 40s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 70

EXTRACT: I thought I was pregnant last year... it started to grow... this tiny embryonic seed inside me began to take shape. Where it had come from and what started it was a mystery. I hadn't had sex for over a year. My age, hard knocks, bloody-minded stubbornness whatever it was it grew and began to take control of my personality.


Jane

Female | Unspecified | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 27

EXTRACT: The television hums five day test in the only room with a fan...you sprawled on the couch, cat asleep on my lap and our tiny terrace...is an oven. Outside the street swelters as people make their way home to a cold beer... heat shimmers on the parked cars. Total fire ban with no change in sight./ And, I'm still waiting./Storm clouds mass in the sky and tease thunder... yet nothing happens. Forty degrees for five days... and at forty-two weeks I've lost my centre of gravity, teetering like a beach ball on stilts.


REVIEW: HOW TO SURVIVE AN EARTHQUAKE

GEOFFREY WILLIAMS, STAGE WHISPERS, AUGUST 2013

"How to Survive an Earthquake explores the darkest examples of violence (physical and psychological) against women that renders these sisters unable to communicate honestly with each other about the single act in their respective lives, that has not only censored and silenced them, but altered the course of their lives forever."

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SKU: ASC-1521 Category:

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