LOST BOYS

Lachlan Philpott’s Lost Boys and promiscuous/cities are published as a collection.

Lost Boys – Cy and Robert Murphy are teenagers living in a life of sun and saltwater, but as the sun sets, a malevolent culture of homophobia and violence surfaces, with consequences that ripple across generations.

Inspired by real events and told through the eyes of three generations of the Murphy family. Lost Boys rips into a dark part of our male-dominated culture, asking how perpetrators of violent crimes live with their unspeakable pasts. Commemorating lives lost, this deeply affecting and potent new work forces us to examine secrets held for decades, and prejudices still held today.

promiscuous/cities – One city, one night, and a new story everywhere you look. But this isn’t the San Francisco you may have heard of in songs or seen on TV. This shit is real.

The inventive large cast multi-narrative work was created in a collaboration with MFA acting students at American Conservatory Theatre. It questions San Francisco’s reputation as a place of freedom and liberal practices, giving the cities dated mythology a shake. promiscuous/cities shines the light on issues such as homelessness, the impact of the IT boom, gentrification and the continuing legacy of the HIV pandemic offering the audience a theatrical experience that provokes conversation about how urban landscapes all over the world are changing and forcing those within them to change too.

"Philpott’s play… [is] an incisive examination of the xenophobia and violence lying just under the surface of Australia’s apparently fair and equal society."

— Ben Neutze, Timeout Sydney, 2018

"Lost Boys is an unflinching play asking us to consider the ongoing effects of past crimes. It’s also a powerful demonstration of the ways in which language is used to dehumanise. The notion that words can’t hurt is comprehensively demolished."

— Jason Blake, Audrey Journal, 2018

"The sins of the past resurface in this new Australian play exploring the epidemic of homophobic violence which swept Sydney in the 1980s, and its aftermath… Lost Boys is an ambitious and important work which shines a dramatic light on a shamefully recent aspect of our shared history. Philpott, and Merrigong Theatre Company, are to be congratulated for this production."

— Richard Watts, ArtsHub, 2018


PRODUCTION HISTORY:

Lost Boys premiered at Illawarra Performing Arts Centre in May 2018.

APT