Grace

Female | 60+ | 3 to 5 minutes
Starts on page 26

EXTRACT: I mean you don't want to have one aspect of your life colour every other part. To be judged through a single event, as if that is all you are: The Old Lady Who Was Raped... it's not related to Climate Change, to what my group was setting out to do. It was very much about what brought me there, to that point. Another stepping-stone. The first one really. But that's not who I am. 'The Old Lady Who Was...' It's not me. It doesn't define me.

Grace

Female | 60+ | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 4

EXTRACT: She missed him a lot. Her father. We all did. ( BEAT) Derrick, he was political all his life. Very much a Labor man, although I think he was tempted to join the communist party at one point. For about five minutes. When he died we had been married for fifty-six years, and in all that time I ..... I was just never interested in politics. I voted the other way most of the time. Though he never knew. But for him it was a driving force. Even after his accident.

Tim

Male | 20s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 21

EXTRACT: I saw dad kill it. The same bird. It had got caught in some old fishing net, dad said. He found it half dead between some rocks on the sea wall. Typical dad, he was too lazy and drunk to do anything other than kill it. He killed it with a rock. I just remember seeing him lift this rock and drop it. I was walking over to him and I got there and there it was. A dead pelican. For a second I was going to say 'Oh wow!' But I didn't. I just suddenly felt very sad.

LOVE AND LIFE BY THE OPEN FRIDGE

JASON BLAKE, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 21 NOVEMBER 2012

"In this ambiguously disturbing opening pas de deux, playwright William Zappa distils the story of a shocking crime. The next 90 minutes is devoted to its unexpectedly uplifting consequences: the environmental awakening of Grace (Maggie Blinco), an elderly woman who could have been cowed by life-changing events but is instead catalysed by them."

REVIEW: THE GREENING OF GRACE

DIANA SIMMONDS, STAGENOISE, 21 NOVEMBER 2012

"Zappa unabashedly wears his own political heart on his sleeve in this play. His playwright-director's notes in the program make that quite obvious. Yet, because his clear focus is granny Grace, this is neither a diatribe nor a lecture, but a series of intertwined personal-political family tales that lead to an out and out fairy-tale conclusion. Before that, however, the stories are revealed in seamless and well-orchestrated flashback scenes."

REVIEW: THE GREENING OF GRACE

MARTIN PORTUS, STAGE WHISPERS, NOVEMBER 2012

"Zappa instantly engages us in Grace and Derrick’s modest home life with his fine ear for truthful characters and realistic, yet poetic, dialogue."