TBC Theatre presents 'Shadows of Angels'
Truth. Beauty. Crime.
Wicked women, seductive sinners, vicious vixens – thanks to Hollywood the femme fatale is depicted as a curvaceous, red-lipped, glamorous blonde with a gun in her hand. It’s time to shatter that fantasy and discover the reality.
Set within the city slums of Australia in 1929, Shadows of Angels explores the real femmes fatales of Australia. Desperate lives, dangerous minds: Australia's female criminal will be held up to scrutiny in a gripping piece of theatre.
TBC Theatre partners with the National Trust to present an arresting and immersive theatrical experience like no other this October at the historic City Watch House. From the moment they arrive, the audience will be whisked back to the gritty streets of Melbourne in the late 1920s. The graffitied cells, iron-barred exercise yards and echoing hallways of Melbourne’s historic City Watch House provide a unique backdrop for the tragic and dramatic confessions of four ‘fallen angels’.


About the play:
Shadows of Angels is an original work by emerging Melbourne playwright Fleur Murphy. It came about after Fleur attended the Femme Fatale- The Female Criminal exhibition curated by the Police and Justice Museum in Sydney. What stayed with Fleur was the dramatic difference between the ‘deadly women’ of Hollywood’s film noir and the gritty, real life mug shots of Australian female criminals in the 1920s.
On the surface you would find it hard to connect these two images – one beautiful, sexual and glamorous, the other sad, dirty and hauntingly real. Beyond the image you see that both sets are desperate women trying to survive using whatever skills they have: sexuality, manipulation, street smarts or murder.
Shadows of Angels focuses on the real, gritty lives of the Australian female criminal. Through their stories you see that issues of poverty, violence, crime and sexuality are still just as relevant today as they were almost 100 years ago.
Shadows of Angels premiered at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2012, and received acclaim at the SheppARTon Arts Festival and the Owl and the Pussycat Theatre in Richmond in 2013. The show’s return to Melbourne in such an historically relevant venue offers TBC Theatre the scope to present the play in a way that it has never been realised before.


A few review highlights from previous productions:
‘5 STARS - “Shadows of Angels” is faultless.’ - New Adelaide Theatre Guide

‘Fleur Murphy’s writing crackles with dark wit and beauty… The script is beautifully crafted. It is steamy and strong, blackly comic and heartbreaking… Chris Saxton’s direction is subtle yet deliberate, and works seamlessly to provide the actors with focus and guidance to bring the script to life… It is a play that crackles with the raw talent of its writer, director and actors, and tells an Australian story most people have never discovered, but most definitely deserves to be told.’ - 4 STARS -Theatre People

‘Superb performances in a dark and gritty play… Chris Saxton has directed a show that stays with you long after it’s over. His efforts in creating the right blend of horror and sympathy both emotionally and physically on stage are what theatre is meant to be about: creating a world that envelops you until you feel like you are actually there.’ – Theatre Press

‘Fleur Murphy's story-telling sparkles in this gritty piece about four 'femme fatales' … Murphy writes whirling, unfiltered emotion most powerfully. Not only does it suck the audience into the imagined place, but it guides the actor with the precision of tram-tracks.’ – Australian Stage

‘Shadows of Angels is a dark, haunting play…crime is the only way they can survive in the harsh conditions, but there is a frailness and vulnerable quality in all of these women, which makes this play a must-see at this year’s Adelaide Fringe Festival. 4 STARS.’ - UKFringe Review


Our partnership with The National Trust:
The National Trust manages some truly spectacular historical sites, but perhaps none so haunting as the Watch House. Connected to the Melbourne Gaol, the Watch House was Melbourne's half-way spot for all kinds of criminals until 1996. Whether you were picked up drunk on King Street or arrested for a strangling on St Kilda's shores, the Watch House represented your first holding cell. With this venue in function as recently as 1996, the Watch House still holds the sounds, sights and even smells of the people it was temporarily home to. Its walls bear the visible scars of our society.
TBC has partnered with the National Trust to perform in this space. We are incredibly lucky to have such a partnership that wants to help us achieve our aims of attracting an eclectic audience through producing bold, live experiences which challenge the traditional notion of theatre. We are hoping to introduce a new audience to the rich history the National Trust has to offer.
We can't overemphasise the extraordinariness of this opportunity. Independent theatre companies don't always have access to financial support through higher funding from arts bodies. Partnerships such as this one offer smaller theatre companies the support, resources and creative freedom to produce high-quality work, something that makes Melbourne's theatre scene one of the most vibrant in the world. For us, it's the opportunity to present our exploration of four female Australian historical characters – to present real Australian women's stories – against a backdrop worthy of them.
                      

What are the funds for?
The National Trust's support can only get us part way. To produce high-quality work we need financial support as well.
The funds we receive will go towards production costs, marketing, design and general running costs. Partnering with the National Trust has given us the opportunity to present independent theatre to a whole new audience. Our marketing campaign reaches out across 19 Trust sites in Victoria, reaching tourists and visitors alike. Funds will go toward the printing of postcards, banners and posters in metro and regional Victoria, as well as fees for listings online and in print. Half of our budget is dedicated to this – because it really isn't worth having such an amazing venue if we can't share it with everyone we can reach.
While in the past Shadows has featured only the four main cast members, we're taking advantage of our ensemble skills and the venue to present an immersive experience this time around. By this we intend to drag audiences down into the pits of a 1920s Melbourne summer, to meet with our femmes in their own space and watch their stories bloom like malevolent violets. This would be impossible without period costumes for our 8 cast, including authentic specialist pieces such as police uniforms. Funds from this campaign will allow us to do this.
This unconventional theatre space also requires quite a creative approach to lighting and sound design, so we'll be using funds to give the audience the best theatrical experience possible.

There are two major challenges within this project that your support will help us work through.
1.  Having the National Trust on board means that the potential audience for this production is far broader than what a typical independent theatre company would have access to. The Trust has an extensive mailing list and covers 18 different sites around Melbourne. All of this is an opportunity for us to get the word out around the show – and we believe there will be a high level of interest for the National Trust members who love to see their beautiful spaces being used in innovative ways. Given the demographic of the Trust’s database, the marketing needed to reach these people is going to be more traditional – meaning we need collateral in each of the venues and for the mail out, in addition to just pushing it on social media.
2.  The second major issue is the logistics of using a venue that was not set up as a performance space. Presenting immersive theatre in these kinds of spaces has worked to great success in cities like New York and London but is still relatively new to Melbourne.
The City Watch House was built over a hundred years ago and whilst it’s the perfect venue for this story to be told, it was obviously not built with the technical needs of a theatre production in mind.
We’re not only going to need to provide all the technical aspects of the production (staging, lighting, sound equipment etc) but given that the venue is a tourist attraction, we also need to bump out at the end of every show to clear the space for tours the next day. It’s going to take man power and a whole lot of creative thinking, but it’s a worthwhile investment for the opportunity to immerse the audience in the world of this story.