The Gift

ADULT THEMES

STRICT LOCKOUT POLICY APPLIES – please arrive on time to avoid disappointment

By Joanna Murray-Smith

Cast includes Sarah Peirse, Simon London, Laura Hill and Marshall Napier

Directed by Colin McColl

"The Gift is theatre unnerving and vital enough to have you arguing about it all the way home." - The Age

"Murray-Smith has Oscar Wilde’s gift for one-liners." - Daily Mail

Sadie and Ed meet Martin and Chloë at a luxurious Pacific Island resort and instantly hit it off, despite coming from completely different worlds. When Martin saves Ed’s life, everyone knows the debt can never be properly repaid. But Ed is rich and Chloë and Martin have a need so great it seems divine providence when Ed, wanting to show his gratitude, offers to gift them whatever they wish for. But what they want is surely a wish nobody could possibly grant.

Spiced with Joanna Murray-Smith’s spiky dialogue, THE GIFT is a witty examination of our modern moral confusions.

“In her slick, superb, very funny, provocative new work Murray-Smith tackles the anxieties of marriage, parenthood and creative life. She has things to say: on art and our own palettes; the courage required and the consequences that come from, painting outside the lines.

I’ve had the pleasure to direct two of Joanna Murray-Smith’s huge hits, HONOUR and THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. Both these plays have had performances throughout New Zealand, Australia, Britain, Europe and the United States.

I’m looking forward to getting to work on this new one, which is a stylish and witty meditation on selfishness, and am thrilled to be working again with brilliant Kiwi actress Sarah Peirse, who we’ve enticed away from her busy Australian career to star in THE GIFT.” – Colin McColl