Clara is uncomfortably numb. Cocooned in her minimalist home, and wallowing in unemployment, she’s overwhelmed and immobilized by the images of natural disasters piped into her living room by the pitiless glare of the TV. Clara is haunted by what she could aspire to if she could break from her funk.

 

Her relentlessly upbeat partner, Erik, wants to help her feel like her old self, but, lacking the words she needs to communicate with him, Clara sends him into the wild on a series of gruesome quests to collect items that will help give shape to her thoughts.

 

One stormy night, a stranger calls – and the chinks in the pair’s relationship begin to widen. The room drips with provocations, disturbing truths, and the danger to come, as manmade disasters and spectacular monsters come crashing, irreversibly, into their lives.

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Trollop was first developed under Playlab's Lab Rats initiative in 2011. It was awarded an Australia Council Literature Board grant for further development in 2012, and was announced winner of the Queensland Premier's Drama Award for 2012/13, culminating in a production in August 2013 by Queensland Theatre Company.

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Photos: Stephanie Do Rozario