Turpentine

Turpentine is a new two-act play by Australian playwright Tommy James Green: a Victorian Gothic five-hander that dives headfirst into the dark heart of humanity as two spoilt aristocrats attempt to reanimate their young successor with the help of a mad doctor and a mystic, set over the course of a single night in the doctor’s cellar-come-laboratory. This “macabre”, “madcap” new play is the monstrous love child of Mary Shelley and Mr Hyde, crackling with Wildean wit as it probes in the dark at questions of loss, guilt and the desperate human desire to reverse the irreversible.

Cut throats and fever ravage the streets of Clerkenwell in the winter of 1887. One bedridden victim, seven-year-old Tiberius Milton, dies in the dead of night and is smuggled urgently to the door of Doctor Raymond Crow by his mother Cynthia and Uncle Percy. This gin-soaked surgeon and the electrifying mechanisms hidden in the cellar beneath his barbershop are their best chance at bringing the boy back before the rot sets in and the servants start to talk. However, Crow - their childhood physician - is haunted by terrible crimes and soon worse than ghosts join the Miltons in the maddening gloom.

Katherine Hopwood Poulsen (Terminus, Marrickville Town Hall 2023) directs Turpentine’s world debut at Flight Path Theatre in 2025, playing from February 19th – March 1st.

“Terrific… bold mythic storytelling with a dangerous modern edge.”

Damien Ryan - Actor/Director/Playwright (Sport For Jove)

“Madcap, distinctive, with plenty of laughs”

Simon Nye - Playwright/Screenwriter (The Crown Jewels, The Durrells)

“It is a stunning read, compelling, shocking… and excellently witty period piece.”

-Holly Lyons - Screenwriter, Crossroads, Home & Away

“(Turpentine is) a hauntingly beautiful exploration of the human condition … (it) balances the macabre with dark humour… compelling, horrifying… a testament to the power of theatre.”

Sophia Hadef - Podcast Host (The French Reader)

Creative Team:

Director                                 KATHERINE HOPWOOD POULSEN
Writer                                      TOMMY JAMES GREEN
Producers                                 TOMMY JAMES GREEN, MIRIAM RIHANI
Set & Costume Design               ALEX BAUMANN, JAMES SHEPHERD
Marketing/Graphics                  OTHNIEL MANI
Assistant Director                      ANDREA TAN

Cast: 

Dr Raymond Crow                     GARRETH CRUIKSHANK
Lady Cynthia Milton                  MEGAN ELIZABETH KENNEDY
Arthur Percy Milton                  HARLEE TIMMS
Dominique Moreau                   CRIS BOCCHI
Tom Daley/Sylvester Fenech      OTHNIEL MANI

Approx running time: 110 minutes