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Canberra Today 19°/24° | Tuesday, March 19, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Courtroom drama “The Burning” focuses on father and son at the Q

MOST theatregoers are well-acquainted with Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and John Whiting’s “The Devils,” based on a book by Aldous Huxley, but now it’s time for Canberrans to see “The Burning,”  by admired local playwright Duncan Ley, opening tomorrow at The Q.

Jack Parker and Amy Dunham as Francis Schiller and Madeline Couillart, photo Lauren Sadow
Jack Parker and Amy Dunham as Francis Schiller and Madeline Couillart, photo Lauren Sadow

Like “The Devils,”  it’s set in the early 1600s, this time in Germany, where a gripping courtroom drama takes place concerning allegations of heresy and witchcraft.

In Ley’s play, seen last year at Canberra Grammar School in a production by Stephen Pike, a young lawyer finds himself locked in a deadly courtroom battle against one of the most feared inquisitors of the age.  As his life and the lives of those he loves increasingly hang in the balance, he turns to his father for assistance.  But how can a father help his son when he too is behind the largest witch hunt the world has ever seen?

Geoffrey Borny, photo by Lauren Sadow
Geoffrey Borny, photo by Lauren Sadow

Everyman Theatre is staging this production, with Duncan Driver as director, and they’re saying “it is historical and contemporary, both an epic melodrama and poignant examination of the bonds and rifts between father and son.”

“The Burning,”  by Duncan Ley, at The Q – Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, July 31 to August 10.   Bookings to 6285 6290 or www.theq.net.au

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Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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