Week #19 : 'Tame' by Declan Greene

2012 and 2013 saw the Education department at the Malthouse Theatre create The Suitcase Series for Year Nine and Ten Victorian students with the script Tame.  
Students from all around Victoria have the opportunity in Term 3 to workshop a play commissioned specifically for the Malthouse Prompt series and then attend the theatre and perform sections of the script to other school students; as well as seeing a performance of the same script by the resident actors of the company.

'Tame' - Matlhouse Theatre Actors Production

The script was written by Declan Greene, who also wrote Pompeii, L.A and Moth.  He is the creator of “gay D.I.Y drag-theatre” group ‘Sisters Grimm who won a place in MTC’s inaugural Neon Season (2013) with the group devised project – The Sovereign Wife.

His work Tame is an episodic piece of non-naturalism theatre that explores one family’s predicament and behavioural response to climate change - ‘a slow motion catastrophe’ as described by David Suzuki.

Tame is described on the Malthouse Theatre website –

‘It all starts around the kitchen table.  A visitor from the wild visits and eats more than KFC.  An ungrateful young upstart fights nature with nurture.  And finally, apathy and disorganisation brew discord and then disaster.

Tame presents vignettes of an everyday modern family who seem to be ‘happy camping’ whilst the world changes catastrophically outside.’

And described by Declan Greene himself:

‘Now its eaten the family dog…. Will apathy, disorganisation or their new visitor (a bear?) ever allow this family to leave the house again?’

2013 was the last time that this will be performed at the Malthouse Theatre, as they have commissioned a different script, however still centered around the theme of climate change and in a non-naturalistic style, for 2014 (and possibly 2015).
I have taken a personal interest into this script as I am going to be attending the 2014 Suitcase Series with my own students and I am interested in the way that this process works.  I will be trialing out the Tame script with my first semester students and then work-shopping the new script for performance in Term 3 next year..... 
Wish me luck!!!  It's certainly going to be a bumpy ride!!