Catapult

Premiered at The Mechanics Institute Brunswick Melbourne 2004 director Alyson Campbell.

Nominated best play Melbourne Fringe Awards 2005.

Now I’m further down the street and you are with me sitting like a puppy I push around in a pram. I sometimes wonder what it’d be like to stand at the top of a hill and push you gently from the top. If I ran behind and let you crash would you let me comfort you when you smashed your face. Which bit of your body would I keep if you were torn in half by a truck and how long would it be before I stopped
pushing the empty pram around?
You look straight ahead. I look left and right.
Our eyes meet and one of us wants to turn the lights off. It changes who.

An examination of queer parenting and relationships from the perspective of six interlinked characters.

Mechanics Institute Melbourne 2004, wreckedallprods, Gallery 96F
Melbourne 2005, wreckallprods as part of Melbourne Fringe, New
Theatre Sydney 2008.

‘Catapult’s scenes overlap and collide, playing simultaneously and out of sequence. The text defies a single interpretation, as much as the play initially resists its audience. However, the accumulated and disparate fragments do eventually cohere. Concurrent narrative strands emerge, and in a moment of dawning epiphany you find yourself inside the play. Catapult is all the more engrossing for the effort required to enter it.
A major theme of the work is the way in which people construct different identities for themselves, depending on their circumstances and interactions. Philpott has fashioned characters of depth and complexity, all of them lucid despite the multiplicity of facades they present.
Like everything worthwhile, Catapult requires effort, but more than rewards the outlay. Take the plunge and immerse yourself in something quite extraordinary.’
Aaron Jelbert, Australian Stage Online

For rights or a copy of the script contact Lachlan’s agent elizabeth@troyeur.com.au