INNER VOICES

Louis Nowra's INNER VOICES takes us to imperial Russia and into a disturbed mind. When it was first staged, in 1977, this compelling and strangely beautiful play revolutionised Australian theatre. For the first time, our theatre went outside obviously Australian topics and themes. Nowra introduced us to the possibility of a poetic, imagistic, non-naturalist theatre. Prince Ivan has been imprisoned by the usurping Catherine the Great because he is the true Emperor. Isolated and largely ignored, he has no way of making sense of the world and can only just hold onto his name. On Catherine's death, he becomes ruler of Russia and events take a very nasty turn for the worse.