Themes/theatrical elements
· Stages of the play: 1.Loss; 2. Craziness, grief, being human, lamentation; 3.Planting bones/memories in Earth.
· 2 x Maries: nurturing and sensual, calm and wild, nun and Penitent (ie: the history of the site).
· First Mary: Virgin, Mother.
· Second Mary: madness, lamentation, cut feet and hands, tear streaked face
· Christ just a starting/departure point.
· Maries: Icon; woman; mystery; immaculate conception; renaicance; face down; serene; demure; mother; wild woman contained (ie: the history of the site), private vs public face.
· City Creatures: Beautiful/clean/shiny city but beast underneath; outpipes pumping sludge onto bodies that operate them; humanity; what sits under the surface – a mania; core; festy; shadows; inverted marionettes - what’s operating what – body or puppet?; cutting strings; shadow world; dirt; important that they are different – personalities – basis for conflict; hungry/consume; subterranean power pulling strings; reveal cities first, then bodies that operate them; Atlas holding up world/humanity; ‘Time Bandits’; beastial underbelly; Melbourne vs Sydney (ie: the separation trees); Christian vs Muslim; clash of civilisations; culture clash.
· Foyer: Community feel; cake stalls with genuine cause; tea coffee; craft; Collingwood Children’s farm café; genuine/true.
· Tree: compaction – use mulch – get impact statement; walk past – only see the planting in passing.
· Space under the stage: Another sepulchre and Christ; maybe just a light and a noise.
· Christ: Story inverted; Died for us; son of Man; rebirth; sacrifice; many facets to story.
· Bones: Natural resource; grass growing out of bones; compost; bones planted in ground.
· Mass: Eating body; nourishing; gorging.
· More images of different things related to rebirth.
· Downness.
· Time.
· Loss vs rebirth
· Catharsis – blow out cobwebs; involving; interactive; physically involved; is this meaningful?
· Maggots.
· Costume with grass growing out of it.
· Big bellies – pregas/chokkas.
· Cunt: ‘whore in many languages mean spiritual; in Jesus’ time whores were still prophets of sexual power; Fear of female sexuality – rivals whoredom in age.

The Space: Rosina Building
· Separation trees: The big one outside was planted for federation and signifies the separation of Vic and NSW, it means Victoria and the one planted on other side of Convent means NSW. Planted by Edward Kerr whose house once stood there and who campaigned for the separation of the states.
· Magdelene Asylum: Next door to Rosina.
· 1835 – ‘65:
· Place of confinement
· Paths lead to nowhere.
· RR vs confinement.
· Could run away but nowhere to go - people stayed cos food and friends.
· Not ignore fact that it’s ballroom – space means celebration ie: mirror balls.

The Physical Exercise (from discussion immediately after)
· Buried feet – dirt shoes.
· Entrance: Enter as collective; look up – experience building; lines – direct eyes to the Cross; pattern on lines; Convent – time out of your life/r&r; place associated with solemnity; go up stairs – archway of light – warmth of sunlight; exit sign; stain glass contrast to rattly heater.
· Foyer: Feel that not belong – like grandparents house; door to third space – powerful; room of doors; sound of doors; in doorway/opening/shutting/beckoning/push/shut out.
· Seating space: Daunting; confused; more ghosts; transition from previous space; non-conformist – no symmetry to stage; cloth; come together; choking – wanna get to stage space; dusty/musty; history/memories/lots of crap in place.
· Stage: ‘Uh oh’; run/burst into next space; choking – laughter/cry/release; near sickness/death – take as joke; darkness/containment/naughtiness; more vocal on stage.
· Big Space: Danny as authority; living burial in deck chair – as a form of protection; women come here to lose babies; acoustics – rhthms/beating/footsteps; holes in ground – breath in the underneath of building; in space – not get out; pouring dirt into wine glasses; bones buried in dirt on plates – with grass and trees – critters pull them out; in distance look like blobs of shadow on table – then revealed as plates with dirt and bones.
· Outside: Spitting on bones in the end; quiet outside; by time get outside – organise as a group; giving acorn;
· Songs: ‘Wade in the Water’, ‘Motherless Child’ (Pascalini), nursery rhyme.
· Anticipation.
· Needed something from inside and outside to come together.