Three Winters Green Returning For Sydney Fringe
Image: Photo: David Hooley
Three Winters Green first premiered in Sydney in 1993 at the Stables Theatre amid a tense global environment familiar to us living in the times of COVID-19. The shows themes are striking in their relevance to 2021, which makes the new production of Three Winters Green as part of Sydney Fringe at Fringe HQ, (formerly the Old 505 Theatre) in Eliza Street, Newtown more relevant than ever before.
During his chat with the Star Observer, playwright and co-director of this latest production, Campion Decent, first talked about the struggles to get the original play produced in 1993.
“It was very difficult. Basically, I had developed this play over a couple of years with little drips and drabs of funding. At one stage I was an affiliate writer with the Sydney Theatre Company’s New Stages Project, which was their development wing and we had a bit of development there and did a reading but then when it actually came to finding an outlet for production, it wasn’t possible. So we did what so many groups do, we formed a co-op and it was, ‘let’s just get this done.’”
While talking about the 10 year anniversary of the play in 2003 and the opportunity he had to revisit his work, Decent was happier with how the updated version turned out, saying that the play itself ended up being much improved.
“I think the themes were consistent but what happened was I’d learnt a lot in terms of craft in that 10 years and so I’d fixed up things that I just wasn’t happy with. I remember the late, great playwright Nick Enright saying to me at the time how wonderful it is to have the opportunity to go back and revisit a piece of work because we so rarely get the opportunity to do that in Australia. It was really terrific and I feel like I got a lot closer in that 10 year remount than I had 10 years earlier.”
Three Winters Green is an epic Australian play featuring a cast of talented LGBTQI actors playing LGBTQI roles, including a real life couple, playing a couple in the play!
The newest season of Three Winters Green plays in July as part of Sydney Fringe. Tickets are $50, including first drink, or $40 for concession. Tickets & Info: www.sydneyfringe.com
