WINNER - 2018 Drama Victoria Award
NOMINEE - 2017 Green Room Award - Best Performer
☆☆☆☆ 1/2 -ARTS HUB
☆☆☆☆ 1/2 - THEATRE PEOPLE
☆☆☆☆ - THE MUSIC
☆☆☆☆-BEAT MAGAZINE
"Nauseatingly exquisite...if there is one ticket you buy this year, this is it." - BROADWAY WORLD
"As affecting and impressive as anything you will see." - AUSTRALIAN STAGE
"Goddard is nothing less than extraordinary" - STAGE WHISPERS
"Wild and Brilliant. Our favourite show of the year." - ACROSS THE AISLE
“A courageous wrestling match between the past and present of transportation and detention in Australia.” - ARTS HUB
“Funny, embarrassing, shocking and sad, This is Eden taps into a deep well of personal confusion and social shame, and invites the audience to confront and address similar feelings. This is Eden suggests that the mentality that has brought Australian society to some of its greatest contemporary challenges has deep roots that need to be explored if those challenges are to be fully addressed. Most importantly, the play provides an opportunity to do some of that work.” - PAUL RAE
Winner of the 2018 Drama Victoria Award, This is Eden is a dark, humorous and provocative ‘anti-bonnet drama’ inspired by the rebellion and resistance of the female convicts of Van Diemen’s Land.
In a tour-de-force performance described as ‘fearless’ and ‘nauseatingly exquisite’, Emily Goddard and acclaimed director Susie Dee, use the same Bouffon-esque performance devices the women themselves used to rebel and tread a fine line between the grotesque and charming to bring to life an extraordinary chapter of rebellion and survival that has seemingly escaped our nation’s history lesson.
Through a hapless millennial tour guide’s first day on the job we are ‘transported’ to 1839 Cascades Female Factory, where in a solitary cell on the edge of survival, Mary Ford waits alone in the darkness. Left for dead, ten thousand miles from home, she plots escape and reveals, with biting mockery, the untold tales of her captors. Political and compelling, with urgent contemporary relevance, This is Eden is at once an examination of our dark past, a parody of the way we perceive it and a vital call to arms.
Following extensive research and creative developments hosted by Gasworks, LaMama and HotHouse Theatre, This is Eden premiered at the Butter Factory Theatre, Albury/Wodonga as a 2015 Production-in-Residence supported by Creative Victoria. The work has since had two critically acclaimed sold out Melbourne seasons at Forty-five downstairs, most recently as part of the 2018 VCE Drama Playlist. Supported by Creative Victoria, The Robert Salzer Foundation and the Australia Council for the Arts. Winner of the 2018 Drama Victoria Award and nominated for Best Performer at the 2017 Green Room Awards, This is Eden had a highly successful Victorian tour in late 2019, supported by Regional Arts Victoria. It is now streaming online as a recent addition to the VCE Theatre studies playlist and is touring nationally in 2022.