Somehow I’m in a play? And what an incredibly apt production for me to be in.
Till the Day I Die is an antifascist play from 1935 that the German consulate got banned from Australia, so Melbourne’s New Theatre staged it on the back of a truck for ease of evading the cops.
It’s got Nazis (so many Nazis); it’s got queers, Jews, communists, collaborators and the first documented use of the phrase “male chauvinism”; it’s incredibly heartbreaking and chilling and also unnervingly funny. It takes the breath out of me every time and then I come back a little more determined.
Directors Katie Sfetkidis and Mark Wilson are bringing it back 90 years later because these themes of resistance, loyalty and compromise in the face of fascism are so awfully familiar. Again, it’s staged on the back of a truck, with a huge cast of both professional actors and lifelong activists, and many who are both.
The content warning is worth taking in because you will note each of these things: Death, Grief, Mental Health, Misogyny, Murder, Queerphobia or Homophobia, Racism, Self Harm or Suicide, Smoking on Stage, Simulated Blood, Sexual Harassment, Staged Violence, Sexual References, Use of Replica Weapons, Use of Slurs, Violence, Violence Against Women, War
The six-show season sold out incredibly fast, especially after write-ups in The Age and The Guardian, but there are some extra tickets available for tonight’s preview because we have to bring it inside coz of the flash floods. I’m sad not to be on the truck but inside Trades Hall is a pretty fitting place for this too.
You can see me as a communist any day of the week but this is likely your only chance to see me in this play, so snap up tix here.
Till the Day I Die
1-4 October 2026
Preview 9:30pm 1 October 2026 (all other performances now sold out)
Trades Hall
Tickets from $10
