Alethea Mouhtouris
Press Release
Sydney
Janina Duszejko, a woman of retiring age, lives quietly in a remote village. But one winter, men start being murdered in her district, and nobody seems to have an answer. Like a Polish Miss Marple, Mrs Duszejko takes it upon herself to work out exactly what’s going on. The problem is, the more she looks, the more she realises everything is intertwined – destinies foretold in the stars, secrets in the poems of William Blake, and, most vitally, clues found in the kingdom of animals.
This production is based on the 2009 novel of the same name, written by Olga Tokarczuk.
Adaptor/Director Eamon Flack explains it as: “Trying to untangle and undo the certainties we hold onto about how our world is constructed, how it should be run, what logic is, what we should believe, what reason is. And it proposes that many of the crises we’ve involved ourselves is could be undone by leaps of imagination; that strangeness and difference and peculiarity and originality and unlikeliness and impossibility should be much more alive in our world than it is.”
Dates: 28 March – 10 May 2026
Venue: Belvoir Street Theatre, Upstairs
Tickets: Available at https://my.belvoir.com.au/overview/14648
Cast
Mrs President & Ensemble: Paula Arundell
Commandant & Ensemble: Marco Chiappi
Black Coat & Ensemble: Gareth Davies
Good News & Ensemble: Emma Diaz
Wnetrzak & Ensemble: Alan Dukes
Rehearsal Stand-In: Meg Hyeronimus
The Gray Lady & Ensemble: Nadie Kammallaweera
Bigfoot & Ensemble: Colin Moody
Dizzy & Ensemble: Daniel R. Nixon
Mrs Duszejko: Pamela Rabe
Policewoman & Ensemble: Ziggy Resnick
Oddball & Ensemble: Bruce Spence
Creative Team
Author: Olga Tokarczuk
Adaptor/Director: Eamon Flack
Set Designer: Romanie Harper
Lighting Designer: Morgan Moroney
Costume Designer: Ella Butler
Composer & Sound Designer: Alyx Dennison
Associate Sound Designer: Madeleine Picard
Movement Director: Charmene Yap
Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Assistant Director: Ayah Tayeh
Stage Manager: Luke McGettigan
Assistant Stage Manager: Jasmine Power
Venue: BELVOIR
