Save articles for later Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time. Patricia Cornelius is one of the toughest voices in Australian theatre, but she can still feel vulnerable when it comes to men. “Most of us know the dangers of the world, even if you haven’t experienced full-on brutality,” she says.
“Most of us have crossed the road at night. Most of us have hurriedly put our keys in our door. Sometimes I think I’ve lived my whole life circumnavigating that shit.
” With her long-time collaborator, Susie Dee, the acclaimed playwright has tackled male violence on stage before, but - fittingly in a country reeling from a string of recent murders - their latest production has been described as their most shocking yet. Bad Boy , which will debut this month as part of the Fringe Festival, is a one-hander starring Nicci Wilks as a male perpetrator. “We’re not trying to disguise the fact that it’s a woman taking on the male persona,” says Cornelius.
“It’s not that you think, ‘is that a bloke or not?’ The audience will know ...
that this is a woman in the guise of ...
a male to explore it with a different gaze, with a different lens.” Talking to Cornelius, Dee and Wilks in the first week of their rehearsals, the conversation turns to Australia’s horrifying domestic violence statistics ; there have been so many recent cases of women being murdered by their partners that we’re mixing up our recollections as each news story blends depr.