Broken (2016)

Time Out: 

Butler’s writing is poetic, evocative and muscular in a way rarely seen on Australian stages, vivid, visceral and spare... A tiny gem, hewn from the vast landscape it so lovingly describes, Broken is highly recommended.

Daily Review: 

...it’s plain to see why [Broken has] won so many awards on the basis of the script itself. It’s an extraordinarily evocative piece of writing, conjuring up the full sensory experience of the Top End of Australia....a very fine production of a very fine play.

Theatre Now: 

The whole production is completely transfixing and extraordinarily moving. It feels dangerous and organic... limitless, just like the outback. Butler’s script is intentionally uncomfortable and unforgiving, as it examines fate and raises questions about identity, choice and destiny.

Theatre People: 

...a production unlike anything we’ve seen in Sydney this year. ...Broken is a gorgeously written and impacting piece... This is undeniably powerful theatre.” 

Stage Whispers: 

Darwin writer Mary Anne Butler's script is a stunning achievement... Broken brings remote Australia onto the stage in the most unexpected, absorbing way.

Syke on Stage: 

Broken is one of the most refreshingly muscular pieces of writing I’ve happened upon... as iconic in the realm of dramatic literature as Cloudstreet, Holding The Man.

OZ Baby Boomers: 

Broken takes my attention from the instant it begins and holds it until the final applause. I feel that I live the years spanned by the play, while at the same time it seems to be over in a moment… “Lucky” is a motif running throughout the play, and I feel very lucky to have experienced it.

Canberra Critics Circle: 

Broken confirms Mary Anne Butler’s valued place as an Australian playwright finding new ways of telling our stories.

Sydney Arts Guide: 

“A crisp, poetic script... Reminiscent of another great Australian play, Andrew Bovell’s When the Rain Stops Falling.” 

Crikey: 

“...a brutal and bare-knuckled play that kicks you in the head–and the guts–from the first minute and keeps kicking and screaming for the next hour. It is a testament to Butler’s craft that we leave the theatre white-knuckled but hand-warmed by a standing ovation on the penultimate night of a two week run – somehow uplifted and in serious need of strong drink.”

Artshub: 

“This is some of Australia’s freshest and most exciting work and it manages to peer into and reexamine some of the iconic and romantic images we have of the Australian identity. It’s a play well worth seeing, and bearing gifts to be unwrapped long after leaving the theatre.” 

RealTime: 

“A compelling roller coaster ride to a whodunit-style revelation... Broken is a powerfully immersive production which deserves to be seen nationally.”

NSW Premier’s Literary Awards – Judges’ Comments 

“This three-hander set in the red desert heart of Australia balances pathos, humour, tension and tenderness. Crafted with a poet’s feel for rhythm and language, it evokes the centre’s limitless sky and unique landscape through deft use of imagery and silence. The text is a rich weave, contrasting the humbling expanse of wilderness with the confining strictures of domesticity; the struggle toward life with a premature death. This is a deceptively ‘small’ piece — its reach and impact belying its cast size and page numbers. Butler never flinches from big questions about hope and survival, and the choices we make in our here and now.” 

Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards – Judges’ Comments 

“Australia’s top end – the land and its people – comes alive with tension, sadness, and humour in this extremely well crafted work. The emotional journey is beautifully plotted and moving, with an opening sequence that is theatrically alive and full of inventive dramatic links – played out in a great, dark expanse of earth beneath the stars – and a finale that draws its power from the claustrophobic domestic environment of the family home.”