Good People is a deeply uncomfortable hour on stage, a Waiting for Qantas that lurches from petty squabbles to existential crisis.
– Harriet Cunningham, Sydney Morning Herald
It’s Christmas. Jess has treated her long-time, high-school friends with a holiday to a tropical paradise. Jess can do that sort of thing now. What was supposed to be a chance for them to reconnect is interrupted. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Violently. Whisked away to the airport to wait for the next flight, there are no flights in or out.
Six women wait as tension grows with the reality of what they’ve seen and what they’ve escaped sinks in. What is the right thing, the good thing, to do: stay or leave? They are good people, after all.
Written by Katy Warner (Shortlisted for Theate503 Playwriting Award & the Green Room Award, winner of Melbourne Fringe Peoples Choice Award & WA Touring Award), Good People exposes the privilege of a millennial generation with humour, candor and a brutal lens.
Performance History
Presented by New Ghosts Theatre Company and the IGNITE Collective as part of the BLUE CHRISTMAS double bill (with Gretel Vella’s Shandy’s Corner) at Kings Cross Theatre, December 2019 with the following creatives:
Directed by Lucy Clements
Starring Clementine Anderson, Laura Djanegara, Sasha Dyer, Chika Ikogwe, Jane Watt & Emma Wright
Produced by Loredana Cross
Production Managed by Louise Mason
Stage Managed by Jennifer Jackson
Sound Design by Clare Hennessy
Lighting Design by Kate Baldwin
Set Design by Ruru Zhu
Costume Design by Angela Doherty
Photographs by Chantel Bann
Reviews
“… a wholly engaging two hours driven by warm-hearted scripts and sterling performances. Blessedly, neither play overstays its welcome.
First up is Katy Warner’s Good People.
…
Warner’s story is a penetrating and often very funny examination of the secondary trauma of privilege as it witnesses the lived trauma of the non-privileged. The women identify as ‘good people’, but how does that hold up if they don’t stay to help? Why do they get to be safe? But wouldn’t they just get in the way if they remain? What should they do, what can they do, and how can they live like before?
…
Thoughtful rather than cynical, with warmth suffused into each, these stories substitute the typical schmaltz of Christmas and replace it with true heart.”
– Audrey Journal (Kate Prendergast)
“This is tough, punchy theatre … the ambition of Good People leaves characters and audiences alike stunned into silence … ”
– Sydney Morning Herald (Harriet Cunningham)
“Both hour-long works are sensitively written and immensely contemplative, offering valuable perspectives on the kinds of lives we currently inhabit. Directed by Lucy Clements, the double-bill presentation grips from start to end. Good People is provocative, able to instigate meaningful conversations, while Shandy’s Corner is fabulously entertaining, with a dark humour that proves deeply satisfying. Clements injects an infectious passion into every scene, for a theatre that communicates with efficacious power.”
– Suzy Goes See
written by warner 