STORY OF THE LAST WHITE MALE RHINOCEROS hits the stage

A picture is worth a thousand words and that’s certainly the case for award-winning playwright Christine Davey and her play Sudan, the story of the last white male rhinoceros.

Ms Davey, who grew up in Torquay, wrote the play after she came across a compelling image of Sudan and his carer hours before the rhino was euthanised.

“Sudan was head to head with his carer, there was an amazing amount of love between the both of them, and hours later he was euthanised,” Ms Davey said.

“He spent nearly 30 years on his own, his legs were starting to give away and the whole thing was just so unfair and sad. Not only that we – as humans – lost a species, but that the majority of his life he was on his own and surrounded by armed guards.

“Even though they took off his stucks,  poachers still wanted to kill him. I started thinking about how an older man could play the character of Sudan; a man (dying) who’s starting to crumble and question his existence.

“He’s wondering why on earth he’s in this position, joined by the character of his carer and a scientist dedicated to his wellbeing.”

The play, directed by Graci Lynch is presented by Skin of our Teeth Productions (SooT), a Geelong-based independent company.

“Sudan features award-winning local actors Fred Preston (Torquay Theatre Troupe), Kathryn O’Neill (Geelong Rep, Theatre of the Winged Unicorn) and Mary Steuten (SooT Productions),” Ms Davey said.

“It ended up being a play about friendship, you start writing something and you think you know what it’s about and then it transforms into something else.

“It went from ‘how dare we as humans cause extinction’, to the lengths we go to care about someone – even if that means assisting in their death.”

Like Sudan, Ms Davey said her journey as a playwright has been an evolution as such with careers as a theatre director, cleaner, actor, journalist and sports writer.

“I’ve also been acting since I was 10-years-old, in my late 20s/early 30s I realised the things I wanted to perform weren’t there so I started writing my own audition pieces.

“My friends started asking me to write theirs and it just evolved from there.

“Sometimes a play will take years and other times, only days, this one took a couple of weeks because the image was so strong.”

Originally performed last year by the Torquay Theatre Troupe, Sudan went on to win best new play at the 2018 Anglesea Play Festival.

“It only had to be 20 minutes, I love writing things when I know I have a word and time limit, it cuts out all the crap. This version is expanded to an hour and there’s lots of new stuff.”

“It would be really easy just to whack in a bunch of adjectives but instead I’ve developed the characters more. They’re more balanced in regards to scene and stage time beyond just the lead character.”

Ms Davey said Sudan touches on both the worst and best of humanity whilst ultimately delivering a message of hope.

“In lots of ways, humans are terrible. We’re stuffing up the planet and animals  are going extinct, we’re doing everything we can to destroy the planet,” she said.

“On the other hand we’re really smart and really good at fixing things, my hope is that, overrides the other – that our good outweighs the bad.”

Sudan opens at The Butterfly Club, 5 Carson Place Melbourne, on Wednesday March 6 as part of the inaugural One-Act Play Festival.

The show starts at 7.30pm, for tickets and more information go to thebutterflyclub.com.