Venue: The Substation, Taylor Square Dates: 7 – 18 April 2026 Time: 7.30pm Duration: 50 minutes
My first time in the venue of the substation was quite an adventure to enter where a full house might seat around 35 guests. Siren Theatre Company has at its heart the need to tell female centred stories, and EDEN more than fits that billing.
Kate Gaul’s work makes the two actors create all – the vision of the locations, the characters (all revealed by the duo) and the possibilities. I was swept along with their poetry and found myself, cautious at first, then sustained and mesmerised in the narrative and in the poetry. Woven with dark themes I felt a lightness and joy between these young characters.
The pair, Karrine Kanaan as Kit, Lara Lightfoot as Dan, are growing up in a Valley in Tasmania – revealed later. They go to different schools, but their existence has much in common, not least each of their mothers, whose guardianship is tested and relationships challenging. The river running through the valley is itself a woman described so gently yet evocatively in the play’s opening, weaving it throughout a simple and resonant metaphor.
The two young teens are on the brink of discovery, and at the edge of knowing too much. The most powerful moment in the play was exquisite as the audience is witness to the uncovering of the potential these young women might be growing together before they grow apart. The two ‘know’ the strength and possibility in this togetherness. Whilst leaving a town like this is also known as an inevitable even if unspoken. The gentle intimacy is beautifully paced in a masterful change of tempo. The audience is at once frozen in time complicit in the held breath between them and in a genuine sphere we are all entwined.
Surrounding us throughout is the natural and present soundscape. The enhancement to the lyricism was the filtered soundscape of Nate Edmondson, a perfect accompaniment to the work.
The writing is beautiful and cleverly the narrators are all things; with voices telling, knowing, sharing, speaking and living. Inside an hour we are with them as time travellers to the then of the past, brilliantly in the present and soothsaying the future. I was lifted into their hopefulness.
Written and Directed by: Kate Gaul Performed by: Karrine Kanaan, Lara Lightfoot Original composition: Nate Edmondson Vocal Coach: Rosalind Nugent
Photography by Natalia Ladyko
EDEN (Premiered at Adelaide Fringe 2026)
