Angela Betzien’s
reputation as a writer of darkly furious plays which are as much social commentaries
as they are impassioned calls to action makes her new play, Mortido, a welcome
jolt of adrenaline in the tail-end of a year of theatre. Exploding upon Belvoir’s
corner-stage after a critically successful season in Adelaide
Co-commissioned by
Belvoir and Playwriting Australia, and
presented here in a coproduction between Belvoir and State Theatre Company of South
Australia, Mortido begins with a
Mexican fable about death, life, and rebirth, and ricochets between past and
the present, dreams and reality, across multiple countries and continents, while
hunting down its elusive target. Amongst it all, its beating heart is the story
of Jimmy, a small-time dealer in Sydney’s west, his medium-big-time distributor
brother-in-law Monte, and their various run-ins with police detective Grubbe.
Connecting all of them is cocaine, and an article
from the Sydney Morning Herald in 2011 that inspired Betzien to ultimately write
this play.
