Peter Butz' video of the Shadow House PITS production of GEESE illustrates how Antonin Artaud attacked words ... not because of the semantics but because of the lies they engender. This speech attempts to focus something of Artaud's argument ... all be it in a contemporary Australian context. Geese argues words are sludge; compacted in little bricks creating walls that shield people from basic truths. Words can also be bombs ... only shocks to the system and cultural upheaval can pull down these walls and reveal a glimpse of evasive truth.

Recorded on a Sony Reel To Reel Tape player in Mary Winfield's spare room in Tara where Paul Winfield kept his drums, GEESE was intended to be a pre-curser to a demo tape. The demo was never made and this is all that remains. Trinculo is planning to revitalize the song and develop it further along with a new repertoire for a show in 2019. The song was the inspiration for the theatre production, GEESE, presented in 2011 in Canberra and in 2016 in Beirut.

Antonin Artaud's plays The Spurt Of Blood and To Have Done With The Judgement of God were incorporated in the theatre production, Acting Artaud. It was presented at The Street Theatre in Canberra and at The Seymour Centre in Sydney in 2004. This short video features some of the imagery from that production. The performance began with a short piece from Shadow House PITS titled Exorcism From The Cell developed in the image of Artaud as a response to the illegal war perpetrated in Iraq and supported by Australia. The revelations of Abu Graib reinforced Artaud's vision of hell as depicted in To Have Done With The Judgement Of God. In many ways our project did not achieve its aims and certainly Artaud's vision of a theatre that transcended the stereotype was only partially achieved. The year long project explored a means for utilizing Artaud's theories on a "theatre of cruelty". Photos at the end of the video are by 'pling. But Artaud's legacy is more than some fantasy for students to simply do fanciful and experimental indulgence. Acting Artaud was at the beginning of the burgeoning of academic re-interest in Artaud. And in that sense, the project was successful. It was worth the "walk-outs" in Sydney and all the angst that the work created. We would not do this work in the same way today. Acting Artaud was in many ways a naive expression of Artaud's ideal ... It actually suggested the possibility ... But in not accepting the impossibility of Artaud's ideal, the work missed the key ingredients of theatre of cruelty. It was then only a beginning ...

Cockroach Theatre at the table of culture … Shadow House PITS presents a phantom gravity production the METAMORPHOSIS based on and inspired by a story by Franz Kafka … but my story is not complete how can it be? no story can ever be complete there is no resolution nothing is ever well-made only a gravitation towards some unknown destiny with no predestination an uncomfortable certainty of chance and random outcome drawn by a phantom gravity more real than all the semantic reductions that are used to describe our situation Joe Woodward at Smith's Alternative 22 Sept 2020

Riots in America and so much cultural and social violence that is denied and kept under the covers ... it poses deep questions for writers and playwrights. After watching click on Stan Grant's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA3UsF8yyho "My people die young in this country" - A powerful speech by prominent journalist Stan Grant on indigenous rights in Australia goes viral.

This is just a snippet of thematic images from the play.