Teach Me To Cry

What does masculinity mean, what is appropriate behaviour for a man? Teach Me To Cry explores relationships, deep feelings and inner needs for expression.

Written as a reaction and response to the Egyptian revolution, Teach Me To Cry was penned by Mohammed Hashem, who spent years in Egypt working as a journalist on television and radio. He recently returned to Melbourne with his play.

The cast of three, Giussepe Mauceri (founding member of 5 Pound Theatre), Will Freeman and Mohammed Hashem. Hashem evokes the play’s dark world with a powerful performance, while Freeman and Mauceri handle the challenging content very well. As a play with no discernible plot, it requires skill to keep an audience’s attention.

Teach Me To Cry is an innovative and confronting work, set with the audience on four side, play in the middle. As an audience member, you are very close, physically and emotionally to the actors, with no clear demarcation between stage and stalls. Whenever an actor raises his voice, you feel it.

Teach Me To Cry brings you into a strange world, which is both seductive and ever so slightly addictive. Recommended.

Teach Me To Cry is showing at the Owl and the Pussycat, 34 Swan St, Richmond until May 19. For tickets see owlandcat.com.au.