Categories: News

Move quickly to catch a musical haunting in the Old Adelaide Gaol

This Fringe Festival, three murdered women will haunt Adelaide’s most ghostly place. Chants Des Catacombes, at no other place than the Old Adelaide Gaol, is a macabre musical theatre experience weaving popular and classical songs into dark stories of love, sex, and femininity.

And actor Laura Burzacott swears the goal is haunted. “Already in our rehearsals many strange and unexplainable things have occurred. Doors open and close. Electricity mysteriously turns off.”

Chants Des Catacombes is about three murdered women: a showgirl, a surgeon and a courtesan. These three dead women continue to walk restlessly up and down the dark corridors of the Catacombes, remembering and forgetting.

To make matters even more spooky, director Bryce Ives calls the entire experience immersive theatre. He says “the audience move through memories and moments carefully created within the atmospheric surrounds.”

“Four pianos are placed around the gaol alongside drums, harps and violins. The acoustics in the Gaol are resonant, ambient and spectacular. It’s like this place was built for live music,” says musical director Nathan Gilkes.

A team of thirteen theatre makers are embarking upon this ambitious and incredibly site-specific work, including harpist/actor Anna Boulic, actors Laura Burzacott and Zoe McDonald, designer Nicola Andrews, costume maker Sophie Woodward and electric violinist Xani Kolac.

This a strictly limited season running until the 29th of February, so don’t miss out.

Book with Fringe Tix: http://bit.ly/ryQMP4

Cassie Tongue

Cassie is a theatre critic and arts writer in Sydney, and was the deputy editor of AussieTheatre. She has written for The Guardian, Time Out Sydney, Daily Review, and BroadwayWorld Australia. She is a voter for the Sydney Theatre Awards.

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