Sam Worthington joins the cast of Sydney Theatre Company’s Appropriate

Sam Worthington will join the cast of the Sydney Theatre Company production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins dark comedy,  Appropriate, directed by Wesley Enoch at the Roslyn Packer Theatre in March 2021. Worthington will play Bo, joining Lucy Bell as his wife, Rachael, and Mandy McElhinney as Bo’s sister Toni.

Wesley Enoch said:

I’m excited Sam Worthington will be joining the cast of Appropriate. He’s a great homegrown talent and it will be great to see him on our stages again.

Appropriate is a dark, comic family drama that will draw you in – everyone has a family but this family is off the charts. It’s also incredibly clever in the ways it references the classic American canon from Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller through Tracey Letts August Osage County. Nothing is as it seems on the surface and you have to dig around in the backyard to find the truth.

This is a story rooted in American history and writing but it’s also a great crossover work for an Australian theatre audience; there are parallels between the two national stories, “the Deep South” of America where the play is set could translate to the “Deep North” of this country. I can’t wait to get back into the rehearsal room.

This will be Worthington’s first return to the Sydney stage in over twenty years. After graduating from NIDA, Worthington gained critical acclaim in his first stage role,  the Belvoir production of Judas Kiss in 1999 before getting his big break in Cate Shortland’s 2004 hit film,  Somersault for which he won the AFI (now AACTA) award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He is best known internationally for his role as Jake Scully in  James Cameron’s Avatar film series.

In the tradition of August: Osage County, Appropriate is a dark comedy that looks at the US South’s buried history through the wildly entertaining story of one dysfunctional family. In a crumbling plantation home somewhere in Arkansas, a family comes together to pick through their recently deceased father’s hoard of possessions, a seemingly indiscriminate mix of junk and historical artefacts. With the house’s imminent sale exerting pressure on everyone present, old tensions begin to rise up like ghosts while new dysfunctions are just starting to take shape. The discovery of an unexpected and troubling photo album forces a family to reconcile with a man they’re desperate to remember and a history they’d rather forget.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is one of America’s most exciting and lauded playwrights. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a recipient of a prestigious MacArthur ‘Genius’ Fellowship, he is the master of thought-provoking and engaging pieces that shine new light on familiar stories.

Equal parts ghost story and family comedy, Appropriate is an edge-of-your-seat tour through contemporary America’s troubled relationship with race, the truth and the things we leave behind.

Tickets for Appropriate go on sale to Sydney Theatre Company Season Ticket Holders from Tuesday 10 November and to the general public from Wednesday 2 December for packages and Monday 14 December for single tickets at sydneytheatre.com.au