ACT Hub

“Chaika Theatre’s rendition is gripping, intelligent and deeply affecting… Under Tony Knight’s direction, the tension between social expectations and the swell of emotional undercurrent is always present… [Jenna] Roberts has a breathtaking ability to convey anguish, confusion, intelligence and resilience, with a searingly dry humour, often while speaking words that contradict what her countenance conveys… Chaika Theatre’s THE DEEP BLUE SEA brims with humanity. The powerful performances and extraordinary writing will leave you thinking for a long time afterwards.”

You can read Cathy Bannister’s full review on the Stage Whispers website.

🌊 The Deep Blue Sea
💙 12–27 June 2026
🎟️ Tickets at acthub.com.au

📸 Tony Knight

It’s opening night! Meet the talented cast of THE DEEP BLUE SEA, directed by Tony Knight (who also happens to be the photographer behind these gorgeous shots!)

CAST

Hester · Jenna Roberts
Sir William Collyer · Michael Sparks
Freddie Page · Sol Mason
Miller · Karen Vickery
Mrs Elton · Kate Blackhurst
Philip · Jack Shanahan
Jackie Jackson · Blue Hyslop
Ann · Meaghan Stewart

CREATIVES

Director · Tony Knight
Assistant Director & Costume · Ylaria Rogers
Design · Michael Sparks OAM
Artworks · Leigh Penton & Kerry Wode / Lillian Vickery & John Vickery
Lighting & Stage Management · Disa Swifte
Sound · Neville Pye
Composition · Paris Scharkie
Properties & Medical Consultant · Yanina Clifton
Intimacy Consultant · Jill Young
Rehearsal Prompter · Michael Cooper
Marketing Support · Karina Hudson

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Karina Hudson, Jarrad West, Anne Somes, Norman Collings, Kartya, Rhiley Winnett, St Columba’s Uniting Church, Canberra Rep

🌊 The Deep Blue Sea
💙 12–27 June 2026
🎟️ Tickets at acthub.com.au

📸 Tony Knight

24 May 2026: The Deep Blue Sea, Rehearsal Diary #4

Rattigan – The Deep Blue Sea – The ‘Erotic Three’

The “erotic three” is one of literature’s oldest contraptions, appearing everywhere from Euripides’ Hippolytus to Racine’s Phaedra, to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Strindberg’s Miss Julie, and Sartre’s No Exit. The arrangement is deceptively simple: one person desires too much, one person desires too little, and a third stands nearby suffering with dignity. Two lovers alone are dramatically useless; introduce a third person and suddenly civilization acquires tragedy, philosophy, and the need for long silences.

Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea is perhaps the most English version of this ancient triangle ever written. Hester Collyer has left her husband, Sir William, a grave and dependable judge, for Freddie Page, a charming ex-RAF pilot whose chief characteristic is emotional inadequacy. Like the unstoppable heroines before her, Hester abandons safety for passion, only to discover that passion largely consists of anxiety in rented rooms. Freddie belongs to that dangerous class of men who inspire devotion precisely because they cannot return it properly.

Sir William occupies the eternally tragic role of the rejected, civilized man. Audiences feel he ought to prevail simply because he is decent, but drama rarely rewards decency. Passion invariably chooses instability. What makes Rattigan remarkable is that he stages this classical agony not in palaces or mythic landscapes, but in a drab postwar flat. Racine needed royal courts; Rattigan achieves the same devastation with ci******es, awkward pauses, and someone quietly asking for and seeking a gentle release.

Tony Knight, Director

🌊 The Deep Blue Sea
💙 12–27 June 2026
🎟️ Tickets at acthub.com.au

📸 Tony Knight
🔁 Repost from Chaika

16 May 2026: The Deep Blue Sea, Rehearsal Diary #3

Over the past several rehearsals I have found myself afterwards in a curious blue funk – the sort of bemused melancholy that arrives not dramatically, but quietly, like a cat entering through a window you were certain was closed.

This, I fear, is entirely Rattigan’s fault.

He possesses that alarming quality shared by only a handful of playwrights: an ability to understand the human heart better than the people currently using theirs. His characters are, as one critic beautifully described them, “eloquently anguished,” which may be the finest phrase ever coined for intelligent people who cannot possibly do the sensible thing.

The central dilemma of THE DEEP BLUE SEA is one most of us recognize immediately, though we spend years pretending otherwise: broken heart and broken dreams. What does one do when ‘caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,’ where every available choice seems catastrophic? One may leap toward disaster, retreat toward despair, or remain perfectly still while life collapses around one with admirable politeness.

Naturally, theatre adores this condition. Indeed, the play reminded me repeatedly of Ray Lawler’s SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL, another great work from roughly the same era, similarly concerned with love, dignity, broken dreams, and adults old enough to know better but not old enough to stop trying. Both plays concern relationships existing slightly outside the approved social boundaries of their time, and both understand that heartbreak becomes more complicated, not less, after forty. Young people in plays often behave as though emotions were being invented for the first time. Mature adults know emotions are old, recurring illnesses and behave accordingly.

At the centre of Rattigan’s play lies what Freud and Jung would probably call an “erotic triangle,” though I suspect each would insist upon slightly different upholstery. Theatre is remarkably fond of these arrangements. One sees them everywhere once one begins looking: MISS JULIE, for instance, and any number of tragedies involving people standing too close to French windows.

And at the centre of this particular triangle stands Hester Collyer – one of the great wounded souls of modern drama. Hester’s act at the beginning of the play sends shockwaves through everyone around it: pity, fury, shame, tenderness, denial, practical inconvenience, and above all self-deception, which is humanity’s most dependable renewable resource.

As we work through these scenes in rehearsal, I find myself carrying the emotional residue home afterward like soot on a coat. No wonder I emerge feeling slightly haunted. One spends several hours each day examining broken hearts under theatrical lighting and expects somehow to remain cheerful afterward. It is unreasonable, really.

Tony Knight, Director

🌊 The Deep Blue Sea
💙 12–27 June 2026
🎟️ Tickets at acthub.com.au

📸 Tony Knight
🔁 Repost from Chaika

21 April 2026: The Deep Blue Sea, Rehearsal Diary #1

We’ve spent a couple of weeks now from the excitement of the first read through of the play as a company. Always a thrilling, nerve-wracking, and galvanising moment – as the company of actors and creatives come together to discover the play as an ensemble and to experience for the first time something of what each artist brings. Thrilling and full of surprises.

For two weeks of rehearsals… a period of 9 hours per week… we dug into Rattigan’s layered text uncovering and excavating what lies beneath, cracking open possibilities and asking questions; exploring relationships between characters and discussing the time, place and world of the play.

Then, our wonderful Assistant Director, Ylaria Rogers, led the company through a physical exploration of the play, moving us from the table to the floor – unlocking the actors’ responses and physicalising the action… word made flesh. Impulse and exploration and play.

Then, our director, Tony Knight, arrived from interstate. We leaped into putting the play on its feet – building on the text work and impulse work we’d explored and discovering the shape and arc of the play. Working at pace with depth and rigour left us breathless with excitement. We’ve fallen in love with this complex, poignant and witty play.

At the same time we’ve been working toward the design, the sound, and lighting as we move collectively toward realising our version of Rattigan’s masterpiece.

Stand by for the cast and creatives announcement coming soon – and for further instalments of the rehearsal diary, penned by various members of the company, as we head toward our opening at ACT Hub on 12 June.

Karen Vickery, Producer and Actor

🌊 The Deep Blue Sea
💙 12–27 June 2026
🎟️ Tickets at acthub.com.au

📸 Tony Knight
🔁 Repost from Chaika