Cosmic Players Theatre premiered Darren Brealey’s new theatrical drama in the 2023 Melbourne Fringe Festival at Gasworks Arts Park, Albert Park between Monday 16 and Thursday 19 October, 2023.

 

Broken River premiered at the festival with a stellar cast delivering a gritty production. This is Brealey's most engaging and captivating stage play to date.

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Brealey cultivated somber characters in a contemporary story to deliver an addictive and hypnotising drama.

 

Born from two true-life stories culminating in family disruption after a parent passes. When tempers flare, love is on trial, and nothing can quell the years of underlying sibling rivalry.

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Broken River rises above the phoenix out of an award-winning one-act play, Separating The Dust which tells the story of a dysfunctional family, sibling rivalry, and a mother’s love on trial, and failing.

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Broken River tells the story of the Morris household, where the love of family was never ceded, yet ego rises up to take power.

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When a mother's love is not enough to solve the longstanding sibling rivalry between two brothers, elder abuse, and powers of attorney, she never quits attempting to dissolve her children's sibling rivalry.

 

Virginia suffers from cancer and dementia, requiring her two boys’ support. She unforgivingly clings to her sense of humour, her memories, and her way of life.

 

Virginia is a mother, a woman, and when she must be manipulative, calls upon her two boys, enforcing demands and obligations through guilt and fear.

 

The matriarch of the family, a survivor of a harsh life, fought her way through tough times for her boys. She dreamed of a life when a wealthy man would take care of her every whim and care, but reality dealt a cold-harsh blow.

 

Her two sons have no choice but to work together to sort out their Mother's Final Will and Testament.

 

Love is on trial.