Do Not Go Gentle

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

In November 1911 Captain Robert Falcon Scott — navy officer, adventurer, explorer — led an intrepid, and ultimately doomed, race to the South Pole. In this searing masterpiece by Patricia Cornelius, winner of both the NSW and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, the icy expanse of Antarctica becomes a haunting metaphor for old age — vast, majestic, unknowable, and unyielding.

A group of aged care residents imagine themselves as members of Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition — battered by snow, blinded by wind, and trudging through a landscape as unforgiving as memory itself. But this isn’t just a journey to the South Pole, it’s a lyrical, unflinching exploration of ageing, the resilience of the human spirit and the extraordinary capacity for love to light the way back to ourselves.

Expertly crafted by one of Australia’s finest writers, Do Not Go Gentle inhabits two poetic worlds: one of epic adventure and another of quiet valediction.

Directed by Heather Fairbairn and featuring a cast of theatrical titans, Andrew Buchanan, Jennifer Flowers, Christen O’Leary, Bruce Spence, Steven Grives, and William Zappa, this once-in-a-generation production rages against the inevitable, our own mortality.

A rallying cry for dignity, defiance, and the fire that still burns in bodies grown old but spirits still strong - Do Not Go Gentle demands to be witnessed.

Praise for Do Not Go Gentle

“A richly layered work”
— The Guardian

★★★★★
— Stage Noise

★★★★★
— Australian Book Review