A new theatre company in a new venue is making its debut with a production of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
Chaika Theatre is presenting Edward Albee's quasi-autobiographical Three Tall Women at ACT HUB in Kingston from May 11.
The play, inspired by Albee's difficult relationship with his adoptive mother, is being directed by Sophie Benassi.
In Three Tall Women, Karen Vickery, Lainie Hart and Karen's daughter Natasha Vickery play A, B and C - one woman at different stages of her life in reverse order - a wealthy widow in her 90s, middle aged and in her late 20s.
Natasha Vickery said the company's name is Russian for "seagull" - a nod to Anton Chekhov - and that she and her mother founded it.
"Mum's always wanted to have her own little theatre company.
"It's an opportunity to go back to theatrical foundations."
And all three actresses, she noted, were indeed tall.
A long-time Canberra actor and director, Karen Vickery taught at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts for 10 years and would like to teach as well as mount plays in traditional style.
Sophie Benassi, who directed Cosi for Canberra Repertory Society, will direct this production of Three Tall Women.
In the play's first act, Natasha Vickery said, the audience gets to know the dying A through her interactions with the nurse and the lawyer who come to visit her.
There's a lot of conflict and some uncertain motivations but the audience learns more about A over the course of the act.
"We get to love her even though she's a cranky old woman."
The second half, with A and her younger incarnations B and C, is more abstract and less realistic, Vickery said.
"They come together in an ethereal space ... it's almost like a dying dream."
B and C provide reminiscences and earlier perspectives on the life of A.
"A lot of it is accurate, a lot of it we do question."
ACT HUB - Australian Capital Theatre Hub - a new performing space for Canberra - was the brainchild of Karen Vickery, Anne Somes of Free-Rain Theatre, Jarrad West of Everyman Theatre and Chris Baldock of Mockingbird Theatre, breathing new life into the 96-year-old Causeway Hall and the Canberra theatre scene.
Chaika's second production will be Donald Margulies' Collected Stories in October-November, ending the season. It will be directed by Luke Rogers.
In between, Free-Rain will produce David Williamson's Emerald City (June), directed by Somes, and Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (August-September), directed by Cate Clelland.
Everyman will present Robert Askins' Hand to God (July-August) and Tommy Murphy's Holding the Man (September-October), both directed by Jarrad West.
Three Tall Women is on at ACT HUB, 14 Spinifex Street, Kingston, various dates and times from May 11 to 21. More information and bookings: thelittleboxoffice.com/acthub/.
