Addiction, Advertising And All The Trappings Of Excess!

Silo Theatre presents
RUBEN GUTHRIE
written by Brendan Cowell and directed by Shane Bosher

Fame, fortune and vodka cocktails make for a hilarious outing that even the booze won’t let you forget. Oliver Driver returns to the stage as Ruben Guthrie in Silo Theatre’s black comedy with a big drunken heart, playing at the Herald Theatre, THE EDGE® from September 18.

Ruben Guthrie is on fire. At 29, he is Creative Director at a cutting edge advertising agency, he is hot to trot in the local bar scene and lives with his Czech, supermodel girlfriend. Ruben seems invincible until one fateful awards night when he takes a spectacular leap off a hotel roof…into a baby pool. Ruben wakes up to find his arm in plaster, his girlfriend moving back to Prague and his mother driving him to an A.A. meeting.

Oliver Driver takes to the stage as the titular character, reuniting with director Shane Bosher for this production; best friends, no longer enfants terribles and now icons of Auckland’s theatre industry. This will be their first collaboration as actor and director since their production of Neil Labute’s Bash in 2004 – which won Driver the “Best Actor of the Year” award in the NZ Listener.

Joining Driver on stage are Silo Theatre regulars Peter Elliott, Dean O’Gorman and Toni Potter, who returns to the company she debuted with to play one of her most challenging roles to date – a spiky, recovering alcoholic and drug addict.

Ruben Guthrie also features Ellie Smith (End Of The Rainbow), Andrew Grainger (featuring in the upcoming Peter Jackson movie The Lovely Bones) and Chelsie Preston Crayford – daughter of Laureate Gaylene Preston and viewed as one of the most promising actresses to watch this year.

Having had two sold out runs in Sydney courtesy of Company B, Silo Theatre once again shows they have their finger on the pulse, as at present the show is only the second ever production of the show in the world, following the trend that Holding The Man set in August with its NZ premiere.

Brendan Cowell is viewed as the Oliver Driver of his generation in Australia – the both share the same acerbic and razor sharp wit as their trademarks. Having directed Rabbit for Cate Blanchett’s Sydney Theatre Company (much like Driver previously did for Silo Theatre), and performing in the core cast of Love My Way, Cowell wrote Ruben Guthrie as part of the Phillip Parsons’ Young Playwright Award commission and has become a cornerstone in Australia’s television and film industry.

Silo Theatre are also once more opening up a dialogue with their audience, provoking their social conscience – Ruben Guthrie drinks to excess yet is hugely successful; is it still acceptable in a culture these days worried about binge drinking to turn a blind eye in situations as this? Or is it all the more concerning?

“…Richly entertaining, provocative and extremely topical theatre…”
- The Sunday Telegraph

ENDS

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