Rising festival play about OnlyFans and Clones at Footscray Community Arts Centre
If you could clone yourself, would you do it? That’s the question at the heart of Chenturan Aran’s new show. Must Have.
“I think it’s a mental game that a lot of people play; maybe it’s more acute if you’re a second-generation Australian? You’re always thinking about these two dual cultural experiences and the world,” Aran says.
Performed at Footscray Community Arts as part of the Rising festival, Kavitha (Michelle Perera) is a corporate executive who embodies the traditions of the model immigrant archetype, and dead ringer Kaye (Sarah Fitzgerald) channels her fantasy lifestyle as a Sri Lankan Tamil actor and OnlyFans star.
The show challenges the idea that unique identity is entirely dependent on cultural or ancestral affiliation, but rather a multidimensional spectrum of personal interests and influences.
Aran states that his inspiration is the irreverent humor and melodrama in Pedro Almodóvar’s films and the surrealist storytelling in Charlie Kaufman’s films. Adaption And Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind also Ingmar Bergman PersonalityA psychological drama about a nurse and patient who begin to merge their identities.
“We have to become these translators for a population whose stories have been untold across the Australian landscape, but that’s not actually a comprehensive or complete picture,” says Aran. “We all have hobbies, different experiences, and also things we are curious about and want to learn.”
The barrenness of the science fiction context provided the perfect backdrop for depicting how ancestral connections dissolve as communities become global. The necessity of escaping from the restrictive immigrant upbringing and society’s expectations is also one of the focal points of the play.
“A lot of my writing is based on how my family interacted. There is a sense of disrespect, aggression and a sudden shift towards melodrama with Sri Lankan Tamil parents – you go to Sun TV [a cable channel known for heightened Tamil soap operas] Very quickly,” says Aran, laughing.
Green Room award-nominated actor Perera finds it comforting to portray relatable moments that reflect his upbringing in Sri Lanka. “In South Asian cultures, we don’t actually tend to say the words ‘I love you,’ but it’s shown in so many different ways,” she says. “Whether it is constantly feeding someone or just yelling, there is cruelty disguised as love. The West does not understand this.”
“There’s a sort of celebration of that intensity and shouting. You don’t want to get completely drunk,” says Aran.
‘All boundaries are blurred. ‘What is performance and what is your real life?’
Isabella Vadiveloo, director
Director Isabella Vadiveloo and Aran have been working on script development and dramaturgy since 2023. “When I direct something with science fiction components, I approach it as a human story that transcends purely genre. But genre gives us a familiar and exciting new lens through which to explore these aspects of connection and culture,” says Vadiveloo.
The mutual trust shared by Vadiveloo and Aran fosters a strong creative partnership that lends itself to risk-taking and tackling complex themes and thoughtful storytelling. Aran also brought Perera’s life experiences into the script, including his upbringing and family dynamics in Sri Lanka; The woman praises her writing ability.
“All boundaries are blurred,” says Vadiveloo. “What is performance and what is your real life? What is your cultural expectation and what is it?” [are] your personal wishes? These all combine and mix.
Perera adds: “You start talking about it theoretically – ‘Oh, I’m helping with the script.’ But then you realize: ‘Oh my God, these were the conversations I needed to have,’ you know?”
Aran says there’s still industry pressure for South Asian theater work to be told from a cultural perspective, whether it be sourced from your parents’ life story or translated for mainstream consumption. Vadiveloo says it’s rare to have multiple works by South Asian writers or directors staged in one theater season to explore diversity of ideas and genres.
“The default audience still always has to be white people,” he says. “So as we’ve become more progressive in terms of who we can show, we’ve also become more conservative in terms of who we can show these people doing.”
Vadiveloo and Aran insist that their show is a comedy and that the freedom to laugh is part of recovery and that finding joy in the midst of drama is important.
But when it comes to having a second chance at life, would an alternative path be that promising when you’re slapped with the cold hard truth of reality? This is the essence of what Kavitha discovers when she finally meets Kaye.
“Part of the game is that the perfectionism that Kavitha has towards her clone can only exist in her mind, and that the clone is actually not as happy as she thinks,” says Aran.
Must Have At Footscray Community Arts from 27 May to 6 June as part of Rising
