Black Rainbow
Image: Photo: Michael Twomey
When faced with making a decision can one ever really know what is right or wrong?
Kathy Petrakis explores the human moral code through the dark underworld of Sydney – homelessness, drugs, and violence – in her dark and realistic production, Black Rainbow.
The story follows the double life of teenage boy Ahmed Khoury as he struggles to keep his two lives separate, one as a scholarship student at a private school, and the other as a drug dealer on the streets.
“It’s about this character and how he lives in this environment of violence, you wouldn’t guess from seeing him that he lives this completely different lifestyle,” Petrakis says. “He is involved whether he wants to be or not, he doesn’t have a choice.”
Performed in the intimate Tap Gallery, Petrakis says the production is about the emotional and internal conflict of Ahmed as he struggles in this morally ambiguous world, and is designed to make audiences question what they would do.
“The violence is suggested through sounds and lights and after effects, it’s the impact they have that is more important,” she says. “Everyone has their moral code, even if you are a criminal. What is right or wrong is never clear.” (SOC)
Aug 13-24, Tap Gallery, 1/278 Palmer St, Darlinghurst, $20-30, kathypetrakis.com/blackrainbow/
BY SHAUNA O’CARROLL
