Set at the end of the 19 th Century, Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset is wonderfully dark and thrilling. Beginning with shipwrecked visitors seeking refuge in the rain-battered, lamp-lit homestead of Lady Drinkwater and her two remaining daughters Hope and Fortitude.
Fearful that the intruders, an anthropologist and a Chinese trader, will break her self-imposed quarantine and bring with them the fever that has already killed five of her daughters, Constance reluctantly grants them shelter.
What follows is part ghost story, part ‘whodunnit’, as Constance and her two bird-like daughters, the two shipwrecked visitors and the settlement priest, unravel the mysteries and the ultimate, horrifying truth about Somerset.
Critics have applauded Constance, calling it "remarkable new Australian Theatre" (Sydney Morning Herald) and "a dark and stormy night in the theatre... steadfastly gripping" (Sun-Herald).
They have also drawn similarities in characterisation and design between Constance and an Edgar Allen Poe story, Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’, ‘The Woman in Black’, and even the films ‘The Shining’ and ‘The Others’.
