Leviathan

Synopsis:

A sprawling canvas on the subject of survival – who survives, who doesn’t, the how, the why and the ethics of it all.

8 actors play 32 roles, including those of Charles Darwin, Charles Harpur (the son of convicts, and Australia’s first native-born poet), Benjamin Boyd (a larger-than-life entrepreneur, whaler and slave-trader), Thomas Huxley (Darwin’s ‘attack dog’), Bishop Wilberforce (Darwin’s chief rival in the fight over evolution), Emma Darwin (Charles’ wife, who patiently tended to his needs in the many dyspeptic years following his historic voyage on The Beagle), and many more, all playing out their destiny in the shadow of Thomas Hobbes’ iconic pronouncement that life “in a state of nature” would be “nasty, poor, solitary, brutish, and short”.

Character Breakdown:

The play is an 8-hander:  2 females, 6 males:
CHARLES DARWIN
BENJAMIN BOYD
CHARLES HARPUR / CAROUSER / PARTY-GOER – one actor.
THOMAS HUXLEY / OSWALD BRIERLY / YOUNG MAN / CAROUSER / SYME-COVINGTON – one actor.
CAPTAIN ROBERT FITZROY / DR ROBERT DARWIN / JOSEPH PHELPS ROBINSON / POSTLETHWAITE / BISHOP BROUGHTON / BISHOP SAMUEL WILBERFORCE / RICHARD OWEN / ATTENDANT – one actor.
OLD MAN / RICHARD BELL / JAMES MACARTHUR / HENRY KENDALL / MR DOYLE / BUTLER / DIGGER – one actor.
EMMA DARWIN / EVE / CAROUSER – one actor.
MARY DOYLE (HARPUR) / MOLLY / HENRIETTA HEATHORN / CAROUSER – one actor.

Production History:  Not yet produced.

Running-time: 150 minutes.

Only available in hard copy, which can be obtained through the author.