A Note from Director Kitan Petkovski | Savages
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Before Savages opens this week, hear straight from Director Kitan Petkovski.
Patricia Cornelius writes with extraordinary precision. Her language is muscular, unsentimental and alive with contradiction, asking us to sit with discomfort rather than rushing towards certainty. Savages is, for me, one of her boldest works.
At first glance, these four men are funny, familiar and deeply recognisable. Their camaraderie is warm, their banter effortless. Yet beneath it runs an unmistakable current of menace. Rather than asking us simply to condemn these characters, the play invites us to look more closely at the forces that shape them: the expectations they inherit, the performances they learn, and the fear of vulnerability that so often becomes violence.
Our production places women and non-binary performers at the centre of this story, creating a constant awareness of both the performance of masculinity and the people performing it. This perspective allows us to examine the play through another lens, exploring how these men are made while holding space for complexity, accountability and humanity.
More than a decade after Savages premiered, its questions remain painfully urgent. Theatre cannot solve systemic violence, but it can create space for honest conversations, empathy and reflection. My hope is that audiences leave not with easy answers, but with difficult questions that continue long after the lights come up.
Thank you for joining us.
- Kitan Petkovski
Director of Savages
Savages plays 2 - 12 September at Theatre Works.
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