Merciless Gods

Dan Giovannoni’s Green Room Award winning adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’ Merciless Gods is a brutal and tender examination of queer immigrant experiences in Australia.

Ancient gods were cruel and capricious. In this collection of theatrical vignettes based on the writings of acclaimed author and observer Christos Tsiolkas, humans are their prey. Or the fallen themselves.

Vicious and tender, here is Australia today. From migrant camps to gay saunas, pill-popping
hipster dinner parties to porn sets, prison cells to the streets of the Cross; Merciless Gods
captures haunting slices of our psyche and unveils the hidden faces of ancient deities on mortal ground. Intercutting between families, friends and accidental encounters, this is humanity laid-bare – virtuous and vengeful, domestic and divine.

Tsiolkas has entrusted this first ever stage adaptation of Merciless Gods to queer indie
wunderkinds Little Ones Theatre, and award-winning playwright Dan Giovannoni. Critically
acclaimed in Melbourne and Sydney and winner of two Green Room Awards (including best new writing and best performer) Merciless Gods is urgent, dirty, glorious queer theatre.

Contemporary and godly, this new Australian work directed by Stephen Nicolazzo is a must-see theatrical event.

★★★★★★★★★★★ "This is an outsider play made by outsiders... brutal, tender, and unsentimentally queer. It demands your attention" - The Guardian

★★★★1/2 "Breathtaking and shattering... These gutting scenarios, one after the other, are offered as a succession of exquisite exhibits in a museum of rarefied pain; unspeakable ordeals forged into golden monuments. Director Stephen Nicolazzo continues to cement his reputation as one of Melbourne’s – and dare I say, Australia’s – most dynamic and creatively assured theatre makers... every gesture of this production finds a hard-won, supremely accomplished equilibrium between the beautiful and the barbaric." - The Music

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