By Harold Pinter

Sydney Actor’s School, Graduating Actor’s 2021

In the aftermath of World War I, an epidemic destroyed the lives of 5 million people around the globe. The disease, encephalitis lethargica or "sleeping sickness", attacked the brain of its victims, leaving them immobile and unresponsive. The plague petered out in the mid-1920s. For the tiny minority of patients who survived, treatment was decades away.

In the 1960s, experiments with newly discovered drug l-dopa woke many of these patients. Remarkably, their brain functions were often completely intact. But the drug's effects were short-lived, the remission cruelly temporary. In Harold Pinter's play A Kind of Alaska Deborah wakes up after 29 years asleep to find that she does not know who she is now. For her, the past is an eternal present into which she retreats.

Director Shane Anthony

Producer Ashley Curry

Production Manager Robert Wells

Set Design Anthony Speed

Costume Design Emily Smith & Tammy Hearder

Lighting Design Thomas Bensley

Stage Management Gabrielle Bowen