ODIE (NWF Reading)

Odie is approaching eighty, cramped and isolated behind the doors of his nursing home. The sterile dementia unit is a world away from the bright lights of Oxford Street, 80s discotheques and love lost on the dancefloor crooning to Judy Garland. Sixty years his junior, Terra arrives. A lost soul armed with questions of their adopted father. The knock on Odie's door is the first visitor he's had in a long, long time.

Odie, or the man that got away by Jacob Parker is a multigenerational queer story of memory, who remains at the end of the journey and what is the legacy we leave behind. We are drawn into Odie's fragmented and vibrant recollections through the music of Judy, her ghost filling the bleak care home with colour. 

To the shock of the RNs who struggle to reach the cantankerous Odie, the two slowly form a bond over the revelation of family secrets. We see the inner workings of Odie's mind where names and lyrics inspire fleeting memories long forgotten in a flurry of distorted scenes from the past, proving a connection to a queer community doesn't have to end when you grow old.

The development of this work was supported by Shopfront Arts Co-Op's Open Shop.

Team: Legit Theatre Co. (producing company), Jacob Parker (playwright), Mathew Lee (director), Sheanna Parker Russon (assistant director), Christine Pan (sound design), Patrick Phillips (promotional photography), Clay Crighton (performer), Luke Fewster (performer), Nat Jobe (performer), Nicholas Papademetriou (performer), Addy Robertson (performer), Iya Ware (performer), Sarah Greenwood (performer), Lukas Radovich (performer)

Run Time: ~90 minutes

Content Warnings: N/A