FUTURE PROJECTS

The Aphrodite Complex

An opera composed by Nico Muhly, Laura has been commissioned to write the libretto for the Sydney Chamber Opera.

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that there is no true way by which any woman should conform. It is through other people’s expectations and assumptions that a woman becomes ‘feminine’. De Beauvoir acknowledges that women are expected to strive after beauty, a beauty that has been defined by men’s view of what they would like women to be, a view that often denies women their capacity for action and thought. There have been different ideals of feminine beauty at different times and different places, but the constant throughout history is that women have been encouraged to be passive - their bodies emphasised and displayed. To be acceptable, women are expected to use artifice to make themselves ornamental. Women’s clothes and shoes frequently constrain their movement, while their beauty regimes dominate their lives and drain their finances. Women are controlled by other people’s visions of what they should look like and how they should live. The pressure to be conventionally beautiful, to diet, to worry about makeup and jewellery, (to become an object for the male gaze) is intense. But still, according to de Beauvoir, this is resistible. Women are fundamentally free to reject male stereotypes of beauty and sexual attractiveness and become more equal as a result. There is no way by which any woman should conform.

What role does the myth of Aphrodite play in reinforcing these expectations?

Plunder

Some things aren’t reversible. Once they’re done, they’re pretty hard to undo. Like birth. Like death. Like mining the deep-sea.

This is true: At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, lay millions of poly-metallic nodules. Each nodule took millions of years to form, is about the size and shape of a potato, and contains certain metals that are classified as rare earth: metals like Cobalt, Nicol, Manganese, Copper, Zinc, Gold, and Silver.

Told in rhyming, rhythmic language, Plunder is a semi-true story about deep-sea mining. At its heart, this play is about a father, a daughter, and a global conundrum, set against the clock.

Laura is currently a part of Theatre Works’ She Writes collective and Plunder is being developed with support of Theatre Works.