Re-imagining Suburbia with My Darling Patricia

In the opening moments of My Darling Patricia's production Africa, two figures in white disposable coveralls comb the darkened stage. Masked and hooded, they direct their attention to the domestic environment around them, picking through piles of clothes and children's toys, and running gloved hands over surfaces. Rendering the domestic scene as the scene of some as yet unknown crime, the figures exit, replaced downstage by the small spot-lit puppet of a boy. Momentarily gazing at his plaster-encased arm, he removes it from where it rests on top of a brightly coloured toy microwave, swings the door of the microwave shut, and sets it to work. Inside it, accompanied by the muffled thuds of a dance beat emanating from somewhere at the rear of the stage, turns the severed head of a child's plastic doll on a plate.