A Hard God

AUDITION AT 7PM CHARACTERS: - Dan Cassidy, male 50's, son of Irish immigrants, 'the good brother.' - Joe Cassidy, male 16, 'slight build,' Dan's son - Aggie Cassidy (Dan's wife) 45-50 Australian, sharp-tempered, common sense, highly sceptical woman - worships Dan - Jack Shannon, male, 16 'stocky and handsome', Australian, Joe's friend - Martin Cassidy, Dan's elder brother, 50-60's, Irish, a poet & labourer - Paddy Cassidy, 'small, sharp man', Dan's younger brother, Irish, 'argumentative and a coward' - Monica Cassidy, Martin's wife - a religious zealot, very pious & proper. Australian "We just have to stumple on blindly" says Martin, head of the embattled Cassidy family "with His mercy raining down on us like thunderbolts" Memories of his own Irish Catholic childhood people the stage in Peter Kenna's famous study of youth and age in a working class family as suffers the pangs of love, death adolescence and survival in the Sydney of the 1940's. Wrtten in 1973 "A Hard God" has become an icon of Austraian literature and has been performed many times on stage, film and television, There are two things about this play which make it a peice to which Australians respond profoudly. The first is the Irish Catholic nature of the family; the second is the ever-present imagery of dislocation.