I learnt a few years ago that the apparent inspiration for Miss Havisham from Great Expectations was an Australian woman buried at Sydney's Camperdown Cemetery. I'd never really given it more thought than that, but it is said that in the 1850s, Emily Eliza Donnithorne was jilted on the morning of her wedding and subsequently became a recluse. Thirty years later she died, still wearing her wedding dress.
In its latest production Day After Terrible Day, The Danger Ensemble make use of Donnithorne's story to explore the sorrow, grief and mourning that comes from falling in love and being unable to let go when the love ends. Director Mitchell Steven Wright builds a world that is macabre and disturbing from the very beginning when we are greeted by two real estate agents hoping to sell us a property. They are dressed in pink outfits with hair and make-up to the nines, but something about them doesn't look quite right. Once we enter, it is not long before we encounter one of the previous owners.