In order to get more accurate results, our search has the following Google-Type search functionality:
If you use '+' in front of a word, then that word will be present in the search results.
ex: Harry +Potter will return results with the word 'Potter'.
If you use '-' in front of a word, then that word will be absent in the search results.
ex: Harry -Potter will return results without the word 'Potter'.
If you use 'AND' between two words, then both of those words will be present in the search results.
ex: Harry AND Potter will return results with both 'Harry' and 'Potter'.
If you use 'OR' between two words, then bth of those words may or may not be present in the search results.
ex: Harry OR Potter will return results with just 'Harry', results with just 'Potter' and results with both 'Harry' and 'Potter'.
If you use 'NOT' before a word, then that word will be absent in the search results.
ex: Harry NOT Potter will return results without the word 'Potter'.
Placing '""' around words will perform a phrase search. The search results will contain those words in that order.
ex: "Harry Potter" will return any results with 'Harry Potter' in them, but not 'Potter Harry'.
Using '*' in a word will perform a wildcard search. The '*' signifies any number of characters. Searches can not start with a wildcard.
ex: Pot*er will return results with words starting with 'Pot' and ending in 'er'. In this case, 'Potter' will be a match.
The false cold of the theatre makes it hard to imagine the heavy wind outside in the real world, the ash air pressing onto the city from the nearby hills where bushfires are taking hold.
The house lights lower.
The auditorium feels hopeful in the darkness.
As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play.
Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone.
As the performance unfolds, so does each woman's story. By the time the curtain falls, they will all have a new understanding of the world beyond the stage.
'How each woman interacts with and is altered by the play enacts beautifully the dialectical relationship between art and life.' WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
'Written with passion, The Performance is a brave book: unafraid of confronting the dissonances of living in a modern Australia.' THE CONVERSATION
'Witty, affecting, brilliantly wise and original.' Gail Jones, author of A GUIDE TO BERLIN, THE DEATH OF NOAH GLASS and OUR SHADOWS
'A potent meditation on the intensity of women's lives.' Charlotte Wood, author of THE NATURAL WAY OF THINGS and THE WEEKEND
'Claire Thomas writes with a sure eye and knowing heart.' Tony Birch, author of BLOOD, GHOST RIVER and THE WHITE GIRL
'I read from start to finish almost without looking up.' Clare Bowditch, author of YOUR OWN KIND OF GIRL
'Read it as soon as you possibly can.' Emily Bitto, author of THE STRAYS
'In this novel, the project of living is rendered with compassionate clarity.' NEW YORK TIMES
'Thomas's imitation of wandering minds is flawless.' WASHINGTON POST
'Claire Thomas has constructed, with graceful precision, a near-perfect wind-up music box of a novel.' ARTS HUB