By Jessie Tu, published in Women’s Agenda 19 February 2025

Known for its slate of powerful, unflinching plays by diverse contemporary playwrights, Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre is set to premiere Andrew Bovell’s latest historical drama, Song of First Desire to Australian audiences.

The trans-generational plot kicks off in the Spanish Franco years, before traversing three timelines: 1943, 1968 and the present, weaving in themes of history, politics and interpersonal relations.

A star-studded cast including Kerry Fox and Sarah Peirse will perform under the guidance of legendary director Neil Armfield, who reunites with Bovell for the first time since their collaboration on Bovell’s Things I Know to Be True in 2019.

“One of the central themes in the play is how do we carry the past in our own times,” Bovell explained. “As the world turns toward authoritarian governments to provide solutions to its problems Song of First Desire is a reminder of the traumatic legacy of fascism on a country and its people.”

Photographer credit Brett Boardman

Song of First Desire had its world premiere in Madrid in April 2023, captivating Spanish audiences and receiving critical acclaim. The Australian version was translated from Spanish by Jorge Muriel, who, alongside his original cast mate Borja Maestre, will feature in Belvoir’s production.

Peirse plays Camelia, an ageing matriarch whose life is turned upside down when her children Julia (Kerry Fox) and Luis (Jorge Muriel) hire a Colombian migrant named Alejandro (Borja Maestre) to become her caretaker.

During the Spanish Franco years in Madrid, the family are forced to confront long held secrets, while the suffocating authoritarian powers forbid open discussion and free dialogue.

“Writing a play from Australia about the inheritance of fascism in Spain might seem to be a massive reach, but Andrew’s fractal poetics come from a place with its own history of forgetting, of silence, of lies erasing a shameful past,” Armfield said.

“If Spain enacted its Pacto del Olvido (Pact of Forgetting) to try to bury the heinous crimes committed under Franco, in Australia we didn’t need to – we already had the lie of Terra Nullius”.

Photographer credit Brett Boardman

For Kerry Fox, relocating to Sydney from her home base in London to perform in the play was an easy decision — she read the script in one night and accepted the role immediately.

“If you can’t get through [a script] fast, then generally it’s a good reason not to do it,” she told Women’s Agenda. “It’s an extraordinary piece of work, I [am] really excited.”

Peirse agreed, describing Bovell’s writing as “terrific”.

“It’s a really bold and great and very timely piece,” she said. “It’s a combination of things — the quality of the writing, the way the story unfolds…the writing is always the first engagement for me. I’m looking for kind of a rolling composite, and it can be made up of different things on different projects.”

Photographer credit Brett Boardman

Fox admits the subject matter of the play was something she knew very little about but has always interested her.

“The impact of not only the Spanish Civil War, but of Franco’s period of control over Spain and the concept of generational trauma and the secrets and pain of that is something that really interests me,” she said.

“It’s incredibly depressing at the moment, with generations of people being severely damaged in the world, and what impact that will have, and the impact it has had historically, I think it’s really happening forcefully around us. [The play is set across] two times in the present day and in 1968 in Madrid and Spain, yet it seems to cover much bigger concept and theme of the tortured and subjugated.”

Despite its heavy themes, Peirse notes that the play has its funny moments too.

“This play, and that’s the courtesy of Andrew’s writing, as much as anything, is also kind of brutally funny,” she said. “It’s not just a journey into pain. There’s good laughs.”

The play offers a chance for the pair to collaborate with the two original members from the Spanish production, Jorge Muriel and Borja Maestre.

“[Jorge and Borja] talk about the history of this particular circumstance being something that is still divides Spain, that there are large numbers of people who thoroughly agree and endorse the way in which it unfolded, and so that schism is also what gets explored [in this latest production],” Peirse said.

The production will also feature a real garden on stage, beautifully designed by Mel Page, with the actors walking on the ground surrounded by living plants. “She has delivered a beautiful set on which we are working,” Peirse added.

Song Of First Desire

Upstairs Theatre, Belvoir St Theatre

Dates: 13 February – 23 March 2025