Oil is a thought-provoking theatrical tour de force from Black Swan theatre. The play takes the form of a series of tableaux across time and space, painting an impressionistic picture of the attempts by one woman to ride the wave of ‘progress’ which the age of oil offered, but which leads to familial dysfunction, loneliness, and oppression.

Black Swan State Theatre Company of WA’s Oil. Photo © Daniel J Grant.

Ella Hickson’s play premiered at Almeida Theatre, London, in 2016, and last year reached Melbourne (Red Stitch theatre) and the USA. Black Swan echoes some aspects of these productions, notably in the use of projection for one scene. Director Adam Mitchell, stage designer Zoë Atkinson and lighting designer Matthew Marshall house the piece in four boxes representing different locations and which slide open to reveal the actors distributed horizontally across a generally bright, shallow stage. These simplified pictorial settings aid in the compression of the drama into rich yet distinctive episodes which we jump between.

Events follow the determined female protagonist May, played by Hayley McElhinney, who begins as a sensualist, seeking love, sex and later good food and clean sheets....