Our first encounter with Oil‘s central character, May (Brooke Satchwell) takes place in a dark, freezing Cornwall farmhouse, in the latter years of the 19th century. She’s a farmer’s wife, pregnant, and living a life more brutish than bucolic. All that changes when a travelling salesman – an American – introduces her to a new world: one lit by kerosene.

For May, the burning kerosene is more than a source of light. It’s a beacon, one luring her toward comfort, warmth and independence. Slipping out into the night, she leaves her old life behind and begins a centuries-spanning, head-spinning journey.

Brooke Satchwell and Josh McConville in Sydney Theatre Company’s Oil. Photo © Prudence Upton

Next, footmen and maids bring in candelabra. The room is suddenly much brighter. We meet May again, this time with her precocious young daughter, Amy. We’re not in Cornwall anymore, or even England. This is Tehran in 1908 and May has a job as a servant. While she lays out a buffet of cake and trifle, British businessmen and military types are offstage, carving up Persia’s newly discovered oil reserves. Dessert and desert? Probably deliberate.

From there, the...