Suitcase Show

Suitcase Show - Written by Ralph McCubbin Howell, directed by Hannah Smith
Produced by Trick of the Light Theatre

A traveller arrives at a border with a stack of battered cases. From within them, whole worlds will emerge…

Suitcase Show is an eclectic box set of short stories. Dark, spiky, and comic, each one is told out of a suitcase. The staging is inventive, from lo-fi shadowplay to wireless projection, from dancing disembodied hands to narratives that crackle from a 70s stereo suitcase. Tiny in scale, but expansive in story, it touches on climate change, love and death, travel, and secrets that we carry with us – an overthrown autocrat finds themselves on the run from their own shadow, an astronaut turns their telescope back on earth and back in time. The work was developed through a series of showings in unusual site-specific spaces, from a pub to a photography darkroom.

Trick of the Light is renowned for crafting inventive shows and intricate narratives. Suitcase Show reunites multi-award-winning collaborators Hannah Smith, Ralph McCubbin Howell, Tane Upjohn-Beatson, and Filament 11 Eleven.

“A masterful weaving of stories… Crafty as all hell”
– Art Murmurs, Wellington

“Few words are capable of capturing the magic this innovative theatre company brings to the stage.”
– Regional News, Wellington

*Please note: Suitcase Show is an adult work but is suitable for audiences aged 12 and up.

Contains haze, flashing lights, references to death and depictions of violence.