Counting
and Cracking
a story about reconciliation
On the banks of a suburban Sydney river, Radha and her son Siddhartha release the ashes of Radha’s mother–their final connection to the past, to Sri Lanka and its struggles. Now they are free to embrace their lives in Australia. Then a phone call from Colombo brings the past spinning back to life, and we are plunged into an epic story of love and political strife, of home and exile, of parents and children.
House of Oz in association with Soho Theatre presents
COUNTING AND CRACKING
எண்ணிக்கை, இல்லையேல் கையோங்கு
ගණන් නොගන්නේ නම් ගණන් කරන්න
Presenting a Belvoir St Theatre and Kurinji Co-Production
By S.Shakthidharan with Eamon Flack
Presented as part of LIFT
From the writer, S. Shakthidrharan
“In Counting and Cracking I hope to provide audiences with a new story to believe in: about Australia, about Sri Lanka. It’s a story in which migrants are not asked to discard parts of themselves to fit in, but instead are asked to present their full selves, to expand our idea of what Australia can be. It’s a story of how the politics of division can win the battle, but never the war, around how power is gained in this world. It’s a story in which love may not triumph over adversity, but through sheer persistence and resilience can eventually overcome it. And finally it's a story about reconciliation: between parents and children, between neighbours and enemies, between your new home and your old home, between society and its institutions.”
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about the play
The play follows the journey of one Sri Lankan-Australian family over four generations from 1956 to 2004. The action of the play takes place in various locations in Sydney, Australia and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Changes in time and place are represented by different performers playing different characters at different ages as well as costume, props and physical signposts. Counting and Cracking is in three Acts, with two intervals. Each Act has been described as having its own ‘theatrical identity and form’. The play is performed in English, Tamil, and Sinhalese, with live translation into English
The play is written by S. Shakthidharan, a Sri Lankan-Australian who researched and developed the work over the course of ten years, in collaboration with his own family and the wider Sri Lankan diaspora. It is directed by Eamon Flack, an award-winning director and the Artistic Director of Belvoir-Australia's third largest theatre company.
Counting and Cracking is a work of international ensemble theatre. It features a world-class cast of sixteen performers hailing from six different countries. There are fourteen South-Asian, one Arabic-Australian and one Aboriginal Australian actors,who between them come from Australia, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, New Zealand and France.
Creatives
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S. Shakthidharan
WRITER
S. Shakthidharan is an Australian storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. He’s a writer, director and producer of theatre and film, as well as a composer and performer of original music.
His plays Counting and Cracking and The Jungle and the Sea (with Eamon Flack), and The Wrong Gods have won critical, commercial and community acclaim. Counting and Cracking (“One of the great Australian plays” - The Guardian) has toured extensively and won a New York Times Critics Pick. The script won the Victorian Premier’s Literature Prize and the NSW Premier’s Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting. The production won 7 Helpmann Awards including Best New Australian Work and Best Direction of a Play.
The Jungle and the Sea won the 2024 Victorian Premier's Drama Prize and 4 Sydney Theatre Awards including Best Mainstage Production and Best New Australian Work.
The Wrong Gods was shortlisted for the NSW Premiers’ Prize and three Green Room awards.
Gather Up Your World In One Long Breath, with Powerhouse Publishing, is his debut book. It won the NSW Premiers’ Multicultural Prize and was shortlisted for the Prime Ministers’ Prize for Non-Fiction. The book will be accompanied by a major year-long, companion artwork with the Museum.
Shakthi’s debut feature film The Laugh of Lakshmi is currently in production, coming to cinemas in 2027. He has plays, TV series and multi-disciplinary works in development. He’s the Director of Kurinji, was previously Director of Co-Curious, and was Founder and Artistic Director of CuriousWorks from 2003-2018.
Shakthi is a Creative Australia and Sidney Myer Fellow, and a recipient of the Phillip Parson’s and Kirk Robson awards. In 2026 he won the prestigious global Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama.
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EAMON FLACK
DIRECTOR
Eamon Flack is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre and a leading Australian director, writer and dramaturg. His directing credits include Counting and Cracking (with Associate Director S. Shakthidharan), The Jungle and the Sea (co-directed with S. Shakthidharan), Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, The Master and Margarita, Angels in America, August: Osage County, The Glass Menagerie, Life of Galileo, Ivanov, The Cherry Orchard, King Lear, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Jason de Santis’ Tiwi Islands panto Wulamanayuwi and the Seven Pamanui.
His writing credits include Associate Writer of S. Shakthidharan’s Counting and Cracking and co-writer with S. Shakthidharan of The Jungle and the Sea; adaptations of Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Helen Garner’s The Spare Room, Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children, Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and Ivanov, Gorky’s Summerfolk, Sophocles’ Antigone and Ibsen’s Ghosts; co-adapter with Leah Purcell of Ruby Langford Ginibi’s Don’t Take Your Love To Town, and co-deviser of Beautiful One Day with artists from ILBIJERRI, version 1.0, and the community of Palm Island.
For orchestral concert he has adapted and directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream alongside Mendelssohn’s score for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Belvoir St Theatre conducted by Simone Young, and directed and co-created Beethoven and Bridgetower with Anna Goldsworthy, Rita Dove and Richard Tognetti for the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
His work has received multiple Helpmann, Sydney Theatre and Green Room awards, and, with S. Shakthidharan, the Victorian Literary Prize, The Victorian Premier’s Award for Drama, and the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting.
Eamon was born in Singapore, grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane, and trained as an actor at WAAPA.
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Co-commissioned by Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc, Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival and Belvoir St Theatre. Originally Co-produced with Co-Curious and developed with the support of Curious Works and the philanthropic support of the Gamechangers.