New artistic director Brett Sheehy has brought interdisciplinary ambition to this 26-country arts confab, which draws participants from as far as Brazil, China, Iceland, Liberia, Russia, Sudan and the U.S. “In 2009 we embark on a new vision
where international works are drawn from every art form—opera, outdoor spectacle, visual arts, symphonic music and theatre to hybrid arts, techno, heavy metal and neo-punk,” Sheehy has declared, noting that 90 percent of the works presented are exclusive to the Melbourne Festival. The theatrical program doesn’t wander geographically outside Australia and Europe, but the lineup feels urgent and energetic—take Andrew Bovell’s century-spanning family saga, which weaves in questions of climate change and culminates in the year 2039 with a fish falling from the sky (When the Rain Stops Falling).The audience will also find conversations ripped from real-life train travel in Store Room Theatre’sThe Dictionary of Imaginary Places, created by Anna Tregloan; and a furry existential guide in Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre’s Apocalypse Bear Trilogy, by Lally Katz—both Melbourne companies. A handful of Belgian, German and Irish productions promise similarly bracing forays into transgender autobiography, terrorism, demons, and even a dose of good-old-fashioned financial ruin.