Beneath The Mountain

By Katherine Sortini

Photo by Photos by Jamois

I don’t know darling, I’m trying my hardest just to keep my head above water here. If I do go out to a gym or whatever it’ll be to get some respite not because I want to be a size 6 or 8 again. Besides, I’m not young anymore, I don’t have to compete with anyone. I have you and my body has changed we have a baby and I’m not sure that’s top of my priority list right now.

You think you’ll stay this way forever?

I might, I’m not sure.

You don’t want to change?

I think I’ve changed enough, don’t you?

Beat.

Why, do you think I’m no longer beautiful?

Beneath the Mountain is an ambitious new interdisciplinary theatrical work that confronts the invisible and undervalued labor inherent in motherhood and domestic life. Developed and produced by Deus Ex Femina, the production integrates spoken word, live music, theatre, and physical performance to explore the quiet violences of emotional labor and the slow erosion of autonomy within domestic settings.

Inspired by Aesop’s fable The Mountain in Labour, the work interrogates the disparity between the lofty expectations of caregiving and the isolating, complex realities experienced by women; particularly within heterosexual relationships.

It asks: what happens when women are expected to be everything to everyone, and what remains beneath the weight of it all?

Courtesy of The Mill.
Photographer: Bri Hammond

Beneath the Mountain was selected for The Mill’s Theatre Residency scheduled for 2025.

CREATIVE TEAM -
Playwright - Katherine Sortini
Director - Elizabeth Hay
Producer - Deus Ex Femina
Performers - Katherine Sortini and Nate Triosi
Technical Manager - Steven Durey

VENUE
The Mill, 154 Angas St, Adelaide SA 5000

It will then have a short season in the Deus Ex Femina’s Fortune Favours the Bold Residency at Goodwood Theatre & Studios later in 2025.

Without the support of Goodwood Theatre and Studios and The Mill none of this would have been possible.