Provenance (2018)

Provenance is the story of a retired surgeon, Alice; her daughter Agatha; a wealthy soon to be divorcee, Caroline; and a statue of a head. Alice and Agatha are on bad terms. Agatha has returned to London from New York, where she has been working for Christies, to attempt to sort out her mother’s mental and financial chaos. Alice is a hoarder, her grasp on reality diminishing, her house in disrepair, and her mortgage so overdue that the bank will imminently foreclose leaving her homeless unless Agatha can find a solution. Meanwhile, Alice is intractable in her belief that there is nothing wrong. She is irritated by Agatha’s interventions and clear that she wants to be left to die in her own home. Amongst her mother’s clutter, Agatha discovers a statue – a head - that she believes may be valuable enough to solve her mother's financial problems. Against her mother’s will and her employer’s protocols, Agatha values the head and fabricates its provenance before it is sold at auction. Caroline, the purchaser, attempts to return the head to Christies after realising the instability of her finances due to her divorce from her wealthy husband. There, she meets Alice who is attempting to get her statue back. After Alice tells Caroline the head is a forgery, Caroline takes it to Sotheby’s to be valued where it is found to be genuine and as valuable as Agatha had originally believed. It is sold for many multiples of what Agatha and Alice received making Caroline wealthy once again while Alice is forced to move into the care home she hoped to avoid. 

Written by: Laura Hayes
Created by: Autopoetics

Performed by: Chelsea Crothers, Laura Hayes, Maiya Murphy

Lighting: Petrina Dawn Tan
Stage Manager: Jovetta Tan

(Source: Autopoetics)