An amorous audition between playwright Thomas (Thomas Dimmick) and Vanda (Grace Edwards) in Venus in Fur blurs the line fantasy and reality. Picture: Nicholas Tejchman

A mysterious, erotic and funny drama – featuring just two people – is Melville Theatre’s first offering for 2018.

Written by US playwright, screenwriter and novelist David Ives and directed by Trevor Dhu, Venus in Fur was first staged in 2010 and nominated for numerous Tony Awards before Roman Polanski shot a French film version in late 2012. The play-within-a-play is an adaptation of the 1870 novel Venus in Furs by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the book that inspired the term masochism.

The play goes behind the scenes at an audition in New York City where a playwright and mysterious young actress blur the lines between fantasy and reality, seduction and power and love and sex.

Armed with a bag of S&M gear and period costumes, the actress convinces the playwright to read his own script with breaks along the way to argue about the meaning of the story.

FURTHER DETAILS

Venus in Fur plays at 8pm February 16, 17, 21, 23, 24, March 1, 2 and 3 with a 2pm matinee February 25. Tickets are $20, $15 concession – book on 9330 4565 or at www.meltheco.org.au.

Please note: the play has adult themes and some coarse language.

Melville Theatre is on the corner of Stock Road and Canning Highway, Palmyra.