The Offering blends spoken word and live music to create a powerful, poetic seafaring tale woven with oral histories and personal narratives.

National Theatre of Parramatta are proud to be producing the full theatrical premiere of The Offering (A Plastic Ocean Oratorio) by award-winning rapper and poet Omar Musa (Since Ali Died) and renowned American cellist and composer Mariel Roberts Musa. The Offering (A Plastic Ocean Oratorio) is an epic new performance work that weaves spoken word and live music, as the pair tell a seafaring story that melds oral histories and Omar’s personal narratives into a deeply powerful and hauntingly poetic work.

In this urgent story, a protagonist from a country torn apart by ecological collapse and climate change travels across a plastic ocean towards a mythical volcano where he seeks destruction but instead finds revelation and a vision of a world without borders.

Presented for a strictly limited season only – do not miss your chance to see one of Australia’s most electric storytellers live on stage.

Explore the full Heartland Festival program

Time Out (on Since Ali Died)

"…the show unfurls like the river imagery in Musa’s evocative script: borne on a central, unstoppable current, fluid and fluent in a style of its own making."

The Guardian (on Since Ali Died)

"At once tender, beautiful, gritty, and raw."

CAST & CREATVES

Writer/Performer Omar Musa
Musician/Performer Mariel Roberts Musa
Outside Eye Phil Spencer
Lighting Designer Andrew D Potvin

OMAR MUSA is an author, poet, rapper and visual artist from Queanbeyan, NSW. He has released three poetry books (including Killernova), five hip hop records (including The Fullness), and written an acclaimed one man play, Since Ali Died. He was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015 for his novel Here Come the Dogs and long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award. Omar has had several solo exhibitions of his woodcut prints. He is based between Brooklyn and Borneo.

American cellist and composer MARIEL ROBERTS MUSA is widely recognised not just for her virtuosic performances, but as a “fearless explorer” in her field (Chicago Reader). Her deep commitment to collaboration and experimentation as an interpreter, improvisor, and composer have helped create a body of work which bridges avant-garde, contemporary, classical, improvised, and traditional music. Roberts is widely recognized for her “technical and interpretive mastery” (I care if you listen) and for performances which seethe with “excruciating intensity” (The Whole Note). Roberts has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across four continents, most notably as a member and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble (named “The Best Classical Music Ensemble of 2018” by The New York Times), as well as with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Mivos Quartet, Bang on a Can All Stars, and Ensemble Signal.

Accessibility

In English

Wheelchair accessible

Companion Card accepted

Assistive Hearing system available (FM)

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