Hydra

Wild, passionate and ultimately tragic: the love story of Australia’s famous literary couple, Charmian Clift and George Johnston, plays out on the idyllic Greek island of Hydra in the 1950s, in this reimagining from award-winning playwright Sue Smith.

Dedicating their lives to writing, the couple were figureheads of Hydra’s bohemian community of artists and dreamers, which included Leonard Cohen, Sidney and Cynthia Nolan, Alan Moorehead and others. In Hydra, inspiration runs wild, as the couple pen works which will go on to be classics, including Charmain Clift’s famed Sydney Morning Herald essays and George Johnson’s Miles Franklin-winning classic My Brother Jack. And yet, their lives were wrought with jealously, money woes, illness and alcoholism. Told from the perspective of their eldest son Martin, and weaving in text from their own writing, Hydra brings to these remarkable artists to life.