Three women are staring into space. They are dazed, in shock, not yet believing that what has just happened has actually occurred. Beneath them is the body of a man, husband and father, whom they have just murdered. So begins the wild, darkly lyrical nightmare ride that is Australian playwright Angus Cerini’s The Bleeding Tree, which won several 2016 Helpmann Awards, including Best Play and Best Direction.

Much of Cerini’s earlier work has revolved around an anatomisation of a certain kind of white male ‘to see what breeds about [his] heart’, highlighting his anger, his propensity to violence, his sense of entitlement, and his limited concept of masculinity. Here, the white male has already been anatomised, as it were, and we are dealing with the consequences of his actions.