Millie yearns for love and acceptance, finding instead rejection and backlash at every turn… except from her grandfather, and best friend Annie.

She shapes her devotion to Annie into a bond that burns hotter than any romantic furnace. Life sends them on different paths, but when Annie turns up bruised and bloodied on the doorstep, Millie sets out to honour her childhood friend in the only way she knows how: revenge.

kerosene is a homage to the loyalty that accompanies lifelong friendships and the realities of what it means to grow up young, quiet and forgotten in modern day Australia.

The play is the debut work of playwright Benjamin Nichol, who has since been called “one of [Australia’s] most accomplished playwrights” (Time Out), and marks the start of his anthology of monodramas exploring (in his own words) “love, loneliness, violence and resilience”. This production gives Canberra audiences a chance to experience the work of a young Australian playwright in the early stages of a prolific trajectory.

Following her award-winning performance in The Almighty Sometimes, Winsome Ogilvie reunites with director Lachlan Houen to present a blistering portrayal of love, loneliness and obsession in the suburbs – in the play's first staging outside of Melbourne.

"theatre at its most stripped back and its most potent" - Theatre First

"Nichol builds a world that is dense and rich with life" - Australian Arts Review

★★★★ The Age ★★★★ Time Out ★★★★★ Theatre Matters