The Jungle and the Sea

காடும்கடலும்  ගණවනමුහුද

Written and Directed by
S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack

The Jungle
and the Sea

  • 11 Jul – 2 Aug 26 Upstairs Theatre
  • Approx. 2 hours 50 minutes (incl. 2 intervals)

The Jungle and the Sea

காடும்கடலும்  ගණවනමුහුද

Written and Directed by
S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack

  • Venue Upstairs Theatre
  • Dates 11 Jul – 2 Aug 26
  • Duration Approx. 2 hours 50 minutes (incl. 2 intervals)
  • Content warning

    The Jungle and the Sea includes themes of war, trauma, sounds of artillery, the use of haze and loud sound effects.

    Should you wish to speak to a member of staff regarding running times, content warnings or any other show-related queries, our box office can be contacted on 02 9699 3444.

  • Co-Produced by
  • Supported by
    • Gamechangers

S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s acclaimed play returns

Extraordinary… This dares to dream on an epic scale” – The Sydney Morning Herald

The smash hit play by the team that made Counting and Cracking returns for a limited Sydney season.

When violence escalates between the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Gowrie does everything she can to keep her family alive. She sends her husband and one daughter to Australia for safety. She takes her other two daughters to search through the jungles of northern Sri Lanka for her estranged son. But how does a family come together again when the world around them is tearing itself apart? How is peace made? How can we honour the dead?

Drawn from real life testimonies, and woven with threads of the Mahabharatha and Antigone, this is the epic story of one family’s love, caught in the crosshairs of war.

Counting and Cracking was written in honour of those who tried to halt Sri Lanka’s descent into civil war. The Jungle and the Sea is written in honour of those who lived through the war, and the ways they found to uphold their dignity even when everything else was falling down around them. – S. Shakthidharan

Performance Times

Weekly Times

  • tuesday 6.30pm

    Except 14 Jul at 7.30pm

  • wednesday 6.30pm
  • thursday 1pm & 7.30pm

    No 1pm performance 16 & 23 Jul

  • friday 7.30pm
  • saturday 1pm & 7.30pm

    No 1pm performance 11 Jul

  • sunday 5pm

    Except 12 Jul at 6.30pm & 2 Aug at 2pm

  • image description Preview Session
  • image description Special Performance
  • image description Community Night
  • image description School Performance

Save with Season Tickets!

With 4-play packages starting from $212 plus a range of ticket types and concessions, there is a package to suit everyone!

General release tickets on sale 18 Feb

Join Us

TEAM

  • S. Shakthidharan
    Co-Writer / Co-Director
    image description

    Shakthi is a western Sydney storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. He’s a writer, director and producer of theatre and film, and composer of original music. Belvoir: The Jungle and the Sea (Co-written with Eamon Flack) and Counting and Cracking (Associate Writer Eamon Flack). He has in development a new play with Belvoir […]

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  • Eamon Flack
    Co-Writer / Co-Director
    image description

    Eamon Flack is the Artistic Director of Belvoir St Theatre. He was born in Singapore and grew up in Singapore, Darwin, Cootamundra and Brisbane. He trained as an actor at WAAPA from 2001 to 2003 and has since worked as a director and writer around Australia and internationally, from the Tiwi Islands to Sri Lanka, […]

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  • A cast of 8 including

  • Anandavalli
    image description

    Anandavalli is a veteran classical Indian dancer with an international career spanning over 45 years. Born in Sri Lanka, she performed as a young prodigy across India and Europe under the tutelage of dance luminaries from both the East and the West. In 1985 she migrated to Australia and founded the Lingalayam Dance Academy and […]

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  • Prakash Belawadi
    image description

    Prakash is an Indian theater, film, television and media personality, teacher, activist and journalist from Bengaluru, Karnataka. Born into a family of theatre and cinema artistes, Belawadi obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in 1983, but has devoted the most part of his years to the stage, cinema, journalism […]

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  • Emma Harvie
    image description

    Emma is a graduate from the Actors Centre Australia and has studied at The Atlantic Acting School in New York. She is a proud Equity member. Theatre credits include: Counting and Cracking (Belvoir UK Tour), My Brilliant Career (Belvoir), The Wolves (Belvoir), Dance Nation (STCSA/Belvoir), The Astral Plane (Belvoir 25A), 44 Sex Acts in One Week (Clubhouse Productions), Wherever She Wanders (Griffin Theatre Company), The Last Wife (Ensemble Theatre), Wrath (KXT/JackRabbit), A Cheery Soul (Sydney […]

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  • Nadie Kammallaweera
    image description

    Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Nadie Kammallaweera is a theatre, film, and television actor, writer, and translator. She has acted in stage plays, movies, and television dramas. Nadie’s recent work as an actor in Australia includes Counting and Cracking (2024), Jungle and the Sea (2022), Counting and Cracking (2019), Cherry Orchard (2021) by Belvoir Street […]

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  • Shiv Palekar
    image description

    Shiv Palekar was born in India, raised in Hong Kong and is now based in Sydney. Since graduating from NIDA, Shiv has appeared in Counting and Cracking (Belvoir); The Tempest, TheReal Thing, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and Disgraced (Sydney Theatre Company); The Sound Inside (Melbourne Theatre Company); The Almighty Sometimes (Griffin Theatre Company); and […]

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  • Dushan Philips
    image description

    Dushan played the role of Niv in Stay Woke (Malthouse and Darlinghurst Theatre) and more recently tread the boards in Bighouse Dreaming (Arts Centre Melbourne). Other stage credits include Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth (Australian Shakespeare Company) playing the roles of Lord Capulet and Macduff. He has worked on Fury, The Antipodes (Red Stitch Actors’ […]

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  • Kalieaswari Srinivasan
    image description

    Kalieaswari Srinivasan’s stage credits include Une pierre de patience, directed by Clara Bauer, at last year’s Les Francophonies Festival, Limoges; Counting and Cracking with Belvoir at the 2019 Adelaide Festival; The Prisoner, directed by Peter Brook and Marie Helene Estienne, at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, and on tour in Europe and the […]

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  • Rajan Velu
    image description

    Rajan Velu is a graduate of Actors Centre Australia and has worked extensively across Theatre, Television, and Film in Australia and the United States. Rajan’s theatre credits include Jungle and the Sea (Belvoir), Counting and Cracking (Belvoir), Life of Galileo (Belvoir), Norm and Ahmed (Australian Theatre Live), The Last Highway (Urban Theatre Projects), The Drum […]

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  • Musicians

  • Indu Balachandran
    image description

    Indu Balachandran is a Sydney-based musician and cultural producer. She has learnt veena from her mother Malathi Nagarajan, and her grandmother Smt. Bhagirathi Narasimhan. Indu has also trained in vocal music.  Indu is particularly interested in creating work that speaks to place. Most recently, she co-directed and performed in Bhoomi: Our Country for the Sydney Festival […]

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  • Arjunan Puveendran
    image description

    Arjunan’s work focuses on the intersection of music, dance, rhythm and dialogue. As a vocalist, percussionist and speaker, he has presented various arts projects in Sydney with collaborator Indu Balachandran including: Atma: Music and Movement (2017), Bhakti: Art and Devotion (2018), Bhoomi: Woman and Earth (2019) and Re-imagining Dance: Brown Bodies on the Global Stage (2020). He also featured in the multi-award-winning play Counting […]

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  • Creatives

  • Dale Ferguson
    Set and Costume Designer
    image description

    Dale Ferguson’s credits for Belvoir include The Jungle and the Sea, Sami in Paradise, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Brothers Wreck and The Power of Yes. Dales other theatre credits include Death of a Salesman (GWB, Andrew Henry Presents) 37, Come Rain or Come Shine, An Ideal Husband, The Weir, The Speechmaker, The Crucible, Top […]

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  • Arjunan Puveendran
    Composer
    image description

    Arjunan’s work focuses on the intersection of music, dance, rhythm and dialogue. As a vocalist, percussionist and speaker, he has presented various arts projects in Sydney with collaborator Indu Balachandran including: Atma: Music and Movement (2017), Bhakti: Art and Devotion (2018), Bhoomi: Woman and Earth (2019) and Re-imagining Dance: Brown Bodies on the Global Stage (2020). He also featured in the multi-award-winning play Counting […]

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  • Steve Francis
    Sound Designer
    image description

    Steve has worked extensively in theatre, dance and screen. His Belvoir credits include The Wrong Gods, The Weekend, Jungle and the Sea, Tell me I’m Here, Cursed, My Brilliant Career, Packer & Sons, Things I Know To Be True, Winyanboga Yurringa, Every Brilliant Thing, The Sugar House, The Book of Everything, The Power of Yes, […]

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  • Véronique Benett
    Original Lighting Designer
    image description

    Véronique is a lighting and set designer, and costume designer.  In 2019, Véronique completed a Master of Fine Art (Design for Performance).  She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Technical Theatre and Stage Management) from NIDA.As a lighting designer, Véronique’s credits include: THE JUNGLE AND THE SEA, TELL ME I’M HERE, THE WOLVES (Belvoir); […]

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AWARDS & ACCOLADES

2022
Sydney Theatre Awards – Best Mainstage Production
Belvoir / Lingalayam Dance Company
2022
Sydney Theatre Awards – Best New Australian Work
S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack
2022
Sydney Theatre Awards – Best Ensemble
Belvoir / Lingalayam Dance Company
2022
Sydney Theatre Awards – Best Original Score of a mainstage Production
Arjunan Puveendran

Information
for schools

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    TERM THREE

    See this play for:
    EPIC THEATRE
    CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

    Recommended for Years 10 – 12

    Curriculum Links

    Drama
    Stage 6
    Preliminary
    • Improvisation, Playbuilding, Acting (P1.7, P1.8, P2.1, P2.2, P2.6, P3.1)
    • Elements of Production in Performance
      (Outcomes P2.6, P3.1, P3.2)
    • Theatrical Traditions and Performance Styles
      (Outcomes P2.6, P3.1, P3.2, P3.4)
    HSC
    • Individual Project: Performance, Design
    ENGLISH
    Stage 6
    Preliminary
    • Narratives that Shape our World
    HSC
    • Texts and Human Experiences (Common Module) (related texts)
    ENGLISH EXTENSION 1
    • Elective 1: Literary Homelands (related text)
    • Elective 2: Worlds of Upheaval (related text)

    Schools Performances

    All schools performances are followed by a Q&A session with the cast.
    • Thu, 23 Jul 2026 11:30am

    Tickets are only $25 per student with one complimentary teacher ticket for every ten students booked.

    Evening and Matinee Performances

    School groups can book any general public performance. Book our Thursday 1pm matinees for the schools performance price of $25 per ticket, or an evening performance from $45 per student.

    What to expect

    Belvoir creates for a wide audience and our productions may contain mature content. Accurate information about productions including running times and content is available once rehearsals have begun.

    Contact Us

    For more information about our education programs, please get in touch.

    Head of Education Jane May
    Education Coordinator Nicola Denton
    +61 (2) 8396 6241

    Book your performance

    Complete this form to request tickets for The Jungle and the Sea
    Want to book multiple productions? Head to our full Schools Booking request

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