Hello ... hello

Winner of the 2007 Gwen Pharis Ringwood Award for Drama

Cassandra: And what do you do? For a living?

Ben: Well, that’s difficult to say, really. I work for a company. That sells things to people. That markets things.

Cassandra: What kind of things?

Ben: All sorts of things, really. Things that … people want. That people need. Things that make them feel …

Cassandra: Better?

In the vast, unnamed metropolis of Hello … hello, art and commerce have finally and completely conjoined; stylish cafés serve up zebra mussels and the air is thick with a gentle rain of sparrows plummeting down from the mirrored office towers. Everywhere, people are falling for an edgy new fashion accessory: a shiny ball filled with poison that hangs from a delicate chain.

In this oddly peaceful world, Cassandra, a salesgirl at a clothing store called the Abyss, meets a charismatic ad man named Ben in the graveyard where she is mourning her lover, the last true artist on earth. They find themselves helplessly attracted to one another. Ben walks Cassandra home and invites her out to dinner, which leads to sex, marriage and a house in Semi-Residentia. Then comes baby. All one and a half inches of her.

Hello … hello, nominated for several Dora awards, including Best Play and Best Musical, is a tragic, comedic and curiously erotic attack on western society’s predilection for escapist consumerism and entertainment. If the boy-meets-girl musical is the shiny happy ball, then the content of the play, and its characters, are the poison held within.

‘[Hines is] one of the most original artists in the city.’ – Toronto Life