In Hotel Sorrento Hannie Rayson reaches into the heart of family relationships to reveal, gradually, the multiplicity of factors that both bring family members together – and drive them apart. She also comments about ‘national’ stereotyping … and misogyny!  So, though some may consider the play to be a little dated, its underlying themes remain tellingly relevant. A highly commercial and relatable comedy/drama  and  familial  story  for  a  mainstream  audience.

This  award winning  play, which  inspired  the  film  of  the  same  name,  tells  the  story  of three  sisters  who  grew  up together in the seaside town Sorrento. Hilary lives in the family home in Sorrento with her father and 16 year-old son. Pippa, a business woman, is visiting from New York and Meg, a successful writer, returns from England. When the three sisters are reunited after 10 years apart, they again feel the constraints of family life. The play is about family in a literal and metaphorical sense and the importance of blood ties and collective memory, true or false.

Hotel Sorrento was first performed in 1990 and won an AWGIE, NSW Premier’s Literary Award and a Green Room Award. Since then the play has had over 50 productions throughout Australia and overseas.

‘Holding a mirror up to the society in which it was written, it has universal themes and feels even more relevant (than when it premiered in 1990) to a world living in fear, keenly aware of difference and to a nation constantly questioning the nature of being Australian and interrogating our ties to the Mother Country and our alliance with the US. Hannie Rayson perceptively examines these issues through the three sisters (as in Chekhov) who represent distinctly different facets of The Australian, especially The Australian Woman. This is a moving, insightful and often very funny piece of entertaining first-rate theatre.’ – Denny Lawrence (Director)