Cast of Characters
Lucas DeLaius
A 22 year old man, Lucas is the brains of a rapidly rising criminal duo. He has face blindness, perhaps from birth, perhaps due to early life trauma, which means he is unable to recognise faces. However, the fact that everyone is a stranger helps him to stay ruthless in the seedy world of Melbourne drug-dealers. Everyone, that is, except his twin brother Paul, on whom he relies for everything…but Paul has noticed Lucas is withdrawing more and more from the world outside, even as they conquer it together.
Paul DeLaius
Lucas’ twin brother, the brawn. Paul executes Lucas’ orders and is rightly feared by even the most violent criminals. He has always been Lucas’ protector and his carer, whispering in his ear about who is who in the dangerous world outside. He takes all the hits for both of them, literally and metaphorically, and can’t bear to watch his brother slide into mental illness. Now he find himself in a bind: Lucas won’t get the psychological help he needs to function, and he can’t run their operation on his own. For the first time, he’ll have to let someone else in - but can he trust them?
Casey Creon
Casey (26 years old, male) befriends Paul while he is at a psychotherapists office trying to figure out how to get his brother some help. Casey is in therapy himself, and it is later revealed he has Genital Retraction Syndrome, a psychological condition in which he perceives his genitals to be constantly shrinking. He is constantly asserting himself as the toughest, scariest, manliest man in the underworld, which leads Paul to identify him as a possible criminal collaborator - but he’s also the only guy crazy enough to try to rip of the DeLaius Brothers, and cunning enough to succeed.
Cosette
Cosette, a 30 years old psychotherapist, is nobody’s fool. She holds a senior position within a clinic for people with the most complex psychogenic disorders where she is unflappable, enigmatic, and unswervingly loyal to her patients. She also runs an hallucinogenic psychotherapy program of questionable methods and legality, but which is undoubtedly effective.
Curby
Curby is undergoing group hallucinogen treatment with Cosette. At 35 years old, she was a driven, up-and-coming surgeon before her career was rudely disrupted by alien hand syndrome. (Her right hand developed a mind of its own - and it turned out it did not to want to be a surgeon!) Despite her brilliance, her determination, and her relentless work-ethic, she was astounded to discover that the one thing she has no control over is her own body.
Clancy
Clancy is also in group therapy. He is a 36 years old truck driver. Following a car accident he developed foreign accent syndrome, and now he can’t talk in his normal voice. No one can quite place the accent, but it is undoubtedly NOT Australian. As a part of a proud lineage of self-made, uneducated white men, it’s hard to imagine a situation that could offend him more.
Coda
The third member of the group, Coda (24 years old, female), has her own family heritage problems. She recently took over her family business, a line of work they’ve been in since the first fleet: Australia’s first undertakers. Did she have other dreams for her life? Probably. Does she have a choice? Only if she wants to let down everyone she cares about. Is it a coincident that she developed Cotard’s delusion, the unshakeable belief that she is (quite literally) a walking, rotting corpse? Definitely not!
Connor
At 29 years old, the last member of the therapy group is Connor. His dearest desire is to be an actor, but he also struggles with a rare condition: mirror touch synaesthesia. This means that when he sees something happening to someone else (say, the guy playing Bernardo being stabbed during a scene from West Side Story) he literally feels that action happening to him - and alsofalls down “dead”. This makes it impossible for him to act against anyone else. Even having an audience is tricky. If they laugh, he laughs, which can make them laugh harder, which makes him laugh harder, until eventually he passes out from oxygen deprivation, which is not how The Crucible is supposed to end!