This play isn't made for you, but that may be the point

"Tell it with just grunts, or maybe growls," the IO Performance co-founder and director asked them. Without any questions, four of the auditionees did. And they did it well.

Each of them got a part.

For Roberts' production of Hole - which opens tonight in Launceston, June 26 - the actors needed to give more than their all on stage, otherwise "it wouldn't work". The play is a full-throttle, 60 minute display of physicality in which its performers palpitate with feminine rage.

That - and a scene in which its actors, quite literally, bark on stage - is why the cast needed to show they had the guts to "get guttural" and animalistic. It's also why Roberts chose to stage it for her directorial return.

"I knew that, when I came back after two years of not directing, it had to be with something I was really connected to," Roberts said.

"And when I was reading scripts, I found this play, and I immediately put it down. It was too difficult. But I kept coming back; that's how you know you need to make something."

The show - written in 2016 by British playwright and actor Ellie Kendrick - is a combination of Greek myths, songs, astrophysics and feminist politics. Its four-strong cast are, more than anything, "an expression of emotion."

"They are the female story, the victims of patriarchy," Roberts said.

Set on a small stage, the all-female cast give impassioned soliloquies, have tomatoes hurled at them, struggle to manoeuvre around an enormous Pandora's box and scream. Original music plays, and is sung to, and - at one stage - the actors are bathed in fake blood, making it a visceral, visual treat.

Closer to performance art than a traditional play, Hole can easily be described in one word according to Roberts: challenging. It has little in the way of traditional narrative, some "outrageous" technical demands, and a raw, demanding script.

In some ways, the show has a MONA or Dark Mofo-style lilt, and for directors and actors, a play like it presents itself as a mountain, and if the artistic value is worth it, they'll head for the summit. Hole's cast and crew have been no different.

"This show isn't for everyone, but that's not always why we make art," Roberts said.

"If audiences come with an open mind, that's all it takes. Hole is kind of a representation of how some women feel. And if you don't like that, that might be the point."