australian contemporary theatre
TRANSCRIPT
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Anna Clark
The Evolution of Australian Contemporary Theatre: 1950-2013
Before the 1950’s many critics and other countries expressed a feeling of
inferiority towards Australian theatre in respect to the U.S and the U.K. Duringthe 1950’s, a change in perspective occurred, Australian writers and performers
challenged this opinion of inferiority and introduced the Australian to the
Australian. Australian audiences gained the opportunity to view accurate
representations of Australian characters- Australian contemporary theatre was
embraced and continued to excel with funding for encouragement until the
present day.
History:
During the 1950’s there was a change in audience desire. Audiences in generalwere no longer content with the international format and wanted to see
themselves on the stage- that is they wanted to see a representation of the
average Australian, something or someone they could relate to. Before the
1950’s Australians in theatre were represented even in their own country as
lower class and the Australian way of living was considered at large to be too
boring and unworthy of a staged portrayal. During this change in perspective,
playwrights, performers and audiences alike enjoyed the self-reflexive nature of
this relatively new work and found there was value in Australian narrative.
There was no longer such a desperate attachment to British and American
material in order to sustain a viable theatre industry locally.
Indigenous theatre began to appear more frequently on stage during the 1960’s
and continued to gain more popularity as the indigenous population were given
more rights and recognized by the government. University contribution to
Australian contemporary theatre excelled in the mid 1960’s through to the1970’s and was responsible for many innovative productions. This accelerated
institutional contribution stems from the integration of directing and writing
education into performance education providers. Many of the best Australian
contemporary plays are performed for the first time in education institutions
and written by current or past students. The integration of writing and direction
into Australian theatre education has been integral to the past and ongoing
development of Australian contemporary theatre. The Australian Council of the
Arts has provided funding for theatre from 1968 and has been invaluable in
stimulating production of local contemporary theatre.
New wave theatre begins in late 1960’s- New wave theatre is described as a
generation of theatre producers and writers that created what Julian Meyricj
describes as ‘pugnaciously nationalistic’ theatre. New wave theatre varied fromprevious productions because of its focus of the suburban environment as
apposed to the traditional representation of a rural environment. Women’srights and socio economic representations were also addressed within theatre in
the 70’s. Since 1972, Currency Press has invested copious amounts of money intothe publication of over 80 plays, as one of Australia’s main theatre publishers,
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Currency have ensured generations access to contemporary theatre and aided in
its popularity and preservation.
In the 1980’s the federal government provided funding to drama and danceperformers in order to stimulate the Australian industry. During the 70’s and
80’s the indigenous theatre excelled and gained political purpose. The plays wereopinionated and didactic. The political role of indigenous theatre is frequently
utilized as a platform for celebration of indigenous culture as well as an
education for white audiences.
During the 1990’s Ilbijerri Theatre, Kooembra Jdarra and Yirra Yakkin theatre
companies were formed. The work produced by these companies focused on
aboriginal culture and hoped to eliminate the perception of the homogenous
aboriginal voice perceived by many white Australians. The indigenous theatre
created in the 90’s reflected the government policies being reviewed at the times
and recognition for crimes against Indigenous Australians in the
past/reconciliation.
During the present era, Australian contemporary theatre is diverse and creative.
Australian theatre is no longer confined by classical conventions and
international literature- it can be inspired by these factors and take them into
account without having a restrictive impact on the work. With independent and
professional theatre flourishing around the country, specifically in Sydney and
Melbourne, there are multiple platforms and opportunities for playwrights and
performers to experiment.
Figures:
Wesley Enoch
Enoch has worked with Queensland Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre
Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, State Theatre Company of South
Australia, Black Swan, Griffin Theatre Company, Hothouse, Ilbijerri, Yirra Yaakin,
Windmill, Malthouse and Company B.
Plays include:
The 7 Stages of Grieving (co-written with Deborah Mailman), Little White Dress,
A Life of Grace and Piety, Black Medea, The Sunshine Club, Grace and The Story
of the Miracle at Cookies Table.
Ray Lawler- Born in Melbourne in 1921, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was his
tenth play. He left school during the depression and worked while writing and
acting for amateur theatre companies. Lawler’s status was propelled by Summerof the seventeenth doll – considered by many critics and scholars as an iconic
Australian production. Summer of the Seventeenth Doll had continued success
and The Doll Trilogy plays have been created and toured.
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Stephen Sewell- (13th March 1953)
Plays- The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea, Traitors, Anger's Love,
The Blind Giant is Dancing, Welcome the Bright world, Burn Victim, Dreams in an
Empty City, Hate, Miranda, Sisters, King Golgrutha, The Garden of
Granddaughters, Dust, The Sick Room, Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi
Germany and Contemporary America, It Just Stopped, The Secret Death ofSalvador Dalí, The Gates of Egypt, Three Furies: Scenes From the Life of Francis
Bacon, The United States of Nothing
Nick Enright - (22 December 1950 – 30 March 2003)
Nick Enright was head of acting at NIDA in 1983 and 1984 and also taught acting
at WAAPA. Enright studied directing at New York University and worked with
the Melbourne theatre company. He wrote the book for the Australian Musical,
The Boy from Oz.
Plays-The Mavis McMahon Show, The Good Ship Venus, First Class Women,
The Maitland and Morpeth String Quartet, Daylight Saving, St James Infirmary
Blues, A Property of the Clan, Bobbin' Up, Good Works, Playgrounds, Mongrels
Chasing the Dragon, Cloudstreet, Spurboard, A Poor Student, Country Music
The Female Factory, A Man with Five Children,The Quartet from Rigoletto and
A Man with Five Children
Major works:
Summer of the seventeenth doll:
Written by Ray Lawler
Set in Melbourne in 1953, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll follows a middle aged
gang of middle class Australians as they attempt to recreate the past lay-off
seasons that have been occurring for the last seventeen years. One couple, Olive
and Roo, used to spend their summers in the company of young Bubba and
another couple- Barney and Nancy. This year things have changed, Nancy is no
longer part of the group and has married and moved away, Barney is devastated,
Roo is out of money and Olive is clinging to the past. She invites a widow named
Pearl to join them this summer in an attempt to cling to summers past. Olive is
afraid of change and desperately wants the summers to last- but nothing lasts
forever. Emma and Nancy are the wise characters in this production although
they aren’t involved in the action- the pair understand that the summers must
come to an end.
The play was instantly successful in Melbourne and moved on to be performed in
Sydney and New York. Lawler played Barney in all three locations. Despite the
success locally, initially the production was not received well in the United
States. This could be due to a lack of understanding of Australian culture or just
an inability to connect with the characters due to the international boundaries.
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was one of the first plays of its kind- a kind of
analysis of suburban Australia and social conventions in the 1950’s- and you
might imagine that if it was a new concept for Australian audiences, internationalaudiences may very well have been flabbergasted. However, since this initial
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failure, the play has been a long lasting success locally and internationally and is
a iconic part of Australian theatre history.
The play is considered modern and contemporary for its time for the way in
which it subtly challenges the conventions of marriage – Olive and Roo aren’t
married and they don’t want to be, they are middle aged thrill seekers with nochildren who are separated for many months at a time- extremely different
social circumstances than that of an average Australian family at the time.
Although many themes in the play (loss, growing old, lust) are universally
human, Lawler ads an Australian aesthetic to they play with the language and
setting. The play is self-reflexive and realist, very different to the international
theatre being performed in Australia at the time of release. While the play is
conducted in an urban setting- the representation of the rough Australian
Bushman is clearly portrayed by the characters Roo and Barney.
Blackrock:
Written by Nick Enright
Blackrock is a harrowing production inspired by the real life rape and murder of
a young schoolgirl in 1989. The aesthetic of the production while bleak is purely
Australian. The play follows a group of youths who attend a party on the coast at
the Blackrock surf club. Young Cherie sneaks out to go to the party with her
friends including the victim of the oncoming rape and murder, a young girl
named Tracey. After the mysterious nature of Tracey’s death, the characters in
the play just go on with their lives as best they can but Cherie can’t understand
why nobody seems to care that her good friend is gone. Many characters in theplay struggle with their actions and placing the blame of the murder. The
production challenges the social reception of rape and the attitudes towards it at
the time of the production.
The language and setting of the production thoroughly contribute to the overall
Australian feel of the play. There is a grittiness to the production that comes with
a lot of Australian writing and particularly plays that revolve around rape. I have
found that there are a number of Australian contemporary works that center
around incidences of rape – I think that the Australian landscape may contribute
to the popularity of this concept. The landscape is rough and dirty and can be dry
and foreboding. In Blackrock images of rough dark waves in the dead of the night
were conjured as Tracey was raped and killed. The men in Australian plays tend
to be closely linked to the landscape – rough, angry and unforgiving.
Unpredictable and often misleading. Supplementary to the negative connotations
of the land, the Australian landscape is often represented in contemporary
theatre as beautiful and mysterious.
I believe that Enright named the play after the location aptly because of the links
to the Australian landscape within the production. Blackrock is a harsh and
unforgiving name; it gives the audience a sense of darkness concerning what is
about to come during the production.
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The Seven Stages of Grieving:
Written by Wesley Enoch (co written and performed by Deborah Mailman)
The Seven Stages of Grieving is a well known indigenous production written by
Wesley Enoch. It is a one-woman contemporary play that explores emotionalconnections to Murri life. The Murri people are indigenous Australians from an
area in Queensland.
The play follows one woman as she recounts situations of loss and historic
moments in Australian indigenous history. It explores the traditional concept of
the Murri woman as a storyteller.
With its deep connections to Australian aboriginal culture and history, The Seven
Stages of grieving is truly contemporary in nature with its non-linear
construction and unconventional subject matter (as far as classical theatre is
concerned). It is important that indigenous culture is represented in Australian
theatre to ensure the public has an education regarding the foundations of a
nation as well as indigenous and all Australians having an understanding of one
and another. For years Australian Contemporary theatre omitted indigenous
culture, and thankfully through the rise of writers like Wesley Enoch and the
indigenous burst of production within the 90’s, representation of this culture hasbeen saved from neglect.
Australian Contemporary Theatre cannot be defined; it is creative andwonderful, terrifying and beautiful. Over decades, a number of political issues
have been represented through theatre for the purpose of entertainment and
education. Through embracing our culture and history, Australians have
developed a self reflexive style of theatre that has proven to be successful locally
as well as on an international level.