AustLit

'Here we are again, luck ringing over the land. Ryan Cropp’s new examination of the life and work of Donald Horne (1921–2005) comes out as we resume unpicking the gordian knot of what exactly is Australia. As Cropp observes, it has become impossible to describe this nation without the word luck, as if a continent rolls dice. It is the language of gamblers, of the complacent. It wasn’t introduced by Horne – any survey of the country’s newspapers will find Australia panegyrised or dismissed for riding its luck, but with the publication of The Lucky Country in 1964 Horne caught a truth in a sentence: ‘Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck.’ It was Horne’s personal stroke of luck, changing him as it changed his country. In later years, when Horne became one of those people who ran the place, had Donald joined the second-raters, sharing the spoils of chance?' (Introduction)

'Troy is in ruin. The men, slaughtered. The women, prisoners, recoil behind wire, fearing their fate, longing for death. Memories and prophecies haunt their Queen, Hecuba: hallucinogenic visions of her daughter Cassandra; her grieving daughter-in-law Andromache, and the one mighty woman behind the whole bloody catastrophe, Helen.

'Euripides’ timeless play is a brutal tale of Athens’ invasion and enslavement of the people of Melos. In a radical twist for Western theatre it was told not from the perspective of the conquerors, but that of the survivors. Giving voice to the vanquished was a revolution: seizing centre stage from Gods, heroes and Royalty, and claiming it for the displaced.

'Archipelago’s fierce new production of Women of Troy, adapted by Tom Wright and Barrie Kosky, with a stellar cast that includes Sarah Peirse, Jane Johnson, Marta Dusseldorp, Angela Mahlatjie and Guy Hooper, directed by Ben Winspear and features a new score by Katie Noonan, libretto by Behrouz Boochani, and community chorus of women and children led by Amanda Hodder.

'With displaced people now at record numbers globally, Women of Troy interrogates what we have learned and lost and how, in war, it is the women and children who suffer the most.' (Production summary)

'ANTARCTICA is a contemporary opera dealing with historic, mythic and scientific beliefs and narratives revolving about the southern continent. In a time when anthropogenic climate change is destabilising all centres (political, cultural, scientific), Antarctica becomes a stage for a drama of the future. There are vested interests, beliefs, systems of thought all at odds to decide what to do about what is actually happening on this distant stage, a stage without human performers, a stage without sets, a stage without texts, a stage of wind and ice, of glaring reflectivity and competing song.  In an era of profound climate variability, ecological pressures, the movement of populations across continents, and heightened awareness of the fragility of our oceans, it is a fable for the twenty-first century.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A friendship forms between two strangers. For Henry Teague (Sean Harris), worn down by a lifetime of physical labour, this is a dream come true. His new friend Mark (Joel Edgerton) becomes his saviour and ally. However, neither is who they appear to be, each carry secrets that threaten to ruin them – and in the background, one of the nation’s largest police operations is closing in.'

Source: See Saw Films.

'Force Majeure brings theatre legends Paul Capsis, Olwen Fouéré and Pamela Rabe together with its new youth company for a truly epic new production. Presented at Sydney Festival and commissioned by Carriageworks, The Last Season features thirteen 9-14 year-olds from our youth company, which has been made possible through strategic funding from the NSW government. Using Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as a departure point for an intergenerational conversation exploring ageing, environmental destruction and speculative paths to human survival, The Last Season asks: How did we get here? What have we built? How can we continue?' (Production summary)

'Australian acting legend John Waters started his long career doing voice acting work for ABC Radio comedies in the 1960s.'

'What started as a lecture to a roomful of students became an essay, became a book, became a seismic wave. Virginia Woolf’s 1929 classic description of the need for new spaces and a complete redefinition of who owns our storymaking is by turns wise, amusing, incendiary and poetic. Rippling with passion, one of the finest pieces of writing in the last hundred years, with the distinct talents of Anita Hegh walking Woolf’s tightrope of thought and feeling.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'When 19-year-old wunderkind journalist Erik Jensen (now editor of The Saturday Paper) was invited by bad-boy Australian painter Adam Cullen to write his biography, Jensen (Toby Wallace, Romper Stomper) jumped at the chance. Despite a turbulent relationship, the two formed a unique bond that lasted until Cullen’s death in 2012 aged just 46.'

Source: Melbourne International Film Festival, 2018.

'Harry Joy is the blessed Australian – a childhood of mystical innocence, a home stuffed with love, he brings a smile to all he meets. Then, one warm afternoon on the front lawn, he dies. It’s only for a few minutes – he’s revived. But the world he wakes to is changed; his wife, children and friends all now seem avaricious monsters. And so it dawns on Harry Joy: he hasn’t survived his heart attack at all. He is in Hell.

'Enter Honey Barbara, a hippy from the rainforest, wise to the ways of the big city. She and Harry melt back into the verdant bush, where their children tell a story of a Paradise Found. Found.' (Production summary)

'Biographica is a new opera by award winning Australian composer Mary Finsterer with libretto by celebrated writer, Tom Wright. Informed by the principles of Renaissance music, and conceived for one actor, five singers and eleven musicians, Biographica is inspired by the extraordinary life and demise of Gerolamo Cardano.

'Gerolamo Cardano was a prolific inventor, a flawed father, a solitary, aggressive and peculiar soul with a magnificent and eccentric Renaissance mind; a human who listened to guardian angels, swore by science, and dreamt of defeating time. He wrote the first texts on the mathematics of gambling and cheating, was a world-renowned surgeon, invented algebra, and was the pioneer of sign language.'

Source: https://www.maryfinsterer.com/biographica

'Joseph Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, is cast out. He survived circus ‘freak shows’ and the revulsion of a gawking public for years until a young doctor offered him asylum at the London Hospital in 1879.

'So began a life of endless observation. But curiosity works both ways, and Merrick returned the horrified gaze of Victorian punters and nurses with wonder and optimism.

'This story has inspired multiple theatrical adaptations, novels and a film by David Lynch. Now the team behind Malthouse Theatre’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, director Matthew Lutton and playwright Tom Wright, reunite to create a poignant new work that uncovers empathy in a world that rejects difference.'

Source: Malthouse Theatre.

'Australia, 1900. An ancient land becomes the site of an impossible mystery. A group of schoolgirls and their teachers venture out into the sundrenched landscape, only for four of their number to disappear forever.

'The subsequent investigation creates more questions than answers. One of the girls is found with no memory of what happened to her or her classmates, another succumbs to hysteria for no apparent reason. Those close to the missing girls begin to meet with unfortunate ends and it becomes clear that this is no ordinary disappearance.' (Production summary)

'One hundred years ago, in 1914, a bullet from an assassin’s gun in Sarajevo sparked a war that ignited the globe. Patriotic young men all over the world lined up to join the fight – including hundreds of Indigenous Australians.

Shunned and downtrodden in their own country – and in fact banned by their own government from serving in the military – Aboriginal men stepped up to enlist. Undaunted, these bold souls took up arms to defend the free world in its time of greatest need. For them, facing the horror of war on a Gallipoli beach was an escape from the shackles of racism at home, at a time when Aboriginal people stood by, segregated, unable to vote, unable to act as their children were ripped from them. When the survivors came back from the war, there was no heroes’ welcome – just a shrug, and a return to drudgery and oppression.

Black Diggers is the story of these men – a story of honour and sacrifice that has been covered up and almost forgotten.

Directed by Wesley Enoch and written by Tom Wright, Black Diggers is the culmination of painstaking research into the lives and deaths of the thousand or so Indigenous soldiers who fought for the British Commonwealth in World War I.

Grand in scale and scope, it draws from in-depth interviews with the families of black Diggers who heard the call to arms from all over Australia, as well as conversations with veterans, historians and academics. Young men will step from the blank pages of history to share their compelling stories – and after the curtain falls, we will finally remember them.' (Source: QPAC 'What's On', September 2014)

'We know how the Oedipus story ends: he murders his father and unwittingly marries his mother. But where did this shattering tragedy begin?

'On the Misconception of Oedipus turns its eye to Jocasta and Laius, the parents who birthed a child that would bring about their downfall, and in so doing brought into the world more than a man — they created a myth.

'Can we really say what Oedipus' crime was? Attempting to recreate the true turn of events may actually be an impossible task, as memories lie, and unseen forces (call it science or blame it on the gods) will always shape our destiny.

'This unprecedented take on one of history's most enduring legends, is a theatrically fearless and unexpected excavation into the murky love that built a tragedy.'

Source: Malthouse Theatre website, http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/
Sighted: 06/08/2012

'Utzbach. A town with 280 human inhabitants, a pig population of slightly more and a pub-cum-theatre named The Black Hart. It's a venue that could not be more different to the glittering Gaspoltshofen where Bruscon - an actor often described (by himself) as a national treasure - once performed to an adoring audience of 830. Utzbach represents a terrible low in Bruscon's career but, ever the consummate professional, he is determined that the show he is touring to this cultural backwater will go on.

Preparing this dump for his theatrical extravaganza is a piece of theatre in itself. As a mighty storm gathers overhead, the petty tyrant issues directions to his family-cum-cast. With the Landlord, the Fire Chief, the pigs, the troupe, the town and even the elements conspiring against him, making it to the curtain call could be the greatest challenge Bruscon has ever faced.' Source: http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/ (Sighted 13/04/2012).

'A flickering light appears on the horizon. A fire. A sign!

'After ten years of fighting in Troy - ten years during which Argos has been suspended in time, awaiting word of victory or defeat, awaiting the return of its men - the beacon glows on the horizon signaling a victorious end to the war.

'Inside the palace Clytemnestra eagerly awaits the homecoming of her triumphant king Agamemnon. Outwardly her demeanor is one of joy and elation but a dark rage underlies the sweet smiles of jubilation. As her husband sails home Clytemnestra prepares to exact a horrifying revenge on the man who, in order to win this war, sacrificially slit the throat of his own daughter.

'A curse has fallen upon the House of Aetreus: blood will be shed, familial bonds betrayed and social order disintegrated before the blight on it is lifted.'

Source: Sydney Theatre Company website, http://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/
Sighted: 07/06/2010

'"Duel, n: a contest with deadly weapons arranged between two people in order to settle a point of honor."

'Zosima is a young man who lives a life of debauchery where nothing is out of bounds. The night before a deadly duel, he wakes with an overwhelming sense of guilt and insight. This will be the event that transforms his life and leads him from the military to a monastery.

'In 1880 Dostoevsky wrote his final novel - The Brothers Karamazov. The Duel forensically examines a single chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, digging deep into Zosima's journey and the mysterious visitor who challenges him with a dark secret.'

'Turning a quizzical eye to the woes of the heart and reeking with scandal and scurrilous vice,' Tom Wright 'transforms Voltaire's classic satire of enlightened insanity, Candide, into a cutting commentary on the "no-worries" bravura of the Australian swagger.

'Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that 'all is for the best". But when his love for the Baron's rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is expelled from the land - forced to make his own way in the world...

'Through lands ravaged by Plague, and tests of religion and sex, our hero's resolve never wavers as he travels across continents in search of his beloved.'

Source: Malthouse Theatre website, http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/
Sighted: 18/05/2009