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The Lost Echo single work   drama  
Issue Details: First known date: 2006... 2006 The Lost Echo
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'The Lost Echo' is based on the mythological stories in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is 'a kaleidoscope of music, text, dance, and image using the music of Cole Porter, John Dowland and Franz Schubert.'

The twelve stories told are those of :
1. Phaethon: A boy whose search for his father leads him to incineration.
2. Callisto: A virgin girl who is seduced by a god, changed into a bear and transformed into a star.
3. Actaeon: A boy who is transformed into a stag as punishment for voyeurism and is eventually ripped apart by his own dogs.
4. Mestra: A girl whose father eats himself to death.
5. Myrrha: A girl whose incestuous lust for her father leads her to misery and transformation into a tree
6. Arachne: A girl whose pride, arrogance and insight leads her to be changed into a spider
7. Salmacis: A woman whose obsession for a younger man leads them both to be transformed into water.
8. Philomela: A girl who enacts devastating revenge on her rapist by feeding him his own child.
9. Semele: A girl who sleeps with a god and is obliterated by the gods.
10. Pentheus: A boy whose inner torment results in him being ripped into pieces by his own mother.
11. Narcissus and Echo :A boy who falls in love with his own reflection and a girl who vanishes into her own voice.
12. Orpheus and Euridice: A man who loses the woman he loves - twice.

Notes

  • 'The Lost Echo' is an eight-hour epic in 'two discrete but cohesive parts which may be viewed independently or together.' (Sydney Theatre Company)

Production Details

  • First produced by the Sydney Theatre Company. Part one: 4-30 September 2006; part two: 5-30 September 2006. Season directed by Barrie Kosky.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Barrie Kosky on the Contemporary Australian Stage Barrie Kosky on the Contemporary Australian Stage : Affect, Post-Tragedy, Emergency Charlotte Farrell , London : Routledge , 2021 22593957 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'This is the first book-length study of Australian theatre productions by internationally-renowned director, Barrie Kosky.

'Now a prolific opera director in Europe, Barrie Kosky on the Contemporary Australian Stage accounts for the formative years of Kosky's career in Australia. This book provides in-depth engagements with select productions including The Dybbuk which Kosky directed with Gilgul theatre company in 1991, as well as King Lear (1998), The Lost Echo (2006), and Women of Troy (2008).

'Using affect theory as a prism through which these works are analysed, the book accounts for the director's particular engagement with - and radical departure from - classical tragedy in contemporary performance: what the book defines as Kosky's 'post-tragedies'. Theatre studies scholars and students, particularly those with interests in affect, contemporary performance, 'director's theatre', and tragedy, will benefit from Barrie Kosky on the Contemporary Australian Stage's vivid engagement with Kosky's work: a director who has become a singular figure in opera and theatre of international critical acclaim.' (Publication summary)

Theatre That Messes with Your Mind John McCallum , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Australian , 29 November 2010; (p. 20)
'Australian theatre now has all the tools in place to move on but it is stuck in the last century. Many of the old restrictions and divisions have been broken down, the talent and new techniques are in place, but its not on the road yet. Is part of the problem the audience?' Source: www.belvoir.com.au/ (Sighted 30/11/2010).
Shocking Audiences Modern and Ancient John McCallum , Tom Hillard , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 56 2010; (p. 131-153)
The Pursuit of Youth : Adolescence, Seduction and the Pastoral in Act One of The Lost Echo Elizabeth Hale , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 56 2010; (p. 117-130)
Abjected Arcadias : Images of Classical Greece and Rome in Barrie Kosky's Oedipus, The Lost Echo and The Women of Troy Adrian Kiernander , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 56 2010; (p. 109-116)
Kosky Whips Up Lustful Mythic Brew Bryce Hallett , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 11 September 2006; (p. 12)

— Review of The Lost Echo Tom Wright , Barrie Kosky , 2006 single work drama
Ovid the Top Susan Skelly , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 19 September vol. 124 no. 6538 2006; (p. 72)

— Review of The Lost Echo Tom Wright , Barrie Kosky , 2006 single work drama
More a Full-Throated Bellow Than an Echo Jason Blake , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 17 September 2006; (p. 24)

— Review of The Lost Echo Tom Wright , Barrie Kosky , 2006 single work drama
Echoes from Down Under Fiona Gruber , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 13 October no. 5402 2006; (p. 22)

— Review of The Lost Echo Tom Wright , Barrie Kosky , 2006 single work drama
Stage Frights Valerie Lawson , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26-27 November 2005; (p. 29)
Ovid, with Cole Porter Valerie Lawson , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 15-16 July 2006; (p. 8)
Eight Hours Long, but Then Its Ovid Joyce Morgan , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28 August 2006; (p. 13)
Theatregoers in for Eight-Hour Labour of Love Matthew Westwood , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 9-10 September 2006; (p. 9)
The Lost Echo : Introduction Elizabeth Hale , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 56 2010; (p. 103-108)

'The Lost Echo, Barrie Dosky and Tom Wright's 2006 adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses for the Sydney Theatre Company, gave audiences and epic theatrical experience. It was epic in length, with its eight hours comprising four Acts of two hours; it was epic in scale using the twelve members of the Sydney Theatre Company's recently formed Actors Company, guest artist Paul Capsis, and a chorus of twenty-four second-year NIDA students.' (p. 102)

Elizabeth Hale provides a brief summary of each Act as an introduction to the suite of criticisms that follow.

Awards

2007 winner Helpmann Awards for Performing Arts in Australia Best New Australian Work Nominated for the 2006 Sydney Theatre Company production.
2007 winner Helpmann Awards for Performing Arts in Australia Best Play Nominated for the 2006 Sydney Theatre Company production.
2006 nominated Sydney Theatre Awards Best Mainstage Production Nominated for the 2006 Sydney Theatre Company production.
Last amended 19 Nov 2013 17:55:27
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