Grass in the backyard of The Sprague family is bleached blonde by sun and neglect – the usual emblem of a happy, well-cared for family home: a plush green carpet for backyard cricket – is, instead, crisp and struggling. And not unlike the relationships within the house. more…
The lady who takes my pre-loved “ticket” when I descend the stairs at the Old Fitz, warns me to be careful where I tread when crossing the stage. Covered in scattered newspapers – fringed by piles and piles of clutter – the theatre is like the bottom of a budgie cage – except it’s not budgies that live here, there is hard (well, soft actually…) evidence that dogs inhabit this space.
A woman in a neck brace, a neck brace supported by a snooze cushion sleeps in a well-worn beige bed. A girl in torn cartoon pyjamas and a t-shirt emblazoned with “I’m about to do something AWESOME!” on it, scuffs around in old slippers, cracking opening a can of Chum, picking up sticky dog turds off the newspaper. more…
![1271223047Bug_production2[1]](http://augustasupple.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/1271223047Bug_production21-300x162.jpg "1271223047Bug_production2[1]")
I wanted to see this production primarilly because of the Letts’ fever that seems to be apparent in theatres across the world. As a part of the playwrighting zietgeist, Tracy Letts is a familiar name… and will continue to be in the coming months as Steppenwolf’s production of August: Osage County is brought into town by the STC… (not to be confused with the production by the Melbourne Theatre Company last year)… Pulitzers will do that to you, I suppose. (And don’t bother to ask Kristina Keneally about Pulitzers- she’s still trying to work out if plays are literature.) Anyway, in a country that isn’t Australia, which is The United States of America, Tracy Letts has written plays, been awarded money and prizes for them, and now is enjoying stage time at The Griffin Theatre “the home of New Australian writing.”
Like last year, Griffin Theatre Company programmed as a part of their Independent season an early play by Martin Crimp- around the same time the STC was also showing a Martin Crimp. This year it is a Tracy Letts fest, – so I decided to catch the show. It’s an interesting strategy of Griffin’s to have the independent wing introduce a writer to the general public- the earlier work of a writer, in an independent season- before they fork out the serious dollars for the STC production of the new work by the writer. A part of me finds it useful for people to see the growth of a writer- a part of me finds it irritating that there isn’t more diversity, especially when so many living Aussie Writers hunger for the space that the Griffin used to provide them with. more…