We all know the Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. It is the play that rocked the boat in 1955 on Australian stages and that rocking boat headed straight overseas as an example of Australian life. It was play held within yellowing books, standing like white soldiers on the shelves of my high school's English/Drama classroom. more…
“Mary Street. It is dawn. The dawn light is a sort of thin violet colour, similar to evening, but with the feeling of it rising.
The street is still and quiet, not quite woken up yet.”
We sit in silence as the world of Lally’s Katz’s play is wheeled out before us… garbage bins on wheels and the weekly routine that unites us all. more…
And so it continues… The Sydney Theatre Company’s crusade into International reputation with Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Sitting between Blanchette’s Streetcar, and the Upcoming productions of Steppenwolf’s Production of Lett’s August: Osage County… and Thorton Wilder’s Our Town… AND Philip Seymour Hoffman’s production of Sam Shepard’s True West… we now have the great William Hurt opposite our great Robyn Nevin in Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize winning play.
It’s a very “International” season, isn’t it? Look at the new play from China! Look at the award winning theatre company from Israel… and Turkey! And see- the inclusion of the greatest Mexican playwright! International. No… it is! Don’t you get it? “International” is the new word for “American.” The cultural empire envelopes our language- we are unable to call things what they are. Our voices corrupted. Our great plays relegated to an occasional airing or the HSC compulsory reading lists- or relegated to independent theatres without money, without visibility.
It breaks my heart. more…
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I’ve always felt that being a theatre director is one of the loneliest jobs you could ever have…. that and a lighthouse keeper… there is a perceived social-ness about directing- you talk to people all the time- to crew, producers, actors, writers… and if you are smart you listen in equal measure (if not more) than you speak. more…