australian contemporary theatre

8/12/2019 australian contemporary theatre

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/australian-contemporary-theatre 1/5

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,



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.



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



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.



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.

Documents

australian contemporary theatre