Todd in Venice
2017
Moonee Ponds
:
In Case of Emergency Press
,
2020
15035392
2017
single work
drama
'The classic ‘Death in Venice’ reimagined by award winning writer Sofia Chapman, with Thomas Mann’s innocent Tadzio now the gay boy Todd, rampaging around Venice and getting up to mischief. Agnes, in Venice to collect gaudy masks and glassware, yearns after Todd, but is in the process of transitioning. Michael, in Venice to write a musical, also finds Todd irresistible. Will Agnes lose her chance with Todd by becoming female? Or will she lose him anyway to her friend Michael? On top of all this, the water levels in Venice are rising and threatening to sweep them all away on a tide of emotion. Featuring original music, miniature gondolas and a masked disco.'
Source: Publisher's blurb,
Death in Venice is included in AustLit because of Australian-written adaptations.
Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous
Artarmon
:
Giramondo Publishing
,
2021
21162052
2021
selected work
poetry
'Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous is a work of wild erudition and rococo elaboration, a collection of poems that loosely channels the dynamic of desire and inhibition in Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. The poems follow the trajectory of the ageing Aschenbach’s pursuit of youth and beauty, transmuting his yearning and resistance into jittery flirtations with longing, decay and abandonment against a backdrop of political violence. The poems have an exuberant candour, formed by polyphonic allusions which enact the intersectionality of the speaker; by turns melodramatic, flirtatious, satirical. Like the tragic protagonist of Death in Venice, Cayanan’s collection manifests a longing for extroversion sabotaged by its own will. It is a queer performance of anxiety and abeyance, in which the poems’ speakers obsessively rehearse who they are, and what they may be if finally spoken to.'
Source : publisher's blurb
Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous
Artarmon
:
Giramondo Publishing
,
2021
21162052
2021
selected work
poetry
'Unanimal, Counterfeit, Scurrilous is a work of wild erudition and rococo elaboration, a collection of poems that loosely channels the dynamic of desire and inhibition in Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice. The poems follow the trajectory of the ageing Aschenbach’s pursuit of youth and beauty, transmuting his yearning and resistance into jittery flirtations with longing, decay and abandonment against a backdrop of political violence. The poems have an exuberant candour, formed by polyphonic allusions which enact the intersectionality of the speaker; by turns melodramatic, flirtatious, satirical. Like the tragic protagonist of Death in Venice, Cayanan’s collection manifests a longing for extroversion sabotaged by its own will. It is a queer performance of anxiety and abeyance, in which the poems’ speakers obsessively rehearse who they are, and what they may be if finally spoken to.'
Source : publisher's blurb
