A Room with No Air single work   drama   - 55 mins
Issue Details: First known date: 1998... 1998 A Room with No Air
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

''A room with no air' is about two first generation Australians linked by their cultural histories. German gentile and Polish Jew, they struggle to understand the terrible dynamic that is their legacy. They probe beneath the surface of what they know to expose the paradoxes of their relationship. They reveal the tragic and complex repercussions of violence perpetrated by one culture on another and its impact on future generations. Moving between memory, nightmare and domesticity they confront each other with their opposing perspectives in an attempt to break the silence. The work is highly charged physically and vocally, is both lyrical and brutal, eschews naturalism and narrative but has a strong, clear dramaturgical spine. It poses many questions that speak to the palpable political tensions that have surfaced in Australia.' (Production abstract)

Production Details

  • First performed at Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney Olympics Arts Festival, Sydney 1998

    Further performances : 

    1999 : University of Western Sydney 

    1999 : Magdalena Aotorea International Arts Festival, 
    Wellington NZ

    2000 APAM at Adelaide International Arts Festival 

    2001 Performance Space, Sydney


    WRITERS/PERFORMERS Deborah Leiser-Moore Regina Heilmann

    DIRECTOR Nikki Heywood

    COMPOSER Elena Kats-Chernin

    LIGHTING DESIGNER/ PRODUCTION MANAGER Richard Montgomery

    DRAMATURG/WRITER Noelle Janaczewska

    DRAMATURG/RESEARCHER Annemaree Dalziel

    RADIO SOUND COMPILATION Garry Bradbury

    SET DESIGNERS Leonie Evans and Clarissa Arndt 

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Breathtaking Performance: 'A Room with No Air's' Exhaustive Aesthetics of Holocaust Memory Bryoni Trezise , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , May no. 74 2019; (p. 129-160)

'What is the place of Jewish Holocaust memory in the context of a decolonising Australia? Can Holocaust memory model a possibility of responsiveness to the broader memory cultures in which it occurs? This article begins with the call for a 'radical democratic politics' of memory offered by Michael Rothberg, which 'does not entail a removal of Holocaust memory from the public sphere, but rather a decentering of its abstract, reified form' (2011: 540). In a discussion of the Australian contemporary performance work 'a room with no air', which premiered at Sydney's Performance Space in 2001, this article contemplates the archive of recent Australian theatre history to explore how questions of collective responsibility might be modelled by a re-staging of German- Jewish intergenerational legacies.' (Publication abstract)

Breathtaking Performance: 'A Room with No Air's' Exhaustive Aesthetics of Holocaust Memory Bryoni Trezise , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , May no. 74 2019; (p. 129-160)

'What is the place of Jewish Holocaust memory in the context of a decolonising Australia? Can Holocaust memory model a possibility of responsiveness to the broader memory cultures in which it occurs? This article begins with the call for a 'radical democratic politics' of memory offered by Michael Rothberg, which 'does not entail a removal of Holocaust memory from the public sphere, but rather a decentering of its abstract, reified form' (2011: 540). In a discussion of the Australian contemporary performance work 'a room with no air', which premiered at Sydney's Performance Space in 2001, this article contemplates the archive of recent Australian theatre history to explore how questions of collective responsibility might be modelled by a re-staging of German- Jewish intergenerational legacies.' (Publication abstract)

Last amended 20 Jun 2019 08:06:12
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