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y separately published work icon Australian Metatheatre on Page and Stage multi chapter work   criticism  
Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Australian Metatheatre on Page and Stage
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'This book offers the first major discussion of metatheatre in Australian drama of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It highlights metatheatre’s capacity to illuminate the wider social, cultural, and artistic contexts in which plays have been produced.

'Drawing from existing scholarly arguments about the value of considering metatheatre holistically, this book deploys a range of critical approaches, combining textual and production analysis, archival research, interviews, and reflections gained from observing rehearsals. Focusing on four plays and their Australian productions, the book uses these examples to showcase how metatheatre has been utilised to generate powerful elements of critique, particularly of Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations. It highlights metatheatre’s vital place in Australian dramatic and theatrical history and connects this Australian tradition to wider concepts in the development of contemporary theatre.

'This illuminating text will be of interest to students and scholars of Australian theatre (historic and contemporary) as well as those researching and studying drama and theatre studies more broadly.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • TABLE OF CONTENTS

    Chapter|18 pages

    Introduction

    Chapter 1|21 pages

    The metatheatre of Dorothy Hewett's The Man from Mukinupin

    Chapter 2|23 pages

    The metatheatre of The Man from Mukinupin on stage

    Chapter 3|20 pages

    Louis Nowra's Royal Show

    Chapter 4|19 pages

    Sideshow Alley as metatheatre in Louis Nowra's Royal Show

    Chapter 5|20 pages

    Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good

    Chapter 6|20 pages

    Our Country's Good

    The metatheatre of rehearsal, backstage, and the 'Aboriginal Australian'

    Chapter 7|21 pages

    Peta Murray's Things That Fall Over – an (anti-)musical of a novel inside a reading of a play, with footnotes, and oratorio-as-coda

    Chapter 8|20 pages

    Peta Murray's Things That Fall Over

    Con(texts), paratexts, metatheatre

    Chapter|7 pages

    Conclusion

    Swansongs and other sideshows

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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Works about this Work

Rebecca Clode. Australian Metatheatre on Page and Stage : An Exploration of Metatheatrical Techniques Peter Beaglehole , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , 4 November vol. 23 no. 2 2024;
— Review of Australian Metatheatre on Page and Stage Rebecca Clode , 2022 multi chapter work criticism 'Rebecca Clode invites a mutual exploration for “future scholars and theatre-makers alike” (13) in a book that seeks to highlight “metatheatre’s capacity to illuminate the wider social, cultural and artistic contexts in which plays have been produced” (Preface). Describing metatheatre as sometimes fraught and murky critical territory, this book draws from a range of sources— production history, performance traces in review, literary analysis, and wider scholarship—to develop a reading of Australian metatheatre. The case studies, explored in paired chapters, include canonical works: Dorothy Hewett’s The Man from Mukinupin, and UK playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good; Louis Nowra’s ensemble piece Royal Show; and Peta Murray’s practice-led research project, which culminated in a 2014 showing of Things Fall Over. Notably Our Country’s Good, a drama conceived in the UK but based on Australian Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker, is paired with Peta Murray’s performance text, demonstrating that Clode is actively seeking to expand a conversation about drama and performance in Australia. By including Australian content produced outside of the nation state, as well as techniques and performance that extend beyond mainstream drama, Clode’s mixed methodology works to meaningfully account for production exposure. The scope of this book and its methodology are carefully described, and its emphasis on exploration should be taken as an entry point for readers.' (Introduction)
Rebecca Clode. Australian Metatheatre on Page and Stage : An Exploration of Metatheatrical Techniques Peter Beaglehole , 2024 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , 4 November vol. 23 no. 2 2024;
— Review of Australian Metatheatre on Page and Stage Rebecca Clode , 2022 multi chapter work criticism 'Rebecca Clode invites a mutual exploration for “future scholars and theatre-makers alike” (13) in a book that seeks to highlight “metatheatre’s capacity to illuminate the wider social, cultural and artistic contexts in which plays have been produced” (Preface). Describing metatheatre as sometimes fraught and murky critical territory, this book draws from a range of sources— production history, performance traces in review, literary analysis, and wider scholarship—to develop a reading of Australian metatheatre. The case studies, explored in paired chapters, include canonical works: Dorothy Hewett’s The Man from Mukinupin, and UK playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good; Louis Nowra’s ensemble piece Royal Show; and Peta Murray’s practice-led research project, which culminated in a 2014 showing of Things Fall Over. Notably Our Country’s Good, a drama conceived in the UK but based on Australian Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker, is paired with Peta Murray’s performance text, demonstrating that Clode is actively seeking to expand a conversation about drama and performance in Australia. By including Australian content produced outside of the nation state, as well as techniques and performance that extend beyond mainstream drama, Clode’s mixed methodology works to meaningfully account for production exposure. The scope of this book and its methodology are carefully described, and its emphasis on exploration should be taken as an entry point for readers.' (Introduction)
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Last amended 23 May 2022 13:03:52
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