Modern Theatre (ACT124)
Semester 1 / 2010

Texts

y separately published work icon The Removalists David Williamson , 1971 Sydney : Currency Press , 1972 Z365225 1971 single work drama (taught in 12 units)

A young policeman’s first day on duty becomes a violent and highly charged initiation into law enforcement. Remarkable for its blend of boisterous humour and horrifying violence, the play has acquired a reputation as a classic statement on Australian authoritarianism and is a key work in the study of Australian drama.

(Publication Synopsis)

y separately published work icon Parramatta Girls Alana Valentine , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2007 Z1192242 2007 single work drama (taught in 3 units)

'The Parramatta Girls Training School operated from 1889 to its close in the late 1970s as a state home for 'uncontrollable' girls. Under the guise of 'reforming' them, these teenagers were subjected to mental, emotional and physical brutality. It was a start in life that was metered out to vulnerable, uniformly poor and frequently indigenous women. 'Parramatta Girls' is based on verbatim accounts of the women who were incarcerated at the Parramatta Girls Training School.'

Source: Belvoir Street Theatre website, http://www.belvoir.com.au/

Sighted: 09/05/2005

y separately published work icon Plays of the 60s : Volume 2 Katharine Brisbane (editor), Sydney : Currency Press , 1998 Z184660 1998 anthology drama (taught in 2 units)
y separately published work icon Plays of the 70s [Volume 1] Katharine Brisbane (editor), Sydney : Currency Press , 1998 Z34704 1998 anthology drama (taught in 11 units)
y separately published work icon Collected Plays : Volume II David Williamson , Sydney : Currency Press , 1993 Z859306 1993 selected work drama (taught in 2 units)
y separately published work icon Summer of the Seventeenth Doll Ray Lawler , 1955 London Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1957 Z522838 1955 single work drama (taught in 56 units)

'The most famous Australian play and one of the best loved, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a tragicomic story of Roo and Barney, two Queensland sugar-cane cutters who go to Melbourne every year during the 'layoff' to live it up with their barmaid girl friends. The title refers to kewpie dolls, tawdry fairground souvenirs, that they brings as gifts and come, in some readings of the play, to represent adolescent dreams in which the characters seem to be permanently trapped. The play tells the story in traditional well-made, realistic form, with effective curtains and an obligatory scene. Its principal appeal – and that of two later plays with which it forms The Doll Trilogy – is the freshness and emotional warmth, even sentimentality, with which it deals with simple virtues of innocence and youthful energy that lie at the heart of the Australian bush legend.

'Ray Lawler’s play confronts that legend with the harsh new reality of modern urban Australia. The 17th year of the canecutters’ arrangement is different. There has been a fight on the canefields and Roo, the tough, heroic, bushman, has arrived with his ego battered and without money. Barney’s girl friend Nancy has left to get married and is replaced by Pearl, who is suspicious of the whole set-up and hopes to trap Barney into marriage. The play charts the inevitable failure of the dream of the layoff, the end of the men’s supremacy as bush heroes and, most poignantly, the betrayal of the idealistic self-sacrifice made by Roo’s girl friend Olive – the most interesting character – to keep the whole thing going. The city emerges victorious, but the emotional tone of the play vindicates the fallen bushman.'

Source: McCallum, John. 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.' Companion to Theatre in Australia. Ed. Philip Parson and Victoria Chance. Sydney: Currency Press , 1997: 564-656.

Cherry Orchard!$!Chekhov!$! !$!!$!
Cloud Nine!$!Churchill!$! !$!!$!
Endgame!$!Beckett!$! !$!!$!
Arcadia!$!Stoppard!$! !$!!$!
Resistible Rise Of Arturo Ui!$!Brecht!$! !$!!$!
Huis Clos and Other Plays!$!Satre!$! !$!!$!
Death Of A Salesman!$!Miller!$! !$!!$!

Description

Playscripts are studied as texts for performance. An analysis of major theatrical conventions and the dramatic literature of the past one hundred years is made through the study of selected plays, influential theorists and periods of innovation. Improvisation and scene study provide a focus for practical studio work as participants learn about the major methodological influences of the Twentieth Century, with particular emphasis upon the European innovations developed by Stanislavsky, Artaud, Meyerhold, Brecht, Grotowski, Copeau and LeCoq. Selected plays from Australian theatre are studied with particular focus on cultural contexts. Special attention is paid to periods of intensive activity in playwriting.

Other Details

Current Campus: Bathurst
Levels: Undergraduate
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