The Bloody Australian on Stage (ENG3053)
2011

Texts

y separately published work icon The Dreamers Jack Davis , Paddington : Currency Press , 1996 Z450251 1982 single work drama (taught in 18 units)
— Appears in: ドリーマーズ : ノー・シュガー 2006;

'With humane irony the Western Australian poet, Jack Davis gives a painful insight into the process of colonisation and the transformation of his people.'

'The Dreamers is the story of a country-town family and old Uncle Worru, who in his dying days, recedes from urban hopelessness to the life and language of the Nyoongah spirit which in him has survived 'civilisation'.' (Currency Press website)

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.

y separately published work icon Collected Plays : Volume I Patrick White , Sydney : Currency Press , 1985 Z60895 1985 selected work drama (taught in 19 units)
y separately published work icon The One Day of the Year Alan Seymour , 1960 (Manuscript version)x400866 Z525120 1960 single work drama (taught in 11 units)

'Undoubtedly one of Australia's favourite plays, the One Day of the Year explores the universal theme of father-son conflict against the background of the beery haze and the heady, nostalgic sentimentality of Anzac Day. It is a play to make us question a standard institution - Anzac Day, the sacred cow among Australian annual celebrations - but it is the likeability and genuineness of the characters that give the play its memorable qualities: Alf, the nobody who becomes a somebody on this day of days; Mum, the anchor of the family; Hughie, their son, with all the uncertainties and rebelliousness of youth; and Wacka, the Anzac, with his simple, healing wisdom.'

(Description from publishers website)

y separately published work icon The Hope Heather Nimmo , Sydney : Currency Press Playbox Theatre , 1987 Z860102 1987 single work drama (taught in 6 units)
y separately published work icon The Girl Who Saw Everything Alma De Groen , 1991 Paddington : Currency Press , 1993 Z263116 1991 single work drama (taught in 6 units)
y separately published work icon The Club David Williamson , 1976 (Manuscript version)x402003 Z1506538 1976 single work drama (taught in 14 units)
y separately published work icon Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , (Manuscript version)x401376 Z1133391 1974 single work musical theatre humour (taught in 6 units)

Playfully vulgar, bawdy and boisterous, Dimboola plays out the wedding reception from hell, with the audience actively playing the roles of the guests. A celebration as much as a satire, the play joyously takes a familiar ritual and turns it uproariously on its head.

Source: Currency Press

(http://www.currency.com.au/search.aspx?type=author&author=Jack+Hibberd)

y separately published work icon Cosi Louis Nowra , Sydney : Currency Press Belvoir Street Theatre , 1992 Z459111 1992 single work musical theatre (taught in 8 units)
— Appears in: コシ. ゴールデン・エイジ 2006;

Play with music.

Loosely based on Nowra's own experience at producing a play (Trial by Jury) at Melbourne's Plenty Mental Home, Cosi has become a favourite with theatre companies and audiences alike since it premiered in 1992. Full of theatrical jokes and roles rich with Jonsonian humour, the play's use of a play rehearsal device also provokes images of the not-too dissimilar 'families' that come together in the professional theatre. Indeed, Nowra notes in the premiere season's programme notes that 'like the actual events of those days [the play] is, I hope, full of comedy and affection. Real madness and angst only occurred when I worked with professional actors'.

Set in 1971, Cosi takes an affectionate look at madness and mayhem in a world where institutions can be less limiting than ideology. The narrative is played out two locations, a mental institution and a suburban backyard. , Fresh from university, Lewis (a play on Louis) arrives to direct a play with the inmates, but is persuaded by Roy to stage his favourite opera, Cosi Fan Tutte. Lewis' problems don't end, however, with the fact that the other inmates are neither opera singers nor Italian-speakers. There is Ruth, troubled by the concept of a real illusion ; Zac, who insists on playing Wagner ; Doug, who is committed to the closed ward ; not to mention the sexual advances by Cherry and Julie. Lewis's world is no less complicated at home, where he has to contend with escaping pigs, exploding beer bottles and the pretensions of his politically correct friends.

The music incorporated into the narrative includes: 'Wild Thing' (by The Troggs), various songs from Cosi Fan Tutte, 'Purple Haze' (Jimmy Hendrix) 'Candy Says' (a Velvet Underground song, pre-recorded), and Wagner's 'The Ride Of The Valkyries'.

y separately published work icon Contemporary Indigenous Plays Windmill Baby, Rainbow's End, King Hit, Bitin' Back, Black Medea Larissa Behrendt (editor), Vivienne Cleven (editor), Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2007 Z1366759 2007 anthology drama (taught in 12 units)

'Five plays from around the country which illustrate that the rich tradition of indigenous storytelling is flourishing in contemporary Australian theatre.' (Source: Australianplays.org)

y separately published work icon Bon-Bons and Roses for Dolly / The Tatty Hollow Story : Two Plays Dorothy Hewett , Sydney : Currency Methuen Drama , 1976 Z307781 1976 selected work drama musical theatre (taught in 6 units)
y separately published work icon Three Plays by Asian Australians Tạ Bình Duy , Anna Yen , Indija N. Mahjoeddin , Donald Batchelor (editor), Brisbane : Playlab , 2000 Z968616 2000 selected work drama (taught in 8 units)

'The three texts in this volume explore culture, myth, marriage, pilgimage, family and journeys from the mores of Old China to those of contemporary Australia.' (From the publisher's website.)

Description

This unit explores Australian plays written since the 1960s. Students investigate how these plays have contributed to the development of a national theatre as well as a sense of national identity. In particular, the unit explores texts from the perspective of post-colonial theory in relation to settler-cultures.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. view and discuss significant Australian plays published in the latter half of the twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first century with an appreciation of their potential in the theatre;

2. relate the plays studied in this unit to the context of relevant events and issues in Australian cultural history;

3. discuss the contribution of drama to the evolution of concepts relating to the notion of an Australian identity; and

4. write effective critical essays which demonstrate a selective use of theoretical approaches and evaluate critical evaluations of dramatic texts.

UNIT CONTENT

1. A selection of post 1960s Australian plays.

2. Exploration of the cultural and historical issues associated with the emergence of an identifiable national drama

3. Reading and analysis of the texts and of their cultural, historical and social contexts using relevant theoretical perspectives.

Assessment

Essay/Tutorial paper 1; group/ individual dramatised reading 30%; Essay/Tutorial paper 2 30%; Examination 40%

Supplementary Texts

Arrow, M. (2002). Upstaged: Australian women dramatists in the limelight at last. Strawberry Hills, NSW: Currency Press.

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (1997). The post-colonial studies reader. London: Routledge.

Ashcroft, B. & Ahluwalia, P. (2001). Edward Said. London: Routledge.

Carroll, D. (1995). Australian contemporary drama, 1909 1982. Sydney: Currency Press.

Grehan, H. (2001). Mapping cultural identity in contemporary Australian drama. Bruxelles; New York: Peter Lang.

Gilbert. H. (1998). Sightlines: race, gender, and nation in contemporary Australian theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Lane, R. (1994). The golden age of Australian radio drama 1923-1960: A history through biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Pfisterer, S. (1999). Australian women playwrights from the suffragettes to the sixties. Sydney: Currency Press.

Radic, L. (2006). The state of play: The revolution in the Australian theatre since the 1960s. Blackheath, NSW: Brandl & Schlesinger.

Rees, L. (1987). A history of Australian drama. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.

Zuber-Skerritt, O. (1988). David Williamson. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Other Details

Offered in: 2010
Levels: Undergraduate
X