Australian Theatre and Performance (ENGL40020)
Semester 2 / 2015

Texts

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 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 The Floating World John Romeril , 1974 (Manuscript version)x400870 Z498503 1974 single work drama (taught in 11 units)

Les Harding, onetime Japanese prisoner-of-war, takes a package cruise to Japan with his wife. As he draws near, long-repressed memories of suffering well up. A rich, ironic study of Australian xenophobia..

Source: Currency Press

(http://www.currency.com.au/product_detail.aspx?productid=210)

y separately published work icon When the Rain Stops Falling Andrew Bovell , 2008 Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2009 Z1430823 2008 single work drama (taught in 8 units)

'It begins with a miracle. On a rainy day in Alice Springs in 2039 a fish falls like manna from heaven to bless the reunion of a father with his long lost son. Perhaps it's a sign that the pattern of betrayal and abandonment that began on another rainy day in London in 1959 will come to an end.

'Who'll stop the rain? Andrew Bovell's award-winning When the Rain Stops Falling is powerful storytelling in which the voices of our past echo into our future.' (Publisher's blurb)

y separately published work icon Honour Joanna Murray-Smith , Paddington Melbourne : Currency Press Playbox Theatre Centre, Monash University , 1995 Z422400 1995 single work drama (taught in 3 units)

'An unsettling play about infidelity seen from the perspective of the three women involved: the wife, the lover and the daughter.

'George and Honor have been happily married for thirty-two years. She is a successful writer, he is a revered columnist. They have a perfect understanding of each other. Until a pushy young female journalist - on an assignment to 'profile' George - quite deliberately seeks to undermine that understanding. The fallout is dreadful - but beautifully and convincingly portrayed in all its painful consequences.' (Publication summary)

y separately published work icon Neighbourhood Watch Lally Katz , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press Belvoir Street Theatre , 2011 Z1730424 2011 single work drama humour (taught in 3 units)

'And God said: Thou shalt love thy neighbour. He obviously hadn't reckoned on Ana.

'Neighbourhood Watch is a glorious new comedy about hope, death and pets. It's a classic odd-couple story: opposites attract, and from each other they gain a new understanding. But as the domestic crises accumulate, Neighbourhood Watch takes on a sense of enormity in the midst of the ordinary that would make Patrick White proud.' (From the publisher's website.)

Description

Australian Theatre and Performance is a study of representative Australian performing arts selected for historical, dramatic, theatrical and cultural significance. Important plays, performance groups, and artists from the 1960s until the present-day will be discussed and analysed. Students will read plays, view live works and performance documentation, engage in archival research, and undertake textual and performance analysis. An interdisciplinary approach combining aspects of theatre and performance studies and cultural history will inform the subject. Artistic trends are discussed alongside analysis of social, political and cultural movements and contexts evident in the development and expansion of the national performance scene. Australian Theatre and Performance investigates the contemporary senses of diversity and innovation in the arts as well as examining challenges and the changing cultural landscape.

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