Sandra D'Urso Sandra D'Urso i(8973120 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 Anthem Review : A Portrait of Melbourne’s Working Class Sandra D'Urso , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 8 October 2019;

— Review of Anthem Andrew Bovell , Patricia Cornelius , Melissa Reeves , Christos Tsiolkas , Irine Vela , 2019 single work drama
1 In Cloudstreet, Nostalgia All Too Easily Redeems Australia’s Colonial Past Sandra D'Urso , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 13 May 2019;

'Set in a rambling and ageing house haunted by a colonial past, Cloudstreet is a theatrical adaption of Tim Winton’s 1991 novel of the same title.'

1 In Stephen Sewell’s Charming Arbus and West, Feminism Boils to the Surface Sandra D'Urso , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 7 March 2019;

— Review of Arbus & West Stephen Sewell , 2019 single work drama

'In the world premiere production of Arbus and West, playwright Stephen Sewell appears to be straying into unchartered territory. He is renowned for being a hard-hitting political writer, whose epic plays are almost always described as “dark”.' (Introduction)

1 The Sovereignty of the Plays and Opportunities for New Publics Denise Varney , Sandra D'Urso , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture 2018; (p. 105-110)

'Dramas of rejection and artistic opposition rarely play out as neat didactic narratives where the weak are overpowered by the strong, as in Carl Schmitt's friend—enemy distinction. The inevitably messy alliances, collusions, eruptions and flows of affect cannot be contained by applying easy binaries. When we consider the governing bodies involved in the Patrick White Affair, there were disagreements and tensions between members of the Board of Governors and tempers to be assuaged. While affect was projected onto Sir Lloyd Dumas in Harry Medlin's recollections decades after the fact, it is often scripted out of the adversarial negotiations documented in the Adelaide archives.' (Introduction)

1 The ‘Clowns’ Who ‘Cling to the Past’ : Sovereign Decision and the Practice of Exclusion Sandra D'Urso , Denise Varney , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture 2018; (p. 85-104)

'As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, the Governors rejected The Ham Funeral and Night on Bald Mountain; yet the plays were not passive objects. They had the power to create affects of disgust and anger in some, notably Glen McBride and Neil Hutchison, and joy and enthusiasm in others, such as Harry Medlin, Geoffrey Dutton and Max Harris. Reaching beyond the field of politics, Carl Schmitt recognizes the power of theatre when he ascribes something akin to sovereignty to the lifeworld of plays...' (Introduction)

1 Night on Bald Mountain and the 1964 Adelaide Festival Sandra D'Urso , Denise Varney , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture 2018; (p. 59-84)

'Parsing the documents in the archive gives us a sense that the rejection of Night on Bald Mountain took place slowly and with odd turns. The story quietly assumed it shape in late September 1962, with Harry Medlin's enthusiasm for Patrick White's playwriting style - 'the play is excellent', he write. As Chair of the University of Adelaide's Theatre Guild (1961-66), and as a member of the Festival's Drama Advisory Committee, he had already mounted an impressive defence of Australian content in the Festival of Arts and was a significant agitator for modernist theatrical aesthetics more generally. As an advocate of The Ham Funeral a year earlier, such was his belief in the strength of White's modernist plays that he noted, 'The quaint Australian custom of always looking elsewhere can safely be abandoned.' On 26 April 1963, the Governors delivered their fateful words. Of course, the narrative and embodied history is not as neat as all that.' (Introduction)

1 ‘Words Fail Me’ : The Ham Funeral and the 1962 Adelaide Festival Denise Varney , Sandra D'Urso , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture 2018; (p. 31-58)

' The venue recommended for the premiere of The Ham Funeral at the 1962 Festival was the University of Adelaide's Union Hall theatre. The Board of Governors had an agreement with the venue's management, the University Theatre Guild, to stage the Festival's productions of Australian-authored or small-scale new plays from overseas in this space. In the 1960s, Union Hall was what we would consider today to be an off-Broadway or fringe venue, attracting small but drama-literate audiences. The Drama Committee was confident that the proposal to stage the premiere would be accepted, if not welcomed, by the Governors. In the wake of the proposal's unexpected and hostile rejection, the Guild went ahead with the production three months prior to the Festival. The publicity around the rejection of the play ensured that the premiere was a gala social event, attended by Patrick White, local dignitaries, friends of White's and several interstate critics.'  (Introduction)

1 The Archive, Governance and Sovereignty Sandra D'Urso , Denise Varney , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture 2018; (p. 17-30)

'The rejections of The Ham Funeral and Night on Bald Mountain by the Adelaide Festival's Board of Governors were not random events but were linked to structures of governance and a presumption of sovereignty. Although the Board was not a statutory or corporate body, the Adelaide Festival's Board of governors and committees held regular meetings and kept formal and, at times, extensive minutes. Members of the Board and committees and Festival staff communicated to the outside world through written correspondence, press releases and Festival advertising and programs. This archive allows us to, reconstruct key events in Australian cultural history and address the critical questions they raise about the confrontation of a colonial culture with the emergent dynamic of modernism in the post-war period. ' (Introduction)

1 Introduction Denise Varney , Sandra D'Urso , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture 2018; (p. 1x)

'In March 2012, the Adelaide Festival of Arts staged an exuberant steampunk   version of Patrick White's comic play The Ham Funeral, originally written in London in 1947 and first performed in Adelaide in 1961. The 2012 production celebrated the centenary of the writer's birth and marked 50 years since the Board of Governors of the 1962 Adelaide Festival had refused to stage the play's world premiere. Amid claims of philistinism, paternalism and amateurism, the Board had determined that the play's unsavoury themes, modernist form and poor box-office outlook made it unsuitable for a festival production. In recognition of the troubled history between the Adelaide Festival and White, 2012 Artistic Director Paul Grabowsky announced that the new production, directed by Adam Cook, would pay 'tribute to our Nobel Laureate' and finally see 'unfinished business finished'.' The Festival production, presented by the State Theatre Company of South Australia, made amends with a dazzling interpretation that drew out the flamboyant theatricality, humour and pathos of the play.'   (Introduction)

1 1 y separately published work icon Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White : Governing Culture Denise Varney , Sandra D'Urso , Melbourne : Anthem Press , 2018 15359181 2018 multi chapter work criticism

'‘Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White’ details the rejection of two Patrick White plays by the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Australia in the early 1960s. In 1961 the board of governors rejected a proposal to include the world premiere of White’s first major play ‘The Ham Funeral’ for the 1962 festival. In 1963 it rejected a proposal to premiere a subsequent play ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ for the 1964 festival. These two rejections were taken up in the press where the former was referred to as the ‘affaire “Ham Funeral”’ and the latter was greeted as ‘here we go again’. ‘Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White’ documents the scandal that followed the board’s rejections of White’s plays, especially as it acted against the advice of its own drama committee and artistic director on both occasions.

'Denise Varney and Sandra D’Urso analyze the two events by drawing on the performative behaviour of the board of governors to focus on the question of governance. They shed new light on the cultural politics that surrounded the rejections, arguing that it represents an instance of executive governance of cultural production, in this case theatre and performance. The governing body was a self-appointed private board comprising wealthy men, who were representative of an Adelaide establishment made up of business, farming, newspaper and military interests.

'The central argument of ‘Australian Theatre, Modernism and Patrick White’ is that aesthetic modernism in theatre and drama struggled to achieve visibility and acceptability, and was perceived as a threat to the norms and values of early to mid-twentieth-century Australia. The authors argue that when modern drama entered the stage, its preference for aesthetic experimentation over commercial considerations challenged regimes of value based on the popular appeal of musicals, touring productions and overseas imports. The resistance to that prevailing theatre culture and the provocation of Patrick White’s plays provide a prime example of Australia in transition between its colonial heritage and modern future. The 1960s set the scene for the confrontation between modernist experimentation and arts governance, and between aesthetic and commercial values.' (Publication summary)

1 Invisible Labour : An Interview with Sarah Holland-Batt Sandra D'Urso , 2018 single work interview
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , February 2018;
1 Sandra D’Urso Interviews Fiona Hile Sandra D'Urso (interviewer), 2018 single work interview
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 84 2018;

'To read Hile’s poetry is to encounter what it means to be a desiring subject in a contemporary world. Her use of vernacular recalls and transforms the details of everyday life, while gesturing toward the grand themes of a European philosophical tradition, including the problems of love, of being a woman – in the broadest sense – that of desire, the dialectic, the universal, and the particular. Her poetry is as disarming as it is humorous and inventive, reminding us of the movements and counter movements that define the twin-experiences of pleasure and loss. This interview was conducted in 2015, with these themes in mind. It is part of a larger project led by Justin Clemens, titled, Australian Poetry Today.' (From introduction)

1 Caravan Delivers a Glimpse of Women on the Edge with Sweet Comedy Sandra D'Urso , 2017 single work review essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 9 October 2017;

'Despite its forays into dark subject matter, Caravan, staged as part of the Melbourne Festival, is a rather sweet comedy. Described as a “darkly comic look at life on the margins”, it is also a curious blend of vaudeville with faint notes of magic-realism. It delivers cheery choreographed sequences set to popular music, rapid-fire comic delivery, while touching on the social realities of gender and class disparity.' (Introduction)

1 Australia’s 'Big Heart'? Hypocrisy Exposed in Tale of Multicultural Adoption Sandra D'Urso , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: The Conversation , 12 September 2017;

'Playwright Patricia Cornelius is known for populating the stage with complex, working-class, characters and artfully bringing to life an often-maligned Australian vernacular. She is also one of Australia’s foremost feminist playwrights, turning her critical gaze to the intersecting problems of racism, xenophobia, class, and sexism.' (Introduction)

1 Diffused Attentions: An Interview with Oscar Schwartz Sandra D'Urso , 2017 single work interview
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , August 2017;

'Oscar Schwartz is a contemporary Australian poet, writer, and researcher currently based in Darwin, Australia. His poetry and research offers wry and nuanced investigations of the figure of the human, and its entanglements within technological and automated environments. He published his first book of poetry, The Honeymoon Stage, with Giramondo Press, in 2017; he is currently working on a book of essays, forthcoming with Scribe in 2019. He has also edited the memoirs of Eva Slonim, a child survivor of Auschwitz, for Black Inc in 2014.

'He represents a new generational voice in contemporary Australian poetry, concerned with a poetic of communication, affect and work, unique to an increasingly virtual and networked mode of life in the 21st century. He is part of a larger, online, global community, contributing to an emerging genre of Internet poetry, which inventively engages with constraints offered by social media and other online platforms. This interview was conducted in 2015, as part of a larger ARC funded project, led by Justin Clemens, titled Australian Poetry Today.'

1 Patrick White and Aesthetic Modernism in Mid-century Australia Denise Varney , Sandra D'Urso , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , June no. 66 2015; (p. 63-80)
'The question of aesthetic modernism and its moorings in a number of social, economic, political and sexual configurations and imaginings around space, time and technological progress is at the centre of a resurgent interest in modernism and modernity over the last two decades. Interest in aesthetic modernism as a mode of critique aimed at conservative tides in culture, politics and the economy gains new relevance in the context of contemporary Australia. This article considers the Australian context in which one of the foremost proponents of aesthetic modernism in drama is Patrick White. We begin by examining the continuing relevance of White's drama by discussing the key modernist tropes that operate transversally across two of his plays, 'The Ham Funeral' and 'Signal Driver'. White's critique of postwar Australian culture forms the central tenet of his modernist playwriting aesthetics. It is further articulated in a 1958 provocation, in which he refers to Australian modernity as being embedded in anti-intellectualism, 'the march of material ugliness' and 'the exaltation of the average'. In this article, we argue that White's modernist drama chronicles twentieth-century social, economic and political formations of nation, and its effects on subjectivity and interpersonal relations. His plays pose a number of challenges to a twentieth-century configuration of nation, to the ideals of modernity that helped to shape it, and these continue into the twenty-first century. We propose that to re-examine modernist aesthetics in Australian drama reconnects us with smart and pleasurable ways of staging and rebutting rampant modernity as a mode of social, sexual and artistic governance that remains uncannily pertinent today.' (Publication abstract)
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