Linda Hassall Linda Hassall i(A76493 works by)
Gender: Female
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Works By

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1 1 y separately published work icon Theatres of Dust : Climate Gothic Analysis in Contemporary Australian Drama and Performance Landscapes Linda Hassall , Singapore : Palgrave Pivot , 2021 24395717 2021 multi chapter work criticism

'Through a contemporary Gothic lens, the book explores theatre theories, processes and practices that explore; the impacts of continuing drought and natural disaster, the conflicts concerning resource extraction and mining and current political debates focussed on climate change denial. While these issues can be argued from various political and economic platforms, theatrical investigations as discussed here suggest that scholars and theatre makers are becoming empowered to dramaturgically explore the ecological challenges we face now and may face in the future. In doing so the book proposes that theatre can engage in not only climate change analysis and discussion but can develop climate literacies in a broader socio-cultural context.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 Contemporary Performance and Climate Change : Re-Defining the Australian Landscape Narrative Linda Hassall , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 76 2020; (p. 9-11) 'Contemporary performance can expose and dismantle the ideologies that have supported the enduring cultural and mythic dialogues associated with the Australian landscape. As threats of catastrophic climate change accelerate, theatre-making research can play a significant role in making sense of the ecological transformations that we experience. As a practice-led playwright researcher, I investigate how Australian landscapes are re-imagined in contemporary performance contexts that investigate the accelerating climate crisis. Further, I am mindful of how enviro-cultural expression can effectively emerge through a playtext or production and contribute to eco-critical discourse. Eco-critical analysis is becoming popular in both theatre studies and theatre production as the definition of 'text' extends into both written and performative methods. In offering a valuable contribution to eco-critical discourse, the performance text establishes a unique relationship between the theatrical encounter, the audience and the place and time in which the encounter occurs. This research discusses how the enduring Australian cultural legacies, which have defined our mythic relationship to the beloved Bush or Outback, are being superseded by investigations concerning disappearing Nature and the part we have played in our present ecological situatedness. From a historical perspective, Australian theatre has always provoked discussion about our conflicting relationship to the land, the culture, the environment and its human inhabitants. However, contemporary playwrights are choosing to investigate these questions through politicised ecological lenses. Specifically framed through one such theatrical lens - that of Dust (Hassall 2015) - this discussion explores the landscape as both a geographic place and a psychological space. In positioning landscape in this way, the text is associated with contemporary Australian Gothic drama. It suggests that the Australian cultural identity is embedded in brutal psychological, cultural and physical landscapes, which are acknowledged as normative. The play deconstructs familiar ideologies through climate change experiences by investigating themes of environmental human legacy. Throughout this discussion, excerpts from Dust are utilised to support an eco-critical analysis of the performance text. Overall, this discussion explores the intersection between playwriting practice-research, environmental themes and eco-critical concerns. It exemplifies how theatrical text can become a point of eco-critical examination and therefore has the power to question and in some ways expose the repercussions of colonisation and the master narratives that support greenhouse gas emission, unsustainable resource extraction, advanced industrialisation and unsustainable practices.' (Author's abstract)
1 Contemporary Theatrical Landscapes : The Legacy of Romanticism in Two Examples of Contemporary Australian Gothic Drama Linda Hassall , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 41 2017;

'At this time in history, climate change predicts that we are once again dwarfed by nature. Nature is as Massey (2008) suggests, understood as the classic foundations for our contemplation of place and our fascinations with belonging to place. As creative writers, artists and scholars respond to escalating temperatures, rising sea levels and natural disasters, on a daily basis, the threat of climate change events loom large in the contemporary imagination. Humankind’s pride in domination over all things natural is being put to the test, as we begin to anticipate the terrifying spectacle of our own damnation. From an ecological and eco-critical perspective, climate change may be considered, as the contemporary ‘abomination’ as it poses both a moral and a psychological paradox for us all. It is not an hallucinatory fantasy, nor is it a social pathology. Contemporary Australian Gothic drama explores the paradoxical relationship between perceptions of what is absent and what is present, between past and future, between climate, nature and disappearing landscapes and geographies. It is within this paradox of perception that Australian Gothic drama responds to literary legacies of Romanticism as we ‘lament the loss of spiritual connections’ to nature (Bate 1991: 17). This paper discusses the environmental and eco-critical themes embedded in two of my theatrical works, Dust 2016 and Salvation 2013, in which notions of evil in the Romantic sense are discovered in the ecologies of landscape, place and space from which we as humans are, in turn, becoming alienated.' (Publication abstract)
1 Getting to Know the Story of the Boathouse Dances : Football, Freedom and Rock 'n' Roll Tamara Whyte , Chris Matthews , Michael Balfour , Lyndon Murphy , Linda Hassall , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Creative Communities : Regional Inclusion & the Arts 2015; (p. 81-97) 'In 2011, the Indigenous Research Network (IRN) at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia brought together a team of playwrights and researchers to tell the story of the Boathouse dances as its firs community-driven research project. The Boathouse dances were held in the late 1950s and early 1960s and were a significant meeting place for Aboriginal people of Brisbane and the greater South East Queensland region. The dances were organized by an Aboriginal man, Uncle Charlie King, to fund the first Aboriginal football team in Brisbane and an Aboriginal women's virago team. The Boathouse dances were a time of celebration, reconnecting, establishing new relationships and falling in love.Te dances were also a focal point of significant social change in the lives of many Aboriginal people and were driven by Aboriginal people who were experiencing a new agency. To date, this story is untold; it is a part of Australia's hidden histories.' (83)
1 Motel Chronicles Linda Hassall , 2015 single work drama
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , April no. 29 2015; 'Motel chronicles is an investigation into Hassall’s preoccupation with a land/culturescape (Chaudhuri 2002) experiences. Set within the sceneographic framework of a motel, the play makes a claim for the value of atmospheric landscape as central to behaviours investigated within the fiction. The chorus of characters convey the stories secreted within the motel walls. Experimenting with form and style, the work is a heightened theatrical expressive experience. Motel chronicles harbours the detritus of society into a momentary refuge, hiding those who wish to be hidden. Inspired by the early dramatic works of Sam Shepard and the poetry of artists such as Penny Arcade, Fritz Hamilton, David Learner and Lisa Martinovic, who are identified as outlaw, renegade poets in The outlaw bible of American poetry (1999), Motel chronicles is a rock and roll psalm of faith and forgiveness.' (Publication summary)
1 1 Dust Linda Hassall , 2015 single work drama

'Dust was developed as a response to increasing confirmations of global warming.' (Source : Linda Hassall Contemporary Theatrical Landscapes: The Legacy of Romanticism in two examples of contemporary Australian Gothic drama
1 1 Salvation Linda Hassall , 2013 single work drama
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 19 2013;

'Salvation is a realisation of Hassall’s creative research into themes associated with white inheritance of Australian landscape. The work transforms theoretical investigation of landscape from post-colonial and spatial positions into theatrical exploration and questions Euro-centric associations of historical and future place, asking ‘What will we leave behind?’ Salvation voices some uncomfortable national silences to investigate and provoke socio-cultural questions pertaining to identity, nation, race, class and gender. Salvation questions the ideological or mythological perceptions that may promote a sense of the significance of dominant (white) European society in the Australian landscape. Salvation may read as a metaphor that voices Australian racial, environmental and cultural tensions. Salvation claims the value of landscape as central to the themes investigated and to the cultural knowledge statements that are embedded within the fiction. ' (Author's abstract)
1 A Contemporary Hymn Linda Hassall , 2011 single work drama
1 Light, Bright Holiday Promotion Linda Hassall , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 30 October 2007; (p. 17)
— Review of Summer Wonderland Matthew Ryan , 2007 single work drama
1 Show Tunes an Off Note in Epic Story of Strife at the Isa Linda Hassall , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 23 July 2007; (p. 8)
— Review of Red Cap, the Story of Pat Mackie Janis Balodis , 2007 single work musical theatre
1 A Comedy Attraction Linda Hassall , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 6 March 2007; (p. 10)
— Review of The Narcissist Stephen Carleton , 2007 single work drama
1 The Circus of Nostalgia Linda Hassall , 2007 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 6 February 2007; (p. 10)
— Review of Sideshow Alley : The Musical Gary Young , 2003 single work musical theatre
1 Sex Show Boasts a Goat But No Orgy Linda Hassall , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 31 October 2006; (p. 10)
— Review of Sex : Cubed Alex Broun , Scott Drummond , Gemma Galley , Helen Howard , Paul Johnston , David Megarrity , Steven Mitchell Wright , Victor Kline , 2006 single work drama
1 The Restless Ghost of Corruption Past Linda Hassall , 2006 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian , 21 August 2006; (p. 9)
— Review of Last Drinks Shaun Charles , 2006 single work drama
1 4 Post Office Rose Linda Hassall , 2003 single work drama
— Appears in: Independent Brisbane : Four Plays 2008; (p. 103-171) The Australian Play Bundle # 2 2013;
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