person or book cover
Photo courtesy of Marcel Dorney
Marcel Dorney Marcel Dorney i(A84011 works by)
Gender: Male
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 World's a Stage : Theatre Pair Thrives on Staging Challenges Marcel Dorney , Emily Tomlins , 2016 single work column
— Appears in: Brisbane News , 8-14 June no. 1082 2016;

Back in Brisbane to co-direct We Get It at the Powerhouse (15-25 June), with their own company Elbow Room, Emily Tomlins and Marcel Dorney talk about their time at the University of Queensland, how they met and why they enjoy working together.

1 1 The Tragedy of King Richard III Marcel Dorney , Daniel Evans , 2016 single work drama

'Crippled king. Fierce warrior. Cunning psychopath. For four centuries, Shakespeare’s Richard III has been regarded as the greatest villain in world drama; a bottled spider, loved and loathed for spinning a web of lies and violence around the monarchy.

'In 2012, Richard’s resting place was finally uncovered: an unmarked, unremarkable, shallow grave beneath a supermarket car park - too small for the remains or the myth. But Richard - the crooked shadow, the symbol of unchecked ambition - is larger than any one person, living or dead.

'This year, he’s getting the royal treatment.

'The Tragedy of King Richard III is an excavation of the play, the man and ourselves. Bigger than history, bigger than Shakespeare, this is a story of rampant revenge with some hard questions for us all: What are our dreams of power? Have we created a civilisation that corrupts those who rule it? Or do we need their corruption - to let us off the hook?

'Armed with some of Queensland’s most intrepid theatre makers, this promises to be a fast and furious blood-soaked battle royale, where nobody’s getting out clean - or alive.' (Production summary)

1 3 We Get It Marcel Dorney , Rachel Perks , 2015 single work drama

'‘In the end, my dear, you will understand your greatest role – or, rather, why it is that you can never play it.’

'For thousands of years, they’ve haunted our stages. From our childhood, they’ve stalked through our dreams, tears in their eyes and blood on their teeth. Beautiful, monstrous, they challenge and taunt us to explore the limits of experience; they dare us to walk in their footsteps, to speak in their voices.

'Now that sexism is a thing of the past and we’re all equal, it’s time to take a fond look back at the great heroines of classic theatre. And what better way to celebrate their legacy than by pitching them against one another in a viciously entertaining battle royale? How can that be wrong?

'Elbow Room turn gender anxiety on its head in a witty and playful evening that promises to ask only one serious question: have there ever been women in theatre?' (Production summary)

1 The Motion of Light in Water Marcel Dorney , 2014 single work drama

An exploration of the life and work of Samuel R. Delaney, partly biographical and partly through his novel Babel 17.

1 form Cockleshell Marcel Dorney , 2013 single work film/TV
— Appears in: The Turning 2013;

'Brakey is in love with his neighbour, Agnes. He watches her, following her on her nightly spear fishing trips, trying to understand her withdrawn behaviour and troubled home life. He gets his first real insight into how deep Agnes' pain runs on the night of a terrifying incident.'

Source: The Turning website (http://www.theturningmovie.com.au/#!/cockleshell/). (Sighted: 6/12/2013)

1 2 y separately published work icon Prehistoric Marcel Dorney , 2013 Fortitude Valley : Playlab , 2013 6662008 2013 single work drama

'You live at the remote edge of a civilisation in economic free-fall, about to destroy itself in a nuclear war.

(Like anyone, you'd rather not think about that.)

You live in one of the most corrupt cities on the planet, under a state government elected by a minority who mostly live elsewhere.

Again, you'd rather be having fun. Maybe making some noise.

Except the government has significantly expanded the powers of the police to stop you.

Also, all the computers are owned by corporations, and all the phones are tied to the wall.

It's 1979.

Love you, Brisbane.' (Publisher's blurb)

1 1 The Plague Dances Marcel Dorney , Four Larks , 2012 single work musical theatre

'The phenomenon of dancing mania has left a mysterious trail through history - entire communities infected with a spontaneous urge to dance until they literally drop. It's suicide with a backbeat, but what's behind these lethal outbreaks? The devil's drumming or religious ecstasy? Neurological decay or otherworldly arrival? A riot of motion and mayhem that spans from medieval rites to modern day marathons of mass movement, "The Plague Dances" is a dance of death with a contagious undercurrent.'

Source: http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au/ (Sighted 27/04/2012).

1 2 Charcoal Creek Marcel Dorney , 2011 single work drama historical fiction

'"Charcoal Creek" is a chilling, moving and ultimately revealing story about the extraordinary power of ignorance and fear.

Newcomers to Charcoal Creek, Edward and Charlotte are newlyweds and recently arrived from England. Brigid, the wife of local dairy farmer Tom is having nightmares - premonitions of something terrible - and wants her new neighbours gone. Each of their lives will be irrevocably changed by the events of one terrifying night...

In the late 19th century, the Illawarra played host to one of the first incidents of violent resistance by white Australians to new arrivals at a place called Charcoal Creek, now known as Unanderra. Inspired by this historical footnote, this new work by one of Australia's most exciting playwrights examines how a community can descend into prejudice and hatred, and how ordinary people can allow terrible things to happen.' Source: http://merrigong.com.au/ (Sighted 12/09/2012).

1 5 y separately published work icon Fractions Hypatia Marcel Dorney , 2011 Brisbane : Playlab , 2011 Z1554911 2011 single work drama 'Hypatia (c365-415 CE) was the foremost mathematical authority of her time, an exponent of Platonist philosophy, and as such, a pagan woman on the incipient Christian culture of Egypt. The Life of Hypatia follows her struggles to protect the famous library of Alexandria - the Roman Empire's greatest repository of knowledge - as well as her integrity, in a city where multiple ethnicities, religious and economic interests vie for power in the shadow of a rapidly changing Europe. Source: www.qldtheatreco.com.au (Sighted 20/01/2009).
1 1 Four Plays About Wollongong Marcel Dorney , Simon Luckhurst , Mary Rachel Brown , Vanessa Badham , 2009 single work drama
1 The Sound Marcel Dorney , 2009 single work drama
1 Thieves Like Us Marcel Dorney , 2008 single work drama thriller

'Someone's hacked into an important US Government computer system - but who? And why?

'As Shannon, Robert and his Mum play cat and mouse with an American government agent, some big questions get asked. Can you ever really own an idea? Can the immense power and reach of global corporations ever be a match for personal integrity and the strength of friendship?'

Source: Illawarra Performing Arts Centre website, http://www.ipac.org.au/
Sighted: 01/05/2008

1 1 New Royal Marcel Dorney , 2006 single work drama humour

Described by the author and director, Marcel Dorney as a 'wicked black comedy' the play was written during his current Playwright Residency (2006) at Griffin Theatre Company, Sydney. New Royal is played out in a world of unlimited credit, bizarre sex and impeccable design. In explaining his decision to write a comedy (his first) Dorney notes : "'Joe Orton said that accepting people to be irredeemably bad is what makes them incredibly funny." Up until recently, I'd never cracked the first part of the equation. Then I spent some time in Sydney...' (Metro Arts media release)

The story concerns Hera, Gold Coast girl, aspiring designer, and one of the most charismatic and resourceful heroines on any stage anywhere, who gatecrashes the opening of her hometown's new Centre for Excellence in Science and the Arts out of genuine curiosity. She doesn't intend to strike an unlikely rapport with Lachlan Vaunt, recent inheritor of a vast media empire, nor to become involved in a bizarre and lucrative arrangement. The moment the couple hit Sydney, however, Hera meets the twisted, flamboyant architect Pritikin, and begins to learn a game - as played by a new global elite - where the most important relationship is, as always, the one between Form and Function.

1 Snapshot Marcel Dorney , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: Brisbane News , 1 - 7 February no. 572 2006; (p. 7)
1 1 Omon Ra Marcel Dorney , 2005 single work drama humour This drama 'tells the story of a young man's journey though the Russian cosmonaut program in the 1970s. As his fellow comrades watch the Cold War draw a global line between East and West, young Omon has his eyes firmly set on the moon. To get there he ventures through the illogical world of a communist space academy with friends made under the weary hand of Mother Russia. Like all great Russian stories things are not always as they seem, even on the surface of the moon.' http://www.theprogram.net.au/giveawaysSub.asp?id=600&state_id= (Sighted 27/01/2006)
1 5 The Great Exception, or, The Knowing of Mary Poppins Marcel Dorney , Leah Mercer , Margi Brown Ash , Stacey Callaghan , Carol Schmidt , 2005 single work drama
— Appears in: Independent Brisbane : Four Plays 2008; (p. 52-102) The Australian Play Bundle # 2 2013;
'Explores the many lives of P.L. Travers, the Queensland-born writer of Mary Poppins. Travers remade herself and her history countless times throughout her life. She was also an actress, a writer of erotic poetry, a journalist and a spiritualist. Before she was 'Disney-fied', Travers' Mary Poppins was a study in contradictions: comforting and threatening; conventional and peculiar; down to earth and literally out of this world. As contradictory as her heroine, Travers sought order via her spiritual practices, but lived her life in a way that propelled her from one extreme to another. Punctuated by the biographical details of Travers' life, this new work follows the transformation of memory and experience into story, inviting the audience into the surreal world of her imagination, at twilight, in the crack between day and night, where enchantment and magic and fairy tale characters come out to play. ' (Brisbane Powerhouse Visy Theatre website http://www.diningout.com.au/show_event.asp?fmt=b&event_id=10564 sighted 17.8.05)
1 Return Marcel Dorney , 2003 single work drama 'Return' journeys to a supernatural place in time where timelines exist and overlap simultaneously and where, in this fictitious space, the lives of five young women intertwine and are changed forever.
1 1 Harriers Marcel Dorney , 2002 single work drama
— Appears in: Independent Brisbane : Four Plays 2008; (p. 6-51) The Australian Play Bundle # 2 2013;
'The play concerns a difficult situation between an injured Australian Aid doctor who is captured by a group of "freedom fighters". The doctor is rather naïve in her outlook and the freedom fighters rather myopic in theirs - with the result that there is much tension and discussion across a divided class, cultural and language barrier that ultimately ends in tragedy.' http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/stories/s1149523.htm (Sighted 27/08/04)
1 1 The Lives of Stars Marcel Dorney , 2000 single work drama
1 Bulldog Front Marcel Dorney , 1999 single work drama Bulldog Front imagines a situation in which the Australian public accepts the idea of consigning the unemployed to forced labour.
X