Cirrus@Austlit

'The unique library of the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, buried beneath lava by Vesuvius's eruption in AD79, is slowly revealing its long-held secrets.

In light of the publication of Hilary Glow's Power Plays : Australian Theatre and the Public Agenda, and Louis Nowra's review of that work, Julian Meyrick undertakes his own dissection of late twentieth and early twenty-first century Australian drama. In Meyrick's view, 'the challenge is to resurrect from the thin soil of recent experience the native growth of a new, intelligent Australian drama. For this the playwrights themselves must take responsibility.... Money is important, as are skill and hard grind. But the main virtue required is courage: courage to seek the right form for what must be said, and not leave off the search until that purpose has been achieved..'