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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Alex searches for life on a distant moon; Daniel begs an answer of the poets they cannot provide. And while attentions are elsewhere, a marriage melts into memory. Dorothy Porter's verse novel shifts from the vastness of space to the minute gaps between us.
'Love may come undone, but like light from a long-dead star its radiance can continue to move us. The late Porter is such a light, still illuminating Australia's literary landscape. Wild Surmise is a conversation, and it is its maker's inimitable voice ringing out among the many, both real and imagined, that chorus in this evocative work.'
Source: Malthouse Theatre website, http://www.malthousetheatre.com.au
Sighted: 15/10/2012
Production Details
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Produced by Malthouse Theatre at the Beckett Theatre, 9 November - 2 December 2012.
Director: Marion Potts.
Composer and Sound Design: Jethro Woodward.
Lighting Designer: Paul Jackson.
Cast: Humphrey Bower and Jane Montgomery Griffiths.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
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'Alex Leefson is astronomy's glamour girl, in love with the satellite Europa and the equally unreachable Phoebe. Meanwhile, her husband Daniel mourns the demise of his marriage and his life. Full of Dorothy Porter's customary bite and sensuality, Wild Surmise is an engrossing duet between two passionately estranged voices. An intensely moving verse novel of passions and vulnerabilities, love and death.' (Publication summary)
Works about this Work
-
Jane Montgomery Griffiths’ Theatrical Poetics
2014
single work
interview
— Appears in: Writers in Conversation , February vol. 1 no. 1 2014;As scholar of the Classics and drama studies, Jane Montgomery Griffiths has devoted much of her artistic practice to interpreting the voices of women who have either been censored or misinterpreted throughout history. Montgomery Griffiths has been celebrated for her writing of, and solo performances in, productions such as Razing Hypatia and Sappho in 9 Fragments. With her experience of theatrically exploring female desire, sexuality and intellectual contribution, it is understandable that Montgomery Griffiths was attracted to Dorothy Porter’s verse novel Wild Surmise written in the Sapphic tradition with lyrics mediating on desire, exploration and loss.
'In the program notes to the production of Wild Surmise, Montgomery Griffiths writes that the ‘project started with the act of falling in love – falling in love with characters, falling in love with a book, falling in love through the act of reading.’ Love is one of the central themes of Porter’s Wild Surmise and it was carried onto the stage with Montgomery Griffiths’ performance as Alex, an astrobiologist infatuated with discovering life on one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Europa. This moon is both the subject of astrobiological study and the intergalactic symbol of desire for Alex who is gravitating away from her literary academic husband Daniel, played by Humphrey Bower, and into an affair with the astrophysicist Phoebe.
'Directed by Marion Potts and staged at the Malthouse Theatre from 9 November to 2 December 2012, the production of Wild Surmise was culturally significant as it embraced the oral tradition of poetry and allowed for new audiences to be exposed to Porter’s dynamic poetics...' (Publication abstract)
-
The Glass Wall
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December 2012 - January 2013 no. 347 2012; (p. 50)
— Review of Wild Surmise 2012 single work drama -
A Luminous Staging of Porter's Dramatic Fusion
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 17 November 2012; (p. 22)
— Review of Wild Surmise 2012 single work drama -
Star-Crossed Lovers Free-Falling to Earth
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian , 19 November 2012; (p. 15)
— Review of Wild Surmise 2012 single work drama -
A Glorious Dot in the Universe
2012
single work
prose
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 3 November 2012; (p. 20-21)
-
Star-Crossed Lovers Free-Falling to Earth
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian , 19 November 2012; (p. 15)
— Review of Wild Surmise 2012 single work drama -
A Luminous Staging of Porter's Dramatic Fusion
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 17 November 2012; (p. 22)
— Review of Wild Surmise 2012 single work drama -
The Glass Wall
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December 2012 - January 2013 no. 347 2012; (p. 50)
— Review of Wild Surmise 2012 single work drama -
Bookmarks
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 13 October 2012; (p. 33) A column canvassing current literary news including a report on the debt incurred by Canongate when Julian Assange failed to produce a book after having been paid an advance. Jason Steger also notes Penguin Australia's move from Camberwell to Docklands in Melbourne, and Jane Montgomery Griffiths' stage adaptation of Dorothy Porter's Wild Surmise. -
Syage
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 30 October 2012; (p. 13) -
A Glorious Dot in the Universe
2012
single work
prose
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 3 November 2012; (p. 20-21) -
Jane Montgomery Griffiths’ Theatrical Poetics
2014
single work
interview
— Appears in: Writers in Conversation , February vol. 1 no. 1 2014;As scholar of the Classics and drama studies, Jane Montgomery Griffiths has devoted much of her artistic practice to interpreting the voices of women who have either been censored or misinterpreted throughout history. Montgomery Griffiths has been celebrated for her writing of, and solo performances in, productions such as Razing Hypatia and Sappho in 9 Fragments. With her experience of theatrically exploring female desire, sexuality and intellectual contribution, it is understandable that Montgomery Griffiths was attracted to Dorothy Porter’s verse novel Wild Surmise written in the Sapphic tradition with lyrics mediating on desire, exploration and loss.
'In the program notes to the production of Wild Surmise, Montgomery Griffiths writes that the ‘project started with the act of falling in love – falling in love with characters, falling in love with a book, falling in love through the act of reading.’ Love is one of the central themes of Porter’s Wild Surmise and it was carried onto the stage with Montgomery Griffiths’ performance as Alex, an astrobiologist infatuated with discovering life on one of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Europa. This moon is both the subject of astrobiological study and the intergalactic symbol of desire for Alex who is gravitating away from her literary academic husband Daniel, played by Humphrey Bower, and into an affair with the astrophysicist Phoebe.
'Directed by Marion Potts and staged at the Malthouse Theatre from 9 November to 2 December 2012, the production of Wild Surmise was culturally significant as it embraced the oral tradition of poetry and allowed for new audiences to be exposed to Porter’s dynamic poetics...' (Publication abstract)
