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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'"The Captive" is a stark and poetic tale of the dispossessed struggling to find a homeland, and the savagery with which they impose their ideas of civilisation on an ancient land and its people.
How far will a man go to call a place "home"? In a land of immigrants, who are the dispossessed?
1840. A ship is wrecked on the uncharted coast of colonial Australia. On evidence of a female survivor, Angus Mitchell, an enterprising Scottish immigrant, is employed to search for her amongst the Aboriginal tribes of a wild and foreign land, beyond the new boundaries of his own civilisation. But does a savage land turn a man savage? And what exactly is Mitchell hunting for? A real woman, a myth or some kind of redemption? As the search becomes ever more desperate, Mitchell must choose between his humanity and the land he desperately seeks to make his home.' Source: http://australianplays.org/ (Sighted 30/10/2012).
Production Details
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World premiere at Finborough Theatre London, (celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Finborough Theatre), 7-8, 14-15, 21-22 November 2010. Director: John Kachoyan.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Different Kinds of Doubling: Comparing Some Uses of Character Doubling in the Ghosts Trilogy, by
Janis Balodis, and the Captive,
by Ben Ellis
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 60 2012; (p. 56-70) 'Character doubling has a contested provenance in theatre studies. On the one hand, it has been identified as a way to subvert naturalisation of socialised roles, foregrounding the performativity that scholars such as Judith Butler have identified as being inherent in everyday identity practices. When actors cross ethnic, class, gender, age or other boundaries to achieve doubled or multiple characterisation within a single performance, they can effectively expose and problematise those boundaries' constructedness. Commenting on Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, for example, Bill Naismith suggests that when doubling is used, it "questions the roles that have been imposed on women, past and present. The doubling of parts by an actor can positively undermine the fixedness of roles"' Similarly, discussing postcolonial theatre, Sue-Ellen Case suggests that doubling can "foreground the fabricated roles ... colonialism creates, distancing identity from biology".' Elspeth Tilley.
-
Different Kinds of Doubling: Comparing Some Uses of Character Doubling in the Ghosts Trilogy, by
Janis Balodis, and the Captive,
by Ben Ellis
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Drama Studies , April no. 60 2012; (p. 56-70) 'Character doubling has a contested provenance in theatre studies. On the one hand, it has been identified as a way to subvert naturalisation of socialised roles, foregrounding the performativity that scholars such as Judith Butler have identified as being inherent in everyday identity practices. When actors cross ethnic, class, gender, age or other boundaries to achieve doubled or multiple characterisation within a single performance, they can effectively expose and problematise those boundaries' constructedness. Commenting on Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, for example, Bill Naismith suggests that when doubling is used, it "questions the roles that have been imposed on women, past and present. The doubling of parts by an actor can positively undermine the fixedness of roles"' Similarly, discussing postcolonial theatre, Sue-Ellen Case suggests that doubling can "foreground the fabricated roles ... colonialism creates, distancing identity from biology".' Elspeth Tilley.
Last amended 30 Oct 2012 15:14:12
