Agamemnon is a warrior out of luck. The poor sap goes 15 rounds with the Trojans, only to return to his native Greece to learn his wife Clytaemnestra has been sleeping around.
Mind you, the warrior has returned with a tasty Trojan morsel by his side. A fair-skinned prophetess named Cassandra, whom nobody believes. Much like […]
You won’t expect any film rights to apply to the Commonwealth Sewerage Act of 1928. “No Harry Potter there,” jokes the Federal cop, played by Simon King.
But anti-terrorism is a different septic tank altogether. As dry as the Senate paper may be, playwright Graham Pitts has applied his highlighter to the document, mixing its language […]
Picking up the baton from my last post….
The Wiredancer’s Waltz (Sven Swenson) pitches a pregnant Judi beside her laconic fella Frank, the two keeping vigil over a dead codger until help arrives. The set-up is delicious: death and birth at close quarters. And the finale has powerful life-affirming charm. Yet along the way the lack […]
Two days, six plays – and no cooked breakfast after 11AM.
That’s how the National Play Festival went down in Brisbane last week, a tumult of Australian theatre-in-progress, and the most compelling reason for deep-veined thrombosis known to any culture vulture.
All up, eight scripts were on show – the winners among last year’s callout issued by […]
Shortly, sweetly, the festival ends. Three weeks. Sixty plays. And 14 prizes.
Rather than a gala night - showcasing the Fest’s top 10 plays - those at the helm have steered towards a foyer bash at the end of Week 3 to announce the overall champs.
But really, perhaps sounding like a philosophising alsoran, every playwright is […]
Can someone please explain the appeal of burlesque theatre? Is it the sleaze factor? The decadence? The chance to max out in frills and fishnet?
Because I get the ‘aesthetic’ – but that’s not enough to propel a story. It’s like saying hiphop is its own reward. Or art-deco is so bewitching, who needs architecture?
Sorry. I’m […]
Snags have sizzled, corks popped, ribbons snipped, speeches made….now the real Short & Sweet Festival begins. The plays are in play.
Week One is in full swing in Melbourne, the first third of the Top 30 scripts, playing in the Fairfax Bunker below the Arts Centre.
As a fellow writer I won’t play critic, but I […]
Butundi is bogus, but the fable is real. Colour Sergeant Atkins holds his ground in this humid Nowheresville, sworn to the colours of his flag, a staunch servant of King and country, guarding his carrot plot against marauding natives.
The Colours is a well-populated monologue-in-progress written and performed by stage dynamo, Peter Houghton, the final […]
Let’s say you want to write about a toxic love triangle, based in rural Australia. Two dysfunctional brothers – the drab opportunist and the blue-tongued bogan – carry a torch for a rustic spunk named ‘Rache’.
To spice the recipe, throw in the family home, add the family weatherboard just days away from developer’s dozers, […]
If a sculptor makes sculptures, and an etcher crafts etchings, what type of artisan cranks out scrimshaws?
In case you’re clutching straws, scrimshaw is the art of carving whale teeth and walrus tusks, the favoured pastime among idle harpooners and their mates.
The answer is a scrimshander. Not a word you encounter every day. I’d never heard […]