Australian theatre
Articles
- Review of various
In the 'Short Notices' of the last issue of Australian Literary Studies Eunice Hanger's edition, with an introduction, of three Australian plays, Khaki Bush and…
1 October 1969 - Marcus Clarke and the Theatre
Irvin examines Marcus Clarke's dramatic works, placing his career within a broader context of 19th century Australian theatre and its criticism.
1 May 1975 - Patrick White’s Four Plays1 June 1966
- Australia’s ‘First’ Dramatists
Discusses early Australian theatre and drama in examining the question: Who wrote the first Australian play?
1 May 1969 - Coppin - How Great? Alec Bagot’s Father of the Australian Theatre
Oppenheim takes issue with Alec Bagot's naming of George Coppin the 'father of Australian theatre', and in so doing provides a history of early Australian…
1 October 1967 - Woman Playwrights: A First Collection?
It is always risky to claim that this book or that, on publication has claims based on being 'the first' in its field or of…
1 May 1973 - Revaluing Australian Legends: Some Plays by Jack Hibberd
In this decade Barry Oakley, Jack Hibberd, Michael Boddy and Bob Ellis among Australian playwrights have sought to revalue Australian legends from a radical perspective…
1 May 1978 - Review of Impact of the Modern: Vernacular Modernities in Australia 1870s–1960s, edited by Robert Dixon and Veronica Kelly
Contradictions are embraced in Impact of the Modern: Vernacular Modernities in Australia 1870s–1960s, a collection of essays that charts the cultural climate of early…
1 June 2009 - Review 0f Make It Australian: The Australian Performing Group, the Pram Factory and New Wave Theatre, by Gabrielle Wolf
Make It Australian, Gabrielle Wolf's very readable history of Melbourne's Australian Performing Group (APG), is an engaging and comprehensive account of the contribution of…
1 May 2009 - Australian Gothic: Theatre and the Northern Turn
‘This essay traces the recent scholarship on the prominence of a Gothic sensibility in Australian literary and cinema cultures, and argues that theatre has somehow…
1 June 2012 - Review of The Empire Actors: Stars of Australasian Costume Drama 1890s-1920s, by Veronica Kelly
Exploring the 'spectacular late-century flowering of popular romantic historical melodrama' in Australasian theatre and film, The Empire Actors confirms Veronica Kelly's international reputation as a…
1 June 2012 - Adapting Australian Novels for the Stage: La Boite Theatre’s Version of Last Drinks, Perfect Skin, and Johnno
In the latest expression of its mandate to stage a broadly-defined Queensland, the Brisbane-based La Boite Theatre has turned to adapting local works. This is…
1 October 2008 - Translating for the Australian Stage (A Personal Viewpoint)
Translating for the stage is a peculiar business, different from translating the novel, essay or poem and it raises many questions, especially pertinent now when…
1 May 1982 - Review of Not Wrong - Just Different: Observations on the Rise of Contemporary Australian Theatre, by Katharine Brisbane
Throughout a long and distinguished career, Katharine Brisbane has been deeply and passionately involved in the performing arts in Australia. She has also been a…
1 October 2006 - ‘Does all Melbourne smell like this?’: The Colonial Metropolis in Marvellous Melbourne
A few years after George Augustus Sala had coined the term ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ in 1885, a play with that title was written and performed with…
1 May 2003 - Miles Franklin and ‘The Survivors’
The manuscript of Stella Miles Franklin's play 'The Survivors' is marked 'Shawondasee, August, 1908'. Shawondasee is in the small, historic seaside town of Stonington, Connecticut…
1 May 2011 - Review of The Convict Theatres of Early Australia 1788-1840, by Robert Jordan
'We left our Country for our Country's good' about sums up what is generally known about the convict actors who ingeniously improvised, organised and pushed…
1 May 2005 - Review of Playing Australia: Australian Theatre and the International Stage, edited by Elizabeth Schafer and Susan Bradley Smith
Playing Australia is both interestingly helpful and interestingly problematic. In its consideration of multiple ways in which Australia may be played on stage, it provides…
1 May 2005 - Patrick White’s ‘Return to Abyssinia’
Hergenhan describes his discovery of the program for White's first, unpublished play, 'Return to Abyssinia', which opened 11 March 1947 at The Bolton Theatre.
1 October 1976 - Review of David Williamson: A Writer's Career, by Brian Kiernan
For over twenty years David Williamson has provided the Australian stage with a succession of extremely successful comic plays and our film and television industries…
1 May 1992
Contributors
- John F. Burrows
- Melissa Bellanta
- Susan Carson
- Stephen Carleton
- Richard Fotheringham
- Laurie Hergenhan
- Laurie Hergenhan
- Eric Irvin
- Eric Irvin
- Veronica Kelly
- Janet Lee
- Geoffrey Milne
- Louis Nowra
- Helen Oppenheim
- Martin Orkin
- Peter Pierce
- Delyse Ryan
- Walter Stone
- Peta Tait
- Joanne Tompkins