Recent indigenous theatre in Australia:the politics of autobiography

Over the past decade Australian theatre has seen an increased profile for works written and created by Indigenous artists. This paper looks at the development of Indigenous theatre in Australia and considers how increased mainstream production opportunities have facilitated this expansion of Indigenous theatre practice. Based on the textual analysis of a number of key works, this paper looks at the development of the one-person show as the dominant genre for Indigenous theatre practices, and investigates the relationship between autobiography and the celebration of ‘otherness’. This study argues that this theatre work represents a shift away from conventional representations of Aboriginality towards a more self-determined expression of political identity.

The play, of blessed memory : the Dybbuk as imagined and reconstructed Jewishness in the Gilgul Theatre's 'Exile Trilogy'

I have quite distinct memories of my first encounters with people I identified as Jews. In the 1970's, when I was in my teens, I made friends with a group of Jewish girls, and was invited to their homes, most of which were in the Melbourne (Australia) suburb of Caulfield, which had one of the highest proportions of Jewish inhabitants in the city. I was growing up opposite a golf-course in an increasingly affluent, beachside, bleached-blonde outer suburb whose micro-culture epitomised entrenched Anglo-Australian values; good manners, regular hours, discreet display of wealth, restrained emotion, mid-week tennis, weekends on the beach. Entree to the homes of these Jewish families provided my fairly romantic and uncritical eye with a glimpse of another world....

Building audiences for Indigenous theatre : a case study of Kooemba Jdarra

This paper uses audience research data to examine the positioning of Indigenous theatre in the Australian theatre environment. Kooemba Jdarra is an Aboriginal theatre company in Brisbane, Australia, with a distinguished history of developing Aboriginal artists, writers and directors. However, it has struggled to maintain its positioning because of the perceived risks of participation by audiences who prefer to see Indigenous theatre within the program of the mainstream state theatre company. The paper concludes with strategies for decreasing risk for audiences and for greater advocacy by the company in positioning itself in the mainstream Australia theatre environment.

Into the wilderness; Gilgul's 'physical' theatre 1994

Gilgul Theatre was founded in May 1991 by director Barrie Kosky and manager flighting designer Robert Lehrer, who aimed to establish 'Australia's first professional Jewish theatre company'.

Power plays : Australian theatre and the public agenda

Power Plays capitalises on this moment of renewed and heightened interest by investigating the why and the how of eight contemporary Australian playwrights: Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Reg Cribb, Ben Ellis, Wesley Enoch, Hannie Rayson, Stephen Sewell and Katherine Thomson. These writers are passionate about the theatre as a forum for public discussion and they interrogate current issues in their work. Their plays reflect the passing show of cultural, political and economic life in Australia, telling audiences something critical about what is going on: this is the state of play, this is what we are.

The author has conducted extensive interviews with these writers and offers an extended analysis of some of their recent plays.

Class act : Melbourne Workers Theatre, 1987-2007

Celebrates the company's artistic achievements and successes over the last two decades through interviews, essays and high quality images of key productions, and recounts its history, its evolving relationship with the embattled trade union movement, and its on-going engagement with working class, indigenous and migrant communities.

'Class' and political theatre : the case of Melbourne workers theatre

Traditionally, class has been an important category of identity in discussions of political theatre. However, in recent years the concept has fallen out of favour, partly because of changes in the forces and relations of capitalist production. The conventional Marxist use of the term, which defined an individual's class position in relation to the position they occupied in the capitalist production process, seemed anachronistic in an era of globalization. Moreover, the rise of identity politics, queer theory, feminism, and post-colonialism have proffered alternative categories of identity that have displaced class as the primary marker of self. Glenn D'Cruz reconsiders the role of class in the cultural life of Australia by examining the recent work of Melbourne Workers Theatre, a theatre company devoted to promoting class-consciousness, in relation to John Frow's more recent re-conceptualization of class. He looks specifically at two of the company's plays, the award-winning Who's Afraid of the Working Class? and The Waiting Room, with reference to Frow's work on class, arguing that these productions articulate a more complex and sophisticated understanding of class and its relation to politics of race and gender today.

In dialogue with A.D. Hope: dialogue two: theatre of thought and creation of `being`

[Dialogue Two focuses on the main philosophical threads in Hope’s work and attitude in which he detaches himself from all beliefs, engaging with them only when he thinks such an engagement might open up a new way of seeing. Hope is adamant that there are no existing theories that provide an answer to life’s questions. His way of living in this world of uncertainties and shifting faiths and ideologies is to create ‘being’ poetically. This acceptance of knowledge’s provisionality does not however mean that he is not intensely interested in each theory that emerges in the theatre of thought.
See Dialogue One for details of the following exchange.]