Contemporary Australian Playwriting

Re-visioning the Nation on the Mainstage

Chris Hay, Stephen Carleton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032008639
• eBook ISBN: 9781000784565
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Contemporary Australian Playwriting provides a thorough and accessible overview of the diverse and exciting new directions that Australian Playwriting is taking in the twenty-first century.

In 2007, the most produced playwright on the Australian mainstage was William Shakespeare. In 2019, the most produced playwright on the Australian mainstage was Nakkiah Lui, a Gamilaroi and Torres Strait Islander woman. This book explores what has happened both on stage and off to generate this remarkable change. As writers of colour, queer writers, and gender diverse writers are produced on the mainstage in larger numbers, they bring new critical directions to the twenty-first century Australian stage. At a politically turbulent time when national identity is fractured, this book examines the ways in which Australia's leading playwrights have interrogated, problematised, and tried to make sense of the nation. Tracing contemporary trends, the book takes a thematic approach to the re-evaluation of the nation that is dramatized in key Australian plays.

Each chapter is accompanied by a duologue between two of the playwrights whose work has been analysed, to provide a dual perspective of theory and practice.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Re-visioning the Nation on the Mainstage
• 1 Re-visioning the Comedy
• “Fuck Western classics”: Anchuli Felicia King and Michelle Law in Conversation
• 2 Postmigrant Plays in Australia
• “Writing into Otherness”: Michele Lee and S. Shakthidharan in Conversation
• 3 Re-visioning Political Theatre and ‘Aussie Naturalism’
• “We’re very anti-politics”: Angela Betzien and Patricia Cornelius in Conversation
• 4 Theatre of the Anthropocene
• “We’re a teenage species”: Andrew Bovell and David Finnigan in Conversation
• 5 Re-visioning Landscape from the Regions
• “Sorry about the swearing”: Mary Anne Butler and Angus Cerini in Conversation
• 6 Adapt, or Else
• “I don’t adapt, I write”: Kate Mulvany and Tom Wright in Conversation
• 7 Imagined Lives
• “You gotta glitter it up”: Tommy Murphy and Alana Valentine in Conversation
• 8 Telling Stories in Person
• “I’m a polite visitor in this world”: Glace Chase and Lally Katz in Conversation
• Conclusion: Australian Playwriting in Lockdown
• Index