Theatre
WHO'S WHO
People who are getting political with theatre
Van Badham
Persae
ihe young Australian dramatist brings an adaptation of Aeschylus' The Persia/7:: to the this year's Fringe. a tale of dynastic expansionsin and |l“.d.‘1l( vi of a weaker foe is appositer applied to 1W.- liuuh (Empires problems in foreign policy
Josh Broadstone
We Don't know Shi'ite
()ne of five actors from the WM[) IWhite Middle class Duiiibasses; theatre company who, created this verbatim theatre piece looking at people's: {DOU‘UDIIOHS of the Muslim community and (fl‘ltit’WOilllg how ill-infoiiiied much of the
i)« )pUiéiIlUll really is.
Brian Dykstra
Clean Alternatives
lhe author of this sharply political black comedy I)llll(_]t; to the fore the issue of trade in environmental credits and the
. lengths that a corporation Will go to iii order to keep on polluting the planet in the iiiannei to which they are acetistoiiied.
Richard Franklin
Breasts and Burgers
Franklin directs this adaptation ‘ *3, of Apollinaire'sBreasts; of fires/as. first perfoiiiied in Paris ll‘. 1917, givmg its surrealist sequences and emphasis on free speech a 91st century facelift. and showmg that the same issues are still peitinent today.
k Bodies in Transit
Philipsen performs this play by Nina Larissa Bassett. which aims to explore the Situation of Eastern European prostitutes more objectively, without emotion confusing the issues addressed.
lben Hendel Philipsen .f.
Kim Kefgen
Girl Blog from Iraq: Baghdad
Burning think that's what matters and that's what keeps you it‘s about anything else. We want to create a Adapted by Kim and her co~ gOing. the belief that you can at least make that profoundly human experience that happens in 90 writer Loren Noveck. this person think if not actually change that person. minutes which is unironic because it's real and verbatim dramatisation reveals SL I think the thing that we all share in common is happening there in the room. the real impact of the invasion that we're all crying out and l believe a cry becomes 80 I remember growmg up With the Watergate on everyday Baghdad life. a shout becomes a roar - that's how it happens. hearings and Nixon came down. and thinking and if we‘re not crying out that kind of momentum politics is a waste of time and we were young and Simon Levy can't happen. As someone who went through proud of our apathy. Only recently we‘ve realised What / Heard About Iraq Vietnam, I know it was artists and young people that apathy feeds the beast. Eliot Weinberger's article of the who change policy. SL That's something that's creeping back into same name formed the basis for RF That's why all authoritarian states always stamp theatre because y0u're no longer preaching to ’ this adaptation by Levy. Direct on artists because we‘re very. very dangerous. people who are proud of their apathy and their ' quotations from politicians SC The other question I'd like to raise is: there was cynicism. You c0uld once give them what they - -- contrast with those of soldiers a long time during the 90s where the form political wanted and be clever and cynical and apathetic: it s and ClVlIlanS, highlighting the contradictions and diSCLission was undermined by irony and different now. inconsistencies that we are fed by the media. postmodern glibness that encouraged the audience SC There‘s also that thing that political theatre is to be apathetic. It seems to me in the last four or meant to be humourless. but some of the most Rachel Chavkin five years art has become less Willing to protect yOur humorous theatre I've ever seen is political. '. Particular/y In The Heartland audience With irony. IHP It‘s also become legitimate to use emotions as A member of the TEAM who Rachel Chavkin (director. 115': i. r‘ a tool that you can use to get people to respond. this year present a play set in a Warfare) We grew up reading about rather than distancmg themselves This is what surreal Kansas. where Robert postmodernism in text books but I think that the theatre can do if you lift it from being just another Kennedy is resurrected. The idea is to not stop there because I think irony is news item. you go there and you're forced to relate child's viewpoint gives a fresh always an end to conversation. Our goal is to try to to one real person's experiences — sweating. crying. perspective, the possibility of putting ghosts to reduce the audience to children to make us kind of laughing. dOing whatever. and it's not iust another rest and reinventing the world.
regressiver enjoy. it's about exuberance as much as article that yOu can read or not read.
," THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 67