Theatre

The Temple

by Louis Nowra
Ligature untapped
genre Theatre

It’s the 1980s, that decade when Gordon Gecko pronounced greed to be good. Laurie is of the same mind. Truckie-turned entrepreneur, he’s making the most of every opportunity: screwing over anyone for a buck, schmoozing with the rich and powerful—and somehow capturing the public’s imagination. Surely this isn’t going to go wrong?

A multi-award-winning satire about greed which just never seems to go out of style, The Temple was first performed in 1993, and was chosen as the Best New Australian Play in the Victorian Green Room Awards, won the ALS Gold Medal and Louis Esson Prize for Drama.

Louis Nowra is a playwright, script writer and novelist. He’s been the recipient of many awards including the Canada-Australia Literary Award, a Logie Award, AFI Awards, the Prix Italia Drama Award and, in 2013, the Patrick White Award.

Rooted

by Alexander Buzo
Ligature untapped
genre Theatre

The sixties are coming to an end, and Bentley’s life is just bonza. He’s got the stereo, the apartment, the girl. Well, he had the stereo, the apartment and the girl…

Reviewing Mudlark Theatre’s 2007 production of Rooted in Sauce, Clara Murray wrote ‘… a shinier Kingswood Country, with the 70s sets, the satirical rapid-fire repartee, and the story of sweet and foolish Bentley who gets rooted by his mates, and his missus as power corrupts and the nice guy gets screwed … a bloody good show for everyone except that poor bastard Bentley…’

Rooted is classic ‘new wave’ farce. Renowned for its use of Australian colloquial language, the play was first performed in 1969. The writing and the subject matter have ensured Rooted has continued to be performed in theatres around the country. An ABC film adaptation was released in 1985.

Alexander Buzo (1944–2006) was an award-winning playwright, scriptwriter, novelist and non-fiction writer. His plays include Norm and Ahmed (1968) and Macquarie (1972), for which he won an ALS Gold Medal. For more information visit alexbuzo.com.au.

Shrine

by Tim Winton
Ligature finest
genre Literary Fiction · Theatre

Tim Winton’s third play is a haunting exploration of the way in which we try to own our dead, and the way in which they come to own us.

Signs of Life

by Tim Winton
Ligature finest
genre Literary Fiction · Theatre

Two strangers in distress arrive at a farmhouse in the wheatbelt late at night. A woman is there, on the veranda of the farmhouse, frightened, alone. She greets the interlopers with a series of questions.

What has brought these people together? What do they have in common? Why does a dried up river matter to all of them? These questions hang over the play. As the seemingly gentle story unfolds, we realise the depth of Tim Winton’s vision. The play tackles deep questions of identity, sustainability and community without ever offering easy answers.

Fortinbrasse

by Matt Rubinstein
Ligature first
genre Poetry · Theatre

Fortinbrasse is the tragedy of Hamlet’s mirror and foil, the Prince of Norway. It supplements the handful of references Shakespeare gives us in Hamlet with further details from his, sources together with my own speculation about the circumstances that eventually lead to Fortinbrasse’s bittersweet arrival at Elsinore at the end of Hamlet.

Solstice: the Play