AustLit

In this article, I reread Andrew Bovell’s When the Rain Stops Falling, an Australian theatre work from 2008, from a fourth-wave ecocritical perspective within the context of climate change. Since the foundation of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) in 1992, ecocriticism has undergone critical shifts leading to new methodologies and perspectives. In the meantime, we have observed three waves of ecocriticism, and more recently, in the Autumn 2012 issue of ISLE, Scott Slovic heralded a ‘fourth-wave material trend in ecocriticism’. ‘Material ecocriticism’ has emerged around ‘the fundamental materiality (the physicality, the consequentiality) of environmental things, places, processes, forces, and experiences’. This new paradigm of ecocriticism asks for not only the way the agency of nonhuman forces is represented in a text but also the way an agentic force itself narrates the story of its materiality MOHEBAT AHMADI @1 Australasian Drama Studies 66 (April 2015) through interconnection with other human and nonhuman agents. To read Bovell’s play from this perspective, I draw on the work of Timothy Morton and apply the key concept of ‘hyperobjects’; a crucial shift in ‘ecological thought’, which along with the key term of ‘dark ecology’ are the main contributions to the fourth phase of ecocritical theory. It is Morton’s emphasis on the object-oriented ontological feature of ‘hyperobjects’ or their engagement with the agency of things and an interconnected assemblage of objects that shape my material ecocritical reading in the field of Drama Studies.' (Author's introduction)

'The question of aesthetic modernism and its moorings in a number of social, economic, political and sexual configurations and imaginings around space, time and technological progress is at the centre of a resurgent interest in modernism and modernity over the last two decades. Interest in aesthetic modernism as a mode of critique aimed at conservative tides in culture, politics and the economy gains new relevance in the context of contemporary Australia. This article considers the Australian context in which one of the foremost proponents of aesthetic modernism in drama is Patrick White. We begin by examining the continuing relevance of White's drama by discussing the key modernist tropes that operate transversally across two of his plays, 'The Ham Funeral' and 'Signal Driver'. White's critique of postwar Australian culture forms the central tenet of his modernist playwriting aesthetics. It is further articulated in a 1958 provocation, in which he refers to Australian modernity as being embedded in anti-intellectualism, 'the march of material ugliness' and 'the exaltation of the average'. In this article, we argue that White's modernist drama chronicles twentieth-century social, economic and political formations of nation, and its effects on subjectivity and interpersonal relations. His plays pose a number of challenges to a twentieth-century configuration of nation, to the ideals of modernity that helped to shape it, and these continue into the twenty-first century. We propose that to re-examine modernist aesthetics in Australian drama reconnects us with smart and pleasurable ways of staging and rebutting rampant modernity as a mode of social, sexual and artistic governance that remains uncannily pertinent today.' (Publication abstract)

'In 2013 adaptation was perhaps the most contested and controversial topic in Australian theatre. A series of heated debates erupted in the media following two provocative articles by Rosemary Neill published in The Australian in late May, which suggested that as a result of the recent adaptation 'fad', the voices of Australian playwrights were being 'swept off the stage'. As these articles highlight, there is a cultural trend towards adaptation on the Australian stages. A range of leading independent theatre companies including 'The Rabble', 'The Hayloft Project', 'The Daniel Schlusser Ensemble', and 'Fraught Outfit' work largely, or solely, in the area of adaptation. Meanwhile, adaptations of the classics have become increasingly more prominent on the main stages at Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) and Sydney Theatre Company (STC), especially from a series of young directors. The articles in The Australian incited extensive arguments in the press, social media, online forums and public panel discussions that revealed a great deal of cultural anxiety surrounding the issues of intellectual property, the perceived 'death of the author' and the shifting focus of Australian theatre.'

Source: Author's abstract.