AustLit

'A coastal town, somewhere in Australia. Skeleton population in winter, swollen with the holiday crowd in summer. This particular bunch have been coming to their beach houses for years. They’ve got the money to enjoy themselves, they always have. Why should it be any different this year? Why should it ever change?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A mother, in a time of war. She loses members of her family, one after the other – but she never loses hope. A rich, sweeping new play from the team that made the acclaimed Counting and Cracking. The Jungle and the Sea leans on two great pillars of literature – Antigone and the Mahābhārata – to forge a new story about surviving loss and the possibility of reconciliation.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A displaced persons camp that’s become a town. Sami’s lived here so long he can barely remember his real home. He’s a bit of a dreamer, a bit of a clown. One night he wakes up at the end of his tether. There’s gotta be more to life than this. He stakes his dignity on learning the tuba, little knowing he’s set out on a path that will lead him to attending his own funeral… 

'Sami in Paradise is a fresh new version of Nikolai Erdman’s classic 1928 comedy The Suicide, transplanted from the obliterating regime of Stalin’s Russia to the obliterating regime of living stateless in the world today.' (Production summary)

'Since the death of her charismatic but abusive husband, Helene Alving has been treading water in a sea of empty days. What keeps her going is a deeply held belief that salvation can only lie in telling her son Oswald the truth about his father. But when Oswald returns after living as an artist in France, he has his own truth to reveal: he is already living the consequences of his father’s life…' (Production summary)

'It could be subtitled: ‘How to Find Faith in Humanity – or Not’. This early Chekhov is a glorious ensemble comedy about the fact that the future is looking bleak. Here it gets its first Australian mainstage production. What a fantastic mix of rage and silliness; its characters all torn between making money and getting in on something bigger and more meaningful than themselves. How apt.

'Nikolai Ivanov is going mad. His life used to be full of possibility, but now he’s moneyless on an old farm with his mendicant uncle and his inexplicably happy if slightly criminal cousin. He’s in debt to his neighbours, he has the hots for their daughter, and nothing much makes any sense to him anymore. Oh, and his wife is dying. Life’s all healthcare and making payments. What’s the alternative? There must be an alternative. There must be an alternative!' (Publication summary)

'Palm Island. An Aboriginal man is arrested, allegedly for insulting a police officer. Within 90 minutes, he lies dead on the watchhouse floor, his liver cleaved in two. The community protests, the police station is torched. A Senior Sergeant stands trial for manslaughter but is acquitted. Questions are raised about manipulation of evidence and a court suppression order. A protestor, jailed for inciting a riot, is out on parole on condition that he speaks to no-one.

"Beautiful One Day" is a theatrical documentary made by a group of Australians (black and white) seeking to interpret these events against the full sweep of the island's history. It seeks to grasp the ordinariness of brutality, charting the course of repression, resistance and racism but also the astonishing resilience of the people who call Palm Island home.' Source: www.belvoir.com.au/ (Sighted 12/10/2011).