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$23.59 ex GST
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Lyn Haill (ed)
In 1986, Peter Gill, the then director of the National Theatre Studio, sent a group of young actors to interview their seniors about speaking on stage. The transcripts provide fascinating insights into the theatre of the past, but they also show how little has changed: the actor’s primary tools are still the body and voice. Actors interviewed include Harry Andrews, Alec Guinness, Rex Harrison, Robert Stephens and Margaret Tyzack, with notes from John Gielgud. Peter Gill provides an introduction.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-776-1 | PB
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$9.05 ex GST
$9.95 inc GST
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Philip Brophy
‘A road movie in a frock’ is one way this much acclaimed, award-winning movie has been described.
But Philip Brophy has a different take in his provocative reading of Stephan Elliott's classic 1994 film. He invites you to consider what the film says about Australia, its history, its culture and its cinema and the results might surprise you. Join him on a wild ride that takes you beyond the film's frames to a darker Australia.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the seventh title in Currency's Australian Screen Classics Series.
Reviews and extracts:
'... a wickedly engaging non-linear analysis of the film that pulses with odd juxtapositions and unexpected associations connecting up disparate elements into a 'map' of the film and the culture it conjures and from which it has grown'. Keith Gallasch,
Real Time No.85, June-July 2008. To read the full review, click here.
'... an invaluable rubik's cube of a book that speaks to us of many wise and dynamic things that are salient to our lives as artists, authors, filmmakers, educators, spectators and citizens who care about cinema and its ongoing aesthetic, cultural and existential potential to help us make sense of our one shared world'. John Conomos,
Screening the Past. To read the full review, click here.
'Brophy's achievement is to make Priscilla
seem a richer experience by his wide-ranging excavations beneath the film's gaudy surface ... Maybe you'd like a clearer guide through the film's journey, but you won't often have so many stimulating landmarks pointed out along the way.' Brian McFarlane,
Australian Book Review
Read an extract of
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (pdf)
For background information about the book and to learn more about Philip Brophy's work, visit www.philipbrophy.com
You might also be interested in Al Clark's production memoir
The Lavender Bus: How a Hit Movie was Made and Sold. For more information, click here.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-821-7 | PB
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$19.95 ex GST
$21.95 inc GST
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Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness
A. C. Grayling
Do religions have an inherent right to be respected? Is atheism itself a form of religion, and can there be such a thing as a ‘fundamentalist atheist’? Are we witnessing a global revival in religious zeal, or do the signs point instead to religion’s ultimate decline?
In a series of bold, unsparing polemics, world renowned philosopher A. C. Grayling tackles these questions head on, exposing the dangerous unreason he sees at the heart of religious faith and highlighting the urgent need we have to reject it in all its forms, without compromise. In its place, he argues for a set of values based on reason, reflection and sympathy, taking his cue from the great ethical tradition of western philosophy.
Against All Gods is part of
Oberon's Masters Series of good-value and attractively presented hardbacks on key themes within the theatre written by leading lights in each subject.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-727-3 | Australia/NZ | HB
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$9.05 ex GST
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Catharine Lumby
‘A wonderful read: I feel like I've been excavated and carbon dated.’
Graeme Blundell
One of the seminal films of the 1970s,
Alvin Purple depicts Alvin’s struggles with his irresistibility to women—from his school days and time as a waterbed salesman to his short-lived career as a sex therapist. The ‘definitive ocker comedy’,
Alvin Purple survived a critical mauling and went on to become the most commercially successful Australian film of the 1970s.
Catharine Lumby takes a fresh look at the film, the social and political era in which it was made and the forces that fuelled its success. She revisits claims that the movie is little more than an exercise in sexploitation and argues that the film is far more complex than its detractors have allowed.
See other titles in Currency's Australian Screen Classics Series.
Interviews and reviews:
To read our author interview with Catharine Lumby, click here.
Read an extract of
Alvin Purple (pdf)
An extract of Catharine Lumby's critique has also been published in the
Australian. To read, click here.
To read Philip O'Brien's article for the
Canberra Times, click here.
'this admirably lucid and wide-ranging study ... is another feather in the cap of a generally provocative series.' Brian McFarlane, Senses of Cinema. To read the article, click here.
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Currency Press | 978-0-86819-844-6 | PB
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$19.95 ex GST
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Conversations with George Hall
Lolly Susi
Lolly Susi’s interviews with performer and teacher George Hall are a unique insight into the mind of a great all-round theatre practitioner.
George Hall trained at Old Vic Theatre School and worked as an actor at the Old Vic, in regional theatre, on radio, television and film. He has worked in cabaret, as writer, composer, performer and director. He has composed scores for the Old Vic, RSC, and plays for film and television. George was director of the Acting Course at Central School of Speech and Drama for many years. He is currently on the staff of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Including photographs from George Hall’s time teaching and on stage,
An Untidy Career is full of revealing thoughts regarding the theatre and acting industries.
An Untidy Career is part of
Oberon's
Masters Series of good-value and attractively presented hardbacks on key themes within the theatre written by leading lights in each subject.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-989-5 | Australia/NZ | HB
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$35.41 ex GST
$38.95 inc GST
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Michael Pennington
Michael Pennington’s solo show about Anton Chekhov has taken London’s ‘Russian Actor’ from the Trans-Siberian Railway to Soviet and post-Soviet Moscow, into the repertoires of the National Theatre and the Old Vic, and across Europe.
Are You There, Crocodile? also includes accounts of his work on Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment, Tolstoy’s
Strider among other Russian projects, as well as searching essays on how Chekhov’s four masterpieces actually work in the theatre. This book is a study of the great writer, a partial autobiography, and, centrally, an actor’s search for identification with the elusive Anton Chekhov himself.
'It is fortunate that so remarkable a man and writer has attracted so remarkable an actor'
Sunday Telegraph (UK)
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-192-9 | AUSTRALIA/NZ | HB
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$23.59 ex GST
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Staging The Philip Pullman Trilogy
Robert Butler
Philip Pullman’s trilogy
His Dark Materials is an ambitious and magical theatrical event.
In
The Art of Darkness: Staging the Philip Pullman Trilogy, Robert Butler tells the story of this theatrical epic, from its first rehearsal to opening night, taking the reader on a backstage journey of a production unrivalled in its narrative scope and staging.
His Dark Materials involves technologies old and new and
The Art of Darkness presents a unique inside account of how the magic of Philip Pullman’s world is created on stage. This book will make you feel involved in the play, whether you saw it produced or not.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-414-2 | AUSTRALIA/NZ | PB
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$23.59 ex GST
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And Other Writings on the Theatre
J B Priestley
‘Why do we go to the theatre? What is it we enjoy there? If
we go to follow the fortunes of imaginary characters, why do we trouble
ourselves about the actors? If we go to enjoy the actors, why should the
quality of the play worry us?’
So begins J.B. Priestley’s landmark Old Vic lecture,
The Art
of the Dramatist, which examines and celebrates the playwright’s craft. He
shows how a theatrical experience relies on the ‘delicate balance between
belief and disbelief’ and addresses the tools with which a dramatist shapes a
play.
These passionate and witty essays distil Priestley’s experience
as a playwright, producer, director and—just once—actor. Published as a
companion volume to Priestley's plays, this new collection is part defence of
theatre, part incisive criticism. The
anthology is introduced by Tom Priestley, the playwright’s son.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-294-0 | AUSTRALIA/NZ | PB
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$35.41 ex GST
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Murray Melvin (Editor)
The publication of this title coincides with a major exhibition at the National Theatre in London. This is a photographic record of the work of Joan Littlewood's famous Theatre Workshop, based at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East.
In the 1950's and 60's the company was responsible for some of the most famous and influential work of modern British theatre such as
The Quare Fellow and
The Hostage both by Brendan Behan;
A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney;
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be by Frank Norman, music by Lionel Bart; and the massive success of
Oh, What a Lovely War.
Joan Littlewood, considered
‘one of the great creative forces of British theatre in the 1950s and 1960s and one of the great figures of political theatre in this country [UK]’, left an enduring legacy which is celebrated in this volume.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-691-7 | PB
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$26.32 ex GST
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His Plays, People and Politics
Alan Shelley
A playwright whose work is appreciated on a global scale, Athol Fugard’s plays have done more to document and provide a cultural commentary on Apartheid-era South Africa than any other writer in the last century. Using mostly migrant workers and township dwellers, and staging guerrilla-raid productions in black areas, Fugard frequently came into conflict with the government, forcing him to take his work overseas. Consequently, powerful plays such as
The Blood Knot,
Sizwe Banzi is Dead, and
Master Harold... and the boys came to broadcast the inequities of the Apartheid-era to the world. Fugard’s work retains an insistent influence, and is studied and performed the world over.
Alan Shelley’s study is an accessible but profound analysis of the man, his work and its influence, the social injustices that drive him, and the lives of those who people his remarkable plays.
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Oberon Books | 978-1-84002-821-8 | PB
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