Contemporary Australian Theatre Deconstruction; a Beautiful Life by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard

The text chosen for this unit id the book Refuge by prominent Australian writer Jackie French (2013). Refuge follows the story of Faris, a young refugee feeling from his homeland with his grandmother to Australia. On the dangerous boat journey from Indonesia to Australia, they encounter a terrible storm where Faris falls unconscious and wakes up living his dream life in Australia. However, he has no recollection of how he got there. Whilst on the beach, he meets a strange group of children all from different times and places. Faris soon discovers that each child is like him, a migrant who travelled to Australia searching for a better place. Each child is living in their own ‘dream’ Australia and the beach provides a sort of ‘refuge’ from reality for them. Eventually, Faris has to make the decision to either continue living in this dream land or face his reality. This book is interesting as unlike other refugee texts, this novel serves to tell the multicultural history of Australian immigration. French relays the more than 60 000 year old history of people travelling to Australia by boat and makes the statement that all immigrants and refugees need to be treated with empathy and understanding.

“Away” is a historical play written in 1988 by Michael Gow. Away reflects to the central ideas, values and conflicts of Australia in 1967-68. The central ideas embrace outsiders, family conflicts and grief and loss which affected families in the play and in the time. Gow uses three main families to convey the message of the play. The use of language and stylistic devices influence the way Gow has been able to speak to the modern Australian audience. In the play, Gow is able to speak to the modern Australian audience with the clever, complex use of allusion. The modern audience would have to do research to understand the allusions in the play however on a superficial level the audience is still able to enjoy the central themes and ideas of the play.

The Academy Award winning film, Life is Beautiful, tells the story of Guido--a Jewish man living in 1930’s Italy as World War II begins. After courting his future wife and having a child just five years later, Guido and his family are shipped off to a concentration camp. Inspite of the film’s setting and circumstances, Life is Beautiful is a comedy. This is mainly due to the comedic relief from Guido as the viewer joins him on his journey from a bookstore owner to a prisoner. The comedy begins right off the bat.

In the history of Australia, there are a variety of people in their respective areas have made outstanding achievements, made a contribution to the identity of Australia. Among these people, Anh Do is probably the most instructive and interesting person. As his book "happy refugees" implied, Anh experienced suffering in his early years. At the same time, he has maintained an optimistic attitude, this pain into an inspirational story, to share with you. At present, Anh has made achievements in various fields such as writers, films, television, artists, live performances and corporate speeches (Anhdo.com.au 2017). Anne 's story is sure to shape the identity of Australia. This report will analyze the achievements of Anhe and his

Eden Court theatre is a late modernist building that adjoins onto an existing 19th century Episcopal Palace, situated on the beautiful banks of the river Ness. This public realm consists of a multifunctional auditorium, public restaurant, open foyer/bar space and backstage services. It became the largest venue in the region to accommodate for all types of performing arts from opera to popular music, concerts, ballet, modern dance, drama and films.

The film Life Is Beautiful, 1998, directed by Roberto Benigni, is about a Jewish man who charmed the woman he loved only to later be separated by being placed in a concentration camp. His love for her and his son drives him to continue being cheerful despite his surroundings. The film includes a range of themes, the most prevalent being love.

My first reaction to this paper was interest to read what Aaron wrote about the Fiske Theatre because I am also familiar with this theatre and liked to read how he viewed it.

There are many different views about refugees in Australian society, where illegal boat people and over flowing detention centres are a controversial problem today. Go Back To Where You Came From is a documentary directed by Ivan O’Mahoney about a social experiment that challenges the dominant views of six Australians about refugees and asylum seekers. These six Australians are taken on a 25 day journey where they are placed into the troubled “worlds” of refugees. For a few of the Australians it is their first time overseas but, for all of them it is the most challenging and confronting experience of their lives. This essay will discuss

Go Back To Where You Came From is an Australian documentary/reality show in which participants are given the opportunity to experience what the life of refugee and asylum seeker can be like, albeit edited and packaged for an audience. During the course of the three hour long series, the six individuals not only have the chance to get under the skin of a refugee in terms of achieving a greater degree of insight into what being a refugee really means, but also to get on the viewing audiences nerves in perhaps all or any of the of the first three senses described above. Moreover the refugees participating in the series may ‘get under the skin’ of the programme participants and the

Every staging of a play is irreplaceably different and tackled in unique ways by creatives involved. Unmasking Theatre Design by Lynne Porter aims through exploration of various approaches to the creatives processes to decipher the key steps an aspiring designer can follow to create work which reaches its maximum potential. Through detailed analysis of every aspect of the design and creative processes, Porter creates a blueprint to understanding the theory behind this work and investigates different strategies and exercises that can be utilized to move passed any roadblocks that occur when you move from theory to practice. Broken down into 5 sub-sections; theatre and design,

Robert Benigni’s film, Life is Beautiful, is about a man who starts a family with a young woman and later finds himself struggling with the woes of the Holocaust. Benigni suggests that happiness is the key to coping with hard times.

     ?Life Is Beautiful? shows one family?s experience in the concentration camp. Benigni makes the audience fall in love with the main character in the beginning by letting them see the way his life was and how truly happy he was. He shows him falling in love with a Christian woman and having an upbeat, curious little boy. By doing this, the audience experiences the sadness that the characters felt in the movie when they are separated. The audience feels sad when his Christian wife is separated from her family even though she wasn?t supposed to be at the camp in the first place. They also feel fear when his son has to hide every day from the Jews so that he won?t be taken to the furnace. At the end of the movie, when

In theatre a director has to take on responsibilities such as choosing a script, the spine of the play, the style of the production, and the director concept. One year in my high school theatre class, for our 50th anniversary of our school, our director selected a minimum of five plays and five students could volunteer to assist in directing selected scenes from the five plays to produce for our semester production. Our main director had the job of choosing the script and the spine of the play but responsibility of the style of the production and the directorial concept was all on the students. The remainder of the class was placed with one of the five students to help with that production. People fail to realize how much responsibility of the production is put on a director until they are put in charge.

The theatre is a wonderful place to go and relax with friends, family, or by yourself. I am delighted that you decided to watch The How and the Why. This play is modern, and it is very different from other plays. The How and the Why involves feminism, science, and a lot of dramatic scenes. In addition, it is a very surprising and touching play that relates to everyone’s life.

     There have been many dramatic plays over the centuries. Many of these plays have died in their time, while others have lived on. What makes these plays endure time and continue to be influential over time? Perhaps it is the storyline or the interesting nature of the play is what makes these dramas last. I think that it is the focus on human nature and its essential truths that keep these plays alive. Most of the plays, still enacted in theaters today, deal with social issues that people can learn from and relate to.