SPEAKING WOMEN: ACTRESSES' ROLES IN ENGLISH DRAMA, 1737-1800. This project continues the internationally celebrated tradition of Australian scholarship in English Restoration and eighteenth-century drama, a period which is of particular interest because it coincides with the originary moment of our modern nation. As a mode of popular culture, drama offers a rich source of common ideas and attitudes (for example, about gender and class), which the project will explore. Many popular eighteenth-cen ....SPEAKING WOMEN: ACTRESSES' ROLES IN ENGLISH DRAMA, 1737-1800. This project continues the internationally celebrated tradition of Australian scholarship in English Restoration and eighteenth-century drama, a period which is of particular interest because it coincides with the originary moment of our modern nation. As a mode of popular culture, drama offers a rich source of common ideas and attitudes (for example, about gender and class), which the project will explore. Many popular eighteenth-century plays were performed in the early days of white settlement, and this project will, among other more general outcomes, investigate whether these works might be capable of successful and illuminating revival on modern Australian stages. Read moreRead less
Monumental Shakespeare: a transcultural investigation of commemoration in 20th-century Australia and England. Shakespeare represents a key conduit of Anglo-Australian cultural definition. This first internationally collaborative investigation of the popular, political and scholarly influences at work in the desire to commemorate Shakespeare in the 20th century - beginning with the tercentenary of his death in 1916 - will produce new knowledge about the embedding of Shakespeare into English and A ....Monumental Shakespeare: a transcultural investigation of commemoration in 20th-century Australia and England. Shakespeare represents a key conduit of Anglo-Australian cultural definition. This first internationally collaborative investigation of the popular, political and scholarly influences at work in the desire to commemorate Shakespeare in the 20th century - beginning with the tercentenary of his death in 1916 - will produce new knowledge about the embedding of Shakespeare into English and Australian cultural foundations. This transcultural investigation of the ways in which very different memorials - the National Theatre (London) and Sydney's Shakespeare Place - emerged from debates over appropriate forms for memorialisation will provide new understandings of the reproduction of Shakespearean heritage across nations, hemispheres and cities.Read moreRead less
SONG LYRICS FOR THE ENGLISH THEATRE 1660-1700: A PERFORMATIVE ANALYSIS. Restoration plays preserve the lyrics of over 1500 songs, ranging from sophisticated pieces set by Purcell to words written to popular ballad tunes. The project will collect the entire corpus of these lyrics and use them as the subject for a performance-oriented analysis, integrating words, music (when it survives) and what can be discovered about stage presentation. Cultural meanings will be established through close contex ....SONG LYRICS FOR THE ENGLISH THEATRE 1660-1700: A PERFORMATIVE ANALYSIS. Restoration plays preserve the lyrics of over 1500 songs, ranging from sophisticated pieces set by Purcell to words written to popular ballad tunes. The project will collect the entire corpus of these lyrics and use them as the subject for a performance-oriented analysis, integrating words, music (when it survives) and what can be discovered about stage presentation. Cultural meanings will be established through close contextualisation. Rhetorical theory and the concept of 'musical wit' will be used to relate verbal meanings to musical procedures and both to theatrical presentations of the body.Read moreRead less
From British Imperialist to Honorary Aussie to International Meeting-Place: How Shakespeare has been spoken and staged in Australia 1910-2003. Aims: To discover how changing ideas of Australia's relationship to Britain and the world relate to performances of Shakespeare for Australian audiences.
Significance: For the last 100 years Shakespeare has been the most performed playwright in Australia, but theatre companies today are more likely to draw on Asian physical theatre than British speech tr ....From British Imperialist to Honorary Aussie to International Meeting-Place: How Shakespeare has been spoken and staged in Australia 1910-2003. Aims: To discover how changing ideas of Australia's relationship to Britain and the world relate to performances of Shakespeare for Australian audiences.
Significance: For the last 100 years Shakespeare has been the most performed playwright in Australia, but theatre companies today are more likely to draw on Asian physical theatre than British speech training. How Shakespeare's plays have been staged and spoken here reflects changing ideas about national character and identity, in terms of independence, sophistication, and sense of cultural geography.
Outcomes: A PhD thesis and a major exhibition catalogue essay by the APAI candidate; research publications by the Chief InvestigatorsRead moreRead less