Men at Play: Masculinities in Australian Theatre since the 1950sHow are masculinities enacted in Australian theatre? How do Australian playwrights depict masculinities in the present and the past, in the bush and on the beach, in the city and in the suburbs? How do Australian plays dramatise gender issues like father-son relations, romance and intimacy, violence and bullying, mateship and homosexuality, race relations between men, and men’s experiences of war and migration? Men at Play explores theatre’s role in presenting and contesting images of masculinity in Australia. It ranges from often-produced plays of the 1950s to successful contemporary plays – from Dick Diamond’s Reedy River, Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, Richard Beynon’s The Shifting Heart and Alan Seymour’s The One Day of the Year to David Williamson’s Sons of Cain, Richard Barrett’s The Heartbreak Kid, Gordon Graham’s The Boys and Nick Enright’s Blackrock. The book looks at plays as they are produced in the theatre and masculinity as it is enacted on the stage. It is written in an accessible style for students and teachers in drama at university and senior high school. The book’s contribution to contemporary debates about masculinity will also interest scholars in gender, race and sexuality studies, literary studies and Australian history. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Whats a man to do? | 15 |
Fists boots and blues | 32 |
The bully and the businessman | 52 |
Black men white men | 70 |
In the theatre of war | 90 |
Wog boy moves | 108 |
Representing gay masculinities | 125 |
From father to son | 146 |
Between the sea and the sky | 164 |
| 185 | |
| 201 | |
Other editions - View all
Men at Play: Masculinities in Australian Theatre Since the 1950s Jonathan Bollen,Bruce Parr,Adrian Kiernander No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
action actor Adelaide Anglo-Australian audience Australian masculinity Australian plays Australian theatre Barney Bastard Country beach Beast in View behaviour Bloke Bodge Bodge’s boxing Boy from Oz Brisbane bullying chapter Chook Clarry Cloudstreet culture dance Digger drama Elizabethan Theatre emotional Enright Essington Lewis Fat Pizza father fight Figure film Fish Floyd Gary’s gay masculinities gender Georgie Gino Greek Griffin Theatre Company Heartbreak Kid Hepworth heterosexual homosexual Indigenous characters John Johnny KATHIE labour lives Lola Lola Montez look mainstream male characters man’s married masculinity Melbourne method acting Michael musical Naked Island Nicky opened performed physical play’s playwrights post-war premiere production prisoners recognised Reedy River relations Reproduced by courtesy role scene script Sentimental Bloke Seventeenth Doll sexual Shifting Heart social Stables Theatre stage directions suburban Sydney television Theatre Company traditional violence What’s wife Williamson’s wog boy women young