> I presume that the problem arises from the fact that in the last 4
>decades, Anglophone poetry, from Philip Larkin on, has granted credibility
>mainly to the tamed narrative voice of the good citizen (who is allowed to
>be “strange” or “eccentric” only in a measure that does not exceed that of
>all the others).

Bitch alert...

Thing by Robin Usher in the Sunday Age this morning attacking the latest Keene/Taylor Theatre Project's season The Choirbook. (For those who don't know, the Keene of the company is my husband, and I am on the Board, just declaring my interests here).

The season is three plays - one a lyrical (?) narrative on ethnic cleansing, one a longer three-person play called The Share about three violent young men, and the last a post-apocalypse monologue which I don't know how to describe. Mr Keene is, according to Usher, "one of Australia's best playwrights in one of Australia's most innovative companies" (the artistic level of the work - writing, performance and production - is undeniable even for a grade one moron and besides the French love him, so you can't be too critical) but this time the kttp has gone too far.

"Is it valid to try to make middle class audiences feel guilty that violence is still going on? ... The Share, the second and most dominant of the three plays making up The Choirbook ... might be harrowing and grim with outstanding performances, but its limited focus opens Keene up to charges of misanthropy. ... It may be that Keene has gone as far as he can in exploring violence among society's underclass without alienating his audience. Beyond its shock value, its preoccupations seem thin..."

And so on.

I don't know why The Share has been so controversial - it's no more violent, I don't think, than other plays the kttp has done in the past. But for some reason it seems to have hit a nerve. The Share is guilty of nothing that Usher accuses it of (absolving people of crime, for example) but it is an intensely disturbing and violent work, and (I think) terrifyingly, harshly, _moral_. The play doesn't seek to make anyone feel _guilty_. What it does do is move outside a certain comfort zone and demand that you _think_. Pity for "those people" is not an option.

What I don't get is that writing plays about people you can see on the train every day (and about impulses that are commonly human) is apparently a crime itself, a sign of "misanthropy". One step further into consciousness, and you might see that impulse as the reverse of that - Maybe these people don't travel on trains.

In the same newspaper is one of the most complacently racist articles I've ever read, on "colourblind" casting by another person who is also apparently "one of Australia's best playwrights". And this is "culture"?

Any Melburnians interested in seeing the plays for themselves (they also happen to be pure poetry, for anyone interested in _language_) can catch them at Span Gallery in the city until next Saturday.

And sorry for the rant - I shouldn't get riled by idiots, but I do - it induces a poison fog of despair -

Best

Alison