We Built This City, Melbourne Workers Theatre @ Scienceworks, Spotswood, May
3-6.
The West Gate Bridge provides the only view in Melbourne that's not from the
top of a tall building. And what a view - nothing beats driving over it at
night and seeing the industrial sprawl of Yarraville stretching out westward
like a sci-fi city, with the flame of the Altona oil refinery blazing
ominously in the distance.
So the Melbourne Workers Theatre's decision to site We Built This City, a
celebration of Melbourne's construction workers, at Scienceworks, just
beneath the bridge's spectacular curve, gives it huge visual grunt. But
there is another other, grimmer significance: the West Gate is the site of
Australia's worst industrial accident, when the half-completed bridge
collapsed in 1970, killing 35 workers.
The show is part of a program of events curated by the Melbourne Workers
Theatre to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Eight-Hour Day.
Interestingly, the campaign was started by stonemasons working on the
quadrangle of Melbourne University in 1856, who downed tools and marched on
Parliament House to demand this cornerstone of worker's justice (eight
hours' work, eight hours' play, eight hours' sleep), sparking a proud
tradition of Australian unionism.
Read more at http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
And also... news and discussion on the controversial Comédie-Française
decision to cancel a production scheduled for early next year of Peter
Handke's Voyage to the Sonorous Land, or the Art of Asking. The question
being: is it right to ban artistic works - in this case works of unarguable
artistic merit - because its author holds distasteful political views?
Best to all
Alison
Alison Croggon
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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