In the second episode, our guest is Alison Croggon, who needs no introductions: an author, poet and the most important contemporary theatre critic in Australia.
This was a really wonderful episode to record. Alison is such an intellectually rigorous critic, with an enormous knowledge of both the theatre and the literary canon, and talking with her is always an enormous joy. One of the beauties of recording a conversation is that it captures the tone of a person, something that doesn’t always come across in print, and Alison has this wonderful humour to her, a way of laughing while making a complex point. I hope you will enjoy this episode as much as we have.
There was a dominant myth, and it was a a nationalistic myth, and it was a very male myth, a very writer-centric narrative. And what I found when I was very young and talking to people (…) you just found things out. You know, the feminist theatre that was happening in the Seventies, and some plays by Peter Handke had their first English-language performaces in Melbourne. There was a lot of forgotten history that people talked about, that was never written down – and it was a much more interesting and a much more complex picture than was presented.
– Alison Croggon
Discussed in this episode:
the mutual dependency of blogs and independent theatre, Robert Brustein, when reviewers are incorrect, Requiem for the 20th Century, internet trolls (all men!), and the cowardice of anonymity.
New episodes will be released every 2 weeks, and we have made quite an effort to make them as accessible as possible, on a variety of platforms. Stay tuned and enjoy!
Listen to the episode:
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