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‘Looking at the Wider World’: Global Engagement, Political Activism and Polemical Storytelling in Watchlist, Prima Facie and Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2024

ALEX VICKERY-HOWE  and
LISA HARPER CAMPBELL
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Abstract

This article focuses on Watchlist, a new play written by Alex Vickery-Howe, placing it in a context of contemporary Australian political writing for the stage which sees playwrights, such as Stephen Sewell and Suzie Miller, adopt an international outlook in order to tell stories of activism. By creating nuanced characters and engaging with the popular, these playwrights are inspiring activism in their audiences in engaging and challenging ways, arguing that what is deemed off-limits should not be left off-stage.

Type
Article
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 25 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Federation for Theatre Research

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References

NOTES

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7 Watchlist was written by the lead author of this article. The debut production was directed by their co-author.

8 Alex Vickery-Howe, Watchlist (Sydney: Currency Press, 2020).

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11 Vickery-Howe, Watchlist, p. 77.

12 Samela Harris, ‘Watchlist’, The Barefoot Review (3 June 2021) at https://www.thebarefootreview.com.au/menu/theatre/119-2014-adelaide-reviews/2189-watchlist.html.

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17 Croggon, ‘How Australian Is It?’, p. 60.

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31 Ibid.

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34 Ibid.

35 Suzie Miller, Personal Communication, 29 April 2020.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

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44 Ibid., p. 155.

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47 Ibid., pp. 1056–7.

48 Ibid., p. 1057.

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52 Harris, ‘Watchlist’.

53 Wickett, ‘Watchlist’.

54 Bramwell, ‘Theatre Review: Watchlist’.

55 Helen Karakulak, ‘Watchlist’, Adelaide Theatre Guide (6 June 2021) at http://www.theatreguide.com.au/current_site/reviews/reviews_detail.php?ShowID=watchlist&ShowYear=2021.

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59 Bramwell, ‘Theatre Review: Watchlist’.

60 Wickett, ‘Watchlist’.

61 Steve Davis, ‘Watchlist’, The Adelaide Show Podcast (4 June 2021) at https://theadelaideshow.com.au/reviews/watchlist/.

62 Wickett, ‘Watchlist’.

63 Peter Burdon, ‘Review: Watchlist by South Australian Playwrights Theatre’, The Advertiser (6 June 2021) at https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/arts/review-watchlist-by-south-australian-playwrights-theatre/news-story/69788469a466cf420b80dca39eb9b750.

64 Davis, ‘Watchlist’.

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66 Ibid., p. 226.

67 Ibid., p. 228.

68 Wickett, ‘Watchlist’.

69 Victor Grossman, ‘Extinction Rebellion’, Guardian (Sydney), 1867, 8 May 2019, p. 9.

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71 Wade, Leslie A., ‘Sublime Trauma: The Violence of the Ethical Encounter’, in Anderson, Patrick and Menon, Jisha, eds., Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 8Google Scholar.

72 Davis, ‘Watchlist’.

73 Maggie Ivanova and Alex Vickery-Howe, ‘Dramaturgy of Mobility: Towards Crossover and Fusion in out of the Ordinary’, Australasian Drama Studies, 70 (2017), pp. 159–86.

74 Bramwell, ‘Theatre Review: Watchlist’.

75 Grehan, Performance, Ethics and Spectatorship in a Global Age, p. 22