How 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...

This is a full-length study of the renowned French theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine, and her company, the Theatre du Soleil. Mnouchkine is recognized as one of the first women directors to achieve an international reputation and her productions, spanning from Shakespeare to contemporary drama, have been widely acclaimed as being in the forefront of twentieth-century theatre. Having worked with Mnouchkine's company in 1985, Adrian Kiernander was in a unique position to observe her directorial style and working methods. In this fascinating study, Kiernander analyses the elements which inform...

This book about the work of actor director John Bell is essential reading for anyone interested in Australian theatre and in Shakespearean performance. Adrian Kiernander makes use of the Stage on Screen archive of Australian theatre with extensive video excerpts of performances, and lucidly explains how, for over five decades, Bell has revived and reinvented theatre in Australia with his interpretations of radical new drama and particularly his innovative approach to staging Shakespeare's plays. This scholarly book reveals why Bell deserves the reputation as a 'national living treasure' and a...