The Louis Esson Prize for Drama: Shortlist 2003

Judges report

The bonds of family was a strong theme this year - both our human need for the ties of love and blood, and the bonds that can be entrapment and obsession. Also faith, and the human impulse to believe in something: writers gave us characters who were testing the sacred, and the effect of their convictions on those closest to them.

We were excited by the variety of plays that looked at the city and the bush - works that were critical, affectionate, mordant, provocative and funny - dramatising change and crisis faced by individuals and communities beyond the metropolis.

As well as our shortlist of three, we've nominated four scripts for commendation. These commended plays are not 'runners-up'; rather, they are works by new or lesser-known writers, and strike sparks of true originality and theatricality, worth recognising and applauding.

The commended plays are:
The Lightkeeper by Verity Laughton. A beautifully constructed and sustained one-actor piece, this portrait of a nineteenth-century lighthouse keeper shows us a man whose heart is transformed by the brief and finally tragic presence of great love in his otherwise solitary life. Verity Laughton's achievement is to take the familiar monologue form and to give it fresh strength and emotional force.

Road to the She-Devil's Salon by Sven Swenson. This play sweeps us through the second half of the twentieth century and into the turbulent lives of two families. The Brisbane Markets is the epicentre. Theatrical bravura, an unflinching eye for the flaws and wounds of family life, and remarkable flights of hilarity and passion are the hallmarks of Sven Swenson's play.

God's Last Acre by Vivenne Walshe. The women of three generations wait in a Melbourne suburb for signs of hope and a way to the future. The absent man who is their son, husband and father is the unseen force that both drives and immobilises them. Vivienne Walshe's play transforms the apparently ordinary into a eloquent family portrait.

Aliwa by Dallas Winmar. While Dallas Winmar's play is built around the actual experiences of three sisters of the Davis family, it is also an inventive and original piece of theatrical story-telling. The script tells the story of these Aboriginal women with great energy, confidence and respect.

Shortlist

Last Cab to Darwin by Reg Cribb
Reg Cribb's play about death is sustained by an irresistible life force. At first confronting us with the 'issue' of assisted suicide, the script constantly throws us new challenges and choices about life and death. Road movie, political satire, personal journey, national epic - Reg Cribb uses all these modes and more in a very funny and moving work about the heart of Australia.

Half and Half by Daniel Keene
It's hard to imagine this work having such force or meaning in a medium other than theatre. Half and Half is remarkable for the measure and menace of the language, the tension created by just two characters, the potency and mystery of their past, and for the originality and strength of the playwright's vision.

Rapture by Joanna Murray-Smith
This dazzling play takes audiences to the territory of faith, friendship, loyalty and material success - and tests our assumptions and expectations of each. Witty, candid and accomplished, Rapture makes a play for both the mind and the heart.