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The Louis Esson Prize for Drama: Winner & Shortlist 2009
Judges: Kristy Edmunds (convenor), Patricia Cornelius and Chrissy Sharp
Winner
The winner of the 2009 Louis Esson Prize for Drama is:
- Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd
Lally Katz (Malthouse Theatre)
Shortlist
| RealismPaul Galloway
(Melbourne Theatre Company / Currency Press)
In 1930s Moscow a cast of actors assembles to rehearse a work of state-approved 'social realism'. The style is broad comedy, but underlying the farce is the brutality of Stalinism and its pervasive intellectual and artistic repression. The play is a clever and hugely entertaining examination of issues concerning creative freedom and ethical behaviour in circumstances defined by institutionalised fear. |
| Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd - WINNERLally Katz
(Malthouse Theatre)
Lally Katz creates a unique and intoxicating world of mad and ludicrous vaudeville acts, a world that is on the brink of sinking into the encroaching mud of World War I. With a poignant central love story, the play is hilarious yet has a most sinister undertone. This is a work from a rich and wonderfully madcap imagination, whose playwriting is at once spontaneous and highly crafted, and the expressive range full of detail. |
| The Modern International DeadDamien Millar
(Griffin Theatre Company / Currency Press)
The play is an engrossing and devastating account of Australia’s involvement in Timor, Iraq, Cambodia and Rwanda from the points of view of a scientist, a soldier and a nun. These three characters, along with dozens of others, tell the horrific truth about spin, lies and the personal impact of working in war zones. Drawn verbatim from stories told by those on the frontline, this is an enthralling drama with inventive shifts of place and character. | |
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