Preview

PDF 3884.pdf | Download (661kB)

Abstract

Delegates at the opening ceremony of the eighth World Shakespeare Congress in Brisbane, Australia, on 16 July 2006, saw some quaint footage from the 1955 Swan Hill National Shakespeare Festival. The film provided a silent glimpse of a period in Australia's history in which Shakespeare's prestige was riding high, when staging Shakespeare and an arts festival seemed to go hand in hand. Ironically, the biennial Brisbane Festival, which began the same week as the World Shakespeare Congress, presented relatively little in the way of Shakespeare performance, prompting John Henningham to complain in the local Courier-Mail that' our theatre establishment has failed its audiences, its performers and its city'. Under the heading 'Lean visit for Bard hungry', Henningham noted the absence of big-ticket performance events apart from Bell Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and lamented the fact that Queensland's professional and subsidised theatre companies seemed to have forgotten the Bard at a time when so many Shakespeare lovers were visiting the state.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Gaby, RS
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Australian Studies
Publisher:	Network Books
ISSN:	1444-3058
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

Actions (login required)

Item Control Page