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A Critical State: Theatre Reviewing in Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Abstract

As in most English-speaking nations, the success or otherwise of a production in Australia is heavily dependent upon its critical reception: yet, argues Michael Morley, much Australian reviewing is both ill-equipped and ill-informed for such a responsibility. Michael Morley is himself currently theatre critic of The National Times, and has also written for The Advertiser, Theatre Australia, and the Sydney Morning Herald. A Brecht-Weill scholar, who has worked as musical director on a number of productions in Sydney and Adelaide, Michael Morley is Professor of Drama at Flinders University in South Australia.

Type
New Developments in Australian Theatre
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Notes and References

1. Clarke, John, Daggshead Revisited (Melbourne, 1982), p. 59.Google Scholar

2. It is not the aim of this article to attempt an historical assessment of the work of reviewers such as H. G. Kippax – at present working on a collection of his theatre criticism – or Katharine Brishane, both of whose earlier reviews were more perceptive and better written than most of what is now printed in the dailies and weeklies.

3. Mention should also be made of Jack Hibberd's theatre criticism and his unfortunately restricted reviewing activities: his introductory essay on ‘Popular Theatre’ still stands as one of the best and clearest critical analyses of a genre and its wider cultural implications.

4. Meanjin, XLIII (1984), p. 192. Griffiths, however, seems to contradict himself when he notes, in the same article, that ‘there is little conclusive evidence that reviews affect audiences greatly’.