Over the last two weeks, ArtsHub published the results of an extensive poll of theatre professionals, revealing the best Australian plays of the 21st century so far. The results provoke deep conversations around perennial questions of Australian culture and hold essential lessons for the performing arts industry.
While the poll results are diverse in theme and genre, there are surprising similarities in how they were nurtured and produced. The poll results suggest vital factors that ensure an environment for developing a ‘great Australian play’.
Dramaturgs, artists and academics have traditionally struggled to define an Australian theatrical canon, although notable efforts have been made by essential scholars who have sought to chart Australian theatrical history. These include Julian Meyrick, Robert Reid and Chris Mead.Â
Australian theatre history illuminates how culture grapples with questions of national identity over time and how theatrical work is commissioned and produced. The results of ArtsHub’s poll of the best Australian plays of this century to date suggest several important factors.
The best Australian plays need time
The Australian theatre-maker is rightfully bamboozled in contemplating the history of Tony Kushner’s epic Angels in America. Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama would make any sane producer’s eyes water. The complete work is famously epic, staged over six or seven hours.
The play was stuck in development workshops for years, missed multiple deadlines for showcasing and kept growing beyond any initial outline. It is difficult to imagine any Australian company having the stomach or economic stability for a similar idea from an untested playwright.
Yet, the plays that made it into ArtsHub’s poll were by no means quick strokes of genius. Many plays had been developed across multiple years and companies, requiring various levels of investment and risk tolerance. Trust in the playwright to deliver on a unique vision proved paramount, even when relatively inexperienced.
The best Australian plays embrace big casts
Australia loves an epic. The top four best Australian plays had large casts. The fifth spot bucked the trend: Prima Facie by Suzie Miller, a one-woman show. Large casts, however, populate most of the rest of the list. The trade-off, of course, is the expense.
Large casts require large budget lines; for many mainstage companies, money may be ‘better’ spent on works with known intellectual property or Shakespearean classics. The most significant argument against this is the overwhelming favourite in the ArtsHub poll: Counting and Cracking by S Shakthidaran, which has a remarkable 19 actors in its cast. This luxury is rarely afforded to any theatre work.Â
The confidence and spectacle of a large cast impact the stories that a playwright can tell. In searching for a work that articulates something unique to Australia, the poll clearly shows that the industry prefers multigenerational, time-spanning works.
The best Australian plays can come from anyone
A poll of the best Australian plays taken 15 years ago would deliver a remarkably different list, with much more homogeneity across its playwrights. The concerted effort from most companies to embrace diversity in their artistic practice has meant an explosion of richly textured work in the last decade.Â
It also means there is a diverse mix of experience in the represented playwrights on the best Australian plays list. Some, such as Andrew Bovell, Suzie Miller, Patricia Cornelius, David Williamson and Michael Gow, had thoroughly established careers in Australian theatre before penning the work favoured by the poll. Others made it into the survey with their debut or otherwise impressively early in their career: S Shakthidaran, Nakkiah Lui, Yve Blake, Glace Chase and many more.
For every great financial and artistic risk that made the list, of course, many fraught projects didn’t. Still, the list proves that the only way to develop and nurture the next generation of great Australian work is to grow comfortable with long-term investment and risk.
