Robert Reid’s ‘Myth, Propaganda and Disaster and the Heirs of America’. Photo: Darren Gill.
The year is 2003, and the Bush presidency is in the thick of its post 9/11 “war on terror”; closer to home, the Howard Government commemorates the Bali bombings, mere months away from bringing in a suite of anti-terrorism bills.
Concurrently, Stephen Sewell’s Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America receives standing ovations at its Malthouse premiere, spurred by ‘searing passion and dazzling momentum’ (according to the theatre company’s website). The play that ‘reverberates with the aftershocks’ of 9/11 enters the canon of Australian theatre, its vision of a bewildering regime of power and lies heralded as both prescient and impossible.
Lakshmi Ganapathy is an emerging journalist and theatre-maker who has performed at Melbourne Fringe, AsiaTOPA, Darebin FUSE and La Mama's War-Rak/Banksia Festival, and created content for La Trobe University, ArtsHub, RMITV and C31. She is currently the Melbourne Content Creator for Indian Link Media Group, an award-winning publication empowering the South Asian diaspora. She is also a passionate arts advocate, helping run various campaigns to save theatre at La Trobe, and is the Secretary of the Australian Women Directors' Alliance. In her spare time, Lakshmi enjoys crochet and taking photographs of flowers for her Instagram @lakshmilikesflowers.
