A GRADUATION PRODUCTION | AUTUMN SEASON
22 June - 1 July 2006 |Parade Theatre
by Timothy Daly | Dir. Kevin Jackson
ABOUT THE PLAY
Beach: A Theatrical Fantasia is the quintessentially 'Australian play'. It is the story of an Australian beach, from sunrise to sunset, and the multitudes of characters who populate both the beach—and our national history. A journey through events that have shaped our national dreams - and nightmares - Beach: a theatrical fantasia is a vivid new work using multimedia, music and illusion.
Much of our history and national life since 1788 has taken place on the beach: from Captain Cook to Gallipoli; from legal arrivals to illegal drop-offs in the dead of night; from beach cricket to shark attacks; from family gatherings to private & solitary anguish carried out in the full glare of a public beach. There is the constant national fear of invasion 'from abroad'; the pride in our beach, the joy in its sensual pleasures, and the dangerous complacency of a nation that knows life is so good. There is the death of a Prime Minister; the courting rituals of teenage love and despair; and the stalking and murder of innocent children and the way that these events have formed out national dreams—and nightmares.
For this is not one Australian beach: it is all of them. And the play is not set just in 2006. It weaves, in a virtuosic manner, back and forth over nearly 250 years of our national history.
The scale of the passing cavalcade of characters is vast: rogues, larrikins, families, grieving parents, widowers, businessmen in trouble, parsons losing their faith; sirens whose beauty lures love-sick men to their doom. Legal immigrants. Illegal boat-people. Lost frogmen, amateur metal detectors, children, teenagers sick with love, sick and elderly people hoping to see the beach for the last time.
And—typical for 21st century Australia—a panoply of ethnicities—Anglo-Saxon, Aboriginal, Chinese, Hungarian, Iraqi, Greek and Iranian all parade their hopes and longings in that national arena of the beach.
Both vast and intimate, anguished and comic, playful and passionate, Beach: A Theatrical Fantasia, is a mile-stone in Australian theatre, with over 140 roles.
Its epic nature attests to the artistic ambitions both of NIDA and all the artists associated with this exciting production.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Timothy Daly is one of the quiet achievers of Australian theatre. A multi-award winning writer, commencing with The Don's Last Innings (Sydney Theatre Company, 1987), he has achieved a string of successful productions. Kafka Dances is probably his most well-known piece, being the play that first brought Cate Blanchett to national attention. She performance in two highly successful seasons, at the Griffin Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company. Kafka Dances has won 15 national and intentional awards, and is on its way to being the most internationally-performed Australian play of the last two decades, with performances in Moscow, Johannesburg, Seattle, Boston, Glasgow, among others. A recent production in Anchorage, Alaska, gained 3 Critics' Citations. French and German seasons are also in preparation. So far, the play has been translated into French, German, Russian and Czech.
Timothy Daly's radio work has been performed both nationally, and in seven countries. He is also writing Australia's first comprehensive book on play writing, The Techniques of Play Writing (Currency Press; expected publication 2007.) Timothy Daly is in constant demand as a teacher and script adviser, advising on over 100 scripts and productions a year.
THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY
Timothy Daly began the first sketches for Beach: A Theatrical Fantasia in 1999. Working steadily for a several summers in succession, through both observation and pure invention, he created a vast collection of ideas, jottings, scenes, sketches, anecdotes, monologues and other stories of the beach and its many characters.
He began shaping the play in 2002, developing its first version through the Australian Theatre for Young People, before bringing the concept to NIDA and Kevin Jackson. Serious work on the script began in 2004, with workshops throughout 2005, culminating in the intensive period of rehearsal leading up to the NIDA world premiere in June, 2006.
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