Modern Australian Drama: Haunted by the Past

Abstract

Australian drama is a drama of the modern era and is modelled on the European realist form. As a dramatic form it is primarily constituted around the figure of the playwright, the written dramatic text and the theatrical performance of the text. Its evolution as a national drama has occurred as European themes, language, character and setting are replaced with local character, situation and voice. By the 1960s, scenography and performance style came to reflect Australian locations, culture and voices. In the twenty-first century, a further change is discernible in dramatic texts that radically alter the temporality of modern drama to interrogate the unresolved, perhaps irreconcilable, conseq..