The accusation against George Brandis was damning: “When I met the current federal Minister for the Arts last year, he looked at me quizzically and responded to our introduction with ‘Oh yes, I think I’ve heard of you’.” The speaker was Joanna Murray-Smith—she writes plays. Mid-winter in Adelaide and Murray-Smith was the keynote speaker at the 2015 National Play Festival, the annual assembly of Australia’s leading theatre-makers organised by Playwriting Australia—a body heavily funded by the federal and state governments. No doubt the audience shared her grief. The over 6000-word keynote address reads like one of her own stylish play…