Play time for teacher

Way down at the very bottom of the Victorian Education Department’s list of plays deemed suitable for study in HSC classrooms there is Othello, which the teachers’ guide helpfully attributes to William Shakespeare. These are modern teachers we are talking about, remember, and some maybe unaware of the Bard, there being too few hours in the day to grapple with the classics when sexism, racism, gender fluidity and environmental destruction occupy so much of an educator’s time and mind. Those topics certainly rate higher places on the reading list than the tale of a Moor prone to inflicting domestic violence, his wife’s hanky and a typically treacherous white man. That may or may not be how Othello is taught these days, with or without reference to the rampant Islamophobia in the Venice of old, but in the absence of a plot summary on the study list of “texts” such a tack must be deemed a distinct possibility. We can be certain, however, that James Thurber’s depiction (above) of Act V, Scene II’s nasty business in the bedroom will not be an approved illustration.

Other plays are more fulsomely described. For example, consider the modern re-working of Dangerous Liaisons by Christopher Hampton:

This presentation of Dangerous Liaisons utilises cross-gendered performance, bouffon clowning, grotesquery and a high-camp aesthetic. Genders are flipped to emphasise the satirical nature of the text … Hampton’s dissections of sexism, sexuality and the role of gender in warfare are potent as he takes a classic text and brings a super-feminist and contemporary approach … This production acknowledges … the possibility of a post-gendered society, one where the divide between male and female is not so black and white.

Then there is Berthold Brecht’s The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui , whose central Chicago gangster is — or rather was — a burlesque of Hitler. That is no longer the case, apparently, as teachers need to alert children to the fact that the jackboots are today being worn by an entirely new threat to civilised life, conservatives:

Each scene will be its own set piece, demonstrating a particular aspect of Arturo’s rise and highlighting how that moment corresponds with the historical rise of Hitler. This production draws connections between the events of the play, Hitler’s ascension to power, and the current waves of conservative politics spreading across the western world.

Mind you, again according to the notes, this time for The Honey Bees by Caleb Lewis, capitalist depredations have left little of the world not yet ruined:

The ‘colony collapse disorder’ that provides a background for the narrative is a real environmental disaster that has been spreading across the globe since 2007, laying waste to bee populations wherever it strikes and it’s still not known why. In the play, the only country untouched is Australia. This is a vitally important story of human relationships set against a backdrop of an almost invisible worldwide catastrophe happening right now.

Once the HSC kiddies have been exposed to the general rottenness of the West, the same West which hires so many theatre teachers, there is Tales of a City by the Sea by Samah Sabawi. Set in Gaza, it is said to depict the lives and loves of Palestinians who must exist with the thought that a Zionist bomb might come down the chimney at a moment’s notice.

Not surprisingly this exercise in approved, unqualified and unquestioned victimhood has drawn complaints. As The Age headline put it earlier this month, “VCE play accused of being ‘anti-Israel propaganda“. Today, the luvvie legion is carping that any and all calls to remove the play from the study list “spark censorship concerns“. Strangely, the play’s refusal to present nothing but nice things about Gazans — no mention of executed homosexuals, raging weird-beard clerics, human shields or thousands of rockets lobbed over the border into Israel — is not deemed censorship by deliberate omission.

Rather, teachers are expected to make sure their charges understand the real message of the play, which is conveyed by actors slipping out of character to speak frankly of the Palestinians’ blameless suffering:

Tales of a City by the Sea explores life in Gaza through the lens of a generation who have grown up in a state under occupation. It tells a story of people who are experiencing very difficult life circumstances, but who are resisting being defined by their suffering. Before the play begins, the cast mingles with the audience and introduce themselves as actors who are there to share a story. There is no effort to create the illusion that they are their characters.

This being election season, there is much talk, as usual, about education and how to fund it. One thing, though, is never mentioned: perhaps, against the best interests of today’s children and tomorrow’s voters, there might just a bit too much “education”.

The list of approved HSC plays and their teacher notes can be read in full at the Victorian Education Department’s website via the link below.

— roger franklin

Read More