Nick Enright Nick Enright An Actor’s Playwright Edited by Anne Pender and Susan Lever Volume 12 in the series AUSTRALIAN PLAYWRIGHTS Series Editor: Peta Tait Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008 Cover Photograph: Deidre Rubenstein, Nick Enright and Andrew Ross in Songs of Love and Desperation, The Tilbury Hotel, 1986. Photographer: Stuart Campbell. Cover design: Pier Post The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2460-1 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2008 Printed in the Netherlands Contents List of Figures 7 Series Editor’s Preface 8 Editors’ Preface 9 Contributors’ Biographies 11 Acknowledgment 13 Part One: The Productions 1: Nick Enright: A Life in Theatre 17 Anne Pender 2: Life or a Cabaret?: Nick Enright and The Boy from Oz 27 Peter Fitzpatrick 3: Masculinity, Guilt and the Moral Failures of the Body: Nick Enright’s Screenplays 47 Susan Lever 4: The Collaboration Process: Nick Enright and Justin Monjo’s Adaptation of Cloudstreet 61 Jack Teiwes 5: Youthful Presence: Nick Enright as Teacher and A Property of the Clan 79 Mary Ann Hunter 6: Enright’s Mongrels as Intervention in the Canon of Contemporary Australian Drama 95 Veronica Kelly 7: Enright on the Record: Evidence from the Television Archives of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation 115 Adrian Kiernander 8: Mongrels and Young Curs: The Hounding of the Feminine in St James Infirmary, Good Works, Blackrock and Spurboard 127 Jane O’Sullivan 9: Anxiety and a Fragmented Australia in Nick Enright’s A Man With Five Children 143 Felicity Plunkett 10: “Loved Every Minute of It”: Nimrod, Enright’s The Venetian Twins and the Invention of Popular Theatre 157 Julian Meyrick 11: Summer Rain: Sweet Nostalgia 173 Susan Lever and Anne Pender Part Two: The Collaborator 12: Nick Enright: A Man With Many Children 187 George Ogilvie 13: Nick Enright: Friend 195 Sandy Gore 14: Nick Enright: An Acting Teacher Recollected 203 Karen Vickery 15: Prima Le Parole E Poi La Musica 213 Terence Clarke Appendix: Works by Nick Enright 221 List of Figures Cover Photograph: Deidre Rubenstein, Nick Enright and Andrew Ross in Songs of Love and Desperation, The Tilbury Hotel, 1986. Photographer: Stuart Campbell. Figure 1: A gentle caricature of Nick Enright as scribe/researcher by collaborator, designer John Senczuk. Figure 2: Geraldine Turner, Billie Brown, Elise Grieg and Anthony Weigh in the Queensland Theatre Company 1997 production of Summer Rain. Photographer: Rob Maccoll. Figure 3: The company for the 1998 production of Cloudstreet, Company B Belvoir and Black Swan Theatre. Photographer: Heidrun Lohr. Figure 4: Matt Costelli, Jackson Castiglione and Mathew Ralph in the 1996 Black Swan Theatre Company production of Blackrock. Photographer: William Crabb. Figure 5: Tony Sheldon and John Howard in the Sydney Theatre Company 1997 production of Mongrels. Photographer: Tracey Schramm. Figure 6: Jon Ewing, Tara Morice, John Simpson, Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe, Bernadette Robinson, Terry Bader, Genevieve Lemon and Arky Michael in the Queensland State Theatre Company 1990 production of The Venetian Twins. Photographer: Rob Maccoll. Series Editor’s Preface I welcomed the opportunity to include this volume in the Rodopi series on Australian playwrights as it addresses a glaring gap in the current scholarship. Volume 12 is the first detailed analysis about the legacy of Nick Enright and I am extremely pleased that Anne Pender and Susan Lever were able to bring together both theatre scholars and practitioners to provide insights on aspects of his life and career. Most importantly, Enright was a dynamic, influential figure whose work made a significant contribution to Australian theatre and appropriate recognition is overdue. This volume considers Nick’s prominent works and captures impressions of Nick at work. It focuses attention on the broad scope of his scripts and musicals, highlights productions that have been seen by diverse audiences, and describes his significant working processes and collaborations. Nick Enright was a major force in Australian theatre, and is sadly missed. Peta Tait La Trobe University Editors’ Preface In this volume of essays and recollections, scholars, actors, directors, and acting teachers explore Nick Enright’s contribution to theatre. The book is designed to explain, illuminate and debate Enright’s plays, television and film scripts, his directing style and his approach to acting. Enright’s drama is frequently studied by students at high school and at university. The essays and recollections included in this book will inspire and inform students, teachers, scholars and theatre enthusiasts. Part One opens with an overview of Enright’s career in theatre followed by an essay by Peter Fitzpatrick about one of Enright’s most well-known works, The Boy from Oz, in order to give readers, including those based overseas, an immediate sense of the important achievements of Enright’s career which include musicals, film and theatre. The ensuing chapters are arranged to convey the full extent of his remarkable oeuvre, followed by chapters with detailed textual analysis of Enright’s plays. Part Two consists of moving tributes from artistic collabo- rators. These recollections serve to document Enright’s approaches to writing and teaching acting, and his attitudes to theatre, as well as celebrating the warmth and love that this man extended to those with whom he worked. Anne Pender and Susan Lever