The final three performances of Louis Nowra’s play “The Golden Age,” will be presented at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Feb. 15-17, in Daggy Hall’s Jones Theatre.
In addition, VPLAC, which helped bring the distinguished Australian playwright to campus, will hold a free lecture before Thursday’s performance at 6:00-7:15 p.m. in Jones Theatre.
Reservations for the play can be made by calling the box office at 335-7236.
Based on a real life incident, the haunting drama depicts the tragic cultural misunderstandings that result when two Australian hikers discover an isolated community of outcasts in the wilds of Tasmania and decide to bring them back to “civilization.” Cut off from the rest of the world for over a century, the members of the “tribe” developed their own language and customs.
The “tribe” find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the ruthless practicality of a modern world that sees them as quaint tribal curiosities rather than human beings. They increasingly find themselves the focus of both patronizing discrimination and destructive obsessions, involving them in a bizarre and terrible climax of events.
Blending historical fact, poetic language(s), Greek mythology and Australian folklore, The Golden Age is a play of eloquence and epic scale, and has been hailed as one of Nowra’s great theatrical achievements.
The play also provides excellent opportunities for exploring issues of diversity, colonialism, multiculturalism, and discrimination.
