NSW Premier's Literary Awards

A large amount of chatter has been flowing across the blogs in recent weeks, in response to the NSW Premier's Literary Awards' decision not to shortlist any playwright in 2010. The decision has sparked debate about the role awards programs, the state of Australian Playwriting and the identity of the play script within the field of Literature.

Allison Croggan at theatrenotes.com has this to say:

A quick blurt, for those who think the artform that's inspired lacklustre talent like Shakespeare, Ibsen, Churchill, Beckett, Brecht, Chekhov, Bernhardt, Buchner - oh, you get the picture - isn't proper literature.

Black clouds are swirling over the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, which this year didn't award a Play Prize, supposedly because of the low quality of the entries. And how quickly it's segued into a discussion that sees plays as the problem children of literature, and perhaps really not literature at all.

Now, before you get me wrong, I know plays are written for performance. I just happen to think that writing plays is a literary, as well as a theatrical, art. Yes, reading plays is a skill - but so is reading novels and poems. We all learn how to read novels. Out of a quirk of Australian culture, we mostly don't learn how to read plays, and don't see them in a continuum with other kinds of writing. They are generally, erroneously, regarded as close relatives of film scripts, but actually have far more to do with poetry. That this has impacted on our play writing culture is undeniable, but the production of mediocre art works doesn't discredit the artform itself. Unless it happens to be playwriting.

- Allison Croggan

Full article and discussion at theatrenotes.com

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