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Canberra Today 14°/17° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Dying play makes a comeback

The rehearsal process

Peta Murray is well-known in Canberra. Her first production was in Canberra in 1989 when the Canberra Theatre Company staged the premiere of “Wallflowering,” directed by Carol Woodrow and designed by Angus Strathie, who went on to to win an Oscar fo his “Moulin Rouge” designs.

“Wallflowering” went on to be produced all over Australia and internationally. It has also has just been translated into Czech. As well, her play for young people about grief and loss, “Spitting Chips,” was produced by Jigsaw Theatre in 1992 and 1994 and “Salt” was produced by The Street Theatre in 2006.

Now we’re about to see Murray’s play, “This Dying Business,” commissioned in 1989 by Adelaide’s Junction Theatre Company as part of the first Australian Hospice conference’s bill of fare back in 1990. It is based on intensive engagement with the palliative care sector and  as a writer-almost-in-residence at Adelaide’s Daw House hospice.

Murray read, interviewed and lurked. “Hospice” was a newish word in her lexicon and she says she was wary, yet curious to know more.   It was to celebrate those engaged in the work of palliative care and to be a conversation starter out there in the broader community about matters of life and death.

“This Dying Business” vanished, until now, that is. The GroundSwell Project, in partnership with Calvary Health Care ACT has seen the play re-worked and revived with similar aims as before–to engage, provoke and reflect.

A public play-reading will take place at the National Library of Australia Theatre at 6.30pm on November 17. Audiences will be asked to engage actively with the work and to contribute to the play’s renovation and renewal.

This is a free event and the public is welcome.

 

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Ian Meikle, editor

Helen Musa

Helen Musa

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