Carving in Snow

Bob Ellis, one of the great, Protean figures of Australian cultural and political life, passed away on Sunday afternoon after battling a rare liver cancer. A magnificent fig has fallen. Bob was never dull - he was hyperbole's bosom friend - and always wrote and behaved with the future and morality of his beloved nation at heart. He could compose a phrase like no other, making it sing like a thought never before sung, whether for a politician's speech, an essay, criticism, or a film or play. He was one of our great writers, a thinker, a contributor, a scoundrel, a provocateur, a melancholic warrior, a comrade. His roguery and relish marked him as an Australian Gore Vidal. Like no other, he inhabited the forests of politics, arts and culture equally. He was indisputably an Australian colossus. Many years ago, I loved directing a workshop of one of his plays at Sydney Theatre Company. Ever since, like many others in my field, I mostly saw Bob in theatre foyers. The

I saw Simon Stone's debut feature film ' The Daughter ' recently. It's a terrific film, with an Ingmar Bergman-like tautness and a keen understanding of film form that makes for a deeply affecting experience. The film is derived from Ibsen's 1884 play ' The Wild Duck ', which also stimulated a stage production written and directed by Stone in 2011 . That production has played a few places in Australia, as well as Amsterdam, Vienna, London, and at Oslo's Ibsen Festival. Stone has had a sometimes uneasy relationship with Australian theatre, particularly in regard to his adaptations of plays by other authors. But it has not affected his now terrifically successful career in Europe. Last year his production of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman for Vienna's Burgtheater and Theater Basel earned him a best director award. In March this year, he staged Ibsen's Peer Gynt in Hamburg, while in July his take on Lorca's Yerma will open at