Carving in Snow

Politics and the arts are family. Both are concerned with the affairs of the people. Whenever anyone questions an accepted reality, it becomes a political act – and many people do that most days, whether they think of themselves as artists or political or not. Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist and vocal critic of his government, goes further: “Everything is art. Everything is politics." It’s easiest to see this in the extreme. The success of any revolution depends on a rupture with the past. In February this year, ISIS burned 100,000 books in the central library of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul. UNESCO called it “one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history." Look at any revolution – French, Boshevik, Chinese and so on – and you’ll find a similar pattern. As Orwell reminded us, “he who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” Wars against a people always go hand in han...

The Democratic Republic of Congo sits in the very heart of Africa , in the cradle of all humanity . It is the size of Western Europe with a population of 75 million. It has an astonishing history. But what do we know about it? Arts festivals are made for illumination. In September this year, Brisbane Festival offers a series of brilliant works from or about the Congo.  Why shine a light here? Because the Congo has helped form the history of the world. In more ways than you might think… Congo's Curse The Congo is blessed with more natural resources than almost any other country on the planet. A Congolese legend has it that God , tired after creating the world, stopped at this part of the earth and dropped all his sacks of riches. And these riches have helped make the world as we know it. When the world needed rubber for the tyres of the newly invented motorcar, the Congo was there with half the world’s known supplies. When the world needed copper ...

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good - in spite of all the people who say he is very good. (Robert Graves) First encounter Scratch a theatre director, and you're likely to find a bit of Shakespeare just below the skin. And so it is with me. One of of my very earliest theatre experiences was of Shakespeare: Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, with the touring Old Vic Company, directed by Toby Robertson. The production played at Her Majesty's Theatre (now apartments) in Sydney for five nights in December 1979. I remember little, other than I found it 'superlative'. My diary records this response. I must have just learned the word. Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, 1979. Later, I realised what a key production and performance this was. Earlier that year, the Old Vic (actually, the Prospect Theatre Company resident at the Old Vic) became the first English-speaking company to play in post-revolutionary China. Jacobi also enjoyed the distinction ...

I stumbled across a recording of Laurence Oliver as King Lear on YouTube recently and was shocked by it. I have some memories of when Olivier recorded this King Lear . It was in 1983, and made especially for television. He was 75 or 76. His final Shakespeare role on film. It was well known that he had suffered decades of serious illness, including prostrate cancer. In 1975, he had nearly died of dermatomyositis, a degenerative muscle disorder, but struggled on for another decade or so, during which time he filmed this performance. It was clearly out of the question to perform the role on stage - his final performance on stage in a full role had been in 1974. Olivier was to die five years after this Lear . I had admired Olivier when I was a teenager. I was a bit of a Shakespeare nut. In high school, I directed a 90 minute version of Hamlet in which I made the costumes, choreographed the fights, compiled the music and played the central role. Scenes not involving Hamlet were...