Literary estate of Alex Buzo

pioneering Australian playwright and author

Opening Night: new worlds to be fathomed

07 08 09 10:18 Filed in: by Emma Buzo | Alana Valentine | Alex Buzo | Norm and Ahmed | Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah
It's the morning after the opening night performance of Norm and Ahmed and the premiere if its contemporary companion Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah by Alana Valentine. This production is the culmination of nearly two years of....well, a whole lot of hustling really. My vision for The Alex Buzo Company is to pioneer new ideas and do things that haven't been done before, which as I have discovered, is both freeing and confoundingly restricting. You see, the idea of commissioning a companion play for one of my father's works had no template. So I created my own. Since the idea came to me in 2007, I've been doing the same hot shoe shuffle over and over again, explaining what exactly this project is all about, its value in an ethnically diverse society and of course securing the funding and publicity crucial to making it happen. I sincerely hope that I will be able to tone down Operation Explanation now that the production has opened and people can see the real thing.

While it's always a joy to see Laurence Coy (Norm) and Craig Meneaud (Ahmed) weave their magic as I've had the privilege to do on countless occasions, it was the premiere of the new work that was most exciting for me. Sheridan Harbridge (pictured above) and Camilla Ah Kin's illuminating performance was for an audience including many of the Muslim women interviewed by Alana Valentine for Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah. I know by now that when people come out of the theatre talking excitedly and starting sentences with "I never thought of it like that..." or "I had no idea..." that the vision is a success. As Shafana so profoundly utters:

"there are yet, new worlds to be fathomed and new impossibilities to be revealed."


NORM AND AHMED by Alex Buzo
SHAFANA AND AUNT SARRINAH by Alana Valentine
August 6th-29th 2009, Seymour Centre
Beautiful new images from the production here
Bookings here

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