EDUCATION
PROGRAM
Norm
and Ahmed
Alex
Buzo’s iconic Australian play - now an HSC Drama text for
2010-2012
“a
famous and culturally important work” (SMH, 2007)
Click here to
purchase the play from Currency Press
Click here to go
to the NSW Board of Studies HSC Drama
Syllabus
The
Alex Buzo Company’s critically acclaimed production returns
to Sydney in 2009
NORM AND
AHMED by Alex Buzo
plus the world premiere of its new companion play
SHAFANA
AND AUNT SARRINAH by Alana Valentine
Director:
Aarne Neeme | Producer: Emma Buzo | Seymour Centre, August
5-29 2009
“this
is a revelatory new production...a fine revival of a great
classic” (The Australian, 2007)
Award-winning
Australian playwright Alana Valentine’s contemporary
response to a watershed Australian work marks The Alex Buzo
Company’s inauguration of a trail-blazing practice in
Australian theatre. Buzo’s iconic play “Norm and Ahmed” is
an encounter between a white, ocker Aussie male and a young
Pakistani uni student. A story of racism, prejudice,
generational envy, its premise is “never underestimate the
power of difference.” Forty years after its premiere, Alana
Valentine takes up Buzo’s astonishingly enduring themes
through “Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah,” the story of a young
Australian-born Muslim woman, who turns to the religion of
her heritage for answers after the September 11 attacks in
2001, resulting in a deep experience of faith and a
controversial decision to wear the hijab.
University of Sydney have chosen the production to be their
2009 "Major Project" whereby Performance Studies students
are able to view a professional company create a theatre
work.
To receive email updates about this production and the
matinees available for school bookings,
click here
Above:
2007 production of NORM AND AHMED at The Old Fitzroy
Theatre, Sydney. (Photos: Mark Mawson)
NORM AND
AHMED in Australian schools
Above: A
post-show Q&A session with the actors in NORM AND AHMED
at The King's School, Parramatta
Astonishingly
relevant to the current political climate, Buzo’s classic
stands strong and clear some 40 years later. For the first
time in the play’s controversial history, The Alex Buzo
Company’s production sees it set in post-9/11,
post-Cronulla riots, post-Haneef and post-Apec Sydney in
2007. A late night encounter between a Pakistani student
and a middle-aged Australian man, NORM AND AHMED speaks
volumes about Australia’s ongoing uneasy relationship with
Asia. The play’s controversial ending hit the headlines in
the 1960’s and 70’s with those involved being arrested and
charged for obscenity.
Prior to
its NSW HSC Drama listing, the production has successfully
visited a number of Sydney schools to support the English,
Drama and the PDHPE curriculum. It enhances the students’
understanding of the experiential side of the syllabus
requirements, strengthening their knowledge of how
contemporary Australian issues can be explored through the
medium of theatre. The performance provides a constructive
learning experience which students will be able to refer to
in essays and critical responses. It also reinforces
students’ practical and theoretical understanding of the
forms, conventions, styles and traditions of Australian
Drama and Theatre through a thoroughly engaging firsthand
experience. Aarne Neeme, the director of NORM AND AHMED
Alex Buzo’s close colleague for nearly 40 years, has
directed 14 Buzo plays, including three premieres and says:
“Like any great play (Norm and Ahmed) continues to resonate
with current events. Islamic militancy, the "war on terror"
and "pre-emptive strikes" give it new shades of meaning.
While the recent Cronulla riots make the play almost
prophetic.”
Peter
Rainey, Deputy Headmaster, The King's School
says:
"The
Alex Buzo Company's production of NORM AND AHMED was seen
by all the students in the school at four performances in
2007. It was a first rate production with the actors
bringing to life issues that burn forever: friendship,
loneliness and festering racism to mention but three. The
play is relevant to the lives of children, indeed everyone,
everyday."
OTHER
USEFUL INFO FOR SCHOOLS:
Reviews
of NORM AND AHMED
The Sydney Morning
Herald,
October 16 2007
The
Australian, Oct
15 2007
Australian Stage
Online,
October 15 2007
Aussietheatre.com,
October 15 2007
The Daily
Telegraph,
October 17 2007
Related
articles mentioning NORM AND AHMED:
“Memoirs of an Unswonian”
Quadrant
Magazine 2005
"Wary
Asians On a Theme" Quadrant
Magazine, 2004
Obituaries on Alex Buzo:
The Independent 2006
UNSW
Obituary 2006
The Sydney Morning
Herald 2006
To
purchase a DVD of the ABC Television program
"Remembering Alex Buzo" click
here
