Norm and Ahmed
Review: ABC Radio 702 Sydney
19 08 09 18:55
Listen to a PODCAST of Diana Simmonds speaking with Richard Glover about Norm & Ahmed plus Shafana & Aunt Sarrinah at the Seymour Centre until August 29 2009. Terrific to hear how much a piece of theatre has affected someone just by the tone of their voice. Click on this link to listen to the PODCAST of the review on August 18th 2009.
Review: beautifully wrought bookends
18 08 09 22:24
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Review: powerful...fascinating and moving...highly successful
11 08 09 10:35
"Sensitive...powerful...fascinating and moving...beautifully performed...This is a highly successful double bill" Read the review of Norm and Ahmed with Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah by Australia's greatest authority on Australian theatre John McCallum in The Australian on August 11 2009.
2009 Alex Buzo Memorial Lecture: Alana Valentine
10 08 09 14:06
Listen to Alana Valentine interviewed by Richard Aedy on ABC Radio National's Life Matters about her new play Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah and giving the second annual Alex Buzo Memorial Lecture on August 10th 2009.
Listen to a podcast of the 2009 Alex Buzo Memorial Lecture CAPTIVATED BY REALITY by Alana Valentine. Read an excerpt at the ABC's Unleashed
Listen to a podcast of the 2009 Alex Buzo Memorial Lecture CAPTIVATED BY REALITY by Alana Valentine. Read an excerpt at the ABC's Unleashed
Review: Extraordinarily brave and bold double bill
08 08 09 19:55
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Opening Night: new worlds to be fathomed
07 08 09 10:18
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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."
SHAFANA AND AUNT SARRINAH by Alana Valentine
August 6th-29th 2009, Seymour Centre
Beautiful new images from the production here
Bookings here
Article: Working on fresh approach to Buzo classic
05 08 09 19:36
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Article: Holding a mirror to an Australian classic
04 08 09 06:59
Ahmed takes Norm to a Pakistani restaurant
04 08 09 06:51
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Norm takes Ahmed to the footy
27 07 09 09:07
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AHMED: No I don't really have time for that sort of thing.
NORM: No time for sport??
(from Buzo's Norm and Ahmed)
During the show's rehearsal period, Laurence Coy (Norm) took time out to rectify this situation by taking Craig Meneaud (Ahmed) to the footy and pointing out some of the finer points of the game.
Article in The Sunday Telegraph
26 07 09 11:48
Ahmed interviewed for Pakistani TV
17 07 09 14:39
Pakistani TV producer/presenter Zahid Minhas from Dosti TV visited rehearsals today to interview myself and actors Laurence Coy and Craig Meneaud about the upcoming season of Norm and Ahmed. I'm fairly sure this is the first time in the work's 40 year history that the Pakistani media have been involved in a production of the play and it felt like everything old was new again. Another layer of the play had been unlocked. After Zahid interviewed us, the tables were turned as we listened to Life According to Zahid. Captivating and highly entertaining!
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Uni of Syd student speaks about observing rehearsals
15 07 09 12:34
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Variations on a theme: Aarne Neeme interviewed
15 07 09 12:29
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"What's exciting about the whole thing, is that it's not two plays that are directly the same. Alana hasn't tried to do a female version of Norm and Ahmed, but she's certainly picked up on the issues and the shape of the play...In Alana's play we don't have the two strangers meeting and clashing in a very sort of masculine way, we have two women who know each other very well, who share many of the same backgrounds and assumptions. They similarly have a clash, which is again resolved in their terms, not in the way men generally resolve things...It's the variations on a theme...they're the same but they're different and you have virtually celebrate both aspects of that process." Read more: PODCAST
That old "f" word: still a producer's nightmare
04 07 09 18:01
This week, a Sydney high school whose English department had booked out an entire performance of Norm and Ahmed + Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah, were forced by their principal to cancel the booking. The reason? That pesky old "f" word uttered by Norm. It appears the more things change, the more they stay the same. 40 years ago, that one word put the play at the centre of a censorship battle which saw it banned in three states, but also gave Australian theatre its front page debut. Buzo was bemused and perhaps a little annoyed. While the publicity achieved instant fame for the play and its author, he felt its important themes were somewhat overshadowed by the brouhaha over one word.
The most distressing part about this school principal's fearful, archaic attitude is that it shows a complete lack of understanding about the purpose of dramatic art, which is to ask questions, encourage self reflection and open minds. Does banning students from seeing a production about the tension between cultures and generations in Australia help them become good citizens and critical thinkers? I think not.
Here's a very short bite from an ABC TV 'Talking Heads' episode on Graeme Blundell who produced Norm and Ahmed in 1970 with some great footage of the play being done for a magistrate and his court.
The most distressing part about this school principal's fearful, archaic attitude is that it shows a complete lack of understanding about the purpose of dramatic art, which is to ask questions, encourage self reflection and open minds. Does banning students from seeing a production about the tension between cultures and generations in Australia help them become good citizens and critical thinkers? I think not.
Here's a very short bite from an ABC TV 'Talking Heads' episode on Graeme Blundell who produced Norm and Ahmed in 1970 with some great footage of the play being done for a magistrate and his court.
Welcome to The Alex Buzo Company Blog
03 07 09 13:35
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I first had the idea to commission a contemporary playwright to respond to Buzo's iconic Norm and Ahmed in 2007 and it's taken me two years of hard yakka to see it come to fruition. I wanted to bring new audiences to my father's work and plant it firmly in the present with a view to the future. I'm also aiming to create a bit of a "through line" for Australian theatrical heritage, now that we've got some history behind us. Cultural amnesia is a common affliction in Australia, I've discovered. Perhaps this is the antidote? We'll see.
Norm and Ahmed is an encounter between a white Aussie "bloke" and an articulate Pakistani uni student, inspired by an incident Alex witnessed in the uni bar at UNSW in 1968. It's about racism and generational tension, with the premise "never underestimate the power of difference." I decided to commission Alana Valentine to write the companion play as she told me a captivating story about the opposition a young Afghani Australian Muslim woman faced when she told her own family she wanted to wear the headscarf. We don't often hear of diversity within an ethnic community.
Since 2007, Norm and Ahmed has become a NSW HSC Drama text, and together with reports of racial bashings perpetrated against international students at Australian universities plus the ongoing dialogue about the wearing of the headscarf...that's one prophetic idea!
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