The play One Man's Vision covers the period 1963 to 1966 when Jorn Utzon, the Danish architect of the Sydney Opera House, resided in Sydney until his resignation or dismissal in February 1966. The play draws on the tensions and hostility towards Utzon, which builds in the government of the day, cultural groups, press, and also with some senior architects. Rowdy scenes in the N.S.W. Legislative Assembly paint a broad canvas of construction, funding, and political problems. These further escalate with a change of government. Utzon's daily work features interaction between his assistant, consulting engineers, and Public Works Department inspectors, as pressures develop to overcome operational and financial problems. His forced dismissal, resulting in a public rally and march, puts in doubt the completion of the opera house. The exegesis takes Arthur Miller's argument for the playwright as an interpreter of history as its starting point, in order to examine the issues of balancing history with drama in the writing of my play, One Man's Vision. To bring unity to existing reports and to construct a play capable of holding an audience, a playwright must make many choices shaped by the conventions of the theatre and of the genre of the work being attempted. A historical play based on existing records will also draw on the imagination of the playwright. The playwright, therefore, makes decisions as to the blend of history and imagination which will be used to serve the story and represent ideas and concepts through dialogue. In making these artistic decisions history becomes just one component rather than the predominant one.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/265303 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Bavinton, George M. |
| Publisher | Queensland University of Technology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright George M. Bavinton |
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