National Play Festival

It has been a big week for playwrights in Australia, the second lowest paid group of people in the theatre industry according to playwright and director Michael Gow, who gave the opening night address. The National Play Festival is organised by Playwriting Australia (PWA) but notably does not share its name. This reflects an idea echoed in Michael Gow's speech, and that of David Williamson who gave the keynote address at Carrillo Gantner's dinner held in honour of Australia playwrights earlier this week: the seemingly obvious idea that new plays would not exist without playwrights, who are dangerously undervalued in Australia.

Williamson suggested that if playwrights disappeared they would "probably not be terribly missed at all", and would likely be replaced by the new wave of 'theatre-makers' who devise work or create new adaptations of "the classics, of novels and, god help us, of Hollywood movies". Gow called out Simon Stone's comments that scripts are merely a blueprint for the production as a "self-serving lie", reminding the full house at the Malthouse's Beckett Theatre that plays like Macbeth, Hedda Gabbler and Australian 'classics' such as Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll, are pieces of art in and of themselves whether or not they are being performed in that very moment. The phrase 'writing for performance', a new term for playwriting favoured by some tertiary institutions and arts organisations, was dismissed by Gow as "nonsense" that undermines the status and significance of plays as literary works of art and playwrights as dramatists.

Gow's 50-minute address was an energising homage to the craft of playwriting and the importance of playwrights in a healthy artistic society, addressing the struggles of the time. It was an extremely fitting opening for the National Play Festival, which, over the next three days, will celebrate the work of playwrights with staged readings, speaking events and master classes. The plays featured in the festival demonstrate PWA's commitment to developing diverse voices and addressing diverse issues, from PTSD in Melissa Reeves' The Zen Of Table Tennis to Indigenous rights in Melodie Reynolds-Diarra's Skylab. Highlights also include the Lotus and Aotearoa Now showcases, which celebrates new work from Asian-Australian and New Zealand playwrights respectively.

PWA's driving goal is to ensure that playwrights are given the necessary time, space and support to develop new Australian work to its full potential. The National Play Festival demonstrates that this process itself has a lot to offer the wider community. It provides entertainment and food for thought for audiences, and a glimpse at Australia's best new plays before they emerge as fully fledged productions. More than that, it reflects the playwright's position at the spring of the theatre industry as professional dramaturgs, directors and actors are engaged to work on the readings. But therein lies the problem: as always, there is not enough funding to support this level of development for every new play. And that is even more reason to head along to The National Play Festival this weekend: not only will you get a taste of Australia's best new plays, you'll also be supporting the future success of the industry.