Think I'll contribute, even though I pale in comparison with your divine work.
1. My Review of Two Brothers
2. My Review of Alison Croggon's review (Theatre Notes)
3. My Review of Tom Hyland's review (Drowning in Propaganda)
1.
A Review of Hannie Raysons ‘Two Brothers’
Her play serves its purpose. That is all.
Despite how feted the play has been by Rayson’s comradely queens of controversy, the play stands alone in its unfailing, underwhelming mediocrity.
Venomous criticism? Please. The aversion from such commentary delineating the play as ‘guaranteed to stir and provoke, as good drama should’ (The Age) is just. ‘Two Brothers’, stirring and provoking? Sadly. Good drama? Debatable.
Good dramas are timeless. ‘Two Brothers’ is centred on a singular event in history, in which an odd three hundred and fifty three people drowned because of political short comings. So explain why ‘Two Brothers’ has been warped and contorted into a controversial issue in its own right, when we have such political tensions as occur in the Middle East, daily. Hundreds are brought to the slaughter, and there is undoubtedly media coverage on the issues. But the scale of enthusiasm and support for Hannie Rayson’s sad trash is alarming considering the nature of the global problems that we face today. If people turn their heads from such problems as HIV/AIDS, civil unrest and violent demonstrations, human rights abuses, and the likes, then why do we lick Rayson’s shoes?
The widespread acclaim has made the play bigger than the issue itself, but how?
Maybe it was the wit and the naturalistic expertise of Rayson in fabricating a complex, diverse range of characters with whom the reader is to build a rapport. Or maybe not, for if we look at the characters, we would find that Eggs and Tom Benedict leave – in full meaning – nothing to the imagination. You have the brothers across the two sides of the political divide; Tom and Eggs Benedict. Tom is the embodiment of the stereotypical left; a human rights advocator who has produced narcissistic hippie of a son, as a product of his entwinement with a woman who teaches a class of Abdulla’s and Chong’s. On the flip side, you would never guess that Eggs is the conservative rightist whose constant mocking of the leftist rhetoric and elitism is the antagonist of the play. Don’t even get me started on the naming scheme used for Jamie ‘Savage’. The play is just too forceful; the stereotypes have been taken to the max.
So if it wasn’t the characters, maybe it was an insightful twist to the plot of SIEV-X?
No, instead we get a one-sided interpretation of the events of SIEV-X. The climax of the play is a simple decision, faced by Lachlan (the son of... how did you guess?). If ‘dense moral territory’ encapsulates a decision on whether murder is right or not, then what has this culture come to? Isn’t it ironic that the biased interpretation that has been made by Rayson has contributed to the world viewing the Leftists as biased and near-sighted? (Thankfully, plays are appropriately classified as fictional)
No plot twist, directly borrowed and stereotyped characters, so now what? What could possibly have caused the play to receive such outright national acclaim as a piece of political prose?
Rayson shames the rhetoric of the left in her desperate attempt deliver her political message. So forceful was its delivery (believe me, Rayson, the play was loud and clear), that the military became enraged at the funding going towards such sightless garbage, and talk began about abolishing the Australia Council (the government’s arts funding body). Thankfully, John Howard cooled the situation and Rod Kemp let the council off with the warning ‘why do you insist on biting the hand that feed?’... A stellar question.
I for one would have hated to see the abolishment of the Australia Council, and even more so because an overreaction to such simple material as ‘Two Brothers’. I recognize the importance of plays that advocate Left-wing material and opinions, or else we end up in a controlled state of limited speech. This is why I find it saddening that Rayson has connoted our views with such polarity to the Right. It’s frankly no wonder they mock our rhetoric if such shallow material is being published and hailed for what is actually a tragic embodiment of our values.
Rayson wanted to deliver a political message, and deliver it forcefully at that. As if the sinking of the Kelepasan, the survival of Hazem and his story, the involvement of the military, government, and a conspiracy theory don’t allude directly to SIEV-X. Or am I mistaken in my interpretation, and it was actually referencing something else?
Then why did Rayson have to include introductory material before patrons were to view the play?
Bravissimo, Rayson.
There’s no doubt that the issue will follow the play in fading into the unspoken depths of political embarrassments.
So don’t expect anything more than a slow hand clap from me after wasting a day of my life reading this sloppy, palustral interpretation of the events of SIEV-X.
2.
Two Brothers; Critiquing the critique
Alison Croggon
Theatre Notes
Hannie Rayson’s political play Two Brothers has attracted a significant amount of attention over its blurry, hyperbolic message. Alison Croggon has presented a review of the play after seeing it in person, attributing the main cause of the debate and kerfuffle towards the teeming ambiguity in the play’s political messages. Bolt, of course, scrapes a mention in Alison’s lateral and logical evaluation of the play’s intrinsic worth, as she opines that he has missed the boat in his analysis of (what he calls) Rayson’s ‘smug vomit of hate’.
Croggon opens her review by critiquing Bolt’s reaction to his amusing mention in Rayson’s play, where he is referred to as ‘Andrew Blott’. She undermines his responses as they were diatribe, figuring that he was ‘frothing with self-righteousness’ when he savagely attacked Rayson’s play. She promptly goes on to further ridicule Bolt by analysing his tirades as he slammed her for the ‘gobs of government gold’ she ‘smacked’ up as an artist. All of this is with a reason of course; she gets to her point at long last by explaining that she raises the antics of Bolt in order to illustrate the difficulties with Two Brothers.
She rightly believes that the play is ‘morally, politically, and aesthetically confused’, as a direct result of ‘its thin fictionalising of actual people and events’, hence why Bolt mistook his moment of mention. The plot is garbage and the characters trash to match.
The Benedict Brothers have been openly based off the Costello brothers, and Croggon has rightly demonstrated that the ‘fictional characters bear little resemblance to the Costellos themselves.’ Croggon then follows up by calling the play a ‘family drama’. She believes the national politics are secondary to the family drama; Croggon says they are ‘thrown in’ in order to vamp up the ‘psychic static’.
The comment is debatable, for the play is distinctly political, and it is so with intent for Rayson in fact produced introductory material to the audience before screening the play with the MTC. Even neglecting this, the national politics are simply omnipresent in the script; the plot revolves around the sinking of the SIEV-X (which Croggon classifies as ‘suspicious’ rather than addressing as the central plot), the ideas and embodiment of the right and left side of politics in her characters, it even stems down to the language that Rayson’s fictional character’s use. If there is much of a family drama in there, it is given nowhere near the leeway that Rayson assigned for her political messages.
However, Croggon is right on the mark in pinpointing the reason Bolt demonstrates ‘his usual uncertain grasp... between fact and fiction’.
In summarising the play’s plot, she undercuts the theatrical techniques used by picking on the most clichéd aspects of the play, most notably Lachlan being in an argument with his father, (who happens to be) running for PM, on the (subtly allusive) topic of the survival of hundreds of asylum seekers on (of course) Christmas Day. This is, however, fair criticism, for the play distinctly lacks artistic credibility.
Croggon’s language in this segment is notably satirical as she sardonically uses phrases such as ‘extraordinary coincidence’ to illustrate the unbelievable extremities of the plot. She employs comic relief, calling Jamie Savage a ‘ball-tearing femocrat’. She finally rests upon the statement ‘well, you can probably guess the rest’ after ranting about the plot’s fabrication in a delightful and fair manner.
Croggon then proceeds to focus on the characterisation of Eggs specifically, and how Rayson’s political manifesto comes to be dealt with in Two Brothers. Through the use of extreme hyperbole, she highlights and accentuates the sheer monstrosity that Eggs Benedict really is, summarised; ‘a liar and a power junkie driven by naked greed’. However, the criticism is just, for her observations are true to the text and it was likely the intent of Rayson to create Eggs this way. Croggon moves into unmapped territory as she shows the seemingly unintended effect of having the political messages coming from this boisterous character; ‘Rather than making government culpability clearer, this act muddies it altogether with a wholly inappropriate melodrama’.
This is a fair criticism, simply because everything seen so far of the play is either too close to the truth or far too far from it. The sinking of SIEV-X is obviously omnipresent, and the play is undebatably linked to the political antics from both the Left and Right. On the flip side, the characterisation of Egg’s confuses what would be a very literal interpretation of real events; if everything is so close to the truth then why, as Croggon puts it, ‘confuse the issue’ with the character of Eggs?
Croggon appears unconcerned with the political arguments themselves; she distances themselves from them and rather determines the strengths of the play in delivering these messages in their own right. She shows how the plot and characters are less than feasible whilst evaluating how the messages that Rayson tries to bring forth with these characters compares with those messages of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. She explains the techniques that Miller used to make his point, involving the use of going back in history to draw parallels to modern society. She similarly analyses a ‘current model of theatrical protest’; the tribunal theatre. In doing so, she exposes Rayson’s work to be some chalked up fiction, deeming it weightless compared to other techniques that have been used to illustrate points concerning recent events.
Croggon has proven wise in distancing herself from the political drama unfolding with the issue, and instead of analysing the political message of the play (which many other short sighted reviewers have solely taken from Rayson’s work), she analyses its delivery. All of her criticisms are on just terms, and her review exposes some aspects of Rayson’s play which would do well with being tightened.
3.
Two Brothers; Critiquing the critique
Tom Hyland
The Age
In a controversial issue revolving around the treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian Government, Tom Hyland has presented a critique of Hannie Rayson’s “political thriller” Two Brothers. Hyland’s review deals specifically with the political message that Rayson has raised in her play; the welfare of asylum seekers. Two Brothers is - without a doubt - distinctly political; the two brothers are Tom and ‘Eggs’ Benedict, the bleeding heart lawyer/human rights activist and the greedy, power driven prime-minister to be. The politics here is obvious; there’s the Left and Right on the opposite sides of the political divide and their respective characters have been based off the Costello brothers.
Hyland accuses Rayson of creating a play that acts as a ‘conspiracy theory’, for it contains elements that are far from the truth. He opens his article by trying to show how the play ‘deals in stereotypes’, ‘preaches to the converted’, and ‘panders to prejudice’. This is fair enough, because it’s true, Two Brothers does all that. However, its worth as a means of criticism is questionable for most plays need to be simple in order for the audience to grasp the underlying meanings; hence Rayson (like virtually every other playwright out there) has employed the use of stereotypes. As well as this, plays commonly preach to the converted; I wouldn’t watch a play which is topical on an issue which I do not follow.
In his assessment of the play, he does profess that it is a ‘compelling, provocative, entertaining and dramatic thriller’. However, Hyland quickly establishes that it can’t be assessed as a piece of fiction despite the marginal fabrication of the plot and characters because it ‘purports to more than [fiction]’. He extrapolates by rambunctiously generalising the audience, saying they are left in ‘no doubt of the plays polemic purpose’. Despite the huge generalisation, he is generally correct; the play (whether Rayson intended it or not) is very political and should not be analysed as fiction. Nobody can make crude jokes about sensitive issues and then claim it to be the work of fiction when they get a markedly rash response. Likewise, Rayson shouldn’t claim her work to be fiction when the links to SIEV-X and real events are omnipresent in her text.
Following his establishment that Two Brothers is poor stab at what Rayson deemed “purely fictional”, Hyland undermines Rayson’s self-advocated attempt to debunk the myths surrounding the political divide. He does this by accentuating that Rayson has done nothing but confuse the issue, and that her two main characters have just reinforced old prejudices. Tom represents the stereotypical Left and is defending Hazem, the asylum seeker, whilst Eggs is shown to be ‘a wine-swilling, adulterous, grammar-educated, bigoted bully’.
He continues his piece by linking his two points; Two Brother’s is poor fiction and the attribution of the play as a ‘conspiracy theory’. He shows she has been selective in choosing her truths upon which she based her fiction. He claims that Rayson has ignored the ‘inconvenience’ of the public record; that sailors present as SIEV-X dived into the water to rescue asylum seekers. He debunks the ending of Two Brothers in citing the apology that the government made with the Children Overboard propaganda. However, he is also selective and takes this criticism out of context as he addresses the Tampa crisis, using it as grounds for critiquing Rayson’s send-up of an entirely different issue.
Hyland includes a distinct paragraph in which he distances himself from the typical criticisms that have been received poorly, such as those of Andrew Bolt’s ‘Hannie’s Evil Brew’. He does this by identifying himself as being distinctly Left, for he shows he is compassionate about the issue himself. He seeks to show this by devoting a paragraph to an extended emotive appeal, reciting events in which asylum seekers have been grossly abused, using appeals such as ‘frightened, desperate, traumatised people’ to refer to the asylum seekers. This argument is intelligent for it serves it’s purpose well, giving his opinion more weight for he is critiquing a response on his same side, which suggests that it really is bad.