NickyFM
Member
Hi I'm doing costume design for the ham funeral and i was wondering if anyone else was doing it? I'm having trouble with identifying the plot of the story and because it isn't so well known the internet hasn't exactly helped me!
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The Ham Funeral - Patrick White. Need help!! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter NickyFM
- Start date
This play was based on an experience that the australian painter William Dobell told to White.
In the play, a young man is invited to attend the funeral of his landlord whose wife has decided that the funeral, or rather the wake that follows it, is to be a memorable affair: she will feed the mourners ham. But it is memorable for the young man as well because the landlady tries to seduce him. The young man is one of the long lines of White's instinctive young artist figures and he meanwhile has a series of significance dialogues witht the unseen young woman in the room opposite his.
Alma lusty and the dead landlord are larger than life figures - almost excessively realistic when set beside the young man and girl.
White's great influence on Australian Theatre was to show it how to move beyond the realism that had been its most dominate mode.
A minor incident in the play, the discovery of an aborted foetus in a rubbish bin, was one of several elements of the play that caused producers to be cautious and newpaper columnists and public moralists to react with indignation
The Ham Funeral was written in 1947 as white prepared to return to Australia but wasnt performed until it received a controversial production in Adelaide in 1961
the performance incorporates aspects of the absurd and expressionism with the use of soundscape in a non-naturalistic setting
this isn't exactly a plot summary. it is quite difficult to form a complete summary, but i got this one from the NIDA IP day. Hope it can help some one.
In the play, a young man is invited to attend the funeral of his landlord whose wife has decided that the funeral, or rather the wake that follows it, is to be a memorable affair: she will feed the mourners ham. But it is memorable for the young man as well because the landlady tries to seduce him. The young man is one of the long lines of White's instinctive young artist figures and he meanwhile has a series of significance dialogues witht the unseen young woman in the room opposite his.
Alma lusty and the dead landlord are larger than life figures - almost excessively realistic when set beside the young man and girl.
White's great influence on Australian Theatre was to show it how to move beyond the realism that had been its most dominate mode.
A minor incident in the play, the discovery of an aborted foetus in a rubbish bin, was one of several elements of the play that caused producers to be cautious and newpaper columnists and public moralists to react with indignation
The Ham Funeral was written in 1947 as white prepared to return to Australia but wasnt performed until it received a controversial production in Adelaide in 1961
the performance incorporates aspects of the absurd and expressionism with the use of soundscape in a non-naturalistic setting
this isn't exactly a plot summary. it is quite difficult to form a complete summary, but i got this one from the NIDA IP day. Hope it can help some one.