The Playwrights Database
DAVID BLACKMAN
Nationality: Australian
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David Blackman is a Melbourne-based actor and writer. His one-man show 'Race is the Reason', an exploration of the language of hate across the black and white divide, was described by New York's 'Village Voice' as a 'terrifying and complex meditation on race relations in America'. It was selected for the Ontological Theatre Downtown Arts Festival in 1998. David followed this with a succession of plays, including 'Calley', 'Enola Gay', 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' and, most recently, 'The Revisionist'. In 2003, 'The Revisionist' was nominated for the Wal Cherry Play of the Year by the MTC and won the RE Ross Script Development Award as part of the Victorian Premier's Literary Prize. In 2006, the State Library of Victoria produced a reading of the play as part of its 'Live at the Library' series. David completed his Masters of Screenwriting at RMIT in 2006, culminating in his first screenplay 'Parade's End'. He has recently formed an association with Renegade Films to develop several features, including a screenplay based on the Vietnam War's epic battle of Long Tan. In November 2006 David received the John Gassner Memorial Playwrighting Award for 'Enola Gay'. The New England Theatre Conference chose this play out of 300 submissions from seven countries. It is slated for production in New York at the Culture Project for September 2007
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below is a list of David Blackman's plays - click on a Play Title for more information
Eichmann In Jerusalem Enola Gay Long Day's Dying, The Revisionist, TheEichmann In Jerusalem
Synopsis:
'Eichmann in Jerusalem' offers a phantasmagoric image of the world around Adolph Eichmann and his involvement in the Holocaust, as if seen through his less-than-tormented eyes. The play moves between three key periods in Eichmann's life; his role during the Holocaust, his life as a Nazi war criminal on the run, and his time as a captive of the Israeli government awaiting trial and execution for complicity in the murder of six million Jews during World War Two. In the aftermath of the guilty verdict, a Protestant pastor, William Hull, is convinced that Eichmann can be brought onto the path of redemption. In the struggle that follows between them, Eichmann's central role in the extermination process is dramatised against the continual denials and obfuscations of a man convinced his guilt is only moral. In the supreme moment of judgement, Eichmann is given one last chance to confess his sins and be granted absolution. Instead, he reaffirms his faith in all the beliefs that brought him to trial, unable or unwilling to accept the depth of his crimes. After he is executed, Argentinian fascists, outraged by his death, kidnap a young Jewess, Gracial Sirota, and brutally disfigure her. As Eichmann leaves this world, expressing his everlasting faith in his own God, she becomes the last victim of his crimes.
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Genre:
Surrealist Brechtian drama 120 min
Parts:
Male: 8 Female: 2 Other: -
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Top of PageEnola Gay
Synopsis:
Was the atomic bomb necessary for ending World War Two? 'Enola Gay' takes a critical look at the events leading up to the decision by President Truman to use the first weapon of mass destruction. It follows the experiences of Leo Szilard, the physicist responsible for the groundwork to the Manhattan Project and later its most ardent opponent, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who piloted the Enola Gay on its fateful mission, the newly sworn-in President Truman, and Tomoko Nakabayashi, one of the survivors of Hiroshima. This epic play brings to life the conflicting worlds of nuclear physics and the realpolitik of the burgeoning Cold War. It ruthlessly despatches the homilies and myths surrounding the first use of an atomic device on a civilian population.
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Genre:
Epic drama 120 min
Parts:
Male: 9 Female: 1 Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageLong Day's Dying, The
Synopsis:
It is 2006 and Corporal Ash and three other Australian SAS soldiers are trapped inside an Afghan village. The rest of their team has just been killed by an IED. Their communications have been destroyed and they have no idea as to the strength of their enemy lurking outside. Nerves are stretched beyond breaking point as the possibility that this could be the end looms large. Into this mix a Taliban fighter appears from a concealed hiding spot and is quickly disarmed. His only defence against a summary execution is the claim that he intended to give himself up and knows a way out of this predicament. Thus begins a cat and mouse between the four as each man decides on whether their prisoner, formerly a student from LSE, is worth more to them dead or alive. He paints a dire picture of the situation and promotes himself as their only hope of escape against the soon to be reinforced Taliban. As their numbers dwindle, Ash and the Taliban fighter come to a sort of understanding of each other's position and the realization that they face a common foe in the light of the Taliban fighter's final revelation. Completely unmasked, there is nothing left but to fight for their own as well as each other's survival.
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Genre:
drama 85 min
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: - Other: -
Further Reference:
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Top of PageRevisionist, The
Synopsis:
The Revisionist' explores Australia's understanding of the Holocaust through what became known as the 'Demidenko Affair', where a young Australian woman of Anglo Saxon background was able to convince the literary and cultural establishment that her father and uncle were Ukrainians involved in the mass slaughter of Jews during the war. The play traces the life of Konrad Senior, a former member of the Ukrainian SS. Seen through the eyes of Helen, the play's unreliable narrator, Konrad becomes a heroic figure, apparently justified in his crimes of mass murder, and misunderstood by history. This play seeks to explore a contemporary trend in the manipulation of collective memory through the rewriting or falsification of history, as was clearly demonstrated with the acceptance and critical acclaim given to 'Demidenko'.
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1st Produced:
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Organisations:
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1st Published:
http://australianplays.org/ -
Music:
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To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies
Booksellers:
Genre:
Surrealist drama 85 min
Parts:
Male: 4 Female: 2 Other: -
Further Reference:
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