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Berwyn Lewis

BERWYN LEWIS

  (1944 - )
Nationality:    Australian
email:    Click here to contact     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    n/a

Berwyn Lewis (aka Berwyn Claridge) is an author, playwright, scriptwriter, short story writer, journalist (feature writer, columnist, reviewer), teacher (Journalism - University of Technology, Sydney; University of NSW Sydney); travel writer/photographer; newspaper subeditor; magazine editor. Some of her plays have been produced and workshopped including "Til"/Tilly Devine; the World and Some Peacocks/Joe and Rose; Assertiveness Training 1, 11 and 111; Goose Chase; Borderlands (radio play ABC); Girl In a Cupboard (radio play BBC edinburgh); Joe and Rose (radio ABC); and as performance poetry. She has performed, directed Theatre works including her own original scripts. She has written extensively for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian newspaper, various magazines. She has MA International Communications (Macquarie University). Works include: Some plays in Hangar Collection, University of Queensland. Some short stories/prose are published in: 'And So Say All of Us' Second Back Row Press - ISBN 0909325391 'the True Life Story of' University of Queensland Press - ISBN 0 7022 1530 9/ISBN 0 7022 1531 Waves 'Australian Issue' - ISSN 0315-3932 Compass Poetry and prose - ISSN 0155-6908 Aspect Art and Literature - Vol. 2/3 March 1977 SCOPP - ISSN 0313 685X the Saturday Club book of Poetry - ISSN 0310-4273 Contact:berwynlewis@yahoo.com.au 61 2 9343 4204/0414 552 230

Research:    http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/contributor/2759

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below is a list of Berwyn Lewis's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Assertiveness Training !, !! & !!!         Borderlands         Girl In a Cupboard         Goose Chase         Joe And Rose/"the World And Some Peacocks"         Living Business         Marriage Machine, The         Raptures Of the Deep         Salvador Who Versus the Prince Of Wales         Til         Tilly Devine         World And Some Peacocks, The
Assertiveness Training !, !! & !!!

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Nimrod Theatre     1980

Organisations:
Women and Theatre Project

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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:
Absurdist stage play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Borderlands

Synopsis:
A woman ventures into a "very dangerous place". She is haunted by a "guardian" who has been sent to "guide" her across "a river". In bizarre dreams, in imaginings, in reality, a woman takes a journey into alien territory. Her travels from city to rainforest wilderness and back to civilisation are partly an escape, partly a search. Walking and sleeping, past and present become almost indistinguishable to someone who is always on the dge - of discovery, despair, destruction. Her experiencese in the ush and her encounters with wild man, Lindsay, and his wife, Carol, play important roles in her extraordinary journey but there's one step she alone can take to cross the border and return to herself. Did she make it? Did she imagine it? Did she die and continue to go on living? Is this what really happened?

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Abc Radio Drama Department     1992

Organisations:
ABC Radio

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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:
Radio Drama

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  1            Other:  Other male and female voices

Further Reference:
-

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Girl In a Cupboard

Synopsis:
A woman is forever haunted by a childhood punishment when she was locked in a cupboard - the sheer force of it has left her in great pain and confusion - a form of damnation on her imagination.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Bbc Radio Edinburgh/Radio Scotland/Radio 4     c1973

Organisations:
BBC Radio edinburgh

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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:
Radio play

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  Voices of nuns

Further Reference:
-

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Goose Chase

Synopsis:
with a running time of about 20-30 minutes, this cyclical monoDrama is about a woman in search of herself and everything else as she launches herself in an almost catatonic state into covering as much ground as possible in the shortest possible time.

Notes:
was also on the National Secondary School Reading List in about 1975/6. Criticised for "not having a beginning, middle or end" by Leonie Kramer at Sydney University it was removed from Reading List. It was picked up by Allen Ginsberg in 1979 when he read it in "Waves" "Australian Issue" Vol 7, No.4 Summer 1979

1st Produced:
Central Street Gallery     1974

Organisations:
Women In the Arts

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia   

Music:
-

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:
MonoDrama/Performance Prose

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Joe And Rose/"the World And Some Peacocks"

Synopsis:
A middle aged man and woman, Joe and Rose, run a corner grocery shop. they are trapped in a dream state, suspended in light, sound and language. Things are said which no one quite says; things are seen which no one quite sees; things so troubling that they escape normal language. So much is suppressed that inevitably a violent collision takes place between the inexpressible and anxiety. Poignant, funny, perceptive, this play asks what does exist and where? the grocery shop customers are unseen and yet they exist in the realities of Joe and Rose who develop passionate rivalries, jealousies and controlling devices over them which they then use against each other. What is the mystery about "the girls" - Joe and Rose refer to them but who are they? What happened to them? eventually, someone and something turn up and Joe and Rose are forced to take action. their lives change but did their lives ever really exist or are they just imagined?

Notes:
the cast is imagined apart from two main characters, Joe and Rose and a stranger who turns up

1st Produced:
Newcastle University     1974

Organisations:
the Australian National Playwrights' Conference

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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/Absurdist stage play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Living Business

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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:
-

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Marriage Machine, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia   

Music:
-

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:
play 5 scenes

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Raptures Of the Deep

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia   

Music:
-

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:
play One act

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Salvador Who Versus the Prince Of Wales

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia   

Music:
-

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:
Play 4 scenes

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  1            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Til

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-     1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Script in the Hanger Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, Australia   

Music:
-

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:
playy 11 scenes

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

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Tilly Devine

Synopsis:
set in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, in the mid 1940s, this play is about a buxom Cockney with a pungent tongue and persuasive fists. She has reigned for more than 25 years unchallenged as Queen of an empire of brothels, thugs, prostitutes (sex workers), thieves and sly grog merchants as well as complaint members of the police force and vice squad. She has earned the distinction of "Queen of the 'Loo" (Woolloomooloo" and "the Worst Woman in Sydney". the artificial values and hypocrisies which prevailed during WWII, the flourishing of corruption and graft, and with the respect for the law at an all-time low ebb created the perfect breeding ground for a woman like Tilly Devine but all that was about to change as a new, efficient police squad, "21 Division" began to clean up Tilly's domain around Sydney Palmer Street. In the late 1950s, a Woolloomooloo waterside worker remarked with some regret, "the Loo's gone all respectable now" but have things changed all that much?

Notes:
NB: by Berwyn Claridge) - Lewis not used. Considered various times as feature film but not produced (as yet). Contact: see email above.

1st Produced:
The National Institute Of Dramatic Art & University Of New South Wales School Of Drama     c1973

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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:
Stage play

Parts:
Male:  12            Female:  8            Other:  Various double-ups

Further Reference:
-

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World And Some Peacocks, The

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Nimrod Upstairs, Surry Hills, Nsw     02 Feb 1981

Organisations:
Women and Theatre Project

1st Published:
-   

Music:
-

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:
play 5 scenes

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
http://www.ausstage.edu.au/pages/event/93407

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