Worlds Alive 2026
Writers: An international anthology
Director: Elaine Hudson
Walsh Bay Arts Precinct
13-14 March, 2026
Worlds Alive 2026 is a programme of five dramatic moved readings from well-known writers from South Africa, the Philippines, Brazil, Korea and Indonesia, selected by Carol Dance, Artistic Director of Scene Theatre Sydney, and firmly directed by Elaine Hudson.
While there are cultural differences, many of the issues and concerns addressed by the five readings are relevant to the problems that face our own society but about which we have few or at best temporary answers. In the West, we tend to have less hope in the future’s ability to find solutions, believing our most problematic issues, for instance, increasing social inequity and environmental degradation, will only deteriorate further. To a degree, the selected plays reflected a rosier view – a sense of “we shall overcome one day”.
The corruption of government is treated by The Struggle of the Naga Tribe, An Evening at the Opera, and Miss Margarida’s Way, but in different contexts. Of the three, perhaps The Struggle was the least successful in that this consciously simplistic story needed to be presented in a more Brechtian mode. This is not a criticism of the ensemble cast who played their roles according to the way the play was interpreted.
The role of Miss Margarida, an eccentric, autocratic ruler-bearing teacher, is performed with appropriate ferocity – and occasional sly glances – by Ruba el-Kaddoumi. Her lessons in systemic greed are directed at the obviously discomforted audience, more victims than pupils.
An Evening works well and is similar in idea to Kunene and the King. Both plays approach the problem that lies at their heart, unequal relationships, on an individual basis suggesting that the solution is personal. Long term change is not likely, either to the problem of the disrespect of women or the disrespect of one racial group for another.
The coolly persistent Miranda (Madison Chippendale) is determined to force her volatile, bullying husband (Paul Williamson) to submit to her wishes, while the good-humoured Kunene (Christopher Brown) is determined that the arrogant elderly white actor, Jack (Alan Faulkner), accept him as Sister Kunene, his registered nurse. The exchanges between Jack and Kunene are often very funny but at the same time charged with an underlying tension that inevitably erupts in anger but ends in forgiveness.
The five plays are linked by the role that storytelling plays in each of them. The dying Jack gives Kunene his Shakespeare mug, Miranda has come to love European opera for the intense emotion it arouses in her, and the Brazilian and Indonesian playwrights use art to critique their governments. Finally, in the brief Night Picture of Rain Sound, a resolute Juliet (el-Kaddoumi) prepares to die, impervious to the pleas of the soulful Adam (Seth Eren), because her tragedy is important for its “symbolic weight” – inherited enmity transcended by personal love.
Should the programme run again, it is well worth seeing as it offers a refreshing change from our usual theatrical diet of revivals, or reinterpretations, of Western plays.
