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Deaf author to be illuminated on stage :artshub.com.au | For Australian Arts Workers
Australia’s only professional theatre company for the deaf is putting on a play about Australia’s most celebrated, if reclusive, deaf writer.
Crime thriller writer Patricia Carlon produced 14 crime novels between 1961-70 to widespread international acclaim. While relatively neglected in her home country, she won comparisons in the UK to the queens of the genre, like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell.
“Those who have compared her to Hitchcock are not overstating the case,” the US Publishers Weekly once declared in one review, “for this clear, concise thriller is like a limpid distillation of the best of the suspense genre."
What Carlon’s readers – and, for that matter, publishers – didn’t know was that the reclusive crime writer was deaf. It was only after died in 2002 at the age of 75, that family members let it slip.
“It's so astounding a fact about a writer that once you know it you can't read her fiction in the same way,” says Michael Heywood, whose Text Publishing recently re-released all of Carlon’s oeuvre.
“She tells stories about children who are unable to make adults understand what's going on and her narratives create portraits of claustrophobic environments that pertain to what we now know about her.”
But we still don’t know much: Carlon dodged journalists and fans throughout her life in the quiet Sydney suburb of Bexley, surrounded by innumerable cats.
Which made writing a play about her a challenge, says Theatre of the Deaf manager Tony Strachan, who commissioned Sofya Gollan to write the play three years ago. Even with the assistance of Carlon’s nephew, “the whole process of getting the thing written nearly fell flat on its face.”
To an extent, then, The Cat Lady of Bexley will portray the universal experience of deafness, as well the life of one deaf person. Writer Gollan, herself deaf, will take the opportunity to “explore the frustration that comes with living in a silent world” – “partners who talk too fast” and “people who take pity on difference” – as well as celebrating “the freedom that comes with imagination.”
Australia’s Theatre of the Deaf is a bilingual company – performing in both Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and English.
The Cat Lady of Bexley opens this Thursday at Sidetrack Studio Theatre in Marricville, and continues until 25 November.
For more information, CLICK HERE
Australia’s only professional theatre company for the deaf is putting on a play about Australia’s most celebrated, if reclusive, deaf writer.
Crime thriller writer Patricia Carlon produced 14 crime novels between 1961-70 to widespread international acclaim. While relatively neglected in her home country, she won comparisons in the UK to the queens of the genre, like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell.
“Those who have compared her to Hitchcock are not overstating the case,” the US Publishers Weekly once declared in one review, “for this clear, concise thriller is like a limpid distillation of the best of the suspense genre."
What Carlon’s readers – and, for that matter, publishers – didn’t know was that the reclusive crime writer was deaf. It was only after died in 2002 at the age of 75, that family members let it slip.
“It's so astounding a fact about a writer that once you know it you can't read her fiction in the same way,” says Michael Heywood, whose Text Publishing recently re-released all of Carlon’s oeuvre.
“She tells stories about children who are unable to make adults understand what's going on and her narratives create portraits of claustrophobic environments that pertain to what we now know about her.”
But we still don’t know much: Carlon dodged journalists and fans throughout her life in the quiet Sydney suburb of Bexley, surrounded by innumerable cats.
Which made writing a play about her a challenge, says Theatre of the Deaf manager Tony Strachan, who commissioned Sofya Gollan to write the play three years ago. Even with the assistance of Carlon’s nephew, “the whole process of getting the thing written nearly fell flat on its face.”
To an extent, then, The Cat Lady of Bexley will portray the universal experience of deafness, as well the life of one deaf person. Writer Gollan, herself deaf, will take the opportunity to “explore the frustration that comes with living in a silent world” – “partners who talk too fast” and “people who take pity on difference” – as well as celebrating “the freedom that comes with imagination.”
Australia’s Theatre of the Deaf is a bilingual company – performing in both Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and English.
The Cat Lady of Bexley opens this Thursday at Sidetrack Studio Theatre in Marricville, and continues until 25 November.
For more information, CLICK HERE