 |
| Winners are grinners: Karl Stuifzand accepts Jennifer Blocksidge Memorial Award |
After the final bows of tonight's performance of
Breaking The Code at QUT's Gardens Theatre, a most respectable looking lady sitting next to me stood up and unleashed a tirade.
Her F Bomb-laden outburst was about homophobia and how angry she was at the prosecution and persecution of gay people.
It was a quite reasonable response to the story of Alan Turing. While the Academy Award-winning film
The Imitation Game told the story of Turing's work in cracking the Enigma Code this play is about the man.
In many ways it is far more interesting unless you happened to be a Maths nerd which I am most definitely not. Turing was convicted of gross indecency for having sex with a man which set of a chain of events that ultimately lead to his suicide. It was a tragically sad story so beautifully told. I may or may not have cried (I did.)
 |
| Jonathan Blocksidge who presented the award on behalf of the family |
Breaking the Code was one of two plays performed by the final year QUT Fine Arts Acting students this month. Half he graduating students performed in Blackrock at La Boite with the remainder in this production. Both finished today and after the production the annual Jennifer Blocksidge Memorial Award was presented. The award is presented to an outstanding final year student and comes with a sizable cheque to be used for personal professional development. Karl Stuifzand, who played Ricko in Blackrock, took out the prize. In his speech, Karl said that Blackrock and Breaking the Code both tackled important issues that needed to be exposed. His plan is to use his bursary to create theatre that shines a light on issues such as domestic violence, misogyny, racism and homophobia. I can't wait to see what he comes up with. Theatre has a unique power to expose these issues. It can move people (not just me) to tears and in that way change minds, hearts and votes. Here's hoping
You can hear our review of Breaking the Code
here
And because you can never get enough theatre talk, the podcast review of Blackrock is
here
 |
| Karl with the Blockridge family and outgoing QUT Drama Discipline Leader Sandra Gattenhof |
No comments:
Post a Comment