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Monique Grbec wrote a new post 4 years, 8 months ago
Monique Grbec on Jacob Boehme’s brave, funny and beautiful multidisciplinary work, Blood on the Dance Floor
The magic of Blood On The Dance Floor at Arts Centre Melbourne Fairfax Studio begins before we even […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 4 years, 8 months ago
‘Cruising through the crank of hip hop, Omar Musa shines like the beautiful beacon he aspires to be’: Monique Grbec on When Ali Died
What’s life like when you’re growing up as a brown-skinned Muslim boy with Mal […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 4 years, 9 months ago
A celebration of love and life, Come from Away is a winning musical about a small town’s community spirit in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, says Monique GrbecÂ
Nearly 18 years after the September 11 […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 4 years, 10 months ago
The stage adaptation of Colin Thiele’s beloved book Storm Boy is ‘a carnival of theatrical colonialism and missed opportunities’, says Monique Grbec
Storm Boy, the 1964 YA novella by Colin Theile, is packed with […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 5 years, 6 months ago
‘A Coogi cardigan of vibrant colours swirling in uneven sashes’: New Review critic Monique Grbec reviews Albert Belz’s Astroman
Katrina and the Waves’ Walking on Sunshine sets a high octane shoulder-shimmying moo […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 5 years, 6 months ago
‘The worst thing about a tragicomedy is the tragedy’: New Review critic Monique Grbec on 15 Minutes from Anywhere’s Just a Boy, Standing in Front of a GirlÂ
In the midst of the Melbourne Festival, the cool kids a […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 5 years, 7 months ago
‘It makes me believe that magic can happen’: New Review critic Monique Grbec on Sheree Stewart’s Pilepileta at Melbourne Fringe
Pilepileta, meaning to shine and glitter in Sheree Stewart’s mother tongue Wemba We […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 5 years, 7 months ago
To have a child or not to have a child? New Review critic Monique Grbec on Eggsistentialism
At 35 years old, Joanne Ryan knows she’s biologically running out of time to have a child. She just doesn’t know whe […] -
Monique Grbec wrote a new post 5 years, 7 months ago
New Review critic Monique Grbec says Matriarch, a family saga about four generations of Salt Water women, is a triumph
The scale of Matriarch, a one-woman show about four generations of Salt Water women written a […] -
Monique Grbec changed their profile picture 5 years, 7 months ago
Hi Luke, one of the interesting things about theatre – in fact, art in general – is that it’s possible to have very different responses to the same work. Why would Monique’s experience be more “preconceived” than yours? Like everyone else, she watched the show and this was her response. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that someone who has Stolen Generations in her family might have a different response to someone who doesn’t. I had similar questions, in fact: but my thoughts were largely inflected by the climate crisis. Of course you are free to disagree, and I don’t doubt that you enjoyed the show: but for my part I disagree that thinking about the context of a show means that one is not approaching it with “an open mind”.
For my part, for about the first third I thought I was watching a story about an abused child…so I don’t think it’s such a stretch. All the themes Monique mentions are in the play, and how each of us responds or picks up on them depends on each of our experiences. Perhaps this is a perspective we’re not used to seeing in our criticism.
Hey, Hideaway was literally telling Storm Boy he couldn’t speak to any strangers, or be visible in any way, and punished him if he did. Storm Boy was completely isolated from human contact by his father. Classic abusive behaviours, for those sensitive to the red lights. None of this happens in the book, fwiw, nor in the first film adaptation, which in fact opens out their social contacts. Yes, I did wonder what Holloway was thinking. And so, clearly, did Monique.
Well, as I said right at the beginning of this conversation: a lot of the beauty of art is that different people have different responses to the same work, for all sorts of different reasons. You are very welcome to disagree, but you seem rather to be claiming that any response that differs from yours is invalid. It would be more interesting to hear more about what you thought, and why.