Hollywood’s Awards Season Fascination with Rape and Sexual Abuse

by Winnie M Li  Content warning: includes references to rape and sexual abuse A few months ago at the Golden Globes, Isabelle Huppert won a Golden Globe for playing a rape survivor, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson won for playing a rapist-murderer. While subsequent awards shows haven’t panned out the same way, both actors continue to be lauded… Read More

Sachin Joab’s performance in ‘Disgraced’ shows that Australia needs to foreground its actors of colour

by Suzy Wrong  Sydney Theatre Company’s production of Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced drops bombs at regular intervals to unnerve, to disarm and, most of all, to confront. It is a response to the undeniable horrors around us that involves no sugar-coating, and no rose-tinted glasses. We can all agree that everything is not quite coming up… Read More

Prejudice, bias and convention: The problem for Equity and minority ethnic actors

by Paul Courtenay Hyu Actors, like any other profession, benefit from a trade union, which represents them in matters relating to work. The year I joined Equity, the actor’s trade union, in 1989, was the year that Miss Saigon opened in the West End and Jonathan Pryce was cast to play an East Asian part,… Read More