Knowledge and a Girl (The Snow White Case)

English playwright Howard Barker has written several plays that radically rework canonical play texts. These have included Women Beware Women (from Middleton); Seven Lears (from Shakespeare); (Uncle) Vanya (from Chekhov); and Gertrude-the Cry (from Shakespeare's Hamlet - performed by ECCS students in May, 2004). This time he gives his unique treatment to the Grimm brothers' tale of Snow White, focusing on the character of the 'wicked stepmother' –the Queen–who, at the wedding of Snow White and her Prince, is 'forced to put on the red hot shoes, and dance until she dropped down dead.' In Barker's treatment of the fairy tale, the Queen is the protagonist, resisting the patriarchal and misogynistic structure of the court through her profligate sexuality. Snow White? She tries to outdo her stepmother in carnality. The Seven Dwarves? See what punishments await them for their abduction of Snow White at the Dolphin Theatre at 8pm from May 23 to May 27 when students enrolled in English 2206 (Spaces of Resistance: Subversive Theatre) perform this play. Tickets: $15 full or $10 concession - at door. Contact Steve Chinna on 6488 2103 for further details.