The Spook
Published on 14. November 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
104 pages
978-0-86819-768-5 (ISBN)
Description
It's 1965 and the South Bendigo branch of the Communist Party is in a rut. The Tribune isn't selling, membership is down and the Maoists are gaining ground. So young Martin Porter is a welcome new recruit. His mother doesn't understand why he has thrown his values out the window and grown his hair. But all is not what it seems. Martin is an ASIO mole about to discover that spying on communists isn't all dark glasses, sexy Cossack dancing and vodka shots. When his newfound friends draw him into their family he finds that doing his bit for his country is more complicated than he'd imagined.
Inspired by a true story from country Victoria, Melissa Reeves exposes the Australian political obsessions of the 1960s with much humour and an astuteness that gives the play contemporary bite.
Includes an introduction by Stuart Macintyre, Ernest Scott Professor of History at the University of Melbourne
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Paddington
Australia
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 7 mm
Weight
199 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-86819-768-5 (9780868197685)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
MELISSA REEVES began her career in the theatre as an actor and circus performer. She did a writing apprenticeship of sorts with the Red Shed Company in Adelaide, before moving to Melbourne and working extensively with Melbourne Workers Theatre. Since then she has had plays produced by all the major Australian theatre companies, as well as many smaller independent theatres. Her plays include In Cahoots, Sweetown, Storming Heaven, Road Movie, Tough Girls, The Spook, Furious Mattress, and Happy Ending. She has co-written a number of plays including Caravan (with Angus Cerini, Patricia Cornelius, and Wayne Macauley) Magpie, (with Richard Frankland) and Who's Afraid of the Working Class? and Fever (both with Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius and Christos Tsiolkas, composer Irine Vela). She has won four Premier's Literary Awards, numerous AWGIE Awards, the Rodney Seaborn Award, and an Australia Council Fellowship. Melissa also co-wrote the award winning screenplay for the film Blessed, based on Who's Afraid of the Working Class?