KEENE, Daniel 1955-

PERSONAL:

Born 1955; married; children: three.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Melbourne, Australia. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Salt Publishing, P.O. Box 937, Great Wilbraham, Cambridge CB1 5JX, United Kingdom. E-mail—theatre@danielkeene.com.

CAREER:

Playwright and poet. Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia, faculty member, 1990-92; cofounder of the Keene/Taylor Theatre Project, 1997; director of many of his own plays.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Banff International Television Festival best feature, 1986, for The Hour before My Brother Dies; Louis Esson Prize for drama, 1989, for Silent Partner; Green Room Award, best new Australian play, 1996, for All Souls; Wal Cherry Play of the Year Award, for Beneath Heaven; Jill Blewitt Playwright's Award and Australian National Playwrights' Center Award, 1996, both for Because You Are Mine; two-time recipient of Victorian Premier's Prize for Drama; recipient of Kenneth Myer Medallion for his contribution to the Performing Arts, 1998; South Australian Premier's Prize for best play; two-time recipient of New South Wales Premier's Prize for best play.

WRITINGS:

PLAYS; UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

Skelta, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1981.

Horseplay, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1982.

Car Crash at the O.K. Corral, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1982.

Ruby Dark, (produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1983), published in Exiles in Paradise, Fringe Network, 1983.

The Snake Pit, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1984.

Cho Cho San, (produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1984), Currency Press (Sydney, Australia), 1987.

Isle of Swans, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1985, and New York, NY, 1987.

The Hour before My Brother Dies, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1985, and New York, NY, 1986.

The Fighter, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1986, and New York, NY, 1988.

Silent Partner, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1989.

Estrella!, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1990, and New York, NY, 1991.

Low, produced in Perth, Australia, 1991.

All Souls, (produced in Adelaide, Australia, 1993), Currency Press (Sydney, Australia), 1995.

Skinless Kiss of Angels (score by Michale Smetanin), produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1993.

Because You Are Mine, produced in Adelaide, Australia, 1996.

Terminus, produced in Adelaide, Australia, 1996.

Little City (additional text by Patricia Cornelius and Melissa Reeves; music by Irine Vela), produced in Melbourne, Australia, at the Brunswick Town Hall, 1996.

Nocturnes (poetry), Black Pepper (North Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia), 1997.

The Prisoner and His Keeper, produced in Adelaide, Australia, 1997.

Homeland [and] A Glass of Twilight, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1997.

Seeing in the Dark, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1998.

The Architect's Walk, produced in Adelaide, Australia, 1998.

Untitled Monologue, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1998.

Night, A Wall, Two Men [and] Neither Lost nor Found, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1998.

Custody, What Remains [and] To Whom It May Concern, produced in Melbourne, Australia, 1998.

To Whom It May Concern: And Other Plays, Black Pepper (North Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia), 2000.

Pieces Courtes (short plays), Théâtrales (France), 2001.

A Three Legged Stool, produced in Grenoble, France, 2001.

The Earth Their Mansion, produced in France, 2001.

Half and Half, (produced in Australia, 2003), Currency Press (Sydney, Australia), 2002.

Terminus and Other Plays, Salt Publishing (Cambridge, England), 2003.

Two Shanks, produced in France at the Scène Nationale de Montepellier, 2003.

The Rain, produced in Clichy, France, at the Festival de Marionnettes, 2003.

Scissors, Paper, Rock, produced in France at Théâtre de la Place, 2003.

Duet, produced in France at Théâtre de la Place, 2003.

Five Men, produced in Paris, France at the Théâtre du Rond-Point, 2003.

Neither Lost or Found, produced in France at Théâtre Proscenium, 2003.

The Violin, produced in France at Théâtre Proscenium, 2003.

Sophia's Eyes, produced in France at Théâtre Proscenium, 2003.

Bogeyman, produced in Lyons, France, at l'Espace Germinal Fosses, 2003.

Paradise, produced in Paris, France, at the Théâtre de la Commune, 2004.

Brief Darkness, produced in France at the Théâtre du Muselet, 2004.

In These Uncertain Times, produced in France at the Théâtre du Merlan, 2004.

What Is Happening in the World, produced in France at the Théâtre du Merlan, 2004.

Also author of the plays Adjacent Rooms (score by Michale Smetanin), produced in 1993; Beneath Heaven, produced in 1995; The Nightwatchman; The Words; and Possible Ways; and of the monologue An Empty Church. Many of the author's plays have been translated into French and Polish; several plays, including Terminus, Silent Partner, The Architect's Walk, The Words, Five Men, and To Whom It May Concern, have been published by Théâtrales (France).

SCREENPLAYS

Tom White, Fandango Australia, 2004.

Also author of other screenplays, including Cold Love, 1988; Riding down the Sky, 1989; Isle of Swans, 1990; Silent Partner, 1992; Low (from the author's play), 1992; Juke (with Laurie McInnes), 1995; and Remembering Babylon (adapted from the novel by David Malouf), 1995. Author of the television play The Hour before My Brother Dies (adapted from the author's play of the same name), 1986, and the radio play Vanishing Points.

ADAPTATIONS:

Silent Partner, Terminus, To Whom It May Concern, and The Telling have been adapted as radio plays.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

The commissioned play The Dreams of Franz Kafka.

SIDELIGHTS:

A playwright since 1979, Daniel Keene has had his plays performed in every state in Australia, in Europe (especially in France and Poland), and in the United States and China. According to a Contemporary Dramatists contributor, Keene's "plays can be loosely grouped into four categories: intense, small-cast examinations of contemporary Australian working-class 'battlers' in mostly realistic form; larger-scale plays dealing with wider social issues in a more surreal 'fantastic' style; music-theater and mixed-form pieces; and plays dealing with international figures and events in a highly imaginative, fictionalized style."

Examples of Keene's "Australian working-class" plays include The Hour before My Brother Dies and Low. In the former, a brother and sister try to settle their family disputes and reassess their lives before the brother is to be hanged in one hour. Low portrays an alcoholic couple, Emma and Jay, whose lives lack meaning, love, or any real kind of affection. They eventually find "meaning" in their lives when they begin to rob stores. The Contemporary Dramatists contributor noted that "the characters' actions are indefensible, but the underlying reason for their behavior is clear: the dispossessed, uneducated pair turn to drink and crime because the inexorable march of economic rationalism has left them with nothing else to do." Other plays by Keene about the downtrodden classes of Australia include Silent Partner, about two men whose dreams are dashed by the unsavory aspects of the racing game, and The Fighter, about an ex-boxer who drinks to deal with his failed career and is haunted by the ghosts of his ex-girlfriend and brother. "In writing with rage and compassion about the dispossessed underclass of society, Daniel Keene honors a class that is too often neglected or ridiculed on the Australian stage," commented the essayist in Contemporary Dramatists.

Another play by Keene about the Australian working class is Half and Half, about two brothers who do not get along and who, through a series of soliloquies, play out themes of family, masculinity, and death. The older brother, Luke, has returned home to find his brother, Ned, leading a solitary existence. Although initially antagonistic toward each other, the brothers begin to come together when Luke starts a garden made with soil and plants he gathered from their mother's grave. The brothers eventually decide to rebury their mother in the garden. According to Keene, the "garden" is high theatricality, but he told Ben Cubby in an article on the Sydney Morning Herald Web site that "the physical transformation of the garden is meant to mirror the growth of the characters' relationship." Keene continued: "They achieve a level of intimacy by working on the garden, and the garden is like a third character."

Keene's musical theater works generally have been well received, and include Cho Cho San, which is a reworking of Madame Butterfly complete with life-size "Bunraku-style" puppets. His international plays include Because You Are Mine, about the havoc wreaked on the lives of people in Bosnia as it is torn apart by civil war. As for Keene's larger-scale, "surreal" plays, such as All Souls and Terminus, the Contemporary Dramatists contributor noted, "The blend of gritty realism, dreams, and fantasy does not work as successfully." Terminus focuses on social alienation in the form of lost souls seeking solace and human contact in the cafés and bars of train stations around the world. One character, John, can only experience emotion when he commits senseless murder and feels his victims' lives ebb away. Writing in Paris Voice, Molly Grogan pointed out that "nevertheless, John's monstrous actions disturb less than the lack of moral resolution and voyeurism that lie at the play's heart: the audience observes him as if from a window, both unable to stop him and an accomplice to his evil."

Keene has also written several screenplays, including Tom White, a 2004 film about a family man and architect whose life spirals downward until he becomes a homeless person. In the screenplay, Keene explores how such a drastic decline can occur, beginning when Tom is taken off a job and told to take a rest but instead turns to alcohol. Shamed by his failure and his drinking, Tom begins to travel through the underclass of society, making friends and deadly enemies on his journey. Eventually, Tom rediscovers who he really is but only after nearly falling into the abyss. In an article that appears on the Brisbane International Film Festival Web site, a reviewer commented that "the concept of 'home' is central to Keene's work and Tom White is the story of a man who essentially runs away from home." In the same article, Keene noted, "I often begin writing something by imagining what's my worst fear, or what I would hate to lose and then imagine losing it." As for the characters in his works, Keene told Stéphane Müh and Christine Bouvier in an interview that appears on Keene's Web site, "I want my characters to bring their souls to the surface of their skin. I want their inner lives to be born/borne in every gesture, in every utterance. I want them to be painfully real."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Dramatists, 6th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Australasian Drama Studies, 1988, Geoffrey Milne, "Cho Cho San: A Triumph of Collaboration," pp. 85-101.

Paris Voice, May, 2002, Molly Grogan, review of Terminus.

Village Voice, July 23, 1991, Evelyn McDonnell, review of Estrella!, p. 96.

ONLINE

Brisbane International Film Festival Web site,http://www.biff.com.au/ (September 28, 2004), review of Tom White.

Daniel Keene Home Page,http://www.danielkeene.com (September 28, 2004), Stéphane Müh and Christine Bouvier, "Interview with Daniel Keene."

Sydney Morning Herald Web site,http://www.smh.com.au/ (September 3, 2004), Ben Cubby, "Remedy for the Growing Pains of Family Ties."*