THEM has been shortlisted for the 2020 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Drama.
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards were inaugurated by the Victorian Government in 1985 to honour literary achievement by Australian writers. The awards are administered by the Wheeler Centre on behalf of the Premier of Victoria.
JUDGES’ REPORT
Them is a searing and sharply-edged work about the horrors of war, and the ways in which it can corrupt or enhance a person’s humanity. With great skill, Sabawi sketches a family in crisis and a nation in tatters; unnamed and stripped of cultural identifiers, this is a world that exists beyond the clichés of political discourse. The playwright brilliantly uses humour and surprise to augment the growing sense of disquiet, in a nod to Kafka and Beckett, but what shines most clearly is a deep compassion and a powerfully articulated despair
For more information, and to read an excerpt of the play: https://www.wheelercentre.com/projects/victorian-premier-s-literary-awards-2020/them