Wesley Enoch (born 1969) is an Australian playwright and artistic director of Murri descent.
Contents |
The eldest son of Doug and Lyn Enoch from Stradbroke Island, Wesley Enoch grew up in Brisbane.[1][2]
Enoch was trained in Drama in the Bachelor of Arts (Drama) course at Queensland University of Technology where he directed and acted in many productions. He was also a founding member of the QUT Bonzani Commedia Troupe.
Wesley has been Artistic Director of Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts, an Associate Artist with the Queensland Theatre Company, Resident Director with the Sydney Theatre Company, Artistic Director of Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-Operative and Associate Artistic Director Company B Belvoir St.[3]
The plays that he writes and those he directs deal with issues of Aboriginal culture and the complexities of Australian race relations. Wesley attained prominence with his production of 7 Stages of Grieving (co-written with Deborah Mailman) and then with Jane Harrison's Stolen, which premiered at the Playbox Theatre and went on to tour both nationally and internationally.
His play, Black Medea is based on Euripides' Medea updates the Greek tragedy, giving it an Aboriginal perspective and transporting it to an Australian setting.[4][5] A young Indigenous woman leaves her desert home, denies her culture and forsakes her family to follow her wealthy, city-born lover. But her seeming good fortune soon turns bad, as her loveless marriage to the drunken and violent Jason falls apart. When Medea attempts to leave with their young son, Jason makes her promise that she will never take their child from the house.
His most recent work is RiverlanD, the story of artist, Ian W Abdulla. It juxtaposes the Great Flooding of the Murray River in 1956 with the lives of a contemporary urban Indigenous family. The once mighty river force and the lives of three generations of family are bound together. The production embraces a recreation of spirit and a family's sense of place in the land.
In 2002, Wesley was the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts Cité International des Arts residency in Paris. His The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table won the 2005 Patrick White Playwrights' Award.[6]
On 24 June 2010, Wesley was announced as the new Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company succeeding Michael Gow, taking up his appointment on a part-time basis from July 2010 and then full-time from 2011.[7]