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The Weekend Neos Kosmos : 26 January 2019
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THEATRE 24 THE WEEKEND NEOS KOSMOS | SATURDAY 26 JANUARY 2019 DIGITAL.NEOSKOSMOS.COM Hydra, an amazing island, and a source of inspiration for Leonard Cohen. about the island’s bohemian side Hydra, a play CON STAMOCOSTAS writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift and how their bohemian dream became a Greek Australian tragedy. During the 50's and 60's Hydra's turquoise-blue ocean water had a magnetic effect on bohemians, artists, writers and musicians such as Leonard Cohen. Also seduced were Australian writers and authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift who while living on the island for close to a decade produced some of their greatest literary works. Johnston wrote his Miles Franklin award winning novel, My Brother Jack, on Hydra. Whilst Clift's memoir Peel Me a Lotus is about the couple's early period on the island where she writes about its beauty and how it made her feel physically and spiritually alive. However Clift and Johnston's attempts at a bohemian lifestyle begins S ue Smith's new play, Hydra, tells the story of Australian to unravel and this tumult is explored in a new play Hydra, written by Smith, the coscreenwriter of Oscar winning film, Saving Mr Banks. "Their story stuck with me and represented so many things," Smith told Neos Kosmos. "What it's like for two creative people to live together. What it means as an Australian to expatriate especially in that period. It's also about, and it's still the case today, how the man's career dominates while the female's plays second fiddle. That was the case with George and Charmian. I look at it like a very contemporary phenomenon via a beautiful romantic and mythic tragic love story." Johnston and Clift's attempt to leave behind civilisation and live by the pen on island that was populated by a bohemian colony of expats proved to be a disaster for the couple health and marriage. Even though Hydra was just a short ferry ride from Athens, it was another world. Sue Smith’s new play tells the story of two Australian writers, George Johnston and Charmain Clift. Their story stuck with me and represented so many things Sue Smith "Hydra was a very poor island," Smith says. "They had to import water from Athens. It didn't have sewage. There were no cars and there still isn't. Their plan to earn a living writing just didn't work out. They had three children to support and were in debt to the local grocer. Another reason is that George had contacted Tuberculosis (TB) during his time as war correspondent so he was quite ill." One of the tragic elements of Johnston and Clift's story was their fatal flaws. Johnston drank heavily and was extremely jealous of his younger, attractive wife who yearned to be free of her husband's shackles. "Charmian had an inchoate longing for some kind of freedom that she couldn't quite articulate or achieve and that manifested in sexual freedom," Smiths says. "It's unclear how many affairs she had on Hydra. But she did have two or three and George was obsessively jealous. So a combination of TB, his alcoholism
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