A Beautiful Life by Michael Futcher and Helen Howard, directed by Futcher, was a co-production with Energex Brisbane Festival and Matrix Theatre. Based on a true story about an Iranian immigrant and his family fleeing a nightmare existence to seek ‘a beautiful life’ in Australia, it earned an Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE Awards nomination and was highly praised by most critics. It was hailed by Arts journalist Deborah Jones in The Weekend Australian (September 19-20, 1998) as "One of the Brisbane Festival's biggest hits ... an intense, moving piece of theatre with the added power of being based on a true story." And critic Alison Cotes wrote:
Every now and then a play comes along that moves the world a little with its gentle beauty and searing truth. A Beautiful Life is such a play…This is, quite simply, one of the best local plays I have seen in 20 years. It will make you shudder and rejoice in the same breath, and you will come away with a new appreciation of the fragile freedom we enjoy in this country. (The Courier Mail, 31 August 1998)
Writer: Christine Comans
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