The Monthly

April issue on newsstands Monday (online now for subscribers), featuring Sebastian Smee on The Washington Post’s Trumpification, Sally Neighbour on Murray Watt, Kieran Pender on FOI, plus Don Watson, Stephen Romei, Andrea Goldsmith, and much, much more. mnth.ly/Ew2zVHj

Red Stitch’s 11-hour marathon production unites Lawler’s three mid-century plays as a singular masterpiece of Australian drama | Peter Craven mnth.ly/6uyTgg4

Literary collisions are fascinating: two writers landing on the same improbable image at the same time. It doesn’t take long for the market to get involved. But there’s something special when it feels like a cosmic accident. A disturbance in the Force. mnth.ly/YuFkMVt

One day, for instance, my wife found one of her students in tears, inconsolable and unable to participate in rehearsals. Her best friend’s father had been taken away in a van by masked ICE agents. No one had been there to intervene. mnth.ly/L26Enok

His filmography is a medicine cabinet of neuroses, a galaxy of charming monsters driven by jealousy, grief and revenge, who are still beguiling enough to inspire a sentimentality in audiences. None of his films do this better than ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’. mnth.ly/a6yWpNp

Bessette Kennedy is an enduring fashion icon, whose minimalist, seemingly effortless style continues to inspire relentless lobotomised social media and tabloid content attempting, in vain, to teach “quiet luxury” aspirants how to replicate her allure. mnth.ly/icMtLmp

There is something about a snow-covered landscape that fuses with my imagination with a force that is intangible, unknowable and other-worldly. It is also an environment – unique in my life – where my anxieties slip away. mnth.ly/C9NNfNm

Thus, are dark, turbulent, irreconcilable drives reduced to something only a little more querulous and disorderly than a game of bowls. That is the miracle of democracy. mnth.ly/6fAIfAq

When the National Gallery, with three other major museums, decided to postpone a long-planned travelling exhibition devoted to the career of Philip Guston, one of the most influential post–World War II painters, I realised something was badly wrong. mnth.ly/KI7HYTA

The 25th anniversary re-release of Wes Anderson’s Big Hollywood Movie reminds us that, beyond the aesthetics, he is master at writing grief and abandonment with wit | Sinéad Stubbins mnth.ly/s9xJCMm

I imagine my body in the dirt, eaten through with worms, and it is horrific, but it is right too. I imagine billionaires sending their ashes into space, extracting from the Earth one last nutrient that will never be returned to the soil. mnth.ly/p8oWTwj

After almost four years in office, the Albanese government has gone from championing transparency to doubling down on secrecy laws | Kieran Pender #auspol mnth.ly/skaNmp2

If Olympians demonstrate that we quickly become accustomed to astonishing feats, what might a government unafraid of alarming the electorate get done? | Don Watson #auspol mnth.ly/hTqDBgT

The central western town of Barcaldine was the epicentre of the shearers’ strike that led to the formation of the Australian Workers’ Party, the ALP’s forerunner … Maranoa was a working-class electorate loyal to a very different Labor Party to today’s. mnth.ly/p6h4MMQ

“Murray was talking leftist politics while everyone else was chatting up women at the uni bar. He was a leftist firebrand, he wanted a student takeover. He was always talking about what needed to change, about bringing down the system.” mnth.ly/PvJC9CY

Out in Queensland’s far west, it seems, they don’t like change. And yet, the rise of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in recent polls of voter intentions has it identifying Maranoa as one of the seats it will target at the next election. mnth.ly/IwPALhG

“Excessive secrecy in government is directly related to the Liberals having been in power too long,” Whitlam said. “They have a lot to hide.” There were more than a few parallels in a speech Albanese gave while opposition leader, at the end of 2019. mnth.ly/D6Hd0m9

Does Katz’s curse, that she will choose writing over love, mean that she will never be able to have a child? mnth.ly/hmd6FiM

Read more: mnth.ly/vStdwuX

Sixty years ago, the US dropped more than two million tonnes of ordnance on Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, much of which remains unexploded to this day, endangering lives and requiring expert disposal in remote villages | Margaret Simons mnth.ly/X7aHVKY