1993 abc 7.30 Report Venus of Marrickville

john mangos reading opening stanzas of translation of shakespeare's venus and adonis into modern day street language and metaphor, performed with strippers at the oxford tavern in petersham.

k: "it's a poem about seduction"

unsw academic: "there are many people would see it as sacralige, there is no doubt about it", Bruce Johnson, senior lecturer in english literature, UNSW,

"Well he's taking one of the most cannonised authors, shakespeare, and he is bringing it into what is regarded as across the tracks culture, a pub. Bringing it together with drunks, and I'm quite sure there were many drunks who sat in the pits in shakespeare's day. He's bringing it in touch with strippers, and there might have been a few cortisans around the theatres in shakespeare's day too".

"But a certain class has appropriated these canonised works and they're going to feel somewhat betrayed or a bit dirtied by the idea that Shakespeare can be taken into this kind of place.

"In one sense komninos is doing something that is very 'in vogue', that is he is trying to break down the canonisation in art, on the otherhand it seems to, he might be, ha, opening a pandoras box for himself, ha, ha, by the use of women placed on display as strippers".

k: "the poem is about a woman who is a sexual aggressor, and in the situation of the Oxford Tavern, it has been my observation, that the women there have a certain amount of power. I mean the boys are very tough, they are very tough in groups and they might yell out a lot while the stripper is on stage, but if there is a girl in front of them naked, being sexually aggressive they get very intimidated".