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192.
A poster designed by Felix Dennis announcing “Oz - A Play From The Transcripts Of The Historic Obscenity Trial”, staged at the Oxford Playhouse, May 23rd-27th, 1972.
Printed in purple and blue on white stock (there was also a black ink on orange paper variant). 54.6x36.9cm.
Felix Dennis’s design features a rearrangement of David Hockney’s nude drawings of the three editors (the originals had been donated by the artist to the ‘Friends of Oz’ campaign), with images of the Honeybunch Kaminski sticker strategically placed.
Prints the statement that “Tickets include street carnival procession before performance and a discussion after the performance with original trial participants including the defendants and leading spokesmen of Right & Left”. The play was written by Oz defence counsel Geoffrey Robertson and based on the proceedings of the trial (he later commented that “The most difficult thing about re-enacting the Oz trial is that it was the sort of life which art cannot imitate”). It was originally performed as a staged reading by the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Buzz Goodbody, and later transferred to the Anderson Theatre in New York as a musical, “The Trials of Oz”, for which Martin Sharp designed the poster.
Faint vertical crease along right edge and some associated light creasing; faint tape ‘ghost’ mark to verso at upper right corner; o/w Near Fine.
