Catholic Schoolgirls by Casey Kurtti, directed by Ian Jeffrey Walker. The Acting Company at The Hawk Theatre, Narrabundah College 8.00 pm April 30 - May 4, 1996.
The Acting Company provides opportunities for young people, post-secondary, to practise the craft of theatre. Quality production values are important, on stage and backstage, since many use this experience towards furthering their careers. The ensemble playing, neat lighting and precise timing that this script requires were all in place in this production.
The script is entertaining, and gave each of the actors - Louise Gaunson, Estelle Muspratt, Bridget Rainey and Rohini Sharma - the chance to show a developing childhood character and a middle-aged teaching sister in a Catholic Primary / Junior High school in New York. In this society the social division between Jews and Catholics is represented symbolically: Jews attend public schools; Catholics attend Catholic schools. Philosophically, the central issue for the girls is whether or not Jesus was a Jew.
Perhaps this production might have emphasised the darker ironies of the religious institution in which the nun's word is the Word of God, while sarcasm is the common teaching tool and obsequious thanks are given to the parents who provide the most financial support. However the script really wouldn't support too much weight. The regularly spaced one-liners keep us too amused. Only the description by Colleen, which I thought Louise Gaunson did very well, of the humiliation of her first menstruation, had a solid impact. The ending, in which Elizabeth (Rohini Sharma) explains that the play is just her half-forgotten memories stimulated by a dream, undercuts, I think, the possibility of exploring the harsh reality of the guilt engendered in such a prejudicial education.
The Acting Company has turned a rather too thin script into a successful production exercise, but I would like to see these often very good actors given greater challenges.
© Frank McKone
Tuesday, 30 April 1996
Monday, 29 April 1996
1996: The Plough and the Stars by Sean O'Casey
The Plough and the Stars by Sean O'Casey. Irish Community Players at Canberra Irish Club, directed by Ian Phillips. Amateur. April 29 - May 2, 1996.
This production had three key elements: the warmth of the Irish community; the sincerity of the actors, untrained though they are; and the dramatic power of one of their own, Sean O'Casey, among the great playwrights of this century.
The play started late, but no matter. Convivial conversation flowed around the club room, a simple open space with a low stage, naturally hushing as the conversation began on stage. Laughter was in recognition of the satirical rendition of Dubliners who would rather talk than act. While the play inexorably drags us into the realisation that action leads only to disaster. It was difficult for amateurs to sustain every irony and maintain O'Casey's subtle pacing, but still the final undeserved death brought me to tears.
Here is a play which belongs to a particular community, dealing with one tragic event - the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin - but the universal resonances cannot be escaped in a time of mass murder in this country, "accidental" bombing of a safe haven in Lebanon, refusal to allow people to visit graves of family members killed in the war in Bosnia. Ian Phillips notes that though O'Casey was a republican, he did not want to see an Ireland "fit for only heroes to live in".
Seeing this play has made me remember that theatre is not about display. Skilled acting and production techniques are wonderful to watch, but the essence of theatre is drawing from the depths of community a commitment to a better understanding of reality. "Heroes" are usually impervious to such thinking, but I like to believe that O'Casey's plays over seventy years have helped to bring some peace to Ireland. I thank the Irish Community for a rewarding experience.
© Frank McKone
This production had three key elements: the warmth of the Irish community; the sincerity of the actors, untrained though they are; and the dramatic power of one of their own, Sean O'Casey, among the great playwrights of this century.
The play started late, but no matter. Convivial conversation flowed around the club room, a simple open space with a low stage, naturally hushing as the conversation began on stage. Laughter was in recognition of the satirical rendition of Dubliners who would rather talk than act. While the play inexorably drags us into the realisation that action leads only to disaster. It was difficult for amateurs to sustain every irony and maintain O'Casey's subtle pacing, but still the final undeserved death brought me to tears.
Here is a play which belongs to a particular community, dealing with one tragic event - the Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin - but the universal resonances cannot be escaped in a time of mass murder in this country, "accidental" bombing of a safe haven in Lebanon, refusal to allow people to visit graves of family members killed in the war in Bosnia. Ian Phillips notes that though O'Casey was a republican, he did not want to see an Ireland "fit for only heroes to live in".
Seeing this play has made me remember that theatre is not about display. Skilled acting and production techniques are wonderful to watch, but the essence of theatre is drawing from the depths of community a commitment to a better understanding of reality. "Heroes" are usually impervious to such thinking, but I like to believe that O'Casey's plays over seventy years have helped to bring some peace to Ireland. I thank the Irish Community for a rewarding experience.
© Frank McKone
Wednesday, 10 April 1996
1996: The Black Sequin Dress by Jenny Kemp
The Black Sequin Dress, written and directed by Jenny Kemp. A Playbox co-production with Adelaide Festival. Canberra Theatre, April 10 - 13. Professional.
"Undine thought reassuringly to herself, A follows C which follows B which follows A ... Everything follows ... But there was a moment in the story ..." Undine, after seven years confined by the brick walls of suburbia "with its logical A.B.C.D.", escapes for one possibly exciting, almost frightening evening to a nightclub. On an ice-like floor, embarrassment overwhelms her as her new dance shoes slip away. With no support, emotionally naked, all her worst fears and fantasies come to life as she lies exposed. A minor event in the real world triggers all the chaos of her imagination. Here is a drama of moment about a moment, constructed in all the elements of theatre: sound, light, movement; silence, darkness, stillness.
T.S.Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton "Except for the point, the still point, / there would be no dance. / I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where." The Black Sequin Dress expresses the same idea in a theatrical form which Jenny Kemp has created from her response to surrealism in visual art, particularly the work of the Belgian artist Paul Delvaux. Here we see glimpses of Russell Drysdale's outback isolated woman; we hear snatches of the broken everlasting continuity of the music of Phillip Glass; we understand Undine's suburban terror. At the still moment when she would dance, everything falls away. A significant experience suddenly becomes nothing.
We are viewers and auditors of Undine's inner and outer experiences, though we cannot always be sure which is which. We find humour in sympathy with her at times in recognition of our own foibles and strengths. This is a play in the proper sense: a play on words in words, music and visual effects which plays with our imaginations. It is an intellectual and emotional mystery which can be unravelled only into further tangles, just as in real life. This is not ordinary entertainment, but rather an extra-ordinary twist in modern, recognisably Australian drama which you should not miss. It is a work-in-progress as drama in this country struggles out of the suburbia of naturalism and plot into the less predictable, more dangerous and more exciting world of new theatrical forms.
© Frank McKone
"Undine thought reassuringly to herself, A follows C which follows B which follows A ... Everything follows ... But there was a moment in the story ..." Undine, after seven years confined by the brick walls of suburbia "with its logical A.B.C.D.", escapes for one possibly exciting, almost frightening evening to a nightclub. On an ice-like floor, embarrassment overwhelms her as her new dance shoes slip away. With no support, emotionally naked, all her worst fears and fantasies come to life as she lies exposed. A minor event in the real world triggers all the chaos of her imagination. Here is a drama of moment about a moment, constructed in all the elements of theatre: sound, light, movement; silence, darkness, stillness.
T.S.Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton "Except for the point, the still point, / there would be no dance. / I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where." The Black Sequin Dress expresses the same idea in a theatrical form which Jenny Kemp has created from her response to surrealism in visual art, particularly the work of the Belgian artist Paul Delvaux. Here we see glimpses of Russell Drysdale's outback isolated woman; we hear snatches of the broken everlasting continuity of the music of Phillip Glass; we understand Undine's suburban terror. At the still moment when she would dance, everything falls away. A significant experience suddenly becomes nothing.
We are viewers and auditors of Undine's inner and outer experiences, though we cannot always be sure which is which. We find humour in sympathy with her at times in recognition of our own foibles and strengths. This is a play in the proper sense: a play on words in words, music and visual effects which plays with our imaginations. It is an intellectual and emotional mystery which can be unravelled only into further tangles, just as in real life. This is not ordinary entertainment, but rather an extra-ordinary twist in modern, recognisably Australian drama which you should not miss. It is a work-in-progress as drama in this country struggles out of the suburbia of naturalism and plot into the less predictable, more dangerous and more exciting world of new theatrical forms.
© Frank McKone
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