Something serious is happening at the Australian National Playwrights' Conference at the ANU Arts Centre. Most of it is hidden, for very good reasons, behind closed workshop doors, but you can be an outsider looking in, alongside the insiders looking out, by going along to workshop presentations starting on Thursday October 3.
The public program at a glance:
Thursday Oct. 3:
8.30 pm: Blackgammon by Suzanne Ingram (a realistic social exposé of an Aboriginal experience of football and love).
9.30 pm: Cassandra by Daynan Brazil (Cassandra, the prophetess destined to tell the truth but not to be believed, appears at significant moments in history leaving warnings for the future - including ours).
Friday Oct. 4:
2.00 pm: Tear from a Glass Eye by Matt Cameron (a strong psychological drama).
4.00 pm: Transylvania by Richard Bladel (an epic humorous treatment of Tasmania's history as an island of freaks).
7.00 pm: Kingalawuy by Ali Arjibuk (a story of Aboriginal people coping with traditional legends and rituals in the face of white colonisation, from Darwin).
8.30 pm: Into the Fire by Deborah Baley, visiting writer from USA (about a woman in Alaska, unable to cope with the isolation).
Saturday Oct. 5:
1.00 pm: Rita's Lullaby by Merlinda Bobis (a radio play about a girl and boy forced to become prostitute and pickpocket after the violent expulsion of the population of their village by a militia in the Philippines).
2.30 pm: The Governor's Family by Beatrix Christian (moral dilemmas faced by the NSW Governor and his children at the time of Federation - with implications for 2000 and The Republic).
4.30 pm: Rodeo Noir by Andrea Lemon (a humorous play with music about the loneliness and hardship of the women on the rodeo circuit).
Each of these plays is in a different stage of development and some writers will be feeling quite vulnerable in the public gaze. However, discussion after each presentation is the usual thing, so be prepared to watch, listen, learn and have your say with care, knowing that your responses will become part of the final product on a stage somewhere in Australia - or overseas.
The Chair of the ANPC, well-known playwright Stephen Sewell, is working - with students from the Centre for Performing Arts, Adelaide - on finding the right approach for creating a community based musical making the Australia-Asia connection, probably to be performed in a Hindley Street takeover, which should revitalise multiculturalism despite the current political correctedness. There will be a presentation and forum on Thursday at 7.00 pm, though this work is not part of the main conference.
This represents a serious change from days of yore when writers were under contract to come with a script, watch, listen and re-write, while directors and actors got on with the work. Now the actors' responses to Tear from a Glass Eye have sent the writer back to the computer; while for the Filipino bilingual writer Merlinda Bobis, Rita's Lullaby actors are having Tagalog language classes.
Lafe Charlton, Aboriginal actor from traditionally a fishing culture on Stradbroke Island, is facing the harsh realism of the inland NSW experience in Blackgammon, switching to a Kungarakantj traditional man's role from south-west of Darwin in Kingalawuy (while on the side he is involved with Seven Stages of Grieving [by Deborah Mailman and Wesley Enoch] to be presented at the Performing Arts Market after the Conference).
In Rodeo Noir, Valerie Bader is busy learning to yodel; Daynan Brazil is working with director Yaron Lifschitz adding scenes to Cassandra; Odile Le Clezio is studying how to be a 19th Century Tasmanian hermaphrodite called Hercules for Transylvania; in The Governor's Family actors and director are reading to discover all the levels of meaning in the script; and Deborah Bayley has found that Australian actors understand the open spaces and isolation of Alaska better than actors from New York.
The Conference is all about diversity of approaches, celebrating differences, exploring possibilities with actors, directors, dramaturgs and writers working in community. It is a model of the very multiculturalism which Sewell's new musical envisages. If you can get to see some of the presentations, you'll be sure to sense the new directions and the excitement of the ANPC 1996.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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