First Choice - Week 1. Canberra Youth Theatre at Gorman House. December 5 - 7, 1996. Love Puke by Duncan Sarkies and Icarus' Mother by Sam Shepard.
These productions, and the Week 2 program (December 12-14) of Five Visits from Mister Whitcomb by Carter L. Bays and The Balcony by Jean Genet, are "an experiment; 2 professional tutors, 30 odd young people, no budget. Each play was co-directed by a young cast member while David Branson and I (Robin Davidson) divided our time between several groups and production management." Branson writes: "Each script has its own demands, the major decisions with all the work was made by the young people themselves. I think it has been valuable for us in terms of handing authority to the members." If this is an experiment, then it has been done many times before, and indeed is a common process in our secondary colleges.
By chance I have seen rehearsals and performances in three colleges recently, including a much more sophisticated Love Puke, also directed by a student. This play is a neat very stylish satire about sexual relationships, but the Youth Theatre cast, co-directed by Naomi Milthorpe, did not understand clearly the need for polished timing and most were too young to carry the sexuality required. They played sincerely, but this script demands more than they could be expected to give.
Jess Baxter and her cast did much better with Icarus' Mother - but I wish in the program they could have spelt Sam Shepard's name correctly. This is performed outdoors, so watch out for storms. The play is in the Samuel Beckett tradition, and I thought the directing found a good level at the beginning, with silences and implications being made with or sometimes deliberately without eye contact. However the actors were not able to maintain their first strength of focus, but still did a creditable performance.
I'm not sure, after watching these productions, what Canberra Youth Theatre is offering different from secondary college drama programs. Maybe I expected more evidence of skills training and greater sophistication from an institution with a longer history than the colleges and drawing people from across the whole Canberra region. Maybe the colleges have simply caught up.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 5 December 1996
Monday 11 November 1996
1996: Feature article on The Choreographic Centre
The Choreographic Centre at Gorman House Arts Centre. Public program November 24 - December 8, 1996. Bookings: 247 3103
The Minister for the Arts, Gary Humphries, will officiate at the celebration of the opening of The Choreographic Centre on Tuesday November 26 at 6.00 pm.
In the past Canberra has driven a hard bargain with modern professional dancers. Leading choreographers have been based here - Don Asker (Human Veins), Meryl Tankard, Sue Healey (Vis a Vis) - but a small town attitude, combined perhaps with a Hansonesque favouring of an ethnic European dance form (classical ballet), has put up the xenophobic barriers as if these original companies of national and international standing were somehow imposed on the local culture. They justifiably felt they never really belonged - and moved on.
In fact there has always been a local Board, chaired currently by Andrew Goledzinowski, which has now taken a new, exciting and Canberra-friendly direction. Instead of employing another artistic director with a personal creative agenda, the Board has created The Choreographic Centre, bringing dance/drama/media multi-personality Mark Gordon from the National Theatre, Melbourne, to be director.
Originally trained at Rusden College as a teacher, starting off in Drama and Media and taking advantage of the new Dance course back in the mid 70's, Gordon was selected from a remarkable field of candidates. The Board was assisted in its decision by Don Asker and Sue Street who is head of dance at Queensland University of Technology.
Gordon is best known within the dance community as the past Executive Officer of Ausdance Victoria, but he has also served as Assistant to the Artistic Director at Tasdance, on the Board of the Green Mill Dance Project, and as a teacher at Deakin University, the National Theatre Ballet School and the Dance Factory. With this history, and a sympathetic administrator in Gavin Findlay, Gordon has initiated a very significant change for professional dance, beginning with a program in three parts.
Part One is called Unchoreographed: Trotman & Morrish in Residence. Andrew Trotman presents a Dance Therapy Workshop ($10) Sunday November 24 (3 - 6 pm), and a free Research Forum November 29 (11 am). Peter Morrish offers a Squirmy Darting Workshop: computer driven dance improvisation for everybody (free) November 25 (7 pm). Together they will conduct an Improvisation Workshop ($20) November 30 and December 1, 10 am - 4 pm, and there are open rehearsals at 4 pm on November 28 and 30.
As well, you can see Trotman & Morrish perform Unchoreographed, consisting of five linked improvisations, Wednesday November 27 to Sunday December 1 (6 pm) for only $5 each day. Here is a cheap and exciting way to see, learn about and become involved in one of the recent focus points in modern dance - improvisation in performance. This will shake you out of the classical mould.
Part Two contains two Choreographic Addresses and the first of the Centre's Fellowship programs. Shirley McKechnie OAM, Patron of the Centre, speaks on Another Season, Another Shore (November 27, 8 pm) and Sandra Parker discusses The Performance of Disappearance (December 2, 7 pm). The ideas and issues embedded in dance as an art form need to be articulated - here is your opportunity.
Stephanie Burridge gets due, maybe overdue, recognition. Her Fellowship gives her six weeks in the studio, developing new work (exploring the theme "Islands") with dancers Jonathan Rees-Osborne, Patrick Harding-Irmer, Lisa Ffrench and Amalia Hordern. Titled Drafts and Sketches, this work in progress can be seen on November 29-30 and December 1 at 8 pm. This is a pilot fellowship, which will examine the process of Centre fellowships: what kinds of outcomes can be expected; how should the artist and the Centre relate to each other. An observer group of local dance artists and commentators will evaluate the pilot to help structure future fellowships.
In Part Three we see Finished Works, examining choreographic achievement over three decades. Elizabeth Cameron Dalman performs her own work from the 1970's - showing how the artistic context, including the artist herself, has changed. Fiona Cullen dances work by Helen Herbertson from the 1980's. Brett Daffy presents a re-working of his first professional piece from earlier in the 1990's. Helen Herbertson will show her current solo work; while Paul Shembri will dance a piece by Kim Vincs created in October 1996. You can see open rehearsals on December 2 (8 pm) and 3 (4 pm and 8 pm) with a student preview on December 4 (8 pm), and the final performances ($10) on December 5 - 6 (8 pm), December 7 (2 pm and 8 pm) and December 8 (2 pm and 5 pm).
If you are putting all this in your diary, you'll realise that the Choreographic Centre is providing a remarkably cheap and fascinating festival of dance for two weeks. Mark Gordon makes it abundantly clear that his task is a kind of healing process, designed to bring together the local and out-of-town professionals for the benefit of Canberra audiences and students - and ultimately as a centre of excellence in the national scene. Funding for the current program is 50/50 Australia Council and ACT Cultural Council - and for the future needs not only a similar level of support as the previous companies received from government but active support from local people as audiences, participants and sponsors.
The concept of the Centre is to see modern dance (post post-modern) as we see multiculturalism. Each form of dance is valid in its own right, from "release dance", through post-modern dance, cross-cultural forms, jazz ballet, to modern ballet and classical ballet; not excluding ethnic and folk dance. You can see Gordon's background in Ausdance shining through: no longer is modern dance essentially a line of progressive development from Americans like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and their offspring all around the world: be eclectic, says Mark Gordon.
Sally Bane wrote in 1980 "Modern dance identifies itself as aesthetic" - as opposed to being merely entertaining. The work of Canberra's new research and development centre in dance - the Choreographic Centre - is certainly focussed on the aesthetic, in the knowledge that this means entertainment of the most satisfying kind. The door of the Centre is literally always open to new ways; dance here is most surely not elitist or exclusivist: accessibility is the keynote. This is the excitement of this new beginning in Canberra dance: the marriage of the educative, the innovative and the entertaining at the fully professional level.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Minister for the Arts, Gary Humphries, will officiate at the celebration of the opening of The Choreographic Centre on Tuesday November 26 at 6.00 pm.
In the past Canberra has driven a hard bargain with modern professional dancers. Leading choreographers have been based here - Don Asker (Human Veins), Meryl Tankard, Sue Healey (Vis a Vis) - but a small town attitude, combined perhaps with a Hansonesque favouring of an ethnic European dance form (classical ballet), has put up the xenophobic barriers as if these original companies of national and international standing were somehow imposed on the local culture. They justifiably felt they never really belonged - and moved on.
In fact there has always been a local Board, chaired currently by Andrew Goledzinowski, which has now taken a new, exciting and Canberra-friendly direction. Instead of employing another artistic director with a personal creative agenda, the Board has created The Choreographic Centre, bringing dance/drama/media multi-personality Mark Gordon from the National Theatre, Melbourne, to be director.
Originally trained at Rusden College as a teacher, starting off in Drama and Media and taking advantage of the new Dance course back in the mid 70's, Gordon was selected from a remarkable field of candidates. The Board was assisted in its decision by Don Asker and Sue Street who is head of dance at Queensland University of Technology.
Gordon is best known within the dance community as the past Executive Officer of Ausdance Victoria, but he has also served as Assistant to the Artistic Director at Tasdance, on the Board of the Green Mill Dance Project, and as a teacher at Deakin University, the National Theatre Ballet School and the Dance Factory. With this history, and a sympathetic administrator in Gavin Findlay, Gordon has initiated a very significant change for professional dance, beginning with a program in three parts.
Part One is called Unchoreographed: Trotman & Morrish in Residence. Andrew Trotman presents a Dance Therapy Workshop ($10) Sunday November 24 (3 - 6 pm), and a free Research Forum November 29 (11 am). Peter Morrish offers a Squirmy Darting Workshop: computer driven dance improvisation for everybody (free) November 25 (7 pm). Together they will conduct an Improvisation Workshop ($20) November 30 and December 1, 10 am - 4 pm, and there are open rehearsals at 4 pm on November 28 and 30.
As well, you can see Trotman & Morrish perform Unchoreographed, consisting of five linked improvisations, Wednesday November 27 to Sunday December 1 (6 pm) for only $5 each day. Here is a cheap and exciting way to see, learn about and become involved in one of the recent focus points in modern dance - improvisation in performance. This will shake you out of the classical mould.
Part Two contains two Choreographic Addresses and the first of the Centre's Fellowship programs. Shirley McKechnie OAM, Patron of the Centre, speaks on Another Season, Another Shore (November 27, 8 pm) and Sandra Parker discusses The Performance of Disappearance (December 2, 7 pm). The ideas and issues embedded in dance as an art form need to be articulated - here is your opportunity.
Stephanie Burridge gets due, maybe overdue, recognition. Her Fellowship gives her six weeks in the studio, developing new work (exploring the theme "Islands") with dancers Jonathan Rees-Osborne, Patrick Harding-Irmer, Lisa Ffrench and Amalia Hordern. Titled Drafts and Sketches, this work in progress can be seen on November 29-30 and December 1 at 8 pm. This is a pilot fellowship, which will examine the process of Centre fellowships: what kinds of outcomes can be expected; how should the artist and the Centre relate to each other. An observer group of local dance artists and commentators will evaluate the pilot to help structure future fellowships.
In Part Three we see Finished Works, examining choreographic achievement over three decades. Elizabeth Cameron Dalman performs her own work from the 1970's - showing how the artistic context, including the artist herself, has changed. Fiona Cullen dances work by Helen Herbertson from the 1980's. Brett Daffy presents a re-working of his first professional piece from earlier in the 1990's. Helen Herbertson will show her current solo work; while Paul Shembri will dance a piece by Kim Vincs created in October 1996. You can see open rehearsals on December 2 (8 pm) and 3 (4 pm and 8 pm) with a student preview on December 4 (8 pm), and the final performances ($10) on December 5 - 6 (8 pm), December 7 (2 pm and 8 pm) and December 8 (2 pm and 5 pm).
If you are putting all this in your diary, you'll realise that the Choreographic Centre is providing a remarkably cheap and fascinating festival of dance for two weeks. Mark Gordon makes it abundantly clear that his task is a kind of healing process, designed to bring together the local and out-of-town professionals for the benefit of Canberra audiences and students - and ultimately as a centre of excellence in the national scene. Funding for the current program is 50/50 Australia Council and ACT Cultural Council - and for the future needs not only a similar level of support as the previous companies received from government but active support from local people as audiences, participants and sponsors.
The concept of the Centre is to see modern dance (post post-modern) as we see multiculturalism. Each form of dance is valid in its own right, from "release dance", through post-modern dance, cross-cultural forms, jazz ballet, to modern ballet and classical ballet; not excluding ethnic and folk dance. You can see Gordon's background in Ausdance shining through: no longer is modern dance essentially a line of progressive development from Americans like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and their offspring all around the world: be eclectic, says Mark Gordon.
Sally Bane wrote in 1980 "Modern dance identifies itself as aesthetic" - as opposed to being merely entertaining. The work of Canberra's new research and development centre in dance - the Choreographic Centre - is certainly focussed on the aesthetic, in the knowledge that this means entertainment of the most satisfying kind. The door of the Centre is literally always open to new ways; dance here is most surely not elitist or exclusivist: accessibility is the keynote. This is the excitement of this new beginning in Canberra dance: the marriage of the educative, the innovative and the entertaining at the fully professional level.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 6 November 1996
1996: Sanctimony by Joe Woodward
Sanctimony written and directed by Joe Woodward. Music by Dirk Zeylmans and Jeff Evans. The Street Theatre Studio November 6 - 10 and 12 - 16, 1996, 6.30 and/or 9.30 pm. Professional.
This is a personal and public commentary by Joe Woodward designed to expose the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Public Service. The manic stress-related breakdown of Bede Rashamon, knowing the truth of the inner sanctum of the Department of Spiritual Affirmation and doubting the reality of his role as Chief Overseer, is represented wonderfully in a jazz/rap fusion break dance - a mimed culmination of Woodward's acting skills.
Bede is "replaced by a younger woman", Chess Reason, played by Melinda Donnell with exactly the right degree of cold calculation. She is a singer of range and power; while Dirk Zeylmans van Emmichoven fades expertly in and out of a warm blues saxophone and the black role of Predator Kite, playing the Perseus myth - "the bird pecking at my torso, ripping into my innards". Chess has reached the bureaucratic peak because she can talk, but can she survive the secret knowledge - the real truth - known only to the inner circle?
Sanctimony is an exciting expressionistic work - humorous, satirical and sad. It's a script which still needs trimming, partly because it deals with many layers of ideas and the thread attenuates sometimes; and partly because the dramatic form needs clarifying, especially in the first half. It is a brave and worthwhile play because of the risks Woodward has taken. I saw the first night of new experimental theatre, mixing live acting, band and singer, with live and recorded video, a computer whose typist was not allowed to see the secret material on the screen, and brief but significant audience participation.
No wonder the focus was fuzzy for a while, but in the end the message comes through: "Be honest with yourself, lest others be honest for you." Even I come in for a slice from the razor gang: "Who are these critics - these self-appointed guardians of our lives?" Well, this critic says "Go and see for yourself. You'll arrive sanctimonious, but you'll leave a better person." After all what more could you ask from good theatre?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a personal and public commentary by Joe Woodward designed to expose the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Public Service. The manic stress-related breakdown of Bede Rashamon, knowing the truth of the inner sanctum of the Department of Spiritual Affirmation and doubting the reality of his role as Chief Overseer, is represented wonderfully in a jazz/rap fusion break dance - a mimed culmination of Woodward's acting skills.
Bede is "replaced by a younger woman", Chess Reason, played by Melinda Donnell with exactly the right degree of cold calculation. She is a singer of range and power; while Dirk Zeylmans van Emmichoven fades expertly in and out of a warm blues saxophone and the black role of Predator Kite, playing the Perseus myth - "the bird pecking at my torso, ripping into my innards". Chess has reached the bureaucratic peak because she can talk, but can she survive the secret knowledge - the real truth - known only to the inner circle?
Sanctimony is an exciting expressionistic work - humorous, satirical and sad. It's a script which still needs trimming, partly because it deals with many layers of ideas and the thread attenuates sometimes; and partly because the dramatic form needs clarifying, especially in the first half. It is a brave and worthwhile play because of the risks Woodward has taken. I saw the first night of new experimental theatre, mixing live acting, band and singer, with live and recorded video, a computer whose typist was not allowed to see the secret material on the screen, and brief but significant audience participation.
No wonder the focus was fuzzy for a while, but in the end the message comes through: "Be honest with yourself, lest others be honest for you." Even I come in for a slice from the razor gang: "Who are these critics - these self-appointed guardians of our lives?" Well, this critic says "Go and see for yourself. You'll arrive sanctimonious, but you'll leave a better person." After all what more could you ask from good theatre?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 31 October 1996
1996: One for the Road by Harold Pinter
One for the Road by Harold Pinter. Paradox Theatre Company at the Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, Gorman House Arts Centre. Directed by Belinda Pearson. October 31 - November 2 and November 6 - 9, 1996, 8.00 pm. All proceeds to support Amnesty International.
This is a short play - barely 40 minutes - but the combination of Pinter's honesty and writing skills with the clarity of characterisation achieved particularly by Phil Roberts, as Nicolas the interrogator, makes this production one you should not miss. It's a confronting play because you come away understanding how a torturer thinks. I'm glad it didn't last longer because I was ready to break all my principles of non-violence: I could easily have shot that interrogator if someone had handed me the gun.
Pinter has said "I'm aware that I do possess two things. One is that I'm quite violent myself....On the other hand, however, I'm quite reticent." He has used this self-knowledge in creating Nicolas, who we see interrogating a man, his wife and their son - each separately. Torture is the norm, happening off-stage before and after each interview. The reality which Amnesty International confronts every day in probably 90 countries around the world is made real for us in the theatre in the slippery character of Nicolas.
This is a brave production for Amnesty for it forces us to come to terms with the effort we must make to turn around the figures from 1995: 85 countries holding prisoners of conscience; 46,000 people held without charge; 27 countries imprisoning people after unfair trials; 10,000 people subjected to torture including 4,500 who died in custody in 54 countries; 63 countries where people were executed without trial; 140,000 people in 49 countries who have 'disappeared'; 2,900 people executed in 41 countries which still impose the death penalty.
Intelligent direction of Pinter's tightly controlled, carefully stylised dialogue has created spine-chilling tension. I would like this play to be put on as inservice training in every police station and prison in the country: our own human rights record is not yet perfect - enacting this torturer before those who hold such power daily, in Paradox's minimal setting, must help change the dark side of our culture.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a short play - barely 40 minutes - but the combination of Pinter's honesty and writing skills with the clarity of characterisation achieved particularly by Phil Roberts, as Nicolas the interrogator, makes this production one you should not miss. It's a confronting play because you come away understanding how a torturer thinks. I'm glad it didn't last longer because I was ready to break all my principles of non-violence: I could easily have shot that interrogator if someone had handed me the gun.
Pinter has said "I'm aware that I do possess two things. One is that I'm quite violent myself....On the other hand, however, I'm quite reticent." He has used this self-knowledge in creating Nicolas, who we see interrogating a man, his wife and their son - each separately. Torture is the norm, happening off-stage before and after each interview. The reality which Amnesty International confronts every day in probably 90 countries around the world is made real for us in the theatre in the slippery character of Nicolas.
This is a brave production for Amnesty for it forces us to come to terms with the effort we must make to turn around the figures from 1995: 85 countries holding prisoners of conscience; 46,000 people held without charge; 27 countries imprisoning people after unfair trials; 10,000 people subjected to torture including 4,500 who died in custody in 54 countries; 63 countries where people were executed without trial; 140,000 people in 49 countries who have 'disappeared'; 2,900 people executed in 41 countries which still impose the death penalty.
Intelligent direction of Pinter's tightly controlled, carefully stylised dialogue has created spine-chilling tension. I would like this play to be put on as inservice training in every police station and prison in the country: our own human rights record is not yet perfect - enacting this torturer before those who hold such power daily, in Paradox's minimal setting, must help change the dark side of our culture.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 28 October 1996
1996: Preview for The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. The Looking Glass Theatre, directed by Nicholas Bolonkin. The Street Theatre, November 2 - 9, 1996, 8 pm (matinees Sunday 3rd and Saturday 9th, 3 pm).
"The skull beneath the skin" is where you will begin with this revenge thriller, opening on Saturday. Where you will end is being emotionally stirred, intellectually challenged and thoroughly entertained, if Nicholas Bolonkin achieves his aims. The Looking Glass Theatre has already had great success with its Shakespeare Festival productions. As William's career was concluding with The Tempest in 1612, John Webster was writing "passionate tragedies of love and political intrigue in Renaissance Italy, full of horror and exceptional cruelty, but validated by the macabre power of imagination, the dramatic force of their greatest scenes and the beauty of their poetry."
Will you have to pretend to be 400 years old to enjoy this play? The answer is both yes and no. Bolonkin is almost a Renaissance figure himself - an Honours graduate in Chemistry who finds it necessary to study for an Arts degree with Drama, because of "all those productions I've seen which make me want to tear my hair out!" He says he is a cynic, befitting our post-1980s times, when Bond, Skase et al tear the social fabric for their personal gain and politicians speak mealy-mouthed about social values while getting into bed with big business here and internationally. Just as we may mourn today the possibilities of the 1970s, so, according to Bolonkin, Webster's conception was "Our Virgin Queen [Elizabeth I] is dead - our new King [James I] is a poof - our World is going to End."
Rather than ask you to transport yourself so far back in time, Bolonkin has found the 19th Century's obsession with sex and death exactly parallels Webster's time - and ours. The connection is in science: the need to codify, classify and catalogue every little detail in the encyclopaedias of the 1850s produced exquisite drawings - images of scientific precision and neurotic obsession which we feel are part of our world yet connect us back to the world of Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. So Phil Rolfe has produced huge visual images crisply front-projected on three screens, with more subliminal effects on the cyclorama, all designed to focus the intensity of the play. Entertained you will be, but be prepared not to be squeamish. The skull beneath the skin will be laid bare.
Talking to Nicholas Bolonkin is exciting, for here maybe, at last, is the energy and intellectual drive coming from the ANU for which Canberra theatre has been hungry for fifty years. Somehow, this city, for so many of those years a swag of public servants alongside one of the top research institutions, cringed to the Sydney/Melbourne world of theatre. Perhaps this was because the research was so centred on science, and the practical arts have been fogged in like a Canberra winter's morning - the sun was shining above, but hidden. Bolonkin crosses the boundaries, a cynic with a purpose, demystifying history.
Webster's play may be a revenge tragedy; I suspect Bolonkin's production will be the cynic's revenge. In the 1990s we are gradually becoming inured not just to violence, sex and death but to the underlying belief that we can always get away with just a little bit more - until evil overreaches itself, and finally everything collapses. It will be ironic to be entertained by The Duchess of Malfi as our World goes towards its End.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"The skull beneath the skin" is where you will begin with this revenge thriller, opening on Saturday. Where you will end is being emotionally stirred, intellectually challenged and thoroughly entertained, if Nicholas Bolonkin achieves his aims. The Looking Glass Theatre has already had great success with its Shakespeare Festival productions. As William's career was concluding with The Tempest in 1612, John Webster was writing "passionate tragedies of love and political intrigue in Renaissance Italy, full of horror and exceptional cruelty, but validated by the macabre power of imagination, the dramatic force of their greatest scenes and the beauty of their poetry."
Will you have to pretend to be 400 years old to enjoy this play? The answer is both yes and no. Bolonkin is almost a Renaissance figure himself - an Honours graduate in Chemistry who finds it necessary to study for an Arts degree with Drama, because of "all those productions I've seen which make me want to tear my hair out!" He says he is a cynic, befitting our post-1980s times, when Bond, Skase et al tear the social fabric for their personal gain and politicians speak mealy-mouthed about social values while getting into bed with big business here and internationally. Just as we may mourn today the possibilities of the 1970s, so, according to Bolonkin, Webster's conception was "Our Virgin Queen [Elizabeth I] is dead - our new King [James I] is a poof - our World is going to End."
Rather than ask you to transport yourself so far back in time, Bolonkin has found the 19th Century's obsession with sex and death exactly parallels Webster's time - and ours. The connection is in science: the need to codify, classify and catalogue every little detail in the encyclopaedias of the 1850s produced exquisite drawings - images of scientific precision and neurotic obsession which we feel are part of our world yet connect us back to the world of Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. So Phil Rolfe has produced huge visual images crisply front-projected on three screens, with more subliminal effects on the cyclorama, all designed to focus the intensity of the play. Entertained you will be, but be prepared not to be squeamish. The skull beneath the skin will be laid bare.
Talking to Nicholas Bolonkin is exciting, for here maybe, at last, is the energy and intellectual drive coming from the ANU for which Canberra theatre has been hungry for fifty years. Somehow, this city, for so many of those years a swag of public servants alongside one of the top research institutions, cringed to the Sydney/Melbourne world of theatre. Perhaps this was because the research was so centred on science, and the practical arts have been fogged in like a Canberra winter's morning - the sun was shining above, but hidden. Bolonkin crosses the boundaries, a cynic with a purpose, demystifying history.
Webster's play may be a revenge tragedy; I suspect Bolonkin's production will be the cynic's revenge. In the 1990s we are gradually becoming inured not just to violence, sex and death but to the underlying belief that we can always get away with just a little bit more - until evil overreaches itself, and finally everything collapses. It will be ironic to be entertained by The Duchess of Malfi as our World goes towards its End.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 18 October 1996
1996: Feature article "Lunch in the Scarth Room" with Company Skylark
Lunch in the Scarth Room. Company Skylark at University House. October 18, 1996. Very professional. Co-ordination by Mark Soulsby and Rae Teasdale.
This was a low-key high-powered performance, starring Skylark Patron Bob McMullan with Chairperson Judy Tier, Artistic Director Peter Wilson and well-known playwright John Romeril, touching base over lasagne with Colin Mackenzie (EPVAT from DEFAT), David Williams (ACDU), Cathy Winters (Canberra Festival Director), Rob Brookman (Festival of Australian Theatre Director), Boris Kelly (freelance theatre and film maker, currently with projects in Belgium and Ireland) and, last but certainly not least, with their major sponsors Ansett Australia and Ten Capital Television.
Acronyms are apocryphal, but EPVAT is about the performing and visual arts touring overseas, with a special emphasis on our Asian region. The program aims to make Australia synonymous with high quality productions in Asian nations, building up a regular clientele for our touring companies. ACDU is our local government Arts and Cultural Development Unit: between EPVAT and ACDU lies the field of action for Company Skylark.
If you are a company with an audience base here in Canberra and touring Australia and overseas, what better sponsors than an airline for travel deals and local television for advertising support. Puppets may seem like playthings on stage, but behind the scenes Max Mercer at Ansett has kept them on the move since 1995, while Ten Capital's Bronwyn Barrett will be highlighting three Skylark shows as well as giving overall support through 1997. Cathy Winters suggested that corporations are beginning to realise the benefits, to themselves and the arts companies, of long term (3 or 5 year) sponsorships - maybe Ansett has already set the mood for Skylark.
Bob McMullan spoke - sitting down informally in contrast to the stance required in the House - about the role of government in the arts. As an ex-Minister for the Arts, he felt satisfied that governments should not be involved in what people create and perform, but should provide the infrastructure for supply, helping create demand and systems for distribution of the arts. He saw Playing Australia as crucial to the interchange of the arts among the cities and country areas of Australia - a two-way approach which, for example, saw Dance North assisted to perform in Sydney before Sydney productions toured to the regions. He believed Australia needs a strong intra-national arts culture - only on this basis can we succeed internationally. For this reason, he supports the proper maintenance of the ABC, the source of cultural leadership, and the systematic funding of the film industry (not the simplistic tax-break system which created films like Coolangatta Gold) because the broad-range attraction of film creates spin-offs for the rest of the performing arts. Shine, only one example, has engendered a series of popular concert performances by David Helfgott.
The program of new work and old favourites for 1997 is exciting, particularly because John Romeril's new work, Love's Suicide, derived from 18th Century Japanese theatre, is a co-operative effort between Skylark and Playbox in Melbourne, with a 6 week season planned in November/December. Rich fare at lunch, indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This was a low-key high-powered performance, starring Skylark Patron Bob McMullan with Chairperson Judy Tier, Artistic Director Peter Wilson and well-known playwright John Romeril, touching base over lasagne with Colin Mackenzie (EPVAT from DEFAT), David Williams (ACDU), Cathy Winters (Canberra Festival Director), Rob Brookman (Festival of Australian Theatre Director), Boris Kelly (freelance theatre and film maker, currently with projects in Belgium and Ireland) and, last but certainly not least, with their major sponsors Ansett Australia and Ten Capital Television.
Acronyms are apocryphal, but EPVAT is about the performing and visual arts touring overseas, with a special emphasis on our Asian region. The program aims to make Australia synonymous with high quality productions in Asian nations, building up a regular clientele for our touring companies. ACDU is our local government Arts and Cultural Development Unit: between EPVAT and ACDU lies the field of action for Company Skylark.
If you are a company with an audience base here in Canberra and touring Australia and overseas, what better sponsors than an airline for travel deals and local television for advertising support. Puppets may seem like playthings on stage, but behind the scenes Max Mercer at Ansett has kept them on the move since 1995, while Ten Capital's Bronwyn Barrett will be highlighting three Skylark shows as well as giving overall support through 1997. Cathy Winters suggested that corporations are beginning to realise the benefits, to themselves and the arts companies, of long term (3 or 5 year) sponsorships - maybe Ansett has already set the mood for Skylark.
Bob McMullan spoke - sitting down informally in contrast to the stance required in the House - about the role of government in the arts. As an ex-Minister for the Arts, he felt satisfied that governments should not be involved in what people create and perform, but should provide the infrastructure for supply, helping create demand and systems for distribution of the arts. He saw Playing Australia as crucial to the interchange of the arts among the cities and country areas of Australia - a two-way approach which, for example, saw Dance North assisted to perform in Sydney before Sydney productions toured to the regions. He believed Australia needs a strong intra-national arts culture - only on this basis can we succeed internationally. For this reason, he supports the proper maintenance of the ABC, the source of cultural leadership, and the systematic funding of the film industry (not the simplistic tax-break system which created films like Coolangatta Gold) because the broad-range attraction of film creates spin-offs for the rest of the performing arts. Shine, only one example, has engendered a series of popular concert performances by David Helfgott.
The program of new work and old favourites for 1997 is exciting, particularly because John Romeril's new work, Love's Suicide, derived from 18th Century Japanese theatre, is a co-operative effort between Skylark and Playbox in Melbourne, with a 6 week season planned in November/December. Rich fare at lunch, indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1996: Blue Murder by Beatrix Christian
Blue Murder by Beatrix Christian. Eureka! at The Street Theatre, directed by Camilla Blunden. Season October 17-26, 1996. Professional.
In the foyer: - I'm still thinking about it - I need a cigarette - I feel a bit shell-shocked - - Beatrix Christian is a new voice in Australian writing - I felt quite apprehensive about what was going to happen - I thought Eureka! wouldn't be sexy enough for this script - It made me feel quite disturbed, but I can't pinpoint why.
This play is a complex study, in the new form of imagist theatre, of the way men have created the fantasy that their art is more important than reality - even more real than death. In this case, the deaths of the writer's three previous wives. Evelyn, a modern girl, has made her escape from the country town where she seduced the priest behind the pub after her total immersion baptism. Blue wrote the stories Evelyn absorbed as a child - How Howard Saved Father Christmas - and takes her in as his personal live-in assistant. The current working title is Howard the Cynic.
The play begins behind a scrim: we can see reality but are separated from it. When the scrim is removed, we see the fantasy life of the writer directly, without any barrier. The layers of implications are strongly supported in the set design (Michael Wilkinson), lighting design (Philip Lethlean) and the music composed by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson. For Evelyn, the task is to see through the apparent reality of Blue's stories. As she does so, she gains strength - representing all women - and the mythic male as artist is finally and deliberately destroyed.
Christian is important not just as an imagist related to playwrights like the early Louis Nowra and more recently Jenny Kemp, but because she has more powerful language with which she opens up possibilities of meaning. She plays heightened dialogue against the mundane in ways which at first seem surreal, yet create those disturbing feelings in the foyer. I would call her a new symbolist: she is for this century what Strindberg was for the last. Except that Strindberg would have been a Blue - a misogynist whose artistic golden moon has set forever. Strongly recommended.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In the foyer: - I'm still thinking about it - I need a cigarette - I feel a bit shell-shocked - - Beatrix Christian is a new voice in Australian writing - I felt quite apprehensive about what was going to happen - I thought Eureka! wouldn't be sexy enough for this script - It made me feel quite disturbed, but I can't pinpoint why.
This play is a complex study, in the new form of imagist theatre, of the way men have created the fantasy that their art is more important than reality - even more real than death. In this case, the deaths of the writer's three previous wives. Evelyn, a modern girl, has made her escape from the country town where she seduced the priest behind the pub after her total immersion baptism. Blue wrote the stories Evelyn absorbed as a child - How Howard Saved Father Christmas - and takes her in as his personal live-in assistant. The current working title is Howard the Cynic.
The play begins behind a scrim: we can see reality but are separated from it. When the scrim is removed, we see the fantasy life of the writer directly, without any barrier. The layers of implications are strongly supported in the set design (Michael Wilkinson), lighting design (Philip Lethlean) and the music composed by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson. For Evelyn, the task is to see through the apparent reality of Blue's stories. As she does so, she gains strength - representing all women - and the mythic male as artist is finally and deliberately destroyed.
Christian is important not just as an imagist related to playwrights like the early Louis Nowra and more recently Jenny Kemp, but because she has more powerful language with which she opens up possibilities of meaning. She plays heightened dialogue against the mundane in ways which at first seem surreal, yet create those disturbing feelings in the foyer. I would call her a new symbolist: she is for this century what Strindberg was for the last. Except that Strindberg would have been a Blue - a misogynist whose artistic golden moon has set forever. Strongly recommended.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 16 October 1996
1996: Freeze Frame by Full Tilt
Freeze Frame. Full Tilt Performance Troupe. Festival of Contemporary Arts at Gorman House Arts Centre, October 16, 1996. Professional
Intimations of William Dobell frozen in mime, eyes and mouth wide open for a very long time. The "painting" takes the new recruit art gallery explainer's spectacles. His vision is impaired as he leaps through the frame into a world where surrealism is deconstructed against the intermittent front-projected backdrop of Erika Harper's post-romantic tarot cards, interspersed by works from Rebecca Robinson, Ed Radclyffe, Deborah Matrice, Sean Kenan, U.F.A., Hayley Hillis and Felicity Jenkins.
Will, the gallery attendant, learns about privatisation and reality, steps back through the frame and finds his glasses on the floor after all. Was it all a dream?
Fringe festivals are meant for experimentation and try-outs, but this company operates too much on the scent of the milk of human kindness. The art works were generally interesting but the dramatic responses were relatively mundane. The origin of Full Tilt's work is in successful children's entertainment at the National Gallery of Australia, but only some of the dialogue draws on an adult view of art. The plot and characters are too naive in conception to carry the full weight of political commentary and reflective criticism of post-modernism which seems to be the objective.
The performers use commedia and circus skills, but not with the precision of timing and dramatic pacing which can amaze an audience seeing fools who could only appear so foolish because of their physical and intellectual prowess. Rapid-fire wit in words and mime is the first requisite for commedia: the Troupe has the idea right, but needs much more training.
The idea, the humour, and the critical analysis behind Freeze Frame are well worth developing, so now it is up to Danny Diesendorf, Robin Davidson, Mark Johnson and Sean Kenan - perhaps with the addition of a woman or two - to go Full Tilt towards sophistication of style, depth of research and theatrical discipline.
This year, the fringe: next year, towards the centre....
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Intimations of William Dobell frozen in mime, eyes and mouth wide open for a very long time. The "painting" takes the new recruit art gallery explainer's spectacles. His vision is impaired as he leaps through the frame into a world where surrealism is deconstructed against the intermittent front-projected backdrop of Erika Harper's post-romantic tarot cards, interspersed by works from Rebecca Robinson, Ed Radclyffe, Deborah Matrice, Sean Kenan, U.F.A., Hayley Hillis and Felicity Jenkins.
Will, the gallery attendant, learns about privatisation and reality, steps back through the frame and finds his glasses on the floor after all. Was it all a dream?
Fringe festivals are meant for experimentation and try-outs, but this company operates too much on the scent of the milk of human kindness. The art works were generally interesting but the dramatic responses were relatively mundane. The origin of Full Tilt's work is in successful children's entertainment at the National Gallery of Australia, but only some of the dialogue draws on an adult view of art. The plot and characters are too naive in conception to carry the full weight of political commentary and reflective criticism of post-modernism which seems to be the objective.
The performers use commedia and circus skills, but not with the precision of timing and dramatic pacing which can amaze an audience seeing fools who could only appear so foolish because of their physical and intellectual prowess. Rapid-fire wit in words and mime is the first requisite for commedia: the Troupe has the idea right, but needs much more training.
The idea, the humour, and the critical analysis behind Freeze Frame are well worth developing, so now it is up to Danny Diesendorf, Robin Davidson, Mark Johnson and Sean Kenan - perhaps with the addition of a woman or two - to go Full Tilt towards sophistication of style, depth of research and theatrical discipline.
This year, the fringe: next year, towards the centre....
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 15 October 1996
1996: The Invisibility of Mrs Geralds by Mary Ellen Turbet
The Invisibility of Mrs Geralds by Mary Ellen Turbet. Rehearsed reading for the Festival of Contemporary Arts, directed by Carol Woodrow. Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, October 14. Professional.
When I saw the incomplete, mainly naturalistic script early in the year (in the Australian National Playwrights' Centre Writers' Course), I expected Mrs Geralds' situation to be tragic. Maddie's belief in her invisibility was a recognition of the truth about how she was ignored - being a woman and "old" - while it led others to think she had "lost her marbles". I could see no escape from the inevitability of a nursing home.
WildWood Theatre, The Company and Jigsaw have combined to present three of the scripts-in-progress from the ANPC Writers' Course, the actors donating their time and skills. This reading showed the importance of professional developmental work. Jennie Vaskess produced a Maddie full of humanity, with complete ensemble support from Anne Yuille, Michael White, Naone Carrel and Sarah Chalmers, in a script with new sections being rehearsed up to half an hour before performance.
It turns out that Madeleine Geralds can escape. The play now has an original free flowing form: a startlingly humorous study of how it is only through our fantasies that we can come to terms with our reality. Meeting a man of no consequence in his own eyes until he takes on the spirit of Elvis, Mrs Geralds realises she can be the invisible Maddie, growing old as others expect her to, or choose to be a visible Madeleine who leaves the play to holiday in Bali on her own terms. This is no tragedy after all, and indeed becomes a metaphor for me of the role of drama - the theatrical illusion through which we reflect on life.
Carla, Mrs Geralds' entirely business oriented daughter, ignores imagination at the expense of herself becoming invisible, just as her bank manager ignores her requests for boutique expansion loans. Carla may now be the tragic figure, unless Turbet can find her an escape. If she can't, the play will retain a certain coolness when human warmth seems to me to be its centre. Maybe we'll see Mrs Geralds at next year's Playwrights' Conference - I hope so.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
When I saw the incomplete, mainly naturalistic script early in the year (in the Australian National Playwrights' Centre Writers' Course), I expected Mrs Geralds' situation to be tragic. Maddie's belief in her invisibility was a recognition of the truth about how she was ignored - being a woman and "old" - while it led others to think she had "lost her marbles". I could see no escape from the inevitability of a nursing home.
WildWood Theatre, The Company and Jigsaw have combined to present three of the scripts-in-progress from the ANPC Writers' Course, the actors donating their time and skills. This reading showed the importance of professional developmental work. Jennie Vaskess produced a Maddie full of humanity, with complete ensemble support from Anne Yuille, Michael White, Naone Carrel and Sarah Chalmers, in a script with new sections being rehearsed up to half an hour before performance.
It turns out that Madeleine Geralds can escape. The play now has an original free flowing form: a startlingly humorous study of how it is only through our fantasies that we can come to terms with our reality. Meeting a man of no consequence in his own eyes until he takes on the spirit of Elvis, Mrs Geralds realises she can be the invisible Maddie, growing old as others expect her to, or choose to be a visible Madeleine who leaves the play to holiday in Bali on her own terms. This is no tragedy after all, and indeed becomes a metaphor for me of the role of drama - the theatrical illusion through which we reflect on life.
Carla, Mrs Geralds' entirely business oriented daughter, ignores imagination at the expense of herself becoming invisible, just as her bank manager ignores her requests for boutique expansion loans. Carla may now be the tragic figure, unless Turbet can find her an escape. If she can't, the play will retain a certain coolness when human warmth seems to me to be its centre. Maybe we'll see Mrs Geralds at next year's Playwrights' Conference - I hope so.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 30 September 1996
1996: Preview Australian National Playwrights' Conference public presentations
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
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
Wednesday 25 September 1996
1996: Report article on Australian National Playwrights' Conference
The Australian National Playwrights' Conference, running this week and next at the ANU Arts Centre and Burgmann College, is like one of those wooden interlocking puzzles: even worse, it's spherical - not just a simple cube - and even has spheres within spheres.
I disturbed four of the pieces on Wednesday - Canberra actor Mary Brown; Sydney writer Beatrix Christian; May-Brit Akerholt, Artistic Director of the whole conference; and Carol Woodrow who directs the Delegates' Program. My interference didn't actually cause the whole conference to fall apart (which is what happens when I just glance at the wooden puzzle on my bookshelf) but my brain was truly glowing with incandescence as I struggled to understand how these pieces all fit in such a complex arrangement.
Mary is enclosed in the innermost sphere where eight new Australian plays and one from Deborah Baley, a guest from New York, are being workshopped for presentation next week. Mary emerged from Tear from a Glass Eye (by Victorian Matt Cameron) almost inarticulate with intensity. After performing in Charlotte's Web for Company Skylark for many weeks, Mary is inspired by the rehearsal work on this strong psychological drama which raises disturbing ethical questions, re-igniting her enthusiasm for writing which had been put aside for the sake of regular acting work.
The image of getting a tear from a glass eye made me wonder if for an artistic director the conference might be like getting blood from a stone. But for May-Brit Akerholt, who is directing the conference for the fourth time, the stone is a jewel of "generosity, goodwill and passion". She is the outer sphere - the geodetic structure which is stable and secure within which new constructions can be put together in safety. Somehow, May-Brit knows what is happening in all the workshops, senses if someone is uncomfortable, is open to everyone. She provides her expertise directly as a dramaturg for Beatrix Christian, so she is both outside and inside the real work of the conference. To help her do all this, of course, there must be creative (that means very efficient) administration - by General Manager Kate Riedl.
Another sphere - another unit of construction - is Carol Woodrow who is working with the Delegates. These are would-be writers who pay for the privilege of having their script ideas workshopped with actors and developed with dramaturgs. Carol works flexibly so that each writer can take their script through drafts with or without practical workshops as they feel the need. Like May-Brit, Carol seems by some almost paranormal insight to know where each writer is up to, what their needs are, who would be the right dramaturg or the best actors. This is a delicate shell within the total structure, where as yet untried writers are encouraged, guided and given the confidence which may lead to their work being supported next year in the main program.
And, indeed, this is what has happened to Beatrix Christian's The Governor's Family. This play, about the family of the Governor of NSW at the time of Federation; about revolution and reconciliation; a metaphorical piece with resonances for the year 2000 and the possibility of an Australian Republic - began life at last year's conference as a longish one-acter. May-Brit has worked with Beatrix through the year and now it is being presented as a full length play. Beatrix was happy that the first reading has confirmed that the structure works and the language is both actable and meaningful, while May-Brit sees more to be done on the final section.
Discussing building her play, Beatrix supplied the construction image which finally helped me put together all the pieces of this conference puzzle. She explained that writing a play is like writing a functional brief for a house, becoming the architect and turning out the blueprints. But this work always needs to be done keeping in mind that real people will live in the house when it is finally built. This is what the Playwrights' Conference is for: the dramaturg is like a people-sensitive engineer who makes the architect face reality, modelling the construction with real people - the actors - until the plans are ready for sale on the open market.
And this is why writers keep coming back to the Playwrights' Centre and to the annual Conference. Plays which survive this rigorous development have a proud record on the professional stage. Only at that point is the puzzle complete.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I disturbed four of the pieces on Wednesday - Canberra actor Mary Brown; Sydney writer Beatrix Christian; May-Brit Akerholt, Artistic Director of the whole conference; and Carol Woodrow who directs the Delegates' Program. My interference didn't actually cause the whole conference to fall apart (which is what happens when I just glance at the wooden puzzle on my bookshelf) but my brain was truly glowing with incandescence as I struggled to understand how these pieces all fit in such a complex arrangement.
Mary is enclosed in the innermost sphere where eight new Australian plays and one from Deborah Baley, a guest from New York, are being workshopped for presentation next week. Mary emerged from Tear from a Glass Eye (by Victorian Matt Cameron) almost inarticulate with intensity. After performing in Charlotte's Web for Company Skylark for many weeks, Mary is inspired by the rehearsal work on this strong psychological drama which raises disturbing ethical questions, re-igniting her enthusiasm for writing which had been put aside for the sake of regular acting work.
The image of getting a tear from a glass eye made me wonder if for an artistic director the conference might be like getting blood from a stone. But for May-Brit Akerholt, who is directing the conference for the fourth time, the stone is a jewel of "generosity, goodwill and passion". She is the outer sphere - the geodetic structure which is stable and secure within which new constructions can be put together in safety. Somehow, May-Brit knows what is happening in all the workshops, senses if someone is uncomfortable, is open to everyone. She provides her expertise directly as a dramaturg for Beatrix Christian, so she is both outside and inside the real work of the conference. To help her do all this, of course, there must be creative (that means very efficient) administration - by General Manager Kate Riedl.
Another sphere - another unit of construction - is Carol Woodrow who is working with the Delegates. These are would-be writers who pay for the privilege of having their script ideas workshopped with actors and developed with dramaturgs. Carol works flexibly so that each writer can take their script through drafts with or without practical workshops as they feel the need. Like May-Brit, Carol seems by some almost paranormal insight to know where each writer is up to, what their needs are, who would be the right dramaturg or the best actors. This is a delicate shell within the total structure, where as yet untried writers are encouraged, guided and given the confidence which may lead to their work being supported next year in the main program.
And, indeed, this is what has happened to Beatrix Christian's The Governor's Family. This play, about the family of the Governor of NSW at the time of Federation; about revolution and reconciliation; a metaphorical piece with resonances for the year 2000 and the possibility of an Australian Republic - began life at last year's conference as a longish one-acter. May-Brit has worked with Beatrix through the year and now it is being presented as a full length play. Beatrix was happy that the first reading has confirmed that the structure works and the language is both actable and meaningful, while May-Brit sees more to be done on the final section.
Discussing building her play, Beatrix supplied the construction image which finally helped me put together all the pieces of this conference puzzle. She explained that writing a play is like writing a functional brief for a house, becoming the architect and turning out the blueprints. But this work always needs to be done keeping in mind that real people will live in the house when it is finally built. This is what the Playwrights' Conference is for: the dramaturg is like a people-sensitive engineer who makes the architect face reality, modelling the construction with real people - the actors - until the plans are ready for sale on the open market.
And this is why writers keep coming back to the Playwrights' Centre and to the annual Conference. Plays which survive this rigorous development have a proud record on the professional stage. Only at that point is the puzzle complete.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday 22 September 1996
1996: Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love by Brad Fraser
Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love by Brad Fraser. Directed for The Company by Catherine Mann. Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, Sunday September 22, 1996. Professional reading.
Living as I do in a quiet cul-de-sac of the Bush Capital, this play about the failure of love in alienated city life, the revelation of a serial killer, and the discovery of love in cathartic horror, was not my usual fare at dinner time on Sunday. If a reading of this play can be so affecting, I'd hate to see a full production.
In fact with the high quality of direction and acting, I found myself quite able to imagine what was not explicitly presented. The play has a surprising structure. Beginning with disparate (indeed desperate) elements displayed as if on film, in a kind of abstract expressionist style, the first Act approaches a weird sort of unity. Act Two takes up the thread and weaves it into a thick rope of fear. Only when this is broken can some understanding and a semblance of human love remain.
The play, from Canada, has been filmed as Love and Human Remains (directed by Denys Arcand). I haven't seen the film, but I sense that detailed realistic shots crossfading from scenes of gritty ironic humour - powerful though I can imagine them to be - might not be as frightening and embarrassing as their live representation on stage, especially in an intimate theatre like the Currong. I think we need the personal confrontation of real people, a short distance away, to bring us up short against the truth of our confusion of love, sexuality and aggression which is the core of this play.
I have only one point of criticism. Killers of the kind that Bernie is, have no remorse and seem to believe in their immortality even within earshot of the police sirens. When he is given the gun, I think it is more likely that Bernie would shoot David than himself. But this is an argument with the playwright. This reading, the four already presented and the six more to come this year constitute a stunning program. Don't miss it. Ring 247 1561 or 247 4000 for details and bookings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Living as I do in a quiet cul-de-sac of the Bush Capital, this play about the failure of love in alienated city life, the revelation of a serial killer, and the discovery of love in cathartic horror, was not my usual fare at dinner time on Sunday. If a reading of this play can be so affecting, I'd hate to see a full production.
In fact with the high quality of direction and acting, I found myself quite able to imagine what was not explicitly presented. The play has a surprising structure. Beginning with disparate (indeed desperate) elements displayed as if on film, in a kind of abstract expressionist style, the first Act approaches a weird sort of unity. Act Two takes up the thread and weaves it into a thick rope of fear. Only when this is broken can some understanding and a semblance of human love remain.
The play, from Canada, has been filmed as Love and Human Remains (directed by Denys Arcand). I haven't seen the film, but I sense that detailed realistic shots crossfading from scenes of gritty ironic humour - powerful though I can imagine them to be - might not be as frightening and embarrassing as their live representation on stage, especially in an intimate theatre like the Currong. I think we need the personal confrontation of real people, a short distance away, to bring us up short against the truth of our confusion of love, sexuality and aggression which is the core of this play.
I have only one point of criticism. Killers of the kind that Bernie is, have no remorse and seem to believe in their immortality even within earshot of the police sirens. When he is given the gun, I think it is more likely that Bernie would shoot David than himself. But this is an argument with the playwright. This reading, the four already presented and the six more to come this year constitute a stunning program. Don't miss it. Ring 247 1561 or 247 4000 for details and bookings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 20 September 1996
1996: Princess Ida by Gilbert and Sullivan
Princess Ida, or Gilbert and Sullivan meets Germaine Greer. Queanbeyan Players at Queanbeyan Bicentennial Centre, September 19-21 and 26-28, 1996. Amateur.
The astronomer Mary Whitney wrote in 1882: "We are forced to admit that in spite of the wonderful enlightenment of opinion which the last half century has produced in the public mind in reference to women's ability and position, there is still considerable unreadiness to believe that in the higher professions she either can make or will make herself as proficient as a man."
Princess Ida appeared in 1884. She is the daughter of a king who likes nothing but grumbling and insulting people; sister of three stupid war-mongering brothers; betrothed at the age of one to Hilarion, son of another war obsessed king. No wonder she takes 100 intellectually brilliant women into her women-only institution of higher learning.
It was a bold move to update the setting to something like the 1960s, and it was the right thing to do. Mind you, I'm sure Germaine Greer of The Female Eunuch would have found G&S's final argument hard to stomach: Princess Ida has to admit that marriage to men is necessary to propagate the species, though she at least threatens that if Hilarion doesn't treat her properly she will retire once more to her Castle Adamant.
It's hard not to have stars in G&S, and certainly Amanda Stevenson stands out as Ida in singing and acting (culminating in an affecting solo in I Built Upon a Rock), but the production has a well-balanced cast which kept the show moving on the opening night. Timing will settle in as the singers find their way around the remarkable acoustics of the Bicentennial Centre. The orchestra was competent with lively conducting by Geoff Smith. Perhaps two highlights for me were the chorus singing, which always had strength and the necessary G&S vitality, and the clarity of characterisation by Bill Lord as King Gama.
G&S, in the English satirical tradition, maintain all the elements of the romantic form, but on the way create some serious criticism of social issues. I also find their playing with the musical forms of romantic opera amusing and impressive. They can do Verdi or Puccini better than the originals. Queanbeyan Players provide all that is required for an enjoyable evening, making fun of over-seriousness today just as G&S did more than a century ago.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The astronomer Mary Whitney wrote in 1882: "We are forced to admit that in spite of the wonderful enlightenment of opinion which the last half century has produced in the public mind in reference to women's ability and position, there is still considerable unreadiness to believe that in the higher professions she either can make or will make herself as proficient as a man."
Princess Ida appeared in 1884. She is the daughter of a king who likes nothing but grumbling and insulting people; sister of three stupid war-mongering brothers; betrothed at the age of one to Hilarion, son of another war obsessed king. No wonder she takes 100 intellectually brilliant women into her women-only institution of higher learning.
It was a bold move to update the setting to something like the 1960s, and it was the right thing to do. Mind you, I'm sure Germaine Greer of The Female Eunuch would have found G&S's final argument hard to stomach: Princess Ida has to admit that marriage to men is necessary to propagate the species, though she at least threatens that if Hilarion doesn't treat her properly she will retire once more to her Castle Adamant.
It's hard not to have stars in G&S, and certainly Amanda Stevenson stands out as Ida in singing and acting (culminating in an affecting solo in I Built Upon a Rock), but the production has a well-balanced cast which kept the show moving on the opening night. Timing will settle in as the singers find their way around the remarkable acoustics of the Bicentennial Centre. The orchestra was competent with lively conducting by Geoff Smith. Perhaps two highlights for me were the chorus singing, which always had strength and the necessary G&S vitality, and the clarity of characterisation by Bill Lord as King Gama.
G&S, in the English satirical tradition, maintain all the elements of the romantic form, but on the way create some serious criticism of social issues. I also find their playing with the musical forms of romantic opera amusing and impressive. They can do Verdi or Puccini better than the originals. Queanbeyan Players provide all that is required for an enjoyable evening, making fun of over-seriousness today just as G&S did more than a century ago.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 6 September 1996
1996: Feature article on Australian National Playwrights' Conference
The Australian National Playwrights' Conference at the ANU Arts Centre from Monday September 23 to Saturday night October 5, 1996. Public readings on October 3, 4 and 5: ring ANU Arts Centre 249 4787 for details.
Maybe because Canberra has real seasons, the winter wattles are harbingers of the sudden appearance above ground of theatrical annuals in September and October. The first delicate petals are the new playwrights, keeping to the mottled shade of the ANU. These are plants already well-bred but often needing further genetic engineering ready to bloom in the full sunlight in a later season.
The more raucous plants, reaching urgently for the light, appear soon afterwards in the Festival of Australian Theatre. This event is watched with avid interest by a hundred David Attenboroughs, breathily exclaiming oohs and aahs at the Australian Performing Arts Market. Plants from here are exported all over the world, to show themselves from the tropics to the northern snows.
If you want to keep in touch with all the dramatic flowershows in Australia and around the globe, you can't do better than join the International Theatre Institute (Australian Centre). For only $15 a year you get a regular newsletter with absolutely everything about conferences, festivals, workshops, opportunities for theatre work, resource material and information about what theatre people are doing. Write to 8A/245 Chalmers Street, Redfern NSW 2016.
This year's new blooms at the ANPC are nine plays: Transylvania by Richard Bladel (Tasmania); Rita's Lullaby by Merlinda Bobis (NSW); Cassandra by Daynan Brazil (Queensland); Tear from a Glass Eye by Matt Cameron (Victoria); The Governor's Family by Beatrix Christian (NSW); Blackgammon by Suzanne Ingram (ACT); Rodeo Noir by Andrea Lemon (South Australia); Kingalawuy by Allyson Mills (NT); and Into the Fire by the visiting exchange writer from New York, Deborah Baley. Floriade at the Commonwealth Gardens will have nothing on the variety and flair at the ANU Arts Centre. But of course you can see both: Floriade during the day and the public readings of the new plays on Thursday to Saturday October 3 - 5.
Since its inauguration in 1973, the Playwrights' Conference has been a major influence on the growing maturity with which plays are taken through the writing and production process. Katharine Brisbane, long time theatre critic and director of Currency Press, specialising in publishing Australian scripts, has seen the change from the days when writers were uneducated in the craft of play production.
Directors and actors often felt, justifiably, that the writer would only be in the way while they were rehearsing. At the Playwright's Conference, directors directed while writers watched, got some advice from a dramaturg, went away to rewrite, and came back to watch the director direct. Now, Brisbane says, writers are much more familiar with the dramaturgical and workshop process, and are nowadays much more drawn to the centre of the development of their scripts at the Conference. The result is not that the plays which result can be described as "better" than in the past, but certainly plays show a greater understanding of the craft of theatre. By the time they are taken up by the major companies, scripts have been filtered and shaped so that top quality productions are standard today.
But the seedplots in the greenhouse of the Playwrights' Conference not only produce better quality plants, but in recent years have been diversified to provide a wider gene pool. May-Brit Akerholt, the Artistic Director of the Australian National Playwrights' Centre which produces the Conference, is proud of four new tendrils.
Between 1993 and 1996, ten Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander playwrights have had their work developed at the Conference, with the participation of a large number of indigenous actors, directors and dramaturgs. This has encouraged the exploration of the distinct nature and character of indigenous theatre, but also assists the integration of indigenous artists into main stream theatre.
A mutual exchange has been established between the Playwrights' Centre and New Dramatists in New York. Australian new writers go there and US writers like this year's Deborah Baley come here. The international aspect of the Conference is growing, and links in with the Australian Performing Arts Market.
Then there is the Student Laboratory which brings student directors and writers from the tertiary institutions like the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) to the Conference for professional rehearsed readings and secondments to work with Conference directors and dramaturgs.
And finally there is the Delegate Program which is directed by Canberra's Carol Woodrow, involving emerging writers, drama teachers and students in workshops of delegates' scripts, observing Conference workshops, lectures, seminars and forums and generally mingling with the professionals at work.
This year there will be new development: The Centre for the Performing Arts (CPA) from Adelaide will bring third-year students to perform Stephen Sewell's musical Anger's Love and workshop a new musical by Sewell. The CPA acting students will also take part in Conference workshops and the Delegate's Program.
Directors, dramaturgs and actors, like the playwrights, come from all over Australia to imbibe the intimate, creative hothouse atmosphere of the National Playwrights' Conference - including not only Carol Woodrow but actors Mary Brown and Simon Clarke from Canberra. I asked Katharine Brisbane if "hothouse" meant self-indulgence, but she explained that the dramaturgs have the task - which requires very high level skills combining an academic understanding of dramatic structure with an ability to solve practical craft problems - of providing the objectivity which is needed to produce professional standards.
So this is the Playwrights' Conference - a hothouse, greenhouse, seminal sort of event which is encapsulated by the title of the year-round program run by the Playwrights' Centre, called Fertile Grounds. This provides Master Classes for experienced writers, so when a delicate petal has made it from the seedbeds to the garden, growth still continues. It's not like Floriade, where all those bulbs get untimely ripped out after a month of glorious show: modern Australian theatre is a professionally organised process of development - a continuing growth industry.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Maybe because Canberra has real seasons, the winter wattles are harbingers of the sudden appearance above ground of theatrical annuals in September and October. The first delicate petals are the new playwrights, keeping to the mottled shade of the ANU. These are plants already well-bred but often needing further genetic engineering ready to bloom in the full sunlight in a later season.
The more raucous plants, reaching urgently for the light, appear soon afterwards in the Festival of Australian Theatre. This event is watched with avid interest by a hundred David Attenboroughs, breathily exclaiming oohs and aahs at the Australian Performing Arts Market. Plants from here are exported all over the world, to show themselves from the tropics to the northern snows.
If you want to keep in touch with all the dramatic flowershows in Australia and around the globe, you can't do better than join the International Theatre Institute (Australian Centre). For only $15 a year you get a regular newsletter with absolutely everything about conferences, festivals, workshops, opportunities for theatre work, resource material and information about what theatre people are doing. Write to 8A/245 Chalmers Street, Redfern NSW 2016.
This year's new blooms at the ANPC are nine plays: Transylvania by Richard Bladel (Tasmania); Rita's Lullaby by Merlinda Bobis (NSW); Cassandra by Daynan Brazil (Queensland); Tear from a Glass Eye by Matt Cameron (Victoria); The Governor's Family by Beatrix Christian (NSW); Blackgammon by Suzanne Ingram (ACT); Rodeo Noir by Andrea Lemon (South Australia); Kingalawuy by Allyson Mills (NT); and Into the Fire by the visiting exchange writer from New York, Deborah Baley. Floriade at the Commonwealth Gardens will have nothing on the variety and flair at the ANU Arts Centre. But of course you can see both: Floriade during the day and the public readings of the new plays on Thursday to Saturday October 3 - 5.
Since its inauguration in 1973, the Playwrights' Conference has been a major influence on the growing maturity with which plays are taken through the writing and production process. Katharine Brisbane, long time theatre critic and director of Currency Press, specialising in publishing Australian scripts, has seen the change from the days when writers were uneducated in the craft of play production.
Directors and actors often felt, justifiably, that the writer would only be in the way while they were rehearsing. At the Playwright's Conference, directors directed while writers watched, got some advice from a dramaturg, went away to rewrite, and came back to watch the director direct. Now, Brisbane says, writers are much more familiar with the dramaturgical and workshop process, and are nowadays much more drawn to the centre of the development of their scripts at the Conference. The result is not that the plays which result can be described as "better" than in the past, but certainly plays show a greater understanding of the craft of theatre. By the time they are taken up by the major companies, scripts have been filtered and shaped so that top quality productions are standard today.
But the seedplots in the greenhouse of the Playwrights' Conference not only produce better quality plants, but in recent years have been diversified to provide a wider gene pool. May-Brit Akerholt, the Artistic Director of the Australian National Playwrights' Centre which produces the Conference, is proud of four new tendrils.
Between 1993 and 1996, ten Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander playwrights have had their work developed at the Conference, with the participation of a large number of indigenous actors, directors and dramaturgs. This has encouraged the exploration of the distinct nature and character of indigenous theatre, but also assists the integration of indigenous artists into main stream theatre.
A mutual exchange has been established between the Playwrights' Centre and New Dramatists in New York. Australian new writers go there and US writers like this year's Deborah Baley come here. The international aspect of the Conference is growing, and links in with the Australian Performing Arts Market.
Then there is the Student Laboratory which brings student directors and writers from the tertiary institutions like the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) and the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) to the Conference for professional rehearsed readings and secondments to work with Conference directors and dramaturgs.
And finally there is the Delegate Program which is directed by Canberra's Carol Woodrow, involving emerging writers, drama teachers and students in workshops of delegates' scripts, observing Conference workshops, lectures, seminars and forums and generally mingling with the professionals at work.
This year there will be new development: The Centre for the Performing Arts (CPA) from Adelaide will bring third-year students to perform Stephen Sewell's musical Anger's Love and workshop a new musical by Sewell. The CPA acting students will also take part in Conference workshops and the Delegate's Program.
Directors, dramaturgs and actors, like the playwrights, come from all over Australia to imbibe the intimate, creative hothouse atmosphere of the National Playwrights' Conference - including not only Carol Woodrow but actors Mary Brown and Simon Clarke from Canberra. I asked Katharine Brisbane if "hothouse" meant self-indulgence, but she explained that the dramaturgs have the task - which requires very high level skills combining an academic understanding of dramatic structure with an ability to solve practical craft problems - of providing the objectivity which is needed to produce professional standards.
So this is the Playwrights' Conference - a hothouse, greenhouse, seminal sort of event which is encapsulated by the title of the year-round program run by the Playwrights' Centre, called Fertile Grounds. This provides Master Classes for experienced writers, so when a delicate petal has made it from the seedbeds to the garden, growth still continues. It's not like Floriade, where all those bulbs get untimely ripped out after a month of glorious show: modern Australian theatre is a professionally organised process of development - a continuing growth industry.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 5 September 1996
1996: The Incorruptible by Louis Nowra
The Incorruptible by Louis Nowra. Directed by Aubrey Mellor. Designer: Shaun Gurton. Sydney Theatre Company at Canberra Theatre Centre, September 4 - 7, 1996.
Don't miss this new production of The Incorruptible. Since its Playbox production in Melbourne a year ago, the script has been tightened, characters have more depth and the humour more edge.
If you ever wondered how Joh Bjelke-Petersen's pilot could have remained so loyal, Rachel Szalay's characterisation of Louise Porter will show you, as she develops from lapsed Catholic cynical realist to follower of the faith, whose eyes are finally opened to a new understanding. Hers is the central role in the emotional interplay between Ion Stafford, the incorruptible loner who is made Premier of Queensland and makes himself Prime Minister of Australia, and Ed Gabelich (Gabo), political wheeler and dealer who shows how the loner's single-mindedness creates corruption and chaos for everybody else.
On opening night John Howard as Ion and Denis Moore as Gabo were so finely tuned in the development of the humour and the bitterness in their roles that they both starred and gave Szalay the support she needed for her quality to shine through in the second act. This was top class ensemble playing which is an absolute pleasure to see.
Louis Nowra experiments with style in each new play, and Shaun Gurton has provided wonderful, huge and colourful back projections and shadows which are a delight in themselves, but especially enhance Nowra's statement "I work by resonance and metaphor". The play is full of laughs which reverberate against reality. Words spoken have different explicit and implicit meanings in public and private responses. Events have the unpredictability of real life in an expressionist setting.
The music includes Peter Sculthorpe's Earth Cry - this title sums up for me the central theme. Nowra is an original, and prolific writer whose work always has integrity. The earth does cry in this play, though you may be laughing even at the end. I was reminded of a King Lear in which Cordelia is left to face the truth, and Kent clowns for our amusement on a tightrope above filthy sawdust mulch, the blood and bone around the roses, which fertilises our lives. This is an enjoyable, at times unnerving, and satisfying theatre experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Don't miss this new production of The Incorruptible. Since its Playbox production in Melbourne a year ago, the script has been tightened, characters have more depth and the humour more edge.
If you ever wondered how Joh Bjelke-Petersen's pilot could have remained so loyal, Rachel Szalay's characterisation of Louise Porter will show you, as she develops from lapsed Catholic cynical realist to follower of the faith, whose eyes are finally opened to a new understanding. Hers is the central role in the emotional interplay between Ion Stafford, the incorruptible loner who is made Premier of Queensland and makes himself Prime Minister of Australia, and Ed Gabelich (Gabo), political wheeler and dealer who shows how the loner's single-mindedness creates corruption and chaos for everybody else.
On opening night John Howard as Ion and Denis Moore as Gabo were so finely tuned in the development of the humour and the bitterness in their roles that they both starred and gave Szalay the support she needed for her quality to shine through in the second act. This was top class ensemble playing which is an absolute pleasure to see.
Louis Nowra experiments with style in each new play, and Shaun Gurton has provided wonderful, huge and colourful back projections and shadows which are a delight in themselves, but especially enhance Nowra's statement "I work by resonance and metaphor". The play is full of laughs which reverberate against reality. Words spoken have different explicit and implicit meanings in public and private responses. Events have the unpredictability of real life in an expressionist setting.
The music includes Peter Sculthorpe's Earth Cry - this title sums up for me the central theme. Nowra is an original, and prolific writer whose work always has integrity. The earth does cry in this play, though you may be laughing even at the end. I was reminded of a King Lear in which Cordelia is left to face the truth, and Kent clowns for our amusement on a tightrope above filthy sawdust mulch, the blood and bone around the roses, which fertilises our lives. This is an enjoyable, at times unnerving, and satisfying theatre experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 29 August 1996
1996: The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin by Steve J. Spears
The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin by Steve J. Spears. Ian Croker, directed by Colin Anderson, at Cafe Thespia. Professional.
"In retrospect, the performance as well as the production by Richard Wherrett probably lulled most of us into overpraising the play when it first appeared. Nonetheless it was a triumphant success on three continents." (Leonard Radic in The State of Play, 1991). In Colin Anderson's production there is the same tension between, on the one hand, an immediate audience response to the one-liners, the visuals (including nudity) and the sound effects (everyone appreciates why Robert O'Brien blasts the cuckoo clock) and, on the other, a niggling concern about the artistic truth and (after 20 years) the relevance of the play.
Laughter abounds through the first two acts, but the final act is only a partial success unless the ever-present sense of danger can be built up from the opening line of the play. In 1976 the likelihood of homosexual men being murdered was public knowledge, and Spears tried genuinely to re-cast the image of transvestites: O'Brien falls in love with the 12 year old Benjamin but does not act out his sexual fantasy. But I think Spears missed the point. The one-liners make the character superficially attractive, but O'Brien holds back not on moral grounds but only because he knows he will be destroyed if the relationship is made public.
Probably this play helped change attitudes even so: now we have the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and gay rights are better entrenched in law. However, gay bashing is still common. On the other hand the World Congress on the Sexual Exploitation of Children currently in Stockholm would show that today Benjamin Franklin, though a 12 year old seducer of middle aged men, is a victim of a "global, multi-billion-dollar industry" (Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF). I think Spears was ultimately naive in his comic presentation of Robert O'Brien and the play's popularity for a few years in Australia, London, San Francisco and New York is not a measure of its worth in the long run.
Though you will have a convivial night at Cafe Thespia, and between laughing you will sympathise with Robert, and think about the issues, The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin did its bit 20 years ago. It's hooked to the Skyhooks and the young Mick Jagger, and though it is interesting historically to see a revival, I think it is better to leave it pegged in its place and time.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
"In retrospect, the performance as well as the production by Richard Wherrett probably lulled most of us into overpraising the play when it first appeared. Nonetheless it was a triumphant success on three continents." (Leonard Radic in The State of Play, 1991). In Colin Anderson's production there is the same tension between, on the one hand, an immediate audience response to the one-liners, the visuals (including nudity) and the sound effects (everyone appreciates why Robert O'Brien blasts the cuckoo clock) and, on the other, a niggling concern about the artistic truth and (after 20 years) the relevance of the play.
Laughter abounds through the first two acts, but the final act is only a partial success unless the ever-present sense of danger can be built up from the opening line of the play. In 1976 the likelihood of homosexual men being murdered was public knowledge, and Spears tried genuinely to re-cast the image of transvestites: O'Brien falls in love with the 12 year old Benjamin but does not act out his sexual fantasy. But I think Spears missed the point. The one-liners make the character superficially attractive, but O'Brien holds back not on moral grounds but only because he knows he will be destroyed if the relationship is made public.
Probably this play helped change attitudes even so: now we have the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and gay rights are better entrenched in law. However, gay bashing is still common. On the other hand the World Congress on the Sexual Exploitation of Children currently in Stockholm would show that today Benjamin Franklin, though a 12 year old seducer of middle aged men, is a victim of a "global, multi-billion-dollar industry" (Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF). I think Spears was ultimately naive in his comic presentation of Robert O'Brien and the play's popularity for a few years in Australia, London, San Francisco and New York is not a measure of its worth in the long run.
Though you will have a convivial night at Cafe Thespia, and between laughing you will sympathise with Robert, and think about the issues, The Elocution of Benjamin Franklin did its bit 20 years ago. It's hooked to the Skyhooks and the young Mick Jagger, and though it is interesting historically to see a revival, I think it is better to leave it pegged in its place and time.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 26 August 1996
1996: Preview article on Neither Here Nor There by Olwen Wymark
Preview: Neither Here Nor There by Olwen Wymark. ACT Drama Association, directed by Lynette Wallis. Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, Gorman House Arts Centre, 8.00 pm August 29-31, 1996. Bookings: 247 4000.
The ACT Drama Association is the professional association for drama teachers across the Territory. Most of its time is spent lobbying for better conditions for teaching and learning drama in schools, being an affiliate of the National Association for Drama in Education (NADIE) and the International Drama Education Association (IDEA), and arranging professional development workshops for drama teachers. They have Moya Simpson to lead a vocal workshop on September 12 and Bronwyn Vaughan on November 6 teaching the process of theatrical storytelling.
Organising, teaching, and learning from these practical workshops is not enough: someone realised that The Jigsaw Company could provide the complete professional development by having Lynette Wallis direct drama teachers in public productions. This is the first - a play about seven institutionalised women, exploring issues of power structures, repressed sexuality and fantasies of freedom.
This is an important exercise because it provides the teachers with the best form of work experience, as actors and backstage crew under professional direction. From this experience they can refine the way they teach students in their classes, showing them how to achieve better quality and helping them to be realistic about the world of theatre.
Lynette Wallis has found this an enjoyable experience, watching her charges loosen up and behave like actors, rather than teachers. Under her direction the result is sure to be exciting, judging by her work on Mercury which I reviewed earlier in the year. Tickets are only $5 for the half-hour performance, but my guess is that you'll get more than your money's worth not only from the show but in the conversation afterwards. It's an opportunity to support the work these teachers do in the schools, but, just as important, they need you as an audience to test their skills. It's a risky business putting yourself upfront on stage, even for a professional actor. For a teacher there is the double jeopardy of having to come up with the goods for the students the next day. Take the risk with them: I expect it will be a worthwhile learning experience for everyone.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
The ACT Drama Association is the professional association for drama teachers across the Territory. Most of its time is spent lobbying for better conditions for teaching and learning drama in schools, being an affiliate of the National Association for Drama in Education (NADIE) and the International Drama Education Association (IDEA), and arranging professional development workshops for drama teachers. They have Moya Simpson to lead a vocal workshop on September 12 and Bronwyn Vaughan on November 6 teaching the process of theatrical storytelling.
Organising, teaching, and learning from these practical workshops is not enough: someone realised that The Jigsaw Company could provide the complete professional development by having Lynette Wallis direct drama teachers in public productions. This is the first - a play about seven institutionalised women, exploring issues of power structures, repressed sexuality and fantasies of freedom.
This is an important exercise because it provides the teachers with the best form of work experience, as actors and backstage crew under professional direction. From this experience they can refine the way they teach students in their classes, showing them how to achieve better quality and helping them to be realistic about the world of theatre.
Lynette Wallis has found this an enjoyable experience, watching her charges loosen up and behave like actors, rather than teachers. Under her direction the result is sure to be exciting, judging by her work on Mercury which I reviewed earlier in the year. Tickets are only $5 for the half-hour performance, but my guess is that you'll get more than your money's worth not only from the show but in the conversation afterwards. It's an opportunity to support the work these teachers do in the schools, but, just as important, they need you as an audience to test their skills. It's a risky business putting yourself upfront on stage, even for a professional actor. For a teacher there is the double jeopardy of having to come up with the goods for the students the next day. Take the risk with them: I expect it will be a worthwhile learning experience for everyone.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 20 August 1996
1996: Feature article on Don's Party by David Williamson
Don's Party by David Williamson to be presented by the Bruce Hall Players, ANU Arts Centre, August 22-23 at 8 pm and August 24, 1996 at 2 pm.
DON: Mal: I'd like you to have Kath for the night.
MAL: Don: I'd like you to have Jenny for the night.
In the meantime, of course, Cooley has coolly "had" most of the women at Don's Party in 1969. How could this happen, and how could Cooley still be the most loved character from this classic David Williamson play now the numbers have turned into 1996? What could inspire today's students to want to re-create the kind of engineering students' parties of Williamson's university days - when the men's immediate sexual gratification seemed to be their only concern, to the ultimate exclusion of really important matters like who's winning the Federal Election.
I found some answers when I met, courtesy of Coralie Wood Publicity, not only the producers, director and actors from the Bruce Hall Players but also Coralie's little secret: in this very city, urbane and sophisticated, partner in a well known legal firm, is the very model of the original Cooley - the name slightly re-worked from Crowley.
Peter Crowley (even looking a little like John Ewart with whom I identify the role of Cooley from the 1972 NIDA/Jane Street production) is not just a barrister admitted to the Supreme Courts of the ACT, Victoria and NSW and to the High Court of Australia, not just a leading figure in the ACT Law Society and sometime lecturer at the ANU Legal Workshop, but a man of genuine social concern in his work for Open Family Australia and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He chairs the local section of the National Gallery Foundation, and admits to a strong and continuing friendship with David Williamson, not despite the creation of Cooley, but indeed because of it.
In a three-way conversation between the students, Crowley and a telephone, on the other end of which was David Williamson, the timelessness of the characters in Don's Party became the theme. Director Richard Baxter sees the play as a "photograph" of its time, Crowley backing this view by explaining how Williamson does not present a viewpoint but leaves the audience to make their own judgements. Williamson recalled how, after a showing of the film to a Marxist Feminist audience in Denmark, women spoke to him, privately, saying that though Cooley was terrible he was also attractive. This was characterised by Williamson as a tension between their "heads" and their "hormones".
I wondered, though, whether "openness", "honesty" and "directness", which seemed to attract the men in this discussion, were not simply charming cover-ups for Cooley's chauvinism.
One scene begins with Kerry telling Cooley "You would be one of the coarsest, most sex-obsessed persons I've ever met" and ends with
KERRY: Usually it's [going to bed with someone] an organic part of the whole relationship.
(Cooley ushers her towards the bedroom)
COOLEY: Organ first, relationship later.
KERRY: (as she is going) That's a very interesting philosophical proposition.
But Kate Barraclough, student producer, sees Cooley as everyone's mate. The old Australian mateship, originally exclusively a male to male relationship, has expanded, by 1996, to include all. Now it is common to meet female Cooleys. Indeed Williamson's character represents the change beginning in the sixties towards gender inclusivity. Mateship for all is now the reality. Peter Crowley told how parents are now mates with their adult children, while this was hardly possible in his parents' time. Kate thought that young people are less promiscuous now than 30 years ago, not because they know more about the risks but because it's now possible for people to be just mates. Men can now relate to women person to person on many levels apart from sexual power play. Women can be Cooleys if they want to.
It's funny, but Federal Elections didn't get a mention. Maybe it's plays and playwrights like David Williamson that are the vehicles for real change in society, while politicians belong in the back seat.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
DON: Mal: I'd like you to have Kath for the night.
MAL: Don: I'd like you to have Jenny for the night.
In the meantime, of course, Cooley has coolly "had" most of the women at Don's Party in 1969. How could this happen, and how could Cooley still be the most loved character from this classic David Williamson play now the numbers have turned into 1996? What could inspire today's students to want to re-create the kind of engineering students' parties of Williamson's university days - when the men's immediate sexual gratification seemed to be their only concern, to the ultimate exclusion of really important matters like who's winning the Federal Election.
I found some answers when I met, courtesy of Coralie Wood Publicity, not only the producers, director and actors from the Bruce Hall Players but also Coralie's little secret: in this very city, urbane and sophisticated, partner in a well known legal firm, is the very model of the original Cooley - the name slightly re-worked from Crowley.
Peter Crowley (even looking a little like John Ewart with whom I identify the role of Cooley from the 1972 NIDA/Jane Street production) is not just a barrister admitted to the Supreme Courts of the ACT, Victoria and NSW and to the High Court of Australia, not just a leading figure in the ACT Law Society and sometime lecturer at the ANU Legal Workshop, but a man of genuine social concern in his work for Open Family Australia and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. He chairs the local section of the National Gallery Foundation, and admits to a strong and continuing friendship with David Williamson, not despite the creation of Cooley, but indeed because of it.
In a three-way conversation between the students, Crowley and a telephone, on the other end of which was David Williamson, the timelessness of the characters in Don's Party became the theme. Director Richard Baxter sees the play as a "photograph" of its time, Crowley backing this view by explaining how Williamson does not present a viewpoint but leaves the audience to make their own judgements. Williamson recalled how, after a showing of the film to a Marxist Feminist audience in Denmark, women spoke to him, privately, saying that though Cooley was terrible he was also attractive. This was characterised by Williamson as a tension between their "heads" and their "hormones".
I wondered, though, whether "openness", "honesty" and "directness", which seemed to attract the men in this discussion, were not simply charming cover-ups for Cooley's chauvinism.
One scene begins with Kerry telling Cooley "You would be one of the coarsest, most sex-obsessed persons I've ever met" and ends with
KERRY: Usually it's [going to bed with someone] an organic part of the whole relationship.
(Cooley ushers her towards the bedroom)
COOLEY: Organ first, relationship later.
KERRY: (as she is going) That's a very interesting philosophical proposition.
But Kate Barraclough, student producer, sees Cooley as everyone's mate. The old Australian mateship, originally exclusively a male to male relationship, has expanded, by 1996, to include all. Now it is common to meet female Cooleys. Indeed Williamson's character represents the change beginning in the sixties towards gender inclusivity. Mateship for all is now the reality. Peter Crowley told how parents are now mates with their adult children, while this was hardly possible in his parents' time. Kate thought that young people are less promiscuous now than 30 years ago, not because they know more about the risks but because it's now possible for people to be just mates. Men can now relate to women person to person on many levels apart from sexual power play. Women can be Cooleys if they want to.
It's funny, but Federal Elections didn't get a mention. Maybe it's plays and playwrights like David Williamson that are the vehicles for real change in society, while politicians belong in the back seat.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
1996: Lucy in the Leap Year by Nadia Wheatley
Lucy in the Leap Year adapted, from her own novel, by Nadia Wheatley. Theatre South at the ANU Arts Centre, August 20, 1996. Directed by Des Davis. Professional: matinees for school groups and general public.
I walked beside a green crocodile through the ANU grounds, meeting up with a red crodocodile in the foyer. Phalanxes were formed by firm Arts Centre staff; disco-ish music rose among the hubbub; "We're right up the top!" exclaimed a large primary boy (a bit like Adrian in the play); while a row of normally polite young ladies did roly poly hand movements in unison, pointing left and right in time to the music, collapsing in fits of laughter every few seconds.
Theatre South's highly professional team of actors did all the right things, and the staging was made for audience interaction, but something was wrong. Probably the children felt the problem at a subliminal level, and indeed I discovered the source of my feelings only when I talked with some of the actors after the show.
Here is a company with a script which has all the right intentions: to entertain while helping children to come to terms with death; cultural diversity; the fears of inner city living; the truth about astrology; understanding adult work and the risk of poverty; nightmares; and finally how everyone can live in a community, even when the family is fractured. So the nub of the matter is that this is Nadia Wheatley's first playscript, and theatre makes different demands from the discursive novel. Theatre needs tight focus: in this production the weight of responsibility falls on the actress playing Lucy, continually on stage, the communication link between the fourth wall action and the audience to whom she talks directly.
Why wasn't the script pruned, focussed on a unified theme? The answer is funding. Theatre South had only two weeks' development and rehearsal time. Any new play needs dramaturgical work and workshopping before design and rehearsal begin. Here it had to be done all at once, in a short time, and while some of the company were busy earning money in other projects. Fortunately the professional skills of the director and actors have masked the script's weaknesses very well, and audiences of children and adults will continue to respond to the inherent good intentions.
But some money is needed to re-work this script if it is to last.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
I walked beside a green crocodile through the ANU grounds, meeting up with a red crodocodile in the foyer. Phalanxes were formed by firm Arts Centre staff; disco-ish music rose among the hubbub; "We're right up the top!" exclaimed a large primary boy (a bit like Adrian in the play); while a row of normally polite young ladies did roly poly hand movements in unison, pointing left and right in time to the music, collapsing in fits of laughter every few seconds.
Theatre South's highly professional team of actors did all the right things, and the staging was made for audience interaction, but something was wrong. Probably the children felt the problem at a subliminal level, and indeed I discovered the source of my feelings only when I talked with some of the actors after the show.
Here is a company with a script which has all the right intentions: to entertain while helping children to come to terms with death; cultural diversity; the fears of inner city living; the truth about astrology; understanding adult work and the risk of poverty; nightmares; and finally how everyone can live in a community, even when the family is fractured. So the nub of the matter is that this is Nadia Wheatley's first playscript, and theatre makes different demands from the discursive novel. Theatre needs tight focus: in this production the weight of responsibility falls on the actress playing Lucy, continually on stage, the communication link between the fourth wall action and the audience to whom she talks directly.
Why wasn't the script pruned, focussed on a unified theme? The answer is funding. Theatre South had only two weeks' development and rehearsal time. Any new play needs dramaturgical work and workshopping before design and rehearsal begin. Here it had to be done all at once, in a short time, and while some of the company were busy earning money in other projects. Fortunately the professional skills of the director and actors have masked the script's weaknesses very well, and audiences of children and adults will continue to respond to the inherent good intentions.
But some money is needed to re-work this script if it is to last.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 19 August 1996
1996: Feature article on Australian National Young Playwrights' Weekend
Young Playwrights' Weekend. Director/dramaturg Carol Woodrow. In conjunction with Canberra Youth Theatre, directed by Roland Manderson. December 1996.
Synthia: I mean I'm obsessed with other people's problems you know but I don't know why and I mean I put everything into helping people but I'm wishing they'd stay sick and you know I'm all the time dealing with other people's problems instead of dealing with my own problems so there's just like this ton of problems weighing down on me and I'm sinking deeper into the darkness you know!
This play, The Maze by Niamh Kearney, was the success story of the Young Playwrights' Weekend 1994. Every second year Canberra gets a turn, and it's time now for young people under 25 to get their scripts in for assessment.
The Australian National Young Playwrights' Weekend is a mini version of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference. If you've written a script, it's probably not ready to go on stage without improvements - but how do you know what to do? Leading playwrights like Michael Gow and Dorothy Hewett have had their plays workshopped at the ANPC, and young people can go to the ANYPW. This is not as scary as it sounds, though if your script really isn't ready you'll find this out at the first assessment.
If your play, like The Maze, shows real potential, then you will have at your disposal one of the nicest directors to work with, Carol Woodrow. She'll spend time with you being a dramaturg at first. This means she works through your script and shows you how to change it to make characters or the action come through on stage. After that she will work with you and a group of actors from Canberra Youth Theatre, first of all workshopping the script and finally putting on a workshopped reading in December.
Carol, of course, is an expert at helping playwrights: she directs at the ANPC (held at ANU in the September/October vacation each year) and also directs the ANPC Playwriting Course with Timothy Daly, whose The Moonwalker has recently had a successful run at The Stables Theatre in Sydney. Roland Manderson, who directs Canberra Youth Theatre, says that it's important for Youth Theatre actors (who usually spend most of their time devising their own work) to learn the skills of performing a script according to what the writer wants. And, he says, this works best when the writer is from their own generation. Good pieces don't stop at the workshopped reading: Youth Theatre may take them on to full productions here in Canberra or on tour to other cities.
So if you have a script under way, finish it off and send it to Carol Woodrow, Young Playwrights' Weekend, ANPC, PO Box 1566, Rozelle NSW 2039. To find out more details about dates and costs, you can ring the ANPC on 02 555 9377 or fax them on 02 555 9370.
©Frank McKone
Synthia: I mean I'm obsessed with other people's problems you know but I don't know why and I mean I put everything into helping people but I'm wishing they'd stay sick and you know I'm all the time dealing with other people's problems instead of dealing with my own problems so there's just like this ton of problems weighing down on me and I'm sinking deeper into the darkness you know!
This play, The Maze by Niamh Kearney, was the success story of the Young Playwrights' Weekend 1994. Every second year Canberra gets a turn, and it's time now for young people under 25 to get their scripts in for assessment.
The Australian National Young Playwrights' Weekend is a mini version of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference. If you've written a script, it's probably not ready to go on stage without improvements - but how do you know what to do? Leading playwrights like Michael Gow and Dorothy Hewett have had their plays workshopped at the ANPC, and young people can go to the ANYPW. This is not as scary as it sounds, though if your script really isn't ready you'll find this out at the first assessment.
If your play, like The Maze, shows real potential, then you will have at your disposal one of the nicest directors to work with, Carol Woodrow. She'll spend time with you being a dramaturg at first. This means she works through your script and shows you how to change it to make characters or the action come through on stage. After that she will work with you and a group of actors from Canberra Youth Theatre, first of all workshopping the script and finally putting on a workshopped reading in December.
Carol, of course, is an expert at helping playwrights: she directs at the ANPC (held at ANU in the September/October vacation each year) and also directs the ANPC Playwriting Course with Timothy Daly, whose The Moonwalker has recently had a successful run at The Stables Theatre in Sydney. Roland Manderson, who directs Canberra Youth Theatre, says that it's important for Youth Theatre actors (who usually spend most of their time devising their own work) to learn the skills of performing a script according to what the writer wants. And, he says, this works best when the writer is from their own generation. Good pieces don't stop at the workshopped reading: Youth Theatre may take them on to full productions here in Canberra or on tour to other cities.
So if you have a script under way, finish it off and send it to Carol Woodrow, Young Playwrights' Weekend, ANPC, PO Box 1566, Rozelle NSW 2039. To find out more details about dates and costs, you can ring the ANPC on 02 555 9377 or fax them on 02 555 9370.
©Frank McKone
Tuesday 13 August 1996
1996: Feature article on Canberra Milk High Schools and Colleges Dance Festival
Is the annual Canberra Milk High Schools and Colleges Dance Festival, which began in 1986 with the theme "Peace", still "... In Motion" as the 1996 theme suggests? Ausdance ACT Executive Officer, Jennifer Kingma says "Yes" with some reservations. Canberra Dance Theatre Director, Stephanie Burridge, also perhaps the most highly qualified teacher in the schools, seems more inclined towards Isaac Newton's First Law of Motion: the law of inertia, "which states that a body will continue in the same state of motion until it is acted on by a force".
In her book about God, physics and gender called Pythagoras' Trousers, the Australian science writer Margaret Wertheim discusses how Newton's laws became models for the social sciences: Burridge would like to see the format for the Dance Festival kicked around every few years to generate creativity. But are the dance crumbs which fall from the great feast table of education so stale?
Going to the Canberra Theatre on August 29 and 30 may help provide some answers, but seeing dance "... In Motion" at one moment in time will tell little about Newton's Second Law which relates force, mass and acceleration, and direction.
Even though dance is still peripheral to the core curriculum in most schools, the Dance Festival is increasing in mass: more schools take part now; more boys take part.
The direction was set from the beginning, in an opposite reaction (Newton's Third Law) to an earlier dance competition. This is still a festival very much in keeping with one of Ausdance's aims: "To establish the opportunity for every child to have dance experience."
Force and acceleration are the deeper issues. Even Newton would have found it difficult to express the Dance Festival as a mathematical equation. The forces for shifting out of a state of inertia ought to be the gradual accretion of experience by the teachers who, one would like to think, have space, time and resources. But the reality is that the dance-in-schools universe, unlike the one envisaged by Newton, is finite. As students pass through the schools, we can only expect the newcomer in 1996 to be able to begin dance with more appreciation, more sense of creativity, maybe even more skills than in 1986, if the teachers have had the time to learn from their previous experiences, the space in the curriculum to build on what they learn; and the input from new forces of qualified dynamic young dance-trained teachers. Our universities, in the post-Einstein space-time universe, are producing some big bangs (in every state except the ACT!), but the ripple effect is marginal in the schools where dance is still in the cold outer reaches.
Jennifer Kingma has no doubts about the need for dance and for the festival. Because the performances are not judged, anyone can take part without fear or favour. She is certain that this is why the numbers have increased and why more boys, including strong teams from the private boys' schools, are taking part nowadays. She is certain too that the core learning experience is cooperation, teamwork and confidence building. This is not only so for the students, but for the teachers who have less need to come to her in fear and trembling about whether their work is good enough as they did in earlier years.
But creativity is where she has her reservations: it's too safe to imitate the actions of Anna Pavlova or Michael Jackson. The link between drama and dance - the motivation for the movement - is, for Jenny Kingma, the accelerator pedal. But if the fuel tank is empty of teaching quantity and the quality is mixed, and the vehicle needs to be four-wheel drive for rough, new terrain - and big enough to carry the masses - then we are forced to accept ten years of inertia. In this view, the Dance Festival is a holding operation - essential to hold on to until the day is reached when our society comes to understand (and supply the resources) so that a new invigorating dance force emanates from the schools. She sees the potential in every Dance Festival performance.
Dance, of course, is the last of the traditional arts to gain a place at the table. In Australian secondary schools art and music were more or less established by the Whitlam era; drama made its big push from the mid-1970's; media shoved its way in from the outfield in the late '70s; while dance lost its olde-worlde social significance, tripped around awhile in ethnic and folk, and only began in the 1980's to take Martha Graham seriously. In the meantime, outside the schools the traditionals stuck with ballet, the arty lot went post-modern, while the others went disco.
Emmy Noether, the great mathematician of this century, who redefined abstract algebra, created the "New Maths" and whose Noether's Theorem relates fundamental physics to mathematical symmetry would have as much chance as Newton if she tried to coalesce dance. Bringing together the dance trainers and the school teachers; the "disciplined" private schools and the less cohesive government schools; the boys' boys and the girly girls; the experience and the art: even Stephanie Burridge finds this daunting.
But Ausdance never gives up, and the Canberra Milk Dance Festival lives on, waiting for the day when dance in education goes supernova. Can someone choreograph this scenario? Maybe next year's theme should be some imitation Latin (for the traditionalists): Per Ars ad Astra - "Through Art to the Stars". And maybe the Festival should be a huge celebration in dance combining all the students in one production. And maybe this could become the new beginning, with a nation-wide performance at the Olympics 2000. Make dance an Olympic event. After all that's where the money is. Ask the Government!
©Frank McKone, Canberra
In her book about God, physics and gender called Pythagoras' Trousers, the Australian science writer Margaret Wertheim discusses how Newton's laws became models for the social sciences: Burridge would like to see the format for the Dance Festival kicked around every few years to generate creativity. But are the dance crumbs which fall from the great feast table of education so stale?
Going to the Canberra Theatre on August 29 and 30 may help provide some answers, but seeing dance "... In Motion" at one moment in time will tell little about Newton's Second Law which relates force, mass and acceleration, and direction.
Even though dance is still peripheral to the core curriculum in most schools, the Dance Festival is increasing in mass: more schools take part now; more boys take part.
The direction was set from the beginning, in an opposite reaction (Newton's Third Law) to an earlier dance competition. This is still a festival very much in keeping with one of Ausdance's aims: "To establish the opportunity for every child to have dance experience."
Force and acceleration are the deeper issues. Even Newton would have found it difficult to express the Dance Festival as a mathematical equation. The forces for shifting out of a state of inertia ought to be the gradual accretion of experience by the teachers who, one would like to think, have space, time and resources. But the reality is that the dance-in-schools universe, unlike the one envisaged by Newton, is finite. As students pass through the schools, we can only expect the newcomer in 1996 to be able to begin dance with more appreciation, more sense of creativity, maybe even more skills than in 1986, if the teachers have had the time to learn from their previous experiences, the space in the curriculum to build on what they learn; and the input from new forces of qualified dynamic young dance-trained teachers. Our universities, in the post-Einstein space-time universe, are producing some big bangs (in every state except the ACT!), but the ripple effect is marginal in the schools where dance is still in the cold outer reaches.
Jennifer Kingma has no doubts about the need for dance and for the festival. Because the performances are not judged, anyone can take part without fear or favour. She is certain that this is why the numbers have increased and why more boys, including strong teams from the private boys' schools, are taking part nowadays. She is certain too that the core learning experience is cooperation, teamwork and confidence building. This is not only so for the students, but for the teachers who have less need to come to her in fear and trembling about whether their work is good enough as they did in earlier years.
But creativity is where she has her reservations: it's too safe to imitate the actions of Anna Pavlova or Michael Jackson. The link between drama and dance - the motivation for the movement - is, for Jenny Kingma, the accelerator pedal. But if the fuel tank is empty of teaching quantity and the quality is mixed, and the vehicle needs to be four-wheel drive for rough, new terrain - and big enough to carry the masses - then we are forced to accept ten years of inertia. In this view, the Dance Festival is a holding operation - essential to hold on to until the day is reached when our society comes to understand (and supply the resources) so that a new invigorating dance force emanates from the schools. She sees the potential in every Dance Festival performance.
Dance, of course, is the last of the traditional arts to gain a place at the table. In Australian secondary schools art and music were more or less established by the Whitlam era; drama made its big push from the mid-1970's; media shoved its way in from the outfield in the late '70s; while dance lost its olde-worlde social significance, tripped around awhile in ethnic and folk, and only began in the 1980's to take Martha Graham seriously. In the meantime, outside the schools the traditionals stuck with ballet, the arty lot went post-modern, while the others went disco.
Emmy Noether, the great mathematician of this century, who redefined abstract algebra, created the "New Maths" and whose Noether's Theorem relates fundamental physics to mathematical symmetry would have as much chance as Newton if she tried to coalesce dance. Bringing together the dance trainers and the school teachers; the "disciplined" private schools and the less cohesive government schools; the boys' boys and the girly girls; the experience and the art: even Stephanie Burridge finds this daunting.
But Ausdance never gives up, and the Canberra Milk Dance Festival lives on, waiting for the day when dance in education goes supernova. Can someone choreograph this scenario? Maybe next year's theme should be some imitation Latin (for the traditionalists): Per Ars ad Astra - "Through Art to the Stars". And maybe the Festival should be a huge celebration in dance combining all the students in one production. And maybe this could become the new beginning, with a nation-wide performance at the Olympics 2000. Make dance an Olympic event. After all that's where the money is. Ask the Government!
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 12 August 1996
1996: Nothing Like the Odyssey by John Eastman and Brendan O'Connell
Nothing Like the Odyssey. Self Raising Theatre for The Jigsaw Company. Directed by Lenny Covner. Touring schools Years 7-10, August 12 till September 6, 1996. Professional. Bookings: 247 2133.
Canberra is so well served by professional theatre in education that it's hard nowadays to find points of criticism. This is certainly true of this work by John Eastman and Brendan O'Connell. Performing in the round in the vastness of a gymnasium floor, they have both re-created the power of the ancient Greek myths and made them immediately relevant to the audience traditionally seen as the most difficult: junior high.
Using the full gamut of acting skills - voice, mime, evocation of images (the huge Trojan horse), masks and costumes reminiscent of the original Greek - two consummate actors destroy Troy, outwit the Cyclops, and reflect in the River of Death. They engage in philosophical disputation, having fun with Descartes. Poseidon: "Where are you?" Zeus: "Here -- I think!" Penelope's intelligence outshines an awful suitor; Telemachus grows up a typical teenager, rebellious and yet exactly like his Dad; and Odysseus comes to terms with all the ill that he has caused, though always acting according to reason and acceptable social demands.
This is where we see the real value of theatre in education. It's about Junior High coming face to face with violence and cunning, with family obligations, with powers beyond our control, with the excitement of adventure, and with our human inability to fully understand the consequences of our actions until, very often, it is too late.
Yet don't imagine this is all stiff Greek tragedy. Self Raising Theatre raises as many laughs as sighs, or moments of fear and wonder. I felt the rare experience of great story-telling as it must have been in the days of Homer - and as it still is in many indigenous communities today. In a cold hall full of empty space, I stopped taking notes: the actors' artistry was beyond the realm of criticism and had drawn me into the universal: where men and women, husbands and wives, children and parents, defenders and attackers, leaders and followers; where all people, however we categorise ourselves and each other, have the qualities of heroes and the responsibility for our own destinies.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Canberra is so well served by professional theatre in education that it's hard nowadays to find points of criticism. This is certainly true of this work by John Eastman and Brendan O'Connell. Performing in the round in the vastness of a gymnasium floor, they have both re-created the power of the ancient Greek myths and made them immediately relevant to the audience traditionally seen as the most difficult: junior high.
Using the full gamut of acting skills - voice, mime, evocation of images (the huge Trojan horse), masks and costumes reminiscent of the original Greek - two consummate actors destroy Troy, outwit the Cyclops, and reflect in the River of Death. They engage in philosophical disputation, having fun with Descartes. Poseidon: "Where are you?" Zeus: "Here -- I think!" Penelope's intelligence outshines an awful suitor; Telemachus grows up a typical teenager, rebellious and yet exactly like his Dad; and Odysseus comes to terms with all the ill that he has caused, though always acting according to reason and acceptable social demands.
This is where we see the real value of theatre in education. It's about Junior High coming face to face with violence and cunning, with family obligations, with powers beyond our control, with the excitement of adventure, and with our human inability to fully understand the consequences of our actions until, very often, it is too late.
Yet don't imagine this is all stiff Greek tragedy. Self Raising Theatre raises as many laughs as sighs, or moments of fear and wonder. I felt the rare experience of great story-telling as it must have been in the days of Homer - and as it still is in many indigenous communities today. In a cold hall full of empty space, I stopped taking notes: the actors' artistry was beyond the realm of criticism and had drawn me into the universal: where men and women, husbands and wives, children and parents, defenders and attackers, leaders and followers; where all people, however we categorise ourselves and each other, have the qualities of heroes and the responsibility for our own destinies.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 31 July 1996
1996: Charlotte's Web
Charlotte's Web. Company Skylark: adapted by Gilly Farrelly from the original story by E.B.White. Directed by Christine Anketell. At the Canberra Theatre until August 3, 1996. Professional.
"They're not making it dark!" The 5 year old waited impatiently for the great moment in theatre when the houselights dim, while I watched excited little heads bobbing up like bubbles above a pool packed with schools of tropical reef fishes - a green school, a red school, blue with green stripes, green with yellow stripes, royal blue, pink with yellow flashes, iridescent orange and lots of multicoloured tiny ones.
"If you had been born small, would you have killed me?" asked Fern of her Farmer Father - the debate about life and death was on for young and old. Skylark's production is magical theatre but never sentimental even when Charlotte dies after saving Wilbur the Pig's bacon twice over. Peter Wilson, Artistic Director, explained to me that after experiencing theatre in pre-school (like the wonderful Salty Seagull Takes Off which I reviewed in May), it is important for early primary school children to go to the theatre to take part in our society's culture.
I feel he's right, so I worried about three things. The Canberra Theatre is far too big for 700 little audience people: roll on the new Playhouse. The amplified sound disembodied the actors and puppet characters: real live voices are what distinguishes theatre from video and audio media, because performers and audience interact as equal human beings. Again, the new Playhouse, please. So these things can be fixed.
But I also thought the ending was flat. More awe for the birth (resurrection, reincarnation) of Charlotte's babies is required. Take more time. Fill the stage with silvery spiders: they are too cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd in the framework of the farm shed. Dim the other characters almost out. In unison with the characters, let the children say "Ooh!" and "Aah!" as they did when the houselights first went down. Then the production will be perfect.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
"They're not making it dark!" The 5 year old waited impatiently for the great moment in theatre when the houselights dim, while I watched excited little heads bobbing up like bubbles above a pool packed with schools of tropical reef fishes - a green school, a red school, blue with green stripes, green with yellow stripes, royal blue, pink with yellow flashes, iridescent orange and lots of multicoloured tiny ones.
"If you had been born small, would you have killed me?" asked Fern of her Farmer Father - the debate about life and death was on for young and old. Skylark's production is magical theatre but never sentimental even when Charlotte dies after saving Wilbur the Pig's bacon twice over. Peter Wilson, Artistic Director, explained to me that after experiencing theatre in pre-school (like the wonderful Salty Seagull Takes Off which I reviewed in May), it is important for early primary school children to go to the theatre to take part in our society's culture.
I feel he's right, so I worried about three things. The Canberra Theatre is far too big for 700 little audience people: roll on the new Playhouse. The amplified sound disembodied the actors and puppet characters: real live voices are what distinguishes theatre from video and audio media, because performers and audience interact as equal human beings. Again, the new Playhouse, please. So these things can be fixed.
But I also thought the ending was flat. More awe for the birth (resurrection, reincarnation) of Charlotte's babies is required. Take more time. Fill the stage with silvery spiders: they are too cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd in the framework of the farm shed. Dim the other characters almost out. In unison with the characters, let the children say "Ooh!" and "Aah!" as they did when the houselights first went down. Then the production will be perfect.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 16 July 1996
1996: Two versions of At the Foot of the Storyteller's Chair by Bronwyn Vaughan
Version 1 of this review was more than 370 words in length, so only Version 2 was published by the Canberra Times
Version 1
At the Foot of the Storyteller's Chair. Bronwyn Vaughan, directed by Brian Joyce. Jigsaw Theatre Company at Karrabar Pre-School, Tuesday July 16. Professional. Touring Canberra and region, pre-school to Year 2. Bookings 247 2133.
The little blind girl was so excited by Bronwyn Vaughan's hour long presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle), The Tiger Skin Rug (Gerald Rose), The Paper Crane (Molly Bang) and The Story of Marni, The Girl Who Couldn't Stop Shouting (by Aboriginal artist and writer Sally Morgan) that nothing could stop her asking out loud "What's she doing now?" as each newly accented voice and every wonderful sound emanated from this experienced theatre-in-education actor. The caterpillar crunched through food, good and bad, spitting out the pips. The tiger kept very quiet, but didn't he roar at the robbers! The paper crane danced to the flute as the children clapped. And Marni's granny's spell finally reduced her shouting to just a little bit of the Old Crow's harsh caw and the Old Croc's thrashing about, so people could finally stand living with her in the family.
This is another winner from the highly professional Jigsaw Company. Vaughan comes to us via effervescent training with Oliver Fiala (when children's drama was new at NSW Uni) and many years with the acclaimed Pipi Storm TIE team. Joined here by Brian Joyce (of Freewheels TIE, Newcastle), it is wonderful to see the children learning through such creative theatre. Here is entertainment which reflects on real life through beautifully written stories, fascinating mime and dance, sets and costumes designed in styles and colours which sensitively re-create the cultures from which the stories come. And, it must be said, Sally Morgan's ribald humour was a hit with the children and their parents: truly Australian!
So have you met a caterpillar, or met a tiger, or met a morphosis? Phosis is Life, and life is always changing. "Could I metamorphosise me?" sang the Storyteller to her animated Chair. Too hard for pre-schoolers? Not on your life. You should have seen the little blind girl after the show, after all the questions had been asked and answered, after all the others had gone out to play: exploring how the Chair talks, how the Mexican Rainstick makes its eerie sound, how the paper crane flies, how the fur bristles on the tiger rug, or whether the Indian tea was real.
Want to meet a top-notch theatre educator? Bronwyn will conduct workshops on August 7 and November 6 for the ACT Drama Association. If you're a teacher of young children, don't let Bronwyn Vaughan pass you or your class by. Call Greg Lissaman or Clay Thistleton at Jigsaw.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Version 2
At the Foot of the Storyteller's Chair. Bronwyn Vaughan, directed by Brian Joyce. Jigsaw Theatre at Karrabar Pre-School, July 16. Professional. Touring Pre-school to Year 2. Bookings 247 2133.
The little blind girl was excited by Bronwyn Vaughan's hour long presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle), The Tiger Skin Rug (Gerald Rose), The Paper Crane (Molly Bang) and The Story of Marni, The Girl Who Couldn't Stop Shouting (by Aboriginal artist and writer Sally Morgan). Nothing could stop her asking out loud "What's she doing now?" as each new accent and wonderful sounds emanated from this experienced theatre-in-education actor. The caterpillar crunched through food, good and bad, spitting out pips. The tiger kept very quiet, but didn't he roar at the robbers! The paper crane danced to the flute as the children clapped. And Marni's granny's spell finally reduced her shouting to just a bit of Old Crow's harsh caw and Old Croc's thrashing about, so people could finally stand living with her in the family.
Another winner from the highly professional Jigsaw Company, here is entertainment which reflects real life through beautifully written stories, fascinating mime and dance, sets and costumes designed in styles and colours which sensitively re-create the cultures from which the stories come. And Sally Morgan's ribald humour was a hit with the children and their parents: truly Australian!
So have you met a caterpillar, or met a tiger, or met a morphosis? Phosis is Life, and life is always changing. "Could I metamorphosise me?" sang the Storyteller to her animated Chair. Too hard for pre-schoolers? Not on your life. You should have seen the little blind girl after the show, after all the questions had been asked and answered, after all the others had gone out to play: exploring how the Chair talks, how the Mexican Rainstick makes its eerie sound, how the paper crane flies, how the fur bristles on the tiger rug, or whether the Indian tea was real.
Want to meet a top-notch theatre educator? Bronwyn will conduct workshops on August 7 and November 6 for the ACT Drama Association. If you're a teacher of young children, don't let Bronwyn Vaughan pass you or your class by. Call Jigsaw today.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Version 1
At the Foot of the Storyteller's Chair. Bronwyn Vaughan, directed by Brian Joyce. Jigsaw Theatre Company at Karrabar Pre-School, Tuesday July 16. Professional. Touring Canberra and region, pre-school to Year 2. Bookings 247 2133.
The little blind girl was so excited by Bronwyn Vaughan's hour long presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle), The Tiger Skin Rug (Gerald Rose), The Paper Crane (Molly Bang) and The Story of Marni, The Girl Who Couldn't Stop Shouting (by Aboriginal artist and writer Sally Morgan) that nothing could stop her asking out loud "What's she doing now?" as each newly accented voice and every wonderful sound emanated from this experienced theatre-in-education actor. The caterpillar crunched through food, good and bad, spitting out the pips. The tiger kept very quiet, but didn't he roar at the robbers! The paper crane danced to the flute as the children clapped. And Marni's granny's spell finally reduced her shouting to just a little bit of the Old Crow's harsh caw and the Old Croc's thrashing about, so people could finally stand living with her in the family.
This is another winner from the highly professional Jigsaw Company. Vaughan comes to us via effervescent training with Oliver Fiala (when children's drama was new at NSW Uni) and many years with the acclaimed Pipi Storm TIE team. Joined here by Brian Joyce (of Freewheels TIE, Newcastle), it is wonderful to see the children learning through such creative theatre. Here is entertainment which reflects on real life through beautifully written stories, fascinating mime and dance, sets and costumes designed in styles and colours which sensitively re-create the cultures from which the stories come. And, it must be said, Sally Morgan's ribald humour was a hit with the children and their parents: truly Australian!
So have you met a caterpillar, or met a tiger, or met a morphosis? Phosis is Life, and life is always changing. "Could I metamorphosise me?" sang the Storyteller to her animated Chair. Too hard for pre-schoolers? Not on your life. You should have seen the little blind girl after the show, after all the questions had been asked and answered, after all the others had gone out to play: exploring how the Chair talks, how the Mexican Rainstick makes its eerie sound, how the paper crane flies, how the fur bristles on the tiger rug, or whether the Indian tea was real.
Want to meet a top-notch theatre educator? Bronwyn will conduct workshops on August 7 and November 6 for the ACT Drama Association. If you're a teacher of young children, don't let Bronwyn Vaughan pass you or your class by. Call Greg Lissaman or Clay Thistleton at Jigsaw.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Version 2
At the Foot of the Storyteller's Chair. Bronwyn Vaughan, directed by Brian Joyce. Jigsaw Theatre at Karrabar Pre-School, July 16. Professional. Touring Pre-school to Year 2. Bookings 247 2133.
The little blind girl was excited by Bronwyn Vaughan's hour long presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle), The Tiger Skin Rug (Gerald Rose), The Paper Crane (Molly Bang) and The Story of Marni, The Girl Who Couldn't Stop Shouting (by Aboriginal artist and writer Sally Morgan). Nothing could stop her asking out loud "What's she doing now?" as each new accent and wonderful sounds emanated from this experienced theatre-in-education actor. The caterpillar crunched through food, good and bad, spitting out pips. The tiger kept very quiet, but didn't he roar at the robbers! The paper crane danced to the flute as the children clapped. And Marni's granny's spell finally reduced her shouting to just a bit of Old Crow's harsh caw and Old Croc's thrashing about, so people could finally stand living with her in the family.
Another winner from the highly professional Jigsaw Company, here is entertainment which reflects real life through beautifully written stories, fascinating mime and dance, sets and costumes designed in styles and colours which sensitively re-create the cultures from which the stories come. And Sally Morgan's ribald humour was a hit with the children and their parents: truly Australian!
So have you met a caterpillar, or met a tiger, or met a morphosis? Phosis is Life, and life is always changing. "Could I metamorphosise me?" sang the Storyteller to her animated Chair. Too hard for pre-schoolers? Not on your life. You should have seen the little blind girl after the show, after all the questions had been asked and answered, after all the others had gone out to play: exploring how the Chair talks, how the Mexican Rainstick makes its eerie sound, how the paper crane flies, how the fur bristles on the tiger rug, or whether the Indian tea was real.
Want to meet a top-notch theatre educator? Bronwyn will conduct workshops on August 7 and November 6 for the ACT Drama Association. If you're a teacher of young children, don't let Bronwyn Vaughan pass you or your class by. Call Jigsaw today.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 20 June 1996
1996: Walt Disney's World on Ice
Walt Disney's World on Ice. Written and directed by Jerry Bilik. Skating Director and Choreographer: Bob Paul. At the StarDome, Exhibition Park. June 20 - 23, 1996 (5 matinee performances).
At my keyboard sits a young boy, hair all awry and with sticking-out ears. This is his e-mail message -
To: mickeymouse@disney.com
From: bruce@canberra.au
Subject: World Wide Web on Ice
cc: minniemouse, donaldduck, goofie, rogerrabbitt@disney.com
This is not a flame, unless you want to take it the wrong way. On the Internet everyone's equal, like you don't know how old I am, or what colour I am. So I just want to know did you have any black people hidden in your costumes, because all the people who had bits of skin I could see were white. And why did you and Minnie have to stand on top of that wobbly tower at the end as if you are more important than the rest of us? And why did you let Goofy make fun of shooting people? It's not funny where I live. Is it funny in America? And then you used the music from Deliverance - and that was a really horrible film. In fact Mr Bilik didn't really write any music at all - he just pinched it from Bach, or other dead composers, or from out of date TV shows like Naked City. And that reminds me, what was Donald doing with a heap of gangsters, pretending that violence and robbing jewellery shops and mistreating girlfriends is funny. That was twisted. Girls I know really would flame you for that.
You know, the only bits that were really brilliant were the clowns, specially in the last scene with the water. Oh, and the bumblebee who jumped through a flaming hoop (though I didn't really know why he did it). And the people who danced on skates on their own (you know what I mean, without the big crowd all around them) - they were pretty impressive. And singing along at the end was all right, I suppose.
I thought the story was a bit weak - skating on thin ice :-) :-). Just my joke, but really King Louie's Fabulous Film Fest was a worse excuse for a story than the ones I tell my teacher when I haven't done my homework. It took a while for people to cotton on, specially when crowds were still coming in because of how long it took to park their cars and they kept standing in the way so we couldn't see much of the first scene. And Minnie looked really silly when they played "Love is a Many Splendoured Thing". Yeah, and all this love in misty purple lights (more like foggy actually) didn't mean much to me, though I s'pose the grown ups might have gone a bit gooey. (My grandad told me about when he saw Rose Marie on Ice about 40 years ago and he said that was really romantic. He called your love scene, Strictly Ballroom on Ice).
And you forgot to tell people to bring cushions! Those seats are verrrry cold and hard. But it wasn't all a bad show, even if you did seem to want us to rush out and buy anything we wanted, like Roger Rabbit's video machine - you obviously haven't been to our school and learned about environmental problems and rampant consumerism. Anyway, definitely the best bits were the clowns because they got everyone watching and listening and laughing.
Bruce - NERDS FOREVER!
©Frank McKone
At my keyboard sits a young boy, hair all awry and with sticking-out ears. This is his e-mail message -
To: mickeymouse@disney.com
From: bruce@canberra.au
Subject: World Wide Web on Ice
cc: minniemouse, donaldduck, goofie, rogerrabbitt@disney.com
This is not a flame, unless you want to take it the wrong way. On the Internet everyone's equal, like you don't know how old I am, or what colour I am. So I just want to know did you have any black people hidden in your costumes, because all the people who had bits of skin I could see were white. And why did you and Minnie have to stand on top of that wobbly tower at the end as if you are more important than the rest of us? And why did you let Goofy make fun of shooting people? It's not funny where I live. Is it funny in America? And then you used the music from Deliverance - and that was a really horrible film. In fact Mr Bilik didn't really write any music at all - he just pinched it from Bach, or other dead composers, or from out of date TV shows like Naked City. And that reminds me, what was Donald doing with a heap of gangsters, pretending that violence and robbing jewellery shops and mistreating girlfriends is funny. That was twisted. Girls I know really would flame you for that.
You know, the only bits that were really brilliant were the clowns, specially in the last scene with the water. Oh, and the bumblebee who jumped through a flaming hoop (though I didn't really know why he did it). And the people who danced on skates on their own (you know what I mean, without the big crowd all around them) - they were pretty impressive. And singing along at the end was all right, I suppose.
I thought the story was a bit weak - skating on thin ice :-) :-). Just my joke, but really King Louie's Fabulous Film Fest was a worse excuse for a story than the ones I tell my teacher when I haven't done my homework. It took a while for people to cotton on, specially when crowds were still coming in because of how long it took to park their cars and they kept standing in the way so we couldn't see much of the first scene. And Minnie looked really silly when they played "Love is a Many Splendoured Thing". Yeah, and all this love in misty purple lights (more like foggy actually) didn't mean much to me, though I s'pose the grown ups might have gone a bit gooey. (My grandad told me about when he saw Rose Marie on Ice about 40 years ago and he said that was really romantic. He called your love scene, Strictly Ballroom on Ice).
And you forgot to tell people to bring cushions! Those seats are verrrry cold and hard. But it wasn't all a bad show, even if you did seem to want us to rush out and buy anything we wanted, like Roger Rabbit's video machine - you obviously haven't been to our school and learned about environmental problems and rampant consumerism. Anyway, definitely the best bits were the clowns because they got everyone watching and listening and laughing.
Bruce - NERDS FOREVER!
©Frank McKone
Wednesday 19 June 1996
1996: ThoughtProcess by Chris Skene
ThoughtProcess written and produced by Chris Skene. Directed by Chris Skene and Catherine Jean-Krista. Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre. June 19 - 22 and 26 - 29, 1996. Amateur. A Jigsaw Theatre Company Sponsored Production.
Jigsaw's Sponsored Productions Program is for young theatre practitioners who aspire to professionalism. The space, administration and technical backup for new writers like Chris Skene, recently out of secondary college, are provided in a relatively low-risk and supportive environment.
ThoughtProcess explores the idea that there are many different realities. Harmony in the music of the spheres is represented by David (played by Skene) finding a relationship with a woman, Vanessa, (an excellent performance by Desiree Bandle) which enhances his creativity as a composer of techno-music. I was surprised that modern youth would respond to such a post-Romantic theme: maybe Beethoven is what Canberra's intelligentsia need, techno-music notwithstanding.
My problem is not with the concept - that's the writer's prerogative - but with the dialogue, direction and production values. A few flashes of wit and perhaps unintentional irony left the audience tentative about how to respond. What seemed like several dozen short scenes needed smooth and creative entrances, exits and light changes to make them work. Much of the acting was lack-lustre: perhaps, I thought, this was a deliberate device to represent the ennui and unrelatedness that young people feel - but it made for static theatre.
So, a brave foray into some interesting metaphysics. Skene must study theatrical forms to find much more original ways of engaging his audience's emotions. He could learn much from Jigsaw's excellent Mercury about using the interplay between television and live performers. His choice of music, including his own compositions, held dramatic possibilities which were only partially realised. I call this "representational theatre" - a representation of ideas on stage. Skene writes of a scale of realities from "mineral" to "human" to "beyond human". As yet, his play is a theatrical rock with all its limitations of feeling and communication. I hope he will keep working until his theatre becomes at least fully human. "Beyond human" is the ultimate level of artistic attainment, of course. And, after all, this is only for those who dare.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Jigsaw's Sponsored Productions Program is for young theatre practitioners who aspire to professionalism. The space, administration and technical backup for new writers like Chris Skene, recently out of secondary college, are provided in a relatively low-risk and supportive environment.
ThoughtProcess explores the idea that there are many different realities. Harmony in the music of the spheres is represented by David (played by Skene) finding a relationship with a woman, Vanessa, (an excellent performance by Desiree Bandle) which enhances his creativity as a composer of techno-music. I was surprised that modern youth would respond to such a post-Romantic theme: maybe Beethoven is what Canberra's intelligentsia need, techno-music notwithstanding.
My problem is not with the concept - that's the writer's prerogative - but with the dialogue, direction and production values. A few flashes of wit and perhaps unintentional irony left the audience tentative about how to respond. What seemed like several dozen short scenes needed smooth and creative entrances, exits and light changes to make them work. Much of the acting was lack-lustre: perhaps, I thought, this was a deliberate device to represent the ennui and unrelatedness that young people feel - but it made for static theatre.
So, a brave foray into some interesting metaphysics. Skene must study theatrical forms to find much more original ways of engaging his audience's emotions. He could learn much from Jigsaw's excellent Mercury about using the interplay between television and live performers. His choice of music, including his own compositions, held dramatic possibilities which were only partially realised. I call this "representational theatre" - a representation of ideas on stage. Skene writes of a scale of realities from "mineral" to "human" to "beyond human". As yet, his play is a theatrical rock with all its limitations of feeling and communication. I hope he will keep working until his theatre becomes at least fully human. "Beyond human" is the ultimate level of artistic attainment, of course. And, after all, this is only for those who dare.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 13 June 1996
1996: Move Over Mrs Markham by Ray Cooney & John Chapman
Move Over Mrs Markham by Ray Cooney & John Chapman. Canberra Star Comedy Company at Belconnen Community Centre Theatre, June 13. Director: Roy Scamp. Season: Thursdays to Saturdays till June 22, 1996. Amateur.
This new theatre group (Canberra breeds them faster than bilbies!) "was formed as a result of the members' affection for comedy". Mrs Markham, they promise, is "So funny... that it hurts". In fact, their real interest is not comedy, but farce. Roy Scamp is on his third Ray Cooney play - "he finds them addictive". But I suppose to call themselves Canberra Star Farcical Company would not do.
They have the wit to note the dictionary definition of farce as "dramatic work meant merely to cause laughter", and so undermine any attempt on my behalf to question the relevance of highly sentimental upper middle class non-politically-correct British West End farce on the Canberra theatre scene. I can only ask, was it really funny?
For a first night amateur production it had its moments. In Act 2 there was a scene of genuine farce as what seemed to be several dozen different characters (this was because they all called themselves some other character's name and confusion reigned) appeared and disappeared in and out of six different entrances and exits at high speed and with great precision of timing. Generally the acting has the basics right and there were some strong moments of silence as a character tried to work out what was going on, came to a conclusion and then said entirely the wrong thing.
But it wasn't an "evening of continuous mirth" as the Company claimed it would be. For this to happen, Mrs Markham's very first entrance and line - wondering where her husband is - must be funny. Caricature - to the point of absurdity - of the upper middle class is required (Peter Benisch as Philip Markham was the only actor who came close), and of course this also needs the complete setting of the obscenely wealthy British ruling class (a friend working as a servant in the 1970's was once told to go to Harrod's to pick up a £10,000 dress for her mistress). This is possible in the West End of London, but is a little difficult for an amateur lower middle class company at Belconnen Community Centre.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
This new theatre group (Canberra breeds them faster than bilbies!) "was formed as a result of the members' affection for comedy". Mrs Markham, they promise, is "So funny... that it hurts". In fact, their real interest is not comedy, but farce. Roy Scamp is on his third Ray Cooney play - "he finds them addictive". But I suppose to call themselves Canberra Star Farcical Company would not do.
They have the wit to note the dictionary definition of farce as "dramatic work meant merely to cause laughter", and so undermine any attempt on my behalf to question the relevance of highly sentimental upper middle class non-politically-correct British West End farce on the Canberra theatre scene. I can only ask, was it really funny?
For a first night amateur production it had its moments. In Act 2 there was a scene of genuine farce as what seemed to be several dozen different characters (this was because they all called themselves some other character's name and confusion reigned) appeared and disappeared in and out of six different entrances and exits at high speed and with great precision of timing. Generally the acting has the basics right and there were some strong moments of silence as a character tried to work out what was going on, came to a conclusion and then said entirely the wrong thing.
But it wasn't an "evening of continuous mirth" as the Company claimed it would be. For this to happen, Mrs Markham's very first entrance and line - wondering where her husband is - must be funny. Caricature - to the point of absurdity - of the upper middle class is required (Peter Benisch as Philip Markham was the only actor who came close), and of course this also needs the complete setting of the obscenely wealthy British ruling class (a friend working as a servant in the 1970's was once told to go to Harrod's to pick up a £10,000 dress for her mistress). This is possible in the West End of London, but is a little difficult for an amateur lower middle class company at Belconnen Community Centre.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
1996: The Shooga Shoogie Show
The Shooga Shoogie Show. George Spartels with Elliott Wiltshier and Michelle Ellard. Albert Hall 10 am Thursday June 13, 1996. Professional.
George's central purpose is entertainment. This is a value in its own right, but in the context of the ACT Playgroups Association's role in organising live performances for parents and young children, I was a little disappointed. The morning was entirely successful in bringing together many mums and dads and an audience of littlies who comfortably filled the Albert Hall - though comfortable is not really the word I should use for a huge chilly ballroom in June. (I hear by the way that the Albert Hall is shortly to go to private contract management - what this will do for community users is not pleasant to contemplate.)
The performances were tight and small-child friendly. There is none of the gratuitous aggression coming from the American culture which I saw represented on a child's Looney Tunes backpack: "This bag will self-destruct in five seconds". Looney indeed - what parent could buy such negative images for a pre-schooler? Spartels' material is consistently positive; its limitation is its failure to develop a clearly motivated dramatic story.
One useful way of understanding children's learning is to look for four elements: imitation, repetition, creating symbols and exploring new ways of thinking. From Shooga Shoogie the children learn enjoyment and excitement; they hear music used to support the action; they experience motor co-ordination in their wobbling, surfing, hopping and so on. But why do they search for the Sugar Glider?
They become acculturated, learning the conventions of theatrical anticipation, tension and release. The story, however, is fragmented and does not coherently develop thinking and imaginative understanding, because the material is conventional rather than thoroughly creative.
George has his stardom in ABC TV's Playschool to provide an audience, so I think parents should expect more than his excellent entertainment; more than his positivity; more than his lively music. They should demand the same strength of dramatic development that would satisfy them as adults. Shooga Shoogie depends too much on imitation and repetition, and not enough on helping children to explore their lives and culture imaginatively.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
George's central purpose is entertainment. This is a value in its own right, but in the context of the ACT Playgroups Association's role in organising live performances for parents and young children, I was a little disappointed. The morning was entirely successful in bringing together many mums and dads and an audience of littlies who comfortably filled the Albert Hall - though comfortable is not really the word I should use for a huge chilly ballroom in June. (I hear by the way that the Albert Hall is shortly to go to private contract management - what this will do for community users is not pleasant to contemplate.)
The performances were tight and small-child friendly. There is none of the gratuitous aggression coming from the American culture which I saw represented on a child's Looney Tunes backpack: "This bag will self-destruct in five seconds". Looney indeed - what parent could buy such negative images for a pre-schooler? Spartels' material is consistently positive; its limitation is its failure to develop a clearly motivated dramatic story.
One useful way of understanding children's learning is to look for four elements: imitation, repetition, creating symbols and exploring new ways of thinking. From Shooga Shoogie the children learn enjoyment and excitement; they hear music used to support the action; they experience motor co-ordination in their wobbling, surfing, hopping and so on. But why do they search for the Sugar Glider?
They become acculturated, learning the conventions of theatrical anticipation, tension and release. The story, however, is fragmented and does not coherently develop thinking and imaginative understanding, because the material is conventional rather than thoroughly creative.
George has his stardom in ABC TV's Playschool to provide an audience, so I think parents should expect more than his excellent entertainment; more than his positivity; more than his lively music. They should demand the same strength of dramatic development that would satisfy them as adults. Shooga Shoogie depends too much on imitation and repetition, and not enough on helping children to explore their lives and culture imaginatively.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 12 June 1996
1996: Heretic by David Williamson
Heretic by David Williamson. Sydney Theatre Company at the Canberra Theatre Centre, Wednesday June 12. Directed by Wayne Harrison. Designer: John Fenczuk. Cast includes Robin Ramsay, Paul Goddard, Elizabeth Alexander, Peter Carroll, Jane Harders with Henri Szeps. Season: Wednesday June 12 - Saturday June 15, 1996.
We Canberrans may come to regret Heretic. We took the jokes about Canberra not merely in good part, but as a celebration of our existence. Even if Deakin was dull in the liberated 60's, at last we of the city-without-a-heart could recognise our suburban selves on stage - in a play which has national and indeed international resonances. This play places Canberra on the map of our imaginations just as The Golden Age by Louis Nowra put Tasmania there. But where Nowra gave us a new empathy for Tasmania, Williamson may have unwittingly been complicit in encouraging Canberra-bashing among audiences in other places who may laugh at the jokes differently.
This apparently trivial matter has parallels in the play, where the ultimate issue is the nature of truth. Derek Freeman, by arguing that genetics play an important part (but not the whole) in human behaviour, finds himself accused of racism - the opposite of his intention. Margaret Mead defends herself against Freeman's accusation that she did not tell the truth, only to discover (in the play after her death!) that Freeman never believed that she deliberately told lies. Monica Freeman discovers that Derek really does love her only when she is apparently at death's door, but must say "I wouldn't quite have put it that way" when Derek, trying to make a loving joke, says "Do you mean that you only know I love you when you are apparently at death's door?"
Monica, in determining to choose her own life, is to me the most interesting character in the play: where Derek and Margaret play out their hierarchical socially competitive roles, it is Monica who breaks her bounds and makes a real choice.
This is strong dramatic meat, but to bring it all together Williamson has made a paradigm shift from the narrative form to fantasy. The play is therefore represented as Derek's dream - but there is a weakness here. Williamson, having Derek actually fall sleep before our eyes and wake up at the end, is not willing to let the narrative completely go. The problem is that everything that Williamson wants to say about history from the 1920's to the 1980's can't realistically all be in Derek's dream. So the better trick is to create an illusion of a dream-state from start to finish. It's a risk, but oddly enough this will allow us, the audience, to take the issues on board for real: this is the contrary nature of the illusion of theatre. In this play I think this happens only in our feelings for Monica, who seems to step out of Derek's dream.
I sense that because Williamson is not completely in control of his new-found medium, Wayne Harrison has tried to make it work for him, creating what the real Derek Freeman at a reception after opening night called "a post-post-modern intellectual cabaret". Some of the devices work very well - Margaret Mead incarnated as Marilyn Monroe singing and dancing with an Aquarius crowd is both funny and makes a point about her sexuality. "Beam me up, Scotty", however, belongs to somebody else's fantasy, not this one.
I'm left, then, with mixed feelings. The performances were excellent, of course, as one would expect from such a cast. The design is stage-wise and very clever visually. Costumes are often startling and complement much humorous stage business in the acting. The result is a show which everyone in the audience enjoyed: people's faces were literally quite radiant as they clapped along with the encore reprise, warmly celebrating the skills of the actors. Yet perhaps we were applauding the director's skills in creating exciting theatre more than the writer's wit and sensibility. Williamson's work is not at heart light-weight - there's a sense for me that a sort of modern George Bernard Shaw is in the offing: but the best recipe for mixing comedy with intellectual rigour is still a few whirrs of the processor away.
© Frank McKone
Canberra, Australia
We Canberrans may come to regret Heretic. We took the jokes about Canberra not merely in good part, but as a celebration of our existence. Even if Deakin was dull in the liberated 60's, at last we of the city-without-a-heart could recognise our suburban selves on stage - in a play which has national and indeed international resonances. This play places Canberra on the map of our imaginations just as The Golden Age by Louis Nowra put Tasmania there. But where Nowra gave us a new empathy for Tasmania, Williamson may have unwittingly been complicit in encouraging Canberra-bashing among audiences in other places who may laugh at the jokes differently.
This apparently trivial matter has parallels in the play, where the ultimate issue is the nature of truth. Derek Freeman, by arguing that genetics play an important part (but not the whole) in human behaviour, finds himself accused of racism - the opposite of his intention. Margaret Mead defends herself against Freeman's accusation that she did not tell the truth, only to discover (in the play after her death!) that Freeman never believed that she deliberately told lies. Monica Freeman discovers that Derek really does love her only when she is apparently at death's door, but must say "I wouldn't quite have put it that way" when Derek, trying to make a loving joke, says "Do you mean that you only know I love you when you are apparently at death's door?"
Monica, in determining to choose her own life, is to me the most interesting character in the play: where Derek and Margaret play out their hierarchical socially competitive roles, it is Monica who breaks her bounds and makes a real choice.
This is strong dramatic meat, but to bring it all together Williamson has made a paradigm shift from the narrative form to fantasy. The play is therefore represented as Derek's dream - but there is a weakness here. Williamson, having Derek actually fall sleep before our eyes and wake up at the end, is not willing to let the narrative completely go. The problem is that everything that Williamson wants to say about history from the 1920's to the 1980's can't realistically all be in Derek's dream. So the better trick is to create an illusion of a dream-state from start to finish. It's a risk, but oddly enough this will allow us, the audience, to take the issues on board for real: this is the contrary nature of the illusion of theatre. In this play I think this happens only in our feelings for Monica, who seems to step out of Derek's dream.
I sense that because Williamson is not completely in control of his new-found medium, Wayne Harrison has tried to make it work for him, creating what the real Derek Freeman at a reception after opening night called "a post-post-modern intellectual cabaret". Some of the devices work very well - Margaret Mead incarnated as Marilyn Monroe singing and dancing with an Aquarius crowd is both funny and makes a point about her sexuality. "Beam me up, Scotty", however, belongs to somebody else's fantasy, not this one.
I'm left, then, with mixed feelings. The performances were excellent, of course, as one would expect from such a cast. The design is stage-wise and very clever visually. Costumes are often startling and complement much humorous stage business in the acting. The result is a show which everyone in the audience enjoyed: people's faces were literally quite radiant as they clapped along with the encore reprise, warmly celebrating the skills of the actors. Yet perhaps we were applauding the director's skills in creating exciting theatre more than the writer's wit and sensibility. Williamson's work is not at heart light-weight - there's a sense for me that a sort of modern George Bernard Shaw is in the offing: but the best recipe for mixing comedy with intellectual rigour is still a few whirrs of the processor away.
© Frank McKone
Canberra, Australia
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