Short Stabs Program 3. Culturally Innovative Arts at Gorman House till December 20, 1997.
Convoy: Men in Cars and Trucks by Kathleen Bleakley; acoustic guitar music composed and performed by Mark Norton; and three short plays by Daniel Keene.
Bleakley is a performance poet whose cycle of poems Men in Cars and Trucks has been adapted for stage, directed by Roland Manderson. Previously performed on radio in Adelaide and 2XX, and later to be published in book form with images by Canberra photographer 'pling, these pieces are better off-stage than on. The physical representation of the men in the cars and trucks who assume that all women are available for their sexual gratification put the focus on the men, even making them comic in some cases, instead of re-creating the sense of women's despair at never being allowed their personal freedom. The poems, as a voice on the radio, have an emotional depth missing from miming the action on stage, though Anna Voronoff's performance is excellent.
Mark Norton's music is an interesting crossover between classical and folk guitar. He has experimented with combining tuning and fingering from both traditions, and the results are three highly original compositions which for me, and, judging by the applause, for many others, are the highlight of the evening.
Daniel Keene (you may remember Cho Cho San) in Night, a Wall, Two Men, performed with tight clarity by Tim Wood and Thomas Holgrove, seems to be Melbourne's Samuel Beckett. "Love, charity, pity ... it's all very common, that sort of thing" - certainly not your usual Christmas message in this Waiting for Godot version of A Christmas Carol in which the poor starve and Ebenezer Scrooge never comes good. Keene is writing about basic human rights in all three pieces presented here. The Prisoner and his Keeper (Danny Diesendorf and Simon Aylott), perhaps needing some cutting or tighter direction, shows how the Keeper is as much demeaned by his role as the Prisoner. Foxes is a monologue, performed well by Miranda Rose - a strange, almost suicidal piece about innocence and loneliness.
CIA's presentation is hopefully the beginning of a clearer focus for the "experimental, innovative and investigative" theatre that David Branson tells me he is aiming for.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 19 December 1997
Thursday 11 December 1997
1997: The 1997 Bull 'n Bush Christmas Revue
The 1997 Bull 'n Bush Christmas Revue, School of Arts Cafe, Queanbeyan. Starring Graham and Norma Robertson, Jan Carey, Coralie Wood. Weds to Sats till December 31, 1997 (except Christmas and Boxing Days).
Despite my best efforts, Mattie Hellyer, suspiciously sitting at the table nearest Tim, the judge, won the Christmas Bell last Wednesday because she knew all the words to all the songs. But how could I be resentful or judgemental on a night of Christmas cheer, enjoying excellent soup, beef and Christmas pudding?
The night is light, an eclectic collection of titbits and we certainly weren't bored. The "stars" above are the whole cast and they worked well together in the constraints of the tiny stage, though I think I would give my Christmas bell to Norma Robertson on the grand piano. Her 19 years' experience playing for Rep's Old Time Music Hall held the show together.
Unpretentious is one word I heard to describe the Revue - a relaxed approach which put together items like the Brick Story (Why I Am Not At Work Today) made famous by the wonderful Hoffnung, and told well by Graham Robertson; the audience banging our bon-bons in unison; lots of New York Jewish phone calls; singing Master of the House from Les Mis with reference to Maitre d' Bill Stephens; more mobile phone conversations; I Wanna Be Rich, Famous and Powerful sung by Coralie in the guise of a failed Barbra Streisand and so on.
Critics were given the goodbye in I Wanna Be Rich, but I think it's fair to comment that only some items actually qualified for the title Revue. Absurdity, ironic humour and satire are key revue elements, and these appeared occasionally between entree, mains and sweets. Oh No, John Howard ("Will he leave us in a mess? Oh Yes, John, Yes!"), an awfully funny geriatric Let's Do It, My Body is Nobody's But My Own, and the Anorexic Ballet Girls were the genuine articles - for me the highlights of the night, and the pieces which clearly were appreciated by the house, which was just about full.
In other words for a bit of Bull 'n some satirical Bush you'll need to book well ahead on 6297 6857.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Despite my best efforts, Mattie Hellyer, suspiciously sitting at the table nearest Tim, the judge, won the Christmas Bell last Wednesday because she knew all the words to all the songs. But how could I be resentful or judgemental on a night of Christmas cheer, enjoying excellent soup, beef and Christmas pudding?
The night is light, an eclectic collection of titbits and we certainly weren't bored. The "stars" above are the whole cast and they worked well together in the constraints of the tiny stage, though I think I would give my Christmas bell to Norma Robertson on the grand piano. Her 19 years' experience playing for Rep's Old Time Music Hall held the show together.
Unpretentious is one word I heard to describe the Revue - a relaxed approach which put together items like the Brick Story (Why I Am Not At Work Today) made famous by the wonderful Hoffnung, and told well by Graham Robertson; the audience banging our bon-bons in unison; lots of New York Jewish phone calls; singing Master of the House from Les Mis with reference to Maitre d' Bill Stephens; more mobile phone conversations; I Wanna Be Rich, Famous and Powerful sung by Coralie in the guise of a failed Barbra Streisand and so on.
Critics were given the goodbye in I Wanna Be Rich, but I think it's fair to comment that only some items actually qualified for the title Revue. Absurdity, ironic humour and satire are key revue elements, and these appeared occasionally between entree, mains and sweets. Oh No, John Howard ("Will he leave us in a mess? Oh Yes, John, Yes!"), an awfully funny geriatric Let's Do It, My Body is Nobody's But My Own, and the Anorexic Ballet Girls were the genuine articles - for me the highlights of the night, and the pieces which clearly were appreciated by the house, which was just about full.
In other words for a bit of Bull 'n some satirical Bush you'll need to book well ahead on 6297 6857.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 27 November 1997
1997: News report on Jenny Kay, finalist in Dolly/McDonalds Career Start contest
A Year 11 drama student at Hawker College, Jenny Kay, is in the running to win $20 000 to start her career in theatre.
The 1997 Dolly/McDonald's Career Start contest began for Jenny when she noticed the advertisement in her younger sister's copy of Dolly and made the mistake of saying how great it would be to get money to put on a play. She found herself committed, by the enthusiasm of her parents and friends, writing the required 500 word proposal with an additonal budget.
Jenny's proposal, judged by Susie Pitts, Editor of Dolly, Charlie Bell, Managing Director of McDonald's Australia, and Catriona Rowntree, Getaway reporter on the Nine Network, has placed her among the 7 finalists - and has already won her $5 000.
On Tuesday December 2, Jenny attends a celebratory lunch at Pavilion on the Park in Sydney where the winner will be announced.
What will Jenny do with the money? The core of her proposal is to demonstrate young people's abilities in theatre production. She comes to this from a strong background at Canberra Youth Theatre where she has already directed Jack Hibberd's Slam Dunk, which received a good review in The Canberra Times.
She has lined up friends Brendan Hayes (writer and assistant director), Sarah Davies (media producer) and Eliza-Jane Oliver (stage manager) to work on a play already partly written but as yet untitled. For $5 000 she plans a small scale production, but if she wins $20 000 she plans to put some aside to help her through university studies, with a view further down the track of taking the Victorian College of the Arts Directing course.
Since she will be in Year 12 next year, Jenny plans to present her play in March or April. She is considering using the Canberra Youth Theatre venue, partly as a recognition of her admiration for Roland Manderson and the support CYT has given her, and noting the irony of the recent loss of funding, and of Manderson as CYT Director.
The finalists' 10 minute presentations in Sydney, in which they explain why they should win $20,000, will certainly be a nailbiting time, but Jenny has been a debater for some years and hopes to show that the award would not only benefit her towards her chosen career, but all the other people who will work with her in creative and managerial roles.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The 1997 Dolly/McDonald's Career Start contest began for Jenny when she noticed the advertisement in her younger sister's copy of Dolly and made the mistake of saying how great it would be to get money to put on a play. She found herself committed, by the enthusiasm of her parents and friends, writing the required 500 word proposal with an additonal budget.
Jenny's proposal, judged by Susie Pitts, Editor of Dolly, Charlie Bell, Managing Director of McDonald's Australia, and Catriona Rowntree, Getaway reporter on the Nine Network, has placed her among the 7 finalists - and has already won her $5 000.
On Tuesday December 2, Jenny attends a celebratory lunch at Pavilion on the Park in Sydney where the winner will be announced.
What will Jenny do with the money? The core of her proposal is to demonstrate young people's abilities in theatre production. She comes to this from a strong background at Canberra Youth Theatre where she has already directed Jack Hibberd's Slam Dunk, which received a good review in The Canberra Times.
She has lined up friends Brendan Hayes (writer and assistant director), Sarah Davies (media producer) and Eliza-Jane Oliver (stage manager) to work on a play already partly written but as yet untitled. For $5 000 she plans a small scale production, but if she wins $20 000 she plans to put some aside to help her through university studies, with a view further down the track of taking the Victorian College of the Arts Directing course.
Since she will be in Year 12 next year, Jenny plans to present her play in March or April. She is considering using the Canberra Youth Theatre venue, partly as a recognition of her admiration for Roland Manderson and the support CYT has given her, and noting the irony of the recent loss of funding, and of Manderson as CYT Director.
The finalists' 10 minute presentations in Sydney, in which they explain why they should win $20,000, will certainly be a nailbiting time, but Jenny has been a debater for some years and hopes to show that the award would not only benefit her towards her chosen career, but all the other people who will work with her in creative and managerial roles.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 20 November 1997
1997: Leader of the Pack - The Ellie Greenwich Musical
Leader of the Pack - The Ellie Greenwich Musical. Phoenix Players at Belconnen Community Centre. Amateur.
The Mills & Boon story is kept to a minimum between songs, all of which you will recognise if you lived through the Sixties. The year Ellie Greenwich won 6 awards, the Beatles won 10. As the Beatles worked towards Sergeant Pepper, Greenwich was writing "And Then He Kissed Me" - the pop teeny-bopper romance music which never grew up.
Greenwich had to deal with reality when her song-writer whirlwind-romance husband Jeff Barry gave her the choice of house-bound motherhood while he became famous - or divorce. She took divorce, and wrote her only creative song "Rock of Rages".
But time heals all ... at least that's what this show says.
Susannah Gallie presents a credible Ellie, and Mimma Furlan does well as Darlene Love. The musical direction by Garrick Smith is excellent and the singing, though not always strong, is well rehearsed.
I spoke to Margo Mitchell from the management team working to make Belconnen Community Centre fulfil its function. She is clearly succeeding, and Phoenix Players' President and Director of The Pack, Ian Davenport, is enthusiastic about the good feeling at the Centre. The audience on opening night last Thursday was substantial and very appreciative of the efforts of everyone in the show. Whole families seem to take part on and off stage - in other words Phoenix has found its niche in the local community.
This show, I thought, was more sophisticated than earlier Phoenix productions, with stylish choreography by Natalie Antoine and an interesting cartoon set and props designed by Michael Winters. An amateur group such as this may not be expected to have actors and singers to match fully professional standards, but with intelligent design, choreography and musical direction the elements of drama - humour, pathos and joy - can be put together effectively. People knew what they were doing on stage, and the audience justifiably responded with enthusiasm.
So if you want to know "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts?", or to find out if you are "Not Too Young (To Get Married)", or just to toe-tap along to "Do Wah Diddy", join the community with Phoenix Players.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Mills & Boon story is kept to a minimum between songs, all of which you will recognise if you lived through the Sixties. The year Ellie Greenwich won 6 awards, the Beatles won 10. As the Beatles worked towards Sergeant Pepper, Greenwich was writing "And Then He Kissed Me" - the pop teeny-bopper romance music which never grew up.
Greenwich had to deal with reality when her song-writer whirlwind-romance husband Jeff Barry gave her the choice of house-bound motherhood while he became famous - or divorce. She took divorce, and wrote her only creative song "Rock of Rages".
But time heals all ... at least that's what this show says.
Susannah Gallie presents a credible Ellie, and Mimma Furlan does well as Darlene Love. The musical direction by Garrick Smith is excellent and the singing, though not always strong, is well rehearsed.
I spoke to Margo Mitchell from the management team working to make Belconnen Community Centre fulfil its function. She is clearly succeeding, and Phoenix Players' President and Director of The Pack, Ian Davenport, is enthusiastic about the good feeling at the Centre. The audience on opening night last Thursday was substantial and very appreciative of the efforts of everyone in the show. Whole families seem to take part on and off stage - in other words Phoenix has found its niche in the local community.
This show, I thought, was more sophisticated than earlier Phoenix productions, with stylish choreography by Natalie Antoine and an interesting cartoon set and props designed by Michael Winters. An amateur group such as this may not be expected to have actors and singers to match fully professional standards, but with intelligent design, choreography and musical direction the elements of drama - humour, pathos and joy - can be put together effectively. People knew what they were doing on stage, and the audience justifiably responded with enthusiasm.
So if you want to know "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts?", or to find out if you are "Not Too Young (To Get Married)", or just to toe-tap along to "Do Wah Diddy", join the community with Phoenix Players.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 14 November 1997
1997: HAIR The Tribal Rock-Love Musical - Supa Productions
HAIR The Tribal Rock-Love Musical. Joint production by Tuggeranong Community Arts, SUPA Productions and The Street Theatre. 8pm at The Street until November 19. Bookings: 6247 1223.
This is a terrific production, with a revised script which adds maturity to this "flower-power" musical. It is both a celebration of all the good things the young people of 1968 stood for - peace, love and freedom - and a sad memorial to all those ideals which we have still not achieved.
Everyone in the cast seemed to have absorbed the commitment which the original performers felt. Only last Monday the ABC's Timeframe documented the first Sydney production and opening night here on Thursday stood the comparison very well indeed.
When a cast is as evenly matched as this one, and so much of the show is a group presentation - originally done deliberately to avoid creating "stars" - it may be unfair to highlight only some performers, but I feel I must mention Kirrily Cornwell's wonderful voice, the beautiful rendition of the "Air" in Act One by Simone Bresser, Jacqui Hoy and Rachel Burleigh, and the characterisation of Claude, who can't bring himself to burn his draft card, by Ra Khahn.
Oddly enough, despite what we think we remember (many in the audience were at least in the vicinity in 1968), the story is quite thin and is strongly male-centred, notwithstanding the excellent women's singing roles. But the band (called "Headband") never let the action flag and the choreography was always inventive, especially given the rather small range of wafty movements that the real flower people thought were creative.
The result is a musical drama, set within the frame of appearances - on what was definitely an Admiral TV set - by President Johnson (with Harold Holt grinning in the background) going all the way to Vietnam and President Nixon uncomfortably announcing the end of the war he couldn't win, moving many in the audience to tears.
Director Sue Belsham has maintained integrity, judging well the levels of glorious freedom, satirical humour and sad recognition of human frailty which makes HAIR well worth seeing. Among others, the surprise appearance of the anthropologist Margaret Mead is a special highlight. Don't miss it!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a terrific production, with a revised script which adds maturity to this "flower-power" musical. It is both a celebration of all the good things the young people of 1968 stood for - peace, love and freedom - and a sad memorial to all those ideals which we have still not achieved.
Everyone in the cast seemed to have absorbed the commitment which the original performers felt. Only last Monday the ABC's Timeframe documented the first Sydney production and opening night here on Thursday stood the comparison very well indeed.
When a cast is as evenly matched as this one, and so much of the show is a group presentation - originally done deliberately to avoid creating "stars" - it may be unfair to highlight only some performers, but I feel I must mention Kirrily Cornwell's wonderful voice, the beautiful rendition of the "Air" in Act One by Simone Bresser, Jacqui Hoy and Rachel Burleigh, and the characterisation of Claude, who can't bring himself to burn his draft card, by Ra Khahn.
Oddly enough, despite what we think we remember (many in the audience were at least in the vicinity in 1968), the story is quite thin and is strongly male-centred, notwithstanding the excellent women's singing roles. But the band (called "Headband") never let the action flag and the choreography was always inventive, especially given the rather small range of wafty movements that the real flower people thought were creative.
The result is a musical drama, set within the frame of appearances - on what was definitely an Admiral TV set - by President Johnson (with Harold Holt grinning in the background) going all the way to Vietnam and President Nixon uncomfortably announcing the end of the war he couldn't win, moving many in the audience to tears.
Director Sue Belsham has maintained integrity, judging well the levels of glorious freedom, satirical humour and sad recognition of human frailty which makes HAIR well worth seeing. Among others, the surprise appearance of the anthropologist Margaret Mead is a special highlight. Don't miss it!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 5 November 1997
1997: Canberra Performance Poets at Tilley's Devine Cafe
Nurrunderi - the Milky Way - watches over us, reminding us of the need for ceremony and keeping up the lore which protects the country from degradation. This was the theme of the story told by Martakupat Potawurtj about how Nurrunderi, chasing his errant wives, formed the lower reaches of the Murray River and created many features of the Coorong. His wives, feeling guilty for breaking the lore, are now the rocks off Kangaroo Island where they drowned themselves. In sadness at their plight, Nurrunderi was taken by the Great Spirit from Kangaroo Island to become the Milky Way.
Martakupat Potawurtj, a Bindjali man whose English name is Darren Perry, is a second-generation stolen child, currently studying Cultural Heritage Management at University of Canberra. Brought up by foster parents in Queensland, he has only recently been able to trace his family back via his birth in the infirmary of Long Bay Gaol and his mother's institutional upbringing in Melbourne to his South Australian Bindjali and Narinjeri origins. He told his story at the Cabaret for Native Title presented by Australians for Native Title and Canberra Performance Poets at Tilley's Devine Cafe on Tuesday November 4.
The Poets, in conjunction with Second Stage, present a monthly eclectic form of theatre they call "Crash Cabaret": unadorned readings of new poems (this time by Anne Edgeworth, Peter Latona, Ken Brewer, Pauline Brooks, Laurie McDonald); strongly dramatised readings (Hal Judge, Kim Houghton) often with accompaniments, this week on digeridoo, guitar and violin; the ubiquitous comedians Fabulous Fred and Wicked Barb; musical acts of all kinds. Eugene Vincent produced amazing harmonics on the digeridoo on Tuesday, as an intro to a C&W style song about the importance of Albert Namatjira.
The purpose of Crash Cabaret is to give the chance for poets to perform their work, new writers to find an audience, and break the bounds of expectations with events which are at least half unplanned - relying on an unpredictable mix of writers and performers who turn up on the night. This is a kind of open-house (open-cafe?) theatre which suits Tilley's, perhaps the only place in town brave enough to put it on.
Nights must vary in quality and excitement level, but for me it was invaluable to hear the Aboriginal story among other people's poetry of place. The non-Aboriginal work all seemed to require degrees of intellectual decoding in order to find the feeling, while a young first timer, Yuga Avatar Hart, went straight to the heart with simple words about identity. Talking of non-indigenous people who have genuinely tried to help, he said "All their words, their kindness / Can they never feel the pain?" and left in the air the past, the present and the dilemma of reconciliation.
While Canberra Performance Poets and Tilley's give the opportunity for moments like this to happen, maybe Nurrunderi can smile a little and look down on us with some hope, after two centuries, of renewed lore and ceremony.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Martakupat Potawurtj, a Bindjali man whose English name is Darren Perry, is a second-generation stolen child, currently studying Cultural Heritage Management at University of Canberra. Brought up by foster parents in Queensland, he has only recently been able to trace his family back via his birth in the infirmary of Long Bay Gaol and his mother's institutional upbringing in Melbourne to his South Australian Bindjali and Narinjeri origins. He told his story at the Cabaret for Native Title presented by Australians for Native Title and Canberra Performance Poets at Tilley's Devine Cafe on Tuesday November 4.
The Poets, in conjunction with Second Stage, present a monthly eclectic form of theatre they call "Crash Cabaret": unadorned readings of new poems (this time by Anne Edgeworth, Peter Latona, Ken Brewer, Pauline Brooks, Laurie McDonald); strongly dramatised readings (Hal Judge, Kim Houghton) often with accompaniments, this week on digeridoo, guitar and violin; the ubiquitous comedians Fabulous Fred and Wicked Barb; musical acts of all kinds. Eugene Vincent produced amazing harmonics on the digeridoo on Tuesday, as an intro to a C&W style song about the importance of Albert Namatjira.
The purpose of Crash Cabaret is to give the chance for poets to perform their work, new writers to find an audience, and break the bounds of expectations with events which are at least half unplanned - relying on an unpredictable mix of writers and performers who turn up on the night. This is a kind of open-house (open-cafe?) theatre which suits Tilley's, perhaps the only place in town brave enough to put it on.
Nights must vary in quality and excitement level, but for me it was invaluable to hear the Aboriginal story among other people's poetry of place. The non-Aboriginal work all seemed to require degrees of intellectual decoding in order to find the feeling, while a young first timer, Yuga Avatar Hart, went straight to the heart with simple words about identity. Talking of non-indigenous people who have genuinely tried to help, he said "All their words, their kindness / Can they never feel the pain?" and left in the air the past, the present and the dilemma of reconciliation.
While Canberra Performance Poets and Tilley's give the opportunity for moments like this to happen, maybe Nurrunderi can smile a little and look down on us with some hope, after two centuries, of renewed lore and ceremony.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 14 October 1997
1997: Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams - Splinters Theatre of Spectacle
Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams. Director, Patrick Troy. Choreographer, Cheryl Heazlewood. Splinters Theatre of Spectacle, Festival of Contemporary Arts, Gorman House. October 14 to 18, 1997.
Splinters have departed from the simply spectacular and arrived at a soundscape with meaning. Autogeddon is "a tone poem and photographic essay" which presents Williams' apocalyptic view of a world in which an alien would see cars as the dominant lifeform.
Patrick Troy, a founder of the radical visual arts / drama combo company when Splinters began in the mid-1980's, and recently an associate director with the Sydney Theatre Company, has used Williams' work as the core of a series of images in sound and mimetic enactments. "This is a drive through installation, drive in live theatre spectacular, drive out spiritually cleansed event."
Audience participation is quite safe in this production - though it is a good idea to be upwind of the firefighters' hose when the stage is covered in foam, a dramatic effect which seemed to me to represent the horror of a nuclear winter. The final scene is strongly focussed as blackened, barely dressed figures slowly form a holocaust image - the ultimate destruction of humanity by our own technology.
Ironically the most successful devices in this production use modern technology. You buy your ticket at Gorman House, drive to the secret car park location (be in the first 30 cars to get the best positions), and tune your car radio to FM 107.9 - radio splinters. You watch most of the sequences from inside your car, hearing the main dialogue on your radio against the background technobeat and huge sound effects amplified outside across the stage: the reverse of the techno booner drive-by experience in Civic on Friday night.
When you leave your car to watch an intimate scene between a girl dancer and a radio-controlled toy racing car, take a large woolly jumper. The actors seemed to cope with the reality of a cold Canberra wind much more easily than I did, probably the result of Heazlewood's butoh training.
I thought the show promised more than it delivered, but it comes together well in the end. It's a fitting piece in a Festival of this kind and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Splinters have departed from the simply spectacular and arrived at a soundscape with meaning. Autogeddon is "a tone poem and photographic essay" which presents Williams' apocalyptic view of a world in which an alien would see cars as the dominant lifeform.
Patrick Troy, a founder of the radical visual arts / drama combo company when Splinters began in the mid-1980's, and recently an associate director with the Sydney Theatre Company, has used Williams' work as the core of a series of images in sound and mimetic enactments. "This is a drive through installation, drive in live theatre spectacular, drive out spiritually cleansed event."
Audience participation is quite safe in this production - though it is a good idea to be upwind of the firefighters' hose when the stage is covered in foam, a dramatic effect which seemed to me to represent the horror of a nuclear winter. The final scene is strongly focussed as blackened, barely dressed figures slowly form a holocaust image - the ultimate destruction of humanity by our own technology.
Ironically the most successful devices in this production use modern technology. You buy your ticket at Gorman House, drive to the secret car park location (be in the first 30 cars to get the best positions), and tune your car radio to FM 107.9 - radio splinters. You watch most of the sequences from inside your car, hearing the main dialogue on your radio against the background technobeat and huge sound effects amplified outside across the stage: the reverse of the techno booner drive-by experience in Civic on Friday night.
When you leave your car to watch an intimate scene between a girl dancer and a radio-controlled toy racing car, take a large woolly jumper. The actors seemed to cope with the reality of a cold Canberra wind much more easily than I did, probably the result of Heazlewood's butoh training.
I thought the show promised more than it delivered, but it comes together well in the end. It's a fitting piece in a Festival of this kind and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 8 October 1997
1997: Feature article on Roland Manderson, director Canberra Youth Theatre
"I think I've always been an extravert!" Iconoclast extraordinaire, Roland Manderson will be remembered for his unlikely performance as a bird in Andrew Bovell's early play An Ocean Out My Window. That was in 1986 in a company called Ensemble Theatre Project. ETP no longer exists, but Roland goes on forever.
Since 1991 he has been Director of Canberra Youth Theatre, where his quirky combination of an absurdist world-view and a seriousness about the importance of theatre works a treat with young people looking for the meaning of life. Roland aims for the top, or indeed even over-the-top when a Youth Theatre group recently stirred the ire of Parliament House security with plans to perform on the grass over the heads of the politicians! Despite rejection of the proposal, the grass being sacrosanct, he still managed to conduct a rehearsal in situ just to prove a peaceful and dramatic point about the nature of democracy.
Symbolic action is perhaps the key to Roland Manderson. In manner he fluctuates between growls and grins in a most beguiling way, representing not just his volatility but more his concern for people's rights and the expression of this concern through theatre. Youth Theatre is not, for Manderson, a pleasant training experience for the future daughters of Mrs Worthington, but a centre of theatrical activism.
Therefore he encourages young people to write and perform their own works, and take up challenges against normal expectations. Under Manderson's overall direction, some 18 tutor/directors have given Youth Theatre members and students from two Colleges experience in around 36 productions during 1996 and 1997. Many of these were under the immediate direction of Youth Theatre members themselves, making Gorman House a-buzz with youthful energy and ideas.
In answer to the Great Brechtian debate about football being more theatre than theatre itself, CYT created the Giant Raider (in the days when the Raiders were still the local team) - a 7 metre tall puppet which went to the football. This was part of Manderson's vision of art for young people enabling them to see themselves as part of the community. As football is community celebration, so is theatre. The traditional conflict between the arts and sport is negative thinking from Manderson's viewpoint. "But I'd relinquish an Artist of the Year award for an extra $40,000 a year for Canberra Youth Theatre" he says, hopefully.
Two highlights of recent times are The Maze by young writer Niamh Kearney, touring to NSW and Victoria (a study of how for young people life can seem to be a maze without an exit), and an exciting collaboration with the Song Ngoc Water Puppetry Troupe of Hanoi in Water Stories with performances at the Sydney and Canberra Festivals earlier this year. A challenging experience was the performance of Malai Mongkol by the Makhampon Theatre Company of Thailand, about Thai prostitution and AIDS.
CYT has a special role because it is part of the theatre industry, not a school, but Manderson would like to build a bigger organisation with a full training and development component to give Youth Theatre the profile it deserves. "It must be fun" is still the perception of being director of CYT - but it's much more than just fun.
Roland wants to examine "the nature of the place we live in - that is, Canberra". Parliament House featured back in 1991, when youth theatres from several states joined CYT in planting their flag on top of this august institution. That time, there was no complaint from security. Have times changed? "Mostly I suffer fools very gladly" says Roland Manderson.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Since 1991 he has been Director of Canberra Youth Theatre, where his quirky combination of an absurdist world-view and a seriousness about the importance of theatre works a treat with young people looking for the meaning of life. Roland aims for the top, or indeed even over-the-top when a Youth Theatre group recently stirred the ire of Parliament House security with plans to perform on the grass over the heads of the politicians! Despite rejection of the proposal, the grass being sacrosanct, he still managed to conduct a rehearsal in situ just to prove a peaceful and dramatic point about the nature of democracy.
Symbolic action is perhaps the key to Roland Manderson. In manner he fluctuates between growls and grins in a most beguiling way, representing not just his volatility but more his concern for people's rights and the expression of this concern through theatre. Youth Theatre is not, for Manderson, a pleasant training experience for the future daughters of Mrs Worthington, but a centre of theatrical activism.
Therefore he encourages young people to write and perform their own works, and take up challenges against normal expectations. Under Manderson's overall direction, some 18 tutor/directors have given Youth Theatre members and students from two Colleges experience in around 36 productions during 1996 and 1997. Many of these were under the immediate direction of Youth Theatre members themselves, making Gorman House a-buzz with youthful energy and ideas.
In answer to the Great Brechtian debate about football being more theatre than theatre itself, CYT created the Giant Raider (in the days when the Raiders were still the local team) - a 7 metre tall puppet which went to the football. This was part of Manderson's vision of art for young people enabling them to see themselves as part of the community. As football is community celebration, so is theatre. The traditional conflict between the arts and sport is negative thinking from Manderson's viewpoint. "But I'd relinquish an Artist of the Year award for an extra $40,000 a year for Canberra Youth Theatre" he says, hopefully.
Two highlights of recent times are The Maze by young writer Niamh Kearney, touring to NSW and Victoria (a study of how for young people life can seem to be a maze without an exit), and an exciting collaboration with the Song Ngoc Water Puppetry Troupe of Hanoi in Water Stories with performances at the Sydney and Canberra Festivals earlier this year. A challenging experience was the performance of Malai Mongkol by the Makhampon Theatre Company of Thailand, about Thai prostitution and AIDS.
CYT has a special role because it is part of the theatre industry, not a school, but Manderson would like to build a bigger organisation with a full training and development component to give Youth Theatre the profile it deserves. "It must be fun" is still the perception of being director of CYT - but it's much more than just fun.
Roland wants to examine "the nature of the place we live in - that is, Canberra". Parliament House featured back in 1991, when youth theatres from several states joined CYT in planting their flag on top of this august institution. That time, there was no complaint from security. Have times changed? "Mostly I suffer fools very gladly" says Roland Manderson.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday 4 October 1997
1997: News report on Tommy Murphy winning major award
Last night at The Street Theatre, Tom Murphy of Queanbeyan, a Year 12 student at St Edmunds College, Canberra, was named the Singapore Airlines Young Shakespearean Artist of 1997. The award was presented by Mr Robert Goddard, Sales Manager ACT, Singapore Airlines.
This year the National Schools' Shakespeare Festival has taken a new direction. From the State and Territory finals, 24 outstanding individual performers participated in the National Shakespeare Showcase: five days of workshops and master classes, directed by actor John Turnbull. With designer Rodney Brunsdon, choreographer Delores Dunbar and musical director Ron Creager, the students created dance, music and group movement to link pieces from Shakespeare's plays and poems.
All the actors, aged 12 to 18, played many roles: Murphy was Othello, Romeo, Orsino and Hamlet's Father's Ghost among others. The award is made for the person judged to be the most ready for further training.
Murphy will travel to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London and to Stratford-upon-Avon on a two-week study tour. Wendy Dowd (South Australia) and Louise Tourelle (NSW), winners of the Singapore Airlines Shakespeare Teacher of the Year Award for outstanding professional development proposals, will study Shakespeare in performance and voice development respectively.
The Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia is a privately sponsored charitable organisation with a broad charter to promote Shakespearean arts and education. To provide follow-up opportunities for the finalists each year, the Centre has established Australian Friends of Shakespeare's Globe.
Affiliated with Shakespeare's Globe in London, the Australian Friends program is poised to expand, arranging study tours, conferences, international theatre exchanges and productions. Hugh O'Keefe is Director, National Education Program on 02 9351 5231 (Fax 02 9351 5230).
The National Shakespeare Showcase will be presented at The Street Theatre each year during Floriade. This year the students all showed skill, commitment and sincerity in the work. The Showcase week emphasises the collaborative nature of theatre: their presentation demonstrated the value of bringing students together from across the nation. If Shakespeare be the food of theatre, play on.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This year the National Schools' Shakespeare Festival has taken a new direction. From the State and Territory finals, 24 outstanding individual performers participated in the National Shakespeare Showcase: five days of workshops and master classes, directed by actor John Turnbull. With designer Rodney Brunsdon, choreographer Delores Dunbar and musical director Ron Creager, the students created dance, music and group movement to link pieces from Shakespeare's plays and poems.
All the actors, aged 12 to 18, played many roles: Murphy was Othello, Romeo, Orsino and Hamlet's Father's Ghost among others. The award is made for the person judged to be the most ready for further training.
Murphy will travel to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London and to Stratford-upon-Avon on a two-week study tour. Wendy Dowd (South Australia) and Louise Tourelle (NSW), winners of the Singapore Airlines Shakespeare Teacher of the Year Award for outstanding professional development proposals, will study Shakespeare in performance and voice development respectively.
The Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia is a privately sponsored charitable organisation with a broad charter to promote Shakespearean arts and education. To provide follow-up opportunities for the finalists each year, the Centre has established Australian Friends of Shakespeare's Globe.
Affiliated with Shakespeare's Globe in London, the Australian Friends program is poised to expand, arranging study tours, conferences, international theatre exchanges and productions. Hugh O'Keefe is Director, National Education Program on 02 9351 5231 (Fax 02 9351 5230).
The National Shakespeare Showcase will be presented at The Street Theatre each year during Floriade. This year the students all showed skill, commitment and sincerity in the work. The Showcase week emphasises the collaborative nature of theatre: their presentation demonstrated the value of bringing students together from across the nation. If Shakespeare be the food of theatre, play on.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 17 September 1997
1997: Preview of The Tempest, Bell Shakespeare
I think the Bell Shakespeare Company will blow up a storm this weekend with the opening of The Tempest. Jim Sharman took The Tempest to re-read while holidaying on Bali. The magic of the island worked: he came home to an invitation from John Bell to direct this production.
On Tuesday a substantial crowd, from traditional thespians to young Triple J's, heard new voices singing, saw a new conception of set design, and felt that Sharman will illuminate the Bell Company.
We heard from Sharman about more than a year's work on "ideas of great gravity expressed with marvellous lightness". Antony Ernst, the dramaturg, took us through a play which is "clearly symbolic, but it is not clear what it is symbolic of". Rather than a problem, this is an advantage because interpretations of all kinds - Prospero as the retiring Shakespeare; theatre as a microcosm of the real world; the world as a theatrical illusion; the tempest as a Jungian archetype; a play about a manipulator who wants to get his daughter on the throne of Naples - are all plausible. We can take the play at any level.
I was excited by the dynamic acting and singing, though we were given only a taste of the opening scene, by Bell and a close-knit team of six men and three women, a fascinating combination from Rachael Maza to Lani John Tupu.
Michael Wilkinson's set represents at the same time the intellectual tradition of science and the art of magic. It is Prospero's workshop, all decked in knotty timber, in which he has created a transparent island with a ladder to heaven, where we see his geometry and his philosophical words - in Egyptian, Greek, Arabic, Chinese and English.
Yet hidden in the island is music: written, directed, played and sung by Tyrone Landau - stunning, original, magical music. It crosses the boundaries from high-brow contemporary, through popular musical to husky jazz. It opens up the play to people across cultures and classes. It is the music of the spheres, the magic in the show, and I can't wait to see the full production - preview on Friday September 19; opening night Saturday September 20 at the Canberra Theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On Tuesday a substantial crowd, from traditional thespians to young Triple J's, heard new voices singing, saw a new conception of set design, and felt that Sharman will illuminate the Bell Company.
We heard from Sharman about more than a year's work on "ideas of great gravity expressed with marvellous lightness". Antony Ernst, the dramaturg, took us through a play which is "clearly symbolic, but it is not clear what it is symbolic of". Rather than a problem, this is an advantage because interpretations of all kinds - Prospero as the retiring Shakespeare; theatre as a microcosm of the real world; the world as a theatrical illusion; the tempest as a Jungian archetype; a play about a manipulator who wants to get his daughter on the throne of Naples - are all plausible. We can take the play at any level.
I was excited by the dynamic acting and singing, though we were given only a taste of the opening scene, by Bell and a close-knit team of six men and three women, a fascinating combination from Rachael Maza to Lani John Tupu.
Michael Wilkinson's set represents at the same time the intellectual tradition of science and the art of magic. It is Prospero's workshop, all decked in knotty timber, in which he has created a transparent island with a ladder to heaven, where we see his geometry and his philosophical words - in Egyptian, Greek, Arabic, Chinese and English.
Yet hidden in the island is music: written, directed, played and sung by Tyrone Landau - stunning, original, magical music. It crosses the boundaries from high-brow contemporary, through popular musical to husky jazz. It opens up the play to people across cultures and classes. It is the music of the spheres, the magic in the show, and I can't wait to see the full production - preview on Friday September 19; opening night Saturday September 20 at the Canberra Theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 11 September 1997
1997: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. Paper Moon Productions at ANU Arts Centre, directed by Geoffrey Borny. September 11 - 20, 1997, 7.30 pm.
Ghosts (1881), sequel to the perhaps more well-known A Doll's House, is about a woman's duty and freedom, but also opens up other issues very much in today's news: sexually transmitted disease, a child's inherited defects, hiding the truth from children about their parents, and euthanasia.
Geoffrey Borny directs a new translation from the original Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt (dramaturg for the Sydney Theatre Company and director of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference) and the playwright Louis Nowra. The result is a play of subtle twists in emotional relationships, handled well by all the actors but especially by Naoné Carrel and Tony Turner as Mrs Alving and Pastor Manders.
Ibsen wrote to August Lindberg, director of the 1883 Hälsinborg production (who also played Helene Alving's son Oswald), that the play depends a great deal on "making the spectator feel as if he were actually sitting, listening and looking at events happening in real life". This was the new realism in theatre which was, I think, not fully achieved on opening night. Some intensity is lost in movements which "use the stage" but are psychologically unnecessary. Lighting changes need to be smoother and slower so the emotional effect on the audience is achieved more subliminally. The openness of the set design works well in the Arts Centre space for sight-lines, but requires greater intensity of stillness to focus us on each character's conflicting feelings. Especially I felt the final stages of Oswald's decline into insanity as the sun rises needed to gradually build more horror in us sitting, looking and listening, before his mother on stage realises what has happened.
Regine (Sarah Chalmers) and her "father" Jacob Engstrand (Richard Anderson) open the play with a strong, lively interchange. Patrick Brammall presents Oswald's dramatic mood changes well. Tony Turner and Naoné Carrell are consistently good, experienced actors. I sense that the production will deepen and intensify through the season.
Ghosts is a highly relevant classic play well worth seeing in this intelligent production - and remember curtain-up is at 7.30, giving plenty of time at the end for coffee and discussion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Ghosts (1881), sequel to the perhaps more well-known A Doll's House, is about a woman's duty and freedom, but also opens up other issues very much in today's news: sexually transmitted disease, a child's inherited defects, hiding the truth from children about their parents, and euthanasia.
Geoffrey Borny directs a new translation from the original Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt (dramaturg for the Sydney Theatre Company and director of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference) and the playwright Louis Nowra. The result is a play of subtle twists in emotional relationships, handled well by all the actors but especially by Naoné Carrel and Tony Turner as Mrs Alving and Pastor Manders.
Ibsen wrote to August Lindberg, director of the 1883 Hälsinborg production (who also played Helene Alving's son Oswald), that the play depends a great deal on "making the spectator feel as if he were actually sitting, listening and looking at events happening in real life". This was the new realism in theatre which was, I think, not fully achieved on opening night. Some intensity is lost in movements which "use the stage" but are psychologically unnecessary. Lighting changes need to be smoother and slower so the emotional effect on the audience is achieved more subliminally. The openness of the set design works well in the Arts Centre space for sight-lines, but requires greater intensity of stillness to focus us on each character's conflicting feelings. Especially I felt the final stages of Oswald's decline into insanity as the sun rises needed to gradually build more horror in us sitting, looking and listening, before his mother on stage realises what has happened.
Regine (Sarah Chalmers) and her "father" Jacob Engstrand (Richard Anderson) open the play with a strong, lively interchange. Patrick Brammall presents Oswald's dramatic mood changes well. Tony Turner and Naoné Carrell are consistently good, experienced actors. I sense that the production will deepen and intensify through the season.
Ghosts is a highly relevant classic play well worth seeing in this intelligent production - and remember curtain-up is at 7.30, giving plenty of time at the end for coffee and discussion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 5 September 1997
1997: An Ordinary Day by Franca Rame and Dario Fo and Can't Pay Won't Pay by Dario Fo
An Ordinary Day by Franca Rame and Dario Fo and Can't Pay Won't Pay by Dario Fo. Ugly Duckling and Canberra Independent Artists in the Fo Festival at The Street Theatre Studio 7.30 pm till September 13 (Tuesdays to Saturdays).
The Fo Festival's second opening night last Thursday turned out to be a more exciting evening of theatre than the first night. The band led a more substantial and lively audience, and Can't Pay Won't Pay is not so intent on following logical twists and turns of political polemics as Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
The program alternates Waking Up / Accidental Death with Ordinary Day / Can't Pay on the weekday evenings, but on Saturday September 6 at 5.00 pm Waking Up is teamed with Ordinary Day, while on Saturday evenings Accidental Death and Can't Pay go together. Be prepared for a long evening on Saturdays.
For me, the best combination for performance quality would be Waking Up and Can't Pay Won't Pay. An Ordinary Day makes a slow start because it is presented too naturalistically until towards the end when her "ordinary day" finally gets the better of the woman who no longer wants to commit suicide but is about to be mistakenly committed as insane. The play, like all Rame / Fo plays, is essentially expressionistic and needs to emphasise the humour until the last moment when the reality of life's absurdity hits home.
Can't Pay Won't Pay is much closer to commedia, farce and circus and is performed with appropriate gusto. Its theme - that people must take things into their own hands and not wait for governments, unions or (in the Italian tradition) even the communist party to solve society's problems - is built into the fun revolving around apparently pregnant women rounded out by bags of food nicked from the supermarket whose manager blames "market forces" for high prices. Being light-hearted, like Waking Up, I feel the satirical points sink in more firmly and the characters become more human than in Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Performances will soon settle in: you will need to go to two shows to get the best of the Fo Festival and the best is worth seeing.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Fo Festival's second opening night last Thursday turned out to be a more exciting evening of theatre than the first night. The band led a more substantial and lively audience, and Can't Pay Won't Pay is not so intent on following logical twists and turns of political polemics as Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
The program alternates Waking Up / Accidental Death with Ordinary Day / Can't Pay on the weekday evenings, but on Saturday September 6 at 5.00 pm Waking Up is teamed with Ordinary Day, while on Saturday evenings Accidental Death and Can't Pay go together. Be prepared for a long evening on Saturdays.
For me, the best combination for performance quality would be Waking Up and Can't Pay Won't Pay. An Ordinary Day makes a slow start because it is presented too naturalistically until towards the end when her "ordinary day" finally gets the better of the woman who no longer wants to commit suicide but is about to be mistakenly committed as insane. The play, like all Rame / Fo plays, is essentially expressionistic and needs to emphasise the humour until the last moment when the reality of life's absurdity hits home.
Can't Pay Won't Pay is much closer to commedia, farce and circus and is performed with appropriate gusto. Its theme - that people must take things into their own hands and not wait for governments, unions or (in the Italian tradition) even the communist party to solve society's problems - is built into the fun revolving around apparently pregnant women rounded out by bags of food nicked from the supermarket whose manager blames "market forces" for high prices. Being light-hearted, like Waking Up, I feel the satirical points sink in more firmly and the characters become more human than in Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Performances will soon settle in: you will need to go to two shows to get the best of the Fo Festival and the best is worth seeing.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 3 September 1997
1997: Waking up by Franca Rame and Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo
Waking up by Franca Rame and Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo. The Fo Festival at The Street Theatre Studio, September 3 - 13, 1997.
The Franca Rame - Dario Fo Company has, since the 1950's, taken their plays of social criticism to the towns and working people of Italy, using pantomime and commedia dell'arte traditions to amuse, educate people in the skills of social analysis, and rouse people to action in the face of corruption and social control by powerful elite groups.
Waking Up is a short, humorous yet ultimately sad study of a working woman who forgets that Sunday is her day off. Anna Voronoff creates a warm, attractive character using excellent mime and voice skills. She is tuned in to Rame's theatrical style: we hear and feel the message.
Accidental Death is a surrealist very funny romp through a story of police corruption, based on a real case of an anarchist's supposed suicide by leaping from the fourth floor window of a police station. Fo's aim is to show that police are corrupt because they are an arm of the law of a society essentially based on corruption. At least that's what his anarchist character says: he doesn't end up committing suicide. Newspaper reporters get it in the neck in this play, and I'm not sure where theatre critics stand.
The performers from the Ugly Duckling Theatre Company are not all as skilled as Anna Voronoff in Waking Up, but they clearly understand the style and purpose of this kind of theatre and the energy rarely flags.
The Fo Festival is under the banner of the Tuggeranong Community Arts Association, bringing together Ugly Duckling (hatched by the John Oakley / Ian Phillips drama classes at the old Stirling College) and the professional arts/theatre collective Canberra Independent Artists. The Rame-Fo plays suit these performers and the times are perhaps ripe for Canberra audiences to appreciate themes of social awareness and conscience.
I may be accused of politicising my review, but Fo would shoot me down if I didn't. I can only say if you think a package is the answer to your workplace relations, then you should see these plays and make up your own mind.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Franca Rame - Dario Fo Company has, since the 1950's, taken their plays of social criticism to the towns and working people of Italy, using pantomime and commedia dell'arte traditions to amuse, educate people in the skills of social analysis, and rouse people to action in the face of corruption and social control by powerful elite groups.
Waking Up is a short, humorous yet ultimately sad study of a working woman who forgets that Sunday is her day off. Anna Voronoff creates a warm, attractive character using excellent mime and voice skills. She is tuned in to Rame's theatrical style: we hear and feel the message.
Accidental Death is a surrealist very funny romp through a story of police corruption, based on a real case of an anarchist's supposed suicide by leaping from the fourth floor window of a police station. Fo's aim is to show that police are corrupt because they are an arm of the law of a society essentially based on corruption. At least that's what his anarchist character says: he doesn't end up committing suicide. Newspaper reporters get it in the neck in this play, and I'm not sure where theatre critics stand.
The performers from the Ugly Duckling Theatre Company are not all as skilled as Anna Voronoff in Waking Up, but they clearly understand the style and purpose of this kind of theatre and the energy rarely flags.
The Fo Festival is under the banner of the Tuggeranong Community Arts Association, bringing together Ugly Duckling (hatched by the John Oakley / Ian Phillips drama classes at the old Stirling College) and the professional arts/theatre collective Canberra Independent Artists. The Rame-Fo plays suit these performers and the times are perhaps ripe for Canberra audiences to appreciate themes of social awareness and conscience.
I may be accused of politicising my review, but Fo would shoot me down if I didn't. I can only say if you think a package is the answer to your workplace relations, then you should see these plays and make up your own mind.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 19 June 1997
1997: For God, Queen and Country by Tommy Murphy (when he was still Thomas)
For God, Queen and Country by Thomas Murphy. Canberra Youth Theatre, directed by Garry Fry. Gorman House Arts Centre June 19 - 28, 1997.
Excellent. Rad. Cool. It was exciting to see a new young playwright's work well presented in an intimate setting. The performing space was in-the-round: even in the back row I was close enough to feel almost in Hugh's bedroom.
Sean Smeaton played Hugh lightly, bemused by his life experience. His relationships with his mother (Suzanne Smith), the girl he was always with (Lucy Vincent), Nathan - the boy next door (Robert Hogarth), Brendan (Edward Cocks) who gets a back-hoe apprenticeship, and the apparition of his Religious Education teacher (played by Renee Bechara) were cleverly encased in his poems.
Hugh is awakened to an understanding of himself by his own poems. Tom Murphy displays, in this character, a quite remarkable insight and sense of irony for a writer only a little older than his creation. He has given the actors material which they could genuinely draw on - the first night suggests that they will fill in the colours more strongly as the season progresses. The script is structured very well, taking us through two-edged laughter and contrasting reflective silences, exploring a theme which is revealed to us only gradually as Hugh's self-awareness grows.
This is work which sits well with Youth Theatre. Everyone - audience, actors, writer and director - felt in tune. Murphy has been strongly supported by the Cultural Centre of his home town Queanbeyan, enabling him to be a delegate at last year's Australian National Playwrights' Conference. He learned there, from observing many plays in workshop, how to turn his original set of poems into theatre. CCQ backed him again for a reading with Intima Theatre, leading to the 1996 Young Playwrights' Weekend where the script was polished and prepared for this production.
There is youthful sincerity, a truth of vision and a professionalism in this work which puts Canberra Youth Theatre on the dramatic map, and bodes well for the future career of Thomas Murphy. It's cool; it's rad; and it's excellent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Excellent. Rad. Cool. It was exciting to see a new young playwright's work well presented in an intimate setting. The performing space was in-the-round: even in the back row I was close enough to feel almost in Hugh's bedroom.
Sean Smeaton played Hugh lightly, bemused by his life experience. His relationships with his mother (Suzanne Smith), the girl he was always with (Lucy Vincent), Nathan - the boy next door (Robert Hogarth), Brendan (Edward Cocks) who gets a back-hoe apprenticeship, and the apparition of his Religious Education teacher (played by Renee Bechara) were cleverly encased in his poems.
Hugh is awakened to an understanding of himself by his own poems. Tom Murphy displays, in this character, a quite remarkable insight and sense of irony for a writer only a little older than his creation. He has given the actors material which they could genuinely draw on - the first night suggests that they will fill in the colours more strongly as the season progresses. The script is structured very well, taking us through two-edged laughter and contrasting reflective silences, exploring a theme which is revealed to us only gradually as Hugh's self-awareness grows.
This is work which sits well with Youth Theatre. Everyone - audience, actors, writer and director - felt in tune. Murphy has been strongly supported by the Cultural Centre of his home town Queanbeyan, enabling him to be a delegate at last year's Australian National Playwrights' Conference. He learned there, from observing many plays in workshop, how to turn his original set of poems into theatre. CCQ backed him again for a reading with Intima Theatre, leading to the 1996 Young Playwrights' Weekend where the script was polished and prepared for this production.
There is youthful sincerity, a truth of vision and a professionalism in this work which puts Canberra Youth Theatre on the dramatic map, and bodes well for the future career of Thomas Murphy. It's cool; it's rad; and it's excellent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday 25 May 1997
1997: The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. The Bell Shakespeare Company directed by Adam Cook at the Canberra Theatre. May 24 - 31, 1997. Starring John Bell, Deidre Rubenstein, Ron Haddrick, Heather Mitchell.
This is an excellent production, not to be missed - yet not quite as wonderful as it might be.
Maybe it's churlish to criticise a company of such standards, where every actor so technically skilled. Clever artifice makes it hard for me to be sure of my grounds, but there seemed to be something missing in the first half, though all was redeemed in the second.
I was disappointed by the bear. In this production, lights and sound for "Exit, pursued by a bear" combined to create the right dramatic effect, but oddly the image of the bear was not clear enough for those who do not know the script well. Leontes wore a cloak of bear skin, later worn again by the shepherd's son after the truth about Perdita has been revealed. The symbolic linking was surely intended - so why was the the image of the bear not held so that we really knew it was a bear: the representation of Leontes' "shadow"?
I found a fatal flaw in the first encounter between Polixenes and Leontes. Polixenes, after a nine month stay, announces he will leave Leontes' court "to-morrow". Leontes, in Bell's version, has decided that something is going on between the pregnant Hermione and Polixenes: he opens with vicious jealousy. Why, when we are told in Scene I that Leontes and Polixenes have had such a strong affection since childhood? Scene II needs to begin with Polixenes genuinely not wanting to go, catching himself by surprise when he says "that's to-morrow"; while Leontes accepts his friend's necessary decision, and then is himself taken by surprise by Hermione's success in reversing the decision.
The first inkling of jealousy should appear only as Leontes reminds Hermione of her accepting his marriage proposal. Then we could see an honest Leontes trapped in the twists and turns of jealousy, triggered by a misinterpretation of a minor event. John Bell's Leontes was too evil from the start for me to believe in his redemption at the end.
You should see The Winter's Tale. The end is beautiful, and you may find me quite wrong about the first half.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is an excellent production, not to be missed - yet not quite as wonderful as it might be.
Maybe it's churlish to criticise a company of such standards, where every actor so technically skilled. Clever artifice makes it hard for me to be sure of my grounds, but there seemed to be something missing in the first half, though all was redeemed in the second.
I was disappointed by the bear. In this production, lights and sound for "Exit, pursued by a bear" combined to create the right dramatic effect, but oddly the image of the bear was not clear enough for those who do not know the script well. Leontes wore a cloak of bear skin, later worn again by the shepherd's son after the truth about Perdita has been revealed. The symbolic linking was surely intended - so why was the the image of the bear not held so that we really knew it was a bear: the representation of Leontes' "shadow"?
I found a fatal flaw in the first encounter between Polixenes and Leontes. Polixenes, after a nine month stay, announces he will leave Leontes' court "to-morrow". Leontes, in Bell's version, has decided that something is going on between the pregnant Hermione and Polixenes: he opens with vicious jealousy. Why, when we are told in Scene I that Leontes and Polixenes have had such a strong affection since childhood? Scene II needs to begin with Polixenes genuinely not wanting to go, catching himself by surprise when he says "that's to-morrow"; while Leontes accepts his friend's necessary decision, and then is himself taken by surprise by Hermione's success in reversing the decision.
The first inkling of jealousy should appear only as Leontes reminds Hermione of her accepting his marriage proposal. Then we could see an honest Leontes trapped in the twists and turns of jealousy, triggered by a misinterpretation of a minor event. John Bell's Leontes was too evil from the start for me to believe in his redemption at the end.
You should see The Winter's Tale. The end is beautiful, and you may find me quite wrong about the first half.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1997: News item on the Swan Shakespeare Foundation of Australia
Canberra is currently the Shakespeare capital of the nation. The Bell Shakespeare Company has opened its national tour of The Winter's Tale here, and at a small-scale launching ceremony of a large-scale project in the Green Room of the Canberra Theatre last Saturday, the Artistic Director John Bell, AM, signed an agreement with the Swan Shakespeare Foundation of Australia making The Winter's Tale the first production in The Season of the Canon.
The Swan Foundation, the culmination of a dream of Hazel Treweek, MBE, OAM, will celebrate Shakespeare's canon by reaching agreement with companies across Australia to perform all of Shakespeare's 37 plays, all his sonnets and his five other major poetic works. Productions will take place from May 24 1997 to May 24 1999, commemorating Shakespeare's becoming one of the 'householders', with a 10 per cent share, of the new Globe Theatre in 1599.
There are currently fifteen companies, university departments and individuals in the Foundation's program, supported by a large range of sponsorships. Personal donations have provided the start-up money including a substantial amount from Thailand. The Thai Government was represented at the launch by Mr Krairawee Sirikul, First Secretary, Cultural Attaché.
The Foundation is seeking expressions of interest from companies under several category headings: professional companies; amateur companies of exceptional standard; community theatre and musical societies; university drama schools and societies; and a special category of professional children's theatre.
Contacts for the Swan Foundation are the President, Hazel Treweek (02-9416-3939) or the Artistic Director, Peter Edge (02-9743-6330).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Swan Foundation, the culmination of a dream of Hazel Treweek, MBE, OAM, will celebrate Shakespeare's canon by reaching agreement with companies across Australia to perform all of Shakespeare's 37 plays, all his sonnets and his five other major poetic works. Productions will take place from May 24 1997 to May 24 1999, commemorating Shakespeare's becoming one of the 'householders', with a 10 per cent share, of the new Globe Theatre in 1599.
There are currently fifteen companies, university departments and individuals in the Foundation's program, supported by a large range of sponsorships. Personal donations have provided the start-up money including a substantial amount from Thailand. The Thai Government was represented at the launch by Mr Krairawee Sirikul, First Secretary, Cultural Attaché.
The Foundation is seeking expressions of interest from companies under several category headings: professional companies; amateur companies of exceptional standard; community theatre and musical societies; university drama schools and societies; and a special category of professional children's theatre.
Contacts for the Swan Foundation are the President, Hazel Treweek (02-9416-3939) or the Artistic Director, Peter Edge (02-9743-6330).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 22 May 1997
1997: Sitomania by Odd Productions
Sitomania. Odd Productions at the Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, Gorman House. May 22 - 24, 1997, at 8.00 pm with late shows on Friday and Saturday at 10.30 pm.
On the one hand "this show is inspired by the 21st Century", but on the other "this project is made from completely recycled and borrowed materials."
I think these program notes define the parameters of this humorous study of the seven deadly sins - so much so that all die except Pride, who is clearly clinically paranoid. Maybe self-serving obsessiveness with "brilopads (sic), nailbrushes, disinfectants and detergents" is what the 21st Century promises. "My life is steeped in meaning. I know what's going on, I watch the news everyday."
The cynicism which makes us laugh as we walk around this little theatre watching Lust (Tim Wood), Greed (Rebecca Rutter), Sloth (Anne-Marie Sinclair, also the director), Gluttony (Remo Vallance), Anger (Rohini Sharma) and Envy (Kelly Ryall) act out the story told, more or less, by Pride (Estelle Muspratt) is probably the new element in this drama. There is lots of social criticism but no sense of social purpose. I suppose it's a kind of black farce.
Oddly enough, though, the theatrical style of Sitomania seems to me almost old-fashioned in the mid-1990's. The audience is not seated - not comfortable and relaxed. You can expect to participate in twisted versions of The Price is Right or Ballroom Dancing. Yet none of this is done with as much flair or challenge as The Open Theatre did in the 1960's. Maybe only explicit penile representations and real bare bums push the old limits a little.
Even the idea of mediaeval morality belongs to The Seventh Seal or to myriad teenage drama creations. However, the use of mixed-media and much of the acting was well done. The set is engaging in its detail. Pride's Windex even gets up your nose as she cleans her cigarettes before drawing back the tar.
It's a bit like being inside a living Roald Dahl story. So don't go if you are old and staid, but if you like standing up for an hour, being bombarded by images and taken on a twisted fairy-story journey, you won't be bored.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On the one hand "this show is inspired by the 21st Century", but on the other "this project is made from completely recycled and borrowed materials."
I think these program notes define the parameters of this humorous study of the seven deadly sins - so much so that all die except Pride, who is clearly clinically paranoid. Maybe self-serving obsessiveness with "brilopads (sic), nailbrushes, disinfectants and detergents" is what the 21st Century promises. "My life is steeped in meaning. I know what's going on, I watch the news everyday."
The cynicism which makes us laugh as we walk around this little theatre watching Lust (Tim Wood), Greed (Rebecca Rutter), Sloth (Anne-Marie Sinclair, also the director), Gluttony (Remo Vallance), Anger (Rohini Sharma) and Envy (Kelly Ryall) act out the story told, more or less, by Pride (Estelle Muspratt) is probably the new element in this drama. There is lots of social criticism but no sense of social purpose. I suppose it's a kind of black farce.
Oddly enough, though, the theatrical style of Sitomania seems to me almost old-fashioned in the mid-1990's. The audience is not seated - not comfortable and relaxed. You can expect to participate in twisted versions of The Price is Right or Ballroom Dancing. Yet none of this is done with as much flair or challenge as The Open Theatre did in the 1960's. Maybe only explicit penile representations and real bare bums push the old limits a little.
Even the idea of mediaeval morality belongs to The Seventh Seal or to myriad teenage drama creations. However, the use of mixed-media and much of the acting was well done. The set is engaging in its detail. Pride's Windex even gets up your nose as she cleans her cigarettes before drawing back the tar.
It's a bit like being inside a living Roald Dahl story. So don't go if you are old and staid, but if you like standing up for an hour, being bombarded by images and taken on a twisted fairy-story journey, you won't be bored.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 20 May 1997
1997: Short preview of Bell Shakespeare - Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr
The Bell Shakespeare Company has grown four tentacles, two of which reach out to Canberra this week. The main company opens its 1997 tour with The Winter's Tale at the Canberra Theatre on Saturday. The theatre-in-education company, on contract to Young Australia Workshop, is performing Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes at the Albert Hall during weekdays for primary schools.
Bell Shakespeare has taken on a tradition which has a long history in Australia: taking Shakespeare to the people in large and small communities across the country. Their high school education team, Actors at Work, workshops scenes from the Bard with teenage students, following in the footsteps of the Young Elizabethan Players of 30 years ago. The fourth team presents Shakespeare Without Technology, currently performing Macbeth in rural towns. These are minimal productions, rather along the lines of those on the goldfields a century and a half ago.
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is the story of Sadako Sasaki who died from leukemia at the age of eleven, nine years after the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Bravery in the face of inevitable death, and the spiritual positives in the Japanese culture, are the themes of Eleanor Coerr's narrative, adapted for the stage and directed by Chris Canute.
The Bell Company decided that Shakespeare should be left to older audiences, but for younger children this play has the same effect as any of his tragedies. Re-telling of traumatic memories can help someone cope with a dreadful past, and theatre can do the same for a whole society. Sadako tries to make a thousand paper cranes before she dies, a task which was completed by the other children in her school. Her statue stands in the Peace Park in Hiroshima. Her mother's haiku poem says:
Out of coloured paper
the cranes come flying
into our house.
The play ends with: This is our prayer - Peace in the World.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Bell Shakespeare has taken on a tradition which has a long history in Australia: taking Shakespeare to the people in large and small communities across the country. Their high school education team, Actors at Work, workshops scenes from the Bard with teenage students, following in the footsteps of the Young Elizabethan Players of 30 years ago. The fourth team presents Shakespeare Without Technology, currently performing Macbeth in rural towns. These are minimal productions, rather along the lines of those on the goldfields a century and a half ago.
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is the story of Sadako Sasaki who died from leukemia at the age of eleven, nine years after the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Bravery in the face of inevitable death, and the spiritual positives in the Japanese culture, are the themes of Eleanor Coerr's narrative, adapted for the stage and directed by Chris Canute.
The Bell Company decided that Shakespeare should be left to older audiences, but for younger children this play has the same effect as any of his tragedies. Re-telling of traumatic memories can help someone cope with a dreadful past, and theatre can do the same for a whole society. Sadako tries to make a thousand paper cranes before she dies, a task which was completed by the other children in her school. Her statue stands in the Peace Park in Hiroshima. Her mother's haiku poem says:
Out of coloured paper
the cranes come flying
into our house.
The play ends with: This is our prayer - Peace in the World.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 8 May 1997
1997: Dimboola by Jack Hibberd
Dimboola by Jack Hibberd at Woden Tradesmen's Union Club. Thursdays only. Tempo Theatre directed by Myles Leon.
Laid-ees an gennul-men. I'd like t' begin, first up - an' up's always better th'n down, except in relation to drink, when down's definitely better th'n up - it won't be easy, an' it won't be 'ard, so I 'ope yer all enjoyin' yerselfs, 'cos I'm 'aving a good time ternight.
Excuse me.
'Allo, 'oo are you, eh? You'se look like an interlecshul.
Yes, well I write for the local newspaper, you see.
Toffy nosed bastard, eh?
Well I do find it hard to believe that ordinary Australians could behave in such a manner at a wedding reception for their own sons and daughters. There seems to be no moral dignity on what should be an occasion for genuine celebration of future joy, family values and the unity of marriage.
Er, what wus that? 'Oo 've you been talkin' to - that Pauline Hanson? You 'aving a go at us, or something. Listen, mate - and I calls yer a mate advisedly - if you can't get up on the floor 'ere and partake in a bit of line dancin', or join the Canadian three-step (just ignore these stupid drunken bastards), then you don't belong 'ere, see?
Well, yes, I suppose I do. Maybe I should leave now.
Aarr, no, mate, stay about for a bit. Yer see, the priest's gotta give 'is speech yet (though you've gotta watch Father Pat or 'e'll be looking up yer skirt, or worse if yer a boy). And Donna's gonna sing Ave Maria again at the end, and yer can't miss that. An' you've gotta sing "Fer they yar jolly good fellows" an' "More beer, more beer" (that's meant ter be "Auld Lang Syne" o'course, but you won't get any o' this mob ter sing the right words!)
So I stayed about, and I would like to thank the ladies who did the decorations and everyone else from Tempo Theatre for putting on a bright and lively show, and the Tradies for the wine, an' fin'lly I'sh like to shay Thursday's a great nigh' s'long as yer don't have ter work on Friday! No worries, mate.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Laid-ees an gennul-men. I'd like t' begin, first up - an' up's always better th'n down, except in relation to drink, when down's definitely better th'n up - it won't be easy, an' it won't be 'ard, so I 'ope yer all enjoyin' yerselfs, 'cos I'm 'aving a good time ternight.
Excuse me.
'Allo, 'oo are you, eh? You'se look like an interlecshul.
Yes, well I write for the local newspaper, you see.
Toffy nosed bastard, eh?
Well I do find it hard to believe that ordinary Australians could behave in such a manner at a wedding reception for their own sons and daughters. There seems to be no moral dignity on what should be an occasion for genuine celebration of future joy, family values and the unity of marriage.
Er, what wus that? 'Oo 've you been talkin' to - that Pauline Hanson? You 'aving a go at us, or something. Listen, mate - and I calls yer a mate advisedly - if you can't get up on the floor 'ere and partake in a bit of line dancin', or join the Canadian three-step (just ignore these stupid drunken bastards), then you don't belong 'ere, see?
Well, yes, I suppose I do. Maybe I should leave now.
Aarr, no, mate, stay about for a bit. Yer see, the priest's gotta give 'is speech yet (though you've gotta watch Father Pat or 'e'll be looking up yer skirt, or worse if yer a boy). And Donna's gonna sing Ave Maria again at the end, and yer can't miss that. An' you've gotta sing "Fer they yar jolly good fellows" an' "More beer, more beer" (that's meant ter be "Auld Lang Syne" o'course, but you won't get any o' this mob ter sing the right words!)
So I stayed about, and I would like to thank the ladies who did the decorations and everyone else from Tempo Theatre for putting on a bright and lively show, and the Tradies for the wine, an' fin'lly I'sh like to shay Thursday's a great nigh' s'long as yer don't have ter work on Friday! No worries, mate.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday 3 May 1997
1997: Feature article on Australian National Playwrights' Conference '97
Something peculiar has been going on at this year's Australian National Playwrights' Conference, which ended last Saturday. Returning to its ancient autumnal time slot, preventing me from characterising the playwrights as young Floriade plants going through the process of fertilisation and growth as I did last spring, the Conference seemed more reflective, at least in the sessions I observed.
Usually the Conference is avidly practical, turning scripts into blueprints for production. And indeed we are seeing last week and this, in BOD at The Street Theatre, one result of four years' development started at the 1993 Playwrights' Conference. After BOD's opening night, I found myself at the ANU Arts Centre returning to the beginnings.
The Conference always has too much on to see everything unless one can be a full time aficionado: I saw the final readings of The Other Woman by Heather Nimmo and The Woman in the Window by Alma De Groen.
But the unusual was manifest in the Forum called The Very Peculiar Language of Theatre. Here for more than two hours a panel of five argued with each other and with the audience, despite determined efforts by Elizabeth Perkins (James Cook University) to keep the session in order, on the very esoteric question of what is peculiar about the language of theatre.
Lenora Champagne from New York laid her writing soul on the line: get away from naturalism. Play with the elements of theatre, she said: use light as light; the actor as the actor. Work the language and make it extreme. Be poetic, peculiar, eccentric.
But Nicholas Parsons, the writer of the play and film script Dead Heart, after Neill Gladwyn introduced the idea that film and television are limiting compared with theatre, fell about with fury saying that there is no real difference in writing for the different mediums - it's all about telling stories. Except that to me it seemed he meant naturalism all the way.
Ian Robinson and Tom Guttridge seemed to be on the same side as each other, against the devilish Nick, and finally after probably half the audience had had their say, something important came out which caused me to reflect on the qualities of the two readings I attended.
Tom had remarked early on that the relationship between the actors and the audience is "gladiatorial". The language of theatre is not limited by what is set down by the writer, but is a matter of live interaction: audiences are different every night and actors use their skills, their theatrical language ability, to work on the audience and so the play is created anew at each performance.
So what's the writer there for? I concluded that a good writer, using dialogue for the most part, creates an illusion of reality in the script in such a way that directors, designers and actors are given permission, in fact encouragement, to devise their own way of presenting that illusion - of representing that reality.
Maybe this sounds like useless philosophy, but I discovered that Heather Nimmo's play - based on the politics of WA in recent years, centring on the question of how an honest politician can survive an honest mistake - at this stage of its development does not offer the imaginative openings to make it a great play. Set in corridors, party rooms and motels, the script consists almost entirely of two-person talking heads, rather like bad television, and it seems to prove the point of the book by Jerry Mander - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television - that it's impossible to present serious argument on television. The story of The Other Woman is based on reality, but it remains a pale illusion on stage.
Alma De Groen, on the other hand, writes every word so that myriad implications are brought to mind, and so, apparently quite effortlessly, her play can take us back and forth between Stalinist Russia of 1951, a fictional society 300 years in the future, and a sudden flash of Australia right now. The Woman at the Window is potentially a great play because it gives the audience, as Tom Guttridge said in the earlier forum, the freedom to create their own meaning.
So a funny peculiar thing happened to me on the way from the Forum: I discovered a clearer understanding of how to judge a play. To writers, then, I say: listen to Lenora Champagne. Play with all the elements of the theatre - the light and shadow; the sounds and silences; the movements and stillnesses. And be poetic, eccentric, peculiar and extreme.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Usually the Conference is avidly practical, turning scripts into blueprints for production. And indeed we are seeing last week and this, in BOD at The Street Theatre, one result of four years' development started at the 1993 Playwrights' Conference. After BOD's opening night, I found myself at the ANU Arts Centre returning to the beginnings.
The Conference always has too much on to see everything unless one can be a full time aficionado: I saw the final readings of The Other Woman by Heather Nimmo and The Woman in the Window by Alma De Groen.
But the unusual was manifest in the Forum called The Very Peculiar Language of Theatre. Here for more than two hours a panel of five argued with each other and with the audience, despite determined efforts by Elizabeth Perkins (James Cook University) to keep the session in order, on the very esoteric question of what is peculiar about the language of theatre.
Lenora Champagne from New York laid her writing soul on the line: get away from naturalism. Play with the elements of theatre, she said: use light as light; the actor as the actor. Work the language and make it extreme. Be poetic, peculiar, eccentric.
But Nicholas Parsons, the writer of the play and film script Dead Heart, after Neill Gladwyn introduced the idea that film and television are limiting compared with theatre, fell about with fury saying that there is no real difference in writing for the different mediums - it's all about telling stories. Except that to me it seemed he meant naturalism all the way.
Ian Robinson and Tom Guttridge seemed to be on the same side as each other, against the devilish Nick, and finally after probably half the audience had had their say, something important came out which caused me to reflect on the qualities of the two readings I attended.
Tom had remarked early on that the relationship between the actors and the audience is "gladiatorial". The language of theatre is not limited by what is set down by the writer, but is a matter of live interaction: audiences are different every night and actors use their skills, their theatrical language ability, to work on the audience and so the play is created anew at each performance.
So what's the writer there for? I concluded that a good writer, using dialogue for the most part, creates an illusion of reality in the script in such a way that directors, designers and actors are given permission, in fact encouragement, to devise their own way of presenting that illusion - of representing that reality.
Maybe this sounds like useless philosophy, but I discovered that Heather Nimmo's play - based on the politics of WA in recent years, centring on the question of how an honest politician can survive an honest mistake - at this stage of its development does not offer the imaginative openings to make it a great play. Set in corridors, party rooms and motels, the script consists almost entirely of two-person talking heads, rather like bad television, and it seems to prove the point of the book by Jerry Mander - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television - that it's impossible to present serious argument on television. The story of The Other Woman is based on reality, but it remains a pale illusion on stage.
Alma De Groen, on the other hand, writes every word so that myriad implications are brought to mind, and so, apparently quite effortlessly, her play can take us back and forth between Stalinist Russia of 1951, a fictional society 300 years in the future, and a sudden flash of Australia right now. The Woman at the Window is potentially a great play because it gives the audience, as Tom Guttridge said in the earlier forum, the freedom to create their own meaning.
So a funny peculiar thing happened to me on the way from the Forum: I discovered a clearer understanding of how to judge a play. To writers, then, I say: listen to Lenora Champagne. Play with all the elements of the theatre - the light and shadow; the sounds and silences; the movements and stillnesses. And be poetic, eccentric, peculiar and extreme.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday 23 April 1997
1997: Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw
Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw. Sydney Theatre Company, directed by Marion Potts. Canberra Theatre Centre April 22 - 26, 1997.
A friend asked me, expectantly under the exit sign, "Will you write a good review?"
Yes, Yes, Yes.
I wish I had Shaw's wit and wonderful words. All I can report is that this production is "bloody" good. If you think that it's not worth going because My Fair Lady would have to have more glitter, then just remember that "all that glisters is not gold". The original play is pure gold, and Marion Potts has polished it with a sure hand.
The music before the play began was a tad too loud on opening night. It didn't need to be to make the point that this is a comedy of issues which are as relevant in Australia today as in England in 1913 - however egalitarian we think we are.
The beauty of the production is that every actor has control of Shaw's language - and with the great Australian tradition of physical theatre, they create warm humour, a theatre full of laughter in a moment of silence, and the silence of recognition in a moment of chilling laughter on the stage. Bernard Shaw has been accused often enough for writing too many words. Here at last is a director who has understood the words as vehicles for her actors. And they drive the action along with terrific energy.
The audience even applauded a scene change, as well as many scenes. Jonathan Hardy, (Alfred Doolittle as a Gough Whitlam look alike), led the way with his first "middle class morality" speech. For Eliza we silently applauded the skill with which Anita Hegh led us from broad slapstick in the "gutter", through frustration with little boy Higgins (Luciano Martucci), to her final test of her "creator" and recognition that her strength is in her independence.
Pygmalion's mythical sculptor, Galatea, created a real woman who, ironically, did not love him as he hoped. Higgins, indeed all of us who are parents, partners, teachers or mentors, are in the same plight. La commedia e finita - or at least it will on Saturday: don't miss it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
A friend asked me, expectantly under the exit sign, "Will you write a good review?"
Yes, Yes, Yes.
I wish I had Shaw's wit and wonderful words. All I can report is that this production is "bloody" good. If you think that it's not worth going because My Fair Lady would have to have more glitter, then just remember that "all that glisters is not gold". The original play is pure gold, and Marion Potts has polished it with a sure hand.
The music before the play began was a tad too loud on opening night. It didn't need to be to make the point that this is a comedy of issues which are as relevant in Australia today as in England in 1913 - however egalitarian we think we are.
The beauty of the production is that every actor has control of Shaw's language - and with the great Australian tradition of physical theatre, they create warm humour, a theatre full of laughter in a moment of silence, and the silence of recognition in a moment of chilling laughter on the stage. Bernard Shaw has been accused often enough for writing too many words. Here at last is a director who has understood the words as vehicles for her actors. And they drive the action along with terrific energy.
The audience even applauded a scene change, as well as many scenes. Jonathan Hardy, (Alfred Doolittle as a Gough Whitlam look alike), led the way with his first "middle class morality" speech. For Eliza we silently applauded the skill with which Anita Hegh led us from broad slapstick in the "gutter", through frustration with little boy Higgins (Luciano Martucci), to her final test of her "creator" and recognition that her strength is in her independence.
Pygmalion's mythical sculptor, Galatea, created a real woman who, ironically, did not love him as he hoped. Higgins, indeed all of us who are parents, partners, teachers or mentors, are in the same plight. La commedia e finita - or at least it will on Saturday: don't miss it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday 13 April 1997
1997: Bod by Elaine Acworth - feature article and review by Peter Wilkins
[BOD was directed by Carol Woodrow. At the time Frank McKone was Chair of the Board of her company, Wildwood Theatre, and therefore could not review the production. Peter Wilkins, with Alanna Maclean and Frank McKone were the regular review team for the Canberra Times at this time.]
Elaine Acworth sat shocked in her small London flat as the stark images of Chinese oppression during the 1988 Tibetan uprising flashed across her small television screen. Sequestered within the austere gloom of Thatcher’s dismantled nation, Acworth’s political consciousness was vividly ignited into a passion that would inspire a seven year journey to bring her epic tribute to Tibetan courage to the stage. BOD (pronounced “peu” - the Tibetan name for the province of Tibet) was born in the flickering images of extraordinary home footage. “It was unbelievable and the roughness of the quality of the footage added to the feeling of panic and chaos that was happening in the streets. Monks were being beaten; people were being coshed over the heads. Shots rang out as monks, in Buddhist robes, ran for their lives through the streets of Lhasa.”
The journey had begun for the Australian actor, who had come to London’s E15 School of Acting and discovered, not the fame and fortune of the stage, but the passions and beliefs of the playwright. In front of the horrific images of brutality, and appalled at the news of a monk’s self immolation, Acworth started thinking about the level of commitment and belief that was involved in that ultimate sacrifice. For her, the clergy were actually representing the voice of freedom. The voice of the writer was giving expression to questions that would guide her seven year quest.
The panoramic themes of her epic were beginning to emerge. The spirit of the Tibetan people came alive in the streets as they struggled to maintain the requirements of human dignity, and regain the ability to live the life one actually wishes to live. “I started getting tremendously interested about what was happening in the country and thinking how people maintain themselves in these circumstances. How do you continue to do things that are important to you? How do you celebrate your religion when you’re officially not allowed to? What happens to your language when it is no longer the currency of education?”
The burning, universal questions roll off the tongue and fuel the themes of Acworth’s flaming passion. “When Life is your belief, and you face losing it, how do you choose? How do you maintain your own integrity, and the things you believe in against this eternal onslaught?” BOD’s director, Carol Woodrow, adds reverently, “The central question of the play.” She contributes her view on Acworth’s themes. “Life is about hope, rolling with the punches - nothing is fixed, permanent. It is about change. If you cannot practise your faith where you are, then you take it with you.”
The vast questions of faith, spirituality and myth defied containment in Acworth’s first work - 120 pages long; with 30 characters in 30 scenes and covering 60 years! “This is not an appropriate play,” Acworth thought. “Go away. Put it away. You don’t have enough skill.”
But BOD refused to go away. In 1991, Acworth visited the western areas of China, bordering what the Chinese refer to as the autonomous province of Tibet. For several months, she steeped herself in the culture and history of the Tibetan nation, discoursing for hours in broken English and sign language with the monks. Gradually BOD began to metamorphose, enriched by research and informed by Acworth’s quest.
“Writers have territories that they’re interested in, and they’ll keep revisiting those territories in different forms.. I realized that every play I’d written had a character who’s died in it. My Dad died when I was very young and that is something I keep reexamining.” Acworth perceives events in the context of a continuum and she is interested in the incessant nature of change. BOD reflects the requirement to constantly adapt to new circumstances, new surroundings. The prevailing question drives her inspiration and gives birth to her epic story of a Tibetan village, prior to and immediately after the 1959 invasion of this holy nation by the Chinese. “How do you maintain the existence of what has been valuable here and how do you allow it to come to life and breathe in these new circumstances - the notions of death, change and hope?”
More reading and research followed these questions. Acworth spoke with Tibetans in London and considered writing a community play, because of a nervousness about writing something that wasn’t from her own culture. However, she soon realized that BOD could not be done as a community play. “Even if the play was not going to be as big as I’d written it, it was still going to be bloody big. It needed performers who could get their heads around story arcs, time shifts and the journey that I was going to ask them to do.
At about the same time, Acworth was lured home to her native Brisbane by the euphoria surrounding the resignation of Bjelke Peterson. She arrived just as the Queensland Theatre Company was soliciting new scripts. Acworth submitted “Torch”, an urban grunge piece about Thatcherite Britiain. On the basis of this she was commissioned to write her own work, and the fairytale dream became “Composing Venus”, which opened the Q.T.C.’s ‘94 season and won the prestigious George Landon-Downe Award in 1993.
Fired with enthusiasm, Acworth submitted Bod for consideration by the Australian National Playwright’s Centre. Mae-Britt Ackerholt, Artistic Director of the ANPC wrote back, “Phenomenal writing. Huge! Do you want to come down and do some development work?” This had been the first time that such an offer had been made to a playwright. BOD was emerging from its cocoon.
Carol Woodrow takes up the story. “Mae-Britt rang me and said, “Look, I have this extraordinary piece of writing. I don’t think it’s somewhere near a play, but I can’t ignore it. I don’t know what you can do with it,but you’re the right director for it.” Woodrow remembers those early impressions: “mind-blowing, impossible to stage but fantastic, just fantastic.” I ask her what she found fantastic about it. “Incredible quality of writing - incredibly poetic, muscular, layered, deep, complex - like no Australian work I have ever encountered - the language itself was like bonfire stuff. I just fell in love with it.”
After two weeks of round the clock immersion, Woodrow and Acworth felt that they had discovered the spine of this epic of myth, spirituality, history and generational flow. Delegates at the Conference were fascinated by the rough, skeletal outline that was presented.
“It’s the pull of the play.” explains Woodrow. “It winds people into it. People become passionate and absorbed and committed to it. It feels like climbing Mount Everest, and we have to be very prepared for it.” Acworth adds, “BOD exemplifies that nothing is permanent, and everything changes its course. It (the play) has its own will. It’s the one that’s in charge. I’m just a medium. It runs itself. I don’t run it.”
I am tugged by the density of the myth and ideas through this layered story of faith, hope, war and compassion. Director and playwright seduce me with their fiery passion. I am filled with curiosity and possessed by a sense of connection with the heart. Woodrow expresses it in words. “The grabbing thing was that you just started to love these people. You laugh with them, around them in this core of humanity. It’s hard to sell the show, because every time you talk about it, it’s so heavy, but it’s so light. People are so rich and truthful and interesting and funny, expressing the huge generous humour of the Tibetan people.”
I wonder how I will ever express such vast humanity within this deeply layered, intriguing and powerful story in just one brief interview. We’ve already been swept along by BOD’s all-encompassing will for two hours, and so much more remains unsaid. What of the huge presence of the female, or the interwoven symbolism of the Creation Myths or the stories of the characters, the intimate village life, the life of the court, and the history of oppression, invasion and the struggle for survival.
“Do as little about me as you can,” Acworth concludes. “Concentrate on the play.”
Muse and myth fuse and reveal a writer of great humanity and compassion. Her journey of seven years now draws to a close. The time is right. Playwright and play are prepared to meet their audience. The spell is cast on an epic scale and the medium prepares to entrance with her labour of love. In a world of incessant change , one thing remains certain. For those fortunate enough to see the culmination of Acworth’s search for enlightenment, nothing will ever be quite the same.
REVIEW BY PETER WILKINS
Bod by Elaine Acworth. Directed by Carol Woodrow. Wildwood. The Street Theatre. May 1-3;6-10, 1997, at 8 p.m. Matinees May 3rd and 10th, at 2 p.m. Professional
The Street Theatre has launched its premiere season of contemporary Australian plays with the difficult birth of a drama of mythical grandeur, penetrating inquiry, richly textured language and epic narrative. Bod spans the life of a Tibetan village over 30 years, leading up to the Chinese invasion of 1959 and beyond. It is a tale of struggle against oppression, survival against all odds and the power of faith against adversity. It is the story of Thangme and his training to become a monk It is the moving account of a mother’s resolute will to fight for her family, her village and her way of life. It is the tragic chronicle of invasion and subjugation of an innocent people by the dark forces of tyranny. It is a metaphor for Life.
Like a new born colt, Bod totters uneasily upon its infant legs. The first act is overladen with images of myth and ritual, which, although visually striking and atmospheric, obscure the story of innocent souls, who live out their simple acts of faith and existence beneath Tibet’s lofty peaks. Woodrow’s action is excessively rumbustious as she strives to deal with Acworth’s dense mythology, Amanda McNamara’s magnificently expansive set and Nyree Smith’s evocative lighting. The production elements envelop the Street Theatre stage with professional gloss, but the talented ensemble of actors struggle throughout the first act to reveal a narrative that will breathe life into their characters and touch the audience with their story. Only Edward Wightman as the humorous and appealing Small, the Lama’s attendant, and Danielle Antaki in the dual role of Youdan, the mother, and Tag Senmo, the rock ogress, achieve the necessary stillness and depth of characterization.
In the second act, writer and director allow the characters to tell their tale, and the sweeping saga of a people’s spirit begins to move us with its humanity and truth. Wildwood and The Street Theatre have given this play breath in a new-born production that manifests the promise of Bod’s future life.
© Peter Wilkins, published here by kind permission.
Saturday 12 April 1997
1997: Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark
Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark. Director, Colin Anderson. Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3. Wednesdays to Saturdays April 11 to May 3.
A sculptor lies paralysed from the neck down. His injuries are "stabilised": he requires 24 hour nursing to keep him "alive". A man of intelligence and wit, Ken Harrison (Allan Cope) instructs a solicitor to argue for his release from hospital - to his certain death. Senior Dr Emerson (Ian Carcary), under oath to preserve life, uses the Mental Health Act to keep him in hosptial.
Like Justice Millhouse (Fay Butcher) I must try to make a balanced judgement: she, about the man's dilemma; I, about production values. The evidence she hears for clinical depression is unsustained: she concludes Harrison's freedom to make his own decision is paramount. I found evidence of theatrical dilemma, but not certain death.
The play's life is in Colin Anderson's hands, in Brian Clark's 1978 text, and in the minds of a sympathetic audience responding to Michael Moore's withdrawal of his active euthanasia bill following the passing of Andrews' bill in the Senate.
The text is dated: it's a theatre-in-education piece of its period, where characters represent aspects of an Issue, and the audience should have a class discussion with Teacher's Notes. Because the director did not properly respect this theatrical form, there was confusion between stylised set design and blocking of movements (which belong to the form) and naturalistic acting (which does not). Rep being largely a voluntary theatre group, actors' ability to produce naturalistic performance is quite variable: Alison Murphy (Sister Anderson) proved the value of her training; while Lainie Hart (Nurse Sadler) and Chris Fox (John) were the natural talents. Allan Cope struggled with an impossible task through the first act, warmed up in the second, but had nowhere to go at the end. Tightly controlled levels and timing (to stylise the acting) could have created much greater emotional responses to the issues.
The committed audience, however, despite my gritty criticisms, resonated to the feelings and thoughts raised by the play, praising the actors with strong applause at curtain call. The play, like Ken Harrison, if not entirely in the best condition, has a life of its own.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
A sculptor lies paralysed from the neck down. His injuries are "stabilised": he requires 24 hour nursing to keep him "alive". A man of intelligence and wit, Ken Harrison (Allan Cope) instructs a solicitor to argue for his release from hospital - to his certain death. Senior Dr Emerson (Ian Carcary), under oath to preserve life, uses the Mental Health Act to keep him in hosptial.
Like Justice Millhouse (Fay Butcher) I must try to make a balanced judgement: she, about the man's dilemma; I, about production values. The evidence she hears for clinical depression is unsustained: she concludes Harrison's freedom to make his own decision is paramount. I found evidence of theatrical dilemma, but not certain death.
The play's life is in Colin Anderson's hands, in Brian Clark's 1978 text, and in the minds of a sympathetic audience responding to Michael Moore's withdrawal of his active euthanasia bill following the passing of Andrews' bill in the Senate.
The text is dated: it's a theatre-in-education piece of its period, where characters represent aspects of an Issue, and the audience should have a class discussion with Teacher's Notes. Because the director did not properly respect this theatrical form, there was confusion between stylised set design and blocking of movements (which belong to the form) and naturalistic acting (which does not). Rep being largely a voluntary theatre group, actors' ability to produce naturalistic performance is quite variable: Alison Murphy (Sister Anderson) proved the value of her training; while Lainie Hart (Nurse Sadler) and Chris Fox (John) were the natural talents. Allan Cope struggled with an impossible task through the first act, warmed up in the second, but had nowhere to go at the end. Tightly controlled levels and timing (to stylise the acting) could have created much greater emotional responses to the issues.
The committed audience, however, despite my gritty criticisms, resonated to the feelings and thoughts raised by the play, praising the actors with strong applause at curtain call. The play, like Ken Harrison, if not entirely in the best condition, has a life of its own.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 20 March 1997
1997: Private Lives by Noël Coward
Private Lives by Noël Coward. Melbourne Theatre Company directed by Roger Hodgman at The Canberra Theatre Centre, March 19 - 22, 1997.
Hodgman and designer Shaun Gurton have turned this well-made play into a small gem - a comedy of upper class British manners of 1930 played with a 1990's sensibility. Coward's wit is amusing in its own right: this production adds visual style and comic timing par excellence.
As a critic I am placed by Coward in an invidious position - though nothing compared to some positions of characters in the play. Watch for Victor Prynne (Mark Pegler) on what I can only describe as an art nouveau couch à la exercise bike, opening Act III. And I am not surprised to learn, from Gertrude Lawrence in the excellent program, that the Lord Chamberlain's critical eye focussed severely on the sofa scene - until Noël charmed Lord Cromer with a personal reading and "not a word of Noël's script was censored."
My problem is that if I take the play seriously I shall appear to lack humour like Victor Prynne - a fault which even silly Sybil Chase (played by Rebekah Robertson) recognises. But if I laugh (as I did a lot on opening night) at a playwright which the director's notes refer to as "a thoroughly 'modern' writer" whose name was "synonymous with the sort of smart, witty, decadent and 'fast' image of twenties' youth, which indeed he helped create", then maybe I am undervaluing Noël Coward.
Elyot Chase (Philip Holder) and Amanda Prynne (Nicki Wendt), divorced for five years, use a sophisticated sense of the absurd to deal with accidentally meeting again on their second-time around honeymoons. Coward originally played Elyot, and leaves any critical tendentiousness with no role to play. Yet Amanda refers to her heart being "jagged with sophistication": seeing the funny side can only redeem the vicious ingredient in the chemistry of love for short periods. Though the structure of play has a neat ending, there is no resolution to the chaos of love.
I used to think of Coward as 'decadent', but these actors with this director in Gurton's subtly accurate set, have found a facet - reflecting over 65 years - which shows gem quality after all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Hodgman and designer Shaun Gurton have turned this well-made play into a small gem - a comedy of upper class British manners of 1930 played with a 1990's sensibility. Coward's wit is amusing in its own right: this production adds visual style and comic timing par excellence.
As a critic I am placed by Coward in an invidious position - though nothing compared to some positions of characters in the play. Watch for Victor Prynne (Mark Pegler) on what I can only describe as an art nouveau couch à la exercise bike, opening Act III. And I am not surprised to learn, from Gertrude Lawrence in the excellent program, that the Lord Chamberlain's critical eye focussed severely on the sofa scene - until Noël charmed Lord Cromer with a personal reading and "not a word of Noël's script was censored."
My problem is that if I take the play seriously I shall appear to lack humour like Victor Prynne - a fault which even silly Sybil Chase (played by Rebekah Robertson) recognises. But if I laugh (as I did a lot on opening night) at a playwright which the director's notes refer to as "a thoroughly 'modern' writer" whose name was "synonymous with the sort of smart, witty, decadent and 'fast' image of twenties' youth, which indeed he helped create", then maybe I am undervaluing Noël Coward.
Elyot Chase (Philip Holder) and Amanda Prynne (Nicki Wendt), divorced for five years, use a sophisticated sense of the absurd to deal with accidentally meeting again on their second-time around honeymoons. Coward originally played Elyot, and leaves any critical tendentiousness with no role to play. Yet Amanda refers to her heart being "jagged with sophistication": seeing the funny side can only redeem the vicious ingredient in the chemistry of love for short periods. Though the structure of play has a neat ending, there is no resolution to the chaos of love.
I used to think of Coward as 'decadent', but these actors with this director in Gurton's subtly accurate set, have found a facet - reflecting over 65 years - which shows gem quality after all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 10 March 1997
1997: Water Stories. Song Ngoc Company and Canberra Youth Theatre
Water Stories. Song Ngoc Company and Canberra Youth Theatre. Canberra Festival in Glebe Park. Schools program: Monday March 10 - Thursday March 13, 11 am and 1 pm. General Public: Friday March 14, 7.30 pm. Saturday - Sunday March 15 - 16, 1 pm and 4 pm. Monday March 17, 1 pm. Bookings on 248 5057.
Surely among all these time-slots you can find one to suit. Water Stories is towards the Casino end of Glebe Park, but this is anything but crass materialism.
Song Ngoc has revived the water puppets traditional to their home village in northern Vietnam after decades of war threatened them with extinction. They have been brave enough to collaborate with Australian iconoclasts even to the extent that they have created a wonderful golden kangaroo as the ultimate down-under tourist pointing a camera at everything in Vietnam.
The young primary school children when I saw the show were as fascinated as the adults by the variety, and strangeness, of the mixture of Vietnamese and Australian images - created by puppets of all kinds and Youth Theatre underwater actors, with many weird things on their heads. Among the stories was one of sailing ships arriving on Australian shores, prior to and including the final invasion, seen from our Aborigines' point of view. Captain Cook's Norfolk Broads wherry might have come a long way to get here, but it doesn't match the beautiful barque, perhaps representing William Dampier, the model of which was crafted in Saigon.
In the Vietnamese tradition, the puppets are like dancers working in strict time to the music (which will be played live in the public program). For this show, Le Tuan Hung, with Geoff Grey conducting, has created an aural feast of imagery to match the puppets; and the Canberra Youth Wind Ensemble performs beautifully.
Youth Theatre Director Roland Manderson's efforts in bringing this show together need rewarding - maybe with more financial backing to help take it back to Vietnam to complete the cultural link. I'm sure the children there will be as fascinated as the children here - and greater multicultural understanding can only be of benefit to us all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Surely among all these time-slots you can find one to suit. Water Stories is towards the Casino end of Glebe Park, but this is anything but crass materialism.
Song Ngoc has revived the water puppets traditional to their home village in northern Vietnam after decades of war threatened them with extinction. They have been brave enough to collaborate with Australian iconoclasts even to the extent that they have created a wonderful golden kangaroo as the ultimate down-under tourist pointing a camera at everything in Vietnam.
The young primary school children when I saw the show were as fascinated as the adults by the variety, and strangeness, of the mixture of Vietnamese and Australian images - created by puppets of all kinds and Youth Theatre underwater actors, with many weird things on their heads. Among the stories was one of sailing ships arriving on Australian shores, prior to and including the final invasion, seen from our Aborigines' point of view. Captain Cook's Norfolk Broads wherry might have come a long way to get here, but it doesn't match the beautiful barque, perhaps representing William Dampier, the model of which was crafted in Saigon.
In the Vietnamese tradition, the puppets are like dancers working in strict time to the music (which will be played live in the public program). For this show, Le Tuan Hung, with Geoff Grey conducting, has created an aural feast of imagery to match the puppets; and the Canberra Youth Wind Ensemble performs beautifully.
Youth Theatre Director Roland Manderson's efforts in bringing this show together need rewarding - maybe with more financial backing to help take it back to Vietnam to complete the cultural link. I'm sure the children there will be as fascinated as the children here - and greater multicultural understanding can only be of benefit to us all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday 9 March 1997
1997: Pink Triangles by David Atfield
Pink Triangles, written and directed by David Atfield. BITS Theatre at the Ralph Wilson Theatre, Gorman House. Dramaturgy by Campion Decent. Saturday April 15, 1997.
This was a one-off work-in-progress presentation, aiming at a full touring production in 1998. I think it is a script that has the potential to succeed - though there is something about the first half which worries me.
As I arrived - a balding mid-fifties man, on my own, in a blue shirt, sleeves rolled up (but only to the elbows), neat trousers and gently coloured sleeveless cardigan - I heard a woman say, "We'll be the only straight people here, by the look of it."
I dismissed it at the time, but now I have seen the play through, the assumption this person made that she could tell people's sexuality in a superficial glance stands out not just for its overt prejudice, but because it is this prejudice which sent people perceived as homosexual to Germany's death camps in the 1930's and 40's. More horrifying, if that is possible, is the continuing prejudice after the war, even among the rescuers of the concentration camp victims.
This is a story which must be told, yet David Atfield's research led often to people who would not tell their truths, 50 years later, for fear of humiliation. All of us need to face this reality, and Atfield's play will help us do it.
What worried me was that the first half seemed less focussed than the second. Each vignette is successful individually, but I felt lost without clearer links. In the second half, the stories are juxtaposed so that each one - the gay, the lesbian and the Jew - reflects on the others until we meet the real people, whose stories these are, at the very end.
I don't have a simple answer to this dramaturgical problem - maybe it's to do with turning an almost cabaret style into something more stylistically expressionist - but my hope is that Atfield will continue his work. He has had deserved support so far from the ACT Cultural Council, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Goethe Institut, Canberra. I think we need a full production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This was a one-off work-in-progress presentation, aiming at a full touring production in 1998. I think it is a script that has the potential to succeed - though there is something about the first half which worries me.
As I arrived - a balding mid-fifties man, on my own, in a blue shirt, sleeves rolled up (but only to the elbows), neat trousers and gently coloured sleeveless cardigan - I heard a woman say, "We'll be the only straight people here, by the look of it."
I dismissed it at the time, but now I have seen the play through, the assumption this person made that she could tell people's sexuality in a superficial glance stands out not just for its overt prejudice, but because it is this prejudice which sent people perceived as homosexual to Germany's death camps in the 1930's and 40's. More horrifying, if that is possible, is the continuing prejudice after the war, even among the rescuers of the concentration camp victims.
This is a story which must be told, yet David Atfield's research led often to people who would not tell their truths, 50 years later, for fear of humiliation. All of us need to face this reality, and Atfield's play will help us do it.
What worried me was that the first half seemed less focussed than the second. Each vignette is successful individually, but I felt lost without clearer links. In the second half, the stories are juxtaposed so that each one - the gay, the lesbian and the Jew - reflects on the others until we meet the real people, whose stories these are, at the very end.
I don't have a simple answer to this dramaturgical problem - maybe it's to do with turning an almost cabaret style into something more stylistically expressionist - but my hope is that Atfield will continue his work. He has had deserved support so far from the ACT Cultural Council, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Goethe Institut, Canberra. I think we need a full production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 25 February 1997
1997: Articles on artstart '97 (arts teachers' workshop / conference)
NOTE for [Arts Editor, the Canberra Times] Helen Musa: I'm sending two pieces. A short piece (275 words) which I think could be used on the Arts page and a longer piece (485 words) which seems better on the Education page. On the other hand you can use some of each if you like and as you like. They want bookings made by February 28, which is probably too soon for publication(?), but I would still include the phone numbers anyway.
Some extra points, in case you need them for your speech:
The conference theme is aimed not just at "breaking down the barriers", but at breaking down (deconstructing, I think) the concept of cultural constructs, and coming to understand different cultural constructions through the arts.
Have they sent you the green sheet with the program on it? It's got terrible typos in it - claimed to be the result of a Level 1 teacher typing it overload.
The major purpose of the workshops is motivational, based on research (according to Phil) which shows a) arts teachers need constant renewal, mostly so that they don't feel so alone; b) arts teachers need opportunities to be artists - to make art, at whatever level, so they have the confidence to work directly with their students.
Another benefit of the workshops is that specialist teachers who are mainly in high schools and colleges are presenting workshops which will include a large proportion of primary teachers as participants, and it is hoped that communication between the sectors will be enhanced.
THEATRE BY FRANK MCKONE
artstart '97 is a program of speakers, workshops and performances presented by ACTATA - the ACT Arts Teachers Association. This year begins with The Arts Bites Back, Friday March 7, 1997, 4.30 - 7.30 pm at the Australian National Gallery and Saturday March 8, all day, at the O'Connell Centre, Griffith.
The keynote speakers are the Arts Editor of The Canberra Times, Helen Musa; Indigenous Arts Liaison Officer, Rob Russell; community theatre director Dominic Mico; and script writer Graham Pitt. This diverse set of speakers will set the scene on Friday night for teachers to put themselves through their artistic paces on Saturday.
The essence of the program is in the theme: Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding. Workshops cover anything from African dance, studio media production, music in the primary classroom, through to curriculum course writing - bring your own disk!
Performances are by Sabrina Kabibi (African Soukousse dance), The Jigsaw Company (Intaglio), Caroline Chisholm High School (Body Bags), ACT Drama Association (Neither Here Nor There), Southern Aurora Jazz Band and, to celebrate International Women's Day, the Australian Education Union Women's Choir.
Many teachers want to be able to put the arts into their classroom programs and here is the way to begin, by participating, experiencing, appreciating and understanding. It's a packed program with lots of choices, but this will be the first in a series which ACTATA will provide in their professional development program for teachers across the arts and from pre-school to college.
ACTATA is a new cross-arts body, so there will also be the first ACTATA AGM - and a dinner if you book in fast. Ring Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125.
__________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION BY FRANK MCKONE
There is an old myth, perpetuated by George Bernard Shaw, who should have known better, that those who can, do and those who can't, teach. Arts teachers in Canberra are organising their professional development to debunk this too common view.
artstart '97: The Arts Bites Back is an evening of keynote speakers, on Friday March 7, followed by a full Saturday of workshops and performances designed to help any teacher - from pre-school to college - learn arts skills which they can pass on in the classroom. The program is centred on the understanding that a teacher in the arts needs to be a maker of art: you can't teach without doing.
Of course, professional development can't happen without money. artstart '97 is the program of a quite new body, ACTATA - ACT Arts Teachers Association. The Drama, Music, Visual Art, Media, and Dance professional associations have joined with the Canberra Cultural Centre, the Australian Catholic University's Arts Factory and NAAE (National Affiliation of Arts Educators) based at University of Canberra and have successfully bid for funds from the National Professional Development Program.
Earlier in the 1990's the Federal Government's enquiry into the status of teaching reported that, though teachers provided most of their own professional development through their own associations, teacher-leaders were not rewarded with credentials or remuneration. New arrangements were made for the ACT Department of Education to channel funding, made available through the University of Canberra, through to the teacher associations.
The present Federal Government has cut the National PD Program in its previous form, but a reincarnation is possible through another new body which is in the process of birthing: each state and territory will have a Council of Professional Associations of teachers (covering all curriculum areas) and funds will be channelled through this body.
The Arts Bites Back, using funds handed over last year, has the theme Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding, even though governments seem to favour centralisation and hierarchy. Yet it is also true according to Phil Hopkins (previously Curriculum Executive Officer for the Arts and now teaching at Lanyon High School) that teachers from the different arts areas have come to appreciate the cross-flow of ideas and experiences in ACTATA - and perhaps the Council of Professional Associations will also become an effective co-operative body. In the interim, the ACT no longer has an arts curriculum officer despite the fact that the arts is one of the key learning areas.
Hopefully the new system can be working by the time last year's money runs out - and, hopefully, this government will provide enough funding for the Council to avoid becoming the centre of bitter conflict between different subject areas.
In the meantime, teachers should book to "Heart Start Your Year with Artstart" by ringing Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125. Registration is $20, which includes all catering for Friday evening and Saturday.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Some extra points, in case you need them for your speech:
The conference theme is aimed not just at "breaking down the barriers", but at breaking down (deconstructing, I think) the concept of cultural constructs, and coming to understand different cultural constructions through the arts.
Have they sent you the green sheet with the program on it? It's got terrible typos in it - claimed to be the result of a Level 1 teacher typing it overload.
The major purpose of the workshops is motivational, based on research (according to Phil) which shows a) arts teachers need constant renewal, mostly so that they don't feel so alone; b) arts teachers need opportunities to be artists - to make art, at whatever level, so they have the confidence to work directly with their students.
Another benefit of the workshops is that specialist teachers who are mainly in high schools and colleges are presenting workshops which will include a large proportion of primary teachers as participants, and it is hoped that communication between the sectors will be enhanced.
THEATRE BY FRANK MCKONE
artstart '97 is a program of speakers, workshops and performances presented by ACTATA - the ACT Arts Teachers Association. This year begins with The Arts Bites Back, Friday March 7, 1997, 4.30 - 7.30 pm at the Australian National Gallery and Saturday March 8, all day, at the O'Connell Centre, Griffith.
The keynote speakers are the Arts Editor of The Canberra Times, Helen Musa; Indigenous Arts Liaison Officer, Rob Russell; community theatre director Dominic Mico; and script writer Graham Pitt. This diverse set of speakers will set the scene on Friday night for teachers to put themselves through their artistic paces on Saturday.
The essence of the program is in the theme: Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding. Workshops cover anything from African dance, studio media production, music in the primary classroom, through to curriculum course writing - bring your own disk!
Performances are by Sabrina Kabibi (African Soukousse dance), The Jigsaw Company (Intaglio), Caroline Chisholm High School (Body Bags), ACT Drama Association (Neither Here Nor There), Southern Aurora Jazz Band and, to celebrate International Women's Day, the Australian Education Union Women's Choir.
Many teachers want to be able to put the arts into their classroom programs and here is the way to begin, by participating, experiencing, appreciating and understanding. It's a packed program with lots of choices, but this will be the first in a series which ACTATA will provide in their professional development program for teachers across the arts and from pre-school to college.
ACTATA is a new cross-arts body, so there will also be the first ACTATA AGM - and a dinner if you book in fast. Ring Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125.
__________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION BY FRANK MCKONE
There is an old myth, perpetuated by George Bernard Shaw, who should have known better, that those who can, do and those who can't, teach. Arts teachers in Canberra are organising their professional development to debunk this too common view.
artstart '97: The Arts Bites Back is an evening of keynote speakers, on Friday March 7, followed by a full Saturday of workshops and performances designed to help any teacher - from pre-school to college - learn arts skills which they can pass on in the classroom. The program is centred on the understanding that a teacher in the arts needs to be a maker of art: you can't teach without doing.
Of course, professional development can't happen without money. artstart '97 is the program of a quite new body, ACTATA - ACT Arts Teachers Association. The Drama, Music, Visual Art, Media, and Dance professional associations have joined with the Canberra Cultural Centre, the Australian Catholic University's Arts Factory and NAAE (National Affiliation of Arts Educators) based at University of Canberra and have successfully bid for funds from the National Professional Development Program.
Earlier in the 1990's the Federal Government's enquiry into the status of teaching reported that, though teachers provided most of their own professional development through their own associations, teacher-leaders were not rewarded with credentials or remuneration. New arrangements were made for the ACT Department of Education to channel funding, made available through the University of Canberra, through to the teacher associations.
The present Federal Government has cut the National PD Program in its previous form, but a reincarnation is possible through another new body which is in the process of birthing: each state and territory will have a Council of Professional Associations of teachers (covering all curriculum areas) and funds will be channelled through this body.
The Arts Bites Back, using funds handed over last year, has the theme Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding, even though governments seem to favour centralisation and hierarchy. Yet it is also true according to Phil Hopkins (previously Curriculum Executive Officer for the Arts and now teaching at Lanyon High School) that teachers from the different arts areas have come to appreciate the cross-flow of ideas and experiences in ACTATA - and perhaps the Council of Professional Associations will also become an effective co-operative body. In the interim, the ACT no longer has an arts curriculum officer despite the fact that the arts is one of the key learning areas.
Hopefully the new system can be working by the time last year's money runs out - and, hopefully, this government will provide enough funding for the Council to avoid becoming the centre of bitter conflict between different subject areas.
In the meantime, teachers should book to "Heart Start Your Year with Artstart" by ringing Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125. Registration is $20, which includes all catering for Friday evening and Saturday.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday 23 February 1997
1997: The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto
The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto. Reading directed by Eulea Kiraly. The Company at Currong Theatre, Sunday February 23, 1997.
The Company began this year's monthly Sunday readings (book on 247 1561) with excellent performances in heat and humidity so bad that everyone agreed to Phil McKenzie's motion that the second half be played outdoors. Though this meant I sat on a rock, both Pat Hutchinson and Helen Vaughan-Roberts maintained my focus. Last year's high standards are clearly established again for 1997.
Why hold readings? Eulea Kiraly explained there are reasons anew each month. Hers was to test this script, winner of the 1995 Australia Remembers National Play Competition, with the intention of full production next year.
The author's reason for writing the play is a justification for production: "In 1995 the United Nations announced that more civilians now die in war than soldiers. Yet they have no equivalent of Anzac Day on which their suffering is recognised. They are simply forgotten....Although the characters of [Australian nurse] Bridie and [English schoolgirl] Sheila are fictional, every incident they describe is true and occurred between 1942 [when they were captured off Singapore] and 1995 [when they met again after 50 years to be interviewed on television]." Their story is horrific and poignant: an indictment of the stupidity of war.
Unfortunately because, I suggest, the TV documentary interviewer provides no critical analysis, all we hear is one side of the history and the play seems to gratuitously reinforce anti-Japanese attitudes. I am sure this was not John Misto's intention, but this is the effect: the script needs more work to put the women's experiences into another context, not to undermine the truth or impact of their story, but to give it greater credence.
I think the journalist making the documentary needs to become more than a male voice-over: perhaps a modern woman making her decisions about how to present these women's war-time experiences and their inevitably biassed attitudes. In their personal relationship, the war finally ends after 50 years of misunderstanding. This idea has to be made a clear symbol for people of all nations to respond to. This for me is the challenge in presenting a full production of The Shoe-Horn Sonata.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Company began this year's monthly Sunday readings (book on 247 1561) with excellent performances in heat and humidity so bad that everyone agreed to Phil McKenzie's motion that the second half be played outdoors. Though this meant I sat on a rock, both Pat Hutchinson and Helen Vaughan-Roberts maintained my focus. Last year's high standards are clearly established again for 1997.
Why hold readings? Eulea Kiraly explained there are reasons anew each month. Hers was to test this script, winner of the 1995 Australia Remembers National Play Competition, with the intention of full production next year.
The author's reason for writing the play is a justification for production: "In 1995 the United Nations announced that more civilians now die in war than soldiers. Yet they have no equivalent of Anzac Day on which their suffering is recognised. They are simply forgotten....Although the characters of [Australian nurse] Bridie and [English schoolgirl] Sheila are fictional, every incident they describe is true and occurred between 1942 [when they were captured off Singapore] and 1995 [when they met again after 50 years to be interviewed on television]." Their story is horrific and poignant: an indictment of the stupidity of war.
Unfortunately because, I suggest, the TV documentary interviewer provides no critical analysis, all we hear is one side of the history and the play seems to gratuitously reinforce anti-Japanese attitudes. I am sure this was not John Misto's intention, but this is the effect: the script needs more work to put the women's experiences into another context, not to undermine the truth or impact of their story, but to give it greater credence.
I think the journalist making the documentary needs to become more than a male voice-over: perhaps a modern woman making her decisions about how to present these women's war-time experiences and their inevitably biassed attitudes. In their personal relationship, the war finally ends after 50 years of misunderstanding. This idea has to be made a clear symbol for people of all nations to respond to. This for me is the challenge in presenting a full production of The Shoe-Horn Sonata.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday 8 February 1997
1997: The Tempest by William Shakespeare on Aspen Island
The Tempest on Aspen Island. Directed by Nicholas Bolonkin. February 7 to March 1, 1997, Tuesdays to Sundays 8 pm.
National Summer Shakespeare presentations are an established ritual, and deservedly so. The Tempest, stylistically a conventional production, gains much and loses a little from being performed on Aspen Island. It's strength is the accuracy of the language - accessible Shakespeare in which the sense of every speech is clear.
The spirit world of the island became manifest when the opening storm scene blew up gusty breezes in the trees and Prospero's star appeared as a spectacular meteor over the lake. Each night will be different as far as these natural portents go, but the Carillon tower is an impressive cell for Prospero and cyclorama for lighting effects.
The production is quite spare, focussing on the text and the plot. For my taste, there could have been much more movement, particularly when Prospero recounts the background story to Miranda. I found myself looking for a larger, more magical Prospero to show his power over the whole island. However, as the action moved around the audience, the story began to tell itself and we were drawn in.
Acoustics are problematical, usually because, with the audience in the centre and the action alternating from one side to the other, someone on the edge as I was could find the more distant voices hard to hear. My thought would be to place the audience in four groups so that action could surround them or could take place in the centre for scenes where the words needed to be clearly distinguishable.
Ian Macdonald's music - some Purcell, Dr Arne and his own compositions - and the surround sound effects made the atmosphere come alive, with some nice singing from the spirits. Kate Early's Ariel held together what otherwise can be scattered scenes: her relationship with Prospero was strong and her singing, recorder playing and quality of movement kept up our interest in the character.
There was a relaxed warmth in the air on opening night. I see The Tempest as a worthwhile community event, connecting people from the university and theatre scenes, with an audience looking to renew their acquaintance with an old friend - Shakespeare.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
National Summer Shakespeare presentations are an established ritual, and deservedly so. The Tempest, stylistically a conventional production, gains much and loses a little from being performed on Aspen Island. It's strength is the accuracy of the language - accessible Shakespeare in which the sense of every speech is clear.
The spirit world of the island became manifest when the opening storm scene blew up gusty breezes in the trees and Prospero's star appeared as a spectacular meteor over the lake. Each night will be different as far as these natural portents go, but the Carillon tower is an impressive cell for Prospero and cyclorama for lighting effects.
The production is quite spare, focussing on the text and the plot. For my taste, there could have been much more movement, particularly when Prospero recounts the background story to Miranda. I found myself looking for a larger, more magical Prospero to show his power over the whole island. However, as the action moved around the audience, the story began to tell itself and we were drawn in.
Acoustics are problematical, usually because, with the audience in the centre and the action alternating from one side to the other, someone on the edge as I was could find the more distant voices hard to hear. My thought would be to place the audience in four groups so that action could surround them or could take place in the centre for scenes where the words needed to be clearly distinguishable.
Ian Macdonald's music - some Purcell, Dr Arne and his own compositions - and the surround sound effects made the atmosphere come alive, with some nice singing from the spirits. Kate Early's Ariel held together what otherwise can be scattered scenes: her relationship with Prospero was strong and her singing, recorder playing and quality of movement kept up our interest in the character.
There was a relaxed warmth in the air on opening night. I see The Tempest as a worthwhile community event, connecting people from the university and theatre scenes, with an audience looking to renew their acquaintance with an old friend - Shakespeare.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 7 February 1997
1997: Tony Delarte - Alive at The School of Arts Cafe
Tony Delarte - Alive at The School of Arts Cafe, Queanbeyan. February 6, 7 and 8, 1997. Professional Cabaret.
"If it's de-lightful, if it's de-lovely, it's delarte" says this "sophisticated, sensuous, unassuming megastar" direct from the Purple Pussycat Lounge, Las Vegas - if you can believe it.
Tony Delarte is an interesting character, probably a cousin of Frank Sinatra, even down to the Ol' Blue Eyes, except that he admits to the influence of his Mafioso family. This explains why his technical assistant "accidentally" fell out of his Lear Jet after not doing so good at the Pussycat - and why therefore his (real) assistant had not rehearsed the tape cues. In truth this was the only weakness of the show, though Tony used improvised ironic patter to cover up pretty well.
Patter and banter and direct participation with audience members made what I had feared might have been a simply nostalgic cabaret night into an enjoyable evening of parody. Delarte's turned down mouth and hooded eyes, presented in crafty profile, created a Sinatra-like character with that horribly smooth style and a voice almost as rounded and certainly with the characteristic tonal quality of the godfather of cabaret.
We found ourselves tracing a musical miscellany from songs like "I've got you under my skin" (a little lumpy), through Paul Anka (the Shakespeare of pop music); a rap about rap called "C-rap"; techno gym workout music with accompanying video of Succulente and Slab and a doll to work out with that you can eat afterwards; bar blues so sad that, Delarte claimed, a patron threatened suicide at the toilets out back during interval; Phantom of the Opera in strictly nightclub style; singing along with his cousin Louise Ciccone (Madonna - another family success story) doing her pop thing with Don't Cry for Me, Argentina; and ending with the love theme from Strictly Ballroom, Love is in the Air. And much more.
The food is good, the entertainment great - a hot night in Queanbeyan, the cultural centre of the South East. Or as Delarte's version of Sinatra sings: "New York, New York - just like Queanbeyan - the city that never sleeps. That's where I wanna be."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"If it's de-lightful, if it's de-lovely, it's delarte" says this "sophisticated, sensuous, unassuming megastar" direct from the Purple Pussycat Lounge, Las Vegas - if you can believe it.
Tony Delarte is an interesting character, probably a cousin of Frank Sinatra, even down to the Ol' Blue Eyes, except that he admits to the influence of his Mafioso family. This explains why his technical assistant "accidentally" fell out of his Lear Jet after not doing so good at the Pussycat - and why therefore his (real) assistant had not rehearsed the tape cues. In truth this was the only weakness of the show, though Tony used improvised ironic patter to cover up pretty well.
Patter and banter and direct participation with audience members made what I had feared might have been a simply nostalgic cabaret night into an enjoyable evening of parody. Delarte's turned down mouth and hooded eyes, presented in crafty profile, created a Sinatra-like character with that horribly smooth style and a voice almost as rounded and certainly with the characteristic tonal quality of the godfather of cabaret.
We found ourselves tracing a musical miscellany from songs like "I've got you under my skin" (a little lumpy), through Paul Anka (the Shakespeare of pop music); a rap about rap called "C-rap"; techno gym workout music with accompanying video of Succulente and Slab and a doll to work out with that you can eat afterwards; bar blues so sad that, Delarte claimed, a patron threatened suicide at the toilets out back during interval; Phantom of the Opera in strictly nightclub style; singing along with his cousin Louise Ciccone (Madonna - another family success story) doing her pop thing with Don't Cry for Me, Argentina; and ending with the love theme from Strictly Ballroom, Love is in the Air. And much more.
The food is good, the entertainment great - a hot night in Queanbeyan, the cultural centre of the South East. Or as Delarte's version of Sinatra sings: "New York, New York - just like Queanbeyan - the city that never sleeps. That's where I wanna be."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday 3 February 1997
1997: Education feature article on Using Your Brain, inservice conference for teachers
EDUCATION BY FRANK MCKONE
[For further information see http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-interview . Link added 22 September 2015]
When Hawker Brownlow, education publishers, advertised a conference in the second last week of January, during peak Australian beach time, they thought perhaps 300 teachers would attend. But from across Australia, New Zealand and further afield, some 800 people found $400 a more than worthwhile investment, including a dozen from the ACT. Here was a summer school par excellence: with Professor Howard Gardner from the Harvard Graduate School of Education the main presenter, who would not forego three days of sun and sand?
Titled Using Your Brain, this conference at the World Congress Centre, Melbourne, was important not simply because innovative ideas about teaching were given philosophical support, and certainly not as a self-congratulatory talk-fest. Here, at last, real information was presented which scientifically backs the creative approaches which teachers in Australia and Canberra in particular have been experimenting with, developing and improving for more than 20 years.
Professor Gardner told his research story, backed by detailed sessions on teaching practice from already locally known American authors Dr David Lazear (Seven Pathways of Learning) and Dr Robin Fogarty (Blueprints for Thinking in the Co-operative Classroom), as well as widely respected Australian consultants Dr Julia Atkin and Dr John Baird.
The story begins in Paris, 1900, but you won't see it at the National Gallery. A psychologist, Alfred Binet, was asked to "devise some kind of a measure that would predict which youngsters would succeed and which would fail in the primary grades of Paris schools." For nearly a century since then we have lived with the IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which depends on the idea that people's different types of abilities are aspects of just one thing: General Intelligence (g), and convenient tests can be made up to measure 'g' with the average set at 100. People's results can range from very low (below 60 IQ) to occasional prodigies (above 200 IQ).
However, in 1983, after 4 years' research, Gardner published Frames of Mind and introduced the theory of multiple intelligences. He discovered by studying gifted children and brain-damaged people that people's different types of abilities could not be added together and averaged to make 'g'. 80 years after Binet, neurological studies of the brain showed probably seven different "intelligences", only two of which were measured by the standard IQ tests. Each intelligence is distinct, with its own centre in the brain. Some people are good in all seven areas, but each of us has our own personal profile which makes us different from the next person.
Pencil and paper IQ tests only measure Verbal-Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical intelligences. Some others can measure Visual-Spatial intelligence. But the 'g' approach ignored the Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Musical-Rhythmic and Bodily-Kinaesthetic intelligences. As a consequence, our education systems in the western world valued only those areas which could be measured, while the rest have been vilified as Mickey Mouse.
The Multiple Intelligence theory is scientifically derived from neurological studies. More recent techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) support Gardner's theory more strongly today than 15 years ago, and it seems that there may be two more intelligences yet to be revealed - Naturalist and Existential - though claims for these have yet to be thoroughly researched.
Australian teachers have long been suspicious of 'g'. Cook Primary School, with Judy Perry at the helm, has made a special project of teaching through multiple intelligences. Dr Baird's Melbourne-based Project for Enhancing Effective Learning has been widely successful in Scandinavia. Dr Julia Atkin, from Harden - only a short distance from Canberra - works in schools throughout Australia demonstrating her highly practical, how-to-do-it application of learning and thinking theory.
Thanks to this conference, teachers can teach and assess their students' learning not just on tests of the old kind, but by using visual materials; activities like drama, dance, music and song; group interaction activities (interpersonal intelligence); and especially "processfolios". These are collections of activities which students present which reveal the process and progress of their learning in any subject area. Students enhance their intrapersonal intelligence as they publicly reflect on their folios, reassessing their strengths and weaknesses. This is called "metacognition" - thinking about one's own thinking. Where conventional tests, through fear of failure, often cause people's thinking to shut down and rely on simple memorising, processfolios cause people's thinking to open up and expand - and so they learn much more, and more quickly.
Gardner talks of "education for understanding" (not going to school just to get a higher score). If the IQ represents the 20th Century, then multiple intelligences (MI) is the educational stuff of the 21st.
(Note [sent with submission to The Canberra Times]: Photos of the ACT contingent were taken by Irene Lind, Principal, Lyneham Primary School)
© Frank McKone, Canberra
[For further information see http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-interview . Link added 22 September 2015]
When Hawker Brownlow, education publishers, advertised a conference in the second last week of January, during peak Australian beach time, they thought perhaps 300 teachers would attend. But from across Australia, New Zealand and further afield, some 800 people found $400 a more than worthwhile investment, including a dozen from the ACT. Here was a summer school par excellence: with Professor Howard Gardner from the Harvard Graduate School of Education the main presenter, who would not forego three days of sun and sand?
Titled Using Your Brain, this conference at the World Congress Centre, Melbourne, was important not simply because innovative ideas about teaching were given philosophical support, and certainly not as a self-congratulatory talk-fest. Here, at last, real information was presented which scientifically backs the creative approaches which teachers in Australia and Canberra in particular have been experimenting with, developing and improving for more than 20 years.
Professor Gardner told his research story, backed by detailed sessions on teaching practice from already locally known American authors Dr David Lazear (Seven Pathways of Learning) and Dr Robin Fogarty (Blueprints for Thinking in the Co-operative Classroom), as well as widely respected Australian consultants Dr Julia Atkin and Dr John Baird.
The story begins in Paris, 1900, but you won't see it at the National Gallery. A psychologist, Alfred Binet, was asked to "devise some kind of a measure that would predict which youngsters would succeed and which would fail in the primary grades of Paris schools." For nearly a century since then we have lived with the IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which depends on the idea that people's different types of abilities are aspects of just one thing: General Intelligence (g), and convenient tests can be made up to measure 'g' with the average set at 100. People's results can range from very low (below 60 IQ) to occasional prodigies (above 200 IQ).
However, in 1983, after 4 years' research, Gardner published Frames of Mind and introduced the theory of multiple intelligences. He discovered by studying gifted children and brain-damaged people that people's different types of abilities could not be added together and averaged to make 'g'. 80 years after Binet, neurological studies of the brain showed probably seven different "intelligences", only two of which were measured by the standard IQ tests. Each intelligence is distinct, with its own centre in the brain. Some people are good in all seven areas, but each of us has our own personal profile which makes us different from the next person.
Pencil and paper IQ tests only measure Verbal-Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical intelligences. Some others can measure Visual-Spatial intelligence. But the 'g' approach ignored the Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Musical-Rhythmic and Bodily-Kinaesthetic intelligences. As a consequence, our education systems in the western world valued only those areas which could be measured, while the rest have been vilified as Mickey Mouse.
The Multiple Intelligence theory is scientifically derived from neurological studies. More recent techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) support Gardner's theory more strongly today than 15 years ago, and it seems that there may be two more intelligences yet to be revealed - Naturalist and Existential - though claims for these have yet to be thoroughly researched.
Australian teachers have long been suspicious of 'g'. Cook Primary School, with Judy Perry at the helm, has made a special project of teaching through multiple intelligences. Dr Baird's Melbourne-based Project for Enhancing Effective Learning has been widely successful in Scandinavia. Dr Julia Atkin, from Harden - only a short distance from Canberra - works in schools throughout Australia demonstrating her highly practical, how-to-do-it application of learning and thinking theory.
Thanks to this conference, teachers can teach and assess their students' learning not just on tests of the old kind, but by using visual materials; activities like drama, dance, music and song; group interaction activities (interpersonal intelligence); and especially "processfolios". These are collections of activities which students present which reveal the process and progress of their learning in any subject area. Students enhance their intrapersonal intelligence as they publicly reflect on their folios, reassessing their strengths and weaknesses. This is called "metacognition" - thinking about one's own thinking. Where conventional tests, through fear of failure, often cause people's thinking to shut down and rely on simple memorising, processfolios cause people's thinking to open up and expand - and so they learn much more, and more quickly.
Gardner talks of "education for understanding" (not going to school just to get a higher score). If the IQ represents the 20th Century, then multiple intelligences (MI) is the educational stuff of the 21st.
(Note [sent with submission to The Canberra Times]: Photos of the ACT contingent were taken by Irene Lind, Principal, Lyneham Primary School)
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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