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
Tuesday, 14 October 1997
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
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