Tim's in the Showbiz - a day in the life of Tim Stephens at the School of Arts Cafe. Youth Video Production Unit of the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan. Launched by Mayor Frank Pangallo MBE.
Feel the power of Queanbeyan as I did last Saturday at the City Library, and you touch the heart of the Country Town. The Mayor launches and tells stories about Tim; Tim tells kitchen stories and thanks his parents; CCQ President John McGlynn thanks everybody, including local sponsors Palmers TV; the video upstages everyone, though the sound wasn't in synch. The librarian Peter Conlon says the place is full of energy, and too full of people: there were barely enough scones, jam and cream to go around.
Not sophisticated enough for cities like Canberra, or Sydney? Perish the thought. I'm not so sure that false "Feel the Power" campaigns are better value than the community and family feeling of the country town. And Queanbeyan maintains its identity against its potentially overwhelming neighbour - perhaps because it's in another state. Maybe we need federalism to grow in diversity.
Gunnar Isaacson's quality work at the CCQ shines through in Tim's in the Showbiz. The young production team of Tom Murphy (producer/presenter), John Paul Moloney and Ian Andre (editor) have put together a documentary which is creatively shot, informative and creates the mood of the School of Arts Cafe.
An important element in the final version screened, however, was the work of technician Carl Looper, who assists CCQ - and thereby hangs a tale of young achievers at CCQ making videos of Young Achievers of Queanbeyan, but without the quality equipment needed to make original stock technically up to scratch. And even with help, the money was not there to lipsynch the computer projection.
Tim Stephens also shines through as much more than the comedian he appears as presenter at the School of Arts Cafe. We were told (by the Mayor no less) of banging about in the kitchen as Tim expresses his creativity, but in truth Tim is the House Manager in team with Pat, the Administrator, and Bill, the Theatrical Manager, forming a highly professional family company whose power is felt locally, interstate and internationally. Last year's Canberra Critics' Circle Award to the Stephens family clearly belongs equally to all three.
At the end of this year Tim will spend some time working in Sydney - though he promises never, ever, to abandon Queanbeyan - and I wonder a little if the School of Arts Cafe will be the same without him.
CCQ will continue its series of documentaries, following Megan Still, Olympic Rowing Champion, and Tim's in the Showbiz, with Nicole Smith, who established and publishes the free Entertainment Guide in Queanbeyan, and young playwright Tom Murphy, 1997 The Globe Young Shakespearean of the Year who has just left for his prize two weeks at the Globe Theatre, London.
But can this clearly valuable work carry on without equipment? The young media hopefuls have to borrow a camera, and have editing facilities so old that they can learn very little of the techniques which are now the norm in video production. The issue is two-pronged, I think.
Queanbeyan has in the CCQ an original outfit that could easily be outshone by a Canberra group - except that the country town community feeling is what helps produce the quality. So I hope that the Queanbeyan Council, already strongly supportive via Ann Rocca and John Wright, can find a way to establish CCQ on a firmer footing than its current hold on a likely-to-be-condemned building.
And I suspect that without improved equipment, young people - even with a drive to learn equal to the team behind Tim's in the Showbiz - will begin to tire of being unable to begin with technically good pictures. With good basic equipment, they will be excited to learn production and editing, knowing that the final product will stand up in public without apology. Maybe this needs a one-off injection of funds which Queanbeyan Council's Donation Fund could provide, with some sponsorship from a supplier.
It's worth looking at, because these CCQ documentaries help the community celebrate their own young people's achievements and record the town's history - and they're well enough made to be worth looking at in their own right. If it were technically up to broadcast standard, Tim's in the Showbiz could well go further afield.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 30 May 1998
Tuesday, 26 May 1998
1998: Honour the Grief Ceremony. Commentary - National Sorry Day
Honour the Grief Ceremony. National Sorry Day at Parliament House. Marking the first anniversary of the "Bringing Them Home" Report.
By Frank McKone
A single candle "to light their way home".
"It was like a warm wind blowing through" said someone who couldn't get in to the Theatrette and watched with the crowd outside on closed circuit television. Inside the most extraordinary feelings of deep sadness for the terrible wrongs done in the name of doing good mixed with an amazing elation that our culture has changed forever.
I have experienced wonderful theatre before - where all the elements of lighting, sound, colour, costume and character come together with stunning effect. But artifice can never achieve real theatre like this Honouring the Grief. One candle was enough. This is the drama of our human origins, the storytelling which began long before there were theatres to separate us from the immediate experience of our emotions. And it was Theatre of Integrity.
Through a few thicknesses of cold marble, the Theatre of Insincerity was playing - the bear-baiting and bull-roaring of Question Time. The finger-stabbing, the silly-smiling, the fake-aggression and the deals behind the scenes. This was on a different closed-circuit. Who can be bothered to seriously cheer when one or other cliche role-player briefly wins a telling point?
When Gatjil Djerrkura rose to speak, with tears in his eyes, as people across the cultures held hands and personally expressed their sorrow while Torres Strait Islanders sang a slow hymn, he was heard by all of us with complete respect. When he explained that to say "Sorry" is nothing to do with guilt, but is to express sorrow and so allow us all to go forward, everyone applauded. When he described the people he had met who refuse to say sorry, he spoke with dignity and respect about how Sorry Day is also for them. The standing ovation he received was genuine, spontaneous and felt as if it should never end.
O that this might happen in that other Theatre of Parliament. I fear the hot breath and icy stares of adversarial government will never notice the warm wind there. I wish both the "Other Places" were as irrelevant as they seemed on National Sorry Day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
By Frank McKone
A single candle "to light their way home".
"It was like a warm wind blowing through" said someone who couldn't get in to the Theatrette and watched with the crowd outside on closed circuit television. Inside the most extraordinary feelings of deep sadness for the terrible wrongs done in the name of doing good mixed with an amazing elation that our culture has changed forever.
I have experienced wonderful theatre before - where all the elements of lighting, sound, colour, costume and character come together with stunning effect. But artifice can never achieve real theatre like this Honouring the Grief. One candle was enough. This is the drama of our human origins, the storytelling which began long before there were theatres to separate us from the immediate experience of our emotions. And it was Theatre of Integrity.
Through a few thicknesses of cold marble, the Theatre of Insincerity was playing - the bear-baiting and bull-roaring of Question Time. The finger-stabbing, the silly-smiling, the fake-aggression and the deals behind the scenes. This was on a different closed-circuit. Who can be bothered to seriously cheer when one or other cliche role-player briefly wins a telling point?
When Gatjil Djerrkura rose to speak, with tears in his eyes, as people across the cultures held hands and personally expressed their sorrow while Torres Strait Islanders sang a slow hymn, he was heard by all of us with complete respect. When he explained that to say "Sorry" is nothing to do with guilt, but is to express sorrow and so allow us all to go forward, everyone applauded. When he described the people he had met who refuse to say sorry, he spoke with dignity and respect about how Sorry Day is also for them. The standing ovation he received was genuine, spontaneous and felt as if it should never end.
O that this might happen in that other Theatre of Parliament. I fear the hot breath and icy stares of adversarial government will never notice the warm wind there. I wish both the "Other Places" were as irrelevant as they seemed on National Sorry Day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 25 May 1998
1998: Cliffhanger by Mardi McConnochie
Cliffhanger by Mardi McConnochie. The Jigsaw Company directed by Lynette Wallis at The Street Theatre, Thursday to Saturday May 28 - 30 and June 4 - 6, 1998, 8 pm. Professional.
The Jigsaw Company must be the oldest fully professional theatre company in Canberra, coming up to 22 this year. Originally funded largely by ACT Education as our theatre-in-education company, Jigsaw has continued to win contracts every three years through the 1980's and '90's giving school children an education in and through theatre - and professionally developing the teachers.
Cliffhanger more than maintains Jigsaw's reputation - it extends into a new form of theatre. Like the new "young adult" novel, this is theatre which begins to cross over the boundary between genres.
It is no longer theatre for children. The characters are young but their chaotic feelings, their internalised restraints and excesses, and the power of the future over the choices they make now, place them in the adult world. Yet the theatrical form - the acting style, the design, the use of comedy - is directly in the theatre-in-education tradition. Probably the nearest other genres are the Workers' Theatre and Community Theatre of recent decades, but they usually espouse a clear political or social viewpoint.
McConnochie has stuck to the integrity of theatre-in-education which can raise issues but must not be didactic or polemical. Wallis's direction, and the characterisation and timing skills of Jane O'Donnell (Katie) and Nick Hardcastle (Stefan), create a play which is just as much an education for adults - about their own lives in retrospect - as it is for young people trying to deal with love in an unstable out-of-control world. It is a tough play, though leavened by humour, multi-media (used in very innovative ways) and stunts dangerous enough to require a stunt director (Adam Kronenberg).
Cliffhanger is playing school matinees as well as evenings at The Street. I think late teenagers and their parents should go, together or separately, and young ragers up to at least 25 will surely recognise themselves and enjoy the experience. I also recommend to Playing Australia that they help fund the projected country town tour, especially where an original Palais Picture Theatre still stands. See Cliffhanger, and you'll see why.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Jigsaw Company must be the oldest fully professional theatre company in Canberra, coming up to 22 this year. Originally funded largely by ACT Education as our theatre-in-education company, Jigsaw has continued to win contracts every three years through the 1980's and '90's giving school children an education in and through theatre - and professionally developing the teachers.
Cliffhanger more than maintains Jigsaw's reputation - it extends into a new form of theatre. Like the new "young adult" novel, this is theatre which begins to cross over the boundary between genres.
It is no longer theatre for children. The characters are young but their chaotic feelings, their internalised restraints and excesses, and the power of the future over the choices they make now, place them in the adult world. Yet the theatrical form - the acting style, the design, the use of comedy - is directly in the theatre-in-education tradition. Probably the nearest other genres are the Workers' Theatre and Community Theatre of recent decades, but they usually espouse a clear political or social viewpoint.
McConnochie has stuck to the integrity of theatre-in-education which can raise issues but must not be didactic or polemical. Wallis's direction, and the characterisation and timing skills of Jane O'Donnell (Katie) and Nick Hardcastle (Stefan), create a play which is just as much an education for adults - about their own lives in retrospect - as it is for young people trying to deal with love in an unstable out-of-control world. It is a tough play, though leavened by humour, multi-media (used in very innovative ways) and stunts dangerous enough to require a stunt director (Adam Kronenberg).
Cliffhanger is playing school matinees as well as evenings at The Street. I think late teenagers and their parents should go, together or separately, and young ragers up to at least 25 will surely recognise themselves and enjoy the experience. I also recommend to Playing Australia that they help fund the projected country town tour, especially where an original Palais Picture Theatre still stands. See Cliffhanger, and you'll see why.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 24 May 1998
1998: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. Paradox Theatre directed by Ian Carcary at Currong Theatre. May 21-June 6, 1998, Wednesdays to Saturdays
I think there are three ways that Guards! Guards! can be played. As a broad comedy with lots of slapstick timing, in an English tradition which goes right back to Henry IV. Or it could be a biting satire about political power. It could also be done in the whimsy tradition.
Unfortunately Carcary seems to me unsure about which way to do it. Errol the Swamp Dragon is tickled under the chin continuously, but the light flights of fantasy are not played consistently. The Thieves Guild and the Watch have elements of comedy, but the pacing is never quite up to the mark. The Patrician, on the other hand, makes a final speech about how good people are only good at getting rid of bad people, but only bad people know how to run a country. This is an expose of dictatorship ("It isn't that good people say yes to bad people; it's that they don't say no"). It was played so understated and seemed so unassailable that I'm sure I heard it said in Indonesia this week.
As usual for Paradox, the costumes, sound and lighting effects are excellent, especially for such a small theatre. Diction was clear and the storyline - twisted as Pratchett's mind can be - is easily followed. Among Pratchett fans (there was obviously one group in Friday's audience) the jokes, with which we are all familiar from Monty Python days, got their laughs. But for me the momentum was lost too often, though it seemed to come together a bit better in the second half. The non-sequiturs and double takes which are Pratchett's hallmarks just weren't played up enough, and the audience responded spasmodically rather than with the flow of delight which I expected.
So which is it to be: rough comedy, hard-hitting politics or gentle fantasy? Maybe in the final weeks of the run, this production will settle in and take us away with the fairies - or rather the dragons.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I think there are three ways that Guards! Guards! can be played. As a broad comedy with lots of slapstick timing, in an English tradition which goes right back to Henry IV. Or it could be a biting satire about political power. It could also be done in the whimsy tradition.
Unfortunately Carcary seems to me unsure about which way to do it. Errol the Swamp Dragon is tickled under the chin continuously, but the light flights of fantasy are not played consistently. The Thieves Guild and the Watch have elements of comedy, but the pacing is never quite up to the mark. The Patrician, on the other hand, makes a final speech about how good people are only good at getting rid of bad people, but only bad people know how to run a country. This is an expose of dictatorship ("It isn't that good people say yes to bad people; it's that they don't say no"). It was played so understated and seemed so unassailable that I'm sure I heard it said in Indonesia this week.
As usual for Paradox, the costumes, sound and lighting effects are excellent, especially for such a small theatre. Diction was clear and the storyline - twisted as Pratchett's mind can be - is easily followed. Among Pratchett fans (there was obviously one group in Friday's audience) the jokes, with which we are all familiar from Monty Python days, got their laughs. But for me the momentum was lost too often, though it seemed to come together a bit better in the second half. The non-sequiturs and double takes which are Pratchett's hallmarks just weren't played up enough, and the audience responded spasmodically rather than with the flow of delight which I expected.
So which is it to be: rough comedy, hard-hitting politics or gentle fantasy? Maybe in the final weeks of the run, this production will settle in and take us away with the fairies - or rather the dragons.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 7 May 1998
1998: Feature article - Interview with Tom Murphy
[Tom Murphy, later known as Tommy Murphy, went on to become a significant Australian playwright. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Murphy_%28Australian_playwright%29]
"I'll stay with something till I find something good in it," said 18 year old Tom Murphy over chips and gravy at the Central Cafe, Queanbeyan. For the young playwright, recently back from a United Nations Youth Association forum in The Hague, and visits to New York, Sweden and Norway, there was no incongruity. The world may be an oyster, but Murphy knows that a young blade needs to be determined to open it up.
The UNYA trip seemed to be accidental. They needed a boy to represent the ACT at the national meeting, and Tom put up his hand - and then was selected for Holland. The Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) came in on the back of the UN, asking Murphy to explore similar young people's theatre and media organisations, largely following up CCQ's contacts in Europe and USA through their inimitable director, Gunnar Isaacson.
Murphy, already having had a successful production of For God, Queen and Country directed by Garry Fry and become the Shakespeare Globe Centre's Young Shakespearean of the Year in 1997, as well as completing his Year 12 - feeling a little guilty for being too busy to help much at CCQ - has agreed to be a roving promoter especially now that CCQ is taking on a new and already well-loved teacher, Allan Wylie.
But the nub of Tom Murphy now is a new script, as yet in first draft, growing out of his experience finishing school and finding himself alone and travelling. He met media directors and observed productions: "Of course Tom Murphy will be welcome"; "He is just great"; "He seems like a very nice guy". Email provides instant responses across the world, while Tom is sending back messages about the Media Factory in Sweden: "They send their regards and look forward to future contact with us. They provide a wonderful service to the community, the young people and to art here. It is somewhat of a dream for CCQ because of the range of people it reaches. I will explain more on my return but I hope this will help the vision of CCQ. Thank you for everything. I cannot express how amazing this is and has been. I have seen so much and met so many inspirational people."
For CCQ's Intima Theatre, The House on the Hill has been written to help Murphy resolve, through a group of characters more or less his own age, touring Parliament House today, in Paris and in a Museum of the Future, shadowed by their "minds", how he feels about his options as the world opens up before him. Each character represents each of the different approaches Murphy can imagine; each "mind" shadow is like his own capacity to reflect on his potential choices. Though he lives in this crowded scene, the least determined among these characters - currently named Troy - the most apparently settled, the one most unlike the organised always-going-somewhere Tom Murphy --- just disappears.
Felicity: I wonder what ever happened to him.
Ben: We always will.
Murphy is, to my mind, at core a writer. He is excited by writing. He is worried about the writing. He intends to go to university to see what good he can find in the study of literature, history and philosophy. Why philosophy? Because it's all about questioning. What is life about? You achieve things and there are things you don't achieve, but then you look at all these things as experiences you can use - and you look for the next thing you can stay with "till I find something good in it". This year "I'm examining what my process is - I'm training myself before I get any training".
Unlike Troy, Tom Murphy won't disappear. He'll extract every drop of juice from the Shakespeare Globe Centre in London in June. He'll chip away with his sharp strong blade. I wouldn't be surprised if he achieves his aim of becoming a theatre professional in the seven years he has set himself. Yet somehow he is like Troy. While others lock themselves in to the conventions of achievement - the next paper qualification - Murphy will move to the next necessary thing rather than merely satisfy an obligation. Slippery as an oyster, he can disappear from one scene to another. I suspect the rest of us will gain from the experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"I'll stay with something till I find something good in it," said 18 year old Tom Murphy over chips and gravy at the Central Cafe, Queanbeyan. For the young playwright, recently back from a United Nations Youth Association forum in The Hague, and visits to New York, Sweden and Norway, there was no incongruity. The world may be an oyster, but Murphy knows that a young blade needs to be determined to open it up.
The UNYA trip seemed to be accidental. They needed a boy to represent the ACT at the national meeting, and Tom put up his hand - and then was selected for Holland. The Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) came in on the back of the UN, asking Murphy to explore similar young people's theatre and media organisations, largely following up CCQ's contacts in Europe and USA through their inimitable director, Gunnar Isaacson.
Murphy, already having had a successful production of For God, Queen and Country directed by Garry Fry and become the Shakespeare Globe Centre's Young Shakespearean of the Year in 1997, as well as completing his Year 12 - feeling a little guilty for being too busy to help much at CCQ - has agreed to be a roving promoter especially now that CCQ is taking on a new and already well-loved teacher, Allan Wylie.
But the nub of Tom Murphy now is a new script, as yet in first draft, growing out of his experience finishing school and finding himself alone and travelling. He met media directors and observed productions: "Of course Tom Murphy will be welcome"; "He is just great"; "He seems like a very nice guy". Email provides instant responses across the world, while Tom is sending back messages about the Media Factory in Sweden: "They send their regards and look forward to future contact with us. They provide a wonderful service to the community, the young people and to art here. It is somewhat of a dream for CCQ because of the range of people it reaches. I will explain more on my return but I hope this will help the vision of CCQ. Thank you for everything. I cannot express how amazing this is and has been. I have seen so much and met so many inspirational people."
For CCQ's Intima Theatre, The House on the Hill has been written to help Murphy resolve, through a group of characters more or less his own age, touring Parliament House today, in Paris and in a Museum of the Future, shadowed by their "minds", how he feels about his options as the world opens up before him. Each character represents each of the different approaches Murphy can imagine; each "mind" shadow is like his own capacity to reflect on his potential choices. Though he lives in this crowded scene, the least determined among these characters - currently named Troy - the most apparently settled, the one most unlike the organised always-going-somewhere Tom Murphy --- just disappears.
Felicity: I wonder what ever happened to him.
Ben: We always will.
Murphy is, to my mind, at core a writer. He is excited by writing. He is worried about the writing. He intends to go to university to see what good he can find in the study of literature, history and philosophy. Why philosophy? Because it's all about questioning. What is life about? You achieve things and there are things you don't achieve, but then you look at all these things as experiences you can use - and you look for the next thing you can stay with "till I find something good in it". This year "I'm examining what my process is - I'm training myself before I get any training".
Unlike Troy, Tom Murphy won't disappear. He'll extract every drop of juice from the Shakespeare Globe Centre in London in June. He'll chip away with his sharp strong blade. I wouldn't be surprised if he achieves his aim of becoming a theatre professional in the seven years he has set himself. Yet somehow he is like Troy. While others lock themselves in to the conventions of achievement - the next paper qualification - Murphy will move to the next necessary thing rather than merely satisfy an obligation. Slippery as an oyster, he can disappear from one scene to another. I suspect the rest of us will gain from the experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 4 May 1998
1998: Top-Secret Forensic-Science
Top-Secret Forensic-Science. Australian Federal Police at the Australian Science Festival May 4 - 6, 1998.
The scenario: Tom Stoewer, criminal, breaks into the house before our very eyes, is discovered and challenged inside. Three shots ring out. A phone call is made to Emergency 000, but Tom escapes before the police can reach the crime scene.
Tom removes his balaclava and returns to his post, manning the AFP display in another part of the exhibition, while the school students are shown the crime scene by Petra Clissold; study the fingerprints found at the scene with David Reece and Hilary Fletcher; compare the shoe prints down to the slightest detail with John Doyle; put together the photofit image for the media release with help from Wendy Griffiths; and learn how to use ultraviolet and infrared photography equipment with Phil Turner.
How much can they learn about the crime and the criminal from the forensic evidence? Not enough in an hour to convict, perhaps, but certainly enough to realise what a painstaking task forensic science is and to see how crucial this evidence may be to finding out the truth.
Top-Secret Forensic-Science is not ordinary theatre, though it uses theatrical elements to set the scene. It is a good example of experiential education, however, and I discovered from coordinator Keith Howard that the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society has been using the scenario method since the early 1990's for competency based training of police officers in forensic techniques. They have two houses at the Majura driver training centre where they can set up full scale crime scenes which will test the trainees to the limit - both AFP and other State police are trained here.
Theatre is experience deliberately removed from reality into a special frame, which we enter through the foyer and leave as we go for coffee after the show. Forensic scientists have discovered, out of the necessity to train police properly, that a fictional scenario - a little bit of theatre - can be the source of learning as good as the real thing. Even better, perhaps, as details can be included which might be rare occurrences on the job. Theatre is emotional experience; here is theatre serving science.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The scenario: Tom Stoewer, criminal, breaks into the house before our very eyes, is discovered and challenged inside. Three shots ring out. A phone call is made to Emergency 000, but Tom escapes before the police can reach the crime scene.
Tom removes his balaclava and returns to his post, manning the AFP display in another part of the exhibition, while the school students are shown the crime scene by Petra Clissold; study the fingerprints found at the scene with David Reece and Hilary Fletcher; compare the shoe prints down to the slightest detail with John Doyle; put together the photofit image for the media release with help from Wendy Griffiths; and learn how to use ultraviolet and infrared photography equipment with Phil Turner.
How much can they learn about the crime and the criminal from the forensic evidence? Not enough in an hour to convict, perhaps, but certainly enough to realise what a painstaking task forensic science is and to see how crucial this evidence may be to finding out the truth.
Top-Secret Forensic-Science is not ordinary theatre, though it uses theatrical elements to set the scene. It is a good example of experiential education, however, and I discovered from coordinator Keith Howard that the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society has been using the scenario method since the early 1990's for competency based training of police officers in forensic techniques. They have two houses at the Majura driver training centre where they can set up full scale crime scenes which will test the trainees to the limit - both AFP and other State police are trained here.
Theatre is experience deliberately removed from reality into a special frame, which we enter through the foyer and leave as we go for coffee after the show. Forensic scientists have discovered, out of the necessity to train police properly, that a fictional scenario - a little bit of theatre - can be the source of learning as good as the real thing. Even better, perhaps, as details can be included which might be rare occurrences on the job. Theatre is emotional experience; here is theatre serving science.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1998: Science Smorgasbord
Science Smorgasbord. The Artful Scientists: Travelling Science Shows for Schools. Australian Science Festival May 2 - 6, 1998.
The Artful Scientists, Rebecca Colless (biologist) and Alan Reid (physicist) do the Professor Julius Sumner Miller thing, but their young audiences don't know about that - and the response I saw showed they wouldn't have worried if they did. Even when they knew what would happen, they cheered when the lid blew off the coffee tin and liquid nitrogen shrank the balloon.
Dramatic suspense, moments of revelation, climaxes galore and denouements of relief kept the children thoroughly entertained - even when I, a balding old man with glasses, was brought out to go fishing with an electromagnet. The atmosphere was electric, partly I thought because the Australian Science Festival arrangements gave the performers a limited time - not enough to relax, play more with ideas or ask the questions during or after the show which would lead to more understanding of the science behind the demonstrations. The hubbub and the need to push on turned the show more into a slick set of tricks.
The Festival has brought in young Australian representatives from the Science and Mathematics Olympiads to introduce the events. Thomas Lam did his bit very well, and made me start thinking about science shows. The Artful Scientists are certainly highly entertaining, but I wondered why it is that fewer people seem to be studying science at matriculation level than in the past? Though I find drama in holding a glass of water upside down above an audience member's head, with only a margarine container lid and air pressure to prevent a wet disaster, does this experience transfer to young people deciding to study science?
Despite my predilection towards seeing drama as the solution of all problems, maybe some scientific research is needed here. Colless and Reid are Artful Scientists indeed, but I felt I needed to see some educational proof. Of course the show I saw is not the full range of work they present in schools and teachers respond with enthusiasm. Yet I can't help fearing that more science as entertainment might mean less science as wonderment, personal discovery, mathematical analysis and new truths - where science and art come together.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Artful Scientists, Rebecca Colless (biologist) and Alan Reid (physicist) do the Professor Julius Sumner Miller thing, but their young audiences don't know about that - and the response I saw showed they wouldn't have worried if they did. Even when they knew what would happen, they cheered when the lid blew off the coffee tin and liquid nitrogen shrank the balloon.
Dramatic suspense, moments of revelation, climaxes galore and denouements of relief kept the children thoroughly entertained - even when I, a balding old man with glasses, was brought out to go fishing with an electromagnet. The atmosphere was electric, partly I thought because the Australian Science Festival arrangements gave the performers a limited time - not enough to relax, play more with ideas or ask the questions during or after the show which would lead to more understanding of the science behind the demonstrations. The hubbub and the need to push on turned the show more into a slick set of tricks.
The Festival has brought in young Australian representatives from the Science and Mathematics Olympiads to introduce the events. Thomas Lam did his bit very well, and made me start thinking about science shows. The Artful Scientists are certainly highly entertaining, but I wondered why it is that fewer people seem to be studying science at matriculation level than in the past? Though I find drama in holding a glass of water upside down above an audience member's head, with only a margarine container lid and air pressure to prevent a wet disaster, does this experience transfer to young people deciding to study science?
Despite my predilection towards seeing drama as the solution of all problems, maybe some scientific research is needed here. Colless and Reid are Artful Scientists indeed, but I felt I needed to see some educational proof. Of course the show I saw is not the full range of work they present in schools and teachers respond with enthusiasm. Yet I can't help fearing that more science as entertainment might mean less science as wonderment, personal discovery, mathematical analysis and new truths - where science and art come together.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1998: Mary Anning: A Curious Woman by Suzanne Roux
Mary Anning: A Curious Woman. Written and directed by Suzanne Roux. ?Cogito at the Australian Science Festival, May 2 - 6, 1998.
Top science theatre-in-education, Mary Anning is true to both science and theatre. Donna Cohen is a disciplined professional actor and a highly experienced scientific researcher. She represents what Mary Anning (1799 - 1847) might have become if her social class and the male-controlled scientific establishment of her day had been different.
Mary Anning is a forgotten figure in science - her discoveries of the ichthyosaurus and the pterodactyl fossils were fundamental to our interest in dinosaurs. Yet I had never heard of her till now. The fossils, on display in places like the Natural History Museum in London, are labelled with the names of the collectors who bought them from Mary Anning - but not with her name. She did the work, became the expert, was a public figure visited by the rich and famous in her curiosity shop, but has disappeared from history.
Suzanne Roux - actor, writer and student of philosophy - introduces Mary Anning through a short lecture on the history of the earth, always a fascination to Year 5 - 8 students. Cohen, in a sense, plays herself as lecturer: a very good one at that. After the show, How do we date fossils? becomes an important question. The real scientist provides the answers and discusses the problems.
When Mary Anning appears, the emotional stuff of science draws the audience in to the story of a girl, her carpenter father (whose hammer she used to chip out fossils after his death in a cliff collapse), her dog (killed the same way as her father), her discovery of wonderful new "curiosities", her fame and the way she was viewed by famous scientists, her death from breast cancer. Cohen expertly creates in us the feelings of each episode, and without dwelling on her sad untimely end, smoothly reviews the responses to Mary's death as she seems to look down from on high. I felt as if Mary is still hanging around up there 150 years down the track, watching Roux and Cohen do the right thing by her at last.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Top science theatre-in-education, Mary Anning is true to both science and theatre. Donna Cohen is a disciplined professional actor and a highly experienced scientific researcher. She represents what Mary Anning (1799 - 1847) might have become if her social class and the male-controlled scientific establishment of her day had been different.
Mary Anning is a forgotten figure in science - her discoveries of the ichthyosaurus and the pterodactyl fossils were fundamental to our interest in dinosaurs. Yet I had never heard of her till now. The fossils, on display in places like the Natural History Museum in London, are labelled with the names of the collectors who bought them from Mary Anning - but not with her name. She did the work, became the expert, was a public figure visited by the rich and famous in her curiosity shop, but has disappeared from history.
Suzanne Roux - actor, writer and student of philosophy - introduces Mary Anning through a short lecture on the history of the earth, always a fascination to Year 5 - 8 students. Cohen, in a sense, plays herself as lecturer: a very good one at that. After the show, How do we date fossils? becomes an important question. The real scientist provides the answers and discusses the problems.
When Mary Anning appears, the emotional stuff of science draws the audience in to the story of a girl, her carpenter father (whose hammer she used to chip out fossils after his death in a cliff collapse), her dog (killed the same way as her father), her discovery of wonderful new "curiosities", her fame and the way she was viewed by famous scientists, her death from breast cancer. Cohen expertly creates in us the feelings of each episode, and without dwelling on her sad untimely end, smoothly reviews the responses to Mary's death as she seems to look down from on high. I felt as if Mary is still hanging around up there 150 years down the track, watching Roux and Cohen do the right thing by her at last.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 1 May 1998
Cosi by Louis Nowra
Cosi by Louis Nowra. Free-Rain Theatre Company at Currong Theatre, Gorman House, Thurs - Sat April 30 - May 9, 1998.
Nowra's play works at many different levels, emphasising the humanity of mentally ill people against the background of the inhumanity of warfare. Anne Somes' production, with a young company, of this often funny but terribly ironic drama is competent and effective, though without the subtlety which a fully professional company would bring to it.
The play (rather than the film version) is well worth seeing for tight interweaving of characters and themes. Somes has formed a strong ensemble of actors who, although differing in degrees of experience, each create a clearly delineated character. The result is a definite sense of purpose. The humour and the issues in the script come through.
This production is part of the New EreKtions program in which The Jigsaw Company supports the work of young companies. Director Lynnette Wallis sees the program as a natural extension of Jigsaw's educational drama work in schools, providing a continuing development opportunity for our young adults. This production of Cosi demonstrates the value, and success, of Jigsaw's aims.
Cosi is confronting, as the young Lewis (immediately called "Jerry" by his cast) attempts to direct a theatre production with inhabitants of a Melbourne mental institution in 1971. Sexual and destructive motivations are expressed with few inhibitions; violent mood swings take place in an institutional space which includes us, the audience. And Somes added large projections of those horrifying television news images which turned people in the US and here against the war in Vietnam. It really is disturbing to see these again, so explicit and uncompromising, and unavoidable.
My personal response was that presenting these images in between the Nowra scenes became a distraction from the central focus of Lewis's coming to recognise how feeling for each other is more important than what we feel about, or against, each other. Julie, drug addict and potential sexual partner for Lewis, mentions the boredom of watching TV in the institutional lounge room. Maybe, for me, a representation of this lounge, with the TV news from Vietnam playing continuously, mostly silently, in the background, might have clarified the symbolic nature of the play and have had a more subtle effect.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Nowra's play works at many different levels, emphasising the humanity of mentally ill people against the background of the inhumanity of warfare. Anne Somes' production, with a young company, of this often funny but terribly ironic drama is competent and effective, though without the subtlety which a fully professional company would bring to it.
The play (rather than the film version) is well worth seeing for tight interweaving of characters and themes. Somes has formed a strong ensemble of actors who, although differing in degrees of experience, each create a clearly delineated character. The result is a definite sense of purpose. The humour and the issues in the script come through.
This production is part of the New EreKtions program in which The Jigsaw Company supports the work of young companies. Director Lynnette Wallis sees the program as a natural extension of Jigsaw's educational drama work in schools, providing a continuing development opportunity for our young adults. This production of Cosi demonstrates the value, and success, of Jigsaw's aims.
Cosi is confronting, as the young Lewis (immediately called "Jerry" by his cast) attempts to direct a theatre production with inhabitants of a Melbourne mental institution in 1971. Sexual and destructive motivations are expressed with few inhibitions; violent mood swings take place in an institutional space which includes us, the audience. And Somes added large projections of those horrifying television news images which turned people in the US and here against the war in Vietnam. It really is disturbing to see these again, so explicit and uncompromising, and unavoidable.
My personal response was that presenting these images in between the Nowra scenes became a distraction from the central focus of Lewis's coming to recognise how feeling for each other is more important than what we feel about, or against, each other. Julie, drug addict and potential sexual partner for Lewis, mentions the boredom of watching TV in the institutional lounge room. Maybe, for me, a representation of this lounge, with the TV news from Vietnam playing continuously, mostly silently, in the background, might have clarified the symbolic nature of the play and have had a more subtle effect.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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