Short Stabs Program 2. CIA in association with CYT at The Street Studio. December 12, 15, 16, 1998, at 7.00 pm.
I only saw five-eighths on Saturday. Nothing to do with football - just that Daniel Keene's Untitled Monologue, Christos Tsiolkas' Kennett and Luke Cutting's adaptation of Yukio Mishima's Jealous Spirit needed more work and will open on Tuesday. If they match most of what I saw, then you should not miss Short Stabs 2. Don't forget it's a 7 o'clock start.
Sockpussy, a genetically determined puppet show by Barb Kraaz and Karin Ferguson, needs a more confident (i.e. louder) performance, but is a neat and funny script for a mutated modern Punch and Judy experience.
Pared Off is a fascinating mime with voice commentary on a reluctant relationship devised by Telia Neville and performed with precision by her and Matthew Aberline.
Exile by Graham Henderson is a tragicomic completion of the latest work by an unknown and forever misunderstood blind novelist, whose younger amanuensis seems destined to follow his mentor's hopeless career path. Performed well by Phil Roberts, with David Branson in a surprisingly humble role which is nicely defined. Good directing from Cathie Clelland.
Viewing Blue Poles will ring bells for any visitor to the National Gallery - alarm bells probably as Christos Tsiolkas reveals the truth about the different perspectives of a prospective mother seeking an abortion, her bisexual lover and putative father, watched by a gay security guard who lies to them about Blue Poles and misinterprets their relationship. Only after Warhol's Electric Chair will the mother let the lover see the Early Australian Landscapes - so sad because they are empty, though full of trees, waterfalls and mountains. Blue Poles is full of loneliness, concludes the security guard. Excellent performances from Anna Voronoff, Roland Manderson and Pip Branson.
Chrissie Shaw, directed by Camilla Blunden in Alison Croggan's Famine, was the highlight on Saturday: a telling history of pioneer days, from a woman's entrapment on the streets of London and transportation to a life of violent horror in the bush, presented with vocal skill and economy of movement - an indictment of the terra nullius view of the invasion of Australia.
Short Stabs 3 starts on Thursday. See Stabs 2 first.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
