Darkening skies and cold were perhaps reminiscent last Sunday morning of a Russia where "the Tsar exiled both Pushkin and Dostoyevsky, Osip Mandelstam died in a camp in eastern Siberia after satirising 'the Georgian mountaineer' and his cockroach moustaches" and in 1998 the editor of Sovietskaya Kalmykia Segodnya, Larisa Yudina, and the human rights advocate and Parliamentarian, Galina Starovoitova, were both killed in apparently politically motivated attacks.
At a ceremony in Lennox Gardens, conducted by International PEN, to plant a tree to commemorate these two women's deaths, Peter Fuller noted that "Russia has changed since Soviet times, but life is no less perilous in the new Russia, which has gone from being a police state to being a lawless state."
ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell spoke movingly of the need for this memorial to remind us that it is easy in Australia to take our freedom of speech for granted. Larisa Yudina was the co-chairperson of the local branch of the pro-reform Yabloko party in Kalmykia and was investigating reports of corrupt business practices by regional officials when on June 8 1998 she was found dead with multiple knife wounds and a fractured skull. Amnesty International has called on Russian authorities to take urgent measures to stop the persecution of journalists and government opponents in the Republic of Kalmykia and to bring to justice those responsible for the murder of Larisa Yudina.
The murder of Galina Starovoitova received wide publicity in the western news media when on November 20 1998 two gunmen shot her as she walked up the steps to her apartment, also seriously wounding her press secretary, and casually left their weapons behind in perhaps the most brazen political assassination in the bloody 7-year history of the new Russia.
International PEN, founded in London in 1921, brings together poets, novelists, essayists, historians, critics, translators, editors, journalists, theatre and screenwriters "who share a common concern for the craft and art of writing and who are committed to freedom of expression through the written word". Since November 15 1998 PEN has recorded the murder of 21 writers in Iran, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Serbia, Nigeria, Kosovo, Angola, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Ivory Coast and East Timor.
Murder is the "ultimate form of censorship", but PEN's records show another 17 writers who since 1991 are still detained, exiled or have 'disappeared' in Burma, Guatemala, Slovenia, Syria, Bangladesh, Turkey, Ecuador, Russia, Mexico, Egypt, Peru, Cuba and Ethiopia.
The rain held off for the brief memorial ceremony, but fell steadily for the rest of the day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 21 November 1999
Wednesday, 10 November 1999
1999: Of Sex and Violets & The Death of Culture by Joe Woodward
Of Sex and Violets & The Death of Culture, written and directed by Joe Woodward. Shadow House Pits at the Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, November 10-13 and 16-20, 8pm.
If I write in an academic tone about this production, it's because it seems at this end of the century to belong in a university setting. In 1932-33 the French avant-garde playwright and director, Antonin Artaud, published a manifesto "Le Theatre de la Cruaute" (The Theatre of Cruelty). He was a major influence in European, and to some extent American, theatre well into the 1970's.
Joe Woodward has attempted to follow Artaud's philosophic theme - that art is not reality, and therefore can only touch reality at the moment of self-destruction of the artist - beyond the theatre which Artaud wrote about and into the new imaginary world of cyberspace. Here, Collie Rae (Claire Bocking), like the famous Jenni, runs her "cam" in real time on the internet, so the world has seen her violent love-making with Artaud Lamont (James Lanyon). We see replays on screen while the pair meet a year later, both also manipulating their creations Thora Ainslie (Liliana Bogatko) and Stafford Myers (Gregory Poke) - theatrical characters who believe they are real but only become so when Artaud is destroyed.
Should you see it? Artaud would vilify me for offering advice, and maybe others will too.
If you already appreciate theatre based on pure Verfremdungseffekte (alienation effect), you will understand Woodward's style and find the performances of all four actors purposeful and skilled. However Woodward is not a Bertolt Brecht, and I found the play too wordy and pacing too measured. Artaud said that the director is the author of the play: that is, dialogue should be subordinate to action. Woodward succeeds in these terms only in the final scene.
If you want a new play with an original approach to the Wide World of the Web, I don't think this is it. Pre-war European post-Romantic theatrical philosophy about art and reality just doesn't have the bounce-back energy of email flames and realtime cams. Collie Rae's computer crashes as Artaud Lamont dies - but despite its inevitable social shadows, the Web is a new form of culture, not its death.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
If I write in an academic tone about this production, it's because it seems at this end of the century to belong in a university setting. In 1932-33 the French avant-garde playwright and director, Antonin Artaud, published a manifesto "Le Theatre de la Cruaute" (The Theatre of Cruelty). He was a major influence in European, and to some extent American, theatre well into the 1970's.
Joe Woodward has attempted to follow Artaud's philosophic theme - that art is not reality, and therefore can only touch reality at the moment of self-destruction of the artist - beyond the theatre which Artaud wrote about and into the new imaginary world of cyberspace. Here, Collie Rae (Claire Bocking), like the famous Jenni, runs her "cam" in real time on the internet, so the world has seen her violent love-making with Artaud Lamont (James Lanyon). We see replays on screen while the pair meet a year later, both also manipulating their creations Thora Ainslie (Liliana Bogatko) and Stafford Myers (Gregory Poke) - theatrical characters who believe they are real but only become so when Artaud is destroyed.
Should you see it? Artaud would vilify me for offering advice, and maybe others will too.
If you already appreciate theatre based on pure Verfremdungseffekte (alienation effect), you will understand Woodward's style and find the performances of all four actors purposeful and skilled. However Woodward is not a Bertolt Brecht, and I found the play too wordy and pacing too measured. Artaud said that the director is the author of the play: that is, dialogue should be subordinate to action. Woodward succeeds in these terms only in the final scene.
If you want a new play with an original approach to the Wide World of the Web, I don't think this is it. Pre-war European post-Romantic theatrical philosophy about art and reality just doesn't have the bounce-back energy of email flames and realtime cams. Collie Rae's computer crashes as Artaud Lamont dies - but despite its inevitable social shadows, the Web is a new form of culture, not its death.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 3 November 1999
1999: Women on a Shoestring: Camilla Blunden, Julie Ross and Chrissie Shaw. Feature article.
"The play is set at the crossroads in the middle of nowhere. There will be a fifteen minute interval."
At the Crossroads, reviewed in The Canberra Times at its first presentation in February 1998, was described as "polished theatre from a longstanding, very experienced team, designed to be toured to city and country venues around Australia". Based on stories gathered from people in the bush, the play tempered an examination of racist attitudes - through the experience of a middle-class country woman whose mother is Aboriginal - with clever use of humour, movement and song. How has the tour gone, I wondered, as I sat down at the café in Gorman House to talk with the Women on a Shoestring: Camilla Blunden, Julie Ross and Chrissie Shaw.
"One man, you could call him a red-neck farmer," said Chrissie, "came up after the show and told us we were 'right on the edge', but he also said he enjoyed it." "It's treading a fine line," explained Julie, "between entertainment and being hard-hitting." "It depends on the writer - Jan Cornall, in this case - being able to get to the difficult thing with humour," said Camilla.
In between travelling, Shaw is well known for her accordion playing and came to Canberra (after teaching English to new migrants and working at New Theatre and with Pipi Storm in Sydney) as a Bombshell in the International Year of Peace, performing at TAU Theatre in 1986. Ross is a mother of two who did a project on Australia in Year 7 at school in Canada, came as an exchange student to Queensland, studied theatre at Studio 58 in Vancouver and settled in Canberra in 1991. Blunden is a Canberra institution by now, an actor and director who won a special ACT MEAA Green Room Award in 1997 for her contribution to theatre.
These women might be on shoestrings, but something remarkable is going on. After touring, just in 1999, throughout South-Western NSW, the Southern Tablelands, Cobar, Dubbo, Grenfell, Richmond, Katoomba and Uralla, as well as Tasmania and Victoria - ending in Melbourne on October 24 - the team, which includes Maria De Marco from Sydney and the outstanding Aboriginal actor Justine Saunders, have a strengthened 'family' feel as they discuss the development of Women on a Shoestring since its beginnings in the Womens Theatre Workshop in 1979, performing in the now demolished Reid House and Childers Street venues.
That's 20 years of professional theatre, in Canberra - and yet unsung perhaps because so much of their work has been designed to tour, with usually a short opening season at home and a return season after some months away. There are surely more people - from Adelaide to Alice Springs, Darwin to Devonport, Warrnambool to Wudinna - who remember Over the Hill, Empty Suitcases and now At the Crossroads than in Canberra. In fact these shows have been seen by an audience something close to 100,000 in the touring years since 1990. Yet we have come to believe that a professional theatre company never seems to last more than a year or two in this city.
Maybe funding is part of the answer to how Women on a Shoestring has survived: tours are supported by Playing Australia and the Australia Council and artsACT supports the work at home. Yet it is not just money that keeps this theatre going. I think it's a matter of principle.
The company plans productions by selecting themes derived from research into stories told by the very women who will form half the audience in the country towns. Rather than looking for quantity, the keys to the success of Women on a Shoestring are focus and relevance. Once a show is up and running, it may stay in the repertoire for several years - more than 6 years for Over the Hill. The government funding is used to guarantee that all the women in the company receive proper payment for their work.
In fact the need for women to take a fully professional role in theatre was a strong motivation back in the 1970's: the only compromise has been during the development phase of At The Crossroads when the company agreed to take a cut because of insufficient funding, except that the special grant from the Australia Council's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fund enabled full support for Justine Saunders' position. This play was clearly so important to country women, and men, of all backgrounds that one principle was broken for the sake of the integrity of the work. This has proved, of course, to have been the right decision, in the end financially as well as artistically.
The company operates in an interesting fashion, growing out of the cooperative group theatre structures of its early days. Blunden has provided the core of the company throughout, seeking out actors and writers who are happy to work in what I describe as "structured cooperation". As Director, Blunden's role is clearly defined: she sets up the workshops to explore the research material. The writers (Merrilee Moss previously and currently Cornall) observe and sometimes initiate workshops as they turn action into script. The actors, like the writers and director, all undertake extensive research, seeking out women's stories around the central theme, including their own experiences, creating in the workshops the characters and the scenes which are re-worked and scripted. In this way the actors, even some who have been auditioned for roles in what superficially seems a conventional way, work within bounds yet with a sense of freedom and commitment to the work.
Working this way has created a company which is continuously flexible, seeking out new people, new themes and new forms of theatrical expression, and within which people feel part of a strong network, which extends out to all the women who have provided their stories and who live in all parts of Australia.
At the Crossroads is booked for extensive touring again next year and Australia Council and artsACT funding has arrived for development of a new project on women in film.
This doesn't sound like the middle of nowhere to me, or an interval of fifteen minutes.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
At the Crossroads, reviewed in The Canberra Times at its first presentation in February 1998, was described as "polished theatre from a longstanding, very experienced team, designed to be toured to city and country venues around Australia". Based on stories gathered from people in the bush, the play tempered an examination of racist attitudes - through the experience of a middle-class country woman whose mother is Aboriginal - with clever use of humour, movement and song. How has the tour gone, I wondered, as I sat down at the café in Gorman House to talk with the Women on a Shoestring: Camilla Blunden, Julie Ross and Chrissie Shaw.
"One man, you could call him a red-neck farmer," said Chrissie, "came up after the show and told us we were 'right on the edge', but he also said he enjoyed it." "It's treading a fine line," explained Julie, "between entertainment and being hard-hitting." "It depends on the writer - Jan Cornall, in this case - being able to get to the difficult thing with humour," said Camilla.
In between travelling, Shaw is well known for her accordion playing and came to Canberra (after teaching English to new migrants and working at New Theatre and with Pipi Storm in Sydney) as a Bombshell in the International Year of Peace, performing at TAU Theatre in 1986. Ross is a mother of two who did a project on Australia in Year 7 at school in Canada, came as an exchange student to Queensland, studied theatre at Studio 58 in Vancouver and settled in Canberra in 1991. Blunden is a Canberra institution by now, an actor and director who won a special ACT MEAA Green Room Award in 1997 for her contribution to theatre.
These women might be on shoestrings, but something remarkable is going on. After touring, just in 1999, throughout South-Western NSW, the Southern Tablelands, Cobar, Dubbo, Grenfell, Richmond, Katoomba and Uralla, as well as Tasmania and Victoria - ending in Melbourne on October 24 - the team, which includes Maria De Marco from Sydney and the outstanding Aboriginal actor Justine Saunders, have a strengthened 'family' feel as they discuss the development of Women on a Shoestring since its beginnings in the Womens Theatre Workshop in 1979, performing in the now demolished Reid House and Childers Street venues.
That's 20 years of professional theatre, in Canberra - and yet unsung perhaps because so much of their work has been designed to tour, with usually a short opening season at home and a return season after some months away. There are surely more people - from Adelaide to Alice Springs, Darwin to Devonport, Warrnambool to Wudinna - who remember Over the Hill, Empty Suitcases and now At the Crossroads than in Canberra. In fact these shows have been seen by an audience something close to 100,000 in the touring years since 1990. Yet we have come to believe that a professional theatre company never seems to last more than a year or two in this city.
Maybe funding is part of the answer to how Women on a Shoestring has survived: tours are supported by Playing Australia and the Australia Council and artsACT supports the work at home. Yet it is not just money that keeps this theatre going. I think it's a matter of principle.
The company plans productions by selecting themes derived from research into stories told by the very women who will form half the audience in the country towns. Rather than looking for quantity, the keys to the success of Women on a Shoestring are focus and relevance. Once a show is up and running, it may stay in the repertoire for several years - more than 6 years for Over the Hill. The government funding is used to guarantee that all the women in the company receive proper payment for their work.
In fact the need for women to take a fully professional role in theatre was a strong motivation back in the 1970's: the only compromise has been during the development phase of At The Crossroads when the company agreed to take a cut because of insufficient funding, except that the special grant from the Australia Council's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander fund enabled full support for Justine Saunders' position. This play was clearly so important to country women, and men, of all backgrounds that one principle was broken for the sake of the integrity of the work. This has proved, of course, to have been the right decision, in the end financially as well as artistically.
The company operates in an interesting fashion, growing out of the cooperative group theatre structures of its early days. Blunden has provided the core of the company throughout, seeking out actors and writers who are happy to work in what I describe as "structured cooperation". As Director, Blunden's role is clearly defined: she sets up the workshops to explore the research material. The writers (Merrilee Moss previously and currently Cornall) observe and sometimes initiate workshops as they turn action into script. The actors, like the writers and director, all undertake extensive research, seeking out women's stories around the central theme, including their own experiences, creating in the workshops the characters and the scenes which are re-worked and scripted. In this way the actors, even some who have been auditioned for roles in what superficially seems a conventional way, work within bounds yet with a sense of freedom and commitment to the work.
Working this way has created a company which is continuously flexible, seeking out new people, new themes and new forms of theatrical expression, and within which people feel part of a strong network, which extends out to all the women who have provided their stories and who live in all parts of Australia.
At the Crossroads is booked for extensive touring again next year and Australia Council and artsACT funding has arrived for development of a new project on women in film.
This doesn't sound like the middle of nowhere to me, or an interval of fifteen minutes.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
1999: Last Tango in Little Grimley by David Tristram
Last Tango in Little Grimley by David Tristram. the players company directed by Liz Bradley. UCU Theatre, The Hub, University of Canberra, October 3 - 4, 12.40 and 5.40pm.
This was a tits and wiggles show in which, in the strict tradition of very light English farce, we never got to see any tits, but there was an inconsequential wiggle right at the end. Written on the premiss that provincial English people are still as immature about secondary sexual signals as they have always pretended to be, this production was no more than the brief lunchtime interlude between glasses of wine that it pretended to be - at least the wine on offer in the foyer was real.
Liz Bradley's direction was effective in principle, but I have to say that it was only Marie Carroll as Joyce who had the required apparently natural timing in the opening performance. Her forte Oh What a Beautiful Morning lying in a putative bath exposed to the inevitable Vicar was just the right unbearable length to get the audience thoroughly laughing, rather than "smiling internally" like Little Grimleyites.
The twists in the plot of the players company playing the failing Little Grimley Amateur Dramatic Society rehearsing Last Tango in Little Grimley are fairly predictable, with just a little dig at making money - for the first time in the Society's history - when all the respectable locals turn up to see a breast revealed. I think it's fair to say that the players company has not followed their founder's precept in choosing this play, even for a light lunchtime entertainment.
Charles Glyn-Daniel sadly died before this year's major productions were completed - R.C.Sherriff's Journey's End and Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water. He had a clear policy of presenting less well-known but worthwhile works by British playwrights, even for the brief filler events at The Hub, choosing John Mortimer's Lunch Hour and Knightsbridge.
David Tristram is not well-known, and doesn't deserve to be. I think if the players company wants to maintain its good early reputation, especially in the university scene, it must choose short comedies for lunchtime with much more bite than Last Tango in Little Grimley.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
This was a tits and wiggles show in which, in the strict tradition of very light English farce, we never got to see any tits, but there was an inconsequential wiggle right at the end. Written on the premiss that provincial English people are still as immature about secondary sexual signals as they have always pretended to be, this production was no more than the brief lunchtime interlude between glasses of wine that it pretended to be - at least the wine on offer in the foyer was real.
Liz Bradley's direction was effective in principle, but I have to say that it was only Marie Carroll as Joyce who had the required apparently natural timing in the opening performance. Her forte Oh What a Beautiful Morning lying in a putative bath exposed to the inevitable Vicar was just the right unbearable length to get the audience thoroughly laughing, rather than "smiling internally" like Little Grimleyites.
The twists in the plot of the players company playing the failing Little Grimley Amateur Dramatic Society rehearsing Last Tango in Little Grimley are fairly predictable, with just a little dig at making money - for the first time in the Society's history - when all the respectable locals turn up to see a breast revealed. I think it's fair to say that the players company has not followed their founder's precept in choosing this play, even for a light lunchtime entertainment.
Charles Glyn-Daniel sadly died before this year's major productions were completed - R.C.Sherriff's Journey's End and Shelagh Stephenson's The Memory of Water. He had a clear policy of presenting less well-known but worthwhile works by British playwrights, even for the brief filler events at The Hub, choosing John Mortimer's Lunch Hour and Knightsbridge.
David Tristram is not well-known, and doesn't deserve to be. I think if the players company wants to maintain its good early reputation, especially in the university scene, it must choose short comedies for lunchtime with much more bite than Last Tango in Little Grimley.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 26 October 1999
1999: Spurboard, by Nick Enright. Preview brief news article
Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) opens a season of a new play, Spurboard, by Nick Enright next week in Sydney. Well known for Blackrock, the play and film based on the murder of Leigh Leigh, Enright has turned his attention to rural young people. Should Mitchell escape from Burradin for 8-second thrills on the rodeo circuit? Will his brother Greg find direction by staring at the stars? Is it right for Karen, with or without Amy, to go to Mardi Gras?
Commissioned by ATYP, and directed by their new Artistic Director, David Berthold, the play is inspired by stories told by young people during ATYP regional workshops in Murrurundi early this year. Berthold has already directed Blackrock and Enright's Chasing the Dragon for Sydney Theatre Company. He has 16 young actors and a professional support team working in association with Pulse 10, which is STC's youth and education wing.
The venue is Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, with previews November 4 and 5. Opening night is Saturday November 6 and there are weekday and Saturday matinees especially for school groups, with discounts available. Ring 9251 3900 for details.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Commissioned by ATYP, and directed by their new Artistic Director, David Berthold, the play is inspired by stories told by young people during ATYP regional workshops in Murrurundi early this year. Berthold has already directed Blackrock and Enright's Chasing the Dragon for Sydney Theatre Company. He has 16 young actors and a professional support team working in association with Pulse 10, which is STC's youth and education wing.
The venue is Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, with previews November 4 and 5. Opening night is Saturday November 6 and there are weekday and Saturday matinees especially for school groups, with discounts available. Ring 9251 3900 for details.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 20 October 1999
1999: Tommy Murphy - Troy's House. Report.
I can only say "I told you so" about Queanbeyan's Tom Murphy. Young Shakespearean of 1997, in many eyes a potential actor, Murphy showed me his script, then called The House on the Hill. Interviewing him for The Canberra Times in May 1998 I concluded: "Murphy is, to my mind, at core a writer. He is excited by writing. He is worried about the writing."
Now called Troy's House, Murphy's play has been picked up by the new Artistic Director of Australian Theatre for Young People, David Berthold, and was presented at A.T.Y.P Studio 1 at The Wharf in Sydney for a 5-night season October 12 - 16.
Murphy rewrote and directed Troy's House for a Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) season in September this year "greeted with full houses and rave reviews". David Berthold, currently directing Spurboard, a new play by Nick Enright (author of Blackrock), for a November season at The Wharf for Sydney Theatre Company, said "I saw [Troy's House] at the Cellar Theatre at Sydney Uni and there spent one of the most thoroughly entertaining, funny and heart warming nights I've had in theatre. I had to enable this wonderful production to extend its life. It's exactly the kind of production you long for: warm, witty, intelligent and generous."
SUDS has been producing theatre continuously since 1889, and lays claim to Neil Armfield, John Bell, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Gough Whitlam. Now known as Tommy, Murphy is among illustrious company. We shall watch his career with interest.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Now called Troy's House, Murphy's play has been picked up by the new Artistic Director of Australian Theatre for Young People, David Berthold, and was presented at A.T.Y.P Studio 1 at The Wharf in Sydney for a 5-night season October 12 - 16.
Murphy rewrote and directed Troy's House for a Sydney University Dramatic Society (SUDS) season in September this year "greeted with full houses and rave reviews". David Berthold, currently directing Spurboard, a new play by Nick Enright (author of Blackrock), for a November season at The Wharf for Sydney Theatre Company, said "I saw [Troy's House] at the Cellar Theatre at Sydney Uni and there spent one of the most thoroughly entertaining, funny and heart warming nights I've had in theatre. I had to enable this wonderful production to extend its life. It's exactly the kind of production you long for: warm, witty, intelligent and generous."
SUDS has been producing theatre continuously since 1889, and lays claim to Neil Armfield, John Bell, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Gough Whitlam. Now known as Tommy, Murphy is among illustrious company. We shall watch his career with interest.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
1999: Tell her that I love her... Somebody's Daughter Theatre Company
Tell her that I love her... Somebody's Daughter Theatre Company directed by Maud Clark. Tuggeranong Arts Centre: Performances and Workshops October 19 to Sunday October 24, 1999. Phone 6293 9099 for details.
The essence of tragedy is that we learn - too late to save the most vulnerable - that we are each responsible for ourselves. We are indeed alone in the universe.
The key to good drama is for the writer, designer, director and performers to work sincerely. Everyone must believe in what they are doing for the audience to believe in the drama. One false note and the trust is broken.
Tragedy sincerely dramatised is both deeply sad and simultaneously uplifting: Tuesday dies knowing that only she can stop herself taking drugs; Jess could not help her, but learns the truth from Tuesday's death. Jess will survive. Every character, like the actresses in this play - Debbie Murray, Donna King, Tara Watson, Sam Davis and Kharen Harper - has been locked up in prison for the crime of needing to block out the pain of abuse. Like Tuesday, many, far too many, real women have died.
Somebody's Daughter helps more survive. Tell her that I love her... helps the rest of us understand, through good scripting and song writing, strong directing, a visually exciting set and acting full of energy.
These brave people invited questions afterwards, saying that by acting out their own stories they felt the message was getting through: they have the same ambitions, the same fears, the same strengths and make the same mistakes as we all do. There, but for the luck of the draw, go we all.
The play made me angry that we "protect" children but deny them love and their right to self-worth; and then jail them when they fail to cope as adults, denying them their freedom instead of helping them to regain the freedom we all deserve - from the violence, sexual abuse, emotional manipulation, financial pressure which we do too little to restrain.
One audience member suggested they perform in Federal and State Parliaments so the lawmakers understand the real impact of their deliberations. I, along with the rest of audience, hope this will be done.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
The essence of tragedy is that we learn - too late to save the most vulnerable - that we are each responsible for ourselves. We are indeed alone in the universe.
The key to good drama is for the writer, designer, director and performers to work sincerely. Everyone must believe in what they are doing for the audience to believe in the drama. One false note and the trust is broken.
Tragedy sincerely dramatised is both deeply sad and simultaneously uplifting: Tuesday dies knowing that only she can stop herself taking drugs; Jess could not help her, but learns the truth from Tuesday's death. Jess will survive. Every character, like the actresses in this play - Debbie Murray, Donna King, Tara Watson, Sam Davis and Kharen Harper - has been locked up in prison for the crime of needing to block out the pain of abuse. Like Tuesday, many, far too many, real women have died.
Somebody's Daughter helps more survive. Tell her that I love her... helps the rest of us understand, through good scripting and song writing, strong directing, a visually exciting set and acting full of energy.
These brave people invited questions afterwards, saying that by acting out their own stories they felt the message was getting through: they have the same ambitions, the same fears, the same strengths and make the same mistakes as we all do. There, but for the luck of the draw, go we all.
The play made me angry that we "protect" children but deny them love and their right to self-worth; and then jail them when they fail to cope as adults, denying them their freedom instead of helping them to regain the freedom we all deserve - from the violence, sexual abuse, emotional manipulation, financial pressure which we do too little to restrain.
One audience member suggested they perform in Federal and State Parliaments so the lawmakers understand the real impact of their deliberations. I, along with the rest of audience, hope this will be done.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 15 October 1999
1999: Pipeline - Works in Progress. Presented by The Jigsaw Company
Pipeline - Works in Progress: The Nameless Dead by Judith Crispin Cresswell; The Count by Emma Newman, Dora Kordakis, David Michel and Mary Sutherland; "Dualities of dance" improvisation by Trevor Patrick and Peter Trotman; The Mechanics of Love by Neil Roach; Performance Art "ACME in the Dining Hall". Presented by The Jigsaw Company in association with the Festival of Contemporary Arts and the Choreographic Centre, Gorman House, October 15, 1999.
These five pieces "in the pipeline" were very uneven packets of information travelling in quite different directions down the optic fibre of life. My modem connected but my software couldn't unscramble all the code.
The Count was too easy to understand. If it's going to develop into substantial theatre, the text needs to be much more original for successful satire of the way love is ruled by technology - yet bits of the movement, when close to real dance, showed some strength of imagination.
Neil Roach, on the other hand, has an excellent text - Flacco-esque in its actors playing mechanics in industrial gear, manipulating our idea of love via carrots, celery, steam trains and a film projector. He intends to turn it into live action, but I felt happier for the script to remain a storytelling experience which stimulates the listener's imagination more than concrete realisation.
ACME's restaurant, full of obsessive compulsives - woman with household cleansers, violinist with unfinished variations, girl who must keep off the floor (and becomes an angel), drunkard building a tower of champagne glasses, lovers focussed on the kiss, poet who spouts, woman in tutu, waiter who grinds the roses, real people from the audience who eat a pizza (delivered by a real pizza deliverer) and the ultimate builder of a ten-foot sponge cake tower with real cream, chocolate sauce and candles - was often very funny. But not very original, or new in theatrical terms.
I found Trotman and Patrick's improvisation of independent yet oddly parallel existences either side of a wall, with brief contact at the end, too predictable. It might the basis of a fuller choreography, but I also could not discern a definitive style or complexity of relationships to build on. Clarity and toughness are missing as yet.
The only work with excellent stamped on it is The Nameless Dead. When this Mahler / Richard Strauss / Brechtian / Japanese opera - very powerfully presented by Stopera (with no funding support!) in this oratorio preview - comes to full production next year, don't miss it. Judith Crispin Cresswell tells me Larry Sitsky accused her of writing too much Verdi, so this is her answer: an unsentimental representation of a Buddhist dream of death, percussive yet strangely tuneful, with delicate cadences and silences which will translate on stage into an inescapable drama.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
These five pieces "in the pipeline" were very uneven packets of information travelling in quite different directions down the optic fibre of life. My modem connected but my software couldn't unscramble all the code.
The Count was too easy to understand. If it's going to develop into substantial theatre, the text needs to be much more original for successful satire of the way love is ruled by technology - yet bits of the movement, when close to real dance, showed some strength of imagination.
Neil Roach, on the other hand, has an excellent text - Flacco-esque in its actors playing mechanics in industrial gear, manipulating our idea of love via carrots, celery, steam trains and a film projector. He intends to turn it into live action, but I felt happier for the script to remain a storytelling experience which stimulates the listener's imagination more than concrete realisation.
ACME's restaurant, full of obsessive compulsives - woman with household cleansers, violinist with unfinished variations, girl who must keep off the floor (and becomes an angel), drunkard building a tower of champagne glasses, lovers focussed on the kiss, poet who spouts, woman in tutu, waiter who grinds the roses, real people from the audience who eat a pizza (delivered by a real pizza deliverer) and the ultimate builder of a ten-foot sponge cake tower with real cream, chocolate sauce and candles - was often very funny. But not very original, or new in theatrical terms.
I found Trotman and Patrick's improvisation of independent yet oddly parallel existences either side of a wall, with brief contact at the end, too predictable. It might the basis of a fuller choreography, but I also could not discern a definitive style or complexity of relationships to build on. Clarity and toughness are missing as yet.
The only work with excellent stamped on it is The Nameless Dead. When this Mahler / Richard Strauss / Brechtian / Japanese opera - very powerfully presented by Stopera (with no funding support!) in this oratorio preview - comes to full production next year, don't miss it. Judith Crispin Cresswell tells me Larry Sitsky accused her of writing too much Verdi, so this is her answer: an unsentimental representation of a Buddhist dream of death, percussive yet strangely tuneful, with delicate cadences and silences which will translate on stage into an inescapable drama.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 9 October 1999
1999: Summer of the Aliens by Louis Nowra
Summer of the Aliens by Louis Nowra. Rep Fringe directed by Nina Stevenson at Theatre 3, Wed - Sat October 8 - 23, 1999 (matinee October 16, 2pm).
I was pleasantly surprised by a light whimsical presentation of Aliens, which I have previously seen done as hard-nosed social criticism. The adult Nowra looks back on himself as a 14-year-old in 1962, parading the sad working class characters of Singapore Street, fringe-dwelling where outer suburbs meet the paddocks. Young Lewis (Toby Wilkins) lives with the news that World War 3 is about to begin and the belief that aliens in UFO's abduct people - except that it never happens to him. He discovers too late, but never forgets, that he really did love Dulcie, played by Cally Robinson with an accurate and therefore almost shocking sexuality.
Rep Fringe has grown from presenting $5 readings to $10 productions with the special intention of encouraging young people on stage and backstage.
It was brave to cast young actors at the ages of the characters, but maybe this is why the play is so much lighter in tone that it might be. The Director's Notes talk of "important themes", "the struggle to understand the world" and claim that the play "is caustic", but her cast is not up to investing such depth into the work. Yet they were directed well to form an effective ensemble and so I found myself responding to a more gentle Leunig-like humour.
Because Rep Fringe is low budget, the set is simple, but I must say the backside of a Housing Commission redbrick with concrete apron was exactly right. Technically the production runs smoothly with lighting used to move from scene to scene. However I did find that the older Lewis, who narrates his story and occasionally interrogates his younger self, would have been better left on stage throughout rather than entering and exiting each time he speaks. This was a distraction and, thematically, I wondered where he went to when he disappeared. I was reminded of Tom in The Glass Menagerie who stays visible and moves into and out of the action, making it clear that this is a memory play, like Summer of the Aliens.
A value-for-money evening at Rep.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
I was pleasantly surprised by a light whimsical presentation of Aliens, which I have previously seen done as hard-nosed social criticism. The adult Nowra looks back on himself as a 14-year-old in 1962, parading the sad working class characters of Singapore Street, fringe-dwelling where outer suburbs meet the paddocks. Young Lewis (Toby Wilkins) lives with the news that World War 3 is about to begin and the belief that aliens in UFO's abduct people - except that it never happens to him. He discovers too late, but never forgets, that he really did love Dulcie, played by Cally Robinson with an accurate and therefore almost shocking sexuality.
Rep Fringe has grown from presenting $5 readings to $10 productions with the special intention of encouraging young people on stage and backstage.
It was brave to cast young actors at the ages of the characters, but maybe this is why the play is so much lighter in tone that it might be. The Director's Notes talk of "important themes", "the struggle to understand the world" and claim that the play "is caustic", but her cast is not up to investing such depth into the work. Yet they were directed well to form an effective ensemble and so I found myself responding to a more gentle Leunig-like humour.
Because Rep Fringe is low budget, the set is simple, but I must say the backside of a Housing Commission redbrick with concrete apron was exactly right. Technically the production runs smoothly with lighting used to move from scene to scene. However I did find that the older Lewis, who narrates his story and occasionally interrogates his younger self, would have been better left on stage throughout rather than entering and exiting each time he speaks. This was a distraction and, thematically, I wondered where he went to when he disappeared. I was reminded of Tom in The Glass Menagerie who stays visible and moves into and out of the action, making it clear that this is a memory play, like Summer of the Aliens.
A value-for-money evening at Rep.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 8 October 1999
1999: Miss Julie by August Strindberg
Miss Julie by August Strindberg. Translation by Michael Meyer, directed by Eulea Kiraly in a double bill (with Elektra a.d. by Christos Tsiolkas). The Street Theatre Thurs 7 - Sat 9 and Wed 13 - Sat 16 October, 1999. 8pm. Matinee Sat 16 Oct, 2pm.
"We'll go to another country, to a republic" says the servant Jean to his lady Miss Julie. Why a republic? Because now they have made love across the rigid divide of 19th Century social class, neither can be free in a monarchy - even Sweden. Strindberg switched this little spotlight on, and see it now glint even on our very own referendum on November 6 a century later.
Some have thought this play an early naturalistic drama, but Eulea Kiraly has directed it precisely for its symbolism - and her actors have met her high expectations. Each twist and turn of seduction in the triangle of Christine (Alexis Beebe) - the servant who knows her place; Jean (Lachlan Abrahams) - the ambitious servant seeking entrée to the nobility; and Miss Julie (Lenore McGregor) - the unstable lady who falls from grace, is marked by a movement, a look and a silence which leaves us in no doubt about what is happening. These people are trapped in a social hierarchy about to collapse around them.
Of course, the Republic of Indonesia has shown us that the trappings of monarchy are not so easily disposed of: Miss Julie, effectively penniless, kindly commits suicide in Strindberg's black optimism, rather than thrashing the living daylights out of the lower orders in her death throes.
This production is worth seeing not just for its messages, but because the cast have invested emotional integrity into a script that could too easily be merely melodramatic, despite the author's intentions, just because it is a 19th Century play. Their timing is excellent, often deliberately paced to allow the intensity of the moment to grow but without going over the top. An audience on opening night of theatre buffs, easily critical if not cynical, found humour and horror in the lights and shades, and audibly felt relief at the end.
The Season at The Street is enhanced by this production. Highly recommended.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
"We'll go to another country, to a republic" says the servant Jean to his lady Miss Julie. Why a republic? Because now they have made love across the rigid divide of 19th Century social class, neither can be free in a monarchy - even Sweden. Strindberg switched this little spotlight on, and see it now glint even on our very own referendum on November 6 a century later.
Some have thought this play an early naturalistic drama, but Eulea Kiraly has directed it precisely for its symbolism - and her actors have met her high expectations. Each twist and turn of seduction in the triangle of Christine (Alexis Beebe) - the servant who knows her place; Jean (Lachlan Abrahams) - the ambitious servant seeking entrée to the nobility; and Miss Julie (Lenore McGregor) - the unstable lady who falls from grace, is marked by a movement, a look and a silence which leaves us in no doubt about what is happening. These people are trapped in a social hierarchy about to collapse around them.
Of course, the Republic of Indonesia has shown us that the trappings of monarchy are not so easily disposed of: Miss Julie, effectively penniless, kindly commits suicide in Strindberg's black optimism, rather than thrashing the living daylights out of the lower orders in her death throes.
This production is worth seeing not just for its messages, but because the cast have invested emotional integrity into a script that could too easily be merely melodramatic, despite the author's intentions, just because it is a 19th Century play. Their timing is excellent, often deliberately paced to allow the intensity of the moment to grow but without going over the top. An audience on opening night of theatre buffs, easily critical if not cynical, found humour and horror in the lights and shades, and audibly felt relief at the end.
The Season at The Street is enhanced by this production. Highly recommended.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
1999: Elektra a.d. by Christos Tsiolkas
Elektra a.d. by Christos Tsiolkas. Directed by David Branson in a double bill (with Miss Julie by August Strindberg). Music by Greg Raymond and Pip Branson. The Street Theatre Thurs 7 - Sat 9 and Wed 13 - Sat 16 October, 8pm. Matinee Sat 16 Oct, 1999. 2pm.
This play is an intriguing modern tragedy of enduring hatred, using the ancient Greek story of Electra to tell the modern story of the division of Cyprus and the Cypriot Christian/Moslem refugee experience in Australia. The parallels are drawn in the play with the Sarajevo conflict, and it takes little imagination on our part to see Kosovars and East Timorese in these roles.
In the original Oresteian plays by Aeschylus, centred on Electra's brother Orestes, Electra is the force for justice through retribution, for death in the name of her family's traditional rights. American writer Eugene O'Neill translated this story to the Civil War in the famous play Mourning Becomes Electra, in which her tragedy is never to give in but to turn away from society, entering the family's cold stone mansion to eke out the remains of her life alone.
Tsiokas has similarly made his Elektra isolated in her factory job, refusing to learn the hated harsh language, English, watching the news of war in Europe on a tacky television in a tiny Melbourne flat. Her elder brother, Orestes, is missing in action; her mother has married a Moslem, and produces a new cross-breed half-brother, whom Elektra murders.
The strength of the play is in Tsiolkas' writing, paralleling the language of the ancient Sophocles' version of Electra - the "Elektra b.c." presumably. All the actors use the language well, but special praise goes to Louise Morris (Elektra), Estelle Muspratt (Elektra's sister Chrysothemis) and Joe Woodward (her mother's new husband, Aegisthus). David Branson notes that the play is still in development, and I expect the script to be trimmed and added to in time, and transitions between scenes to become better integrated. The visuals are relevant but at times distract from the action, and the live music - excellent as it is - can be knitted into the play much more.
The Greek tragedy form, where characters objectively describe their thoughts, works powerfully here: well worth the experience.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
This play is an intriguing modern tragedy of enduring hatred, using the ancient Greek story of Electra to tell the modern story of the division of Cyprus and the Cypriot Christian/Moslem refugee experience in Australia. The parallels are drawn in the play with the Sarajevo conflict, and it takes little imagination on our part to see Kosovars and East Timorese in these roles.
In the original Oresteian plays by Aeschylus, centred on Electra's brother Orestes, Electra is the force for justice through retribution, for death in the name of her family's traditional rights. American writer Eugene O'Neill translated this story to the Civil War in the famous play Mourning Becomes Electra, in which her tragedy is never to give in but to turn away from society, entering the family's cold stone mansion to eke out the remains of her life alone.
Tsiokas has similarly made his Elektra isolated in her factory job, refusing to learn the hated harsh language, English, watching the news of war in Europe on a tacky television in a tiny Melbourne flat. Her elder brother, Orestes, is missing in action; her mother has married a Moslem, and produces a new cross-breed half-brother, whom Elektra murders.
The strength of the play is in Tsiolkas' writing, paralleling the language of the ancient Sophocles' version of Electra - the "Elektra b.c." presumably. All the actors use the language well, but special praise goes to Louise Morris (Elektra), Estelle Muspratt (Elektra's sister Chrysothemis) and Joe Woodward (her mother's new husband, Aegisthus). David Branson notes that the play is still in development, and I expect the script to be trimmed and added to in time, and transitions between scenes to become better integrated. The visuals are relevant but at times distract from the action, and the live music - excellent as it is - can be knitted into the play much more.
The Greek tragedy form, where characters objectively describe their thoughts, works powerfully here: well worth the experience.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 6 October 1999
1999: Snow White and Rose Red by Anna Simic and Cristy Gilbert
Snow White and Rose Red, written and performed by Anna Simic and Cristy Gilbert. Festival of Contemporary Arts at Canberra Museum And Gallery Theatrette, October 6-9, 1999. 7pm.
It's not usual for members of the audience to instruct this reviewer, but "generosity of spirit" was the order of the evening - not so difficult in view of the champagne flowing down the tower of wine glasses in the foyer to bring us back to adult sophistication after an hour of childhood fantasy.
We knew reality was in for a dose of emetic when we discovered that Snow White has black hair, white lips and "skin as red as blood", and I'm sure I detected Anna's brother Mikal's band P.Harness playing the grunge/spew part in the sound track. And we were not disappointed. I will always find it difficult to consume chicken with equanimity from now on. These innocent little flower girls turned smilingly cannibalistic after consorting with a black bear, a witchetty step mother, a vicious rabbit, a thieving dwarf and a prince in cloth of gold.
What did the Little Golden Book, Old May Gibb and maybe a touch of Roald Dahl do to the imaginations of these highly presentable young women who could persuade artsACT to give them a grant?
In fact with little money, Simic and Gilbert have experimented with multi-media and produced a new reflection on reality, in which the little girls in the video clips watch themselves perform their fantasies, and watch us, while we watch them simultaneously on screen and stage - and before long find ourselves watching ourselves.
Of course, strict technical standards were impossible to meet, but I found that the fuzzy home-video result blended in, perhaps accidentally but certainly fortuitously, with the fuzzy mime and deliberate slow action of the "real" characters. Somehow we saw the children re-presenting themselves through a filmy filter of adult experience. They became "wyrd sisters" and for a moment I thought I saw Jean Genet's The Maids when very young.
Experiment is what FOCA is for, and CMAG's Theatrette is the right intimate venue for this production - but small, so get there early.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
It's not usual for members of the audience to instruct this reviewer, but "generosity of spirit" was the order of the evening - not so difficult in view of the champagne flowing down the tower of wine glasses in the foyer to bring us back to adult sophistication after an hour of childhood fantasy.
We knew reality was in for a dose of emetic when we discovered that Snow White has black hair, white lips and "skin as red as blood", and I'm sure I detected Anna's brother Mikal's band P.Harness playing the grunge/spew part in the sound track. And we were not disappointed. I will always find it difficult to consume chicken with equanimity from now on. These innocent little flower girls turned smilingly cannibalistic after consorting with a black bear, a witchetty step mother, a vicious rabbit, a thieving dwarf and a prince in cloth of gold.
What did the Little Golden Book, Old May Gibb and maybe a touch of Roald Dahl do to the imaginations of these highly presentable young women who could persuade artsACT to give them a grant?
In fact with little money, Simic and Gilbert have experimented with multi-media and produced a new reflection on reality, in which the little girls in the video clips watch themselves perform their fantasies, and watch us, while we watch them simultaneously on screen and stage - and before long find ourselves watching ourselves.
Of course, strict technical standards were impossible to meet, but I found that the fuzzy home-video result blended in, perhaps accidentally but certainly fortuitously, with the fuzzy mime and deliberate slow action of the "real" characters. Somehow we saw the children re-presenting themselves through a filmy filter of adult experience. They became "wyrd sisters" and for a moment I thought I saw Jean Genet's The Maids when very young.
Experiment is what FOCA is for, and CMAG's Theatrette is the right intimate venue for this production - but small, so get there early.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 3 October 1999
1999: Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia awards - news report
This year's Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia awards were announced last Saturday at the conclusion of No Holds Bard, devised and performed by 30 secondary school finalists from across Australia including 3 Canberrans: Tessa Keenan, Leah Kimball and Sarah La Brooy.
Led by Hugh O'Keefe, Sydney University director of the Shakespeare Globe Centre's National Education Program, a team of theatre professionals and teachers worked with the students for 6 days at Theatre 3, providing their services voluntarily to an organisation which receives no government funding and little sponsorship, relying mainly on entry fees from participating schools. This year some 15,000 students took part in the regional and state festivals leading to the selection of the 30 finalists.
The Abbey's Bookshop Awards for Shakespeare Expertise, presented by Sydney choreographer Jonathan Rosten and 1997 Shakespearean Teacher of the Year Wendy Dowd, went to Ben Harrison (Sydney), Kallista Kaval (Ballarat), Morgan Tucker (Armidale, NSW) and Anthony Ulijn (Perth).
Deidre Burges (Marian Street Theatre, Sydney) presented the Roger Barratt Award for Design to Julia McNamee (Upwey, Vic).
The Roger Woodward Award for Music, presented by musical director Peter Pitcher, was given jointly for excellent composition and teamwork to Tessa Keenan (Canberra), Liz Gunner and Bridget Gurry (both of Adelaide).
The major awards, enabling a teacher and a student to travel to the Shakespeare Globe Centre in London and to undertake further training and professional development, were presented by Catherine Dunn, 1998 Shakespeare Teacher of the Year, and the founder of Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia, Diana Denley.
Shakespearean Teacher of the Year is Deborah Field Farago of MLC, Melbourne, and Young Shakespearean Artist of the Year is Gordon Hamilton of Newcastle, NSW, who was chosen unanimously for "exceptional talent in composing songs and instrumental pieces" and "his ability to coach and enthuse his fellow performers". This award is given to the student seen to be most ready for the transition from school theatre to the adult experience offered in a two week intensive program next northern summer at the Shakespeare Globe in London for young people from around the world.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Led by Hugh O'Keefe, Sydney University director of the Shakespeare Globe Centre's National Education Program, a team of theatre professionals and teachers worked with the students for 6 days at Theatre 3, providing their services voluntarily to an organisation which receives no government funding and little sponsorship, relying mainly on entry fees from participating schools. This year some 15,000 students took part in the regional and state festivals leading to the selection of the 30 finalists.
The Abbey's Bookshop Awards for Shakespeare Expertise, presented by Sydney choreographer Jonathan Rosten and 1997 Shakespearean Teacher of the Year Wendy Dowd, went to Ben Harrison (Sydney), Kallista Kaval (Ballarat), Morgan Tucker (Armidale, NSW) and Anthony Ulijn (Perth).
Deidre Burges (Marian Street Theatre, Sydney) presented the Roger Barratt Award for Design to Julia McNamee (Upwey, Vic).
The Roger Woodward Award for Music, presented by musical director Peter Pitcher, was given jointly for excellent composition and teamwork to Tessa Keenan (Canberra), Liz Gunner and Bridget Gurry (both of Adelaide).
The major awards, enabling a teacher and a student to travel to the Shakespeare Globe Centre in London and to undertake further training and professional development, were presented by Catherine Dunn, 1998 Shakespeare Teacher of the Year, and the founder of Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia, Diana Denley.
Shakespearean Teacher of the Year is Deborah Field Farago of MLC, Melbourne, and Young Shakespearean Artist of the Year is Gordon Hamilton of Newcastle, NSW, who was chosen unanimously for "exceptional talent in composing songs and instrumental pieces" and "his ability to coach and enthuse his fellow performers". This award is given to the student seen to be most ready for the transition from school theatre to the adult experience offered in a two week intensive program next northern summer at the Shakespeare Globe in London for young people from around the world.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 2 October 1999
1999: In Her Own Flame. Dance theatre directed by Niki Shepherd
In Her Own Flame. Dance theatre directed by Niki Shepherd. Festival of Contemporary Arts, at the Choreographic Centre, Gorman House October 1-3, 1999.
In the same way that World Music draws on traditional folk music forms from many cultures and has developed a new identity, Niki Shepherd with dancer Jennie White and musicians Cris Clucas and Andrew Purdam, narrate an ancient Greek myth in the language of classical Indian dance - and in the process have begun to create a new exciting form of dance theatre - World Dance, perhaps.
The story of the conception and birth of Dionysos, the Greek god of theatre and intoxication, told through the experiences of his mortal mother Semele in her relationship with the god Zeus and his wife Hera, is about ecstasy and its tragic consequences.
Hera persuades Semele, already pregnant from her first encounter with Zeus in human form, to encourage him to make love in his divine form. Hera knows this will destroy Semele - but the god Hermes rescues the unborn Dionysos. Later Dionysos leads his mother out of Hades to become goddess of ecstatic rage, akin to the Indian goddess Kali.
Working out of her Indian Kuchipudi dance training, originally with Padma Menon and now with Anandavalli Sivanathan, Shepherd has collaborated with Jennie White (trained by Mrs Nandana Chellapah in Bharata Natyam style, and also now with Anandavalli) in exploring the Greek myth from the perspective of Siva, the Indian god of dance and ecstatic experience. The live music grew in concert with the choreography: Andrew Purdam's percussion and especially the voice of Cris Clucas are quite extraordinary. The result is a "modern dance" creation of women's experience of love, betrayal, survival and finding a new internal strength.
Each performer is so secure in their newly created form that much of the work is improvised rather than strictly notated, giving the work a living tension which draws the audience into the experience. This is a product of time and space made available by the Choreographic Centre, directed by Mark Gordon, and proof of the value of this resource to Canberra.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
In the same way that World Music draws on traditional folk music forms from many cultures and has developed a new identity, Niki Shepherd with dancer Jennie White and musicians Cris Clucas and Andrew Purdam, narrate an ancient Greek myth in the language of classical Indian dance - and in the process have begun to create a new exciting form of dance theatre - World Dance, perhaps.
The story of the conception and birth of Dionysos, the Greek god of theatre and intoxication, told through the experiences of his mortal mother Semele in her relationship with the god Zeus and his wife Hera, is about ecstasy and its tragic consequences.
Hera persuades Semele, already pregnant from her first encounter with Zeus in human form, to encourage him to make love in his divine form. Hera knows this will destroy Semele - but the god Hermes rescues the unborn Dionysos. Later Dionysos leads his mother out of Hades to become goddess of ecstatic rage, akin to the Indian goddess Kali.
Working out of her Indian Kuchipudi dance training, originally with Padma Menon and now with Anandavalli Sivanathan, Shepherd has collaborated with Jennie White (trained by Mrs Nandana Chellapah in Bharata Natyam style, and also now with Anandavalli) in exploring the Greek myth from the perspective of Siva, the Indian god of dance and ecstatic experience. The live music grew in concert with the choreography: Andrew Purdam's percussion and especially the voice of Cris Clucas are quite extraordinary. The result is a "modern dance" creation of women's experience of love, betrayal, survival and finding a new internal strength.
Each performer is so secure in their newly created form that much of the work is improvised rather than strictly notated, giving the work a living tension which draws the audience into the experience. This is a product of time and space made available by the Choreographic Centre, directed by Mark Gordon, and proof of the value of this resource to Canberra.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 25 September 1999
1999: Family Matters by Dave Christner
Family Matters by Dave Christner. Phoenix Players: Director Margaret Forster. Supported by the International Year of Older Persons. Belconnen Community Centre 8pm September 24, 25, 30 and October 1, 2; 2pm September 25, 26 and October 2, 1999. Seniors Card concession $9.
America's minor playwrights produce a continuing stream of light comedies with sincere themes, and this one will have older persons (I'm nearly one myself) rooting for our rights - to independent lives, freedom from rules laid down by our children, freedom from society's ageist assumptions.
Margaret Forster has a clear conception of the directing style this play needs, adjusting the references to politics and places to suit Australia and underplaying the characters to suit our sensibilities. On opening night this meant that pacing was a little slow, but there were some effective comic highlights such as the stylised statements of despair from Abby and her husband Dan about their respective mothers, Claudia and Sarah, and the mothers' drunken homecoming at 3am - to the announcement from their middle-aged children that they are "grounded". Janine O'Dwyer, Paul Mullins, Margery Ehnhuus and Fay Butcher formed an effective central ensemble who will surely spark as the season warms up.
An interesting element of the play is the weight given to the women, particularly widows needing to recreate themselves as separate individuals after conventional marriages - and the learning required by the middle-aged Dan in discovering in his mother's childhood experiences the cause of his need to escape her cloying attention and his limitations in loving his wife. Though the play is not well enough written to cope thoroughly with such deep matters, it certainly touched the first-night audience visibly if briefly.
Unfortunately the cameo suitor roles, played by Graham Bauerle, John Alsford and John McKinlay, are not well developed in the script but were adequately delineated to make the play work.
"Theatre is for everyone, young and old" writes Phoenix President Richard Niven, and this production lives up to the Players' ambition very well after many shows which have given young people enjoyment and opportunities to perform. Phoenix, now 10 years old, has settled nicely into its community theatre niche - look for The Wizard of Oz and Half a Sixpence in January and May 2000.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
America's minor playwrights produce a continuing stream of light comedies with sincere themes, and this one will have older persons (I'm nearly one myself) rooting for our rights - to independent lives, freedom from rules laid down by our children, freedom from society's ageist assumptions.
Margaret Forster has a clear conception of the directing style this play needs, adjusting the references to politics and places to suit Australia and underplaying the characters to suit our sensibilities. On opening night this meant that pacing was a little slow, but there were some effective comic highlights such as the stylised statements of despair from Abby and her husband Dan about their respective mothers, Claudia and Sarah, and the mothers' drunken homecoming at 3am - to the announcement from their middle-aged children that they are "grounded". Janine O'Dwyer, Paul Mullins, Margery Ehnhuus and Fay Butcher formed an effective central ensemble who will surely spark as the season warms up.
An interesting element of the play is the weight given to the women, particularly widows needing to recreate themselves as separate individuals after conventional marriages - and the learning required by the middle-aged Dan in discovering in his mother's childhood experiences the cause of his need to escape her cloying attention and his limitations in loving his wife. Though the play is not well enough written to cope thoroughly with such deep matters, it certainly touched the first-night audience visibly if briefly.
Unfortunately the cameo suitor roles, played by Graham Bauerle, John Alsford and John McKinlay, are not well developed in the script but were adequately delineated to make the play work.
"Theatre is for everyone, young and old" writes Phoenix President Richard Niven, and this production lives up to the Players' ambition very well after many shows which have given young people enjoyment and opportunities to perform. Phoenix, now 10 years old, has settled nicely into its community theatre niche - look for The Wizard of Oz and Half a Sixpence in January and May 2000.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 21 August 1999
1999: Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia
Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia Youth Festival, ACT Final. Murranji Theatre, Hawker College, Friday August 20, 1999. ACT and North Side Coordinator, Stephen Brown (Hawker College); South Side Coordinator, Helen Parker (CCEGGS).
The goodwill of an estimated 50-60 teachers who voluntarily support this Festival representing government and non-government secondary schools has once again produced an excellent standard in the ACT finals. This year students from all the finalists - Telopea Park School, Marist College, St Clare's College, and Merici College - received commendations from judges Maureen Bettle (University of Canberra), Tina van Raay (Chief Minister's Office - Community Liaison) and myself - for the high quality of their work.
Awards went to Telopea Park for music composed for Much Ado About Nothing and duologues from Henry V; and to St Clare's College for costume designs for Macbeth. Commended scene and duologue presentations from Marist, Merici and St Clare's from As You Like It and Twelfth Night kept the audience laughing as they have for 400 years, while St Clare's movement/dance group showed us the Macbeth story from the witches' perspective as they take control of human ambitions and as a struggle between elemental positives and negatives after Macbeth's death.
Four special personal awards are given, not necessarily chosen only from award winning presentations but rather for individuals who the judges believe are ready for a taste of professional training. These young people, in company with those selected in the other states, go on to attend a week of intensive work with theatre professionals, here in Canberra, leading to two performances on October 1 and 2 at Theatre 3. One of these performers will be selected as Young Shakespearean Artist of the Year, and will visit and study at Stratford-upon-Avon and The Globe Theatre in London.
Composer Tessa Keenan, designer Sarah la Brooy, and actors Caroline Pryor and Leah Kimball were the chosen four, though the judges had a difficult task distinguishing among the best 6 or 7.
Difficulties with administering the Festival and maintaining corporate sponsorships will not make the Shakespeare Globe Centre's task any easier in the future, but standards are rising if this year's performances are any guide.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
The goodwill of an estimated 50-60 teachers who voluntarily support this Festival representing government and non-government secondary schools has once again produced an excellent standard in the ACT finals. This year students from all the finalists - Telopea Park School, Marist College, St Clare's College, and Merici College - received commendations from judges Maureen Bettle (University of Canberra), Tina van Raay (Chief Minister's Office - Community Liaison) and myself - for the high quality of their work.
Awards went to Telopea Park for music composed for Much Ado About Nothing and duologues from Henry V; and to St Clare's College for costume designs for Macbeth. Commended scene and duologue presentations from Marist, Merici and St Clare's from As You Like It and Twelfth Night kept the audience laughing as they have for 400 years, while St Clare's movement/dance group showed us the Macbeth story from the witches' perspective as they take control of human ambitions and as a struggle between elemental positives and negatives after Macbeth's death.
Four special personal awards are given, not necessarily chosen only from award winning presentations but rather for individuals who the judges believe are ready for a taste of professional training. These young people, in company with those selected in the other states, go on to attend a week of intensive work with theatre professionals, here in Canberra, leading to two performances on October 1 and 2 at Theatre 3. One of these performers will be selected as Young Shakespearean Artist of the Year, and will visit and study at Stratford-upon-Avon and The Globe Theatre in London.
Composer Tessa Keenan, designer Sarah la Brooy, and actors Caroline Pryor and Leah Kimball were the chosen four, though the judges had a difficult task distinguishing among the best 6 or 7.
Difficulties with administering the Festival and maintaining corporate sponsorships will not make the Shakespeare Globe Centre's task any easier in the future, but standards are rising if this year's performances are any guide.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 13 August 1999
1999: Six Actors in a Room by Lachlan Abrahams, Rohini Sharma, Estelle Muspratt
Six Actors in a Room. Written by Lachlan Abrahams, Rohini Sharma, Estelle Muspratt. The Acting Company directed by Estelle Muspratt. Currong Theatre Wed - Sat until August 2, 1999. 8pm.
Jean-Louis Barrault famously said "Theatre is Illusion". Estelle Muspratt et al say "Theatre is Bullshit". Though one experienced director on opening night laughed throughout this satire - in company with the many other doyens of theatre present - she was overheard expressing heartfelt nervousness about how she might be greeted in her next rehearsal. Could she even say "Please find your own space" without a howl of merriment!
An admitted first draft, Six Actors shows promise. It is certainly very funny, except for the finale on video which would have been better done live. It is a confident piece written by Canberra's theatrical young turks - and theatre in our town will only mature through such satirical self-examination. It is very well acted by the whole ensemble, though I think I should give special mention to Tim Wood's Earnest Mutton, born and bred in Albury and afraid his father will send him back - maybe to (pause) Wodonga. When Earnest takes control, sparks really fly.
But there's lots more to do with this script. It's been written and workshopped by a committee, and the humps show. The references to Pirandello, Brecht, Stanislawski, Bell Shakespeare, and rehearsal techniques like finding the lion within yourself, need development - satirical, of course - to a point where the absurdity of theatrical hypocrisy turns to face us with the stark quality of the child's death in Six Characters in Search of an Author, or the horror of Mother Courage's final song.
The fictional Barely Coping Theatre Company is forced to work without funding, just like the real Acting Company (though Muspratt's residency at The Currong and the support especially of The Jigsaw Company must not be forgotten). Exposing the black quality of this situation - of the ridiculous position in which professional theatre, and the arts in general, are left dangling on jangled nerve strings by socially immature governments - is what needs fuller development in this script. Then, ironically, the Australia Council might come to the party and we can all celebrate.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Jean-Louis Barrault famously said "Theatre is Illusion". Estelle Muspratt et al say "Theatre is Bullshit". Though one experienced director on opening night laughed throughout this satire - in company with the many other doyens of theatre present - she was overheard expressing heartfelt nervousness about how she might be greeted in her next rehearsal. Could she even say "Please find your own space" without a howl of merriment!
An admitted first draft, Six Actors shows promise. It is certainly very funny, except for the finale on video which would have been better done live. It is a confident piece written by Canberra's theatrical young turks - and theatre in our town will only mature through such satirical self-examination. It is very well acted by the whole ensemble, though I think I should give special mention to Tim Wood's Earnest Mutton, born and bred in Albury and afraid his father will send him back - maybe to (pause) Wodonga. When Earnest takes control, sparks really fly.
But there's lots more to do with this script. It's been written and workshopped by a committee, and the humps show. The references to Pirandello, Brecht, Stanislawski, Bell Shakespeare, and rehearsal techniques like finding the lion within yourself, need development - satirical, of course - to a point where the absurdity of theatrical hypocrisy turns to face us with the stark quality of the child's death in Six Characters in Search of an Author, or the horror of Mother Courage's final song.
The fictional Barely Coping Theatre Company is forced to work without funding, just like the real Acting Company (though Muspratt's residency at The Currong and the support especially of The Jigsaw Company must not be forgotten). Exposing the black quality of this situation - of the ridiculous position in which professional theatre, and the arts in general, are left dangling on jangled nerve strings by socially immature governments - is what needs fuller development in this script. Then, ironically, the Australia Council might come to the party and we can all celebrate.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 21 March 1999
1999: Rhythms of Mother Earth - Classical Indian and Contemporary Dance
Rhythms of Mother Earth - Classical Indian and Contemporary Dance presented by the Australian Tamil Foundation Canberra for Canberra National Multicultural Festival. ANU Arts Centre March 20, 1999.
The ATFC has done multiculturalism, the Indian community and the broader Australian community a valuable service in asking three companies to make dances in response to the theme Rhythms of Mother Earth. A new blending of classical Indian and contemporary styles was presented, as migrants from India and SE Asia come to terms with the Australian landscape while descendants of European migrants discover the power of the Indian dance language.
Bharatam Dance Company (Melbourne) presented a strongly focussed Bhumanjali - Homage to Mother Earth, choreographed and performed by Thamilvanan Veshnu under the direction of Dr Chandrabhanu, who after 25 years has clearly established a major inspirational role. This work shows why. Beginning in classical style to represent the Earth as Goddess, and progressing through stages towards an international "modern" style, representing Earth as Mystery and finally as Destruction, the Hindu understanding of the universe is brought to bear on present-day reality. The mystery and beauty of Australia, evoked in a rhythmic soundscape of bird calls, does not survive in this tragic view.
Tara Rajkumar, researcher and teacher at Monash University - instrumental in reviving the softer Mohinattam classical dance style and popularising the more theatrical form of Kathakali - presented Natya Sudha Dance Company performers Nithya Gopu (as Kali, Mother of the Universe), Prathayana Chandrakumar (an excellent Kathakali drama of Bhima in the Forest) and Tatayana Pozar-Burgar with Nithya Gopu (a contemporary style view of woman as Prakrithi - cosmic energy that is infinite, positive and feminine). For me the classical forms were much more successful than the modern from this company.
From Sydney, Lingalayam Dance Company Director Anandavalli opened the evening with an impressive secular invocation to Bhumadevi - Mother Earth. Earth, Water, Fire and Wind were brought together in a Space full of vibrant energy.
Inspired by Anandavalli, Canberrans Jenny White presented her Orbital Fracture and Niki Shepherd her Resounding Rhythms. Both smoothly blended classical and modern forms: White's piece a clear and pure abstraction on the moment of decisive silence; Shepherd's solo a dramatic mix of Greek myth and Hindu expression. A satisfying and fascinating evening.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
The ATFC has done multiculturalism, the Indian community and the broader Australian community a valuable service in asking three companies to make dances in response to the theme Rhythms of Mother Earth. A new blending of classical Indian and contemporary styles was presented, as migrants from India and SE Asia come to terms with the Australian landscape while descendants of European migrants discover the power of the Indian dance language.
Bharatam Dance Company (Melbourne) presented a strongly focussed Bhumanjali - Homage to Mother Earth, choreographed and performed by Thamilvanan Veshnu under the direction of Dr Chandrabhanu, who after 25 years has clearly established a major inspirational role. This work shows why. Beginning in classical style to represent the Earth as Goddess, and progressing through stages towards an international "modern" style, representing Earth as Mystery and finally as Destruction, the Hindu understanding of the universe is brought to bear on present-day reality. The mystery and beauty of Australia, evoked in a rhythmic soundscape of bird calls, does not survive in this tragic view.
Tara Rajkumar, researcher and teacher at Monash University - instrumental in reviving the softer Mohinattam classical dance style and popularising the more theatrical form of Kathakali - presented Natya Sudha Dance Company performers Nithya Gopu (as Kali, Mother of the Universe), Prathayana Chandrakumar (an excellent Kathakali drama of Bhima in the Forest) and Tatayana Pozar-Burgar with Nithya Gopu (a contemporary style view of woman as Prakrithi - cosmic energy that is infinite, positive and feminine). For me the classical forms were much more successful than the modern from this company.
From Sydney, Lingalayam Dance Company Director Anandavalli opened the evening with an impressive secular invocation to Bhumadevi - Mother Earth. Earth, Water, Fire and Wind were brought together in a Space full of vibrant energy.
Inspired by Anandavalli, Canberrans Jenny White presented her Orbital Fracture and Niki Shepherd her Resounding Rhythms. Both smoothly blended classical and modern forms: White's piece a clear and pure abstraction on the moment of decisive silence; Shepherd's solo a dramatic mix of Greek myth and Hindu expression. A satisfying and fascinating evening.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 19 March 1999
1999: Dormez, Je Le Veux by Georges Feydeau
Dormez, Je Le Veux by Georges Feydeau. Melbourne French Theatre directed by Michael Bula at Belconnen Community Centre. March 19, 1999, 8pm and 20 at 2pm.
La Francophonie is an association of 48 French-speaking countries from 5 continents - from Belgium to Vietnam, Nigeria to Canada, Egypt to France itself. For World Francophonie Day, as part of Canberra National Multicultural Festival, Feydeau's Belle-Epoque farce was an interesting choice.
Michael Bula's direction, and performance of man-about-town Boriquet, showed class befitting the French mime tradition and its historical links to commedia dell'arte. Clearly everyone in the cast - with special mention of the two valets, Justin (Eddy Fatha) and the Belgian accented Eloi (Dominique Gibert) - understood the style and played it for all their worth. It's a pity that there could be only 2 performances in Canberra.
Indeed, I'd go again to see Frederique Fouche, as Boriquet's sister Francine, playing Carmen under hypnosis, with her brother - also hypnotised -acting as a monkey. No wonder Dr Valencourt (Nicholas Panayotis) and his daughter Emilienne (Catherine Pierce) thought them mad, until the Doctor realised that Justin was the hypnotist - and so it was safe for Emilienne to marry Boriquet after all.
It was also appropriate to humiliate Justin by making him say, under hypnosis, "Je suis miserable". In a final twist of farce, Justin was only pretending to be hypnotised: after the upper class people have exited, he raises his fists to declare with great pride, "Je suis miserable". From Bula's notes about giving the play "bite" and emphasising the socio-political context, I guess this is a reference to Hugo and Les Miserables. The problem is that this servant is actually celebrating his continued employment as a servant: Feydeau confirmed the upper classes in their rightful place - no emancipation here.
Feydeau's essential conservatism, clothed in such good humour, makes an interesting comment not just on French society of the fin de (last) siecle but on La Francophonie at the end of this century: not all the old colonies have quite risen to full independence, and it was a bitter struggle for many who have.
Melbourne French Theatre have presented Anhouilh and Sartre in Canberra before: this production reminds us of the diversity within French culture. An interesting choice.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
La Francophonie is an association of 48 French-speaking countries from 5 continents - from Belgium to Vietnam, Nigeria to Canada, Egypt to France itself. For World Francophonie Day, as part of Canberra National Multicultural Festival, Feydeau's Belle-Epoque farce was an interesting choice.
Michael Bula's direction, and performance of man-about-town Boriquet, showed class befitting the French mime tradition and its historical links to commedia dell'arte. Clearly everyone in the cast - with special mention of the two valets, Justin (Eddy Fatha) and the Belgian accented Eloi (Dominique Gibert) - understood the style and played it for all their worth. It's a pity that there could be only 2 performances in Canberra.
Indeed, I'd go again to see Frederique Fouche, as Boriquet's sister Francine, playing Carmen under hypnosis, with her brother - also hypnotised -acting as a monkey. No wonder Dr Valencourt (Nicholas Panayotis) and his daughter Emilienne (Catherine Pierce) thought them mad, until the Doctor realised that Justin was the hypnotist - and so it was safe for Emilienne to marry Boriquet after all.
It was also appropriate to humiliate Justin by making him say, under hypnosis, "Je suis miserable". In a final twist of farce, Justin was only pretending to be hypnotised: after the upper class people have exited, he raises his fists to declare with great pride, "Je suis miserable". From Bula's notes about giving the play "bite" and emphasising the socio-political context, I guess this is a reference to Hugo and Les Miserables. The problem is that this servant is actually celebrating his continued employment as a servant: Feydeau confirmed the upper classes in their rightful place - no emancipation here.
Feydeau's essential conservatism, clothed in such good humour, makes an interesting comment not just on French society of the fin de (last) siecle but on La Francophonie at the end of this century: not all the old colonies have quite risen to full independence, and it was a bitter struggle for many who have.
Melbourne French Theatre have presented Anhouilh and Sartre in Canberra before: this production reminds us of the diversity within French culture. An interesting choice.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 17 March 1999
1999: What Do They Call Me? by Eva Johnson
What Do They Call Me? by Eva Johnson. Canice Productions: performed and directed by Marie Andrews. National Multicultural Festival at The Street Theatre Studio 7.30pm March 17-20, 1999..
It is a great joy and privilege to experience a writer and performer at one with their traditions, their style, their themes and their audience. Make sure you don't miss this short, significant piece of theatre.
Marie Andrews, a Bardi woman and lawyer from Broome, is surely a Kimberley diamond, reflecting brilliantly the three characters of the mother Connie and her two daughters: Regina, taken by "Welfare" and brought up in a middle-class foster family; and Alison, both proud of her Aboriginality and her self-determined role as a lesbian activist.
Connie is in jail on trumped up charges of "abusing the language" - "Can't even swear in my own country," she says. Regina cannot hate her white "mother" who can't accept that her properly married "daughter" finds after 30 years that she must meet and identify with her real mother Connie. Alison, a sophisticated naif, works her intelligence to maintain her relationship with white feminist Sara, while bravely facing her mother with the truth of her sexual orientation.
Eva Johnson, the Malak Malak woman from Daly Waters whom many of us may remember performing in Women of the Sun, has turned playwright and teaches drama in Adelaide. What Do They Call Me? is 10 years old, written before the Stolen Generation report. It is partly autobiographical, and uses the ancient storytelling form with minimal but absolutely effective costume and light changes. Andrews, who was Company Manager for the tour in 1994 of her cousin Jimmy Chi's Bran Nue Day, is entirely at home as director and performer - and as herself in an open forum with the audience to finish the evening.
"I see this as a healing process between indigenous and white people, and hope that we can move forward as a whole people," says Andrews. Canice Cox, whose mother was Aboriginal and father was the white policeman at Fitzroy Crossing, and who married Japanese pearl diver James Ishiguchi, was Andrews' adoptive grandmother. Her name is honoured in Canice Productions. She believes it's this multicultural Kimberley history which fires creativity not to be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It is a great joy and privilege to experience a writer and performer at one with their traditions, their style, their themes and their audience. Make sure you don't miss this short, significant piece of theatre.
Marie Andrews, a Bardi woman and lawyer from Broome, is surely a Kimberley diamond, reflecting brilliantly the three characters of the mother Connie and her two daughters: Regina, taken by "Welfare" and brought up in a middle-class foster family; and Alison, both proud of her Aboriginality and her self-determined role as a lesbian activist.
Connie is in jail on trumped up charges of "abusing the language" - "Can't even swear in my own country," she says. Regina cannot hate her white "mother" who can't accept that her properly married "daughter" finds after 30 years that she must meet and identify with her real mother Connie. Alison, a sophisticated naif, works her intelligence to maintain her relationship with white feminist Sara, while bravely facing her mother with the truth of her sexual orientation.
Eva Johnson, the Malak Malak woman from Daly Waters whom many of us may remember performing in Women of the Sun, has turned playwright and teaches drama in Adelaide. What Do They Call Me? is 10 years old, written before the Stolen Generation report. It is partly autobiographical, and uses the ancient storytelling form with minimal but absolutely effective costume and light changes. Andrews, who was Company Manager for the tour in 1994 of her cousin Jimmy Chi's Bran Nue Day, is entirely at home as director and performer - and as herself in an open forum with the audience to finish the evening.
"I see this as a healing process between indigenous and white people, and hope that we can move forward as a whole people," says Andrews. Canice Cox, whose mother was Aboriginal and father was the white policeman at Fitzroy Crossing, and who married Japanese pearl diver James Ishiguchi, was Andrews' adoptive grandmother. Her name is honoured in Canice Productions. She believes it's this multicultural Kimberley history which fires creativity not to be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 10 March 1999
1999: Grushenka adapted by Rodney Fisher
Grushenka adapted by Rodney Fisher from F.Dostoyevski's novel The Brothers Karamazov. Kropka Theatre: solo performer Jolanta Juszkiewicz directed by Rodney Fisher. Canberra National Multicultural Festival at The Street Theatre Studio March 10-13, 1999, 7.30pm.
In this brief 30 minute etude polonaise, Polish actress Jolanta Juszkiewicz plays on the white keys of anger and the black keys of despair with equal precision, but I found that Rodney Fisher's attempt to encapsulate Dostoyevski's character Grushenka fails to match the drama of a Chopin study.
Without the full context of the novel and without Dostoyevski's objective slightly sardonic authorial tone, this snippet of Grushenka's conflicted feelings as she waits to face again the man who has seduced her - Does she love him? Or might she kill him? - leaves not only her situation unresolved, but ours in the audience as well. We wanted to thank the performer for her undoubtedly sincere and skilful effort, yet hesitated because the script did not give us a frame for clearly understanding the picture of this woman.
If Chopin's etudes are complete within themselves, then this script seems to need an image of Dostoyevski watching his misogynist creation with the contempt that one imagines he had for his real-life admirer Apollinaria Suslova, who refused to accept that "Women have but one calling in life - to be housewives and mothers." This would give us a context within which we could see the relevance of presenting Grushenka. Reading matter in the program cannot replace the necessary theatrical device.
Mind you, the crowd in The Street foyer waiting to go into the main theatre meant Juszkiewicz and her audience had to cope with considerable background noise - not conducive to such intimate theatre. The acting held me, nevertheless (but bright spotlights on the audience before and after the performance were a serious distraction). Re-read The Brothers Karamazov today, then go to see this meticulously presented character study by Kropka Theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In this brief 30 minute etude polonaise, Polish actress Jolanta Juszkiewicz plays on the white keys of anger and the black keys of despair with equal precision, but I found that Rodney Fisher's attempt to encapsulate Dostoyevski's character Grushenka fails to match the drama of a Chopin study.
Without the full context of the novel and without Dostoyevski's objective slightly sardonic authorial tone, this snippet of Grushenka's conflicted feelings as she waits to face again the man who has seduced her - Does she love him? Or might she kill him? - leaves not only her situation unresolved, but ours in the audience as well. We wanted to thank the performer for her undoubtedly sincere and skilful effort, yet hesitated because the script did not give us a frame for clearly understanding the picture of this woman.
If Chopin's etudes are complete within themselves, then this script seems to need an image of Dostoyevski watching his misogynist creation with the contempt that one imagines he had for his real-life admirer Apollinaria Suslova, who refused to accept that "Women have but one calling in life - to be housewives and mothers." This would give us a context within which we could see the relevance of presenting Grushenka. Reading matter in the program cannot replace the necessary theatrical device.
Mind you, the crowd in The Street foyer waiting to go into the main theatre meant Juszkiewicz and her audience had to cope with considerable background noise - not conducive to such intimate theatre. The acting held me, nevertheless (but bright spotlights on the audience before and after the performance were a serious distraction). Re-read The Brothers Karamazov today, then go to see this meticulously presented character study by Kropka Theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 6 March 1999
1999: Time of My Life by Alan Ayckbourn
Time of My Life by Alan Ayckbourn. Canberra Repertory directed by Corille Fraser at Theatre 3, March 5-27, 1999, Wed to Sat 8pm.
This is English middle class comedy about upward and downward mobility hung on a hallstand peg, next to the wet mackintoshes, labelled "Let's make fun of marriage." And, it is true, several members of the opening night glitterati recognised certain infidelities, brazen affairs, new-found boldness and admissions of failure among the usual Ayckbourn misunderstandings, some drunkenness and chucking up, financial mismanagement, lateness for lunch and several dogs, generally linked together by a series of incomprehensibly funny foreign (i.e. not British) waiters.
I'm going to have to praise all three men - Ian Carcary(Gerry, the father), Duncan Ley (elder son Glyn) and Luke Cutting (younger son Adam) - for effectively playing the straight men for the even more praiseworthy women - Jenny Ongley-Houston (Laura, the mother), Melissa Planten (Stephanie, married to Glyn) and Fiona Gregory (not married to Adam). Though the first act took some warming up on opening night, the second moved along with the women's development as characters.
And the five waiters played by David Bennett, Bevan Tiddent, Teddi van Bent, Dettev Bandin and Dave Tendbint deserve mention not only for their accents, but their romantic singing and rhythmic dance, and silver service hospitality.
Don't expect anything deep from Ayckbourn. His couple of attempts at pathos drown somewhere in a watery bathysphere. But at least his is a well-made play which starts in the middle, stretches out in opposite directions and ends where it began. And though one unnamable critic claimed that he slept through the first half, and one woman driver left her several passengers to find their own way home after interval, most of the audience laughed at lots of deliberately exaggerated severely prejudicial attitudes - including me.
Of course, it would be condescending of me to say that this is the sort of play that Repertory ought to be doing - since none of the professionals would touch it - but surely there has to be a place for a relaxing insignificant night of laughter after a hard and serious day's work in academia, consultancy and politics. Bob McMullan thought so - I saw him there - so why shouldn't you?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is English middle class comedy about upward and downward mobility hung on a hallstand peg, next to the wet mackintoshes, labelled "Let's make fun of marriage." And, it is true, several members of the opening night glitterati recognised certain infidelities, brazen affairs, new-found boldness and admissions of failure among the usual Ayckbourn misunderstandings, some drunkenness and chucking up, financial mismanagement, lateness for lunch and several dogs, generally linked together by a series of incomprehensibly funny foreign (i.e. not British) waiters.
I'm going to have to praise all three men - Ian Carcary(Gerry, the father), Duncan Ley (elder son Glyn) and Luke Cutting (younger son Adam) - for effectively playing the straight men for the even more praiseworthy women - Jenny Ongley-Houston (Laura, the mother), Melissa Planten (Stephanie, married to Glyn) and Fiona Gregory (not married to Adam). Though the first act took some warming up on opening night, the second moved along with the women's development as characters.
And the five waiters played by David Bennett, Bevan Tiddent, Teddi van Bent, Dettev Bandin and Dave Tendbint deserve mention not only for their accents, but their romantic singing and rhythmic dance, and silver service hospitality.
Don't expect anything deep from Ayckbourn. His couple of attempts at pathos drown somewhere in a watery bathysphere. But at least his is a well-made play which starts in the middle, stretches out in opposite directions and ends where it began. And though one unnamable critic claimed that he slept through the first half, and one woman driver left her several passengers to find their own way home after interval, most of the audience laughed at lots of deliberately exaggerated severely prejudicial attitudes - including me.
Of course, it would be condescending of me to say that this is the sort of play that Repertory ought to be doing - since none of the professionals would touch it - but surely there has to be a place for a relaxing insignificant night of laughter after a hard and serious day's work in academia, consultancy and politics. Bob McMullan thought so - I saw him there - so why shouldn't you?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 4 March 1999
1999: Patapumfete by Dario Fo
Patapumfete by Dario Fo. Performed by Alfredo Colombaioni and Stefano Di Pietro. Canberra National Multicultural Festival at ANU Arts Centre March 4-5, 1999.
"If they had combined it with something to eat and drink, I think more would have turned up," said one of the seven members of the audience on opening night. I guess there's an irony in that idea which Dario Fo would appreciate.
Colombaioni and Di Pietro are experts in Fo's style of theatre, combining circus clowning and modernised commedia dell'arte with social criticism - surrealist theatre for the working class. Clowns begin with improvised patter, bouncing banter back and forth. Once the audience has warmed to the satirical humour - I was accused as The Canberra Times critic of not doing my job properly because I my notebook was too small - several short humorous skits were performed, each with a twisted barb.
The least absurd was one character moralising at another who is pleasantly and harmlessly drinking wine and having an occasional quiet cigarette. It soon transpires that the accuser pops headache pills at the first sign of tension (most of which is caused by his moral concern at the other's behaviour). The accuser goes on to stronger drugs, finally stabbing himself with a huge syringe in all sorts of inappropriate places. He dies, while the drinker leaves him to his self-imposed fate and wanders happily away.
Non-violence and robot assembly lines receive a similarly ironic treatment.
A science fiction piece which starts with one actor as an alien machine while the other is proud to be the only human who can save the earth turned into a truly absurd clown style water squirting session, which seems to reach a point of reconciliation destroyed by one last squirted betrayal.
Spoken in Italian, with a minimal amount of translation into English, and mimed exquisitely, Fo's work makes its points and is a cultural artefact worthy of this Festival. But eating and drinking could have helped, like the lady said.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"If they had combined it with something to eat and drink, I think more would have turned up," said one of the seven members of the audience on opening night. I guess there's an irony in that idea which Dario Fo would appreciate.
Colombaioni and Di Pietro are experts in Fo's style of theatre, combining circus clowning and modernised commedia dell'arte with social criticism - surrealist theatre for the working class. Clowns begin with improvised patter, bouncing banter back and forth. Once the audience has warmed to the satirical humour - I was accused as The Canberra Times critic of not doing my job properly because I my notebook was too small - several short humorous skits were performed, each with a twisted barb.
The least absurd was one character moralising at another who is pleasantly and harmlessly drinking wine and having an occasional quiet cigarette. It soon transpires that the accuser pops headache pills at the first sign of tension (most of which is caused by his moral concern at the other's behaviour). The accuser goes on to stronger drugs, finally stabbing himself with a huge syringe in all sorts of inappropriate places. He dies, while the drinker leaves him to his self-imposed fate and wanders happily away.
Non-violence and robot assembly lines receive a similarly ironic treatment.
A science fiction piece which starts with one actor as an alien machine while the other is proud to be the only human who can save the earth turned into a truly absurd clown style water squirting session, which seems to reach a point of reconciliation destroyed by one last squirted betrayal.
Spoken in Italian, with a minimal amount of translation into English, and mimed exquisitely, Fo's work makes its points and is a cultural artefact worthy of this Festival. But eating and drinking could have helped, like the lady said.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 26 February 1999
1999: Women in War - Australian War Memorial
Women in War - in the Second World War Gallery, Australian War Memorial. Commemorative opening ceremony, Telstra Theatre Fri Feb 26. Program Coordinator: Carolyn Newman. Keynote Speaker: Julia Zaetta, Editorial Director of The Australian Women's Weekly.
Theatre often takes you by surprise. So it was when Beryl Williams, an original WAAAF, described the showers at Bradfield Park in 1941: a long pipe with shower roses every 18 inches. "Can you imagine all us 18 year old naked girls every morning?" she asked. Bradfield Park! I was there - a ten-pound (Sterling) migrant in 1955! I'm sure the showers had cubicles by then.
"Theatre of war" was a US term for a geographical region, but this exhibition gives it new meaning. Julia Zaetta spoke of the contrasts: the loss and sorrow which her generation was fortunate to miss; but the cameraderie and community among women which the war experience gave them, and which she envied.
The new Second World War Gallery certainly is a living theatre surrounding us with all the contrasts. I felt quite overwhelmed and unsure of my feelings in the midst of lights, moving pictures and soundscapes. Ms Zaetta had asked people to speak of their memories, and I talked to many other women among the exhibits and at afternoon tea.
The strongest memory for so many women was that joining up gave them independence and a feeling of control of their lives. Nurses told me how they couldn't wait to get into the air force and the army. They had no family responsibilties, were anxious for adventure. "I didn't think it would matter if a bomb got me", said one. But the other response was disappointment that the end of the war saw most women back in the old woman-in-the-kitchen role.
They lost the opportunity to put all their skills and training into practice, and expressed regret that young women in recent times have had to "re-invent the wheel, when we were doing it all back then."
And what of the exhibition? Some felt it was too overwhelming emotionally - indeed one woman had to leave. Some were concerned it seemed to glorify war's excitement, and yet thought the young today will get to know more about the war than the 60's generation which had scoffed at it. Some felt it glorified the enemy: "I was really non-plussed when I walked into the light and saw I was standing on an image of the Japanese flag - the Rising Sun. I think it might be..." She didn't say "offensive" but I felt that's what she meant.
Many said the film and sound exhibits made them shiver and re-live feelings from that time. "But we would like to put that back in the past. Perhaps it is concentrating too much in the past, when we should think of the future." "But the exhibits are very well done."
Mixed feelings. Controversial thoughts. Strong theatre indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Theatre often takes you by surprise. So it was when Beryl Williams, an original WAAAF, described the showers at Bradfield Park in 1941: a long pipe with shower roses every 18 inches. "Can you imagine all us 18 year old naked girls every morning?" she asked. Bradfield Park! I was there - a ten-pound (Sterling) migrant in 1955! I'm sure the showers had cubicles by then.
"Theatre of war" was a US term for a geographical region, but this exhibition gives it new meaning. Julia Zaetta spoke of the contrasts: the loss and sorrow which her generation was fortunate to miss; but the cameraderie and community among women which the war experience gave them, and which she envied.
The new Second World War Gallery certainly is a living theatre surrounding us with all the contrasts. I felt quite overwhelmed and unsure of my feelings in the midst of lights, moving pictures and soundscapes. Ms Zaetta had asked people to speak of their memories, and I talked to many other women among the exhibits and at afternoon tea.
The strongest memory for so many women was that joining up gave them independence and a feeling of control of their lives. Nurses told me how they couldn't wait to get into the air force and the army. They had no family responsibilties, were anxious for adventure. "I didn't think it would matter if a bomb got me", said one. But the other response was disappointment that the end of the war saw most women back in the old woman-in-the-kitchen role.
They lost the opportunity to put all their skills and training into practice, and expressed regret that young women in recent times have had to "re-invent the wheel, when we were doing it all back then."
And what of the exhibition? Some felt it was too overwhelming emotionally - indeed one woman had to leave. Some were concerned it seemed to glorify war's excitement, and yet thought the young today will get to know more about the war than the 60's generation which had scoffed at it. Some felt it glorified the enemy: "I was really non-plussed when I walked into the light and saw I was standing on an image of the Japanese flag - the Rising Sun. I think it might be..." She didn't say "offensive" but I felt that's what she meant.
Many said the film and sound exhibits made them shiver and re-live feelings from that time. "But we would like to put that back in the past. Perhaps it is concentrating too much in the past, when we should think of the future." "But the exhibits are very well done."
Mixed feelings. Controversial thoughts. Strong theatre indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 18 February 1999
1999: Kiryuho - Art of Movement Workshop
Kiryuho - Art of Movement Workshop. Master Kajo Tsuboi assisted by Teruomi Kuchina and Kyoko Sato. At the Choreographic Centre for Weereewa - Festival of Lake George Wed Feb 17, 1999.
Japanese theatre and training methods have influenced actors and dancers world-wide, but I, like most western drama teachers, had to rely on reading works such as The Way of Acting by Tadashi Suzuki, reading No plays and studying Zen. To meet Master Kajo and watch him teach was a privilege - and a humble admission to myself about how short a distance I had travelled along the road.
At least I think I was going in the right direction, towards the three R's: Relaxation, Realisation and Relationship. In three hours Master Kajo took people, of varying levels of experience, remarkably far - though he told me that even the best students take three years to absorb the lessons and be able to practice Kiryuho well.
Ki is the energy of the mind and body - physical and creative energy working together. Ryu is the streaming of energy - which can run free or be held back. Ho is the order or structure which we can give to the flow of the stream.
By using movement based on the shape of the mobius strip - in which infinity is represented by never-ending clockwise and anti-clockwise motion - Master Kajo taught how to observe the movement of all the body which follows the movement of one part; how this awareness creates relaxation, leading to realisation as one chooses to shift the lead to new parts of the body; and how this naturally allows good relationships to develop throughout the body. The result is strong and impressive movement, which is the basis not only of all acting and dance, but of healthy and effective relationships in life.
With the help of Andrew McNicol playing a ground note on didgeridoo, people created fascinating improvised movement which seemed to have no end after 45 minutes and could easily have gone on to become an extended group improvisation. Julie Rogers, who translated for us and organised the workshop, explained that this would happen in longer sessions.
Ring Mirramu Creative Arts Centre 02 6238 1492 to book for more Kajo workshops May 20-23.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Japanese theatre and training methods have influenced actors and dancers world-wide, but I, like most western drama teachers, had to rely on reading works such as The Way of Acting by Tadashi Suzuki, reading No plays and studying Zen. To meet Master Kajo and watch him teach was a privilege - and a humble admission to myself about how short a distance I had travelled along the road.
At least I think I was going in the right direction, towards the three R's: Relaxation, Realisation and Relationship. In three hours Master Kajo took people, of varying levels of experience, remarkably far - though he told me that even the best students take three years to absorb the lessons and be able to practice Kiryuho well.
Ki is the energy of the mind and body - physical and creative energy working together. Ryu is the streaming of energy - which can run free or be held back. Ho is the order or structure which we can give to the flow of the stream.
By using movement based on the shape of the mobius strip - in which infinity is represented by never-ending clockwise and anti-clockwise motion - Master Kajo taught how to observe the movement of all the body which follows the movement of one part; how this awareness creates relaxation, leading to realisation as one chooses to shift the lead to new parts of the body; and how this naturally allows good relationships to develop throughout the body. The result is strong and impressive movement, which is the basis not only of all acting and dance, but of healthy and effective relationships in life.
With the help of Andrew McNicol playing a ground note on didgeridoo, people created fascinating improvised movement which seemed to have no end after 45 minutes and could easily have gone on to become an extended group improvisation. Julie Rogers, who translated for us and organised the workshop, explained that this would happen in longer sessions.
Ring Mirramu Creative Arts Centre 02 6238 1492 to book for more Kajo workshops May 20-23.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 17 February 1999
1999: Eco-Maze by Evelyn Roth
Eco-Maze by installation artist Evelyn Roth. Bungendore Park: Fri Feb 19, 1999, 3.30-5pm, Sat Feb 20 1-5.30pm, Sun Feb 21 11am-6pm.
"Would you like me to help you read?" said the 10 year-old Eco-Guide from Bungendore's Youth Theatre to a 5 year old. "Aw, I know how to read!" came the indignant reply.
This was after nature had already had its way with the air-pressured construction - a jealous gusty north-westerly tore into the fabric of life at Lake George from the days of volcanoes and uplifts to the need to replant vegetation today.
While repairs were made I had an excellent hot cappucino at the Gib (pronounced 'jib' for Gibraltar) Street Café and delicious Armenian tea cake (walnuts and orange) under a clear sky. It looks to me that the Weereewa - Festival of Lake George is a blue sky investment for Bungendore and district.
Stan d'Argeaval deserves accolades for his organising work - and here he was with daughter Renee fixing the maze for its inaugural walk-through by an excited bunch of children guided by Sarah, Monique and Natasha whom Evelyn Roth had met only the day before. They took us through the blue-green wetlands, into a land of orange volcanoes (where we peered into the cones to read all about Lake George's history) and through to a bright blue-yellow lake where we planted velcro vegetation all around.
Evelyn - a Canadian shortly to become Australian and based nowadays in Adelaide - began by sewing a blow-up salmon for a Salmon Festival with the Haida people on Queen Charlotte Islands in 1977, having already established her work as an environmental dancer, and today has a busy career creating mazes, webs and other amazing structures for festivals in many countries.
The value of her Eco-Maze is part theatrical (this is participatory theatre, of course) and especially educational as the children experience visual stimulation, information gathering and dramatic activity around a theme which is already established in school. The maze is a support for the work of the children's teachers - and Evelyn is available to work in a residency situation for a school or community to develop fabric environments which are tailored to more specific interests. Her website is www.evelynroth.com.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Would you like me to help you read?" said the 10 year-old Eco-Guide from Bungendore's Youth Theatre to a 5 year old. "Aw, I know how to read!" came the indignant reply.
This was after nature had already had its way with the air-pressured construction - a jealous gusty north-westerly tore into the fabric of life at Lake George from the days of volcanoes and uplifts to the need to replant vegetation today.
While repairs were made I had an excellent hot cappucino at the Gib (pronounced 'jib' for Gibraltar) Street Café and delicious Armenian tea cake (walnuts and orange) under a clear sky. It looks to me that the Weereewa - Festival of Lake George is a blue sky investment for Bungendore and district.
Stan d'Argeaval deserves accolades for his organising work - and here he was with daughter Renee fixing the maze for its inaugural walk-through by an excited bunch of children guided by Sarah, Monique and Natasha whom Evelyn Roth had met only the day before. They took us through the blue-green wetlands, into a land of orange volcanoes (where we peered into the cones to read all about Lake George's history) and through to a bright blue-yellow lake where we planted velcro vegetation all around.
Evelyn - a Canadian shortly to become Australian and based nowadays in Adelaide - began by sewing a blow-up salmon for a Salmon Festival with the Haida people on Queen Charlotte Islands in 1977, having already established her work as an environmental dancer, and today has a busy career creating mazes, webs and other amazing structures for festivals in many countries.
The value of her Eco-Maze is part theatrical (this is participatory theatre, of course) and especially educational as the children experience visual stimulation, information gathering and dramatic activity around a theme which is already established in school. The maze is a support for the work of the children's teachers - and Evelyn is available to work in a residency situation for a school or community to develop fabric environments which are tailored to more specific interests. Her website is www.evelynroth.com.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 24 January 1999
1999: The Heart of Frankenstein by Patricia Jones
The Heart of Frankenstein by Patricia Jones. Sydney Fringe Festival at TAP Gallery, 278 Palmer Street. Jan 22-23; Feb 5-6, 1999, 8pm.
TAP Gallery is above a bathroom accessories design firm. Upstairs the design is modern eclectic rococo: a preponderance of green, purple, blue and yellow - all sort-of organic. Self-managed by the artists who use the space, TAP's Fringe program began by opening the Amnesty International Art Award ($1000) on the theme "FREEDOM" and includes the "digit.au" Computer Art Award sponsored by Apple Centre Status Graph. Ring Lesley at TAP on 02 9361 0440 if these interest you (to enter or see exhibits).
TAP has three galleries with continuous exhibitions of art work - and Patricia Jones' "Gothic ramble through the hearts and minds of poets and monsters real and imaginary during the time of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'".
It's a long ramble - nearly 3 hours - and suffers I think from the self-managing artist's syndrome. Jones wrote, directed, made the artwork and did the (very minimal) lighting. The result, from the production values point of view, was not exciting, even though the actors were generally skilled and held things together. Cath Young (Mary Shelley), Nicholas Mitsakis (Lord Byron) and Scott Hailstone (Percy Bysshe Shelley) formed the core with strong support from Kylie McCormack (Lady Caroline Lamb) and Elizabeth Richmond (Augusta Byron).
Though the script needs a good dramaturg and should be a great deal shorter, the story is a fascinating study of Mary Shelley, the only normal personality, having to deal with two talented but impossible poets, constantly in challenge posture and sexually destructive of all the women - sisters or other wives - who come into their purview.
From her marriage to her husband's death in the famous boating accident (which looks like death-wish fulfilment) we explore with Mary the idealism of Shelley's social justice themes, Byron's social nihilism, the diversion from dealing with ordinary reality which is at the heart of the art of poesy; and on the way, the denial of women's rights.
From this experience, Mary creates her monster: Pygmalion's beauty, but her Galatean scientist failed to include the ability to reason. Her novel still stands beside her husband's poetry, and we are still in need of both.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
TAP Gallery is above a bathroom accessories design firm. Upstairs the design is modern eclectic rococo: a preponderance of green, purple, blue and yellow - all sort-of organic. Self-managed by the artists who use the space, TAP's Fringe program began by opening the Amnesty International Art Award ($1000) on the theme "FREEDOM" and includes the "digit.au" Computer Art Award sponsored by Apple Centre Status Graph. Ring Lesley at TAP on 02 9361 0440 if these interest you (to enter or see exhibits).
TAP has three galleries with continuous exhibitions of art work - and Patricia Jones' "Gothic ramble through the hearts and minds of poets and monsters real and imaginary during the time of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'".
It's a long ramble - nearly 3 hours - and suffers I think from the self-managing artist's syndrome. Jones wrote, directed, made the artwork and did the (very minimal) lighting. The result, from the production values point of view, was not exciting, even though the actors were generally skilled and held things together. Cath Young (Mary Shelley), Nicholas Mitsakis (Lord Byron) and Scott Hailstone (Percy Bysshe Shelley) formed the core with strong support from Kylie McCormack (Lady Caroline Lamb) and Elizabeth Richmond (Augusta Byron).
Though the script needs a good dramaturg and should be a great deal shorter, the story is a fascinating study of Mary Shelley, the only normal personality, having to deal with two talented but impossible poets, constantly in challenge posture and sexually destructive of all the women - sisters or other wives - who come into their purview.
From her marriage to her husband's death in the famous boating accident (which looks like death-wish fulfilment) we explore with Mary the idealism of Shelley's social justice themes, Byron's social nihilism, the diversion from dealing with ordinary reality which is at the heart of the art of poesy; and on the way, the denial of women's rights.
From this experience, Mary creates her monster: Pygmalion's beauty, but her Galatean scientist failed to include the ability to reason. Her novel still stands beside her husband's poetry, and we are still in need of both.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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