Deviations by Allen O'Leary. Directed by Iain Sinclair. Elbow Theatre Company at Currong Theatre November 23 - 25, 8pm. Transferring to La Mama, Melbourne, November 29 - December 17.
Four characters, Richard, Susan, Matt and Karen begin in pairs which become crossed and double-crossed; in Act 2 they appear in a foursome, which breaks again into pairs, and ends with Karen alone. In this nicely structured black comedy of Melbourne manners, Michael Butcher, Lenore McGregor, Pip Branson and Lucie O'Brien form an equally balanced ensemble performing highly unbalanced characters. From laughter of recognition, through laughter in sympathy, to silence of horror, opening night of this preview season proved both the play and the performance a very worthwhile night of theatre.
If you've missed it here, then you may pick it up in its 3 week season in Melbourne, where La Mama is fully sponsoring the run. However, since artsACT funded the final development of the script, we can only hope that local funding may also be found to present a longer return season here in the future.
Playwright Allen O'Leary, originally from New Zealand, has picked up the tone of North Fitzroy and Collingwood, producing an almost olde worlde inner city charm in a drama of mixed sexuality, in which independent company-owning architect Susan hopes that her new relationship with Brunswick Street waitress Karen may develop from desire to lust, to sex, and to love - in that order. But we find that loving someone is not the same as liking them, let alone desiring, lusting or having sex with them. The problem, as Karen says, is that it's not easy to stop loving someone. When, in the final tragic twist, she no longer has Matt, Karen moves to the busy city of sharp sunlight, Sydney, to be herself, alone; while Susan has no choice but to support Richard in his new bout of insanity, just as she has had to in the past.
Challenging theatre is Elbow's metier, and early next year expect more new work from local writers as well as imports; while later, founding members Kenneth Spiteri and Iain Sinclair will turn to Europe for further training, at the Atelier Ecole du Mime Corporel in Paris and the Theatre Institute in Amsterdam respectively.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 24 November 2000
Thursday, 23 November 2000
2000: Australian National Playwrights' Conference. Feature article.
The Australian National Playwrights' Conference will live once again in its natural home at ANU's Burgmann College in 2001, despite occasional dalliances elsewhere such as at the Adelaide Festival. The all important diary dates are April 17 to 28, and there will be opportunities this time around for many more people to be involved in addition to the focus group of playwrights.
Traditionally the ANPC concentrated on a small group whose plays were professionally workshopped over 2 weeks, with top class actors and directors coming together at peak energy levels with a sense of dedication to the growth of new Australian theatre. Over the last 20 years, and especially since top flight dramaturg May-Brit Akerholt became director, ANPC has become far more inclusive.
Nowadays indigenous writers are represented every year, no longer with any sense of a need for affirmative action but as a natural part of the mainstream. The New Dramatists Exchange with New York continues with an Australian writer there and an American writer here. The Young Playwrights' Studio runs around the nation separately from the main Conference, with successful young ACT writers Tom Hodgson (Hannibal and Co.), Sarah Kaur (Girl) and Christopher Curwood (Brain Drain) among others being awarded a year's membership of ANPC and observer status at the Conference. And, as always, any interested person can buy a ticket for a day or for the whole 2 weeks as an observer, including taking part in the often highly energetic discussions in the daily forums and seminars.
For some years now there has also been The Studio running throughout the fortnight in parallel with the main Conference. This is for anyone who has "a script, a scene or even just a great idea". It's a course for budding writers with daily classes taught by professional writing tutors and specialist theatrecraft people, and often sets the seeds of a script which in a later year appears in the main Conference. One writer, Jen Nield, described The Studio as "like being given a brand new box of tools", the image emphasising that writing for theatre is a practical craft.
And now comes a new initiative which I suspect will grow bigger than Ben Hur: the Drama Teachers' Studio. For the first time, ladies and gentlemen, drama teachers across the nation can spend their Easter holidays (and up to $950 for registration, accommodation and meals from April 18 to 21) on an annual professional development binge.
The Drama Teachers' Studio, directed in 2001 by the experienced playwright, dramaturg and theatre writing teacher Timothy Daly, already well known for his ANPC work in Canberra as well as interstate, will concentrate on texts being taught by the teachers especially for Year 11 and 12 and in tertiary education courses. In the Conference milieu, teachers at last will have a regular opportunity to mix with the top professionals in the industry - and relatively early in the academic year, ready to feed all their experience back to their students.
I believe that this special relationship between the ANPC and the teaching profession will help establish the status of drama teachers, who are still too often regarded as people playing games rather than as the highly trained and disciplined professionals that they need to be nowadays. Despite the cost (becoming a member of ANPC and Earlybird registration by February 23 saves $110), the Drama Teachers' Studio will be invaluable, and is already being strongly supported by the NSW Educational Drama Association and the ACT Drama Association - and ANPC's phones are running hot from teachers in other states within days of sending out their fax.
Write to ANPC, PO Box 1566, Rozelle NSW 2039, email anpc@kbdnet.net.au , phone 02 9555 9377, or fax 02 9555 9370. The 2001 Australian National Playwrights' Conference is waiting in the wings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Traditionally the ANPC concentrated on a small group whose plays were professionally workshopped over 2 weeks, with top class actors and directors coming together at peak energy levels with a sense of dedication to the growth of new Australian theatre. Over the last 20 years, and especially since top flight dramaturg May-Brit Akerholt became director, ANPC has become far more inclusive.
Nowadays indigenous writers are represented every year, no longer with any sense of a need for affirmative action but as a natural part of the mainstream. The New Dramatists Exchange with New York continues with an Australian writer there and an American writer here. The Young Playwrights' Studio runs around the nation separately from the main Conference, with successful young ACT writers Tom Hodgson (Hannibal and Co.), Sarah Kaur (Girl) and Christopher Curwood (Brain Drain) among others being awarded a year's membership of ANPC and observer status at the Conference. And, as always, any interested person can buy a ticket for a day or for the whole 2 weeks as an observer, including taking part in the often highly energetic discussions in the daily forums and seminars.
For some years now there has also been The Studio running throughout the fortnight in parallel with the main Conference. This is for anyone who has "a script, a scene or even just a great idea". It's a course for budding writers with daily classes taught by professional writing tutors and specialist theatrecraft people, and often sets the seeds of a script which in a later year appears in the main Conference. One writer, Jen Nield, described The Studio as "like being given a brand new box of tools", the image emphasising that writing for theatre is a practical craft.
And now comes a new initiative which I suspect will grow bigger than Ben Hur: the Drama Teachers' Studio. For the first time, ladies and gentlemen, drama teachers across the nation can spend their Easter holidays (and up to $950 for registration, accommodation and meals from April 18 to 21) on an annual professional development binge.
The Drama Teachers' Studio, directed in 2001 by the experienced playwright, dramaturg and theatre writing teacher Timothy Daly, already well known for his ANPC work in Canberra as well as interstate, will concentrate on texts being taught by the teachers especially for Year 11 and 12 and in tertiary education courses. In the Conference milieu, teachers at last will have a regular opportunity to mix with the top professionals in the industry - and relatively early in the academic year, ready to feed all their experience back to their students.
I believe that this special relationship between the ANPC and the teaching profession will help establish the status of drama teachers, who are still too often regarded as people playing games rather than as the highly trained and disciplined professionals that they need to be nowadays. Despite the cost (becoming a member of ANPC and Earlybird registration by February 23 saves $110), the Drama Teachers' Studio will be invaluable, and is already being strongly supported by the NSW Educational Drama Association and the ACT Drama Association - and ANPC's phones are running hot from teachers in other states within days of sending out their fax.
Write to ANPC, PO Box 1566, Rozelle NSW 2039, email anpc@kbdnet.net.au , phone 02 9555 9377, or fax 02 9555 9370. The 2001 Australian National Playwrights' Conference is waiting in the wings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 13 November 2000
2000: Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia - National Student Festival. Short feature article.
Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia's annual national Student Festival will culminate this year at Theatre 3 in Canberra with 2 public performances of Bard-O! on December 16 and 17.
The students will be celebrating along with the Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, who told SGCA's Director Hugh O'Keefe "It is a great personal joy to me that students still find inspiration and pleasure in the works of Shakespeare almost four hundred years after his death." But O'Keefe and his Board, led by Diana Denley, founder and Director of the International Program which sends each year's winner to The Globe Theatre in London for 2 weeks' intensive theatre experience, are hoping that Bob Carr's sentiment can be turned into cash.
The problem is that their major sponsor since 1990, Mr Edward Gilly, who provided at least 80% of the $120,000 per year that SCGA costs to run, is no longer able to continue his support. Schools, of course, pay a fee to take part in the Festival, but this generates no more than $20,000 per year, each State basically only covering its immediate costs. So where will the money come from? Save Our Shakespeare is the real theme behind Bard-O!.
Putting a Pistol to the head of potential corporate sponsors has not yet produced results, but there is a proposal for a joint arrangement with Bell Shakespeare Company, Sydney Theatre Company and the Performing Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education and Training. The dominance of Sydney on the national stage is unfortunate, and ACT Education and Arts Minister Bill Stefaniak and Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation can expect calls shortly. After all the Shakespeare Globe Festival brings the professional team and 38 students and their entourages to Canberra for 2 weeks' rehearsal leading to the December 16 - 17 performances, and schools across Canberra are heavily involved.
Teachers, of course, do most of the work - and one is chosen each year for an overseas professional development trip. Victorian coordinators organised a fundraiser this year, showing the movie Titus, but when this work is in addition to the already extra-curricular teaching for the Festival, teacher overload goes past the point of effective returns.
Contact Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia at sgca@mail.usyd.edu.au or phone (02) 9351 5231 - especially if you have $100,000 to offer!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The students will be celebrating along with the Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, who told SGCA's Director Hugh O'Keefe "It is a great personal joy to me that students still find inspiration and pleasure in the works of Shakespeare almost four hundred years after his death." But O'Keefe and his Board, led by Diana Denley, founder and Director of the International Program which sends each year's winner to The Globe Theatre in London for 2 weeks' intensive theatre experience, are hoping that Bob Carr's sentiment can be turned into cash.
The problem is that their major sponsor since 1990, Mr Edward Gilly, who provided at least 80% of the $120,000 per year that SCGA costs to run, is no longer able to continue his support. Schools, of course, pay a fee to take part in the Festival, but this generates no more than $20,000 per year, each State basically only covering its immediate costs. So where will the money come from? Save Our Shakespeare is the real theme behind Bard-O!.
Putting a Pistol to the head of potential corporate sponsors has not yet produced results, but there is a proposal for a joint arrangement with Bell Shakespeare Company, Sydney Theatre Company and the Performing Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education and Training. The dominance of Sydney on the national stage is unfortunate, and ACT Education and Arts Minister Bill Stefaniak and Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation can expect calls shortly. After all the Shakespeare Globe Festival brings the professional team and 38 students and their entourages to Canberra for 2 weeks' rehearsal leading to the December 16 - 17 performances, and schools across Canberra are heavily involved.
Teachers, of course, do most of the work - and one is chosen each year for an overseas professional development trip. Victorian coordinators organised a fundraiser this year, showing the movie Titus, but when this work is in addition to the already extra-curricular teaching for the Festival, teacher overload goes past the point of effective returns.
Contact Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia at sgca@mail.usyd.edu.au or phone (02) 9351 5231 - especially if you have $100,000 to offer!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 12 November 2000
2000: Australian National Playwrights' Centre - Young Playwrights' Studio. Short feature article.
"They're out there now, making up an end", Jigsaw director Greg Lissaman told me 2 minutes before the show-and-tell for the Young Playwrights' Studio 2000 last Sunday. 3 young playwrights were seeing their work presented after 2 days of workshopping, funded by the Australian National Playwrights Centre.
As you may guess, Tom Hodgson (Hannibal and Co.), Sarah Kaur (Girl) and Christopher Curwood (Brain Drain) were not in competition with each other. The ANPC employed The Jigsaw Company and Canberra Youth Theatre to choose 3 scripts for development, each young playwright receiving a year's honorary membership of ANPC. This gives them the right to participate in the 2001 Australian National Playwrights' Conference and free professional assessment of their scriptwriting efforts.
The plays on offer represented typical work in one sense: a young teenage boy's humorous take on how Hannibal really got his elephants over the Alps; a self examination of what an older teenage girl expects of herself and what she really wants; an older boy's comic vision of sex and death in a game show format. All three showed elements of theatrical structure and consistency of style which explain why they were chosen for workshopping.
Maybe none of these scripts will make it through to full production - the ANPC process is designed to weed out as much as to encourage script development - but interestingly I thought the younger Tom Hodgson had the edge on his older colleagues. His work - bringing together Hannibal, his domineering mother, the example of his dead famous General father, his baby-face business-oriented brother, and the Tibetan lamas who train the elephants in the proper Buddhist tradition - showed not only a comic originality but a quite sophisticated level of character development, as well as a clever twist in the plot where it is actually Hannibal's brother who wins the battle for which Hannibal takes the credit. And it was based on research into the real (or at least recorded) history.
Some 19 Youth Theatre actors, with Tristan Flynn on lights, gave their time and a considerable degree of expertise to the workshops, with Roland Manderson, Greg Lissaman and Noonee Dorononila, and Catherine Langman as professional directors/dramaturgs. A mini-model of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference: what better way to learn?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
As you may guess, Tom Hodgson (Hannibal and Co.), Sarah Kaur (Girl) and Christopher Curwood (Brain Drain) were not in competition with each other. The ANPC employed The Jigsaw Company and Canberra Youth Theatre to choose 3 scripts for development, each young playwright receiving a year's honorary membership of ANPC. This gives them the right to participate in the 2001 Australian National Playwrights' Conference and free professional assessment of their scriptwriting efforts.
The plays on offer represented typical work in one sense: a young teenage boy's humorous take on how Hannibal really got his elephants over the Alps; a self examination of what an older teenage girl expects of herself and what she really wants; an older boy's comic vision of sex and death in a game show format. All three showed elements of theatrical structure and consistency of style which explain why they were chosen for workshopping.
Maybe none of these scripts will make it through to full production - the ANPC process is designed to weed out as much as to encourage script development - but interestingly I thought the younger Tom Hodgson had the edge on his older colleagues. His work - bringing together Hannibal, his domineering mother, the example of his dead famous General father, his baby-face business-oriented brother, and the Tibetan lamas who train the elephants in the proper Buddhist tradition - showed not only a comic originality but a quite sophisticated level of character development, as well as a clever twist in the plot where it is actually Hannibal's brother who wins the battle for which Hannibal takes the credit. And it was based on research into the real (or at least recorded) history.
Some 19 Youth Theatre actors, with Tristan Flynn on lights, gave their time and a considerable degree of expertise to the workshops, with Roland Manderson, Greg Lissaman and Noonee Dorononila, and Catherine Langman as professional directors/dramaturgs. A mini-model of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference: what better way to learn?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 21 October 2000
2000: Canberra Repertory Theatre - preview of 2001 Program. Promo article.
Which Old Time Musical reaches its "Olympiad" in 2001? The answer is, of course, Canberra Rep's well regarded romp which raises its writhing hoary Hydra head for the 27th time next year - surely an Olympic feat of gold (sponsored by Oasis for Hair at Rydges).
Rod Quinn of ABC Local Radio fame asked much more obtuse quizz questions of Rep members at their 2001 Launch last Friday at Happy Hour, and it was Sue Richards, daughter of Joan and with her own daughter Katherine by her side, who put the clues together for the first production: the Turkish bath play Steaming by Nell Dunn, to be directed by Liz Bradley and sponsored by Coralie Wood Publicity.
Through the generations Rep has survived where professional companies have been short-lived, and will present theatre of quality and interest to Canberra audiences with a series designed in 2001 to attract a new range of people to audition, as well as appreciate from the audience perspective.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Tennessee Williams, directed by Walter Learning, sponsored by Rocksalt Restaurant), Wait Until Dark (Frederick Knott, directed by Geoffrey Borny, sponsored by Mazet's Restaurant at Hotel Heritage) and Black Comedy (Peter Shaffer, directed by Aarne Neeme, sponsored by Class-Inn Restaurant at CIT) complete a program that should give everybody, new and old, a great chance of a part on stage or backstage which will both challenge and satisfy.
A new arrangement for subscribers is that the sponsors offer discount deals on presentation of the ticket stub, so the variety of the shows is not all that people will remember. If you want 2 meals for the price of 1, or scintillating scissor work and sensational setting for your next hair-do, then you can choose your play accordingly.
But seriously, Canberra Repertory Theatre Society at Theatre 3 offers a suitable and even exciting array of plays, from farce to tragedy and all in between, for the coming year - the kind of program which should be just right for Rep and will maintain its place in the Canberra community through to at least the next Olympiad.
It's been a concern for some time that the membership of Rep is growing older on the average each year, while the younger keen actors around town have set themselves up in small companies rather than join Rep. This may well be a sign of the times a'changing - young people in general are more inclined to do their own thing rather than join established clubs. This program for next year, however, ought to encourage auditions from actors who want to work in plays of established writers and often with directors of good standing, including people like Aarne Neeme.
Theatre 3 also has an excellent performing space and technical possibilities for new people to take up and consolidate their backstage experience. Rep should not be left to the old guard: it's time now for a new generation to work the repertoire of established plays.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Rod Quinn of ABC Local Radio fame asked much more obtuse quizz questions of Rep members at their 2001 Launch last Friday at Happy Hour, and it was Sue Richards, daughter of Joan and with her own daughter Katherine by her side, who put the clues together for the first production: the Turkish bath play Steaming by Nell Dunn, to be directed by Liz Bradley and sponsored by Coralie Wood Publicity.
Through the generations Rep has survived where professional companies have been short-lived, and will present theatre of quality and interest to Canberra audiences with a series designed in 2001 to attract a new range of people to audition, as well as appreciate from the audience perspective.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Tennessee Williams, directed by Walter Learning, sponsored by Rocksalt Restaurant), Wait Until Dark (Frederick Knott, directed by Geoffrey Borny, sponsored by Mazet's Restaurant at Hotel Heritage) and Black Comedy (Peter Shaffer, directed by Aarne Neeme, sponsored by Class-Inn Restaurant at CIT) complete a program that should give everybody, new and old, a great chance of a part on stage or backstage which will both challenge and satisfy.
A new arrangement for subscribers is that the sponsors offer discount deals on presentation of the ticket stub, so the variety of the shows is not all that people will remember. If you want 2 meals for the price of 1, or scintillating scissor work and sensational setting for your next hair-do, then you can choose your play accordingly.
But seriously, Canberra Repertory Theatre Society at Theatre 3 offers a suitable and even exciting array of plays, from farce to tragedy and all in between, for the coming year - the kind of program which should be just right for Rep and will maintain its place in the Canberra community through to at least the next Olympiad.
It's been a concern for some time that the membership of Rep is growing older on the average each year, while the younger keen actors around town have set themselves up in small companies rather than join Rep. This may well be a sign of the times a'changing - young people in general are more inclined to do their own thing rather than join established clubs. This program for next year, however, ought to encourage auditions from actors who want to work in plays of established writers and often with directors of good standing, including people like Aarne Neeme.
Theatre 3 also has an excellent performing space and technical possibilities for new people to take up and consolidate their backstage experience. Rep should not be left to the old guard: it's time now for a new generation to work the repertoire of established plays.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 20 October 2000
2000: Return to the Forbidden Planet by Bob Carlton
Return to the Forbidden Planet by Bob Carlton. Phoenix Players directed by Janine O'Dwyer. Musical director, Steve Herczeg. Belconnen Community Centre October 20 - November 4, 8pm.
Great Balls of Fire is the theme of this blend of The Tempest and the 1950's sci fi movie The Forbidden Planet, with a set designed by Kelda McManus drawing on Metropolis, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Dr Who and Alien. Could anyone ask for more? Not much, if the applause and clapping in time with Great Balls at the end on opening night was anything to go by.
It's a complex show technically, with live rock and roll, acoustic trumpets, wired and radio mikes, video of strange planets, creatures from Dr Prospero's subconscious id, and George Huitker as a Puckish Newsreader who closed the show asking that the critics be kind. Well, I'm certainly inclined that way, though it was unfortunate that Science Officer/Gloria had to sing her romantic farewell without amplification. Kelda McManus, in Gloria's role, will get that fixed pronto.
The cast was an effective ensemble: no weak points, but some special strengths in Matt Kelly as Cookie, Luke Barron as the robot Ariel, with some nice work from Melissa Franks as Miranda. The band was strong and together, and the audio mixing good most of the time, except occasionally when mikes came up a bit late. Lighting was both well designed and well executed. The technical side of this kind of show in a Community Centre is always a nightmare, but Chris Neal and Paul Cortese put it together well.
It was particularly pleasing to hear all the actors handle Shakespeare's lines clearly and meaningfully. Of course, the show wouldn't work without lines like "To beep or not to beep, that's the question", but there are many speeches which I've heard mangled in their original contexts, let alone when they are dragged out and deliberately dumped into the weird situations in this space odyssey. Phoenix rose to the occasion, and got the laughs they deserved.
Timing is all in comedy, and the first night pacing was a little slow. I'm sure this will pick up, so drop in to Belconnen for a fun night out.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Great Balls of Fire is the theme of this blend of The Tempest and the 1950's sci fi movie The Forbidden Planet, with a set designed by Kelda McManus drawing on Metropolis, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Dr Who and Alien. Could anyone ask for more? Not much, if the applause and clapping in time with Great Balls at the end on opening night was anything to go by.
It's a complex show technically, with live rock and roll, acoustic trumpets, wired and radio mikes, video of strange planets, creatures from Dr Prospero's subconscious id, and George Huitker as a Puckish Newsreader who closed the show asking that the critics be kind. Well, I'm certainly inclined that way, though it was unfortunate that Science Officer/Gloria had to sing her romantic farewell without amplification. Kelda McManus, in Gloria's role, will get that fixed pronto.
The cast was an effective ensemble: no weak points, but some special strengths in Matt Kelly as Cookie, Luke Barron as the robot Ariel, with some nice work from Melissa Franks as Miranda. The band was strong and together, and the audio mixing good most of the time, except occasionally when mikes came up a bit late. Lighting was both well designed and well executed. The technical side of this kind of show in a Community Centre is always a nightmare, but Chris Neal and Paul Cortese put it together well.
It was particularly pleasing to hear all the actors handle Shakespeare's lines clearly and meaningfully. Of course, the show wouldn't work without lines like "To beep or not to beep, that's the question", but there are many speeches which I've heard mangled in their original contexts, let alone when they are dragged out and deliberately dumped into the weird situations in this space odyssey. Phoenix rose to the occasion, and got the laughs they deserved.
Timing is all in comedy, and the first night pacing was a little slow. I'm sure this will pick up, so drop in to Belconnen for a fun night out.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 19 October 2000
2000: Gnat's Nightmare by George Huitker
Gnat's Nightmare written and directed by George Huitker. Free Rain Theatre Company at Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, 8pm. Until October 28. Bookings 6257 1077.
And book you should, especially considering how small the Courtyard Theatre is. It's an intimate space for a nightmare, and you ought not to miss Huitker's work. It's original, whimsical and telling - at times a light, humorous drama movement workshop, and then something else again as a young boy's image of himself is shattered with twists and turns of incomprehensible flashes of reality from the world of older children and adults.
Fortunately, as the real little boy on the video tells us, you can end the nightmare: "You just open your eyes." And indeed that's what Huitker does for us all - opens our eyes to the way the news and the fictions of adult society become mixed, refracted and reflected in the minds of our children. Huitker's young Gnat (pronounce the G, if you please) even has to face the nightmare of his own parents - in a house of carpets which eat you, taps which deliberately spray you with hot water and other unpleasantries - fail him when he calls for help.
Though we are relieved when Gnat at last finds peace in slumber, and Huitker allows us a happy ending, his surreal pictures of computer games, war games, aliens from somewhere else in the universe, the classroom "blah, blah", playground hate and rejection, a shadow which turns against us, mysterious physical sensations and the mother of all red-back spiders, leave us knowing that it is not just little Gnat who faces terror every night. Too often we humans create worse terrors in such real places as the Middle East, and replay them nightly on TV.
For a small scale theatre company in a tiny performing space, I was amazed by the high quality production values in a piece which welds sound scapes and videos with complex lighting, colours and lots of movement by a cast of 18. Everything fitted together, everything worked, every detail was right. Even if you feel dubious about nightmares, just go for the theatricality. It's worth it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
And book you should, especially considering how small the Courtyard Theatre is. It's an intimate space for a nightmare, and you ought not to miss Huitker's work. It's original, whimsical and telling - at times a light, humorous drama movement workshop, and then something else again as a young boy's image of himself is shattered with twists and turns of incomprehensible flashes of reality from the world of older children and adults.
Fortunately, as the real little boy on the video tells us, you can end the nightmare: "You just open your eyes." And indeed that's what Huitker does for us all - opens our eyes to the way the news and the fictions of adult society become mixed, refracted and reflected in the minds of our children. Huitker's young Gnat (pronounce the G, if you please) even has to face the nightmare of his own parents - in a house of carpets which eat you, taps which deliberately spray you with hot water and other unpleasantries - fail him when he calls for help.
Though we are relieved when Gnat at last finds peace in slumber, and Huitker allows us a happy ending, his surreal pictures of computer games, war games, aliens from somewhere else in the universe, the classroom "blah, blah", playground hate and rejection, a shadow which turns against us, mysterious physical sensations and the mother of all red-back spiders, leave us knowing that it is not just little Gnat who faces terror every night. Too often we humans create worse terrors in such real places as the Middle East, and replay them nightly on TV.
For a small scale theatre company in a tiny performing space, I was amazed by the high quality production values in a piece which welds sound scapes and videos with complex lighting, colours and lots of movement by a cast of 18. Everything fitted together, everything worked, every detail was right. Even if you feel dubious about nightmares, just go for the theatricality. It's worth it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 25 September 2000
2000: Ship of Fools by Andrew Bovell
Ship of Fools by Andrew Bovell. Directed by David Atfield for Season at The Street, September 20-30 8pm. Professional. Book at The Street Theatre 6247 1223.
With a strong team of well-known local actors - Mary Rachel Brown, Tim Wood, Lenore McGregor, Iain Sinclair, Clara Witheridge and Stephen Barker - some will like this production while others will feel less enthusiastic. I began on the less-than side, felt positive at interval, and found myself swinging quite violently through the second half. I've ended up ambivalent.
The play is an intriguing parallel between two stories: how the medieval city of Basle removed its "problem" misfits by launching them in a rudderless leaky boat on the River Rhine; and how Centrelink sends our modern problematicals to Work for the Dole, with equally indefinite expectations, especially for the participants.
The result is daunting for the actors, each playing some quite strongly developed characters interspersed with brief cameos, in both modern and medieval periods. There was a tentative feel about the opening night, as if the production needed to build self-confidence, like many of the characters. Hopefully, a smoother flow will come through the season, especially because the stage design by Phil Rolfe works very well.
Alongside the plots is a philosophical examination - a fool is a person who is a fool but doesn't know it, while a wise person is a fool who knows it. The Pope's inquisitor into the Basle debacle faces his own hypocrisy and ends up in the image of Christ crucified. But the Fool, who knows he is a fool, ends up confused like the rest of us.
I think this degree of complexity needs a Shakespeare to make it work on stage. Bovell makes a brave attempt, but Shakespeare he is not, and it would be difficult to succeed in the modern abbreviated style. Bits work - like McGregor's Mother Superior, Brown's old woman Margery Clermont, and where the modern women discover the rapist on the bus - but the parts remain less than the dramatic whole we know we need.
Maybe the problem is simply that we really have no solution for the misfits and misbegottens of society, and the play provides no answer for us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
With a strong team of well-known local actors - Mary Rachel Brown, Tim Wood, Lenore McGregor, Iain Sinclair, Clara Witheridge and Stephen Barker - some will like this production while others will feel less enthusiastic. I began on the less-than side, felt positive at interval, and found myself swinging quite violently through the second half. I've ended up ambivalent.
The play is an intriguing parallel between two stories: how the medieval city of Basle removed its "problem" misfits by launching them in a rudderless leaky boat on the River Rhine; and how Centrelink sends our modern problematicals to Work for the Dole, with equally indefinite expectations, especially for the participants.
The result is daunting for the actors, each playing some quite strongly developed characters interspersed with brief cameos, in both modern and medieval periods. There was a tentative feel about the opening night, as if the production needed to build self-confidence, like many of the characters. Hopefully, a smoother flow will come through the season, especially because the stage design by Phil Rolfe works very well.
Alongside the plots is a philosophical examination - a fool is a person who is a fool but doesn't know it, while a wise person is a fool who knows it. The Pope's inquisitor into the Basle debacle faces his own hypocrisy and ends up in the image of Christ crucified. But the Fool, who knows he is a fool, ends up confused like the rest of us.
I think this degree of complexity needs a Shakespeare to make it work on stage. Bovell makes a brave attempt, but Shakespeare he is not, and it would be difficult to succeed in the modern abbreviated style. Bits work - like McGregor's Mother Superior, Brown's old woman Margery Clermont, and where the modern women discover the rapist on the bus - but the parts remain less than the dramatic whole we know we need.
Maybe the problem is simply that we really have no solution for the misfits and misbegottens of society, and the play provides no answer for us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 17 August 2000
2000: The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh
The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh. Sydney Theatre Company at The Playhouse, August 16 - 24.
This play, McDonagh's first, for which he received the English Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award in 1996, comes to us with a very long pedigree going back to J.M.Synge's Playboy of the Western World (1907). Unfortunately, despite excellent design and an interesting use of slow motion in re-enacting moments of dramatic tension, and an especially compelling performance by Tracy Mann as Maureen, the play fails at its core where it is sentimental and predictable.
The story of a mother (Mag, played with horrible guile by Maggie Kirkpatrick) who does everything possible to prevent her only unmarried 40 year old daughter, Maureen, from escaping an obligation to provide her with full-time nursing care is potentially tragic. Maureen has one chance of getting out not only of the domestic situation but of Ireland entirely, if she can marry Pato Dooley (played without guile by Greg Saunders) and go to Boston; her failure leaves her insane, a mirror-image of her mother. Yet the play is too contrived, too neat, to match the horror of Synge and later Irish playwrights like Sean O'Casey and Brendan Behan. It has an old-fashioned feel compared with these writers' works - which belong to the first half of last century.
Too much is made of the traditional comic Irish loquaciousness - the very stereotyping of the Irish that Bernard Shaw complained of a century ago. It is only in the very last scene - where the comedy of Pato's younger brother Ray (almost a caricature by Ryan Johnson) rabbiting on about inconsequential inanities, is set against the tragic turning inwards towards mental breakdown which Maureen endures silently sitting in her mother's rocking chair - that a real strength of feeling is created. So much so, indeed, that Tracy Mann was still visibly affected during curtain call on Wednesday, where applause was enthusiastic for the performers, even if uncertain for the play.
Through most of the production, laughs were too shallow for the depths the play should have plumbed, while stylised devices - used to point the significant moments - were too obvious, leaving us floating on the surface instead of being drawn down into the undercurrents of emotion where we would have fully shared Maureen's sense of horror at the end, and would have felt more satisfied with our theatre experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This play, McDonagh's first, for which he received the English Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award in 1996, comes to us with a very long pedigree going back to J.M.Synge's Playboy of the Western World (1907). Unfortunately, despite excellent design and an interesting use of slow motion in re-enacting moments of dramatic tension, and an especially compelling performance by Tracy Mann as Maureen, the play fails at its core where it is sentimental and predictable.
The story of a mother (Mag, played with horrible guile by Maggie Kirkpatrick) who does everything possible to prevent her only unmarried 40 year old daughter, Maureen, from escaping an obligation to provide her with full-time nursing care is potentially tragic. Maureen has one chance of getting out not only of the domestic situation but of Ireland entirely, if she can marry Pato Dooley (played without guile by Greg Saunders) and go to Boston; her failure leaves her insane, a mirror-image of her mother. Yet the play is too contrived, too neat, to match the horror of Synge and later Irish playwrights like Sean O'Casey and Brendan Behan. It has an old-fashioned feel compared with these writers' works - which belong to the first half of last century.
Too much is made of the traditional comic Irish loquaciousness - the very stereotyping of the Irish that Bernard Shaw complained of a century ago. It is only in the very last scene - where the comedy of Pato's younger brother Ray (almost a caricature by Ryan Johnson) rabbiting on about inconsequential inanities, is set against the tragic turning inwards towards mental breakdown which Maureen endures silently sitting in her mother's rocking chair - that a real strength of feeling is created. So much so, indeed, that Tracy Mann was still visibly affected during curtain call on Wednesday, where applause was enthusiastic for the performers, even if uncertain for the play.
Through most of the production, laughs were too shallow for the depths the play should have plumbed, while stylised devices - used to point the significant moments - were too obvious, leaving us floating on the surface instead of being drawn down into the undercurrents of emotion where we would have fully shared Maureen's sense of horror at the end, and would have felt more satisfied with our theatre experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 25 July 2000
2000: Elbow Room by Elbow Theatre
Elbow Room - wild variety and kooky stuff. Elbow Theatre at The Currong Theatre, Gorman House July 25-29. Bookings 6249 7377. Professional.
Elbow's program offers " live music, stand up comedy, sock puppetry, serious dwama, new writing, skits, faux rudeness, talent, 'art' etc", and the only thing I missed were the socks. That's OK, though: if you go on another night you might see them. Or maybe they got lost in the washing machine - which in the imaginary and imaginative theatrical space of the Elbow Room would certainly be a metaphor for Life. Life, unadorned, was a strong poignant moment on opening night.
Iain Sinclair, gently holding Timothy Wood's elbow, guiding him (eyes closed) through the blue door into all that Iain ever knew, seemed to me like a Clark Kent turned the S-man, holding the universe together. Though probably Lenore McGregor, who "produced and curated" the evening, was Elbow's S-woman extraordinaire.
If you are young and sexually active (or old...), you can't afford to miss this show's diversity of advice on the subject of love, from the neat, dry, even wistful songs of Jordan Best, through Jonothan Gavin's Shmaltz [sic], Clara Witheridge's Blanche from Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, Alexis Beebe's giving of gifts to Mr Spielberg, Peter Robinson's description of John and Janet Howard past the point of epiphany, to Timothy Wood's sort-of love for his dog (in "Dog" by Steven Berkoff).
There is a Marvellous Melbourne feel about an Elbow Room evening, like a satire of a comedy festival, and indeed I discovered that the Elbows will be performing Deviations by Allen O'Leary at The Store Room in Melbourne this December, in some kind of relationship with La Mama. We will get to see Deviations here at The Currong in November.
On the other hand Mary Rachel Brown (A Streetcar Named Datsun 120Y, Pig Biting Mad), nowadays a Sydney connection, has a new play, Lounge-room Culture, which Elbow will present next February.
In the looming space of theatre in Canberra, Elbow is a point source of light beaming out to the edges of the universe. You might need your sunnies on to filter the brilliance of the language, mime and black humour - this is a warning you should take very seriously.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Elbow's program offers " live music, stand up comedy, sock puppetry, serious dwama, new writing, skits, faux rudeness, talent, 'art' etc", and the only thing I missed were the socks. That's OK, though: if you go on another night you might see them. Or maybe they got lost in the washing machine - which in the imaginary and imaginative theatrical space of the Elbow Room would certainly be a metaphor for Life. Life, unadorned, was a strong poignant moment on opening night.
Iain Sinclair, gently holding Timothy Wood's elbow, guiding him (eyes closed) through the blue door into all that Iain ever knew, seemed to me like a Clark Kent turned the S-man, holding the universe together. Though probably Lenore McGregor, who "produced and curated" the evening, was Elbow's S-woman extraordinaire.
If you are young and sexually active (or old...), you can't afford to miss this show's diversity of advice on the subject of love, from the neat, dry, even wistful songs of Jordan Best, through Jonothan Gavin's Shmaltz [sic], Clara Witheridge's Blanche from Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, Alexis Beebe's giving of gifts to Mr Spielberg, Peter Robinson's description of John and Janet Howard past the point of epiphany, to Timothy Wood's sort-of love for his dog (in "Dog" by Steven Berkoff).
There is a Marvellous Melbourne feel about an Elbow Room evening, like a satire of a comedy festival, and indeed I discovered that the Elbows will be performing Deviations by Allen O'Leary at The Store Room in Melbourne this December, in some kind of relationship with La Mama. We will get to see Deviations here at The Currong in November.
On the other hand Mary Rachel Brown (A Streetcar Named Datsun 120Y, Pig Biting Mad), nowadays a Sydney connection, has a new play, Lounge-room Culture, which Elbow will present next February.
In the looming space of theatre in Canberra, Elbow is a point source of light beaming out to the edges of the universe. You might need your sunnies on to filter the brilliance of the language, mime and black humour - this is a warning you should take very seriously.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 27 April 2000
2000: Winnie the Pooh by A.A.Milne
Winnie the Pooh by A.A.Milne, a Garry Ginivan Attraction at Canberra Theatre April 27-28.
For me, this Pooh was a slick lick at the money honey pot, not the whimsical hums of Pooh that I remember from my tiny days. If there is anything we should keep from our erstwhile colonial masters, it should be not just the words of A.A.Milne but the sense of gentle humour, irony and comradeship which are exemplified in the Rescue of Piglet from a Wetting. What we got was a tightly timed performance which seemed to be controlled by a pre-recorded tape.
The effect was exemplified when I heard a parent explain to her 3-year-old after the show, "A movie's on a big screen. This was a play." It was hard to tell the difference. Of course, when Pooh says to Owl, "Eeyore's lost his tail, hasn't he children?", all the children yelled "Yes!" but the show had a mechanical feel instead of the warmth of real contact between the actors and the children that performers like Monica Trapaga achieve.
It is disappointing indeed to find myself so critical, because the costumes and set were excellent (based on the original E.H.Shepherd illustrations, not the Disney abominations), the singing was harmonious and the basics of the characters were strong, especially Tom Blair's Eeyore. The attraction of the Bear with Very Little Brain is so powerful that Canberra Theatre was full at the opening performance. Michael Lindner gave a generally sympathetic portrayal of Pooh, except that he fell occasionally into the trap of getting a laugh by making Pooh just a little too stupid.
The English pantomime tradition, perhaps, led to Christopher Robin being played by a woman, Laura Hamilton, who was a clear and precise actor - yet I felt that Christopher Robin being a boy is a strong point in favour of helping males appreciate sensitivity to emotions. Little boys in this audience probably missed the point.
The program reveals that three prominent songs have both words and music by Julian Slade, rather than being originals by Milne and H.Fraser-Simson. These were what Pooh might call bumptious songs - not his style at all. And one small girl near me wanted to go home when Tigger appeared in unimpressive pin stripes. Tigger has to be orange with big stripes, she informed her mother. So there! And, in Australia indeed, where were Kanga and Roo?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
For me, this Pooh was a slick lick at the money honey pot, not the whimsical hums of Pooh that I remember from my tiny days. If there is anything we should keep from our erstwhile colonial masters, it should be not just the words of A.A.Milne but the sense of gentle humour, irony and comradeship which are exemplified in the Rescue of Piglet from a Wetting. What we got was a tightly timed performance which seemed to be controlled by a pre-recorded tape.
The effect was exemplified when I heard a parent explain to her 3-year-old after the show, "A movie's on a big screen. This was a play." It was hard to tell the difference. Of course, when Pooh says to Owl, "Eeyore's lost his tail, hasn't he children?", all the children yelled "Yes!" but the show had a mechanical feel instead of the warmth of real contact between the actors and the children that performers like Monica Trapaga achieve.
It is disappointing indeed to find myself so critical, because the costumes and set were excellent (based on the original E.H.Shepherd illustrations, not the Disney abominations), the singing was harmonious and the basics of the characters were strong, especially Tom Blair's Eeyore. The attraction of the Bear with Very Little Brain is so powerful that Canberra Theatre was full at the opening performance. Michael Lindner gave a generally sympathetic portrayal of Pooh, except that he fell occasionally into the trap of getting a laugh by making Pooh just a little too stupid.
The English pantomime tradition, perhaps, led to Christopher Robin being played by a woman, Laura Hamilton, who was a clear and precise actor - yet I felt that Christopher Robin being a boy is a strong point in favour of helping males appreciate sensitivity to emotions. Little boys in this audience probably missed the point.
The program reveals that three prominent songs have both words and music by Julian Slade, rather than being originals by Milne and H.Fraser-Simson. These were what Pooh might call bumptious songs - not his style at all. And one small girl near me wanted to go home when Tigger appeared in unimpressive pin stripes. Tigger has to be orange with big stripes, she informed her mother. So there! And, in Australia indeed, where were Kanga and Roo?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 17 April 2000
2000: Within the Walls Exhibition - The Garden by Estelle Muspratt. Short feature article.
King's Hall in Old Parliament House has echoed to many a political intrigue in the past, but rarely to such an affecting moment as when students from Narrabundah College sang In This Heart by Sinead O'Connor to conclude The Garden, a 50 minute play about the children taken to the Theresienstadt Ghetto 1941 - 1945.
Some 140,000 Jews were transported to this holding camp near Prague which the German SS falsely represented as a 'model Jewish settlement': most inmates were sent on to their deaths in places like Auschwitz, while 33,500 died in Theresienstadt. Of 10,500 children under 15, only a few hundred survived.
In A Glance and a Kiss, one inmate, Jiri Pribramsky, wrote:
Kiss me...
So I might forget
The meadows between woods
and the purple heather
And everything else that
used to move me.
It's an awful irony that Within the Walls, the exhibition of the history of the Theresienstadt Ghetto, brought to Old Parliament House from the Sydney Jewish Museum, is so moving to us looking back after nearly 60 years.
Estelle Muspratt, a young Canberra actor, director and writer, created The Garden - a brief image of life in the ghetto of death - through workshops with the Narrabundah drama students, whose ownership is measured by the final script being directed by a student: Anna Nekvapil. Muspratt had considered a range of possible themes, and was struck by the parallels between the false picture of the Jewish ghetto presented by the German government and the placement of Aboriginal people in missions during the same period of history in this country. However, though she writes "I am not Jewish and I cannot even begin to tell this story with a whole element of truth", she felt even less that she had any right, being non-indigenous, to attempt to tell the Australian story.
In the end her play represents an indictment of all oppression, especially in the story of the special performance in the ghetto for the International Red Cross, to deceive the world about conditions there: all the performers, including the children in the choir, were killed. One of Muspratt's characters, realising it was "all a lie" cries out "Forgive us God, for we know not what we do!" Yet as Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel wrote to the President of the Sydney Jewish Museum from Prague on December 10, 1998 - the 50th Anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights - "[The Theresienstadt story]is not merely a history of suffering and oppression, but a testimony of human strength."
Within the Walls continues until July 30, including The Garden and painting workshops for children till Wednesday this week; a series of public lectures through May and June; Brundibar in late May, a children's opera originally performed in Theresienstadt in 1943; the Sydney Jewish Choral Society in mid-June; and the Emanuel Quintet in mid-July. Ring 6270 8222 for details and bookings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Some 140,000 Jews were transported to this holding camp near Prague which the German SS falsely represented as a 'model Jewish settlement': most inmates were sent on to their deaths in places like Auschwitz, while 33,500 died in Theresienstadt. Of 10,500 children under 15, only a few hundred survived.
In A Glance and a Kiss, one inmate, Jiri Pribramsky, wrote:
Kiss me...
So I might forget
The meadows between woods
and the purple heather
And everything else that
used to move me.
It's an awful irony that Within the Walls, the exhibition of the history of the Theresienstadt Ghetto, brought to Old Parliament House from the Sydney Jewish Museum, is so moving to us looking back after nearly 60 years.
Estelle Muspratt, a young Canberra actor, director and writer, created The Garden - a brief image of life in the ghetto of death - through workshops with the Narrabundah drama students, whose ownership is measured by the final script being directed by a student: Anna Nekvapil. Muspratt had considered a range of possible themes, and was struck by the parallels between the false picture of the Jewish ghetto presented by the German government and the placement of Aboriginal people in missions during the same period of history in this country. However, though she writes "I am not Jewish and I cannot even begin to tell this story with a whole element of truth", she felt even less that she had any right, being non-indigenous, to attempt to tell the Australian story.
In the end her play represents an indictment of all oppression, especially in the story of the special performance in the ghetto for the International Red Cross, to deceive the world about conditions there: all the performers, including the children in the choir, were killed. One of Muspratt's characters, realising it was "all a lie" cries out "Forgive us God, for we know not what we do!" Yet as Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel wrote to the President of the Sydney Jewish Museum from Prague on December 10, 1998 - the 50th Anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights - "[The Theresienstadt story]is not merely a history of suffering and oppression, but a testimony of human strength."
Within the Walls continues until July 30, including The Garden and painting workshops for children till Wednesday this week; a series of public lectures through May and June; Brundibar in late May, a children's opera originally performed in Theresienstadt in 1943; the Sydney Jewish Choral Society in mid-June; and the Emanuel Quintet in mid-July. Ring 6270 8222 for details and bookings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 2 April 2000
2000: Troy's House by Tommy Murphy. Preview feature article.
Queanbeyan playwright Tommy Murphy gave himself seven years to become a "theatre professional" when he spoke philosophically to The Canberra Times over chips and gravy in the Central Café back in 1998.
Already the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) protégé had had a successful production of his first play For God, Queen and Country, directed by Garry Fry, after winning the Sydney Theatre Company 1997 Young Playwright award, which also took him to the Australian National Playwrights Conference as a youth observer. With introductions from CCQ Director Gunnar Isaacson, Murphy had met with enthusiastic responses from film and theatre people in Scandinavia and New York. As Young Shakespearean Actor of the Year 1997, he mixed with other young award winners from around the world in an intensive two-week training session at the Globe Theatre, London, in the northern summer of 1998.
Murphy's second play, Troy's House, has progressed from a fascinating 1998 draft with gravy stains into a wild sort of satire of modern teenage angst, set in Canberra, "a suburban town that as far as I can see is an ideal setting for a romantic sexy story." "I am never entirely happy with the show," says Murphy, now a mature 20-year-old. "It's an encouraging discontent that excites me about the next night's run and the next project." It's his drive to keep working and re-working the play that has taken him through a production last year at Sydney University which was picked up by the Australian Theatre for Young People for a season at The Wharf Studio 1, followed by an offer from Tamarama Rock Surfers artistic director Jeremy Cumpston to include Troy's House in this year's Theatre Hydra Season at the Old Fitzroy Hotel.
But discontent rules. Faced with moving into the real world of Sydney pub theatre, though "I had made close friendships [and] had a cast with whom I was very happy ... I decided that I should open auditions for all the roles, to reconsider my direction and interpretation as well as providing fresh ideas from a new cast and to test myself and the script."
The new production, currently (till April 8)in Sydney and coming to the Queanbeyan Bicentennial Centre April 13-15, has been compared with the Australian icon film Muriel's Wedding for its zany picture of suburban dysfunction. The connection with the film is close, perhaps, because Gabby Millgate - who played Muriel's sister - fell in love with the role of Troy's mother Diane and now has the part. Lucy Wirth, the original Diane, now plays Felicity, the main character in the play whose experiences become much more surreal than anything in Muriel's Wedding. Her alter ego, Teree (Anna Barry) takes her on what Murphy calls "a tour from a point of view accelerated 1000 years. She reminds Felicity that human history can remember a lot of unremarkable people."
His character Felicity's anxiety about whether she will be remembered shouldn't be a worry for her author, judging by Murphy's progress so far. His next project is under way, a script being developed with his film-maker elder brother Marty, which remains a mystery at this early stage. It's unlikely that the return of Queanbeyan's ex-patriot will be forgotten, though how the transition will work from the tiny claustrophobic stage and close-encounter audience of the Old Fitzroy Hotel to the clean cool aircraft hangar of the Bicentennial Centre will be a wonder to behold.
Maybe the School of Arts Café should consider a shift from cabaret to what one Sydney reviewer, Colin Rose, delightedly described as "an obscene, trash-talking send-up of dead-end youth and their blighted existence in the nation's capital." Changing the menu to suit might be a problem, however.
Murphy's 1998 seven-year program seems a mite pessimistic now, after only two years running with Troy's House and his theatre group Your Mum already with money in the bank. The Queanbeyan season is a credit to the CCQ and Gunnar Isaacson's work in encouraging young people to make their own way in theatre and media. We will keep watching Murphy's progress.
Your Mum presents Troy's House by Tommy Murphy. Bicentennial Centre, Queanbeyan, Thurs April 13 - Sat April 15, 8pm. Thursday Matinee 12 noon. Bookings: 6298 0298.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Already the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) protégé had had a successful production of his first play For God, Queen and Country, directed by Garry Fry, after winning the Sydney Theatre Company 1997 Young Playwright award, which also took him to the Australian National Playwrights Conference as a youth observer. With introductions from CCQ Director Gunnar Isaacson, Murphy had met with enthusiastic responses from film and theatre people in Scandinavia and New York. As Young Shakespearean Actor of the Year 1997, he mixed with other young award winners from around the world in an intensive two-week training session at the Globe Theatre, London, in the northern summer of 1998.
Murphy's second play, Troy's House, has progressed from a fascinating 1998 draft with gravy stains into a wild sort of satire of modern teenage angst, set in Canberra, "a suburban town that as far as I can see is an ideal setting for a romantic sexy story." "I am never entirely happy with the show," says Murphy, now a mature 20-year-old. "It's an encouraging discontent that excites me about the next night's run and the next project." It's his drive to keep working and re-working the play that has taken him through a production last year at Sydney University which was picked up by the Australian Theatre for Young People for a season at The Wharf Studio 1, followed by an offer from Tamarama Rock Surfers artistic director Jeremy Cumpston to include Troy's House in this year's Theatre Hydra Season at the Old Fitzroy Hotel.
But discontent rules. Faced with moving into the real world of Sydney pub theatre, though "I had made close friendships [and] had a cast with whom I was very happy ... I decided that I should open auditions for all the roles, to reconsider my direction and interpretation as well as providing fresh ideas from a new cast and to test myself and the script."
The new production, currently (till April 8)in Sydney and coming to the Queanbeyan Bicentennial Centre April 13-15, has been compared with the Australian icon film Muriel's Wedding for its zany picture of suburban dysfunction. The connection with the film is close, perhaps, because Gabby Millgate - who played Muriel's sister - fell in love with the role of Troy's mother Diane and now has the part. Lucy Wirth, the original Diane, now plays Felicity, the main character in the play whose experiences become much more surreal than anything in Muriel's Wedding. Her alter ego, Teree (Anna Barry) takes her on what Murphy calls "a tour from a point of view accelerated 1000 years. She reminds Felicity that human history can remember a lot of unremarkable people."
His character Felicity's anxiety about whether she will be remembered shouldn't be a worry for her author, judging by Murphy's progress so far. His next project is under way, a script being developed with his film-maker elder brother Marty, which remains a mystery at this early stage. It's unlikely that the return of Queanbeyan's ex-patriot will be forgotten, though how the transition will work from the tiny claustrophobic stage and close-encounter audience of the Old Fitzroy Hotel to the clean cool aircraft hangar of the Bicentennial Centre will be a wonder to behold.
Maybe the School of Arts Café should consider a shift from cabaret to what one Sydney reviewer, Colin Rose, delightedly described as "an obscene, trash-talking send-up of dead-end youth and their blighted existence in the nation's capital." Changing the menu to suit might be a problem, however.
Murphy's 1998 seven-year program seems a mite pessimistic now, after only two years running with Troy's House and his theatre group Your Mum already with money in the bank. The Queanbeyan season is a credit to the CCQ and Gunnar Isaacson's work in encouraging young people to make their own way in theatre and media. We will keep watching Murphy's progress.
Your Mum presents Troy's House by Tommy Murphy. Bicentennial Centre, Queanbeyan, Thurs April 13 - Sat April 15, 8pm. Thursday Matinee 12 noon. Bookings: 6298 0298.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 22 March 2000
2000: Face to Face by David Williamson
Face to Face by David Williamson. Ensemble Theatre directed by Sandra Bates at The Playhouse, March 21-23 8pm, March 24-25 6pm and 9pm. Professional.
"Sorry to interrupt," said the Year 11 Drama student while I was asking Sandra Bates about how she achieved such realism from her actors, "but I have to do an assignment on the importance of David Williamson in Australian theatre." "Absolutely important," said Bates, "because he writes for the audience right now without caring about how important he is."
Diversionary conferencing is a right-now issue not just because it's having an extensive trial here and elsewhere but because it is the opposite end of the line which leads to mandatory sentencing. Should Glen go to jail for deliberately ramming his boss's Mercedes, when he's just been dismissed for his uncontrollable temper? Fortunately you can watch an expert convenor deal with an explosive situation - and you'll find yourself laughing, and maybe weeping - from the safety of your theatre seat.
Did Bates make the play work so well, or has Williamson at last really stopped caring about his importance? Actor Amos Szeps told me Bates gave the cast freedom to develop their characters but Bates explained that she rehearsed the play as if it were a real conference. Geoff Cartwright, playing the convenor as it really happens, separately interviewed each actor in role before full rehearsals began to get their agreement to attend the conference. So he knows things about each character that the other actors don't know he knows. This gives him the power to challenge each character/actor differently in each performance to create the spark of reality which this issue needs.
It certainly worked in the 104th performance which opened the Canberra season on Tuesday, so I can be confident of its ongoing success. But it wouldn't work without Williamson's tight writing, the best he has done since The Removalists 30 years ago. In 90 minutes 10 characters reveal themselves, their personal relationships, their class and cultural conflicts - a concentrated three-dimensional model of Australians at work.
Face to Face raises David Williamson's level of importance as a playwright. The Ensemble team is excellent. Justice is done. With discretion. It's mandatory to attend.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Sorry to interrupt," said the Year 11 Drama student while I was asking Sandra Bates about how she achieved such realism from her actors, "but I have to do an assignment on the importance of David Williamson in Australian theatre." "Absolutely important," said Bates, "because he writes for the audience right now without caring about how important he is."
Diversionary conferencing is a right-now issue not just because it's having an extensive trial here and elsewhere but because it is the opposite end of the line which leads to mandatory sentencing. Should Glen go to jail for deliberately ramming his boss's Mercedes, when he's just been dismissed for his uncontrollable temper? Fortunately you can watch an expert convenor deal with an explosive situation - and you'll find yourself laughing, and maybe weeping - from the safety of your theatre seat.
Did Bates make the play work so well, or has Williamson at last really stopped caring about his importance? Actor Amos Szeps told me Bates gave the cast freedom to develop their characters but Bates explained that she rehearsed the play as if it were a real conference. Geoff Cartwright, playing the convenor as it really happens, separately interviewed each actor in role before full rehearsals began to get their agreement to attend the conference. So he knows things about each character that the other actors don't know he knows. This gives him the power to challenge each character/actor differently in each performance to create the spark of reality which this issue needs.
It certainly worked in the 104th performance which opened the Canberra season on Tuesday, so I can be confident of its ongoing success. But it wouldn't work without Williamson's tight writing, the best he has done since The Removalists 30 years ago. In 90 minutes 10 characters reveal themselves, their personal relationships, their class and cultural conflicts - a concentrated three-dimensional model of Australians at work.
Face to Face raises David Williamson's level of importance as a playwright. The Ensemble team is excellent. Justice is done. With discretion. It's mandatory to attend.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 16 March 2000
2000: Canberra Dreaming
Canberra Dreaming. Images by Tim Brook, original music by Arne Hanna, choreography by Nicole Nerveu. Canberra National Multicultural Festival, Old Bus Depot, Kingston. March 16-18, 8pm.
My daughter won't come to dinner if I'm going to show slides. Now I know how she feels. At the bare, unadulterated Old Bus Depot you stand around on grey concrete under rigid girders waiting before the Dreaming, but you don't even get dinner. You are inexplicably escorted by young people on roller blades through a dark expanse to hard plastic chairs for an hour and a half watching slides of Canberra.
The slides are impeccably composed, each one aching to be used in a tourist promotion. They glide imperceptibly in slow cross-fades which sometimes produce unexpected overlaid images. You wake from your dream at dawn over Lake B-G, notice all sorts of long-shots, medium shots and occasionally quirky close-ups of a year around the city, returning at sunset to the dark once again. I had a nap about lunchtime and awoke to some odd underwater scenes: maybe someone was drowning?
The surround sound-scape was a mighty effort but became like the ultimate Phillip Glass repetition with shifts and variations which sometimes seemed to make sense but often didn't.
In front of the screen, with the images projected on them, a male and female did balletic/gymnastic exercises during the "Extended Overture" and the "Extended Coda". Each repeated a cycle of movements many times before walking, at the beginning forwards off stage, at the end backwards on stage. What their movements were supposed to mean I have no idea. Later during the "day" a group of small girls walked across, presumably to school, and teenagers mimed skateboarding and kick-boxing when the Civic Youth Centre appeared.
Despite my aching plastic behind, one photo really did wake me up: a close-up of autumn leaves, still on the tree, which had an amazing resemblance to Blue Poles. At last something of dramatic resonance, a bit of Canberra Dreaming - but alas this is the only meaningful experience I can offer. Or you can take it as an opportunity for a long meditation. Oh, and make sure you sit in the centre of the front row to avoid heads.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
My daughter won't come to dinner if I'm going to show slides. Now I know how she feels. At the bare, unadulterated Old Bus Depot you stand around on grey concrete under rigid girders waiting before the Dreaming, but you don't even get dinner. You are inexplicably escorted by young people on roller blades through a dark expanse to hard plastic chairs for an hour and a half watching slides of Canberra.
The slides are impeccably composed, each one aching to be used in a tourist promotion. They glide imperceptibly in slow cross-fades which sometimes produce unexpected overlaid images. You wake from your dream at dawn over Lake B-G, notice all sorts of long-shots, medium shots and occasionally quirky close-ups of a year around the city, returning at sunset to the dark once again. I had a nap about lunchtime and awoke to some odd underwater scenes: maybe someone was drowning?
The surround sound-scape was a mighty effort but became like the ultimate Phillip Glass repetition with shifts and variations which sometimes seemed to make sense but often didn't.
In front of the screen, with the images projected on them, a male and female did balletic/gymnastic exercises during the "Extended Overture" and the "Extended Coda". Each repeated a cycle of movements many times before walking, at the beginning forwards off stage, at the end backwards on stage. What their movements were supposed to mean I have no idea. Later during the "day" a group of small girls walked across, presumably to school, and teenagers mimed skateboarding and kick-boxing when the Civic Youth Centre appeared.
Despite my aching plastic behind, one photo really did wake me up: a close-up of autumn leaves, still on the tree, which had an amazing resemblance to Blue Poles. At last something of dramatic resonance, a bit of Canberra Dreaming - but alas this is the only meaningful experience I can offer. Or you can take it as an opportunity for a long meditation. Oh, and make sure you sit in the centre of the front row to avoid heads.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 10 March 2000
2000: Pink Triangles by David Atfield
Pink Triangles written and directed by David Atfield. BITS Theatre Company at The Street Theatre Studio, March 9 - 18, 8pm.
Three years ago I reviewed the early workshop version of this play, which presents us with an unimpeachable moral theme. The story of the treatment of homosexuals during, and horrifyingly long after, the Nazi regime in Germany was only able to be published in 1972 (The Men with the Pink Triangles by Heinz Heger) when anti-gay laws were changed. It took rather longer in Tasmania, and one of the sources of stories in this play, who survived the holocaust and lives in Perth, still cannot come out for fear of violence or, at the least, social ostracism.
The play has been fleshed out since its first showing, but I found it disappointing that the first half is not more successful theatrically. It remains a set of brief vignettes, now linked with devices which belong to the theatre-in-education school (spurious TV interviews, advertisements, fashion shows) which create some humour but are out of place stylistically for dealing with such serious subject matter. The problem is the famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who escaped Germany the day after the Reichstag burned in 1933, set the standard (in Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle) for epic theatre which Atfield cannot match.
The second half largely drops theatrical pretence, becoming a simple story-telling session with slides, a documentary rather than a play. The result is strongly focussed dramatic journalism, moving us out of apparent fiction into inescapable reality.
Probably if you read Heger's book or saw the documentary on ABC television recently, you don't need to see the play to learn more about this awful abuse of human rights. On the other hand it is a joy to watch four excellent actors - Jonathan Gavin, Peter Robinson, Iain Sinclair and Clara Witheridge - working together in a strong ensemble as they switch from role to role, backed by precision technical work backstage.
I suspect if this play goes further than this brief season it will be because of the importance of the message, supported by the relative strength of the second half, rather than the more desirable total theatre experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Three years ago I reviewed the early workshop version of this play, which presents us with an unimpeachable moral theme. The story of the treatment of homosexuals during, and horrifyingly long after, the Nazi regime in Germany was only able to be published in 1972 (The Men with the Pink Triangles by Heinz Heger) when anti-gay laws were changed. It took rather longer in Tasmania, and one of the sources of stories in this play, who survived the holocaust and lives in Perth, still cannot come out for fear of violence or, at the least, social ostracism.
The play has been fleshed out since its first showing, but I found it disappointing that the first half is not more successful theatrically. It remains a set of brief vignettes, now linked with devices which belong to the theatre-in-education school (spurious TV interviews, advertisements, fashion shows) which create some humour but are out of place stylistically for dealing with such serious subject matter. The problem is the famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who escaped Germany the day after the Reichstag burned in 1933, set the standard (in Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle) for epic theatre which Atfield cannot match.
The second half largely drops theatrical pretence, becoming a simple story-telling session with slides, a documentary rather than a play. The result is strongly focussed dramatic journalism, moving us out of apparent fiction into inescapable reality.
Probably if you read Heger's book or saw the documentary on ABC television recently, you don't need to see the play to learn more about this awful abuse of human rights. On the other hand it is a joy to watch four excellent actors - Jonathan Gavin, Peter Robinson, Iain Sinclair and Clara Witheridge - working together in a strong ensemble as they switch from role to role, backed by precision technical work backstage.
I suspect if this play goes further than this brief season it will be because of the importance of the message, supported by the relative strength of the second half, rather than the more desirable total theatre experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 7 March 2000
2000: The Director and the Doll by Jane Bradhurst
The Director and the Doll by Jane Bradhurst. Gallery Players directed by Cathie Clelland at the Canberra Museum and Gallery March 7,8,9 & 21,22,23 at 12.30pm and March 10, 24 at 5.30pm. A Canberra Multicultural Festival premiere.
This new one-act play is a good idea which is only partly realised - an interesting twist on the Pygmalion myth. The Director's creative abilities are applied to his actors while his Doll, waiting for him in lonely digs, critically reflects on him, a ventriloquist's doll who answers back.
The young actors Nielsen Gordon and Rebecca Clifford are clear and effective in their characterisations:in this tiny theatre - despite its technical limitations - and with excellent costumes, Cathie Clelland has produced a small success. "Enjoyable" and "gentle" were the words of one audience member.
For me, however, it is the script which held back the play, which should not be so gentle. The author explained to me before the show that the Director was "very good with actors but could not cope with real life". In her script I could see the failure to cope - and his need for the Doll to talk to - but I found it hard to believe that this Director would ever be very good with actors. Of course, we only get to see him talking to his Doll about the actors: we never know what they really think of him. He blames his frustrations on the amateur committees who employ him, but the Doll is surely right when she tells him that in fact he is not very good.
It is really only after this point that the play livens up as the Director uses the Doll to play the roles of his unworthy father and mother and reverts to his childhood, and it becomes clear that his mental instability is beyond control. The writing needs much more emotional subtlety in the early scenes, rather than exposition of the situation, to give depth and a full sense of the Director's tragedy at the end. Or a longer play could be made to show the Director in action as well as reflection: are the actors he directs another set of dolls, and do they answer back?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This new one-act play is a good idea which is only partly realised - an interesting twist on the Pygmalion myth. The Director's creative abilities are applied to his actors while his Doll, waiting for him in lonely digs, critically reflects on him, a ventriloquist's doll who answers back.
The young actors Nielsen Gordon and Rebecca Clifford are clear and effective in their characterisations:in this tiny theatre - despite its technical limitations - and with excellent costumes, Cathie Clelland has produced a small success. "Enjoyable" and "gentle" were the words of one audience member.
For me, however, it is the script which held back the play, which should not be so gentle. The author explained to me before the show that the Director was "very good with actors but could not cope with real life". In her script I could see the failure to cope - and his need for the Doll to talk to - but I found it hard to believe that this Director would ever be very good with actors. Of course, we only get to see him talking to his Doll about the actors: we never know what they really think of him. He blames his frustrations on the amateur committees who employ him, but the Doll is surely right when she tells him that in fact he is not very good.
It is really only after this point that the play livens up as the Director uses the Doll to play the roles of his unworthy father and mother and reverts to his childhood, and it becomes clear that his mental instability is beyond control. The writing needs much more emotional subtlety in the early scenes, rather than exposition of the situation, to give depth and a full sense of the Director's tragedy at the end. Or a longer play could be made to show the Director in action as well as reflection: are the actors he directs another set of dolls, and do they answer back?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 20 January 2000
2000: Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. The Looking Glass directed by Cathie Clelland for National Shakespeare Festival, Gorman House Arts Centre January 18 to February 20, 7pm.
In its early days The Looking Glass was rather narcissistic, but this production of Much Ado reflects a growing maturity.
I liked Clelland's direct approach to the text, set in beautifully colour-coordinated costumes, movement nicely choreographed by Vivienne Rogis, making a virtue of the courtyard space at Gorman House, and accompanied by quality music and song. I might call this a production divine - but "honest" and "sensible" come more to mind. Especially sensible: meaning you can make sense of everything that is said.
All the actors are effective, characters well delineated and voices sufficiently audible in the open air. The use of Gorman House rather than Aspen Island, though regretted by many, is the right choice for this play.
Sally Hendrie, as Beatrice, and Lachlan Abrahams, as Benedick, were notable for their rounding out of these characters, achieving, as Shakespeare surely intended, the self-awareness which lifts them out of the ordinary. When Beatrice paused and then told Benedick to "Kill Claudio", we felt horrified at her demand, with Benedick, but knew he had no choice. Here was the reality behind the sophisticated banter and wit. Equally strong was Phil Roberts' Dogberry, who showed us that justice is a constant, for the unsophisticated as much as for the verbally unchallenged.
In our world we face the same array of "clever" wits, political snakes, and men who assume a "natural right" to power. We also have intelligent women and genuine men. Shakespeare shows us models for living, and this production brings the models to life.
Particularly interesting was the calm assurance of Simon Lissaman's playing of Don Pedro - a prince we could easily believe was the epitome of the good prime minister. But see how easily he could be fooled into enforcing injustice - the error only revealed by the determination of ordinary people to report the truth, and bring the perpetrators of lies before the court.
Much Ado About Nothing is clearly about a very great deal, and I thank The Looking Glass for showing us so clear an image of ourselves.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In its early days The Looking Glass was rather narcissistic, but this production of Much Ado reflects a growing maturity.
I liked Clelland's direct approach to the text, set in beautifully colour-coordinated costumes, movement nicely choreographed by Vivienne Rogis, making a virtue of the courtyard space at Gorman House, and accompanied by quality music and song. I might call this a production divine - but "honest" and "sensible" come more to mind. Especially sensible: meaning you can make sense of everything that is said.
All the actors are effective, characters well delineated and voices sufficiently audible in the open air. The use of Gorman House rather than Aspen Island, though regretted by many, is the right choice for this play.
Sally Hendrie, as Beatrice, and Lachlan Abrahams, as Benedick, were notable for their rounding out of these characters, achieving, as Shakespeare surely intended, the self-awareness which lifts them out of the ordinary. When Beatrice paused and then told Benedick to "Kill Claudio", we felt horrified at her demand, with Benedick, but knew he had no choice. Here was the reality behind the sophisticated banter and wit. Equally strong was Phil Roberts' Dogberry, who showed us that justice is a constant, for the unsophisticated as much as for the verbally unchallenged.
In our world we face the same array of "clever" wits, political snakes, and men who assume a "natural right" to power. We also have intelligent women and genuine men. Shakespeare shows us models for living, and this production brings the models to life.
Particularly interesting was the calm assurance of Simon Lissaman's playing of Don Pedro - a prince we could easily believe was the epitome of the good prime minister. But see how easily he could be fooled into enforcing injustice - the error only revealed by the determination of ordinary people to report the truth, and bring the perpetrators of lies before the court.
Much Ado About Nothing is clearly about a very great deal, and I thank The Looking Glass for showing us so clear an image of ourselves.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2000: A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. The Looking Glass directed by Catherine Jean-Krista. National Shakespeare Festival at Gorman House Arts Centre January 18 - February 20, 7pm.
An interesting design idea, in 1920's style all in black and white, is the successful original spark in this production. However, though there is well-played comedy among the four lovers, there is not the real magic which the topsy-turvey nature of midsummer's night should create.
Jean-Krista and The Looking Glass's Artistic Director, Nicholas Bolonkin, have cut the play for touring, removing the rude mechanicals to "focus this production on the epic, natural, and supernatural themes". The effect, to my mind, has been to reduce the lovers to the mechanicals' level of rudeness - often very funny, indeed; while the Oberon/Theseus - Titania/Hyppolyta conflict left me cold rather than disturbed at the cosmic level.
Shakespeare deliberately contrasted the foolish but warm-hearted lower class with the foolish but basically selfish upper class, linked by Puck the intelligent "fool" from the other world, which is equally at the mercy of the failure of love to run smooth. With one of these dramatic elements missing (Bottom is represented but out of his proper context) other creative sparks were intermittent. Ritualised movement and tableaux were sometimes effective, especially in the final scene. Puck's fluid and often sexual movement worked well in general but at times Peter Hansen had to work a bit too hard to get effect. The recorded sound represented the action, but I feel would have been more telling if it had been in keeping with the 1920's visual style, and preferably played live.
In the final analysis I enjoyed the lovers most, perhaps giving the edge to Hermia (Claire Bocking) and Demetrius (James Inabinet) who picked up and ran with their characters - a seriously sophisticated flapper, and a dotty plus-fours flappy twit. And the supernatural did appear, in the guise of the sulphur-crested cockatoo who joined in the dialogue, and the wind-gust which ended the action and introduced "If we shadows have offended..."
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream are on different nights each week, so ring Looking Glass on 6257 7973 for details.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
An interesting design idea, in 1920's style all in black and white, is the successful original spark in this production. However, though there is well-played comedy among the four lovers, there is not the real magic which the topsy-turvey nature of midsummer's night should create.
Jean-Krista and The Looking Glass's Artistic Director, Nicholas Bolonkin, have cut the play for touring, removing the rude mechanicals to "focus this production on the epic, natural, and supernatural themes". The effect, to my mind, has been to reduce the lovers to the mechanicals' level of rudeness - often very funny, indeed; while the Oberon/Theseus - Titania/Hyppolyta conflict left me cold rather than disturbed at the cosmic level.
Shakespeare deliberately contrasted the foolish but warm-hearted lower class with the foolish but basically selfish upper class, linked by Puck the intelligent "fool" from the other world, which is equally at the mercy of the failure of love to run smooth. With one of these dramatic elements missing (Bottom is represented but out of his proper context) other creative sparks were intermittent. Ritualised movement and tableaux were sometimes effective, especially in the final scene. Puck's fluid and often sexual movement worked well in general but at times Peter Hansen had to work a bit too hard to get effect. The recorded sound represented the action, but I feel would have been more telling if it had been in keeping with the 1920's visual style, and preferably played live.
In the final analysis I enjoyed the lovers most, perhaps giving the edge to Hermia (Claire Bocking) and Demetrius (James Inabinet) who picked up and ran with their characters - a seriously sophisticated flapper, and a dotty plus-fours flappy twit. And the supernatural did appear, in the guise of the sulphur-crested cockatoo who joined in the dialogue, and the wind-gust which ended the action and introduced "If we shadows have offended..."
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream are on different nights each week, so ring Looking Glass on 6257 7973 for details.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 17 January 2000
2000: The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate adapted from the book by Margaret Mahy
The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate adapted from the book by Margaret Mahy. Jigsaw Theatre Company at Tuggeranong Community Arts Centre. Adapted and directed by Greg Lissaman. Music: John Shortis. Design: Matthew Aberline. January 17-22 11am and 2pm daily. Phone 6293 9099.
2 and 3 year olds dancing in the aisles is enough to say "Go and see this show with your littlies". But the strength of the miming, singing and dancing of well-known actors Chrissie Shaw and Tim Wood - in telling the story of the uptight unknown accountant in the neat brown suit who makes a break against all the good sense of his pencil and ruler to take his ex-pirate mother to the seaside and discovers "the weave and the wave" of the sea - was demonstrated by how both the adults and a group of intellectually handicapped people (from The Warehouse, Belconnen Youth Centre) were equally engaged. Warehouse Coordinator, Dylan Shaw was as pleased as any parent could be with this mythic drama of "letting go and taking on a life".
This play, using much of the text from the original story, has a gentle, quite intriguing quality, supported by Shortis's whimsical music and especially by recorded sound which is neatly moved around the stage in stereo. Jigsaw's new stage manager, Catherine Wright, is a strong addition to their excellent design and technical team.
Jigsaw has made the right move out of Gorman House (now perhaps too much in the "contemporary arts" pigeonhole), like the man in the story, to the Tuggeranong Community Arts Centre (by the lake if not the seaside) where there seems to be a special sense of freedom of access for Jigsaw's natural audience. TCA also brings a new bright office with a view, and close contact with ACT Department of Education which funds the core program for schools. As well, with Australia Council and other sponsorship, Jigsaw is setting up a 3-4 year repertory program of local, national and international early childhood, school-age and adult productions: The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate will complete its school and pre-school program in the ACT this year, and is expected to be seen in Sydney and Tasmania in 2001. Email: jigsaw@dynamite.com.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2 and 3 year olds dancing in the aisles is enough to say "Go and see this show with your littlies". But the strength of the miming, singing and dancing of well-known actors Chrissie Shaw and Tim Wood - in telling the story of the uptight unknown accountant in the neat brown suit who makes a break against all the good sense of his pencil and ruler to take his ex-pirate mother to the seaside and discovers "the weave and the wave" of the sea - was demonstrated by how both the adults and a group of intellectually handicapped people (from The Warehouse, Belconnen Youth Centre) were equally engaged. Warehouse Coordinator, Dylan Shaw was as pleased as any parent could be with this mythic drama of "letting go and taking on a life".
This play, using much of the text from the original story, has a gentle, quite intriguing quality, supported by Shortis's whimsical music and especially by recorded sound which is neatly moved around the stage in stereo. Jigsaw's new stage manager, Catherine Wright, is a strong addition to their excellent design and technical team.
Jigsaw has made the right move out of Gorman House (now perhaps too much in the "contemporary arts" pigeonhole), like the man in the story, to the Tuggeranong Community Arts Centre (by the lake if not the seaside) where there seems to be a special sense of freedom of access for Jigsaw's natural audience. TCA also brings a new bright office with a view, and close contact with ACT Department of Education which funds the core program for schools. As well, with Australia Council and other sponsorship, Jigsaw is setting up a 3-4 year repertory program of local, national and international early childhood, school-age and adult productions: The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate will complete its school and pre-school program in the ACT this year, and is expected to be seen in Sydney and Tasmania in 2001. Email: jigsaw@dynamite.com.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)