Rarely Everage: The Lives of Barry Humphries. National Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House, until February 16, 2003.
Dame Edna Everage, wife of Norm Everage (deceased), first took to the stage in high dudgeon. According to her own autobiography My Gorgeous Life, when callow 1950's university student, Barry Humphries, invited her to watch a rehearsal, his portrayal of a housewife was "cynically promoted by a man 'en travestie' who mocks and denigrates all that we stand for and hold sacred". She had no hesitation in showing him how to do it properly, as she has continued to do ever since.
I seem to pry improperly if I write about Humphries separately from Dame Edna, the megastar I know so well on stage and television. But this excellent exhibition gives us permission to know the man whose remarkable artistic creation she is. If she is "rarely everage", Humphries has never been average.
His mother seems to have been very average, giving away his collection of books on the arts, when he was still in his mid-teens, to the Salvation Army, with the justification in the face of his complaints "But you've already read them!" And how could young Barry not develop a satirical view of life when his parents got him a job with a record company - to prevent him from becoming an actor - just as 78s were being replaced by LPs. Every day he was ordered to destroy - literally smash with a hammer - beautiful but now commercially out-of-date recordings of the classical music he had come to love. With friends like his parents ....
Rather than give you mere highlights of the exhibition - after all if you haven't seen it you surely will by February 16 - there is a story behind the display that people should know. Despite Humphries being mentioned in Hansard back in the 1980s as an unacceptable representative of Australia overseas, the public servants who staff the National Portrait Gallery had no hesitation in selecting him to be the first in a projected series of exhibitions that "explore the biography and the achievements of significant Australians".
Assistant Director Simon Elliott, who took the lead role in negotiating, collecting and designing the exhibition deserves our accolades for showing us not a "still life" portrait but a moving picture of Humphries as a child growing into a theatrical artist of stature.
In creating Bazza McKenzie, Sir Les Paterson, Dame Edna, and many others, but especially the gentle spirit of Alexander Horace 'Sandy' Stone, Humphries has placed Australians in a universal context. The display of paintings, sculpture, photos, costumes, scripts, letters, posters and video elicits Humphries' humanity and intellect. His honorary doctorates from Melbourne and Griffith Universities are thoroughly justified; his Order of Australia makes obvious sense; his Special Tony Award and Critics Award just go without saying.
In his commitment to his art, to the integrity of his characters and the stand they represent in the face of shallow morality, we see Humphries' human understanding. We discover, too, his struggle with the inevitable thoughts of failure, perhaps represented in his battle with alcoholism, and with just the sheer hard work needed to make his creations successful, against all advice: first in home-town Melbourne, then in brash Sydney, then in uncomprehending London, then in absolutely impossible New York, and finally even in conservative middle America. In the US Dame Edna is now well recognised and returns shortly for a second mega-tour.
His work is in the Australian tradition of poets like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, comic performers and writers like Roy Rene ('Mo'), C.J.Dennis, and Steele Rudd before him; while Gary Macdonald and Reg Livermore have followed Humphries's court shoes. Norman Gunston is the closest to Dame Edna, but Macdonald's brushes with depression - and his need to divorce himself from a role played out off the conventional stage - have shown how demanding this work is.
We can now recognise Humphries' standing among serious Australian artists with international reputations. His creative work on stage is parallel to that of icons like Sydney Nolan and Patrick White, or Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Emily Kame Kngwarreye, representing quite different aspects of Australian culture over his lifetime. Barry Humphries continues the ratbag tradition. At the age of 68, he describes his hobby as "baiting humourless and self-seeking republicans".
Sandy Stone has been compared with Samuel Beckett's characters who forever are Waiting for Godot. Humphries himself played Estragon in his early days in London. Simon Elliott has displayed Humphries' search: he was never one to just wait. But now I wonder who we must wait for to follow Dame Edna when she at last slips away into Sandy Stone's armchair?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 16 December 2002
Friday, 13 December 2002
2002: Indigenous Youth Access Project at Australian Museum, Sydney. Feature article.
"Indigenous youth are the future leaders of their community but often miss out because they are a [small] group of Australians. The more we listen, however, the more we learn just how interested and motivated a group they are."
This is how the director of the Australian Museum, Professor Mike Archer, introduces a first-of-its-kind research study Indigenous Youth and Museums, a report of the Museum's Indigenous Youth Access Project, supported by the Commonwealth Government's arts funding body the Australia Council through its Audience and Market Development Division.
The report, by Lynda Kelly, Allison Bartlett and Phil Gordon, found that "Youth and, specifically, Indigenous youth, expressed a desire for inclusion and involvement to both stimulate their learning and test their skills in a peer and adult arena."
But the question has to be asked, do the museums have the will and the leadership in place to make the required "major shift in attitude ... to provide broad access to resources and collections, while taking a mentoring role and allowing Indigenous youth to control their own experiences through exhibition curation and progam management, as well as reflecting contemporary issues in their collection policies and acquisition programs?"
In the light of the recent High Court decision against the Yorta Yorta people, and the concerns about the renewal of Dawn Casey's contract at the National Museum of Australia, it is ironic that the NMA reports that "the use of Indigenous curators and community consultation about how communities were profiled at the NMA had helped draw Indigenous visitors to the Museum. The Gallery of First Australians is the largest and most popular of the Museum's five permanent exhibitions."
The NMA's emphasis on consultation with and involvement of the communities seen in the exhibitions is not restricted to Indigenous communities. The NMA represents the modern end of the museum spectrum for all Australian communities. At the other end, the Australian Museum writers asked of the general run of institutions "Will they change practices embedded in tradition?" and noted that "strategic decisions about audience focus are often made at managerial level and are usually resource-dependent", and they were "not sure that the will is there" for change even though operational staff showed a "keen interest and enthusiasm".
To bring the stories home, the report describes "Holly", a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl from inner Sydney and 13-year-old "Paul" of Western Sydney. Paul, despite juvenile detention experience and a lack of educational and family support structures, found the CD-ROM Keeping Culture extremely interesting, recognised names of people he may have been related to, and became keen to research animals and the natural world at the Museum. Holly's major interests were "being with friends, music and dance", but the focus group experience after visits to the Australian Museum and the Powerhouse Museum led her to express a desire to work at the Reception Desk of a museum or gallery, where she would "take great pride in talking to visitors about her people and culture". She wanted to see black faces at the front desk and among the floor staff and felt more comfortable at places that accepted her for what she was - "a young, proud, black woman".
As a comparison for Australia, again another irony, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council gave a large grant to Indigenous people in Alaska for the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository on Kodiak Island. Governed by the Alutiiq Heritage Foundation, representing 8 tribal organisations, the museum promotes awareness of Alutiiq history, language and arts. It enriches communities through innovative educational programs, including revitalising the Alutiiq language. (www.alutiiqmuseum.com).
Australia, without such generosity from guilty multinational corporations, has its own examples of locally focussed institutions such as the Koori Gardening Team at Melbourne's Living Museum of the West (www.livingmuseum.org.au) and the Minjungbal Resource Museum and Study Centre, Tweed Heads, NSW (www.amonline.net.au/ahu/keep/keep09.htm). Maybe the Australian Museum's research will bring old and new traditions together, in both Indigenous culture and Museum culture.
Indigenous Youth and Museums: A Report on the Indigenous Youth Access Project is available from the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre (www.amonline.net.au/amarc/).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is how the director of the Australian Museum, Professor Mike Archer, introduces a first-of-its-kind research study Indigenous Youth and Museums, a report of the Museum's Indigenous Youth Access Project, supported by the Commonwealth Government's arts funding body the Australia Council through its Audience and Market Development Division.
The report, by Lynda Kelly, Allison Bartlett and Phil Gordon, found that "Youth and, specifically, Indigenous youth, expressed a desire for inclusion and involvement to both stimulate their learning and test their skills in a peer and adult arena."
But the question has to be asked, do the museums have the will and the leadership in place to make the required "major shift in attitude ... to provide broad access to resources and collections, while taking a mentoring role and allowing Indigenous youth to control their own experiences through exhibition curation and progam management, as well as reflecting contemporary issues in their collection policies and acquisition programs?"
In the light of the recent High Court decision against the Yorta Yorta people, and the concerns about the renewal of Dawn Casey's contract at the National Museum of Australia, it is ironic that the NMA reports that "the use of Indigenous curators and community consultation about how communities were profiled at the NMA had helped draw Indigenous visitors to the Museum. The Gallery of First Australians is the largest and most popular of the Museum's five permanent exhibitions."
The NMA's emphasis on consultation with and involvement of the communities seen in the exhibitions is not restricted to Indigenous communities. The NMA represents the modern end of the museum spectrum for all Australian communities. At the other end, the Australian Museum writers asked of the general run of institutions "Will they change practices embedded in tradition?" and noted that "strategic decisions about audience focus are often made at managerial level and are usually resource-dependent", and they were "not sure that the will is there" for change even though operational staff showed a "keen interest and enthusiasm".
To bring the stories home, the report describes "Holly", a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl from inner Sydney and 13-year-old "Paul" of Western Sydney. Paul, despite juvenile detention experience and a lack of educational and family support structures, found the CD-ROM Keeping Culture extremely interesting, recognised names of people he may have been related to, and became keen to research animals and the natural world at the Museum. Holly's major interests were "being with friends, music and dance", but the focus group experience after visits to the Australian Museum and the Powerhouse Museum led her to express a desire to work at the Reception Desk of a museum or gallery, where she would "take great pride in talking to visitors about her people and culture". She wanted to see black faces at the front desk and among the floor staff and felt more comfortable at places that accepted her for what she was - "a young, proud, black woman".
As a comparison for Australia, again another irony, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council gave a large grant to Indigenous people in Alaska for the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository on Kodiak Island. Governed by the Alutiiq Heritage Foundation, representing 8 tribal organisations, the museum promotes awareness of Alutiiq history, language and arts. It enriches communities through innovative educational programs, including revitalising the Alutiiq language. (www.alutiiqmuseum.com).
Australia, without such generosity from guilty multinational corporations, has its own examples of locally focussed institutions such as the Koori Gardening Team at Melbourne's Living Museum of the West (www.livingmuseum.org.au) and the Minjungbal Resource Museum and Study Centre, Tweed Heads, NSW (www.amonline.net.au/ahu/keep/keep09.htm). Maybe the Australian Museum's research will bring old and new traditions together, in both Indigenous culture and Museum culture.
Indigenous Youth and Museums: A Report on the Indigenous Youth Access Project is available from the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre (www.amonline.net.au/amarc/).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 11 December 2002
2002: Shakespeare a la Carte. Canberra Youth Theatre / Warehouse Circus. Feature article.
Shakespeare a la Carte. A Canberra Youth Theatre / Warehouse Circus workshop production directed by Iain Sinclair. Musical director, Pip Branson. Circus director, Karen Yeldon. In Western Courtyard, Gorman House. December 11-14 and 18-21, 6.30-8.30pm.
Linda McHugh, CYT artistic director, announced at last Wednesday's opening, the establishment of a fund - the Branson Gift - for an annual award to a young theatrical artist working in the tradition of the late David Branson. Takings that night, and from the Viva Branson event at Toast on the same evening, have been donated to start the fund rolling.
The Branson's Gift Fund will be administered by Canberra Community Arts Front. For information and to arrange donations, call Canberra Youth Theatre on 6248 5057.
Meanwhile, the cart, with a convenient arras for stabbing people through, rolled into the acting space which included not only the grassed area - with appropriate gymnastic mats - but also the verandah roof of the Bogong Restaurant and up the tree.
Probably out of the tree would be a better description of this eclectic mix of original Shakespeare with up-to-date parodies in television style. Buffy the Vampire Killer is star-crossed lover Hermia. Steven Irwin captures Caliban, probably the most endangered species in the world. Jamie Oliver shows Titus Andronicus how to cook children.
The a la carte menu includes soup, which audience members can jump into, after an exciting auction, by taking part in a scene. On first night a certain well-known theatrical personality bid, largely against herself, to a winning $25 and became Charlotte the Great Big Heifer who briefly played Polonius and got stabbed in the arras.
Somehow circus jugglers and gymnasts were incorporated, at one point successfully representing Romeo and Juliet on the balcony by tossing a spinning diabolo from one to the other. Some say the young people, ranging from age 8 to 18, directed Iain Sinclair at least as much as he directed them.
This is surely in the Branson celebratory tradition: both iconoclastic and a learning experience. The show's energy will build after first night into an enjoyable mad-cap communal village green entertainment. All that's missing is a bear - but they do have a lion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Linda McHugh, CYT artistic director, announced at last Wednesday's opening, the establishment of a fund - the Branson Gift - for an annual award to a young theatrical artist working in the tradition of the late David Branson. Takings that night, and from the Viva Branson event at Toast on the same evening, have been donated to start the fund rolling.
The Branson's Gift Fund will be administered by Canberra Community Arts Front. For information and to arrange donations, call Canberra Youth Theatre on 6248 5057.
Meanwhile, the cart, with a convenient arras for stabbing people through, rolled into the acting space which included not only the grassed area - with appropriate gymnastic mats - but also the verandah roof of the Bogong Restaurant and up the tree.
Probably out of the tree would be a better description of this eclectic mix of original Shakespeare with up-to-date parodies in television style. Buffy the Vampire Killer is star-crossed lover Hermia. Steven Irwin captures Caliban, probably the most endangered species in the world. Jamie Oliver shows Titus Andronicus how to cook children.
The a la carte menu includes soup, which audience members can jump into, after an exciting auction, by taking part in a scene. On first night a certain well-known theatrical personality bid, largely against herself, to a winning $25 and became Charlotte the Great Big Heifer who briefly played Polonius and got stabbed in the arras.
Somehow circus jugglers and gymnasts were incorporated, at one point successfully representing Romeo and Juliet on the balcony by tossing a spinning diabolo from one to the other. Some say the young people, ranging from age 8 to 18, directed Iain Sinclair at least as much as he directed them.
This is surely in the Branson celebratory tradition: both iconoclastic and a learning experience. The show's energy will build after first night into an enjoyable mad-cap communal village green entertainment. All that's missing is a bear - but they do have a lion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 8 December 2002
2002: Cartoons 2002 Conference. Feature article.
Cartoons 2002 Conference, SAS Visions Theatre, National Museum of Australia December 7-8.
What does a Cartoon Conference look like? Raked blue seating. Black lectern and twin microphones. Overhead projector, laptop slide presentation, big screen. Just another board room. But in this case never a bored room.
Look, there's Little Johnny and Big Kim both trying to pretend to be Winston Churchill. Here's a photo of Maggie Thatcher's eyes, proving that Steve Bell's impression (in The Guardian) of her half-hooded malevolent right eye and her wild artificial-looking staring left eye was the truth, and not just his satirical warped view. Then wasn't it surprising to see how Tony Blair's eyes are just like Maggie Thatcher's. No wonder he goes for privatisation and war on whomever.
Starting with a UK perspective put the Aussie experiences of 2001 and 2002 in context. Where Bell's work draws so easily on Britain's long comic history from Hogarth and Gilray, producing complex absurdist fantasies, Australians drew so many spare and direct cartoons, about refugees especially. Here's a picture of lots of water, no land in sight. From the distant horizon to the foreground is a row of children's heads barely showing above the surface. A cheerful John Howard treads firmly along the "stepping stones". Only at this point do you notice that the heads behind him are sinking to their deaths, while those ahead await their destiny. Vale Siev X.
What's upsetting is to learn from academic Robert Phiddian that cartoons of "tough" politicians, meant to be satirical, serve only to immortalise the very image the politician seeks to impress us with. The polls prove it when large numbers want refugees turned back, despite sympathetic cartoons in every newspaper, tabloid and broadsheet, around Australia. The picture of Howard with regularly extended use-by dates will not make him retire at 64. After all isn't he proposing pushing the retirement age for everyone out to 70 or even 75?
As Fiona Katauskas put it in a neat little illustrated table: LIES Illegals, terrorists & queue jumpers (Ruddock); DAMNED LIES They throw their own children overboard (Howard); & STATISTICS 77%.
Political cartoons particularly rely on the use of irony - the contrast between what someone says, thinks or maybe even believes is the truth compared with reality. The problem is, despite what we like to think about Australians as against Americans, most people don't recognise irony when it stares them in the face. Dean Alston's 1997 cartoon in which Yagan's head yearns for "a warm beer in a quiet Pommy pub" rather than face the divided opinions regarding his return to Australia, is likely to be taken to the Full Bench of the Federal Court now that Justice Nicholson, while agreeing that this was a "demeaning portrait of Yagan", has found that it was published "in good faith" (Canberra Sunday Times, December 8). The irony is that the court case itself diverts attention from the real divisions among the Nyoongar community and possibly sours relations between the Aboriginal and white communities.
Cases like this are ripe for education, and perhaps the best way to set this up is by running a Schools Cartoon Competition. Lyn Beasley and David Arnold from NMA have done exactly that. Freelance cartoonist Fiona Katauskas, our own drive-time Rod Quinn, and NMA's Guy Hansen (who has organised the annual Cartoon Conferences since its inception in 1997) chose "Federal Politics" by Anderson Clarke of Willetton Senior High, WA (3rd Prize); "The Wizard of Aus" by Callum Padgham of Lyneham High, ACT (2nd Prize); while 1st Prize went to Pete Bramley of Scots School, Albury NSW for "God Bless America". Prizes are $1000, $750 and $500 to the schools and smaller cash amounts to the individual winners.
You can visit the Cartoons 2002 Exhibition at the National Museum for $7 Adult, $5 Concession, $3 Children. There you will not only see a large selection of the 250 Schools Competition entries, but also the best 100 cartoons of the year from newspapers across the nation covering the full range of political issues, videos of television satire and work by Peter Nicholson (of Ulysses fame), and the special exhibition Leunig Animated, opened last Friday by a favourite of cartoonists, Peter Costello, who complained that his ears are actually much higher up.
As a diversion to entertain myself, I surveyed 2 conference attendees. 100% supported keeping the old name for the exhibition, Bringing the House Down. 50% supported returning to the original venue at Old Parliament House. Like me, some people had not realised that the Cartoons each year are collected and exhibited by the National Museum, so I suppose they've come home now.
My conclusion from the Conference was in tune with Sydney Morning Herald's Mike Bowers who saw cartoonists as rather like court jesters: the only people with the licence to criticise the king. But then I remember King Lear's Fool. He died for his art, and the King learned the lesson - but too late to save the world.
But Sean Leahy (Courier-Mail) gave me hope that cartoons and education, hand in hand, may lead us to a new dawn when he said of readers: "They want to be provoked, entertained and to think for themselves". At the NMA, of course, it's the Dawn that may lead us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What does a Cartoon Conference look like? Raked blue seating. Black lectern and twin microphones. Overhead projector, laptop slide presentation, big screen. Just another board room. But in this case never a bored room.
Look, there's Little Johnny and Big Kim both trying to pretend to be Winston Churchill. Here's a photo of Maggie Thatcher's eyes, proving that Steve Bell's impression (in The Guardian) of her half-hooded malevolent right eye and her wild artificial-looking staring left eye was the truth, and not just his satirical warped view. Then wasn't it surprising to see how Tony Blair's eyes are just like Maggie Thatcher's. No wonder he goes for privatisation and war on whomever.
Starting with a UK perspective put the Aussie experiences of 2001 and 2002 in context. Where Bell's work draws so easily on Britain's long comic history from Hogarth and Gilray, producing complex absurdist fantasies, Australians drew so many spare and direct cartoons, about refugees especially. Here's a picture of lots of water, no land in sight. From the distant horizon to the foreground is a row of children's heads barely showing above the surface. A cheerful John Howard treads firmly along the "stepping stones". Only at this point do you notice that the heads behind him are sinking to their deaths, while those ahead await their destiny. Vale Siev X.
What's upsetting is to learn from academic Robert Phiddian that cartoons of "tough" politicians, meant to be satirical, serve only to immortalise the very image the politician seeks to impress us with. The polls prove it when large numbers want refugees turned back, despite sympathetic cartoons in every newspaper, tabloid and broadsheet, around Australia. The picture of Howard with regularly extended use-by dates will not make him retire at 64. After all isn't he proposing pushing the retirement age for everyone out to 70 or even 75?
As Fiona Katauskas put it in a neat little illustrated table: LIES Illegals, terrorists & queue jumpers (Ruddock); DAMNED LIES They throw their own children overboard (Howard); & STATISTICS 77%.
Political cartoons particularly rely on the use of irony - the contrast between what someone says, thinks or maybe even believes is the truth compared with reality. The problem is, despite what we like to think about Australians as against Americans, most people don't recognise irony when it stares them in the face. Dean Alston's 1997 cartoon in which Yagan's head yearns for "a warm beer in a quiet Pommy pub" rather than face the divided opinions regarding his return to Australia, is likely to be taken to the Full Bench of the Federal Court now that Justice Nicholson, while agreeing that this was a "demeaning portrait of Yagan", has found that it was published "in good faith" (Canberra Sunday Times, December 8). The irony is that the court case itself diverts attention from the real divisions among the Nyoongar community and possibly sours relations between the Aboriginal and white communities.
Cases like this are ripe for education, and perhaps the best way to set this up is by running a Schools Cartoon Competition. Lyn Beasley and David Arnold from NMA have done exactly that. Freelance cartoonist Fiona Katauskas, our own drive-time Rod Quinn, and NMA's Guy Hansen (who has organised the annual Cartoon Conferences since its inception in 1997) chose "Federal Politics" by Anderson Clarke of Willetton Senior High, WA (3rd Prize); "The Wizard of Aus" by Callum Padgham of Lyneham High, ACT (2nd Prize); while 1st Prize went to Pete Bramley of Scots School, Albury NSW for "God Bless America". Prizes are $1000, $750 and $500 to the schools and smaller cash amounts to the individual winners.
You can visit the Cartoons 2002 Exhibition at the National Museum for $7 Adult, $5 Concession, $3 Children. There you will not only see a large selection of the 250 Schools Competition entries, but also the best 100 cartoons of the year from newspapers across the nation covering the full range of political issues, videos of television satire and work by Peter Nicholson (of Ulysses fame), and the special exhibition Leunig Animated, opened last Friday by a favourite of cartoonists, Peter Costello, who complained that his ears are actually much higher up.
As a diversion to entertain myself, I surveyed 2 conference attendees. 100% supported keeping the old name for the exhibition, Bringing the House Down. 50% supported returning to the original venue at Old Parliament House. Like me, some people had not realised that the Cartoons each year are collected and exhibited by the National Museum, so I suppose they've come home now.
My conclusion from the Conference was in tune with Sydney Morning Herald's Mike Bowers who saw cartoonists as rather like court jesters: the only people with the licence to criticise the king. But then I remember King Lear's Fool. He died for his art, and the King learned the lesson - but too late to save the world.
But Sean Leahy (Courier-Mail) gave me hope that cartoons and education, hand in hand, may lead us to a new dawn when he said of readers: "They want to be provoked, entertained and to think for themselves". At the NMA, of course, it's the Dawn that may lead us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 30 November 2002
2002: Rinsing the Princess
Rinsing the Princess - 5 short works about love, sexuality ... and everything else. Aberrant Genotype Productions at The Street Theatre Studio, November 29 - December 7, 8.30pm.
Just ignore the overblown title this group have given themselves: this is the only sign of unnecessary pretension in a delightful evening of theatre.
Though Artistic Director Catherine Langman seeks to follow in the footsteps of the late David Branson, these 20 minute playlets are less confronting than his Short Stabs seasons, more conventional, less polemical, more lightly humorous, yet genuinely thoughtful. It was nice to find a quote from Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics used to make fun of intellectual pretension in Rosemary Fitzgerald's My Sinister Sister.
Perhaps the Medea sequence in Kate MacNamara's The Carnie Queen was the most disturbing in the Branson manner. She killed her children in this version because of Jason's physical and mental abuse. Yet by placing this and the scenes of Joan of Arc and Antigone as magic acts within a cheap circus setting, MacNamara distances us in the Brechtian sense, making women's issues stand out clearly.
Trampoline, by Mary Rachel Brown, has been seen in Sydney but here receives an original treatment by director Kelly Somes where the physical action reveals the metaphor of the poor jumping for their lives in the world of the rich.
Langman's A Stitch in Time was a much more predictable script, but with another interesting metaphor for life: grandmother's knitting does not follow a pattern, like her life, yet still things happen and seem to fall into place.
Puddle's Revenge by Adam Hadley was the most consistent script, giving Patrick Wenholz the most applause of the night. The absurdity of Puddle's life as a public servant was matched by his fantasy of becoming a Texas Lone Ranger, leaving us all wondering about love, sexuality ... and everything else.
Lighting, sound, sets, props and costumes were simple but effective thoughout. Enjoy the evening, and don't forget to discuss with your neighbours what the title Rinsing the Princess refers to. There's certainly irony there which David Branson would have appreciated.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Just ignore the overblown title this group have given themselves: this is the only sign of unnecessary pretension in a delightful evening of theatre.
Though Artistic Director Catherine Langman seeks to follow in the footsteps of the late David Branson, these 20 minute playlets are less confronting than his Short Stabs seasons, more conventional, less polemical, more lightly humorous, yet genuinely thoughtful. It was nice to find a quote from Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics used to make fun of intellectual pretension in Rosemary Fitzgerald's My Sinister Sister.
Perhaps the Medea sequence in Kate MacNamara's The Carnie Queen was the most disturbing in the Branson manner. She killed her children in this version because of Jason's physical and mental abuse. Yet by placing this and the scenes of Joan of Arc and Antigone as magic acts within a cheap circus setting, MacNamara distances us in the Brechtian sense, making women's issues stand out clearly.
Trampoline, by Mary Rachel Brown, has been seen in Sydney but here receives an original treatment by director Kelly Somes where the physical action reveals the metaphor of the poor jumping for their lives in the world of the rich.
Langman's A Stitch in Time was a much more predictable script, but with another interesting metaphor for life: grandmother's knitting does not follow a pattern, like her life, yet still things happen and seem to fall into place.
Puddle's Revenge by Adam Hadley was the most consistent script, giving Patrick Wenholz the most applause of the night. The absurdity of Puddle's life as a public servant was matched by his fantasy of becoming a Texas Lone Ranger, leaving us all wondering about love, sexuality ... and everything else.
Lighting, sound, sets, props and costumes were simple but effective thoughout. Enjoy the evening, and don't forget to discuss with your neighbours what the title Rinsing the Princess refers to. There's certainly irony there which David Branson would have appreciated.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 29 November 2002
2002: Dawn Casey as Director of the National Museum of Australia
Suspicion had been aroused about the long-term prospects of Dawn Casey as Director of the National Museum of Australia.
According to one report (by Penny Brown in The Australian 29/11/02), Minister for Arts and Sport Rod Kemp has informed Ms Casey that her contract will be renewed for only one year from this December, rather than a longer period of perhaps three or five years.
One external provider of theatre services to NMA expressed surprise at this possibility, considering the very great regard for Ms Casey's leadership style and program intitiatives among her staff. As a member of the Museum Performance Advisory Panel, in close contact with NMA Board members, he had heard nothing of the rumour. NMA's first Annual Report shows that more than 1 million people passed through the doors, and in evaluation responses covering the full year "91% of visitors state they are satisfied or very satisfied with their NMA experience."
Ms Casey will make no comment at this stage, her office stating that the report is no more than speculation. There is a suggestion, however, that an announcement may be made in about ten days. The Minister's office also refuses to make any comment either about the term of Ms Casey's contract or about any forthcoming announcement. On the other hand, neither the National Museum nor the Minister have issued a denial of the speculation.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
According to one report (by Penny Brown in The Australian 29/11/02), Minister for Arts and Sport Rod Kemp has informed Ms Casey that her contract will be renewed for only one year from this December, rather than a longer period of perhaps three or five years.
One external provider of theatre services to NMA expressed surprise at this possibility, considering the very great regard for Ms Casey's leadership style and program intitiatives among her staff. As a member of the Museum Performance Advisory Panel, in close contact with NMA Board members, he had heard nothing of the rumour. NMA's first Annual Report shows that more than 1 million people passed through the doors, and in evaluation responses covering the full year "91% of visitors state they are satisfied or very satisfied with their NMA experience."
Ms Casey will make no comment at this stage, her office stating that the report is no more than speculation. There is a suggestion, however, that an announcement may be made in about ten days. The Minister's office also refuses to make any comment either about the term of Ms Casey's contract or about any forthcoming announcement. On the other hand, neither the National Museum nor the Minister have issued a denial of the speculation.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 28 November 2002
2002: Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums
Little did I think, when I first sang the song, that When I'm 64 would suddenly be only two years away. Will you still love me? Or is it time to display me in some Museum of Ancient Icons: an original Beatles fan who saw Paul wave his hand from the Sheraton window in Kings Cross, 1964.
Well, perhaps not. You see, I'd be embarrassed by all the Young-olds (aged 65-74 years), Old-olds (75-84) and Oldest-olds (over 85) bending down with increasing difficulty to read the label at my feet and wondering who on earth (or on Wings) Paul McCartney was. They might be having problems with the font being too small, and the overhead halogen lights are probably reflecting in their glasses so they can't really see me at all. If they're wearing multifocus glasses, they may as well give up and let the grandchildren take them on to K-Space.
Of course, when they get themselves down the stairs, they'll find all the interactive media flashes too fast for them to understand what's happening, and the background noise will mask their hearing aids. In fact having all those children around is just a bit too much as their energy fades.
What they really need now is not love, but peace, in the form of a comfortable high backed seat in a quiet corner. But not so quiet that nothing is happening. Something stimulating to watch, maybe about stories from our past, mainly entertaining but with new things to learn. A bit of a different perspective on history without trying to tell us that what we remember never really happened.
So we pick up a coffee from the mobile unit on the way to the theatre. Comfortable seats, with nice upright backs. The house lights dim to reveal some black-and-white television footage: the Sheraton, Kings Cross 1964, a window close-up with curtain drawn. Then the street below crowded with young people, cheering. Wait a minute: they are not facing the Sheraton, but the hotel opposite. Even the policemen (lots of them) are smiling.
On his balcony, waving to the ecstatic crowd, is the world renowned classical concert pianist, Artur Rubenstein. If the Beatles won't show, why shouldn't Artur get the applause?
But then, a hand - it must be Paul's (it's not long and thin enough for John's, or rough enough for George or Ringo) - slightly pushes the Sheraton curtain aside. It waves. And the crowd turns into even more ecstasy - while poor old Artur stands alone on his balcony and begins to understand what the new world of pop idols means for him.
The four Beatles walk onto stage left, Artur Rubenstein on stage right, as if they are apparitions from the film become real. They slowly approach each other, and Paul shakes Artur's hand. Films show behind them of their concerts. As the sound fades, Paul and Artur talk over their memories - the exciting concerts, the fears and failures. Ringo leaves the stage, John goes, Artur goes, George quietly fades away. Only Paul is left, looking 64 himself by now, to tell his latest story - about how he couldn't come to Australia in 2002 because he didn't want to offend the feelings of the families of those killed in Bali, and perhaps because of the fear of a terrorist attack if he gave a concert here.
According to the report Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums, this theatre show would be just the ticket for Canberra's Olds especially. The research shows they have twice the interest in arts activities ( 8% against 4%) and three times the involvement in learning activities (24% against 8%) as Olds from Sydney.
When it comes to older people's motivation for visiting museums/galleries, in a survey of over-55s, 77% said "to experience something new" and 71% looked for entertainment. 67% considered themselves to be very interested in the arts (1.16 times the population average). What better way to satisfy these interests than by incorporating theatre in museums and galleries?
Yet the Report's 15 recommendations do not once mention the expansion of arts and theatre performances as important for Older Australians in museums, despite the international museum theatre movement which we have reported in The Canberra Times. Lots about labels, glasses, lights, wheelchair access, seating, sound, technical interfaces and cost - all most worthy issues which should not be ignored. But nothing explicit about the arts.
I just hope this nearly Young-old can look forward to an amendment to this Report before he reaches 64.
Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums by Lynda Kelly, Gillian Savage, Peta Landman & Susan Tonkin. A joint publication by the Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia. Copies available from Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, NMA (s.tonkin@nma.gov.au).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Well, perhaps not. You see, I'd be embarrassed by all the Young-olds (aged 65-74 years), Old-olds (75-84) and Oldest-olds (over 85) bending down with increasing difficulty to read the label at my feet and wondering who on earth (or on Wings) Paul McCartney was. They might be having problems with the font being too small, and the overhead halogen lights are probably reflecting in their glasses so they can't really see me at all. If they're wearing multifocus glasses, they may as well give up and let the grandchildren take them on to K-Space.
Of course, when they get themselves down the stairs, they'll find all the interactive media flashes too fast for them to understand what's happening, and the background noise will mask their hearing aids. In fact having all those children around is just a bit too much as their energy fades.
What they really need now is not love, but peace, in the form of a comfortable high backed seat in a quiet corner. But not so quiet that nothing is happening. Something stimulating to watch, maybe about stories from our past, mainly entertaining but with new things to learn. A bit of a different perspective on history without trying to tell us that what we remember never really happened.
So we pick up a coffee from the mobile unit on the way to the theatre. Comfortable seats, with nice upright backs. The house lights dim to reveal some black-and-white television footage: the Sheraton, Kings Cross 1964, a window close-up with curtain drawn. Then the street below crowded with young people, cheering. Wait a minute: they are not facing the Sheraton, but the hotel opposite. Even the policemen (lots of them) are smiling.
On his balcony, waving to the ecstatic crowd, is the world renowned classical concert pianist, Artur Rubenstein. If the Beatles won't show, why shouldn't Artur get the applause?
But then, a hand - it must be Paul's (it's not long and thin enough for John's, or rough enough for George or Ringo) - slightly pushes the Sheraton curtain aside. It waves. And the crowd turns into even more ecstasy - while poor old Artur stands alone on his balcony and begins to understand what the new world of pop idols means for him.
The four Beatles walk onto stage left, Artur Rubenstein on stage right, as if they are apparitions from the film become real. They slowly approach each other, and Paul shakes Artur's hand. Films show behind them of their concerts. As the sound fades, Paul and Artur talk over their memories - the exciting concerts, the fears and failures. Ringo leaves the stage, John goes, Artur goes, George quietly fades away. Only Paul is left, looking 64 himself by now, to tell his latest story - about how he couldn't come to Australia in 2002 because he didn't want to offend the feelings of the families of those killed in Bali, and perhaps because of the fear of a terrorist attack if he gave a concert here.
According to the report Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums, this theatre show would be just the ticket for Canberra's Olds especially. The research shows they have twice the interest in arts activities ( 8% against 4%) and three times the involvement in learning activities (24% against 8%) as Olds from Sydney.
When it comes to older people's motivation for visiting museums/galleries, in a survey of over-55s, 77% said "to experience something new" and 71% looked for entertainment. 67% considered themselves to be very interested in the arts (1.16 times the population average). What better way to satisfy these interests than by incorporating theatre in museums and galleries?
Yet the Report's 15 recommendations do not once mention the expansion of arts and theatre performances as important for Older Australians in museums, despite the international museum theatre movement which we have reported in The Canberra Times. Lots about labels, glasses, lights, wheelchair access, seating, sound, technical interfaces and cost - all most worthy issues which should not be ignored. But nothing explicit about the arts.
I just hope this nearly Young-old can look forward to an amendment to this Report before he reaches 64.
Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums by Lynda Kelly, Gillian Savage, Peta Landman & Susan Tonkin. A joint publication by the Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia. Copies available from Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, NMA (s.tonkin@nma.gov.au).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 25 November 2002
2002: Eye of the Needle by Peter Robinson. Short feature.
Eye of the Needle by Peter Robinson, a script in development, received its first public reading last Friday evening.
Elbow Theatre, directed by Canberra Critics Circle award winner Iain Sinclair, used its second last bucket of grant money to employ a professional team of actors for a week: new young actors, Lara Lightfoot and Tom Woodward, with the well-known Hec Macmillan, Camilla Ah Kin, Susan Lyons and William Zappa (recently seen here with Bell Shakespeare).
The script is an interesting study, with a nice sense of humour and touching sadness, of a Canberra diplomat's attempt to bring his family together at what surely must be his Malua Bay coast house: he couldn't live in the Canberra house after his wife died, and now realises that he is on the way out too. His son, daughter-in-law, her sister, and their children have a skeleton in their cupboards which becomes revealed to all.
Though in the form of a farce, the revelation leaves the future to a dysfunctional arrangement. At the end of the reading (at this point only an hour long), there was a palpable sigh from an audience wishing for more. So Robinson now faces the task of either taking more time to reach the revelation, keeping the focus on the old man, or peeking into the inevitable emotional mess of a third act.
I spent some time talking with William Zappa about the week's process. He was clearly impressed with the easy relationship which Sinclair had set up between the actors and author: a thoroughly satisfying experience for him. I found myself immersed in top-quality professional development discussion, here, at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra. No need to go to Sydney, or Melbourne, or anywhere.
Elbow Theatre is the descendant of Theatre ACT and Canberra Theatre Company: the in-town professional company complementing the largely touring Women on a Shoestring and the specialist Jigsaw Company. But what's this about the second last bucket?
The last bucketful will go on the development of Mary Rachel Brown's Intimate Strangers, to be seen in February/March 2003. After that Elbow Theatre goes the way of its predecessors, ironically just as Iain Sinclair travels away on a Churchill Fellowship to build on his already extensive international training.
Once again at the political and administrative level Canberra fails its arts community. What will happen to Peter Robinson's script - a play directly relevant to Canberra audiences? Is the problem in the Cultural Council, in artsACT, in lack of Ministerial leadership? Any other city of 300,000 worth its salt would have three Elbow Theatres.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Elbow Theatre, directed by Canberra Critics Circle award winner Iain Sinclair, used its second last bucket of grant money to employ a professional team of actors for a week: new young actors, Lara Lightfoot and Tom Woodward, with the well-known Hec Macmillan, Camilla Ah Kin, Susan Lyons and William Zappa (recently seen here with Bell Shakespeare).
The script is an interesting study, with a nice sense of humour and touching sadness, of a Canberra diplomat's attempt to bring his family together at what surely must be his Malua Bay coast house: he couldn't live in the Canberra house after his wife died, and now realises that he is on the way out too. His son, daughter-in-law, her sister, and their children have a skeleton in their cupboards which becomes revealed to all.
Though in the form of a farce, the revelation leaves the future to a dysfunctional arrangement. At the end of the reading (at this point only an hour long), there was a palpable sigh from an audience wishing for more. So Robinson now faces the task of either taking more time to reach the revelation, keeping the focus on the old man, or peeking into the inevitable emotional mess of a third act.
I spent some time talking with William Zappa about the week's process. He was clearly impressed with the easy relationship which Sinclair had set up between the actors and author: a thoroughly satisfying experience for him. I found myself immersed in top-quality professional development discussion, here, at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra. No need to go to Sydney, or Melbourne, or anywhere.
Elbow Theatre is the descendant of Theatre ACT and Canberra Theatre Company: the in-town professional company complementing the largely touring Women on a Shoestring and the specialist Jigsaw Company. But what's this about the second last bucket?
The last bucketful will go on the development of Mary Rachel Brown's Intimate Strangers, to be seen in February/March 2003. After that Elbow Theatre goes the way of its predecessors, ironically just as Iain Sinclair travels away on a Churchill Fellowship to build on his already extensive international training.
Once again at the political and administrative level Canberra fails its arts community. What will happen to Peter Robinson's script - a play directly relevant to Canberra audiences? Is the problem in the Cultural Council, in artsACT, in lack of Ministerial leadership? Any other city of 300,000 worth its salt would have three Elbow Theatres.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 3 October 2002
2002: The Dead Sea - Seed 2
The Dead Sea - Seed 2 in Rainsford's The Nightgardener series. Chapel of Change at The Street Theatre, February 14-16. 2002 National Multicultural Festival.
What a fascinating failure! What a mesmerising mess of slow-mo imagery which we are allowed to interpret in any way we like. "As with all Chapel of Change work, the intuitive calling in the performer takes precedence over any attempt to manufacture meaning or content." They said it: it's printed in their program.
And they achieved exactly what they set out to do: a tremendous sense of achievement for the performers, whose concentration never wavered for two hours; an enormous black hole of boredom for the audience, who were excellently polite on opening night of this 'world premier' until the final scene when it became obvious that the "ritual planting of 33 seeds" was going to take at least 15 minutes. The only excitement was that the globe blew in one, so that "seed" remained infertile; and everyone hoped that surely one of these water-filled plastic inverted cones would burst and cause some really dramatic chaos. But no - some dripped rather forlornly, making a mess in the salt (of the Dead Sea, you see).
The program does give a narrative rundown, about the daytime Motherfish and the night time Nightgardener, the Draki twins of the sea who become Adam and Eve .... If you don't read the program first, you will have no idea what the series of images are supposed to represent: but the company is so coy, writing "This story, the 'suggested' linear plot, has not been part of the process of development, it is written only for these program notes. There are many other levels and interpretations. So be brave, and choose not to read on ...."
I'll be accused, I suppose, of being insensitive, old-fashioned, unappreciative of theatrical imagery, unimaginative, certainly without a spiritual dimension. But I worked out all by myself that the 33 seeds represent the 33 years of the life of Christ (it didn't say this in the program) - though I couldn't for the life of me fathom what that had to do with anything else that I saw. So I tried, and was obviously found wanting.
Wanting clarity, connectedness, dramatic development, meaning. Not wanting self-indulgence, however beautifully presented.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What a fascinating failure! What a mesmerising mess of slow-mo imagery which we are allowed to interpret in any way we like. "As with all Chapel of Change work, the intuitive calling in the performer takes precedence over any attempt to manufacture meaning or content." They said it: it's printed in their program.
And they achieved exactly what they set out to do: a tremendous sense of achievement for the performers, whose concentration never wavered for two hours; an enormous black hole of boredom for the audience, who were excellently polite on opening night of this 'world premier' until the final scene when it became obvious that the "ritual planting of 33 seeds" was going to take at least 15 minutes. The only excitement was that the globe blew in one, so that "seed" remained infertile; and everyone hoped that surely one of these water-filled plastic inverted cones would burst and cause some really dramatic chaos. But no - some dripped rather forlornly, making a mess in the salt (of the Dead Sea, you see).
The program does give a narrative rundown, about the daytime Motherfish and the night time Nightgardener, the Draki twins of the sea who become Adam and Eve .... If you don't read the program first, you will have no idea what the series of images are supposed to represent: but the company is so coy, writing "This story, the 'suggested' linear plot, has not been part of the process of development, it is written only for these program notes. There are many other levels and interpretations. So be brave, and choose not to read on ...."
I'll be accused, I suppose, of being insensitive, old-fashioned, unappreciative of theatrical imagery, unimaginative, certainly without a spiritual dimension. But I worked out all by myself that the 33 seeds represent the 33 years of the life of Christ (it didn't say this in the program) - though I couldn't for the life of me fathom what that had to do with anything else that I saw. So I tried, and was obviously found wanting.
Wanting clarity, connectedness, dramatic development, meaning. Not wanting self-indulgence, however beautifully presented.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 16 September 2002
2002: Talking Heads by Alan Bennett
Talking Heads by Alan Bennett: A Chip in the Sugar performed by Kevin Harrington; A Lady of Letters performed by Joan Sydney. HIT Productions directed by Gary Down. Tuggeranong Arts Centre September 16.
Yorkshire, England 1987. On the telly you're watching this middle-aged man rabbiting on about his Mam. Still living with her, you know, this Graham. And he gets all upset because, at her age of 72 mind you, she meets up with an "old flame" from "before your time". Before Graham's father's time, too. Calls her Vera, but Graham's Dad never did. But it turns out alright when the old flame's daughter turns up and takes him away. He's always doing this, she says. Graham's Mam cries a bit, but she's forgotten him the next day, and says she still loves Graham.
A sad little story of circumscribed lives. Next week you watch this lady Miss Ruddock telling you all about the letters she writes and the replies she gets, and how she ends up in gaol. And it's funny because on her own at home she's so spiteful, but amongst the women in gaol she brightens up no end. But you wonder what she'll be like when she gets out: she won't really get a job typing letters, will she? She'll be round the bend again in no time.
Kevin Harrington (SeaChange) and Joan Sydney (A Country Practice) received what they said was the ultimate praise in the forum, after performing these monologues on stage in Canberra in 2002: "You were real for me" and "My mother was just like that", and it was generally agreed that these little scraps of English, even specifically Yorkshire, lives were given universal humanity by Alan Bennett.
We're just jobbing actors, explained Sydney, taking what work we can get. It's all in the writing, even the pauses. Bennett makes it easy for us. But it's not our job to tell you what we think about the interpretation of the plays, said Harrington. We just act, and it's your job to decide what you think.
"It was really good to see famous actors in the flesh," said a couple of TCA regulars. "We've never been to a forum after a show like this. A great night out."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Yorkshire, England 1987. On the telly you're watching this middle-aged man rabbiting on about his Mam. Still living with her, you know, this Graham. And he gets all upset because, at her age of 72 mind you, she meets up with an "old flame" from "before your time". Before Graham's father's time, too. Calls her Vera, but Graham's Dad never did. But it turns out alright when the old flame's daughter turns up and takes him away. He's always doing this, she says. Graham's Mam cries a bit, but she's forgotten him the next day, and says she still loves Graham.
A sad little story of circumscribed lives. Next week you watch this lady Miss Ruddock telling you all about the letters she writes and the replies she gets, and how she ends up in gaol. And it's funny because on her own at home she's so spiteful, but amongst the women in gaol she brightens up no end. But you wonder what she'll be like when she gets out: she won't really get a job typing letters, will she? She'll be round the bend again in no time.
Kevin Harrington (SeaChange) and Joan Sydney (A Country Practice) received what they said was the ultimate praise in the forum, after performing these monologues on stage in Canberra in 2002: "You were real for me" and "My mother was just like that", and it was generally agreed that these little scraps of English, even specifically Yorkshire, lives were given universal humanity by Alan Bennett.
We're just jobbing actors, explained Sydney, taking what work we can get. It's all in the writing, even the pauses. Bennett makes it easy for us. But it's not our job to tell you what we think about the interpretation of the plays, said Harrington. We just act, and it's your job to decide what you think.
"It was really good to see famous actors in the flesh," said a couple of TCA regulars. "We've never been to a forum after a show like this. A great night out."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 13 September 2002
2002: National Institute of Circus Arts. Feature article.
We are all aware of NIDA, whose graduates we see every night on television, as well as on the live stage. Now the new acronym is NICA - National Institute of Circus Arts. Based at Swinburne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, the 3-year Bachelor of Circus Arts began in 2001 and already has over 40 students, including Canberran Christian Reid.
Like Alex O'Lachlan and Gordon Rymer, currently at NIDA, Christian did not train for the circus at school in Canberra: but he spent years as a teenage member and coach in the Woden Valley Gymnastics Club, with support he still values from Alfred Deakin High School. Like the others he travelled after Year 12 to Europe where bar work (not the gymnastic type) sustained him, and came home looking for a new direction to take his gymnastic skills. What could be better than the circus for a gymnast who had never specialised but who loved floor work, the parallel bars, the trampoline and aerial work?
So what's the difference between circus and gym? Nowadays, it's about making meaning through theatre. It's called "new circus" and Circus Oz is the innovator and the continuing example in the Australian tradition. In France, nouveau cirque comprises 500 companies and 250 schools. In Italy the scene is similar. And in Canada and in .... In March this year, NICA hosted the Cirque du Monde's Social Circus Instructor's Program. Participants came from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Broken Hill to join with local Melbourne people to "share their experiences of working through circus with young people defined as being at risk". The program is currently taught in Montreal, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and Cape Town. So new circus is not just about entertaining people by twirling yourself and other things around in space.
In a recent industry forum, chaired by Pam Creed, director of NICA, Geoff Dunstan of Dislocate Circus explained "I feel it's really important in physical theatre, especially new circus theatre - and I think this is the greatest hurdle that we have to get over - is the ego of the acrobatic act itself. The trick can be fantastic, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the show, you have to leave that [the ego] aside." He also described a "great piece of theatre I saw was on the news, with a bunch of uranium cans with people - protestors - jumping inside them through one of the gates [of Lucas Heights nuclear reactor]. The message was 'if you are a terrorist you can walk into this place', the form was protest and the medium was the media ... and I think it is really important that we don't limit ourselves in terms of where we can go in our theatrical expression."
So this is why Christian Reid works 40 hours in class each week, plus doing bar work and gym coaching despite the physically tiring days - and he still claims to have a social life. In vacations he returns to Canberra for a break in the gym to keep up his fitness and strength. Classes are not just in circus tricks, but include clowning, character work, ballet, modern dance as well as business administration. And that's not mentioning helping set up the Big Top for Ashton's traditional family circus. As Becky Ashton said: "It's not a job where you turn up and perform and that's it. I'm a trapeze artist for three minutes each night and the rest of the time I do everything from filling show bags to putting up the tent."
NICA is now calling for applications for the 2003 BCA course, which incorporates a Certificate IV in Circus Arts and a Diploma of Circus Arts. The NICA team, led by the Head of Circus Training, Lu Guang Rong, originally from Shanghai, will conduct auditions in Sydney on September 26 and Melbourne on October 13, travelling to Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart in between.
If you want to see NICA in action in early December, call in to Melbourne's Federation Square. Marketing Manager Stan Liacos says NICA offers "exactly the kind of innovative, cutting-edge performances we need to help us activate Federation Square." You can find all the details you need at www.nica.swin.edu.au.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Like Alex O'Lachlan and Gordon Rymer, currently at NIDA, Christian did not train for the circus at school in Canberra: but he spent years as a teenage member and coach in the Woden Valley Gymnastics Club, with support he still values from Alfred Deakin High School. Like the others he travelled after Year 12 to Europe where bar work (not the gymnastic type) sustained him, and came home looking for a new direction to take his gymnastic skills. What could be better than the circus for a gymnast who had never specialised but who loved floor work, the parallel bars, the trampoline and aerial work?
So what's the difference between circus and gym? Nowadays, it's about making meaning through theatre. It's called "new circus" and Circus Oz is the innovator and the continuing example in the Australian tradition. In France, nouveau cirque comprises 500 companies and 250 schools. In Italy the scene is similar. And in Canada and in .... In March this year, NICA hosted the Cirque du Monde's Social Circus Instructor's Program. Participants came from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Broken Hill to join with local Melbourne people to "share their experiences of working through circus with young people defined as being at risk". The program is currently taught in Montreal, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and Cape Town. So new circus is not just about entertaining people by twirling yourself and other things around in space.
In a recent industry forum, chaired by Pam Creed, director of NICA, Geoff Dunstan of Dislocate Circus explained "I feel it's really important in physical theatre, especially new circus theatre - and I think this is the greatest hurdle that we have to get over - is the ego of the acrobatic act itself. The trick can be fantastic, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the show, you have to leave that [the ego] aside." He also described a "great piece of theatre I saw was on the news, with a bunch of uranium cans with people - protestors - jumping inside them through one of the gates [of Lucas Heights nuclear reactor]. The message was 'if you are a terrorist you can walk into this place', the form was protest and the medium was the media ... and I think it is really important that we don't limit ourselves in terms of where we can go in our theatrical expression."
So this is why Christian Reid works 40 hours in class each week, plus doing bar work and gym coaching despite the physically tiring days - and he still claims to have a social life. In vacations he returns to Canberra for a break in the gym to keep up his fitness and strength. Classes are not just in circus tricks, but include clowning, character work, ballet, modern dance as well as business administration. And that's not mentioning helping set up the Big Top for Ashton's traditional family circus. As Becky Ashton said: "It's not a job where you turn up and perform and that's it. I'm a trapeze artist for three minutes each night and the rest of the time I do everything from filling show bags to putting up the tent."
NICA is now calling for applications for the 2003 BCA course, which incorporates a Certificate IV in Circus Arts and a Diploma of Circus Arts. The NICA team, led by the Head of Circus Training, Lu Guang Rong, originally from Shanghai, will conduct auditions in Sydney on September 26 and Melbourne on October 13, travelling to Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart in between.
If you want to see NICA in action in early December, call in to Melbourne's Federation Square. Marketing Manager Stan Liacos says NICA offers "exactly the kind of innovative, cutting-edge performances we need to help us activate Federation Square." You can find all the details you need at www.nica.swin.edu.au.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 11 September 2002
2002: The Wish Palace by Eva Kaufman / Kate McNamara
The Wish Palace directed and adapted by Eva Kaufman, based on a play by Kate McNamara. Spandex Theatre at The Street Theatre Studio September 10-14, 7.30pm.
Spandex is new and its members young, heading out from college drama to explore the world through theatre. Eva Kaufman's intentions are sincere and this first production shows intelligence. But the script she chose is flawed. The result is a tension of the wrong kind between McNamara's dated and rather pretentious attempt to present heroin addiction as artistic expression and Kaufman's desire to show something more realistic about human capacity for self-delusion.
The group is entirely amateur, but one actor, Lara Lightfoot, had both the strength and sensitivity needed for these roles. Set in a psychiatric ward, Lightfoot's Julia discharges herself, perhaps now capable of coping outside, after the suicide of the heroin addict Bone (Max Barker) and the collapse into a vegetable state of Chat (Lydia Connell) from shock therapy. The parallels with Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were unavoidable and unfortunate, especially in the nurse's character (Sophie Rutzou).
What Kaufman tried to do was to find a theatrical format or genre to allow issues about using drugs and psychiatric treatment to be brought to our attention, but the melodrama - especially of the writer/addict/depressive Bone - could only lead to a kind of neo-Romanticism. Maybe Chekov could have written what she needed, but, being young, Kaufman perhaps saw more depth and importance in the script than was really there to work on. This also meant that "experimental" features like the appearance of a live string instrument for one scene, or the continuous mime of the conventional wife in another, seemed disconnected from the rest of the action rather than enhancing its meaning.
For Spandex to develop, Kaufman will need stronger material, but this also means training for herself and her actors to match.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Spandex is new and its members young, heading out from college drama to explore the world through theatre. Eva Kaufman's intentions are sincere and this first production shows intelligence. But the script she chose is flawed. The result is a tension of the wrong kind between McNamara's dated and rather pretentious attempt to present heroin addiction as artistic expression and Kaufman's desire to show something more realistic about human capacity for self-delusion.
The group is entirely amateur, but one actor, Lara Lightfoot, had both the strength and sensitivity needed for these roles. Set in a psychiatric ward, Lightfoot's Julia discharges herself, perhaps now capable of coping outside, after the suicide of the heroin addict Bone (Max Barker) and the collapse into a vegetable state of Chat (Lydia Connell) from shock therapy. The parallels with Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were unavoidable and unfortunate, especially in the nurse's character (Sophie Rutzou).
What Kaufman tried to do was to find a theatrical format or genre to allow issues about using drugs and psychiatric treatment to be brought to our attention, but the melodrama - especially of the writer/addict/depressive Bone - could only lead to a kind of neo-Romanticism. Maybe Chekov could have written what she needed, but, being young, Kaufman perhaps saw more depth and importance in the script than was really there to work on. This also meant that "experimental" features like the appearance of a live string instrument for one scene, or the continuous mime of the conventional wife in another, seemed disconnected from the rest of the action rather than enhancing its meaning.
For Spandex to develop, Kaufman will need stronger material, but this also means training for herself and her actors to match.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 5 September 2002
2002: Soulmates by David Williamson
Soulmates by David Williamson. Sydney Theatre Company directed by Gale Edwards at The Playhouse September 4-14.
I don't know about you, but I go to the theatre for two reasons.
I want to appreciate the theatrical artistry of actors, designers and directors. As we should expect of STC, I was certainly not disappointed by this production. I loved Amanda Muggleton as the steamy novelist Katie Best, and it was a thrill to see Jacki Weaver's nicely presented changes of mood in a role which some may find a surprise. The post-modern silver set was right for this play (though I wasn't sure of the relevance of all of the paintings projected behind), while the direction moved the play along at the pace it deserves.
Then I want to be "transported", taken into some level of experience beyond my own imagining. No matter how professional the actors are, the writer must give them the material to work on. Williamson, despite much good writing in recent plays, has made fun of his own craft of writing in Soulmates but without making me laugh except at fairly superficial cleverness.
You may think, when you see the play, that my criticism is mere sour grapes, since Danny - played by William Zappa as very Melbourne - is an academic critic seeking always the best of high art and dismissing the commercial entertainment of Katie Best's novels. He refuses to accept the post-modern belief that all that is written is culturally equal and his ideals about art are floored in Act 2, yet Williamson seems to me to be just playing games with the issues for the sake of the laughs. The laughs bring in the bums (and various other parts of the anatomy) on seats, but I found quite a few first night audience members feeling cheated at interval and only a little more satisfied at the end.
So I found myself searching for what was wrong. Act 1, on reflection, was really only a teaser. There were some unsavoury jokes about September 11 which never led anywhere. Yabby coulis got several laughs completely without connection to the rest of the play. It was only in Act 2 that the characters were given some sense of having real relationships that we might identify with. I suppose the last line about the pragmatic, perhaps cynical approach of writers' using people they know as material - "That's what writers do!" - might have been meant to be satirical. I thought it left Williamson trapped in his own post-modern mire.
But then, I'm just the critic. You'd better go and decide for yourself.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I don't know about you, but I go to the theatre for two reasons.
I want to appreciate the theatrical artistry of actors, designers and directors. As we should expect of STC, I was certainly not disappointed by this production. I loved Amanda Muggleton as the steamy novelist Katie Best, and it was a thrill to see Jacki Weaver's nicely presented changes of mood in a role which some may find a surprise. The post-modern silver set was right for this play (though I wasn't sure of the relevance of all of the paintings projected behind), while the direction moved the play along at the pace it deserves.
Then I want to be "transported", taken into some level of experience beyond my own imagining. No matter how professional the actors are, the writer must give them the material to work on. Williamson, despite much good writing in recent plays, has made fun of his own craft of writing in Soulmates but without making me laugh except at fairly superficial cleverness.
You may think, when you see the play, that my criticism is mere sour grapes, since Danny - played by William Zappa as very Melbourne - is an academic critic seeking always the best of high art and dismissing the commercial entertainment of Katie Best's novels. He refuses to accept the post-modern belief that all that is written is culturally equal and his ideals about art are floored in Act 2, yet Williamson seems to me to be just playing games with the issues for the sake of the laughs. The laughs bring in the bums (and various other parts of the anatomy) on seats, but I found quite a few first night audience members feeling cheated at interval and only a little more satisfied at the end.
So I found myself searching for what was wrong. Act 1, on reflection, was really only a teaser. There were some unsavoury jokes about September 11 which never led anywhere. Yabby coulis got several laughs completely without connection to the rest of the play. It was only in Act 2 that the characters were given some sense of having real relationships that we might identify with. I suppose the last line about the pragmatic, perhaps cynical approach of writers' using people they know as material - "That's what writers do!" - might have been meant to be satirical. I thought it left Williamson trapped in his own post-modern mire.
But then, I'm just the critic. You'd better go and decide for yourself.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 21 August 2002
2002: The Aunt's Story by Patrick White
The Aunt's Story by Patrick White, adapted for the stage and directed by Adam Cook. Melbourne Theatre Company presented by Company B at Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, until September 8. Note: 6.30pm (ends 9.45pm).
There's a joke in Act 2, among the mad denizens of a cheap 1930s hotel somewhere in Europe, about how boring life is: "It's probable that God created Adam on a rainy day." I can only say that if this nail-paring God created Adam Cook, and Helen Morse, and the Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir B, then do it again, Sam. Morse, as the shamelessly symbolically named Theodora Goodman, is on stage throughout: a tour de force and a wonder to behold. Absolutely the opposite of boring.
The rest of the cast - Andrew Blackman, Julia Blake, Ralph Cotterill, Sarah Kants, Roger Oakley and Genevieve Picot - speak for themselves if you are looking for a quality production. This is MTC at its most marvellous, each of these actors playing Patrick White's amazing array of characters in Theodora's life, the real people and her fantasies. Costumes change, accents change, make-up changes, mannerisms change so smoothly that though you can see it all happening you are never made conscious of the acting. The illusion is complete in the theatre, just as it should be for Patrick White's examination of the question, How can we be sure when illusion is reality, or reality is illusion?
Although you do not need to read White's original novel - Cook's script stands alone on stage - the program is worth a few dollars for its excellent discussion of White's story and its themes. Act 1 covers the death of Theodora's father who appreciates her as a real thinking person, in contrast to her air-headed sister Fanny, whose only interest is to marry a wealthy man and have babies. This Act is a memory play, a flashback triggered by the death of her mother, who describes Theodora as a thin stick, and yellow, (while Fanny is exactly the daughter she wanted).
After these two deaths and a decent interval, we observe Theodora escape from the dry sheep farm of her first 45 years (Fanny had her children, Theodora looked after her mother). Act 2 is in the Jardin Exotique, where the mad tumbledown pretend nobility draw her into an unreal world. White's ideas for the novel were developing as World War 2 drew on apace, and he wrote the novel immediately he escaped from the Royal Air Force at the war's end. Maybe people thought America would be the saviour from chaos, so Theodora travels on a train there, pulls the emergency cord in the middle of nowhere and finds a shack with a ghost who is clearly her father. Finding a kind of peace here, the so-sensible Americans see her fantasy as insanity and she is committed for treatment. Is this the 'rational' world we really want? Is ordinary reality enough?
Watch out for the thunder, lightning and gunshots. I shuddered in my safe seat as these effects seemed so real that I might myself be struck down like the huge tree in Theodora's garden, or shot through the heart like the little hawk. Signs in the foyer forewarn you: be warned. Dale Ferguson (design), Gavan Swift (lighting) and Ian McDonald (sound) have created just the strength of emotional response that White's imagination demands.
Add to all that a sound score created by Peter Sculthorpe which crept into my consciousness as if it naturally belonged there, and you may imagine why this production is among the best I have ever seen. Patrick White is a towering figure in Australian culture. Adam Cook has done him proud. Maybe God did have something to do with it - but maybe God is just another illusion, and we can do it all by ourselves, like Theodora Goodman.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
There's a joke in Act 2, among the mad denizens of a cheap 1930s hotel somewhere in Europe, about how boring life is: "It's probable that God created Adam on a rainy day." I can only say that if this nail-paring God created Adam Cook, and Helen Morse, and the Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir B, then do it again, Sam. Morse, as the shamelessly symbolically named Theodora Goodman, is on stage throughout: a tour de force and a wonder to behold. Absolutely the opposite of boring.
The rest of the cast - Andrew Blackman, Julia Blake, Ralph Cotterill, Sarah Kants, Roger Oakley and Genevieve Picot - speak for themselves if you are looking for a quality production. This is MTC at its most marvellous, each of these actors playing Patrick White's amazing array of characters in Theodora's life, the real people and her fantasies. Costumes change, accents change, make-up changes, mannerisms change so smoothly that though you can see it all happening you are never made conscious of the acting. The illusion is complete in the theatre, just as it should be for Patrick White's examination of the question, How can we be sure when illusion is reality, or reality is illusion?
Although you do not need to read White's original novel - Cook's script stands alone on stage - the program is worth a few dollars for its excellent discussion of White's story and its themes. Act 1 covers the death of Theodora's father who appreciates her as a real thinking person, in contrast to her air-headed sister Fanny, whose only interest is to marry a wealthy man and have babies. This Act is a memory play, a flashback triggered by the death of her mother, who describes Theodora as a thin stick, and yellow, (while Fanny is exactly the daughter she wanted).
After these two deaths and a decent interval, we observe Theodora escape from the dry sheep farm of her first 45 years (Fanny had her children, Theodora looked after her mother). Act 2 is in the Jardin Exotique, where the mad tumbledown pretend nobility draw her into an unreal world. White's ideas for the novel were developing as World War 2 drew on apace, and he wrote the novel immediately he escaped from the Royal Air Force at the war's end. Maybe people thought America would be the saviour from chaos, so Theodora travels on a train there, pulls the emergency cord in the middle of nowhere and finds a shack with a ghost who is clearly her father. Finding a kind of peace here, the so-sensible Americans see her fantasy as insanity and she is committed for treatment. Is this the 'rational' world we really want? Is ordinary reality enough?
Watch out for the thunder, lightning and gunshots. I shuddered in my safe seat as these effects seemed so real that I might myself be struck down like the huge tree in Theodora's garden, or shot through the heart like the little hawk. Signs in the foyer forewarn you: be warned. Dale Ferguson (design), Gavan Swift (lighting) and Ian McDonald (sound) have created just the strength of emotional response that White's imagination demands.
Add to all that a sound score created by Peter Sculthorpe which crept into my consciousness as if it naturally belonged there, and you may imagine why this production is among the best I have ever seen. Patrick White is a towering figure in Australian culture. Adam Cook has done him proud. Maybe God did have something to do with it - but maybe God is just another illusion, and we can do it all by ourselves, like Theodora Goodman.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 16 August 2002
2002: The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon by REM Theatre. Feature article.
If you were to imagine the musical sound of a wombat, you would quite likely agree with the popular choice in REM Theatre's The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon. The tuba really has no competition. But you might be a bit surprised to find the emu played on the 'cello and conga drums. There you go, though - that's what a creative presentation of the orchestra for young people can do. Give you lots of laughter and surprises.
The story of the kookaburra's laugh is quite simple. If you fell in love with the moon, and you were a kookaburra, you'd gobble it down like all those other tasty morsels you love - like lizards and snakes - wouldn't you? But what about all those dark and scary nights without the moon? How would you get the moon back out of the kookaburra in the proper way? You can't chop him open because you shouldn't do such violent things to others. And if you're simply pragmatic, you'll soon see that if you did you might hurt the moon, and you'd end up with no kookaburra. But if you make him laugh, and laugh, and laugh so much that the moon can escape from his wide open beak, everyone can be happy. And that's why the kookaburras laugh every evening just at sundown.
Making the kookaburra laugh is sure to keep the audience of youngsters rolling in the aisles, according to Catherine Pease, a founding member of REM Theatre and the narrator for this show. She should know after more than 10 years touring all over Australia, Britain, Europe, USA, the South Pacific and Asia, where the Artistic Director, Roger Rynd, has a special association with the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. Audiences there have given Rynd awards for best play, while a reviewer in The Scotsman on the opposite side of the globe wrote "Rarely have I seen so many people so thoroughly and happily engrossed".
That reviewer surely wasn't talking only about the children, anywhere between 3 and 12, that the show is mainly for. People of all ages can respond directly to music and dance which tells such a story - and take part with the children in recognising the instruments of the orchestra as each animal's theme appears. It has to be fun, too, when the children are taught each animal's movements by Gamillaroi artists Tanya and Eric Ellis. Eric plays the kookaburra; Tanya plays all the others. And when the children do the movements, the whole orchestra stands to do the movements too.
This is getting to sound a bit like going to a Rocky Horror Show, or The Sound of Music, and Catherine admits that things get a bit chaotic at times. This writer, when he was that young, was excited enough by Peter and the Wolf.
In fact, that classic musical tale was the origin of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon. As Peter and the Wolf was a Russian folk tale, so The Kookaburra is an Australian approach to ancient myths. Peter Winkler - who directed the music for the opening of the Paralympics and has a long history as a music educator (he co-founded the Bondi Youth Wave annual rock music school) - wrote both the script and the music for The Kookaburra, combining an Aboriginal myth with ideas from Aesop's tales. Rather like the development of world music, this show combines elements from many cultures, and REM's productions have seen Tanya Ellis become the first Koori to perform in Korean language, while she has also maintained her traditional dance forms as well as working as a puppeteer with Plasticienne Volants in Europe.
What may seem superficially to be a simple children's educational show has behind it a complex system of support. Each venue - in our case the Canberra Theatre Centre - provides the orchestra: the Canberra Symphony here, the Tasmanian Symphony a few weeks ago, the Frankston Symphony in Victoria last week. The commitment of people all over the country and the world has been so effective that Playing Australia, the Australia Council's funding body for touring companies, has taken a major role in supporting The Kookaburra.
There are also technical issues to be solved. The two didgeridoos in the orchestra are very special: one tuned in the key of D and the other in B flat. When the show began back in 1990, didge players had to be sent back to the drawing boards when their sounds were not quite in harmony with the classical orchestral instruments. Maybe it's this kind of reconciliation that this show represents. The music is onomatopaeic, but creating sounds not merely like the sounds each animal makes, but giving the feeling associated with each animal's character. The cross-cultural effect is also embedded in the music, where you will notice subtle touches of different popular dance forms as well as the Australian indigenous forms.
In other words, there is more education in this show than at first meets the ear and eye, for adults as well as for children. At the same time, the basic rule of theatre - always entertain - is the core of the show in performance. When the Producer is Marguerite Pepper, who has produced major cultural events since the 1980s (including being Associate Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Paralympics); the Music Director is Peter Winkler, winner of the Federal Government's Roz Bower Award for his contribution to Australia's community music scene; the Narrator, Catherine Pease, has been Director Community Programs for the Queensland Performing Arts Trust; the key performers Eric and Tanya Ellis come with the full respect they deserve from the indigenous community; and when the orchestra is the Canberra Symphony - what more needs to be said about the professional credentials of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon.
REM Theatre Company's 2002 tour of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon comes to Canberra for schools performances at 10am and 11.45am on August 29 and 30. There will be one public performance at The Playhouse on Saturday August 31 at 11.45am. Book at Canberra Theatre on 6257 1077.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The story of the kookaburra's laugh is quite simple. If you fell in love with the moon, and you were a kookaburra, you'd gobble it down like all those other tasty morsels you love - like lizards and snakes - wouldn't you? But what about all those dark and scary nights without the moon? How would you get the moon back out of the kookaburra in the proper way? You can't chop him open because you shouldn't do such violent things to others. And if you're simply pragmatic, you'll soon see that if you did you might hurt the moon, and you'd end up with no kookaburra. But if you make him laugh, and laugh, and laugh so much that the moon can escape from his wide open beak, everyone can be happy. And that's why the kookaburras laugh every evening just at sundown.
Making the kookaburra laugh is sure to keep the audience of youngsters rolling in the aisles, according to Catherine Pease, a founding member of REM Theatre and the narrator for this show. She should know after more than 10 years touring all over Australia, Britain, Europe, USA, the South Pacific and Asia, where the Artistic Director, Roger Rynd, has a special association with the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. Audiences there have given Rynd awards for best play, while a reviewer in The Scotsman on the opposite side of the globe wrote "Rarely have I seen so many people so thoroughly and happily engrossed".
That reviewer surely wasn't talking only about the children, anywhere between 3 and 12, that the show is mainly for. People of all ages can respond directly to music and dance which tells such a story - and take part with the children in recognising the instruments of the orchestra as each animal's theme appears. It has to be fun, too, when the children are taught each animal's movements by Gamillaroi artists Tanya and Eric Ellis. Eric plays the kookaburra; Tanya plays all the others. And when the children do the movements, the whole orchestra stands to do the movements too.
This is getting to sound a bit like going to a Rocky Horror Show, or The Sound of Music, and Catherine admits that things get a bit chaotic at times. This writer, when he was that young, was excited enough by Peter and the Wolf.
In fact, that classic musical tale was the origin of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon. As Peter and the Wolf was a Russian folk tale, so The Kookaburra is an Australian approach to ancient myths. Peter Winkler - who directed the music for the opening of the Paralympics and has a long history as a music educator (he co-founded the Bondi Youth Wave annual rock music school) - wrote both the script and the music for The Kookaburra, combining an Aboriginal myth with ideas from Aesop's tales. Rather like the development of world music, this show combines elements from many cultures, and REM's productions have seen Tanya Ellis become the first Koori to perform in Korean language, while she has also maintained her traditional dance forms as well as working as a puppeteer with Plasticienne Volants in Europe.
What may seem superficially to be a simple children's educational show has behind it a complex system of support. Each venue - in our case the Canberra Theatre Centre - provides the orchestra: the Canberra Symphony here, the Tasmanian Symphony a few weeks ago, the Frankston Symphony in Victoria last week. The commitment of people all over the country and the world has been so effective that Playing Australia, the Australia Council's funding body for touring companies, has taken a major role in supporting The Kookaburra.
There are also technical issues to be solved. The two didgeridoos in the orchestra are very special: one tuned in the key of D and the other in B flat. When the show began back in 1990, didge players had to be sent back to the drawing boards when their sounds were not quite in harmony with the classical orchestral instruments. Maybe it's this kind of reconciliation that this show represents. The music is onomatopaeic, but creating sounds not merely like the sounds each animal makes, but giving the feeling associated with each animal's character. The cross-cultural effect is also embedded in the music, where you will notice subtle touches of different popular dance forms as well as the Australian indigenous forms.
In other words, there is more education in this show than at first meets the ear and eye, for adults as well as for children. At the same time, the basic rule of theatre - always entertain - is the core of the show in performance. When the Producer is Marguerite Pepper, who has produced major cultural events since the 1980s (including being Associate Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Paralympics); the Music Director is Peter Winkler, winner of the Federal Government's Roz Bower Award for his contribution to Australia's community music scene; the Narrator, Catherine Pease, has been Director Community Programs for the Queensland Performing Arts Trust; the key performers Eric and Tanya Ellis come with the full respect they deserve from the indigenous community; and when the orchestra is the Canberra Symphony - what more needs to be said about the professional credentials of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon.
REM Theatre Company's 2002 tour of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon comes to Canberra for schools performances at 10am and 11.45am on August 29 and 30. There will be one public performance at The Playhouse on Saturday August 31 at 11.45am. Book at Canberra Theatre on 6257 1077.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 15 August 2002
2002: NIDA invites applications for 2003. Feature article.
NIDA INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR 2003. What better invitation could you imagine? Until, maybe, you remember the tv makeover: backstage at NIDA seemed pretty daunting.
And, of course, you can't forget that your invitation has about a 1% chance of getting you into the party. Is it really possible to get into NIDA? Two Canberrans are there now, so I asked them how they did it.
Just to begin with a downer for drama teachers, neither Alex O'Lachlan or Gordon Rymer beavered away at drama through high school and college. Gordon did all the right things, like study hard across the normal range of subjects, until he started to seriously worry his parents at the beginning of Year 12. Who said he could act? What about his nice career, as an accountant or something? Help!!
Well, Gordon found indeed that he wasn't a great actor, or likely ever to become one, but he became fascinated with the way theatre production works. So even more horrors - he became stage manager for the bloodthirsty story of Sweeney Todd with a collapsible barber's chair on a truck. In Semester 2, Year 12! Oh, what will become of him?
He's actually a calm and sensible lad who now praises the drama teacher who left him to face up to solving problems like what to do when the wheels literally fell off the truck, on which most of the set was built, as it was being shouldered on for final dress rehearsal. He took a year off after that, went travelling to Europe, worked as a dishwasher in a large hotel for 10-14 hour days, and thus proved to his parents that he was able to look after himself, and proved to himself that he could work the long hours that NIDA now demands of him. Only then did he take up the invitation to apply, built a set model with lighting, sound and costume design for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which he claims was "not very good") and wrote some 3000 words about why his design was eminently workable. Phew!
Now in Second Year, Gordon recently was deputy stage manager for NIDA's Third Year production of Country Music by Nick Enright, in which Alex O'Lachlan was a leading actor. Wheels falling off trucks was nothing, says Gordon, compared with a 4 hour long play being written in the wings, with pauses for writing lighting plots extending technical rehearsals over a whole week. Both Gordon and Alex seem to have revelled in the challenge.
But how did Alex get there, via a story which could be entitled, How Not To Get to NIDA? He was the bad boy of high school and college that many teachers would recognise. Actually, they won't because his name is not in the records, not just because he often wasn't in school (and never did drama past primary). Alex needed to escape a Canberra which did nothing for him before he changed his life, and his name.
Perhaps the first solid book he read was AB Facey's A Fortunate Life, when he was 19. Here he discovered a common spirit in touch with humanity, a kind of innocence, and a person of honesty who would not deceive another. Facey was a model for a new life, and as Alex travelled, also in Europe, he watched films with an ache which he finally recognised. He wanted to perform with the same commitment and honesty he now saw in so many great actors.
Back in Australia, but in vibrant Sydney, not the cold Canberra of old, he says he literally woke up one morning and knew he must apply for NIDA. They didn't invite him: he invited himself, at the age of 23.
As soon as his real life began, commitment to the work has led to an avid interest in theatre history covered in essays which would surprise his earlier teachers. He told me he is an "instinctual actor - I feel my way through it" but very soon was explaining detailed techniques of characterisation. He seems to have just the right mix of method and emotion, and control of his life, for us to sincerely hope for professional success.
Alex is the one with the photo, but Gordon will be there in the backstage gloom, making sure all the calls are spot on. He didn't mind not having a photo, he said. That's not his role.
For NIDA, ring the Admissions Officer on (02) 9697 7600 or at www.nida.edu.au, but if you may not be in that particular 1%, don't forget all the other drama and theatre courses available after Year 12. You can find them all on university websites.
Frank McKone's First Audition - How to Get Into Drama School (Currency Press) will be launched at the National Conference of Drama Australia in Fremantle WA on September 28.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
And, of course, you can't forget that your invitation has about a 1% chance of getting you into the party. Is it really possible to get into NIDA? Two Canberrans are there now, so I asked them how they did it.
Just to begin with a downer for drama teachers, neither Alex O'Lachlan or Gordon Rymer beavered away at drama through high school and college. Gordon did all the right things, like study hard across the normal range of subjects, until he started to seriously worry his parents at the beginning of Year 12. Who said he could act? What about his nice career, as an accountant or something? Help!!
Well, Gordon found indeed that he wasn't a great actor, or likely ever to become one, but he became fascinated with the way theatre production works. So even more horrors - he became stage manager for the bloodthirsty story of Sweeney Todd with a collapsible barber's chair on a truck. In Semester 2, Year 12! Oh, what will become of him?
He's actually a calm and sensible lad who now praises the drama teacher who left him to face up to solving problems like what to do when the wheels literally fell off the truck, on which most of the set was built, as it was being shouldered on for final dress rehearsal. He took a year off after that, went travelling to Europe, worked as a dishwasher in a large hotel for 10-14 hour days, and thus proved to his parents that he was able to look after himself, and proved to himself that he could work the long hours that NIDA now demands of him. Only then did he take up the invitation to apply, built a set model with lighting, sound and costume design for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which he claims was "not very good") and wrote some 3000 words about why his design was eminently workable. Phew!
Now in Second Year, Gordon recently was deputy stage manager for NIDA's Third Year production of Country Music by Nick Enright, in which Alex O'Lachlan was a leading actor. Wheels falling off trucks was nothing, says Gordon, compared with a 4 hour long play being written in the wings, with pauses for writing lighting plots extending technical rehearsals over a whole week. Both Gordon and Alex seem to have revelled in the challenge.
But how did Alex get there, via a story which could be entitled, How Not To Get to NIDA? He was the bad boy of high school and college that many teachers would recognise. Actually, they won't because his name is not in the records, not just because he often wasn't in school (and never did drama past primary). Alex needed to escape a Canberra which did nothing for him before he changed his life, and his name.
Perhaps the first solid book he read was AB Facey's A Fortunate Life, when he was 19. Here he discovered a common spirit in touch with humanity, a kind of innocence, and a person of honesty who would not deceive another. Facey was a model for a new life, and as Alex travelled, also in Europe, he watched films with an ache which he finally recognised. He wanted to perform with the same commitment and honesty he now saw in so many great actors.
Back in Australia, but in vibrant Sydney, not the cold Canberra of old, he says he literally woke up one morning and knew he must apply for NIDA. They didn't invite him: he invited himself, at the age of 23.
As soon as his real life began, commitment to the work has led to an avid interest in theatre history covered in essays which would surprise his earlier teachers. He told me he is an "instinctual actor - I feel my way through it" but very soon was explaining detailed techniques of characterisation. He seems to have just the right mix of method and emotion, and control of his life, for us to sincerely hope for professional success.
Alex is the one with the photo, but Gordon will be there in the backstage gloom, making sure all the calls are spot on. He didn't mind not having a photo, he said. That's not his role.
For NIDA, ring the Admissions Officer on (02) 9697 7600 or at www.nida.edu.au, but if you may not be in that particular 1%, don't forget all the other drama and theatre courses available after Year 12. You can find them all on university websites.
Frank McKone's First Audition - How to Get Into Drama School (Currency Press) will be launched at the National Conference of Drama Australia in Fremantle WA on September 28.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 14 August 2002
2002: Ordinary/Extraordinary: Exhibition in a Suitcase. Feature article.
Ordinary/Extraordinary: Exhibition in a Suitcase. Coming to a school near you from Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG).
On a lonely luggage carousel, somewhere in the universe, an artful suitcase (or a suitcase full of art) circulates forever. No-one knows where it is, but we know where it came from. Way back in the 1970s Craft ACT's Inspiration program made this suitcase which then circulated to many schools, until the day came when it never came back. Maybe those garden gnomes who go on world trips visit it, but they never reveal the secrets of their journeys.
So, last Wednesday, Mr Bill Wood, ACT Minister for Urban Services and the Arts, the obvious combination for a lost suitcase, launched two more Ordinary/Extraordinary suitcases full of art into circulation, one red (with objects of design) and one blue (with objects of creative inspiration). Ten local artists have their works encased: Robert Foster, Anna Gianakis, Myles Gostelow, Gilbert Riedelbauch, Carrie Webster, Hamilton Darroch, Bev Hogg, Megan Munro, Jaishree Srinivasan and Indigenous artist Lorraine Webb. From Foster's computer generated Tulip Vase to Webb's literally Handpainted Child's Shoes, these objets d'art have already travelled through diverse cultures and now form a harmonious set of companions, setting off together on the road to education.
"This is an innovative, exciting and hands-on approach to learning, likely to stimulate active participation and dialogue among young people in schools," said the Minister. I found this to be the case at Gold Creek School, who were so keen to billet the exhibition that they have been using the two suitcases for a month already. Melissa Brodis makes sure the visitors are handled in a carpeted area, team-teaching in the middle school Years 6-8. With real art works to see and appreciate close-up, the Year 6 group I observed were learning design concepts beyond my expectation for their age. Then it was back to the art room to put the ideas into practice.
I asked, in view of concerns about teacher overload, how Melissa coped with the touring suitcases, but she explained she had less work to do because the art works spark teaching ideas for all kinds of classes, making preparation and motivation of the students so much easier. At CMAG, Education Officers Lisa De Santis and especially Megan Nicolson, who has taken on the main responsibility for Ordinary/Extraordinary, are getting prepared to be run off their feet. One suitcase disappeared years ago; two more have begun their journey: who can predict how many more will expect to travel in the coming years? Nicolson, Kate Murphy and Catrina Vignando have written a top-flight teachers' guide which fully justifies the grants for this project from artsACT and the Australia Council Audience Development program. I can see lots more grant applications ahead.
Behind the concept of Ordinary/Extraordinary - exploring the extraordinary nature of ordinary things - is the strengthening movement towards education by immersion. Over two decades or so, as researchers like Harvard's Howard Gardner show the many different kinds of intelligences we each have, innovative teaching has taken the students out of the classroom, into the environment where they can learn from more direct experience. Work experience, say, is a huge program across all states in Australia today, after a tentative Participation and Equity Program in the mid-1980s. Museum education - taking students to museums with interactive and dramatic exhibitions - is another aspect of this movement. CMAG's Suitcases take the exhibition to the students for a different kind of interaction.
Immersion doesn't mean drowning. Waving, not drowning, is what it's about: learning to swim in a new environment. It all sounds rather like a holiday - and why not? Why should children whose imaginations dance in the arts not have the opportunity to dive down under, hold their breath and discover new creations?
The initial concept of the travelling suitcase - the one that never came back - came from the Canberra Art Teachers' Association, Craft ACT's Fiona Hooton, Caris Tirrell and Jenny Deves. The Education Kit Teachers' Guide was designed by msquared and Kate Murphy, with Steven Murray's excellent photos. The suitcases, like theatrical roadcases with built in handles and wheels, are by Kenetic Flight Cases and Zeljko Markov designed the internal structure which enfolds the artworks so firmly and delicately. From the outside to the inside the suitcases are an exciting exhibition of art.
Schools in the Canberra region can borrow for free what Bill Wood said is "the sort of 'baggage' I'm happy to be associated with." What better recommendation could you get from the Arts Minister? All teachers need to do is ring Megan Nicolson at CMAG on 6207 1775. If you would like to talk to Craft ACT about more ideas, ring Catrina Vignando on 6292 9333.
If you're a parent, do your bit to encourage more magical mystery suitcase tours for your children - they'll appreciate the experience. And if you know where the original suitcase has gone, please send a postcard.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On a lonely luggage carousel, somewhere in the universe, an artful suitcase (or a suitcase full of art) circulates forever. No-one knows where it is, but we know where it came from. Way back in the 1970s Craft ACT's Inspiration program made this suitcase which then circulated to many schools, until the day came when it never came back. Maybe those garden gnomes who go on world trips visit it, but they never reveal the secrets of their journeys.
So, last Wednesday, Mr Bill Wood, ACT Minister for Urban Services and the Arts, the obvious combination for a lost suitcase, launched two more Ordinary/Extraordinary suitcases full of art into circulation, one red (with objects of design) and one blue (with objects of creative inspiration). Ten local artists have their works encased: Robert Foster, Anna Gianakis, Myles Gostelow, Gilbert Riedelbauch, Carrie Webster, Hamilton Darroch, Bev Hogg, Megan Munro, Jaishree Srinivasan and Indigenous artist Lorraine Webb. From Foster's computer generated Tulip Vase to Webb's literally Handpainted Child's Shoes, these objets d'art have already travelled through diverse cultures and now form a harmonious set of companions, setting off together on the road to education.
"This is an innovative, exciting and hands-on approach to learning, likely to stimulate active participation and dialogue among young people in schools," said the Minister. I found this to be the case at Gold Creek School, who were so keen to billet the exhibition that they have been using the two suitcases for a month already. Melissa Brodis makes sure the visitors are handled in a carpeted area, team-teaching in the middle school Years 6-8. With real art works to see and appreciate close-up, the Year 6 group I observed were learning design concepts beyond my expectation for their age. Then it was back to the art room to put the ideas into practice.
I asked, in view of concerns about teacher overload, how Melissa coped with the touring suitcases, but she explained she had less work to do because the art works spark teaching ideas for all kinds of classes, making preparation and motivation of the students so much easier. At CMAG, Education Officers Lisa De Santis and especially Megan Nicolson, who has taken on the main responsibility for Ordinary/Extraordinary, are getting prepared to be run off their feet. One suitcase disappeared years ago; two more have begun their journey: who can predict how many more will expect to travel in the coming years? Nicolson, Kate Murphy and Catrina Vignando have written a top-flight teachers' guide which fully justifies the grants for this project from artsACT and the Australia Council Audience Development program. I can see lots more grant applications ahead.
Behind the concept of Ordinary/Extraordinary - exploring the extraordinary nature of ordinary things - is the strengthening movement towards education by immersion. Over two decades or so, as researchers like Harvard's Howard Gardner show the many different kinds of intelligences we each have, innovative teaching has taken the students out of the classroom, into the environment where they can learn from more direct experience. Work experience, say, is a huge program across all states in Australia today, after a tentative Participation and Equity Program in the mid-1980s. Museum education - taking students to museums with interactive and dramatic exhibitions - is another aspect of this movement. CMAG's Suitcases take the exhibition to the students for a different kind of interaction.
Immersion doesn't mean drowning. Waving, not drowning, is what it's about: learning to swim in a new environment. It all sounds rather like a holiday - and why not? Why should children whose imaginations dance in the arts not have the opportunity to dive down under, hold their breath and discover new creations?
The initial concept of the travelling suitcase - the one that never came back - came from the Canberra Art Teachers' Association, Craft ACT's Fiona Hooton, Caris Tirrell and Jenny Deves. The Education Kit Teachers' Guide was designed by msquared and Kate Murphy, with Steven Murray's excellent photos. The suitcases, like theatrical roadcases with built in handles and wheels, are by Kenetic Flight Cases and Zeljko Markov designed the internal structure which enfolds the artworks so firmly and delicately. From the outside to the inside the suitcases are an exciting exhibition of art.
Schools in the Canberra region can borrow for free what Bill Wood said is "the sort of 'baggage' I'm happy to be associated with." What better recommendation could you get from the Arts Minister? All teachers need to do is ring Megan Nicolson at CMAG on 6207 1775. If you would like to talk to Craft ACT about more ideas, ring Catrina Vignando on 6292 9333.
If you're a parent, do your bit to encourage more magical mystery suitcase tours for your children - they'll appreciate the experience. And if you know where the original suitcase has gone, please send a postcard.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 9 August 2002
2002: Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson
Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson. Free Rain Theatre Company directed and designed by Kelly Somes. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre August 7-24 Wed-Sat 8pm.
Hotel Sorrento has been compared to Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, and seems to have the same kind of appeal to amateur companies. It's a seductive play about societal change in a backwater played out in a family of three sisters, bonded together yet fighting to break their bonds. Written in 1990, it remains an iconic Australian drama.
Somes claims to have set the play in its period, when Margaret Thatcher was still in power in Britain: a point which is important to the politics of the play. At the same time, though, to deal with the family's memories and emotional conflicts, she has seen the characters as costumed figures against a blank background, making the whole set white except for the symbolic painting of "Hotel Sorrento" (in which all of the older generation pictured have now died). Though this is ostensibly a good idea, the contrast in the first act between scenes in British London and the Australian beach village of Sorrento is not made as obvious as the drama demands. Or, on the other hand, a much more stylised set, using perhaps something like a Whiteley painting as a model, might have given the design the visual life it needs.
Free Rain intends to be a company of development for young people between amateur and professional levels, and Somes' directing here has worked quite well. The key roles of the sisters (Bronwyn Grannall as Hilary, Helen Tsongas as Meg, Lucy Goleby as Pippa) and Hilary's son Troy (Rhys Holden) made an effective ensemble, though I couldn't see Wal (David Ives), with an odd accent and manner, as these Australian girls' father. Characterisations were intelligent, though early in the season showed how much more training is needed for the full depth of the relationships to have immediate impact from the opening moment. By the second half energy was on the rise and dramatic action and silences began to make their points.
Good intentions and the sincerity of this production are strong reasons for seeing this play which won the NSW Premier's Award in 1991 and established Hannie Rayson in the Australian canon.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Hotel Sorrento has been compared to Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, and seems to have the same kind of appeal to amateur companies. It's a seductive play about societal change in a backwater played out in a family of three sisters, bonded together yet fighting to break their bonds. Written in 1990, it remains an iconic Australian drama.
Somes claims to have set the play in its period, when Margaret Thatcher was still in power in Britain: a point which is important to the politics of the play. At the same time, though, to deal with the family's memories and emotional conflicts, she has seen the characters as costumed figures against a blank background, making the whole set white except for the symbolic painting of "Hotel Sorrento" (in which all of the older generation pictured have now died). Though this is ostensibly a good idea, the contrast in the first act between scenes in British London and the Australian beach village of Sorrento is not made as obvious as the drama demands. Or, on the other hand, a much more stylised set, using perhaps something like a Whiteley painting as a model, might have given the design the visual life it needs.
Free Rain intends to be a company of development for young people between amateur and professional levels, and Somes' directing here has worked quite well. The key roles of the sisters (Bronwyn Grannall as Hilary, Helen Tsongas as Meg, Lucy Goleby as Pippa) and Hilary's son Troy (Rhys Holden) made an effective ensemble, though I couldn't see Wal (David Ives), with an odd accent and manner, as these Australian girls' father. Characterisations were intelligent, though early in the season showed how much more training is needed for the full depth of the relationships to have immediate impact from the opening moment. By the second half energy was on the rise and dramatic action and silences began to make their points.
Good intentions and the sincerity of this production are strong reasons for seeing this play which won the NSW Premier's Award in 1991 and established Hannie Rayson in the Australian canon.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 29 July 2002
2002: The Dancing Orchestra by Steven Bailey
The Dancing Orchestra. Script and music by Steven Bailey. The Acting Company at Hawk Theatre, Narrabundah College, July 23-27.
"If we hold onto the feeling, maybe we'll find our way out of the darkness" the young people said, in this quite fascinating tone poem. It brought to mind certain oft seen political faces, elected supposedly to represent the people: Yes, indeed - where have all the feelings gone?
Pragmatism is anathema to these recent and current students of Narrabundah College. The Acting Company more usually consists of ex-college students, like Steven Bailey, now at the School of Music. This time, though, it was very appropriate to have an even mix, giving the chance for the younger people to explore their need to understand the nature of the darkness and the light in a theatrical way conceived by someone just a year or two older. Rather than the more usual "workshop taken to performance level", with the inevitable surging group movement around stand-out figures seeking to tell a tale of conflict of good and evil, Bailey has produced an interesting philosophical study extending into how, or whether, art itself - in music, poetry and dance - resolves the apparent conflict.
A small very well-disciplined ensemble of piano, keyboard, percussion and strings sometimes led and sometimes accompanied the spoken modern verse representing a range of characters expressing contrasting views of reality, while two dancers commented on the action, and sometimes took the lead, using imagery in movement. The effect is modernist without being too post-modern: although there is no standard plot, there is a feeling of a quest reaching a conclusion as the three artistic elements blend together.
The key question is, "What does 'now' sound like?" It is "soft and beautiful" for the romantic young man. For the more clinically observant young woman, sitting by a stream, the conclusion is gradually reached that she sees both the stillness of her reflection and the movement of the water at the same time: this is her 'now'. There is, too, a self-serving character who cynically observes these mystical flounderings, yet cannot herself escape the need to search for understanding.
I hope Steven Bailey goes on to greater art: surely he will never encage people in razor wire. He's made a good beginning in The Dancing Orchestra.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"If we hold onto the feeling, maybe we'll find our way out of the darkness" the young people said, in this quite fascinating tone poem. It brought to mind certain oft seen political faces, elected supposedly to represent the people: Yes, indeed - where have all the feelings gone?
Pragmatism is anathema to these recent and current students of Narrabundah College. The Acting Company more usually consists of ex-college students, like Steven Bailey, now at the School of Music. This time, though, it was very appropriate to have an even mix, giving the chance for the younger people to explore their need to understand the nature of the darkness and the light in a theatrical way conceived by someone just a year or two older. Rather than the more usual "workshop taken to performance level", with the inevitable surging group movement around stand-out figures seeking to tell a tale of conflict of good and evil, Bailey has produced an interesting philosophical study extending into how, or whether, art itself - in music, poetry and dance - resolves the apparent conflict.
A small very well-disciplined ensemble of piano, keyboard, percussion and strings sometimes led and sometimes accompanied the spoken modern verse representing a range of characters expressing contrasting views of reality, while two dancers commented on the action, and sometimes took the lead, using imagery in movement. The effect is modernist without being too post-modern: although there is no standard plot, there is a feeling of a quest reaching a conclusion as the three artistic elements blend together.
The key question is, "What does 'now' sound like?" It is "soft and beautiful" for the romantic young man. For the more clinically observant young woman, sitting by a stream, the conclusion is gradually reached that she sees both the stillness of her reflection and the movement of the water at the same time: this is her 'now'. There is, too, a self-serving character who cynically observes these mystical flounderings, yet cannot herself escape the need to search for understanding.
I hope Steven Bailey goes on to greater art: surely he will never encage people in razor wire. He's made a good beginning in The Dancing Orchestra.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 19 July 2002
2002: Paipa - Exhibition at National Museum of Australia
Paipa has replaced the Alfred Haddon Collection of Torres Strait Islander treasures in the First Australians Gallery at the National Museum of Australia. In 5 sections - The Coming of the Light, Pearling/Fishing Industry, Cane Cutting Industry, World War II, and Young People and their Environment - Paipa is about the winds of change. The aim is to show how "the four directions of the wind ... drew people to and from the Torres Strait, and how the beliefs, customs and traditions of the Torres Strait Islanders have been influenced by migration and industry."
In The Coming of the Light you'll see the "Mother Hubbard" dresses, which covered women's nakedness (and became wonderful colour creations). Have a close look at an old diver's suit and imagine how claustrophobic it must have been fathoms under water - you had to bend your knees and keep your back straight to pick up the pearl shell. If you leaned forward the headpiece was so heavy you might not be able to stand up again. And what callouses your hands would have grown using the simple hooked machetes to cut tons of cane a day!
World War II relics still litter the islands, and here there are bits of planes and many photos. While modern young Islanders are as up to date in sunglasses as anywhere in Australia.
The exhibition is a deliberate shift from an anthropologist's view of Islander people to a presentation of the people's experience through their own words, photographs and iconic objects since the Rev Samuel McFarlane of the London Missionary Society introduced Christianity on 1 July 1871, a date now celebrated each year by Islanders throughout Australia.
So what should we expect from such an exhibition? A strong positive appreciation of the people's culture surviving all that was thrown in their way, I imagine.
I certainly found an accentuation on the positive achievements, but not enough about the forces which might have destroyed them. We need to know these truths.
Dawn Casey, NMA director, has done the right thing by employing an Islander, Leilani Bin-Juda, to curate the exhibit, and she has done a great job collecting materials, including people's stories. But I fear that the legacy of the old Queensland Department of Native Affairs still casts an awful shadow. We are given only snippets of the dangers of pearlshell diving and the hardships of cane cutting. So I sought more from Uncle Seaman Dan, of Darnley Island and Harry Pitt from Mackay.
From them I heard stories that should be in the exhibit. Seaman Dan told me of the pearlshell diving bank off Darnley, more than 30 fathoms down, where an unknown number of young men have been caught in the reef, in their bulbous divers' suits, while their supply boats, pushed by tides and winds, shifted beyond the reach of safety lines and air hoses. From that depth, he says, you must come up slowly, stopping to acclimatise at 5 or 6 levels. That's with your air hose attached. Father Dalton Bon from Torres Strait said at the opening last Monday that nothing happens by accident: everything is part of God's plan. Well, I wondered about such belief when I heard Seaman Dan's story.
I found that Harry Pitt has also wondered since his life as a cane cutter and merchant seaman has taken him around the world and among people of many cultures. If you leave the cane too long, he said, the molasses start oozing out. So, I asked, you get fumes or something? No, it's the bees. You go to take hold of the cane to cut it, and you get a handful of bees. Without a glove....
I showed Harry the description, quoted from someone named Jeremy Beckett, about 1947, when the pearling industry was declining and "the Department [of Native Affairs allowed] 80 men to go down to the cane fields where there was a shortage of canecutters .... The experiment was successful and repeated several years running." Their wages were paid straight into the bank, explained Harry. They could ask for a sub, say £2, but that's all they got. Harry was fortunate that his family were evacuated during the war, which was why he was brought up in Mackay. This meant he was a free man and could go contract canecutting in 1960 on the same terms as other contractors. But people who remained on the Islands, and of course other Aboriginal people like those on Palm Island, were still controlled by the infamous Department.
I thought, too, that Islander Eddie Mabo's taking on 200 years of British law, and winning, should be mentioned, and a link made to the Rights Area in the First Australians Gallery. Maybe many people feel that a museum should just be a nice place to enjoy the remains of the past, but director Dawn Casey said she is proud that "The Museum in fact is the only one which presents Torres Strait Islander culture in the national context." The exhibit has a 3 year run, so I hope more stories like Seaman Dan's and Harry Pitt's will be brought in to show us the total picture. Then we will really see the amazing resilience of Islander culture.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In The Coming of the Light you'll see the "Mother Hubbard" dresses, which covered women's nakedness (and became wonderful colour creations). Have a close look at an old diver's suit and imagine how claustrophobic it must have been fathoms under water - you had to bend your knees and keep your back straight to pick up the pearl shell. If you leaned forward the headpiece was so heavy you might not be able to stand up again. And what callouses your hands would have grown using the simple hooked machetes to cut tons of cane a day!
World War II relics still litter the islands, and here there are bits of planes and many photos. While modern young Islanders are as up to date in sunglasses as anywhere in Australia.
The exhibition is a deliberate shift from an anthropologist's view of Islander people to a presentation of the people's experience through their own words, photographs and iconic objects since the Rev Samuel McFarlane of the London Missionary Society introduced Christianity on 1 July 1871, a date now celebrated each year by Islanders throughout Australia.
So what should we expect from such an exhibition? A strong positive appreciation of the people's culture surviving all that was thrown in their way, I imagine.
I certainly found an accentuation on the positive achievements, but not enough about the forces which might have destroyed them. We need to know these truths.
Dawn Casey, NMA director, has done the right thing by employing an Islander, Leilani Bin-Juda, to curate the exhibit, and she has done a great job collecting materials, including people's stories. But I fear that the legacy of the old Queensland Department of Native Affairs still casts an awful shadow. We are given only snippets of the dangers of pearlshell diving and the hardships of cane cutting. So I sought more from Uncle Seaman Dan, of Darnley Island and Harry Pitt from Mackay.
From them I heard stories that should be in the exhibit. Seaman Dan told me of the pearlshell diving bank off Darnley, more than 30 fathoms down, where an unknown number of young men have been caught in the reef, in their bulbous divers' suits, while their supply boats, pushed by tides and winds, shifted beyond the reach of safety lines and air hoses. From that depth, he says, you must come up slowly, stopping to acclimatise at 5 or 6 levels. That's with your air hose attached. Father Dalton Bon from Torres Strait said at the opening last Monday that nothing happens by accident: everything is part of God's plan. Well, I wondered about such belief when I heard Seaman Dan's story.
I found that Harry Pitt has also wondered since his life as a cane cutter and merchant seaman has taken him around the world and among people of many cultures. If you leave the cane too long, he said, the molasses start oozing out. So, I asked, you get fumes or something? No, it's the bees. You go to take hold of the cane to cut it, and you get a handful of bees. Without a glove....
I showed Harry the description, quoted from someone named Jeremy Beckett, about 1947, when the pearling industry was declining and "the Department [of Native Affairs allowed] 80 men to go down to the cane fields where there was a shortage of canecutters .... The experiment was successful and repeated several years running." Their wages were paid straight into the bank, explained Harry. They could ask for a sub, say £2, but that's all they got. Harry was fortunate that his family were evacuated during the war, which was why he was brought up in Mackay. This meant he was a free man and could go contract canecutting in 1960 on the same terms as other contractors. But people who remained on the Islands, and of course other Aboriginal people like those on Palm Island, were still controlled by the infamous Department.
I thought, too, that Islander Eddie Mabo's taking on 200 years of British law, and winning, should be mentioned, and a link made to the Rights Area in the First Australians Gallery. Maybe many people feel that a museum should just be a nice place to enjoy the remains of the past, but director Dawn Casey said she is proud that "The Museum in fact is the only one which presents Torres Strait Islander culture in the national context." The exhibit has a 3 year run, so I hope more stories like Seaman Dan's and Harry Pitt's will be brought in to show us the total picture. Then we will really see the amazing resilience of Islander culture.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 17 July 2002
2002: Warehouse Circus
Warehouse Circus directed by Skye Morton at Belconnen Community Centre July 17-20, 7pm. Bookings 6251 4007.
If there's one thing I like to see when young people perform on stage, it's a genuine sense of enjoyment and community. Even though Warehouse Circus can only offer part-time training, it was pleasing to watch people not just going through the motions of circus exercises, but putting on an entertaining show.
Skye Morton, herself a student with Warehouse back in 1993 and a professional performer in the intervening years, demonstrated the difference between circus and gymnastics. Where gymnastics is about getting every move correct, circus is about knowing how to turn a dropped dumbbell or a fall from a balancing act into a humorous part of the show. These young performers kept up a warmth of feeling in the audience in the tradition of the great circus clowns. Each one had their own character whom we got to know well. They even built in deliberate "mistakes" as part of the comedy so that it wasn't always easy to tell if a real mistake had been made. This is excellent theatrical thinking.
I was also impressed by the originality of many of the moves, especially in the multi-person balances where there was a real sense of exploring new positions and interesting shapes. This kind of work requires a strong feeling of trust, which is the basis for the continued life of Warehouse Circus over the years since it began in 1991. In true circus tradition some families have become long-term participants, and the feast on stage after opening night was certainly a community affair.
This is not elitist theatre. It's entertainment done with sincerity - and hard work on the young people's part. Good to see.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
If there's one thing I like to see when young people perform on stage, it's a genuine sense of enjoyment and community. Even though Warehouse Circus can only offer part-time training, it was pleasing to watch people not just going through the motions of circus exercises, but putting on an entertaining show.
Skye Morton, herself a student with Warehouse back in 1993 and a professional performer in the intervening years, demonstrated the difference between circus and gymnastics. Where gymnastics is about getting every move correct, circus is about knowing how to turn a dropped dumbbell or a fall from a balancing act into a humorous part of the show. These young performers kept up a warmth of feeling in the audience in the tradition of the great circus clowns. Each one had their own character whom we got to know well. They even built in deliberate "mistakes" as part of the comedy so that it wasn't always easy to tell if a real mistake had been made. This is excellent theatrical thinking.
I was also impressed by the originality of many of the moves, especially in the multi-person balances where there was a real sense of exploring new positions and interesting shapes. This kind of work requires a strong feeling of trust, which is the basis for the continued life of Warehouse Circus over the years since it began in 1991. In true circus tradition some families have become long-term participants, and the feast on stage after opening night was certainly a community affair.
This is not elitist theatre. It's entertainment done with sincerity - and hard work on the young people's part. Good to see.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 2 July 2002
2002: Odyssey by Andreas Litras and John Bolton
Odyssey created by Andreas Litras and John Bolton. Performed by Andreas Litras. Directed by John Bolton for Anthos Theatre at The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, July 2-6, 8pm.
If you are of Greek background, you must not miss this Odyssey. If your family has a migrant history, Odyssey will echo in your mind like the echoes in the giant's cave created by this excellent theatre artist, Andreas Litras. If you are an indigenous Australian, this mythic story of journey, adversity and final homecoming is a symbol of a history still seeking that necessary resolution. In other words, no-one should miss this play.
I could write a treatise about the complexity of the layers of theatrical meaning created by just one performer in 80 minutes; about the wonderful interplay between comedy and tragedy; about the history of epic storytelling represented here; about the melding of Grotowski and Brecht. Probably I would focus on the influence of the French mime Lecoq who trained John Bolton, who trained Litras to create so much with so little.
But this play doesn't need academic justification: children on opening night were fascinated, laughed and felt the power of the story of migration as much as the theatre professionals and all the wide range of people there. It was a wonderful joke for the Greek stage cleaner, who preferred tv because you can switch off what you don't like, to pick out the professional theatre-goer, sitting at the end of the row near the door, ready to do a bunk. Must be intelligent, therefore must be Greek.
– But no, said Domenic Mico, I'm Italian!
– Well, really? I think you'd better go and ask your mother!
This was serendipity, since it was Mico who had originally tried to bring the play to Canberra's Multicultural Festival, couldn't raise the funds, but did manage a one-off for the 20th Anniversary of the Migrant Resource Centre. He claims that even the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs showed an emotional response.
This play, and the photo exhibition The Sea and Foreign Lands by Simon Cuthbert, does the Canberra Theatre Centre proud. This is theatre with humour, guts and depth which everyone can appreciate - a rare diamond cut with taste and precision.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
If you are of Greek background, you must not miss this Odyssey. If your family has a migrant history, Odyssey will echo in your mind like the echoes in the giant's cave created by this excellent theatre artist, Andreas Litras. If you are an indigenous Australian, this mythic story of journey, adversity and final homecoming is a symbol of a history still seeking that necessary resolution. In other words, no-one should miss this play.
I could write a treatise about the complexity of the layers of theatrical meaning created by just one performer in 80 minutes; about the wonderful interplay between comedy and tragedy; about the history of epic storytelling represented here; about the melding of Grotowski and Brecht. Probably I would focus on the influence of the French mime Lecoq who trained John Bolton, who trained Litras to create so much with so little.
But this play doesn't need academic justification: children on opening night were fascinated, laughed and felt the power of the story of migration as much as the theatre professionals and all the wide range of people there. It was a wonderful joke for the Greek stage cleaner, who preferred tv because you can switch off what you don't like, to pick out the professional theatre-goer, sitting at the end of the row near the door, ready to do a bunk. Must be intelligent, therefore must be Greek.
– But no, said Domenic Mico, I'm Italian!
– Well, really? I think you'd better go and ask your mother!
This was serendipity, since it was Mico who had originally tried to bring the play to Canberra's Multicultural Festival, couldn't raise the funds, but did manage a one-off for the 20th Anniversary of the Migrant Resource Centre. He claims that even the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs showed an emotional response.
This play, and the photo exhibition The Sea and Foreign Lands by Simon Cuthbert, does the Canberra Theatre Centre proud. This is theatre with humour, guts and depth which everyone can appreciate - a rare diamond cut with taste and precision.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 29 June 2002
2002: Shortis & Simpson: Topical Heatwave
Shortis & Simpson: Topical Heatwave at the Kurrajong Hotel. Supper and show, Friday nights only, June 28 - July 26, 9pm (show starts 9.15).
You thought it was Red Nose Day last week, but no ... Brown Nose Day was celebrated on Friday night with a twinge of Texan hoe-down, performed by Markie Latham's favourite dancer at the White House. Markie himself came in for a bit of stick, to the tune of Little Peter Rabbit, flip-flapping in a conflict situation with a certain Tony Abbott. This involved the audience singing along with actions, of course. Typical Shortis & Simpson lampooning - all good fun so long as you don't take your politics too seriously.
Yet this entertaining 2002 contribution to the Shortis & Simpson tradition of annual political commentary to mark the winter recess of Parliament includes a genuinely affecting song of an asylum seeker which begins "He could have been a doctor in Afghanistan..." In the form of a folk revival song, this one would be well worth recording.
And, for an encore in the Chifley Restaurant, the song of the Death of Chifley is full of irony in today's political scene. Could Howard sincerely say of a political opponent as Menzies did of Chifley: "He was a great friend of mine, and of yours. A True Australian." This to an audience of mixed political persuasions. And where does Mark Latham stand, talking on television of how he hates the other side?
Though S&S talk of satire in their show, most of the humour is too light for such a bite. It's the serious numbers which crunch. They're the ones you remember next day, as you realise how Australia is losing its tolerance in a relaxed and comfortable political fog.
Other images do remain, though. The encouragement of women parliamentarians to build a 100 cubicle toilet block for women (since Old Parliament House had no women's toilets when women finally got there in 1943). John Gorton, besotted with drink and Gotto, singing his version of "I did it my way" on his death bed. And the big question for Brown Nose Day: "I want to know how Jeanette got him through (US) customs in his pet box?"
And the International Hotel School's supper was very nice too.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
You thought it was Red Nose Day last week, but no ... Brown Nose Day was celebrated on Friday night with a twinge of Texan hoe-down, performed by Markie Latham's favourite dancer at the White House. Markie himself came in for a bit of stick, to the tune of Little Peter Rabbit, flip-flapping in a conflict situation with a certain Tony Abbott. This involved the audience singing along with actions, of course. Typical Shortis & Simpson lampooning - all good fun so long as you don't take your politics too seriously.
Yet this entertaining 2002 contribution to the Shortis & Simpson tradition of annual political commentary to mark the winter recess of Parliament includes a genuinely affecting song of an asylum seeker which begins "He could have been a doctor in Afghanistan..." In the form of a folk revival song, this one would be well worth recording.
And, for an encore in the Chifley Restaurant, the song of the Death of Chifley is full of irony in today's political scene. Could Howard sincerely say of a political opponent as Menzies did of Chifley: "He was a great friend of mine, and of yours. A True Australian." This to an audience of mixed political persuasions. And where does Mark Latham stand, talking on television of how he hates the other side?
Though S&S talk of satire in their show, most of the humour is too light for such a bite. It's the serious numbers which crunch. They're the ones you remember next day, as you realise how Australia is losing its tolerance in a relaxed and comfortable political fog.
Other images do remain, though. The encouragement of women parliamentarians to build a 100 cubicle toilet block for women (since Old Parliament House had no women's toilets when women finally got there in 1943). John Gorton, besotted with drink and Gotto, singing his version of "I did it my way" on his death bed. And the big question for Brown Nose Day: "I want to know how Jeanette got him through (US) customs in his pet box?"
And the International Hotel School's supper was very nice too.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 28 June 2002
2002: Fame: The Musical
Fame: The Musical. Conceived by David De Silva, book by Jose Fernandez, lyrics by Jacques Levy, music by Steve Margoshes. G-String Productions at The Street Theatre June 27-? 8pm.
The 4 actors I think would have passed in Fame School are Renay Hart as Mabel Washington, Carrol Oormilla as Miss Sherman, Roxane Ruse as Serena Katz and Jessica Taylor as Carmen Diaz. Now I've offended the other 26, let me say that this production of a peculiarly difficult example of musical theatre rocks and rolls along very nicely. On opening night the actors had a strong sense of working together and the orchestra was excellent (plus terrific drumming by Olivia Harkin as Grace 'Lambchops' Lamb) and a good time was had by all on and off the stage.
Fame is, of course, a nightmare for non- or semi-professionals because the student characters are supposed to be young, full of themselves and untrained, but the acting, singing, dancing and musicianship required to create these characters on stage convincingly has to be top-notch. In addition, the script focusses too briefly on too many characters, so making each character stand out requires a high degree of stage presence. This is the quality that each of my 'cum laude' actors had: you felt you had to watch them.
Musical theatre has begun to take its own place in theatre training in recent times. As standards inevitably rise, community based companies like G-String will need to work at higher level skills on stage and improving technical standards. In this show dance and choreography needed to be much more vibrant and original. I hope real New Yorkers close their eyes for the Dancin' on the Sidewalk number. Not all the singing was strong and precisely pitched, and only some numbers were arranged with really dramatic harmonies and cross-rhythms which are essential to American culture. Sound quality has to be a problem when every actor and musician is miked and there is no way enough money for top of the line equipment. Fortunately Chris Neal did well to listen to the flat quality in the first half and get much better definition of the voices for the second half on opening night.
But ignore my quibbles: go for Fame and enjoy.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The 4 actors I think would have passed in Fame School are Renay Hart as Mabel Washington, Carrol Oormilla as Miss Sherman, Roxane Ruse as Serena Katz and Jessica Taylor as Carmen Diaz. Now I've offended the other 26, let me say that this production of a peculiarly difficult example of musical theatre rocks and rolls along very nicely. On opening night the actors had a strong sense of working together and the orchestra was excellent (plus terrific drumming by Olivia Harkin as Grace 'Lambchops' Lamb) and a good time was had by all on and off the stage.
Fame is, of course, a nightmare for non- or semi-professionals because the student characters are supposed to be young, full of themselves and untrained, but the acting, singing, dancing and musicianship required to create these characters on stage convincingly has to be top-notch. In addition, the script focusses too briefly on too many characters, so making each character stand out requires a high degree of stage presence. This is the quality that each of my 'cum laude' actors had: you felt you had to watch them.
Musical theatre has begun to take its own place in theatre training in recent times. As standards inevitably rise, community based companies like G-String will need to work at higher level skills on stage and improving technical standards. In this show dance and choreography needed to be much more vibrant and original. I hope real New Yorkers close their eyes for the Dancin' on the Sidewalk number. Not all the singing was strong and precisely pitched, and only some numbers were arranged with really dramatic harmonies and cross-rhythms which are essential to American culture. Sound quality has to be a problem when every actor and musician is miked and there is no way enough money for top of the line equipment. Fortunately Chris Neal did well to listen to the flat quality in the first half and get much better definition of the voices for the second half on opening night.
But ignore my quibbles: go for Fame and enjoy.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 26 June 2002
2002: 2 Pianos 4 Hands - A Play on Music by Ted Dykstra & Richard Greenblatt.
2 Pianos 4 Hands - A Play on Music by Ted Dykstra & Richard Greenblatt. Directed by Ted Dykstra. Associate Director (Australia), David Lynch. StageWorks in association with Black Swan Theatre. Canberra Playhouse June 25-29 8pm.
This is an autobiographical story of the failure of Canadians Dykstra and Greenblatt to become the great world-renowned pianists that their fathers planned for them. Fortunately the authors have a largely comic view of their lives, becoming successful actors and directors, including playing themselves in this 90 minute two hander.
For the Australian tour, the only two actors who were available and could match the piano playing skills required were Edward Simpson, playing Ted, and Jonathan Gavin as Richard. Both are excellent. Producer Tony Reagan is still keeping his fingers crossed against sickness and accident after 2 years with the show.
2 Pianos is like a concert production of a play. 2 grand pianos are the focus of a simple set with 2 back lit screens. All the characters - Ted, Richard, their parents, and a myriad of piano teachers and examiners - are played by the actor-pianists in an episodic series of vignettes, smoothly strung together without the need for scene or costume changing. Each scene has its appropriate solo and duo piano performance with Bach before and after a bewildering array of classical and pop pieces.
While the characters were still young children, the mixed music somehow reminded me of the comic orchestral concerts put on by Gerard Hoffnung (many decades ago). I began to think that music as the light fantastic was as much as the show would offer. But when it came to the scenes in which each young man, at the age of 17 or so, was confronted by the truth that though they were talented they simply were not going to make it as concert pianists, I certainly felt for them - and wondered about the rights of well-meaning pushy fathers - at least for a few minutes before light-heartedness took over once more.
Though not a great play, 2 Pianos is a neatly constructed musical comedy of a quite different kind, with instant identification for anyone who has faced an audition and, like most of us, failed to become world-renowned.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is an autobiographical story of the failure of Canadians Dykstra and Greenblatt to become the great world-renowned pianists that their fathers planned for them. Fortunately the authors have a largely comic view of their lives, becoming successful actors and directors, including playing themselves in this 90 minute two hander.
For the Australian tour, the only two actors who were available and could match the piano playing skills required were Edward Simpson, playing Ted, and Jonathan Gavin as Richard. Both are excellent. Producer Tony Reagan is still keeping his fingers crossed against sickness and accident after 2 years with the show.
2 Pianos is like a concert production of a play. 2 grand pianos are the focus of a simple set with 2 back lit screens. All the characters - Ted, Richard, their parents, and a myriad of piano teachers and examiners - are played by the actor-pianists in an episodic series of vignettes, smoothly strung together without the need for scene or costume changing. Each scene has its appropriate solo and duo piano performance with Bach before and after a bewildering array of classical and pop pieces.
While the characters were still young children, the mixed music somehow reminded me of the comic orchestral concerts put on by Gerard Hoffnung (many decades ago). I began to think that music as the light fantastic was as much as the show would offer. But when it came to the scenes in which each young man, at the age of 17 or so, was confronted by the truth that though they were talented they simply were not going to make it as concert pianists, I certainly felt for them - and wondered about the rights of well-meaning pushy fathers - at least for a few minutes before light-heartedness took over once more.
Though not a great play, 2 Pianos is a neatly constructed musical comedy of a quite different kind, with instant identification for anyone who has faced an audition and, like most of us, failed to become world-renowned.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 20 June 2002
2002: One God, Two Salesmen & Three Humans
One God, Two Salesmen & Three Humans. Opiate Productions at The Street Theatre Studio, June 20-29.
Such a rebellious name for such a tame little group of amateur thespians. Opiate - another new theatre group which Canberra seems to spawn every week or two - claim that in November they will put on The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. Well, they are going to need a lot more theatrical guts and basic skills by then than they presented last Thursday.
The show is in a cabaret format with pre-recorded music (Dave Brubeck, for some odd reason) in between items. There were 3 short plays - Business Lunch by Sean Slater, We Can Get Them For You Wholesale by Neil Gaiman and Man & God, Having a Few Beers & Talking Things Over by Jeffery Scott. I'm guessing that they are all British undergraduate revue items, played here quite nicely. Very pleasantly, in fact. So agreeably indeed that I would like to coin the term Theatre of Innocence for this production.
Though Wholesale was quite a clever script, following the logic of larger sales being cheaper per unit, applied by a company offering to dispose of mammals, including people (finally costing nothing per unit to kill all the world's population), overall rather than an opiate night much of it was soporific. Even live music filling a 30 minute interval in a 90 minute show, quite tunefully done by a group of young men currently called King Prawn & The Seafood Gang - but apparently called something else last week (an in-joke for 2 people in the audience) - only kept me awake because I had a second coffee while they sang.
I suppose I should not expect too much from a group who describe themselves as "a bunch of thespians who like a few laughs, some pretty lights and a good show", but then I only got a few laughs, the lights were very basic, and the show was mildly so-so. Perhaps it's nice not to have to face confrontational theatre, but I would like young bloods to challenge me a little. I shudder when I think of the upcoming Pinter.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Such a rebellious name for such a tame little group of amateur thespians. Opiate - another new theatre group which Canberra seems to spawn every week or two - claim that in November they will put on The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter. Well, they are going to need a lot more theatrical guts and basic skills by then than they presented last Thursday.
The show is in a cabaret format with pre-recorded music (Dave Brubeck, for some odd reason) in between items. There were 3 short plays - Business Lunch by Sean Slater, We Can Get Them For You Wholesale by Neil Gaiman and Man & God, Having a Few Beers & Talking Things Over by Jeffery Scott. I'm guessing that they are all British undergraduate revue items, played here quite nicely. Very pleasantly, in fact. So agreeably indeed that I would like to coin the term Theatre of Innocence for this production.
Though Wholesale was quite a clever script, following the logic of larger sales being cheaper per unit, applied by a company offering to dispose of mammals, including people (finally costing nothing per unit to kill all the world's population), overall rather than an opiate night much of it was soporific. Even live music filling a 30 minute interval in a 90 minute show, quite tunefully done by a group of young men currently called King Prawn & The Seafood Gang - but apparently called something else last week (an in-joke for 2 people in the audience) - only kept me awake because I had a second coffee while they sang.
I suppose I should not expect too much from a group who describe themselves as "a bunch of thespians who like a few laughs, some pretty lights and a good show", but then I only got a few laughs, the lights were very basic, and the show was mildly so-so. Perhaps it's nice not to have to face confrontational theatre, but I would like young bloods to challenge me a little. I shudder when I think of the upcoming Pinter.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2002: The Learning Curve by John Foulcher
The Learning Curve based on the poetry collection by John Foulcher. Huitker Movement Theatre (HMT) directed by George Huitker at Theatre 3, June 19-30. Bookings: 6257 1950.
I felt thoroughly immersed in a Barrier Reef night of the big spawn watching this group movement imagist representation of Foulcher's new book of verse, launched just before the show opened last Wednesday. 41 sticky and confrontational poems narrate the life, death and resurrection of a Catholic secondary school, all in 90 minutes.
Life is sex and sexuality, in action and in denial. Death is not only of natural causes, but sometimes the result of human neglect and macho stupidity. As a cynical atheist from way back, I really had to wonder why anyone bothers about God's intentions any more in the face of the fact of our animal nature and the regular tragedy of death.
I noted that a joke by one teacher about leaving the Church and going over to the Anglicans received a roar of laughter. Huitker, Foulcher and HMT cast, crew and front-of-house are closely connected with Radford College. Does this mean that the school represented on stage is a satire at one remove from the daily experiences of staff and students in this apparently upright College, with its neat uniforms and landscaped grounds next door to the University? I just wondered.
From a theatrical viewpoint, Huitker's work in choreographing the movement and creating imagery seems to me too constrained by the need to maintain the narrative. Perhaps he should now move out into a wider theatrical scene. His work is interesting, often original, but needs more discipline of form if it is to match the best professional work we nowadays often see around Australia.
For example, I would love to see Huitker spend some time with, say, Bangarra Dance Company: then I think we would see a shift into stronger allegorical and interpretative movement, where narrative and emotional messages meld. In The Learning Curve it is Foulcher's writing which holds the piece together, and the performance is well worth seeing as a result. But there is more to come from HMT, I hope.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I felt thoroughly immersed in a Barrier Reef night of the big spawn watching this group movement imagist representation of Foulcher's new book of verse, launched just before the show opened last Wednesday. 41 sticky and confrontational poems narrate the life, death and resurrection of a Catholic secondary school, all in 90 minutes.
Life is sex and sexuality, in action and in denial. Death is not only of natural causes, but sometimes the result of human neglect and macho stupidity. As a cynical atheist from way back, I really had to wonder why anyone bothers about God's intentions any more in the face of the fact of our animal nature and the regular tragedy of death.
I noted that a joke by one teacher about leaving the Church and going over to the Anglicans received a roar of laughter. Huitker, Foulcher and HMT cast, crew and front-of-house are closely connected with Radford College. Does this mean that the school represented on stage is a satire at one remove from the daily experiences of staff and students in this apparently upright College, with its neat uniforms and landscaped grounds next door to the University? I just wondered.
From a theatrical viewpoint, Huitker's work in choreographing the movement and creating imagery seems to me too constrained by the need to maintain the narrative. Perhaps he should now move out into a wider theatrical scene. His work is interesting, often original, but needs more discipline of form if it is to match the best professional work we nowadays often see around Australia.
For example, I would love to see Huitker spend some time with, say, Bangarra Dance Company: then I think we would see a shift into stronger allegorical and interpretative movement, where narrative and emotional messages meld. In The Learning Curve it is Foulcher's writing which holds the piece together, and the performance is well worth seeing as a result. But there is more to come from HMT, I hope.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 15 June 2002
2002: 28th Old Time Music Hall 2002
THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE (DINKUS)
28th Old Time Music Hall 2002. Canberra Repertory at The Playhouse, June 13-22, 8pm.
Director Cathie Clelland and choreographer Katelyn Keys have dragged this show into the modern world this year - a bit of a worry because it might go on for another 28 years.
Music Hall is an annual ritual which at times in the past has been both a pale imitation of the original specifically English genre, and also too close to the sexism and sentimentality of a century ago. This year's show deftly fillets the sexist bones from the traditional material, and surprisingly achieves genuine sentiment. A highlight is the presentation of the song Broken Doll by Julie McElhone Hayes as a puppet. "You made me think you loved me in return: / Don't tell me you were fooling after all! / For if you turn away, you'll be sorry some day / You left behind a broken doll" was so quietly and poignantly sung, with strings attached, that no man in the audience could sit there unashamed.
It was good to see the multicultural section - an ethnic Aussie dance scene, The Snake Gully Swagger, with embarrassing reminders for me of the Tibooburra Hospital Ball circa 1963, where the band consisted of piano, trumpet and drums and every dance was played in 3/4 time. The sense of fun, irony and even true satire has filled in all the gaps of Music Hall as I've experienced it before, and indeed the rendition late in the show of musical director Andrew Kay's The Bliss of the Backyard Burkes showed that satirical commentary on our present lives is more than acceptable in this almost ceremonial event. The representation of Parliament House as the one feature which broke the prime rule of Marion and Walter that nothing should be built on hills, topped by an amazing tableau revealing a definitely loopy National Museum drew perhaps the most enthusiastic response of the audience on Friday.
The band has also expanded: piano, piano and drums. But unlike my Tibooburra friends, Pauline Sweeney, Andrew Kay and Dick Cutler are wonderful musicians and have the acoustics of the Playhouse completely under control. Even through my ageing tinnitus I could hear every singer clearly.
An excellent entertainment this year, already well-booked for the season.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
28th Old Time Music Hall 2002. Canberra Repertory at The Playhouse, June 13-22, 8pm.
Director Cathie Clelland and choreographer Katelyn Keys have dragged this show into the modern world this year - a bit of a worry because it might go on for another 28 years.
Music Hall is an annual ritual which at times in the past has been both a pale imitation of the original specifically English genre, and also too close to the sexism and sentimentality of a century ago. This year's show deftly fillets the sexist bones from the traditional material, and surprisingly achieves genuine sentiment. A highlight is the presentation of the song Broken Doll by Julie McElhone Hayes as a puppet. "You made me think you loved me in return: / Don't tell me you were fooling after all! / For if you turn away, you'll be sorry some day / You left behind a broken doll" was so quietly and poignantly sung, with strings attached, that no man in the audience could sit there unashamed.
It was good to see the multicultural section - an ethnic Aussie dance scene, The Snake Gully Swagger, with embarrassing reminders for me of the Tibooburra Hospital Ball circa 1963, where the band consisted of piano, trumpet and drums and every dance was played in 3/4 time. The sense of fun, irony and even true satire has filled in all the gaps of Music Hall as I've experienced it before, and indeed the rendition late in the show of musical director Andrew Kay's The Bliss of the Backyard Burkes showed that satirical commentary on our present lives is more than acceptable in this almost ceremonial event. The representation of Parliament House as the one feature which broke the prime rule of Marion and Walter that nothing should be built on hills, topped by an amazing tableau revealing a definitely loopy National Museum drew perhaps the most enthusiastic response of the audience on Friday.
The band has also expanded: piano, piano and drums. But unlike my Tibooburra friends, Pauline Sweeney, Andrew Kay and Dick Cutler are wonderful musicians and have the acoustics of the Playhouse completely under control. Even through my ageing tinnitus I could hear every singer clearly.
An excellent entertainment this year, already well-booked for the season.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 26 April 2002
2002: Adult Child/Dead Child by Claire Dowie.
Adult Child/Dead Child by Claire Dowie. Performed by Alexis Beebe, directed by Herman Pretorius. Street Theatre Studio April 25 - May 4, 8.30pm.
I'm glad the writer was originally a stand-up comedian: otherwise Adult Child/Dead Child might have remained just a worthy monologue. Actually, the title should be A Dog Called Benjie. It is only at the point of comic self-realisation near the end that the play becomes genuinely theatrical.
This is not a criticism of this production. The writing creates an effect as if the actor is miming the character as she tells her story. This is reinforced by occasional disembodied voice-over repeats of lines reflecting on the child's experience, later picked up by the child as she gains adulthood.
There is a cleverness in this structure, but it is not truly dramatic until the connection is made between the three Benjies: two dogs and an imaginary friend. At this point we stop watching a rather polemical piece about the mistreatment of a child growing up with dissociative identity disorder (DID) and suddenly find ourselves relating to a real character who has found a way to cope in a world which surrounds her with fear.
The skill in Beebe's acting is in her ability to extract every nuance out of the lines, and especially the repeats of the lines. The mood changes with each attempt on the child's part to take control of her situation, and each consequent knockdown. She achieves a nice sense of the changes through childhood and teenage years, and the extra layer of awareness which adulthood provides.
Clinical psychologist Dr Ross Wilkinson seems to make an excuse in the program notes: "one does not necessarily expect a scientifically accurate portrayal of psychological disorders" in a play. However, my concern is more that a monologue restricts us to the character's perceptions of the truth. She leaves us inclined to blame her parents for causing her psychological problem, yet in adulthood she understands she needs drugs to keep her mental state stable. Which are we to believe - nature or nurture? I think a much more complex drama is required to deal properly with this material.
But Beebe's performance is well worth 80 minutes of your time.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I'm glad the writer was originally a stand-up comedian: otherwise Adult Child/Dead Child might have remained just a worthy monologue. Actually, the title should be A Dog Called Benjie. It is only at the point of comic self-realisation near the end that the play becomes genuinely theatrical.
This is not a criticism of this production. The writing creates an effect as if the actor is miming the character as she tells her story. This is reinforced by occasional disembodied voice-over repeats of lines reflecting on the child's experience, later picked up by the child as she gains adulthood.
There is a cleverness in this structure, but it is not truly dramatic until the connection is made between the three Benjies: two dogs and an imaginary friend. At this point we stop watching a rather polemical piece about the mistreatment of a child growing up with dissociative identity disorder (DID) and suddenly find ourselves relating to a real character who has found a way to cope in a world which surrounds her with fear.
The skill in Beebe's acting is in her ability to extract every nuance out of the lines, and especially the repeats of the lines. The mood changes with each attempt on the child's part to take control of her situation, and each consequent knockdown. She achieves a nice sense of the changes through childhood and teenage years, and the extra layer of awareness which adulthood provides.
Clinical psychologist Dr Ross Wilkinson seems to make an excuse in the program notes: "one does not necessarily expect a scientifically accurate portrayal of psychological disorders" in a play. However, my concern is more that a monologue restricts us to the character's perceptions of the truth. She leaves us inclined to blame her parents for causing her psychological problem, yet in adulthood she understands she needs drugs to keep her mental state stable. Which are we to believe - nature or nurture? I think a much more complex drama is required to deal properly with this material.
But Beebe's performance is well worth 80 minutes of your time.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 12 April 2002
2002: Raining Talent. Free-Rain Theatre Company. Feature article.
Raining Talent. Free-Rain Theatre Company in association with 19th Hole Productions. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, April 11-13.
Since its inception Anne Somes' Free-Rain has emphasised productions of well-known plays involving young people as actors and technicians, in recent times usually directed by her daughter, Kelly. Putting on Equus (Peter Shaffer) or Glengarry Glen Ross (David Mamet) has distinguished Free-Rain from other groups like Canberra Youth Theatre, whose work is more usually group devised, or amateur entertainment groups like Supa.
In Raining Talent, Anne Somes is putting her money, with some support from an artsACT grant, into work which looks more like Youth Theatre. The show is a collection of short scripted and choreographed pieces which allow a range of young people between 10 and 21 years of age to display their talents.
Though the material does not make for a thematically cohesive show, the set design by Kelly Somes and choreography by UWS Nepean graduate Kiri Morcombe is stylish and provides a visual frame which holds together well. Individual performances were all up to standard for the age group and levels of experience.
Is there a place for this kind of production from Free-Rain? Somes' position is that she is continuing a mentoring tradition which, for her, began when Jigsaw Theatre Company - the fully professional theatre-in-education team which has now grown into a wide ranging national production company under Greg Lissaman - provided space, technical assistance and administrative help to Free-Rain at the now defunct Currong Theatre.
This backing helped Somes' work become more firmly established and has led to an association with the Canberra Theatre Centre, with technical and administrative support strongly encouraged by David Whitney and his staff. Somes talks of having a "community conscience", looking for opportunities to assist young people to move out of their school environments into the wider world of theatre - and so she has picked up 19th Hole Productions, the ex-Canberra College group led by Soren Jensen.
So Free-Rain's theatrical niche does provide a slightly different experience, complementing Youth Theatre, Tuggeranong Community Arts and the others. Opportunities for young theatricals in Canberra abound.
Free-Rain's next production is Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson, directed by Kelly Somes in August.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Since its inception Anne Somes' Free-Rain has emphasised productions of well-known plays involving young people as actors and technicians, in recent times usually directed by her daughter, Kelly. Putting on Equus (Peter Shaffer) or Glengarry Glen Ross (David Mamet) has distinguished Free-Rain from other groups like Canberra Youth Theatre, whose work is more usually group devised, or amateur entertainment groups like Supa.
In Raining Talent, Anne Somes is putting her money, with some support from an artsACT grant, into work which looks more like Youth Theatre. The show is a collection of short scripted and choreographed pieces which allow a range of young people between 10 and 21 years of age to display their talents.
Though the material does not make for a thematically cohesive show, the set design by Kelly Somes and choreography by UWS Nepean graduate Kiri Morcombe is stylish and provides a visual frame which holds together well. Individual performances were all up to standard for the age group and levels of experience.
Is there a place for this kind of production from Free-Rain? Somes' position is that she is continuing a mentoring tradition which, for her, began when Jigsaw Theatre Company - the fully professional theatre-in-education team which has now grown into a wide ranging national production company under Greg Lissaman - provided space, technical assistance and administrative help to Free-Rain at the now defunct Currong Theatre.
This backing helped Somes' work become more firmly established and has led to an association with the Canberra Theatre Centre, with technical and administrative support strongly encouraged by David Whitney and his staff. Somes talks of having a "community conscience", looking for opportunities to assist young people to move out of their school environments into the wider world of theatre - and so she has picked up 19th Hole Productions, the ex-Canberra College group led by Soren Jensen.
So Free-Rain's theatrical niche does provide a slightly different experience, complementing Youth Theatre, Tuggeranong Community Arts and the others. Opportunities for young theatricals in Canberra abound.
Free-Rain's next production is Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson, directed by Kelly Somes in August.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)