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
Wednesday, 21 August 2002
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
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