THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE
Show Us Your Roots. "The biggest line up of Australia's Multicultural Comedians ever assembled in one place at one time", produced by Laing Special Events in association with the National Multicultural Festival. Llewellyn Hall, Friday February 14.
13 comedians in one night might not seem to augur well, but all except one stood up to my expectations. And really there were 14, because the compere, Peter Rowsthorn, was a quality comedian in his own right. He set the standard of good relations with the audience from the beginning, with humour in mime especially, when the dreaded echo of Llewellyn Hall might have turned the evening sour.
The least successful was Bev Killick of English and Scots origins. Though her vocal bagpipes were well done, too much of her act consisted of imitations (of Tina Turner and AC/DC doing advertising jingles) which could not compare with the traditional storytelling stand-up acts of the others.
What fascinated me was the common thread of irony, done in the Australian laconic manner (itself the butt of many of the jokes), which linked performers from such diverse backgrounds: Jilkamu (Indigenous Australian), Joe June (China), Desh (India, South Africa), Gabriel Rossi (Italy), Jackie Loeb (Germany, Austria), Dave Callan (Ireland), Tahir Bilgic (Turkey), George Smilovici (Cuba, Romania), Chris Wainhouse (New Zealand), Tommy Dean (USA), Hung Lee (Vietnam) and Anthony Mir (Lebanon).
The 3 hour program was too full of laughs for me to give a complete picture. Some highlights were a very brave Jackie Loeb in an underwear routine which began from a visit to the Miss America swimsuit competition, a terrific didgeridoo performance representing hitchhiking in a truck by Jilkamu, and Dave Callan's image of Irish people - trying to be sophisticated - drinking potato daquiris.
Hung Lee's probably true story of his mother, unable to understand English, deciding to make sandwiches for his school lunch filled with corn flakes and soy sauce dressing, showed the light side of cultural confusion. But it was the American Tommy Dean's probably fictional story of the September 11 highjackers secretly laughing at the air hostess demonstrating the safety features of their aircraft which provided the blackest humour of the night.
The hall was full for this one-night stand-up, which I think deserves to become a National Multicultural Festival tradition.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday 15 February 2003
Wednesday 12 February 2003
2003: Carboni by John Romeril
Carboni by John Romeril. Renato Musolino as Rafaello Carboni, directed by Peter Dunn. Tuggeranong Arts Centre in association with the National Multicultural Festival, February 11-15 8pm.
Rafaello Carboni stayed up on watch at the Eureka Stockade over Thursday and Friday nights. By midnight Saturday December 2, 1854, his need for sleep overcame his dedication to the cause of defence against the expected troopers. He, as Peter Lalor's valued interpreter - he spoke 6 languages - was allowed to leave the stockade while things seemed quiet, only to be awakened by gunfire at dawn.
What sense of guilt he must have felt, being forced merely to watch while 20 of his mates were killed and some twice that number left injured, all for the sake of their objection to the Victorian Government's demand, enforced by constant police harrassment, that they pay a licence fee to dig for gold at Ballarat.
Surviving a false charge of treason, Carboni wrote his record of these seminal events in Australian history in a book The Eureka Stockade, was elected a member of the local court in Ballarat, and later returned to Italy where he marched alongside Garibaldi.
Romeril's play, though rather theatre-in-education in style, gives us Carboni the writer, political activist, and defender of the barricades - often rather melodramatic in speech and mannerisms, but a sincere and clear thinker. The result is a perfect multicultural festival presentation. Those 6 languages were needed at Ballarat 150 years ago, and his lack of Chinese was a severe frustration for Carboni.
Musolino performs the play in an Italian translation as well as English. I felt I needed to experience more complexity of emotion in Carboni's character in the English version I saw, but an Italian speaker at the all-Italian opening night was very impressed with the powerful effect of the play in that language, where its strength lay in a dramatic story-telling tradition. For me the action was rather too slow and studied, yet this style gradually built to a strong ending and a clear understanding of the brutal reality of the massacre.
The visual design by Casey van Sebille was a strength of this production: clever back projections reinforced the story and the theme very effectively. The Southern Cross flag now has much greater meaning for me.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Rafaello Carboni stayed up on watch at the Eureka Stockade over Thursday and Friday nights. By midnight Saturday December 2, 1854, his need for sleep overcame his dedication to the cause of defence against the expected troopers. He, as Peter Lalor's valued interpreter - he spoke 6 languages - was allowed to leave the stockade while things seemed quiet, only to be awakened by gunfire at dawn.
What sense of guilt he must have felt, being forced merely to watch while 20 of his mates were killed and some twice that number left injured, all for the sake of their objection to the Victorian Government's demand, enforced by constant police harrassment, that they pay a licence fee to dig for gold at Ballarat.
Surviving a false charge of treason, Carboni wrote his record of these seminal events in Australian history in a book The Eureka Stockade, was elected a member of the local court in Ballarat, and later returned to Italy where he marched alongside Garibaldi.
Romeril's play, though rather theatre-in-education in style, gives us Carboni the writer, political activist, and defender of the barricades - often rather melodramatic in speech and mannerisms, but a sincere and clear thinker. The result is a perfect multicultural festival presentation. Those 6 languages were needed at Ballarat 150 years ago, and his lack of Chinese was a severe frustration for Carboni.
Musolino performs the play in an Italian translation as well as English. I felt I needed to experience more complexity of emotion in Carboni's character in the English version I saw, but an Italian speaker at the all-Italian opening night was very impressed with the powerful effect of the play in that language, where its strength lay in a dramatic story-telling tradition. For me the action was rather too slow and studied, yet this style gradually built to a strong ending and a clear understanding of the brutal reality of the massacre.
The visual design by Casey van Sebille was a strength of this production: clever back projections reinforced the story and the theme very effectively. The Southern Cross flag now has much greater meaning for me.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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