Messages and Take Two. Australian Theatre of the Deaf, directed by Tony Strachan, at Canberra Grammar School August 21-23 7pm
AToD has been a professional company for 25 years, performing for the general public as well as the deaf community, providing teaching workshops for children and adults, and taking theatre-in-education into schools.
Messages is a series of humorous vignettes about communication designed for primary schools, while Take Two, for secondary schools, is the story of a Chinese young man backpacking around Australia and a practical young Australian country woman who meet at university. Despite the differences in their cultures and personalities, a bond is formed and romance blossoms, not because they are both deaf but because they learn to appreciate difference.
I found good fun in the Messages cameos of situations like communicating on the Titanic just before the iceberg, body language between a girl (Romy Bartz) and two boys (Michael Ng and Mathew Glenday) on the beach in Victorian England, and how the first astronaut on the moon meets a friendly bug-eyed monster and tries to tell his story back home.
The message in Take Two was plain enough but I thought the storyline was too simplistic for the theme to have much effect on modern young people. When I think back to mime artists like Marcel Marceau and the erstwhile Canadian Mime Theatre, Take Two seems rather naive and old-fashioned in concept compared to work I saw maybe 20 years ago. The characters were modern enough - the country girl likes building engines and is studying Vet Science, while the Chinese boy sees an opportunity in going abroad to study Architecture, but the situations (especially the stereotyped Chinese restaurant owner, a character I found offensive rather than funny) showed too little subtlety.
Other shows in the offing include Interpretation (at the Performance Space in Sydney in November), an adult study of the layers of meaning for deaf and hearing people, where hearing actors play interpreters, deaf actors interpret, and professional interpreters sign and interpret in speech for the audience. Comedy and ironic misunderstandings result in what should be a fascinating entertainment.
Next year there will be a cabaret which will tour nationally, titled Dislabelled (not disabled), and a deaf musical Friction.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 22 August 2003
2003: Bell Shakespeare's As You Like It. Preview feature article.
As ... You ... Like ... It. Just think about it. What sort of "it" do you like? How would you like it? Who would you like it with? How would you like it to finish? Who asked you in the first place?
William Shakespeare did just about 400 years ago.
He took what was then a modern 1590 novel, Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge, and posed the ultimate post-modern conundrum: truth is a matter of fact, but since facts have already happened and are therefore in the past, and the past is another country, facts are no more than stories we create which we believe to be true. Ergo, truth, when properly deconstructed, is fiction. As the very modern cynic Jaques says in Act 2: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players."
But As You Like It is real enough, appearing at The Playhouse September 4 - 13. The Bell Shakespeare Company brings us director Lindy Davies, whose credentials in theatre go back to the original Marvellous Melbourne at the Pram Factory where the new wave in Australian theatre is claimed (by Melburnians) to have begun. Along the way, mixed in among work in Australia, Britain and Russia, Davies taught Cate Blanchett at NIDA, telling Geoffrey Rush about this "astonishing young woman in her class", and nowadays is Head of Acting at the Victorian College of the Arts.
She brings with her another young woman star, Alice McConnell (Caitlin in MDA)to play Rosalind, as well as a young man who has played Euripedes in Xena, the Warrior Princess, Joe Manning, playing the love-lorn Orlando.
Lorn or not, Manning says the Lindy Davies technique of exploring "what the text does to us" has led him to find a boldness and purity in Orlando. He is on fire with love. The comedy, Manning says, is in the complex situations which grow from the characters' completely different perspectives. Sounds very post-modern indeed.
And you may remember Jennie Tate's wonderful set design and costumes for Bell's The Comedy of Errors last year. A close friend and colleague of Davies, Tate has gone this year into chandeliers, mirrors, crystals and jewels to create a "spectacular world of mystery and magic". As you will like it, without a doubt, while also being a sparkling symbol of see-through and reflection, of myriad perspectives, of shifting surfaces of understanding.
Having just finished working in television, returning to the stage for Alice McConnell makes her "feel like an absolute virgin", which suits the character of Rosalind very well. Letting the text reveal the character, as McConnell describes the Davies process, takes her to a Rosalind who follows the extremes of her instincts. In pretending to be a man, Ganymede, she finds absolute freedom as a woman. She flirts like mad, pushing her luck when she can see she is on to a good thing. While having such fun, she discovers an inner empowerment not merely as a woman but as a person, as an individual.
This production also brings Canberra's Patrick Brammall home for a visit. After Marist College, Free Rain Theatre, a year at the Actors' Centre in Sydney, and a lucky break getting late into VCA when someone else resigned, he worked for Bell Company's Actors at Work Education Team in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
Brammall plays William, the rustic lover of Audrey who is beaten to the altar by Touchstone's wit. Rather than accept poor William's sad fate, however, Brammall suggests the audience come prepared for his exit (Act V Scene 1) with placards to say that Touchstone is really a bounder, in fact just a clown. Audrey will regret her marriage to him, and William, though rather dim it is true, should have his place in the sun. And why not? Surely in Shakespeare's day the downtrodden in the pit would have stood up for poor William.
After all, as Lindy Davies says "The characters embark on a journey in which they discover the joy that love can bring and the virtues of loyalty and moral courage. They are empowered through standing up for their beliefs and by venturing into the unknown."
The other virtue Davies insists on is rigorous emotional and physical training of her actors. She praises Bell Shakespeare Company for supporting her approach and we can be assured of what she calls "virtuosity" in the performances we will see. Like top quality concert musicians, her actors become virtuosos who play their instruments - their bodies and brains - with consummate skill.
Consummation is, of course, what As You Like It is really about, with the celebration of 4 marriages in the final scene. Much witty word-play and flirting in the forest, skilfully acted, is great fun for us to watch. Australian actors are noted for their rough and tumble irreverence, in contrast to Americans' demand for intensity and Britons' focus on reverence for the art. Lindy Davies' early experience at the Pram Factory has combined with her later work training with Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski to bring both the priest and the clown together, just as Shakespeare did in his plays.
Shakespeare's, of course, is the art the British are so reverent about. But, as the film Shakespeare in Love suggested, William enjoyed the moment, pushed the envelope, and sought consummation in interesting ways. More post-modern than you can poke a stick (or whatever) at. Let's just do it, As You Like It, with
Bell Shakespeare
As You Like It
Canberra Playhouse
Thursday September 4 to Saturday September 13 7.30pm
Matinee Sat September 6 1.30pm
Mon September 8 6.30pm
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
Don't forget your placards for poor unconsummated William's exit.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
William Shakespeare did just about 400 years ago.
He took what was then a modern 1590 novel, Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge, and posed the ultimate post-modern conundrum: truth is a matter of fact, but since facts have already happened and are therefore in the past, and the past is another country, facts are no more than stories we create which we believe to be true. Ergo, truth, when properly deconstructed, is fiction. As the very modern cynic Jaques says in Act 2: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players."
But As You Like It is real enough, appearing at The Playhouse September 4 - 13. The Bell Shakespeare Company brings us director Lindy Davies, whose credentials in theatre go back to the original Marvellous Melbourne at the Pram Factory where the new wave in Australian theatre is claimed (by Melburnians) to have begun. Along the way, mixed in among work in Australia, Britain and Russia, Davies taught Cate Blanchett at NIDA, telling Geoffrey Rush about this "astonishing young woman in her class", and nowadays is Head of Acting at the Victorian College of the Arts.
She brings with her another young woman star, Alice McConnell (Caitlin in MDA)to play Rosalind, as well as a young man who has played Euripedes in Xena, the Warrior Princess, Joe Manning, playing the love-lorn Orlando.
Lorn or not, Manning says the Lindy Davies technique of exploring "what the text does to us" has led him to find a boldness and purity in Orlando. He is on fire with love. The comedy, Manning says, is in the complex situations which grow from the characters' completely different perspectives. Sounds very post-modern indeed.
And you may remember Jennie Tate's wonderful set design and costumes for Bell's The Comedy of Errors last year. A close friend and colleague of Davies, Tate has gone this year into chandeliers, mirrors, crystals and jewels to create a "spectacular world of mystery and magic". As you will like it, without a doubt, while also being a sparkling symbol of see-through and reflection, of myriad perspectives, of shifting surfaces of understanding.
Having just finished working in television, returning to the stage for Alice McConnell makes her "feel like an absolute virgin", which suits the character of Rosalind very well. Letting the text reveal the character, as McConnell describes the Davies process, takes her to a Rosalind who follows the extremes of her instincts. In pretending to be a man, Ganymede, she finds absolute freedom as a woman. She flirts like mad, pushing her luck when she can see she is on to a good thing. While having such fun, she discovers an inner empowerment not merely as a woman but as a person, as an individual.
This production also brings Canberra's Patrick Brammall home for a visit. After Marist College, Free Rain Theatre, a year at the Actors' Centre in Sydney, and a lucky break getting late into VCA when someone else resigned, he worked for Bell Company's Actors at Work Education Team in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
Brammall plays William, the rustic lover of Audrey who is beaten to the altar by Touchstone's wit. Rather than accept poor William's sad fate, however, Brammall suggests the audience come prepared for his exit (Act V Scene 1) with placards to say that Touchstone is really a bounder, in fact just a clown. Audrey will regret her marriage to him, and William, though rather dim it is true, should have his place in the sun. And why not? Surely in Shakespeare's day the downtrodden in the pit would have stood up for poor William.
After all, as Lindy Davies says "The characters embark on a journey in which they discover the joy that love can bring and the virtues of loyalty and moral courage. They are empowered through standing up for their beliefs and by venturing into the unknown."
The other virtue Davies insists on is rigorous emotional and physical training of her actors. She praises Bell Shakespeare Company for supporting her approach and we can be assured of what she calls "virtuosity" in the performances we will see. Like top quality concert musicians, her actors become virtuosos who play their instruments - their bodies and brains - with consummate skill.
Consummation is, of course, what As You Like It is really about, with the celebration of 4 marriages in the final scene. Much witty word-play and flirting in the forest, skilfully acted, is great fun for us to watch. Australian actors are noted for their rough and tumble irreverence, in contrast to Americans' demand for intensity and Britons' focus on reverence for the art. Lindy Davies' early experience at the Pram Factory has combined with her later work training with Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski to bring both the priest and the clown together, just as Shakespeare did in his plays.
Shakespeare's, of course, is the art the British are so reverent about. But, as the film Shakespeare in Love suggested, William enjoyed the moment, pushed the envelope, and sought consummation in interesting ways. More post-modern than you can poke a stick (or whatever) at. Let's just do it, As You Like It, with
Bell Shakespeare
As You Like It
Canberra Playhouse
Thursday September 4 to Saturday September 13 7.30pm
Matinee Sat September 6 1.30pm
Mon September 8 6.30pm
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
Don't forget your placards for poor unconsummated William's exit.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 21 August 2003
2003: Conversations with the Dead by Richard Frankland
THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE previously published in The Canberra Times, August 2003.
Conversations with the Dead by Richard Frankland. Company Belvoir B directed by Wesley Enoch at Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, till August 31, 2003, 8pm.
I have been waiting for many decades for an Australian play which would hit dead centre. David Williamson tries, but even his recent therapeutic Conversations are too neat for reality. Louis Nowra and Alma de Groen get near at times. Last year I thought Adam Cook's version of Patrick White's novel The Aunt's Story was very close to the guts of the big dramas like Sophocles' Antigone, Shakespeare's King Lear, or Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
I'm not talking academic airy-fairy bullshit here. I'm talking about plays that churn you up because you know that at any time you are as vulnerable as Antigone, who only wanted to do the right thing by her dead brother, or Willy Loman, whose life in this world full of salesmen was only hype and self-advertisement, with no life at all once you are 'past it'.
I'm talking about what Dean Carey said at the launch of a new book Don't Tell Me, Show Me by Adam Macaulay (Currency Press) in which directors talk about acting: "If I'm going to spend three hours of my time in a theatre I want to be shown something extra-ordinary". [please keep the hyphen]
The key to why Conversations with the Dead is extraordinary lies in both the writing and the staging. Frankland, writing out of his direct experience as a researcher for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, has found a voice in poetry, music, and the character of Jack, played with remarkable emotional and physical energy by Wayne Blair.
As Jack struggles against his own demons, including the ingrained sense of inadequacy which the past 200 years has injected into Aboriginal people, he asks questions of himself which we all ask of ourselves when faced with a seemingly impossible task. We see him, in a clifftop scene reminiscent of King Lear's inviting the storm to destroy him, face up to the images and voices of the dead whose spirits are borne in the harsh calls of black crows and the unpredictable power of the wind so near to blowing him away.
Enoch's direction, working with young designer Ralph Myers and top actors Luke Carroll, Elaine Crombie, Lillian Crombie and Rachael Maza, turns every ordinary action, word and prop, every shadow, every light, into an extraordinary symbol of Jack's despair: a piece of rope, a power cord, football socks, a knife, and pistol bullets carefully made to stand up before one is chosen to go in the chamber.
But, unlike the usual tragic characters, Jack does not die. He is still here, as the Aboriginal people are still here, and he wonders about other people leading their ordinary lives - he wonders about us - and what we would do if we knew all that he knows about the 99 deaths he investigated, the other 25 deaths up to 1989 the Commission decided not to investigate, the deaths rising from 11 in 1991 to 19 in 2001, and the deaths still happening in custody today. If we knew, as he says, "all that every Koori knows".
So Frankland's play, now trimmed taut by Wesley Enoch, is the central Australian tragedy I have been seeking. Rather than feeling sorry for Jack, however, we are forced to see the tragedy in ourselves. As Lear understands his role in the death of his favourite daughter Cordelia; as Linda Loman sees all the human forces, including her own attitudes, which have made Willy kill himself; so we know that we have failed Jack's people.
Jack faces the truth, learns at last who he is, and is not afraid to converse with the dead. Can the rest of us do at least as much as Edgar advises at the end of King Lear: "The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
Conversations with the Dead by Richard Frankland. Company Belvoir B directed by Wesley Enoch at Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, till August 31, 2003, 8pm.
I have been waiting for many decades for an Australian play which would hit dead centre. David Williamson tries, but even his recent therapeutic Conversations are too neat for reality. Louis Nowra and Alma de Groen get near at times. Last year I thought Adam Cook's version of Patrick White's novel The Aunt's Story was very close to the guts of the big dramas like Sophocles' Antigone, Shakespeare's King Lear, or Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
I'm not talking academic airy-fairy bullshit here. I'm talking about plays that churn you up because you know that at any time you are as vulnerable as Antigone, who only wanted to do the right thing by her dead brother, or Willy Loman, whose life in this world full of salesmen was only hype and self-advertisement, with no life at all once you are 'past it'.
I'm talking about what Dean Carey said at the launch of a new book Don't Tell Me, Show Me by Adam Macaulay (Currency Press) in which directors talk about acting: "If I'm going to spend three hours of my time in a theatre I want to be shown something extra-ordinary". [please keep the hyphen]
The key to why Conversations with the Dead is extraordinary lies in both the writing and the staging. Frankland, writing out of his direct experience as a researcher for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, has found a voice in poetry, music, and the character of Jack, played with remarkable emotional and physical energy by Wayne Blair.
As Jack struggles against his own demons, including the ingrained sense of inadequacy which the past 200 years has injected into Aboriginal people, he asks questions of himself which we all ask of ourselves when faced with a seemingly impossible task. We see him, in a clifftop scene reminiscent of King Lear's inviting the storm to destroy him, face up to the images and voices of the dead whose spirits are borne in the harsh calls of black crows and the unpredictable power of the wind so near to blowing him away.
Enoch's direction, working with young designer Ralph Myers and top actors Luke Carroll, Elaine Crombie, Lillian Crombie and Rachael Maza, turns every ordinary action, word and prop, every shadow, every light, into an extraordinary symbol of Jack's despair: a piece of rope, a power cord, football socks, a knife, and pistol bullets carefully made to stand up before one is chosen to go in the chamber.
But, unlike the usual tragic characters, Jack does not die. He is still here, as the Aboriginal people are still here, and he wonders about other people leading their ordinary lives - he wonders about us - and what we would do if we knew all that he knows about the 99 deaths he investigated, the other 25 deaths up to 1989 the Commission decided not to investigate, the deaths rising from 11 in 1991 to 19 in 2001, and the deaths still happening in custody today. If we knew, as he says, "all that every Koori knows".
So Frankland's play, now trimmed taut by Wesley Enoch, is the central Australian tragedy I have been seeking. Rather than feeling sorry for Jack, however, we are forced to see the tragedy in ourselves. As Lear understands his role in the death of his favourite daughter Cordelia; as Linda Loman sees all the human forces, including her own attitudes, which have made Willy kill himself; so we know that we have failed Jack's people.
Jack faces the truth, learns at last who he is, and is not afraid to converse with the dead. Can the rest of us do at least as much as Edgar advises at the end of King Lear: "The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
Wednesday, 20 August 2003
2003: It Stands Alone by John Breen
It Stands Alone by John Breen. Ross Mollison Productions. Directed by Wayne Harrison. Canberra Playhouse August 19-23.
"If you pay a visit to Ireland, you are taken in at first by all that extremely rapid, very clever kind of gabble; they talk and tell stories and are amusing for a while, but after a little time you discover the interest does not really sustain itself."
In my own self-defence, I quote a famous Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who has written exactly my reaction to It Stands Alone. He wrote this in 1919; things haven't changed.
The story of how Munster defeated the All Blacks 12-0 in 1978 has been turned into a Mouse That Roared myth which John Breen takes as a given truth. The mawkish sentimental ending, singing Alone It Stands about this "little Isle" as if winning a football match gives Ireland all the dignity and freedom it deserves just turned my stomach.
Although the cleverly choreographed clowning and slapstick cameos which represented the football match were performed by the ensemble with considerable skill, and were suitably rewarded with laughter, the references to the real world outside football were made but were allowed to die on the vine when they should have grown to significant fruition.
The death of Donal Canniffe's father from heart attack while his son was on the field was not tragic (as claimed by the author in his notes): it was no more than a case of unfortunate timing. Gerry's failure to be with his wife for the birth of their twins was turned into a weak joke about the names she gives them. A brief discussion about Ireland glorifying its failures disappeared without a trace of development after it got its laugh. And the parallel story of the young teenager gangs' bonfire competition wasn't even funny. When the fire was lit and explosions of bullets nicked from one of the terrorist groups made the kids duck for cover, there was an opportunity for some real satire, or a dramatic shift into tragedy. But absolutely nothing happened. The next little cameo joke appeared and all reality was forgotten.
Go along for a humorous replay of a rugby game with a few standard jokes about sheep in New Zealand and some rough language concerning various kinds of balls, but don't bother if you want to see anything subtle, theatrically exciting or seriously satirical. Don't blame the actors: they're as good or rather better than the script allows them to be.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"If you pay a visit to Ireland, you are taken in at first by all that extremely rapid, very clever kind of gabble; they talk and tell stories and are amusing for a while, but after a little time you discover the interest does not really sustain itself."
In my own self-defence, I quote a famous Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who has written exactly my reaction to It Stands Alone. He wrote this in 1919; things haven't changed.
The story of how Munster defeated the All Blacks 12-0 in 1978 has been turned into a Mouse That Roared myth which John Breen takes as a given truth. The mawkish sentimental ending, singing Alone It Stands about this "little Isle" as if winning a football match gives Ireland all the dignity and freedom it deserves just turned my stomach.
Although the cleverly choreographed clowning and slapstick cameos which represented the football match were performed by the ensemble with considerable skill, and were suitably rewarded with laughter, the references to the real world outside football were made but were allowed to die on the vine when they should have grown to significant fruition.
The death of Donal Canniffe's father from heart attack while his son was on the field was not tragic (as claimed by the author in his notes): it was no more than a case of unfortunate timing. Gerry's failure to be with his wife for the birth of their twins was turned into a weak joke about the names she gives them. A brief discussion about Ireland glorifying its failures disappeared without a trace of development after it got its laugh. And the parallel story of the young teenager gangs' bonfire competition wasn't even funny. When the fire was lit and explosions of bullets nicked from one of the terrorist groups made the kids duck for cover, there was an opportunity for some real satire, or a dramatic shift into tragedy. But absolutely nothing happened. The next little cameo joke appeared and all reality was forgotten.
Go along for a humorous replay of a rugby game with a few standard jokes about sheep in New Zealand and some rough language concerning various kinds of balls, but don't bother if you want to see anything subtle, theatrically exciting or seriously satirical. Don't blame the actors: they're as good or rather better than the script allows them to be.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 14 August 2003
2003: In Cold Light by Duncan Ley
In Cold Light by Duncan Ley. New Century Productions directed by Stephen Pike at Theatre 3 Wed-Sat August 14-30.
It's not fashionable to talk too directly of the ethics in telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Too many people in positions of responsibility might be embarrassed, and we should respect their feelings after all. In Cold Light is an old-fashioned play on this point, and therefore is a highly relevant allegorical investigation of social leaders like Governors-General, Prime and other Ministers, and business CEOs of recent years.
The author, and indeed God, will not permit me to reveal much of the plot of The Inspector's (Duncan Ley) examination of Father Christian Lamori (Michael Sparks), Deputy Principal of St Matthew's Boys' School. The Inspector interrogates at times obliquely, sometimes bluntly, once or twice even violently, but always unswervingly. It takes only an hour and a half for the shamelessly symbolically named Lamori to reveal his inner life, and the manner of his leaving it.
If this sounds mysterious, so be it. This mystery is enticing as Lamori wriggles under The Inspector's pin. Following the twists and turns of Ley's script, performed with admirable technical skill by both actors, becomes an intellectual exercise which any crime fiction addict cannot afford to miss. The ending is a neat surprise / reprise.
At first I thought, Oh God, not another play about Christian, even specifically Catholic guilt, but gradually The Inspector's role in playing with Lamori's cover-ups to avoid the truth, came to parallel the author's playing with our understanding of the situation. The final revelation, the folk-Christian picture of the after-life, is left for us to consider as a humorous metaphor rather than deadly serious literal truth.
Though there are potential depths of characterisation left unexplored, In Cold Light, Ley's second play, is well worth a visit. Technical design and production is excellent. We can look forward to more New Century Productions and more Duncan Ley plays.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It's not fashionable to talk too directly of the ethics in telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Too many people in positions of responsibility might be embarrassed, and we should respect their feelings after all. In Cold Light is an old-fashioned play on this point, and therefore is a highly relevant allegorical investigation of social leaders like Governors-General, Prime and other Ministers, and business CEOs of recent years.
The author, and indeed God, will not permit me to reveal much of the plot of The Inspector's (Duncan Ley) examination of Father Christian Lamori (Michael Sparks), Deputy Principal of St Matthew's Boys' School. The Inspector interrogates at times obliquely, sometimes bluntly, once or twice even violently, but always unswervingly. It takes only an hour and a half for the shamelessly symbolically named Lamori to reveal his inner life, and the manner of his leaving it.
If this sounds mysterious, so be it. This mystery is enticing as Lamori wriggles under The Inspector's pin. Following the twists and turns of Ley's script, performed with admirable technical skill by both actors, becomes an intellectual exercise which any crime fiction addict cannot afford to miss. The ending is a neat surprise / reprise.
At first I thought, Oh God, not another play about Christian, even specifically Catholic guilt, but gradually The Inspector's role in playing with Lamori's cover-ups to avoid the truth, came to parallel the author's playing with our understanding of the situation. The final revelation, the folk-Christian picture of the after-life, is left for us to consider as a humorous metaphor rather than deadly serious literal truth.
Though there are potential depths of characterisation left unexplored, In Cold Light, Ley's second play, is well worth a visit. Technical design and production is excellent. We can look forward to more New Century Productions and more Duncan Ley plays.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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