Welcome to the Machine by George Huitker. Huitker Movement Theatre at Theatre 3, October 29 - November 2, 8pm.
This multi-media theatre piece is a kind of Orwellian 1984 set in 2222. It has the same dire warnings, where Big Brother becomes Dr Oliver Hermanni (Oliver Baudert), a Pygmalion figure who creates a set of clones which cannot survive in the real world. Huitker himself refers to the Frankenstein story and has been strongly influenced by the set design of the 1931 film by James Whale.
As in all these earlier stories, the creations by the mastermind seek their freedom, with disastrous results for themselves and their creators. The interesting twist in Huitker's version is that Dr Hermanni experiments with creativity itself in a world in which creativity has been effectively destroyed by the arts becoming no more than technological entertainment. He uses visual images from earlier times - Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries - to stimulate his clones, who respond in movement imagery.
The clones, numbered One to Six, each represent a different kind of artist - writer, musician, dancer and so on - who finally tell stories of their childhoods where adults failed to recognise or appreciate their natural creativity. Interestingly enough, in keeping with Huitker's theme, this section of the work is the only part which is dramatically powerful, as each character's experience is told to us but also played out in action by the whole group. We recognise ourselves in their fears and frustrations.
Technically the multimedia mix of audio and digital video is very well done, taking on a life of its own. In a way this begs the question of whether theatre can justifiably rely on technological entertainment in its own right, without deeply emotional human performance. It's hard to say whether the conundrum Welcome to the Machine leaves us with is intended by Huitker, or is an accidental result of his attempt to turn philosophical considerations into a theatrical event.
So, though a curate's egg, this work is worth seeing, especially for younger people, as a re-working of an old tradition in modern style. If Huitker can afford it, he should seek criticism and professional development further afield. It's a pity Meryl Tankard is not still in Canberra.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 29 October 2003
Friday, 24 October 2003
2003: National Forum on Performance in Cultural Institutions No 2. Feature article.
Spotlight on Performance: National Forum on Performance in Cultural Institutions No 2. October 23-25 at National Museum of Australia, The Australian War Memorial, ScreenSound Australia and Old Parliament House. Chaired by Nigel Sutton (aka Hans the Storyteller).
This was the second of the biennial forums arranged by the National Museum of Australia as a member of the International Museum Theatre Alliance. There is almost a symbiotic relationship with the Museum of Science in Boston, USA, where 2001 keynote speaker Catherine Hughes established IMTA. This year's keynote speaker was John Lipsky, Associate Professor of Acting and Playwriting at Boston University's College for the Arts, who is also Associate Artistic Director of Vineyard Playhouse on Martha's Vineyard. He writes and directs mainstage plays, as well as shows for the Museum of Science, a Planetarium and the Catalyst Collaborative (about science, scientists and scientific issues) and for the Boston History Collaborative (dramatising Boston's history).
From Australia, NMA Director Dawn Casey welcomed a long list of performers and cultural institution managers, with papers/performances presented by ACT's Jigsaw Theatre Company, Women on a Shoestring, Shortis & Simpson and The Street Theatre (with Violine opening October 30) alongside X-Ray Theatre, ERTH Visual & Physical Inc, storytellers Nigel Sutton, Ed Miller and Mary French, Sovereign Hill Museums Association, Australian National Maritime Museum, Art Gallery of NSW, Artback NT Arts Touring Inc, Cairns Regional Gallery, Parliament House Education Officer Camilla Blunden, Australian War Memorial, University of Newcastle, Robert Swieca on evaluation models, Melbourne Museum, freelance writer/actor Stephen Barker and ScreenSound Australia.
A packed program over 2 days, followed by a day of practical workshops led by Lipsky, obeyed the first and only commandment for performers: Thou shalt not be boring. Lipsky described how he wrote about the concept of gravity by creating Jumping Jack Flash, jester to Queen Gravitas. Though Jack believed only in levity, his Queen proved in the end he couldn't defy gravity. He also demonstrated how the American entrant in the Rooster's Olympics found it difficult to accept that other countries' roosters didn't say "cock-a-doodle-doo" (the French entrant said "coquerico") in a show about understanding other cultures.
Speaking of his play about the debate on stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, which included talking embryos, Lipsky raised the key issue of the forum: cultural integrity. In his context, this was about presenting performances which are true first to the emotional life of complex characters (whether roosters, embryos or historical figures) and only then to the factual information museum educators and curators need to impart. The point is that people remember the scenes - and the embedded information - only if they have emotionally identified with the characters: an interesting twist on the Brechtian theory of theatre. Writing for museum performances is thus as demanding as writing major mainstream plays; and museum pieces are often only 20 minutes long.
From Boston to the Northern Territory, cultural integrity was the common theme. Andrish Saint-Clare of Artback NT explained that "fitting the institution to the performance" is crucial where indigenous performers are engaged. He was highly critical, for example, of galleries using indigenous performers for a first night opener, where the traditional dancers are not paid. This marginalises their performance, as opposed to the "real business" of selling paintings. "Curators," he said, "need to understand the place of performance in indigenous cultures." Performances are not merely re-creations of traditional pieces, but are new creations which are necessary to maintain peoples' cultures.
Institutions need to budget for professional technical support, dramaturgy, appropriate venues, proper negotiation with indigenous elders, and proper payment so that indigenous performances take their proper place in the total Australian cultural scene. He concluded, as many speakers from quite different perspectives agreed, "If you can't do it properly, don't do it."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This was the second of the biennial forums arranged by the National Museum of Australia as a member of the International Museum Theatre Alliance. There is almost a symbiotic relationship with the Museum of Science in Boston, USA, where 2001 keynote speaker Catherine Hughes established IMTA. This year's keynote speaker was John Lipsky, Associate Professor of Acting and Playwriting at Boston University's College for the Arts, who is also Associate Artistic Director of Vineyard Playhouse on Martha's Vineyard. He writes and directs mainstage plays, as well as shows for the Museum of Science, a Planetarium and the Catalyst Collaborative (about science, scientists and scientific issues) and for the Boston History Collaborative (dramatising Boston's history).
From Australia, NMA Director Dawn Casey welcomed a long list of performers and cultural institution managers, with papers/performances presented by ACT's Jigsaw Theatre Company, Women on a Shoestring, Shortis & Simpson and The Street Theatre (with Violine opening October 30) alongside X-Ray Theatre, ERTH Visual & Physical Inc, storytellers Nigel Sutton, Ed Miller and Mary French, Sovereign Hill Museums Association, Australian National Maritime Museum, Art Gallery of NSW, Artback NT Arts Touring Inc, Cairns Regional Gallery, Parliament House Education Officer Camilla Blunden, Australian War Memorial, University of Newcastle, Robert Swieca on evaluation models, Melbourne Museum, freelance writer/actor Stephen Barker and ScreenSound Australia.
A packed program over 2 days, followed by a day of practical workshops led by Lipsky, obeyed the first and only commandment for performers: Thou shalt not be boring. Lipsky described how he wrote about the concept of gravity by creating Jumping Jack Flash, jester to Queen Gravitas. Though Jack believed only in levity, his Queen proved in the end he couldn't defy gravity. He also demonstrated how the American entrant in the Rooster's Olympics found it difficult to accept that other countries' roosters didn't say "cock-a-doodle-doo" (the French entrant said "coquerico") in a show about understanding other cultures.
Speaking of his play about the debate on stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, which included talking embryos, Lipsky raised the key issue of the forum: cultural integrity. In his context, this was about presenting performances which are true first to the emotional life of complex characters (whether roosters, embryos or historical figures) and only then to the factual information museum educators and curators need to impart. The point is that people remember the scenes - and the embedded information - only if they have emotionally identified with the characters: an interesting twist on the Brechtian theory of theatre. Writing for museum performances is thus as demanding as writing major mainstream plays; and museum pieces are often only 20 minutes long.
From Boston to the Northern Territory, cultural integrity was the common theme. Andrish Saint-Clare of Artback NT explained that "fitting the institution to the performance" is crucial where indigenous performers are engaged. He was highly critical, for example, of galleries using indigenous performers for a first night opener, where the traditional dancers are not paid. This marginalises their performance, as opposed to the "real business" of selling paintings. "Curators," he said, "need to understand the place of performance in indigenous cultures." Performances are not merely re-creations of traditional pieces, but are new creations which are necessary to maintain peoples' cultures.
Institutions need to budget for professional technical support, dramaturgy, appropriate venues, proper negotiation with indigenous elders, and proper payment so that indigenous performances take their proper place in the total Australian cultural scene. He concluded, as many speakers from quite different perspectives agreed, "If you can't do it properly, don't do it."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 10 October 2003
2003: King Jack from the play Jack and the Midnight Monsters by Kate McNamara
King Jack, adapted by Jennie Vaskess from the play Jack and the Midnight Monsters by Kate McNamara. Original music by Meg Colwell, directed by Tim Hansen. Designer, Hilary Talbot. Canberra Youth Theatre directed by Jenni Vaskess at Ribbon Gum Theatre, Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. School holiday season till October 12.
Sensible people like me arrived in time for morning tea before the 11.30 am start last Friday with a hot thermos, a honey sandwich, an umbrella, a cushion and two warm woolly jumpers. So, as you would expect, it snowed.
Though the snow passed over and the local kookaburras appropriately announced dry weather just as the show opened, I was extremely glad of my double jumper and cushion in the open air theatre. Yet the littlies for whom this musical story is designed seemed not to notice the cold, while their parents kept on smiling bravely.
There was plenty to smile at from these young performers, acting and singing in the face of environmental reality: not just the wind, but surrounded by gums without ribbons and not too many epicormic shoots after the January firestorm. In the original play the character Kell represents all of Jack's night-time fears, but Talbot made a mask and costume in fiery colours and shapes, allowing us to blend the convention of a child's midnight monsters with the reality of the bushfire. All the masks for the bird and animal characters were wonderful, one young boy near me tugging at his brother to "Look at the owl!" Mopoke seemed to look straight at you, ready to eat you up, and yet with large eyes innocent of any wrongdoing: nature is as it is.
The story is of King Cracticus Torquatus, the grey butcherbird who has lost his way, and how Jack helps by passing on the Ranger's information so King has the confidence to sing and listen for his family's song, until he is reunited with them. His success empowers him to defeat Kell, showing Jack in turn how his midnight fears can be put in their proper place.
This is a worthy story for littlies, and a worthy community contribution in return for the small grant Canberra Youth Theatre received from the ACT Bushfire Recovery Taskforce to help with this project.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sensible people like me arrived in time for morning tea before the 11.30 am start last Friday with a hot thermos, a honey sandwich, an umbrella, a cushion and two warm woolly jumpers. So, as you would expect, it snowed.
Though the snow passed over and the local kookaburras appropriately announced dry weather just as the show opened, I was extremely glad of my double jumper and cushion in the open air theatre. Yet the littlies for whom this musical story is designed seemed not to notice the cold, while their parents kept on smiling bravely.
There was plenty to smile at from these young performers, acting and singing in the face of environmental reality: not just the wind, but surrounded by gums without ribbons and not too many epicormic shoots after the January firestorm. In the original play the character Kell represents all of Jack's night-time fears, but Talbot made a mask and costume in fiery colours and shapes, allowing us to blend the convention of a child's midnight monsters with the reality of the bushfire. All the masks for the bird and animal characters were wonderful, one young boy near me tugging at his brother to "Look at the owl!" Mopoke seemed to look straight at you, ready to eat you up, and yet with large eyes innocent of any wrongdoing: nature is as it is.
The story is of King Cracticus Torquatus, the grey butcherbird who has lost his way, and how Jack helps by passing on the Ranger's information so King has the confidence to sing and listen for his family's song, until he is reunited with them. His success empowers him to defeat Kell, showing Jack in turn how his midnight fears can be put in their proper place.
This is a worthy story for littlies, and a worthy community contribution in return for the small grant Canberra Youth Theatre received from the ACT Bushfire Recovery Taskforce to help with this project.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 3 October 2003
2003: The Beatification of Newt Berton [and the Great Viagra Robbery] by Chris McDonald
The Beatification of Newt Berton [and the Great Viagra Robbery] by Chris McDonald. Laughing Stock Productions at The Street Theatre Studio October 1-4.
Farcical, anarchical and occasionally satirical, the Beatification of Newt Berton raises the hackles of horror: what if the world were run by the Church of Good Morning Australia? Would a time traveller from 2093 return to try to prevent Newt's beatification, while cracking on to Gretchen with an execrable joke like "Time is not impotent to me!"
Since we have probably seen the last of this play, after its seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, and winning Best Comedy Writing at the 2003 Big Laugh Festival, I can offer some reflective commentary.
Originating from the drama society at Macquarie University, the material is typical undergraduate humour: genitals, farts, sexual references, itchy sports bras, God, the Devil and a drunken angel constitute the core of the jokes. On the more satirical side, the swamping of our lives by advertising and "newstainment" is the focus. Characters fall in love when they both burst into the same advertising jingles on cue, as if they have been set up by a stage hypnotist.
What keeps the show together is a simple storyline about One-Nut (James Pender) and Danny (Heath Franklin), who are soon to be evicted, except that they hope to turn their house into a shrine when Newt Berton is beatified by the Pope on the premises. The comedy comes from constant interruptions as Danny's girlfriend leaves him, their housemate Steve stashes 400 boxes of Viagra in his room, an incredibly fast-talking Avon lady sells them make-up, Siamese twin nuns arrive to represent the Pope, a newsreader with a tv for a head gives us the latest, a silver short skirted time traveller eats One-Nut's preserved testicle ....
The non-sequiturs require rapid changes in timing, accents, costumes and characters, including inveigling members of the audience to become things like a bookshelf and to respond vocally. The cast kept up the pace of verbal and physical jokes and certainly entertained the audience thoroughly for 70 minutes.
Most of the group are or have been Creative Arts students at Macquarie, and some are moving on to professional theatre training, while some have also had work in television and on stage. If comedy be the food of theatre, play on.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Farcical, anarchical and occasionally satirical, the Beatification of Newt Berton raises the hackles of horror: what if the world were run by the Church of Good Morning Australia? Would a time traveller from 2093 return to try to prevent Newt's beatification, while cracking on to Gretchen with an execrable joke like "Time is not impotent to me!"
Since we have probably seen the last of this play, after its seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, and winning Best Comedy Writing at the 2003 Big Laugh Festival, I can offer some reflective commentary.
Originating from the drama society at Macquarie University, the material is typical undergraduate humour: genitals, farts, sexual references, itchy sports bras, God, the Devil and a drunken angel constitute the core of the jokes. On the more satirical side, the swamping of our lives by advertising and "newstainment" is the focus. Characters fall in love when they both burst into the same advertising jingles on cue, as if they have been set up by a stage hypnotist.
What keeps the show together is a simple storyline about One-Nut (James Pender) and Danny (Heath Franklin), who are soon to be evicted, except that they hope to turn their house into a shrine when Newt Berton is beatified by the Pope on the premises. The comedy comes from constant interruptions as Danny's girlfriend leaves him, their housemate Steve stashes 400 boxes of Viagra in his room, an incredibly fast-talking Avon lady sells them make-up, Siamese twin nuns arrive to represent the Pope, a newsreader with a tv for a head gives us the latest, a silver short skirted time traveller eats One-Nut's preserved testicle ....
The non-sequiturs require rapid changes in timing, accents, costumes and characters, including inveigling members of the audience to become things like a bookshelf and to respond vocally. The cast kept up the pace of verbal and physical jokes and certainly entertained the audience thoroughly for 70 minutes.
Most of the group are or have been Creative Arts students at Macquarie, and some are moving on to professional theatre training, while some have also had work in television and on stage. If comedy be the food of theatre, play on.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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