Who was born 100 years ago, wrote a best-selling book with only 223 words in it, and inspired a Broadway musical? And, not incidentally, has encouraged huge numbers of children to learn to read through his whimsical rhymes and quirky characters?
Theodor Seuss Geisel is who. Dr Seuss to you.
The musical? Seussical the Musical (co-conceived by Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty and Eric Idle) opened on Broadway in November 2000, ran there for more than 5 months and has been touring since then. As Graham Bauerle, one-time teacher and long-time President of Phoenix Players explained, Seussical is admirably suited to local communities where the whole family can participate. That's why he and his dedicated committee jumped at the opportunity when the performing rights became available in Australia in 2004.
Two Victorian schools got in first, but this is the first general public performance in Australia, opening January 14 for a 15 show run.
Phoenix Players has grown over its 15 year history into a community theatre group with a sense of purpose. Its first aim is to give young people a place to learn through experience - the only way - about theatre production. Its second purpose is to give families a community to belong to. Since its beginnings in Belconnen Community Centre, Phoenix has moved its performances to The Street Theatre and Theatre 3, finding these theatres give the Players the quality of experience they need, as well as expanding their membership and audience.
And their expenses. Seussical's budget is more than $30,000. But passion for this particular musical carries the day with Bauerle and his director Belinda Anyos, well known as BJ, who doubles - now triples - as the Fairy Who Can't Fly and an Excited Particle at Questacon. In fact she quadruples as a trainee primary teacher at UC, which is where her interest in children's learning to read comes in.
Anyos explains the many layers of Seussical (maybe like a club sandwich of Green Eggs and Ham). All the 47 young cast members have studied all the Dr Seuss books as their essential reading research, learning not only about their characters but also about the importance of learning to read. They also learn a sense of humour while having fun. So Phoenix show their members the bond between reading and acting out.
For the audience, the very young will see Seuss's characters appear from his books which form the set, narrated by the dynamic Arron Grainger as The Cat in the Hat. But at another level, the story takes place in the imagination of a young boy, JoJo, as he reads about the Grinch, the Whos, the Sour Kangaroo, Gertrude Fuzz and many others. The central books are Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg, while for the older audience, for whom Seuss may seem old hat, there is the fun of identifying the references to all 15 books.
The music, singing and dancing carry the show along smartly and smoothly. No dead scene changes, and very little spoken dialogue, makes Seussical into a rollicking light opera drawing on pop, gospel, blues and R&B musical styles.
There is a special excitement because this is a new show, where everyone from the director to the costume sewer has worked without preconceptions. This makes creative juices flow, rather than being limited as amateur groups often are by the expectation to imitate famous stage or film productions. Creating productions from literary sources is now a new theme for Phoenix Players, with a non-audition workshop for children 9-16 in first semester this year leading to a production in July of Roald Dahl's The Witches, which BJ will also direct.
Apart from Spot the Story (I have suggested there should be a prize for the first to find all 15), there is also a raffle, first prize a giant Cat in the Hat with Seuss books, and other book prizes. And for parents with a real concern about the current debate about children learning to read via phonics or whole word methods, go to see Seussical the Musical to see how Theodor Seuss Geisel put the two together. His rhymes give children the phonics, his visuals and use of repetition give the whole words, while his off-beat humour appeals even to the very young as well as the young-at-heart. Just add music and dance, imaginative costumes and all the theatrical effects at Theatre 3 to bring it all to life.
Seussical the Musical
By arrangement: Hal Leonard Australia for Music Theatre International (NY)
Phoenix Players at Theatre 3
January 14 - 29
Matinee, Twilight and Evening performances
Bookings: Theatre 3 on 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 31 December 2004
Thursday, 23 December 2004
2004: Extremes. Survival in the Great Deserts of the Southern Hemisphere
Extremes. Survival in the Great Deserts of the Southern Hemisphere. National Museum of Australia, December 26 2004 to mid-2005. Adults $8, Concession $6, Child $5, Family $16.
Here is an exhibition which is worth crossing a desert to see - 4 deserts, actually. There is plenty to slake your thirst for knowledge about the Atacama which contains the driest place on earth, the famous Kalahari, the less well-known Namib and our own Red Centre. What links them is, in Afrikaans, the Steenbokskeerkring - the ring of antelopes - aka the Tropic of Capricorn. As the earth spins, our swirling atmosphere creates this band of dry air still linking us to our old partners in Gondwanaland since we split up over 50 million years ago.
A good exhibition should be dramatic in its impact, and this story of people living in the deserts over the last 30,000 years begins with larger than life indigenous people talking quietly and personally to us on film, immersed in marvellous images of their country. Stop as you go in, look and listen, before you explore the ancient and modern artefacts of change which is the history these people have survived. It is not so much lack of water that makes life difficult in these deserts. More often it has been insensitive, greedy and deliberately destructive invasion by people who have failed to learn to live within nature's bounds.
It strikes home, as senior Ikuntji man Douglas Multa speaks, to realise that people started mining red ochre in his country 30,000 years ago, and still do today as part of the life of a man related to cattle bosses, cameleers and famous women artists, and whose own interests include football, heavy metal and country music. How dramatic are these changes indeed? The stories of Namib elder of the ǂAonin people, Rudolf Dausab (ǂis a 'click' sound) and Atacamena Rosa Ramos are no less fascinating.
Between the inflatable sea lion skin raft and the Conquistador helmet, ostrich egg water flasks and Dr Livingstone's actual cap he wore when Stanley greeted him "Dr Livingstone, I presume?", a hair string belt and the Bush Mechanics EJ Holden there is much more than an hour's worth of remarkable human experience for visitors young and old. An extremely good exhibition in the best National Museum tradition.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Here is an exhibition which is worth crossing a desert to see - 4 deserts, actually. There is plenty to slake your thirst for knowledge about the Atacama which contains the driest place on earth, the famous Kalahari, the less well-known Namib and our own Red Centre. What links them is, in Afrikaans, the Steenbokskeerkring - the ring of antelopes - aka the Tropic of Capricorn. As the earth spins, our swirling atmosphere creates this band of dry air still linking us to our old partners in Gondwanaland since we split up over 50 million years ago.
A good exhibition should be dramatic in its impact, and this story of people living in the deserts over the last 30,000 years begins with larger than life indigenous people talking quietly and personally to us on film, immersed in marvellous images of their country. Stop as you go in, look and listen, before you explore the ancient and modern artefacts of change which is the history these people have survived. It is not so much lack of water that makes life difficult in these deserts. More often it has been insensitive, greedy and deliberately destructive invasion by people who have failed to learn to live within nature's bounds.
It strikes home, as senior Ikuntji man Douglas Multa speaks, to realise that people started mining red ochre in his country 30,000 years ago, and still do today as part of the life of a man related to cattle bosses, cameleers and famous women artists, and whose own interests include football, heavy metal and country music. How dramatic are these changes indeed? The stories of Namib elder of the ǂAonin people, Rudolf Dausab (ǂis a 'click' sound) and Atacamena Rosa Ramos are no less fascinating.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 9 December 2004
2004: Nunsense by Dan Goggin
Nunsense. Music, lyrics and most of the dialogue by Dan Goggin. G-String Productions at Teatro Vivaldi Theatre Restaurant, ANU Arts Centre, directed by Rod Beaver. December 8, 10, 14, 16, 17 and 19 at 6.30 for 7pm. Dinner and show $49. Bookings 6257 2718.
2004 is the 20th anniversary of this wacky American off-Broadway musical. Still popular over there, it's a good choice by G-String for a pre-Christmas fun night with a bunch of nuns. Fortunately the food at Vivaldi's is way above the class of the convent cook, Sr Julia. "Out of respect for the recently departed Little Sisters of Hoboken, vichyssoise will not be offered on this evening's menu" since the Sister's soup killed 52. The few survivors, who by chance were at bingo that night, entertain us in the hope of raising enough money to bury the last 4 bodies, currently at rest in the kitchen freezer.
The team of 5 women - Kylie Butler (Reverend Mother), Renay Hart (Sr Mary Hubert), Liz Beaver (Sr Robert Anne), Megan Simpson (Sr Mary Amnesia) and Rebecca Franks (Sr Mary Leo) - are a great ensemble, singing, dancing, telling jokes and stories, and gossipping along with excellent pianist Lachlan Cotter. Though very evenly matched I would give a little extra for Hart's voice, especially in the final swinging gospel number, and for Simpson's very surprising puppet.
You don't need to be Catholic to appreciate the jokes, especially ones like the clock with the 12 apostles. Like any good theatre restaurant, the close relationship between the performers spilling off a tiny stage and a relaxed well-fed audience is a bonus.
But at Vivaldi's the arrangement of the stage and seating made for difficult audio balancing. The piano was too often over the top of the miked performers, making their words hard to pick up clearly, while at the far end some performers' voices were too soft. This requires a more complex sound system than only 2 widely spaced speakers, and occasionally the director might have to sit on the pianist. This could easily be incorporated into the show, which already contains a hilarious multi-media segment not imagined by the author.
Make sure you book for excellent fare, real and theatrical.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2004 is the 20th anniversary of this wacky American off-Broadway musical. Still popular over there, it's a good choice by G-String for a pre-Christmas fun night with a bunch of nuns. Fortunately the food at Vivaldi's is way above the class of the convent cook, Sr Julia. "Out of respect for the recently departed Little Sisters of Hoboken, vichyssoise will not be offered on this evening's menu" since the Sister's soup killed 52. The few survivors, who by chance were at bingo that night, entertain us in the hope of raising enough money to bury the last 4 bodies, currently at rest in the kitchen freezer.
The team of 5 women - Kylie Butler (Reverend Mother), Renay Hart (Sr Mary Hubert), Liz Beaver (Sr Robert Anne), Megan Simpson (Sr Mary Amnesia) and Rebecca Franks (Sr Mary Leo) - are a great ensemble, singing, dancing, telling jokes and stories, and gossipping along with excellent pianist Lachlan Cotter. Though very evenly matched I would give a little extra for Hart's voice, especially in the final swinging gospel number, and for Simpson's very surprising puppet.
You don't need to be Catholic to appreciate the jokes, especially ones like the clock with the 12 apostles. Like any good theatre restaurant, the close relationship between the performers spilling off a tiny stage and a relaxed well-fed audience is a bonus.
But at Vivaldi's the arrangement of the stage and seating made for difficult audio balancing. The piano was too often over the top of the miked performers, making their words hard to pick up clearly, while at the far end some performers' voices were too soft. This requires a more complex sound system than only 2 widely spaced speakers, and occasionally the director might have to sit on the pianist. This could easily be incorporated into the show, which already contains a hilarious multi-media segment not imagined by the author.
Make sure you book for excellent fare, real and theatrical.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 30 November 2004
2004: An Evening with Queen Victoria - review written the character of the Queen.
An Evening with Queen Victoria, a portrait in her own words. Devised and directed by Katrina Hendrey. Prunella Scales with Ian Partridge (Tenor) and Richard Burnett (Piano). The Playhouse, November 29-30.
I wonder if Ms Scales (you see, I still keep up with modern thinking just as I loved Rossini's 'Il Rimprovero' in my youth) will emulate my determination to never give up. She has only some ten years to go to match my longevity, but I must agree that she is much more sprightly than I at her age. I doubt that I could have played myself aged 18 in 1891, though I did very much enjoy the Misters Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers in that year. The song 'The Working Monarch' was so much fun, just such a delight that the common people should come to know how my days were spent signing Bills, dispensing knighthoods and so on.
Of course, though Ms Scales, and indeed Professor Partridge, are Commanders of the British Empire, they can never be the real thing as I was. My insistence on my assuming the title Empress of India was perhaps the highlight of my life, revealing - as I wrote - how "prince and peasant are all the same ... before God". We are amused to observe how well my attitudes have survived, in the words of dear Prince Ernest and my very dear Prince Albert in his song Schmerz der Liebe, 'the ship of love battered by the rocks and tempests of life's journey'. My dear great great great grandson Prince Charles understands so well the duties of a monarch and one's proper relations with those in the lower orders, even when, as in the case of my dear Scotsman J. Brown, a commoner has 'feelings and qualities that the highest Prince might be proud of'.
Though I once wrote 'women are unfit to reign', I am informed Ms Scales filled the Playhouse even after more than 400 performances, so it seems Tory or Liberal (I was never sure which was which) values live on, even in far-flung Australia. Long live the Queen.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I wonder if Ms Scales (you see, I still keep up with modern thinking just as I loved Rossini's 'Il Rimprovero' in my youth) will emulate my determination to never give up. She has only some ten years to go to match my longevity, but I must agree that she is much more sprightly than I at her age. I doubt that I could have played myself aged 18 in 1891, though I did very much enjoy the Misters Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers in that year. The song 'The Working Monarch' was so much fun, just such a delight that the common people should come to know how my days were spent signing Bills, dispensing knighthoods and so on.
Of course, though Ms Scales, and indeed Professor Partridge, are Commanders of the British Empire, they can never be the real thing as I was. My insistence on my assuming the title Empress of India was perhaps the highlight of my life, revealing - as I wrote - how "prince and peasant are all the same ... before God". We are amused to observe how well my attitudes have survived, in the words of dear Prince Ernest and my very dear Prince Albert in his song Schmerz der Liebe, 'the ship of love battered by the rocks and tempests of life's journey'. My dear great great great grandson Prince Charles understands so well the duties of a monarch and one's proper relations with those in the lower orders, even when, as in the case of my dear Scotsman J. Brown, a commoner has 'feelings and qualities that the highest Prince might be proud of'.
Though I once wrote 'women are unfit to reign', I am informed Ms Scales filled the Playhouse even after more than 400 performances, so it seems Tory or Liberal (I was never sure which was which) values live on, even in far-flung Australia. Long live the Queen.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2004: An Evening with Queen Victoria by Katrina Hendrey
An Evening with Queen Victoria, a portrait in her own words. Devised and directed by Katrina Hendrey. Prunella Scales with Ian Partridge (Tenor) and Richard Burnett (Piano). The Playhouse, November 29-30.
This team has toured Queen Victoria four times to Australia as well as to North America, New Zealand and what the program refers to as the Far East. It's still a worthy study of a Queen from her own point of view but it is showing signs of wear.
Scales has a very long history as a popular actor, with credits of much more artistic value than her famous Sybil in Fawlty Towers, so it was disappointing to find her lines slipping occasionally and her intimacy with the audience quite variable. Perhaps the ravages of time are catching up, though physically she is remarkable for ably capturing Victoria aged 18 as well as aged 82 just before her death in 1901.
The 19th Century family soiree setting was easy on the eye, and appropriate, though Hendry's husband Richard seemed to me not as relaxed at the keyboard as I expected - a little rushed and having to cover some missing notes occasionally. However, I did appreciate the quality of tone and the atmosphere created by tenor Ian Partridge. His singing and gentle playing of just enough of the role of Prince Albert held the show together, I thought.
Though I too, in 1961, found Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam fascinating, as Victoria had 100 years earlier after Albert's unexpected sudden death, I wonder now if it is not time to let Victoria go. To hear her patronising attitudes, even if natural to a monarch, presented as empathetic humour seems rather out of our place and time. It's a worry that her great great great grandson Charles (just search the web for British Royal Family Tree) seems to have very similar ideas about the common people. In Victoria's words, after she assumed the title of Empress of India, "Prince and peasant are all the same ... before God".
Here on earth it's a different story, and Prunella Scales tells it well - though on this occasion not as well as I had expected.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This team has toured Queen Victoria four times to Australia as well as to North America, New Zealand and what the program refers to as the Far East. It's still a worthy study of a Queen from her own point of view but it is showing signs of wear.
Scales has a very long history as a popular actor, with credits of much more artistic value than her famous Sybil in Fawlty Towers, so it was disappointing to find her lines slipping occasionally and her intimacy with the audience quite variable. Perhaps the ravages of time are catching up, though physically she is remarkable for ably capturing Victoria aged 18 as well as aged 82 just before her death in 1901.
The 19th Century family soiree setting was easy on the eye, and appropriate, though Hendry's husband Richard seemed to me not as relaxed at the keyboard as I expected - a little rushed and having to cover some missing notes occasionally. However, I did appreciate the quality of tone and the atmosphere created by tenor Ian Partridge. His singing and gentle playing of just enough of the role of Prince Albert held the show together, I thought.
Though I too, in 1961, found Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam fascinating, as Victoria had 100 years earlier after Albert's unexpected sudden death, I wonder now if it is not time to let Victoria go. To hear her patronising attitudes, even if natural to a monarch, presented as empathetic humour seems rather out of our place and time. It's a worry that her great great great grandson Charles (just search the web for British Royal Family Tree) seems to have very similar ideas about the common people. In Victoria's words, after she assumed the title of Empress of India, "Prince and peasant are all the same ... before God".
Here on earth it's a different story, and Prunella Scales tells it well - though on this occasion not as well as I had expected.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 29 November 2004
2004: Radio Silence by Alana Valentine
Radio Silence by Alana Valentine, performed by Mary Rachel Brown. ANZAC Hall, Australian War Memorial, Fridays to Mondays 11.45am, 12.45pm, 1.45pm.
This 12 minute play is an emotional recreation of the thoughts and feelings of Violet, a WAAF wireless operator stationed at Binbrook in Britain where Australians in Bomber Command were based, as she waits through 8 hours of radio silence. Her English friends say she is "growing a tail". In one of the Lancasters is Marty, who dances clumsily but claims that's the way things are done in Australia and he'll give her more lessons.
Will Marty's plane come on air on schedule? If not, will the crew have been able to parachute out to safety? News comes in of a plane, crashed "with no survivors". Violet has previously been engaged to a pilot who did not survive. She tries to forget him "but I learned to let his face just sit there. To smile at his memory." She tells us how "kissing with a sense of the future cannot be contemplated by either of you."
She picks up the right signal only a short time after radio silence ends, and is ecstatic that she will see Marty again, at least for one more night. Then he will be on ops again, and she will go through radio silence again, and again. "I thought wireless ops would mean I'd be talking to lots of people, but it isn't like that," she says.
Museums are about facts, and plays are fiction. Valentine has imagined a terrible truth about war, and Mary Rachel Brown holds our attention on the imaginary Violet so we come to understand the fear and the seeming futility of a war in which she plays an essential role but over which she has no control.
Performed in the shadow of the huge wing of G for George, the strength of Radio Silence is its simplicity, surrounded as it is by the images, sounds and icons of World War II. It says to all of us: Remember what it was really like. Lest we forget.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This 12 minute play is an emotional recreation of the thoughts and feelings of Violet, a WAAF wireless operator stationed at Binbrook in Britain where Australians in Bomber Command were based, as she waits through 8 hours of radio silence. Her English friends say she is "growing a tail". In one of the Lancasters is Marty, who dances clumsily but claims that's the way things are done in Australia and he'll give her more lessons.
Will Marty's plane come on air on schedule? If not, will the crew have been able to parachute out to safety? News comes in of a plane, crashed "with no survivors". Violet has previously been engaged to a pilot who did not survive. She tries to forget him "but I learned to let his face just sit there. To smile at his memory." She tells us how "kissing with a sense of the future cannot be contemplated by either of you."
She picks up the right signal only a short time after radio silence ends, and is ecstatic that she will see Marty again, at least for one more night. Then he will be on ops again, and she will go through radio silence again, and again. "I thought wireless ops would mean I'd be talking to lots of people, but it isn't like that," she says.
Museums are about facts, and plays are fiction. Valentine has imagined a terrible truth about war, and Mary Rachel Brown holds our attention on the imaginary Violet so we come to understand the fear and the seeming futility of a war in which she plays an essential role but over which she has no control.
Performed in the shadow of the huge wing of G for George, the strength of Radio Silence is its simplicity, surrounded as it is by the images, sounds and icons of World War II. It says to all of us: Remember what it was really like. Lest we forget.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 19 November 2004
2004: Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical
Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical, adapted from the film by Erica Schmidt, music by Andrew Sherman. Three Amigos Productions at Canberra Theatre Friday November 19.
"Life can give you more than to go where you thought you need to go." Small-town cheerleader Debbie wants to be a Dallas Cowgirl. To raise the funds to get to Dallas, she discovers that working for minimum wages of $2.90 per hour does not compare with selling her boss a look at her breasts for $10, and a suck for $20. She has only two weeks, with school and cheerleading to fit in as well, so when Mr Greenfelt dresses her in the Dallas Cowgirl costume and himself in the Cowboy football uniform, and offers to pay her way, how can she refuse?
She wonders if she looks different afterwards, but off she goes, leaving the rest of the local boys and girls behind, to discover what more life can give her.
All this happens, including all sorts of simulated sex among the boys and girls on the way, at a terrifyingly cheerful pace, presumably appropriate for American cheerleaders. The all singing, all dancing cast are entirely up to the mark. Visuals, sound and lights are very well designed and just about everything worked, even though for only one performance in Canberra.
If the original, apparently purely pornographic film was made as a simple celebration of the joys of sex, then this musical version must be at least a light hearted semi-satire. It reminded me of the ancient Greek Lysistrata, where the women tease the men but won't let them have sex until they stop the war. Here we saw only one banana, used to represent a blow job and then regurgitated, and one over-long fabricated penis - nothing to compare with old Aristophanes. All good for a laugh, but rather tame pornographically speaking.
But I was surprised that adult women in the audience were cheering Debbie on in her purely commercial enterprise. I thought we lived today in a new world of family values and traditional morality. Maybe there are a lot more Debbies doing Dallas in Canberra today than I have come across. Or maybe they haven't really thought about the exploitation of women by men - an issue completely ignored in this musical representation of life giving you more than you dreamed of.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Life can give you more than to go where you thought you need to go." Small-town cheerleader Debbie wants to be a Dallas Cowgirl. To raise the funds to get to Dallas, she discovers that working for minimum wages of $2.90 per hour does not compare with selling her boss a look at her breasts for $10, and a suck for $20. She has only two weeks, with school and cheerleading to fit in as well, so when Mr Greenfelt dresses her in the Dallas Cowgirl costume and himself in the Cowboy football uniform, and offers to pay her way, how can she refuse?
She wonders if she looks different afterwards, but off she goes, leaving the rest of the local boys and girls behind, to discover what more life can give her.
All this happens, including all sorts of simulated sex among the boys and girls on the way, at a terrifyingly cheerful pace, presumably appropriate for American cheerleaders. The all singing, all dancing cast are entirely up to the mark. Visuals, sound and lights are very well designed and just about everything worked, even though for only one performance in Canberra.
If the original, apparently purely pornographic film was made as a simple celebration of the joys of sex, then this musical version must be at least a light hearted semi-satire. It reminded me of the ancient Greek Lysistrata, where the women tease the men but won't let them have sex until they stop the war. Here we saw only one banana, used to represent a blow job and then regurgitated, and one over-long fabricated penis - nothing to compare with old Aristophanes. All good for a laugh, but rather tame pornographically speaking.
But I was surprised that adult women in the audience were cheering Debbie on in her purely commercial enterprise. I thought we lived today in a new world of family values and traditional morality. Maybe there are a lot more Debbies doing Dallas in Canberra today than I have come across. Or maybe they haven't really thought about the exploitation of women by men - an issue completely ignored in this musical representation of life giving you more than you dreamed of.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 13 October 2004
2004: CMI - A Certain Maritime Incident by version 1.0. Feature article.
CMI stands for A Certain Maritime Incident. CMI is thus an acronym for a euphemism, since A Certain Maritime Incident was the official title of the Senate Children Overboard Inquiry. As anyone who has dealings with the public service knows, acronyms are a language all of their own.
CMI is the title of the "smash hit stage version" of the Children Overboard Inquiry, which ran to full houses in Sydney last April. Opening here on Tuesday at The Street Theatre, after a second run in Sydney, will be a newly polished and necessarily updated version, which picks up on today's political situation. Even though Senator John Faulkner, a major character in CMI, has resigned as Opposition Leader in the Senate, he still has a chance to re-open the inquiry before next July.
Though you will laugh often, for example at Jane Halton's detailed use of the analogy of the blind man and the elephant to explain how information may be transmitted or may fail to be transmitted along the appendages of the bureaucratic hierarchy, you will also be surprised and saddened to know that the text of the characters' dialogue has all been quoted verbatim from Hansard's 2200 pages of transcripts.
The theatre company version 1.0 (www.versiononepointzero.com) is a professional collective of some of Sydney's "leading contemporary performance makers", claiming to have seven senses of humour. It must have tested all seven to the limits during the 9 months it took to work through the records of the 15 days' inquiry, many of which went past midnight. This work was led by writer/performer David Williams and dramaturg Paul Dwyer, who distributed books of transcripts to group members, then led workshops during the process, gradually refining the themes and selecting the characters for 6 actors to perform.
The result is political theatre at its best. Though no previous theatrical knowledge is required, this work draws on the strengths of a century-long tradition of making theatre relevant to its time using documentary material. As in the work of the film maker Michael Moore in Farenheit/911, the reality of the situation is revealed directly from the source.
Theatre-buffs will be fascinated by how the actors play in character, but drop out at times as if it is almost too difficult to play the role. In doing so they comment upon the roles these public servants and politicians play in real life, often just by using gestures like raising an eyebrow or holding their head in their hands. As one commentator noted the "language laden with acronym takes on a dark irony. A PII (potential illegal immigrant) saved from drowning is still a SUNC (suspected unauthorised non-citizen)."
One feature of the show is the use of lie detetection software and computerised speech in a pleasant female American voice which we all recognise. Another unexpected speech is made by Peter Reith as a young child. How you will respond to these devices can only be tested by seeing the show.
Among the cast is the Canberra educated Deborah Pollard who went on from performing with Tempo, Rep, Youth Theatre, TAU and her Wollongong University degree to work with The Jigsaw Company under Stephen Champion in the 1980s. She has studied with Tadashi Suzuki in Japan and teaches the Suzuki Actor Training Method, has been Artistic Director of Salamanca Theatre Company, and has created many solo works in Sydney. Her career includes awards of a Churchill Fellowship, a Rex Cramphorn Scholarship and an Australia Council New Media Arts Fellowship.
Pollard explains that CMI is not emotive "refugee theatre". It is an unbiassed examination of the inquiry process, an important night out where theatre is a voice for the community. It is, she says, "not pure entertainment, but entertainment for the mind."
For bureaucrats at all levels, perhaps with special relevance for people in Defence, Prime Minister's and ministerial staffers, the show is almost obligatory. You may be quoted or know the truth behind the dialogue. Already one scene has been altered in the expectation of possible legal action.
For political activists, CMI may be extra support or criticism of your cause.
For theatre-goers it will be good to see intelligent entertainment of this kind in Canberra.
CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident)
The Street Theatre (Cnr Childers Street and University Avenue)
Tuesday October 19 - Saturday October 23, 8pm
Tickets $30 / $20
Bookings 6247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
CMI is the title of the "smash hit stage version" of the Children Overboard Inquiry, which ran to full houses in Sydney last April. Opening here on Tuesday at The Street Theatre, after a second run in Sydney, will be a newly polished and necessarily updated version, which picks up on today's political situation. Even though Senator John Faulkner, a major character in CMI, has resigned as Opposition Leader in the Senate, he still has a chance to re-open the inquiry before next July.
Though you will laugh often, for example at Jane Halton's detailed use of the analogy of the blind man and the elephant to explain how information may be transmitted or may fail to be transmitted along the appendages of the bureaucratic hierarchy, you will also be surprised and saddened to know that the text of the characters' dialogue has all been quoted verbatim from Hansard's 2200 pages of transcripts.
The theatre company version 1.0 (www.versiononepointzero.com) is a professional collective of some of Sydney's "leading contemporary performance makers", claiming to have seven senses of humour. It must have tested all seven to the limits during the 9 months it took to work through the records of the 15 days' inquiry, many of which went past midnight. This work was led by writer/performer David Williams and dramaturg Paul Dwyer, who distributed books of transcripts to group members, then led workshops during the process, gradually refining the themes and selecting the characters for 6 actors to perform.
The result is political theatre at its best. Though no previous theatrical knowledge is required, this work draws on the strengths of a century-long tradition of making theatre relevant to its time using documentary material. As in the work of the film maker Michael Moore in Farenheit/911, the reality of the situation is revealed directly from the source.
Theatre-buffs will be fascinated by how the actors play in character, but drop out at times as if it is almost too difficult to play the role. In doing so they comment upon the roles these public servants and politicians play in real life, often just by using gestures like raising an eyebrow or holding their head in their hands. As one commentator noted the "language laden with acronym takes on a dark irony. A PII (potential illegal immigrant) saved from drowning is still a SUNC (suspected unauthorised non-citizen)."
One feature of the show is the use of lie detetection software and computerised speech in a pleasant female American voice which we all recognise. Another unexpected speech is made by Peter Reith as a young child. How you will respond to these devices can only be tested by seeing the show.
Among the cast is the Canberra educated Deborah Pollard who went on from performing with Tempo, Rep, Youth Theatre, TAU and her Wollongong University degree to work with The Jigsaw Company under Stephen Champion in the 1980s. She has studied with Tadashi Suzuki in Japan and teaches the Suzuki Actor Training Method, has been Artistic Director of Salamanca Theatre Company, and has created many solo works in Sydney. Her career includes awards of a Churchill Fellowship, a Rex Cramphorn Scholarship and an Australia Council New Media Arts Fellowship.
Pollard explains that CMI is not emotive "refugee theatre". It is an unbiassed examination of the inquiry process, an important night out where theatre is a voice for the community. It is, she says, "not pure entertainment, but entertainment for the mind."
For bureaucrats at all levels, perhaps with special relevance for people in Defence, Prime Minister's and ministerial staffers, the show is almost obligatory. You may be quoted or know the truth behind the dialogue. Already one scene has been altered in the expectation of possible legal action.
For political activists, CMI may be extra support or criticism of your cause.
For theatre-goers it will be good to see intelligent entertainment of this kind in Canberra.
CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident)
The Street Theatre (Cnr Childers Street and University Avenue)
Tuesday October 19 - Saturday October 23, 8pm
Tickets $30 / $20
Bookings 6247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 11 October 2004
2004: Brecht at the ANU Drama Department. Feature article.
The announcement from the ANU Drama Department says 'papermoon' presents a 'moonlight' production The Good Person of Setzuan, a classic play by Bertolt Brecht. The season will run from Friday October 15 until Saturday October 23 at the Drama Studio, ANU Arts Centre.
All this mooning about has a story behind it from a deathbed bequest to a future professorship, intrigues in between, and the rise of the young turks. How does lecturer Cathy Clelland get to be directing The Good Person in addition to her day-job? How does head of department Tony Turner justify moonlighting? What value has there been in Moonlight putting on three Brecht plays this year?
To find the answer to the last question, go to the ANU Arts Centre at 8pm (or 2pm matinee on Saturday 23rd), but be aware that the Drama Studio has less than 80 seats and was close to full most nights for the previous Brecht productions. Tickets are $10 at the door.
The Edith Torey Bequest to ANU Drama has enabled a Chair to be advertised. More than 20 applicants are being considered from around the world for a professorship in Drama and New Media Arts, expected to be in place from the beginning of 2005. Since Turner has been Head, he has put a greater emphasis on practical work embedded within the drama courses. In the end, he believes, if there ever is to be a proper theatre training course in Canberra - rather than the current arrangement where drama is one course taken alongside maybe law, business management, or whatever - it should be in the Faculty of Arts with the same status, and working closely with, the School of Art and School of Music. Since those schools were brought into the Arts Faculty, there has been more cooperation with drama, as well as some new forms of confusion as the ANU Arts Centre venue is now managed by the School of Music.
To add intrigue, the technical theatre course privately run by AnuTech has no connection to the Drama Department, despite being on campus. May the new professor be the person to hang all this together. The young turks will surely be living in hope.
These are the Moonlighters, graduates of the drama course, who approached Turner with a need for a performance space and a different ethos from other groups such as Canberra Rep which they might have joined to gain performing experience. Clelland came up with Moonlight as an extension of the department's longstanding Papermoon theatre group. Turner came up with a small amount of money from the Torey Bequest, which specified drama education as its purpose.
This explains why, though the graduates are not students enrolled at ANU, their program is closely related to the undergraduate teaching program. Each year a major playwright will be chosen, with productions of up to 3 plays planned. Brecht was an obvious beginning point since his work is seminal to the development of theatre in the 20th Century, giving current undergraduates the chance to see complete works on stage in addition to their academic reading and the small-scale practical work available in the drama courses.
It also has given the graduates the opportunity to extend their previous experience into a more concentrated development program. The first 2 productions were entirely self-managed, though keeping in close contact with Turner and Clelland, while for The Good Person of Setzuan the usual sorts of disruptions to young turks' lives has placed Clelland in the director's role.
Probably this is a good thing, apart from Clelland's delight in working with enthusiasts who have done all the background study. She is putting into focus the issues about performing Brecht which have arisen in the earlier productions, particularly how to establish the style of his form of epic theatre and find the right relationship between the actor and audience. The legacy of Brecht has been to open up the nature of theatre to the audience while at the same time engaging them in the illusion of theatre. It has been very much in Australia that modern acting methods have grown from understanding Brecht, and why we produce so many actors who make it on the world stage.
Of Brecht's plays, The Good Person of Setzuan is one of the best to explore for actors and audience, and remains absolutely relevant in its theme for modern times. As Clelland says, it's still just as difficult for the individual to maintain a moral standard as it was at the time of writing in 1939, as Brecht, the left-wing German, was in Denmark waiting for visas to take his family to America. As it is when money and threats to security come into play. As it is today.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
All this mooning about has a story behind it from a deathbed bequest to a future professorship, intrigues in between, and the rise of the young turks. How does lecturer Cathy Clelland get to be directing The Good Person in addition to her day-job? How does head of department Tony Turner justify moonlighting? What value has there been in Moonlight putting on three Brecht plays this year?
To find the answer to the last question, go to the ANU Arts Centre at 8pm (or 2pm matinee on Saturday 23rd), but be aware that the Drama Studio has less than 80 seats and was close to full most nights for the previous Brecht productions. Tickets are $10 at the door.
The Edith Torey Bequest to ANU Drama has enabled a Chair to be advertised. More than 20 applicants are being considered from around the world for a professorship in Drama and New Media Arts, expected to be in place from the beginning of 2005. Since Turner has been Head, he has put a greater emphasis on practical work embedded within the drama courses. In the end, he believes, if there ever is to be a proper theatre training course in Canberra - rather than the current arrangement where drama is one course taken alongside maybe law, business management, or whatever - it should be in the Faculty of Arts with the same status, and working closely with, the School of Art and School of Music. Since those schools were brought into the Arts Faculty, there has been more cooperation with drama, as well as some new forms of confusion as the ANU Arts Centre venue is now managed by the School of Music.
To add intrigue, the technical theatre course privately run by AnuTech has no connection to the Drama Department, despite being on campus. May the new professor be the person to hang all this together. The young turks will surely be living in hope.
These are the Moonlighters, graduates of the drama course, who approached Turner with a need for a performance space and a different ethos from other groups such as Canberra Rep which they might have joined to gain performing experience. Clelland came up with Moonlight as an extension of the department's longstanding Papermoon theatre group. Turner came up with a small amount of money from the Torey Bequest, which specified drama education as its purpose.
This explains why, though the graduates are not students enrolled at ANU, their program is closely related to the undergraduate teaching program. Each year a major playwright will be chosen, with productions of up to 3 plays planned. Brecht was an obvious beginning point since his work is seminal to the development of theatre in the 20th Century, giving current undergraduates the chance to see complete works on stage in addition to their academic reading and the small-scale practical work available in the drama courses.
It also has given the graduates the opportunity to extend their previous experience into a more concentrated development program. The first 2 productions were entirely self-managed, though keeping in close contact with Turner and Clelland, while for The Good Person of Setzuan the usual sorts of disruptions to young turks' lives has placed Clelland in the director's role.
Probably this is a good thing, apart from Clelland's delight in working with enthusiasts who have done all the background study. She is putting into focus the issues about performing Brecht which have arisen in the earlier productions, particularly how to establish the style of his form of epic theatre and find the right relationship between the actor and audience. The legacy of Brecht has been to open up the nature of theatre to the audience while at the same time engaging them in the illusion of theatre. It has been very much in Australia that modern acting methods have grown from understanding Brecht, and why we produce so many actors who make it on the world stage.
Of Brecht's plays, The Good Person of Setzuan is one of the best to explore for actors and audience, and remains absolutely relevant in its theme for modern times. As Clelland says, it's still just as difficult for the individual to maintain a moral standard as it was at the time of writing in 1939, as Brecht, the left-wing German, was in Denmark waiting for visas to take his family to America. As it is when money and threats to security come into play. As it is today.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 7 October 2004
2004: Defending the Caveman by Rob Becker
Defending the Caveman by Rob Becker. Performed by Mark Mitchell. Directed by Wayne Harrison for the Ross Mollison Group, at the Playhouse, October 7 and 8.
When I read that Rob Becker was born and raised in California, in 1956, wrote Defending the Caveman over a three-year period from 1988 until 1991, during which time he "made an informal study of anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology, along with dramatic structure and playwriting", and is a stand-up comedian, I must say I entered the Playhouse fearful this play might be farcical.
But I was wrong. Mark Mitchell, in this Australianised version, warmly invited us in to enjoy the funny side of male-female sexual relations, dealing quite firmly with the view that though women come from Venus, men don't really come from the third-largest planet in the solar system despite, to use the now politically popular American term, often being called arseholes.
Mind you, I still don't trust this north American view of human prehistory, entirely based as it is in European cave paintings and pregnant Venus statuettes, and the assumption that all people used to live in nuclear families in caves while hunting and gathering. And the idea that only men ever hunted and women did all the gathering. The knowledge we now have from our part of the world shows the script up to be academically challenged.
Comedy, of course, can play with this kind of truth and yet still reveal truths about our foibles. The reactions of both women and men in the audience last Thursday - hooting with laughter, spontaneously applauding - were clearly responses to sensitive buttons being appropriately stimulated.
The strength of the play is the idea that the differences between the sexes, though based somewhere in evolution, are expressed today as cultural differences, which we can all learn to understand and appreciate, though this doesn't mean that either side should be forced to change their ways. Rather than extract the cheap laughs of a farce, this is genuine comedy with humour which helps to bring people together rather than drive them apart. With Mitchell's relaxed and expert performance, this made for a pleasant and worthwhile evening's entertainment.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
When I read that Rob Becker was born and raised in California, in 1956, wrote Defending the Caveman over a three-year period from 1988 until 1991, during which time he "made an informal study of anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology, along with dramatic structure and playwriting", and is a stand-up comedian, I must say I entered the Playhouse fearful this play might be farcical.
But I was wrong. Mark Mitchell, in this Australianised version, warmly invited us in to enjoy the funny side of male-female sexual relations, dealing quite firmly with the view that though women come from Venus, men don't really come from the third-largest planet in the solar system despite, to use the now politically popular American term, often being called arseholes.
Mind you, I still don't trust this north American view of human prehistory, entirely based as it is in European cave paintings and pregnant Venus statuettes, and the assumption that all people used to live in nuclear families in caves while hunting and gathering. And the idea that only men ever hunted and women did all the gathering. The knowledge we now have from our part of the world shows the script up to be academically challenged.
Comedy, of course, can play with this kind of truth and yet still reveal truths about our foibles. The reactions of both women and men in the audience last Thursday - hooting with laughter, spontaneously applauding - were clearly responses to sensitive buttons being appropriately stimulated.
The strength of the play is the idea that the differences between the sexes, though based somewhere in evolution, are expressed today as cultural differences, which we can all learn to understand and appreciate, though this doesn't mean that either side should be forced to change their ways. Rather than extract the cheap laughs of a farce, this is genuine comedy with humour which helps to bring people together rather than drive them apart. With Mitchell's relaxed and expert performance, this made for a pleasant and worthwhile evening's entertainment.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 6 October 2004
2004: The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan
The Lost Thing based on the book by Shaun Tan. Jigsaw Theatre Company directed by Greg Lissaman, designed by Richard Jeziomy. The Small Theatre, National Gallery of Australia. Thursday October 7: 10.30am, 3.45pm. Friday and Saturday October 8-9: 10.30am, 1pm, 3.45pm. Bookings: eventbookings@nga.gov.au or phone 6240 6504.
Whatever age you are you will be entranced by this latest Jigsaw production. Set for 8-13 year-olds, families at the opening performance from toddlers to rather more ancient people like me experienced 50 minutes of fascination.
Go to see it here before it moves on to the Sydney Festival and other places, especially because the architecture and art of the National Gallery are built into the show, and the Small Theatre allows for the complete theatre-in-the-round format which makes this combination of actors, puppets, complex set and electronic media work so well.
After the show, take the children (and yourself) on a journey around the gallery following The Lost Thing Children's Trail. Your Children's Festival map takes you to 12 strange and wonderful works of art, all representing the theme of the play. A young boy is fixated on collecting bottle tops, but on the beach discovers an amazing creature. Cleanliness is next to tidiness, say the beach inspectors, vacuuming the bottle tops, but at the end of the day the Lost Thing has nowhere to go.
For the toddlers the story of searching for the Lost Thing's home is dramatic enough, but for the 12 year-olds the multi-media is exciting, and there is an extra dimension. They can identify with the boy's sense of being just a bit different from everyone else, wondering about the nature of things, searching for where he belongs. For their parents there is a new understanding of how their children need to take off and find their own way. Beyond this level, the play is about the need for art and exploration in everyone's lives.
Very highly recommended. One mystery: see if you can work out where the live security cam is.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Whatever age you are you will be entranced by this latest Jigsaw production. Set for 8-13 year-olds, families at the opening performance from toddlers to rather more ancient people like me experienced 50 minutes of fascination.
Go to see it here before it moves on to the Sydney Festival and other places, especially because the architecture and art of the National Gallery are built into the show, and the Small Theatre allows for the complete theatre-in-the-round format which makes this combination of actors, puppets, complex set and electronic media work so well.
After the show, take the children (and yourself) on a journey around the gallery following The Lost Thing Children's Trail. Your Children's Festival map takes you to 12 strange and wonderful works of art, all representing the theme of the play. A young boy is fixated on collecting bottle tops, but on the beach discovers an amazing creature. Cleanliness is next to tidiness, say the beach inspectors, vacuuming the bottle tops, but at the end of the day the Lost Thing has nowhere to go.
For the toddlers the story of searching for the Lost Thing's home is dramatic enough, but for the 12 year-olds the multi-media is exciting, and there is an extra dimension. They can identify with the boy's sense of being just a bit different from everyone else, wondering about the nature of things, searching for where he belongs. For their parents there is a new understanding of how their children need to take off and find their own way. Beyond this level, the play is about the need for art and exploration in everyone's lives.
Very highly recommended. One mystery: see if you can work out where the live security cam is.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 23 September 2004
2004: Renaissance Bloke - Peter J. Casey
Renaissance Bloke - Peter J. Casey. Co-written and directed by Carissa Campbell. The Street Theatre Studio, September 23 - 25, 7.30 pm. Bookings 6247 1223.
You only have till Saturday. Don't miss Renaissance Bloke.
It's just so good to see a show full of wit, laughs and talent. Peter J. Casey satirises himself, appearing to put himself down as a "bloke", as a "man about the house", even as a performer at his four weirdest gigs, but don't you believe a word of it. His piano, his voice, his body so easily leap to his command. And we, his audience, respond to every nuance of tone, every lift of an eyebrow.
This is stand-up comedy sitting at a piano for nearly two hours, and you won't think about time passing. It's smooth, but knowingly smooth. Disarmingly simple but very clever. Three nights surely are not enough, but I guess, as Casey said, you have to remember that to earn a dollar in the arts you have to spend $1.50.
The show is not all original work by Campbell and Casey. Watch for the Tom Lehrer imports, and if you clap long enough - as everyone did on opening night - you'll get to hear the penis medley for a last laugh.
Casey can do every kind of nightclub / cabaret / musical song, but he offers us so much more than an interesting performance of the expected. He is an acute observer of himself as he performs. It may sound pedantic to say his work is metacognitive, at a level of awareness beyond the immediate. What's fascinating is that this deepens the satire, enlivens the laughter, and makes the evening totally satisfying.
Musically he can take any source - try Jaws, Close Encounter of the Third Kind and Star Wars - and find an original style in the music alone which plays with our expectations. Then the words sparkle with even more humour, acting against the musical setting. Personally, I thought Star Wars as a three-minute musical was perhaps the most brilliant, but every number was exciting and absorbing. Somehow it reminded me of the best of Circus Oz, but all the gymnastics happen in your head. Unforgettable.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
You only have till Saturday. Don't miss Renaissance Bloke.
It's just so good to see a show full of wit, laughs and talent. Peter J. Casey satirises himself, appearing to put himself down as a "bloke", as a "man about the house", even as a performer at his four weirdest gigs, but don't you believe a word of it. His piano, his voice, his body so easily leap to his command. And we, his audience, respond to every nuance of tone, every lift of an eyebrow.
This is stand-up comedy sitting at a piano for nearly two hours, and you won't think about time passing. It's smooth, but knowingly smooth. Disarmingly simple but very clever. Three nights surely are not enough, but I guess, as Casey said, you have to remember that to earn a dollar in the arts you have to spend $1.50.
The show is not all original work by Campbell and Casey. Watch for the Tom Lehrer imports, and if you clap long enough - as everyone did on opening night - you'll get to hear the penis medley for a last laugh.
Casey can do every kind of nightclub / cabaret / musical song, but he offers us so much more than an interesting performance of the expected. He is an acute observer of himself as he performs. It may sound pedantic to say his work is metacognitive, at a level of awareness beyond the immediate. What's fascinating is that this deepens the satire, enlivens the laughter, and makes the evening totally satisfying.
Musically he can take any source - try Jaws, Close Encounter of the Third Kind and Star Wars - and find an original style in the music alone which plays with our expectations. Then the words sparkle with even more humour, acting against the musical setting. Personally, I thought Star Wars as a three-minute musical was perhaps the most brilliant, but every number was exciting and absorbing. Somehow it reminded me of the best of Circus Oz, but all the gymnastics happen in your head. Unforgettable.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 14 September 2004
2004: Exhibition - Sunken Treasures of Brunei Darussalem
Sunken Treasures of Brunei Darussalem. National Museum of Australia until October 4. Adults: $8 Concession: $6 Child: $5 Family $16. Enquiries 6208 5000.
This is an exhibition which ought to be a lot more fascinating than I found it. I wandered about rather aimlessly, when the story of the amazing discovery of a 500 year old shipwreck off the coast of Brunei should be full of excitement and drama. What's gone wrong?
All the elements are there. The vast array of pottery, mainly from 15th Century China and Thailand, shows us the great quality of goods being traded around the South China Sea. The deductions from the discovery about the trade routes and the important role of Brunei so long ago change our more recent perception of backwardness compared with Europe. The technical details of a difficult and dangerous archaeological project 63 metres under water make us wonder how it was done without a single accident.
The problem is the layout of the exhibition. It fails to take us on an engaging journey of discovery. We walk around images, objects and information, on film, still images and sound track. But it's all in dim lighting, while the sound surrounds us non-invasively, virtually unobtrusively. It's all too quiet, except for the sound of one pot smashing - the most dramatic part of the exhibition.
After seeing a 25 minute film, and naturally starting off to the left to explore, you may find the panel labelled Introduction which is very near the door called Way Out, on the far right. Or you may not. But if you do start from the Introduction and go right to left, you will not be guided through. You will have to piece the story together from interesting but disparate bits.
If you pay for the catalogue, you find the story told, beginning from a modern map, of the archeological discovery, integrating the history, with examples from the ship's payload, and leading to the details of the found objects and the reconstruction of the ship. If the exhibition clearly led us through in this order, we would be excited by the discovery, how the engineers and archaeologists did their work, how their work enlightens our understanding. Then we would look at the pottery from the ship with new eyes.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is an exhibition which ought to be a lot more fascinating than I found it. I wandered about rather aimlessly, when the story of the amazing discovery of a 500 year old shipwreck off the coast of Brunei should be full of excitement and drama. What's gone wrong?
All the elements are there. The vast array of pottery, mainly from 15th Century China and Thailand, shows us the great quality of goods being traded around the South China Sea. The deductions from the discovery about the trade routes and the important role of Brunei so long ago change our more recent perception of backwardness compared with Europe. The technical details of a difficult and dangerous archaeological project 63 metres under water make us wonder how it was done without a single accident.
The problem is the layout of the exhibition. It fails to take us on an engaging journey of discovery. We walk around images, objects and information, on film, still images and sound track. But it's all in dim lighting, while the sound surrounds us non-invasively, virtually unobtrusively. It's all too quiet, except for the sound of one pot smashing - the most dramatic part of the exhibition.
After seeing a 25 minute film, and naturally starting off to the left to explore, you may find the panel labelled Introduction which is very near the door called Way Out, on the far right. Or you may not. But if you do start from the Introduction and go right to left, you will not be guided through. You will have to piece the story together from interesting but disparate bits.
If you pay for the catalogue, you find the story told, beginning from a modern map, of the archeological discovery, integrating the history, with examples from the ship's payload, and leading to the details of the found objects and the reconstruction of the ship. If the exhibition clearly led us through in this order, we would be excited by the discovery, how the engineers and archaeologists did their work, how their work enlightens our understanding. Then we would look at the pottery from the ship with new eyes.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 21 August 2004
2004: Mother Courage and her Children by Bertolt Brecht
Mother Courage and her Children by Bertolt Brecht. Moonlight directed by Jonathon Thomsen. ANU Arts Centre Drama Lab August 20 - 28 (Wed - Sat). Tickets at the door.
I can give an improvement award to this, the second in Moonlight's series of Brecht's plays. The whole cast now have a much better sense of Brecht's epic theatre style than when they performed The Caucasian Chalk Circle some months ago, and the design now includes to good effect projections of the descriptions of each upcoming scene, though not yet the words of the songs, which need to be read as well as heard for Brecht's messages to be clearly understood.
Though Moonlight has a very long way to go to reach even semi-professional standards, and though they may have taken some breach of copyright risks, they are now playing with the play rather than merely playing the play. Taking liberties means that they have achieved much more of the distancing effect that Brecht demands. The result is that the anti-war analysis is presented with considerable strength.
I suspect the cast have surprised themselves, and at times in unscripted moments they showed some self-consciousness. This, of course, is because they are graduates of Theatre Studies at ANU, which has not been developed into a proper professional training course to match Music and Visual Art. Dance at ANU has not even taken the first step. Without training in technique to complement their academic studies, even though these included some practical experience, Moonlighters are unlikely to reach higher standards of performance.
However, they are clearly improving, which I take to be their first objective, and have produced an instructive entertainment which is worth seeing, if only because it is not so often that we can see Brecht's work nowadays.
They face a challenge in presenting The Good Person of Szechwuan in November, a more subtle play than Mother Courage and one influenced by Brecht's brief exposure to the work of the famous Chinese actor Mei Lan-fang. The Chinese setting risks becoming, Brecht noted, a 'mere disguise'. This production will take even more courage, and I look forward to new developments in theatrical craft to build on Mother Courage and her Children.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I can give an improvement award to this, the second in Moonlight's series of Brecht's plays. The whole cast now have a much better sense of Brecht's epic theatre style than when they performed The Caucasian Chalk Circle some months ago, and the design now includes to good effect projections of the descriptions of each upcoming scene, though not yet the words of the songs, which need to be read as well as heard for Brecht's messages to be clearly understood.
Though Moonlight has a very long way to go to reach even semi-professional standards, and though they may have taken some breach of copyright risks, they are now playing with the play rather than merely playing the play. Taking liberties means that they have achieved much more of the distancing effect that Brecht demands. The result is that the anti-war analysis is presented with considerable strength.
I suspect the cast have surprised themselves, and at times in unscripted moments they showed some self-consciousness. This, of course, is because they are graduates of Theatre Studies at ANU, which has not been developed into a proper professional training course to match Music and Visual Art. Dance at ANU has not even taken the first step. Without training in technique to complement their academic studies, even though these included some practical experience, Moonlighters are unlikely to reach higher standards of performance.
However, they are clearly improving, which I take to be their first objective, and have produced an instructive entertainment which is worth seeing, if only because it is not so often that we can see Brecht's work nowadays.
They face a challenge in presenting The Good Person of Szechwuan in November, a more subtle play than Mother Courage and one influenced by Brecht's brief exposure to the work of the famous Chinese actor Mei Lan-fang. The Chinese setting risks becoming, Brecht noted, a 'mere disguise'. This production will take even more courage, and I look forward to new developments in theatrical craft to build on Mother Courage and her Children.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 18 August 2004
2004: Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell
Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell. Performed by Sue Howell, directed by Michael Sutton. At Theatre 3, August 18 - 29. Bookings 6257 1950 (theatre) 6281 0250 (all hours).
The advertising calls Shirley Valentine a "smash hit comedy". A more academic reference calls the play "a witty monologue". Sue Howell, however, underplays the comedy and wit in favour of an underlying sadness in the character of Shirley Bradshaw (nee Valentine).
I rather liked this interpretation. It avoids raucous superficial laughter, invokes a quieter response, and allows us time to absorb Shirley's feelings about how her youthful self, Shirley Valentine, became lost in the "cribb'd, cabin'd and confin'd" English suburban life of wife and mother Shirley Bradshaw. Her observations about orgasms, men, feminists and English xenophobia are not merely witty, but are little illuminations in self-understanding.
Sue Howell's Shirley is not presented to shock or titillate. She makes herself available to us, for us to identify with, as she rediscovers the spontaneity of being Shirley Valentine at the age of 42. We know both the joy and the sadness she will feel in the end, when, as her husband walks past her table outside the taverna at the edge of the sea in Greece, and fails to recognise her, she will reveal herself to him. "I'm Shirley Valentine," she will say. "I'll never be Shirley Bradshaw again." He must go home to Liverpool alone.
Technical production was a little amiss on opening night - some extraneous noises off, some recording levels too high, cues too early and changes too abrupt. The sets are nicely done, with a fully operational kitchen in which Shirley cooks real eggs and chips. I'm a bit concerned that by August 29 Theatre 3 will be coated with a fine film of cooking oil, but this realism succeeds in establishing a rapport between Shirley and her ever-listening audience, the fourth wall, which never answers back.
Willy Russell's "talking head" device, so similar to Alan Bennett's work, is perhaps an English dramatic form, well suited to English culture and character. Howell faithfully creates the accents and intonations of not only Liverpudlian Shirley but of the various other English types that Shirley imitates. Centring the character in her own environment strengthens our understanding and makes this a successful production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The advertising calls Shirley Valentine a "smash hit comedy". A more academic reference calls the play "a witty monologue". Sue Howell, however, underplays the comedy and wit in favour of an underlying sadness in the character of Shirley Bradshaw (nee Valentine).
I rather liked this interpretation. It avoids raucous superficial laughter, invokes a quieter response, and allows us time to absorb Shirley's feelings about how her youthful self, Shirley Valentine, became lost in the "cribb'd, cabin'd and confin'd" English suburban life of wife and mother Shirley Bradshaw. Her observations about orgasms, men, feminists and English xenophobia are not merely witty, but are little illuminations in self-understanding.
Sue Howell's Shirley is not presented to shock or titillate. She makes herself available to us, for us to identify with, as she rediscovers the spontaneity of being Shirley Valentine at the age of 42. We know both the joy and the sadness she will feel in the end, when, as her husband walks past her table outside the taverna at the edge of the sea in Greece, and fails to recognise her, she will reveal herself to him. "I'm Shirley Valentine," she will say. "I'll never be Shirley Bradshaw again." He must go home to Liverpool alone.
Technical production was a little amiss on opening night - some extraneous noises off, some recording levels too high, cues too early and changes too abrupt. The sets are nicely done, with a fully operational kitchen in which Shirley cooks real eggs and chips. I'm a bit concerned that by August 29 Theatre 3 will be coated with a fine film of cooking oil, but this realism succeeds in establishing a rapport between Shirley and her ever-listening audience, the fourth wall, which never answers back.
Willy Russell's "talking head" device, so similar to Alan Bennett's work, is perhaps an English dramatic form, well suited to English culture and character. Howell faithfully creates the accents and intonations of not only Liverpudlian Shirley but of the various other English types that Shirley imitates. Centring the character in her own environment strengthens our understanding and makes this a successful production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 7 August 2004
2004: A Local Man by Bob Ellis and Robin McLachlan
A Local Man by Bob Ellis and Robin McLachlan. Directed by Bill Blaikie. Presented by Bathurst Arts Council at the Ponton Theatre, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst Campus, August 6 - 15. Email: alocalman@bigpond.com .
Ben Chifley has just lost his second election to Bob Menzies. On June 9, 1951, he is writing his last speech for the next day's ALP Conference, knowing his heart disease is critical. Three days later he is dead.
What went through his mind on that freezing thunderous Saturday evening at 10 Busby Street, Bathurst? Is he the iconic revered Labor leader, symbol of honesty in politics which now seems to belong only to the distant past?
What can he tell us about the half-century - Federation, Gallipoli, Depression, the bombing of Darwin, Changi, Burma, Kokoda, the Welfare State, the Commonwealth Bank, the Snowy Mountains Scheme, even the opening of ANU - the stuff of the Australian legend, which constituted his adult lifetime?
What were his personal devils, clawing away at his sense of self-worth?
This collaboration between historian McLachlan and celebrated writer Bob Ellis gives us both the history and the man. In this simply subtitled "new play about Ben Chifley", his perceptiveness and his humour show us the reality of his time. His passing leaves us reflecting on today's political and personal world.
Though the script is a major achievement, welding art and accurate history, the performer, Tony Barry, was not properly prepared for opening night and needed a prompt far too often. A two-act monologue of this depth is a complex task, but Barry proposes to tour the play. It was disappointing that the first night audience were not given all that Ellis and McLachlan have created, but Barry portrays the character true to life and we saw the requisite acting skills in many segments. 10 more matinees and evenings in Bathurst will surely bring the whole performance up to expectations.
The set, sound track and photo projections have been meticulously researched and are cleverly constructed for touring. I trust that we may see A Local Man in Canberra, where there are many appropriate venues like the National Museum, Old Parliament House, Courtyard Studio and other small theatre spaces - or indeed new Parliament House, preferably before the next election. A light on the Hill, perhaps, or to quote from the play:
(The lights begin to flicker.) BEN: Hang on, the lights are going off .... Bloody Liberal government. Bunnerong and Bungeroff. (The lights go out.)
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Ben Chifley has just lost his second election to Bob Menzies. On June 9, 1951, he is writing his last speech for the next day's ALP Conference, knowing his heart disease is critical. Three days later he is dead.
What went through his mind on that freezing thunderous Saturday evening at 10 Busby Street, Bathurst? Is he the iconic revered Labor leader, symbol of honesty in politics which now seems to belong only to the distant past?
What can he tell us about the half-century - Federation, Gallipoli, Depression, the bombing of Darwin, Changi, Burma, Kokoda, the Welfare State, the Commonwealth Bank, the Snowy Mountains Scheme, even the opening of ANU - the stuff of the Australian legend, which constituted his adult lifetime?
What were his personal devils, clawing away at his sense of self-worth?
This collaboration between historian McLachlan and celebrated writer Bob Ellis gives us both the history and the man. In this simply subtitled "new play about Ben Chifley", his perceptiveness and his humour show us the reality of his time. His passing leaves us reflecting on today's political and personal world.
Though the script is a major achievement, welding art and accurate history, the performer, Tony Barry, was not properly prepared for opening night and needed a prompt far too often. A two-act monologue of this depth is a complex task, but Barry proposes to tour the play. It was disappointing that the first night audience were not given all that Ellis and McLachlan have created, but Barry portrays the character true to life and we saw the requisite acting skills in many segments. 10 more matinees and evenings in Bathurst will surely bring the whole performance up to expectations.
The set, sound track and photo projections have been meticulously researched and are cleverly constructed for touring. I trust that we may see A Local Man in Canberra, where there are many appropriate venues like the National Museum, Old Parliament House, Courtyard Studio and other small theatre spaces - or indeed new Parliament House, preferably before the next election. A light on the Hill, perhaps, or to quote from the play:
(The lights begin to flicker.) BEN: Hang on, the lights are going off .... Bloody Liberal government. Bunnerong and Bungeroff. (The lights go out.)
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 6 August 2004
2004: Amadeus by Peter Shaffer
Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, directed by Tessa Bremner for Free-Rain. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre August 4 - August 21. Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700.
This is a show you should not miss, for several reasons.
Bremner's direction is tight, stylish and perfectly suited to Shaffer's intentions. In the intimate setting of the Courtyard, the 18th Century operatic characters come to life more than they might on a larger stage. Costumes and make-up are original, comic, pointedly satirical. Lighting highlights characters and mood on a set designed for smooth changes, uncluttered yet always interesting.
The acting is highly polished, easily as good as many fully professional productions, in a play which requires strong, clear resonant voices - including singing - as well as choreographed movement and even playing Salieri and Mozart on piano. The whole cast works as a well-trained ensemble whose excitement in performing spreads throughout the theatre, drawing you into this awful story of how Salieri destroyed Mozart.
The play itself is a reason to go. It is so much better than the film, balancing Mozart's sublime imagination expressed in his music against Salieri's desperate need to break free from the mediocrity he recognises in his own work. We see Salieri not simply as an evil figure against Mozart's perfection, but as a man who will survive, though to do so he must destroy the innocent.
On stage, the play breaks the bounds of the ordinary to show us the nature of life and art, just as Mozart did through his music. And it is a special achievement for a small company like Free-Rain that their production in this unpretentious little space could, by artful design, take my mind beyond the immediate cardboard, paint and bits of wire to a terrible feeling of loss as Mozart dies.
As in Mozart's Figaro and The Magic Flute, it is the clever use of humour which elicits the sense of tragedy. This is where Bremner has the right touch. A production which takes the work too seriously would become maudlin, but here a deftly timed movement, a visual joke, a tableau which becomes an orchestra for Mozart to conduct, a threatening look from Salieri's wife, in fact a constant array of humorous devices keeps us at just the right distance emotionally until the key moments when we both understand and feel the truth. This is what good theatre is all about.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a show you should not miss, for several reasons.
Bremner's direction is tight, stylish and perfectly suited to Shaffer's intentions. In the intimate setting of the Courtyard, the 18th Century operatic characters come to life more than they might on a larger stage. Costumes and make-up are original, comic, pointedly satirical. Lighting highlights characters and mood on a set designed for smooth changes, uncluttered yet always interesting.
The acting is highly polished, easily as good as many fully professional productions, in a play which requires strong, clear resonant voices - including singing - as well as choreographed movement and even playing Salieri and Mozart on piano. The whole cast works as a well-trained ensemble whose excitement in performing spreads throughout the theatre, drawing you into this awful story of how Salieri destroyed Mozart.
The play itself is a reason to go. It is so much better than the film, balancing Mozart's sublime imagination expressed in his music against Salieri's desperate need to break free from the mediocrity he recognises in his own work. We see Salieri not simply as an evil figure against Mozart's perfection, but as a man who will survive, though to do so he must destroy the innocent.
On stage, the play breaks the bounds of the ordinary to show us the nature of life and art, just as Mozart did through his music. And it is a special achievement for a small company like Free-Rain that their production in this unpretentious little space could, by artful design, take my mind beyond the immediate cardboard, paint and bits of wire to a terrible feeling of loss as Mozart dies.
As in Mozart's Figaro and The Magic Flute, it is the clever use of humour which elicits the sense of tragedy. This is where Bremner has the right touch. A production which takes the work too seriously would become maudlin, but here a deftly timed movement, a visual joke, a tableau which becomes an orchestra for Mozart to conduct, a threatening look from Salieri's wife, in fact a constant array of humorous devices keeps us at just the right distance emotionally until the key moments when we both understand and feel the truth. This is what good theatre is all about.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 28 July 2004
2004: 1º of Separation. Canberra Youth Theatre.
1º of Separation. Canberra Youth Theatre's Generation Group directed by Simone Penkethman. C Block, Gorman House Arts Centre, Wednesday to Saturday July 28 - August 7, 8 pm.
For this Youth Theatre production I have coined the term Eclectic Theatre. Over the course of a little less than an hour we see mime, dance, symbolic movement and imagery, naturalistic dialogue, poetry and stylised use of voice, electric and acoustic guitar, and recorded music, birdsong, cars and trucks.
People come in through real doors and windows as well as enter from shadowy wings. People freeze in shadowed areas while others act in the spotlight. They all line up for a curtain call, without a curtain.
Somewhere in here is meant to be a theme, of Canberra characters devised from improvisations, bound together by the four seasons and stretching over time from childhood to old age. Interactions between them all, from the crippled rich Lady Tyreana at the top of the hill to the sandwich bar employee, and every possibility in between, are meant to show how closely we all are connected.
As Linda McHugh, CYT Artistic Director told me, you can do anything in theatre. This show, however, is not as together as many recent CYT performances. Youth theatre is certainly about providing young people the opportunity to explore all aspects of theatre, and this show certainly does that.
But youth theatre should also give its young participants the experience of developing theatrical focus and intensity in their productions. In 1º of Separation every actor has their focussed moment, but the points of focus are not put together into a strong dramatic structure, ending rather weakly with a quite shallow stereotyped representation of two characters from the sandwich bar in old age.
It is, of course, not fair to criticise a youth theatre performance as if it were expected to be equal to a professional production. But I think it is fair to suggest that, though I could see the professionalism of the direction in each actor's performance skills, in movement and speech - I should also have seen a better shaping of the work to take it from the improvisation of scenes into an hour long show.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
For this Youth Theatre production I have coined the term Eclectic Theatre. Over the course of a little less than an hour we see mime, dance, symbolic movement and imagery, naturalistic dialogue, poetry and stylised use of voice, electric and acoustic guitar, and recorded music, birdsong, cars and trucks.
People come in through real doors and windows as well as enter from shadowy wings. People freeze in shadowed areas while others act in the spotlight. They all line up for a curtain call, without a curtain.
Somewhere in here is meant to be a theme, of Canberra characters devised from improvisations, bound together by the four seasons and stretching over time from childhood to old age. Interactions between them all, from the crippled rich Lady Tyreana at the top of the hill to the sandwich bar employee, and every possibility in between, are meant to show how closely we all are connected.
As Linda McHugh, CYT Artistic Director told me, you can do anything in theatre. This show, however, is not as together as many recent CYT performances. Youth theatre is certainly about providing young people the opportunity to explore all aspects of theatre, and this show certainly does that.
But youth theatre should also give its young participants the experience of developing theatrical focus and intensity in their productions. In 1º of Separation every actor has their focussed moment, but the points of focus are not put together into a strong dramatic structure, ending rather weakly with a quite shallow stereotyped representation of two characters from the sandwich bar in old age.
It is, of course, not fair to criticise a youth theatre performance as if it were expected to be equal to a professional production. But I think it is fair to suggest that, though I could see the professionalism of the direction in each actor's performance skills, in movement and speech - I should also have seen a better shaping of the work to take it from the improvisation of scenes into an hour long show.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 25 July 2004
2004: The Paragon Files by Adam Hatzimanolis
The Paragon Files, written and performed by Adam Hatzimanolis. Sidetrack Performance Group in The Oneira Festival at National Gallery of Australia, July 24.
With a kind of self-deprecating humour, Hatzimanolis integrates the pathos of his personal second-generation Greek migrant story and the Australian mythical sense of maturity achieved through brave failure into a tragi-comic Homeric journey. This sounds complex, but his presentation of his upbringing behind the scenes in a Wollongong fish and chip shop - The Paragon, of course - never flags.
The wonderful irony is that the woeful semi-fictional attempts he makes to become an actor are performed by the real Hatzimanolis with consummate skill. His writing, too, is not merely witty but contains layers of meaning which can be enjoyed at the surface but then will stir up cultural references which inevitably demand to be discussed after the show.
His rebuilt EJ Holden finally blows up; he burns down, accidentally, the fish and chip shop; the doctor tells him he has a wog in his throat; Uncle Stavros dies but, at the age of seven, he switches the TV on to watch a horror movie rather than view the body; and Nicole Kidman passes him by "eyes wide shut" on the film set when he at last gets an acting job as an extra. There are many more iconic moments which English- and Greek-speaking audiences can all appreciate.
The Paragon Files is a perfect vehicle for this festival - Oneira or The Evolution of Dreams - which is produced by Vasiliki Nihas as an Australian reflection of the Olympic Cultural Festival in Greece. Dreams change from one generation to the next, and they don't only have to be about winning at sport.
Oneira began with a Taverna Night at the Hellenic Club in early July, followed by Sydney's Maria Yiakoulis and her musical maestros, and a range of other events. Yet to come is Websong, a ceremonial performance by Canberra's A Chorus of Women (August 7-8), a guided tour of the Classics Museum at ANU (August 4) and of St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (August 8), a talk on Greek literature (August 6), the Greek Oz Writers Festival (August 7), and much more.
Go to www.oneira.net.au for details.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
With a kind of self-deprecating humour, Hatzimanolis integrates the pathos of his personal second-generation Greek migrant story and the Australian mythical sense of maturity achieved through brave failure into a tragi-comic Homeric journey. This sounds complex, but his presentation of his upbringing behind the scenes in a Wollongong fish and chip shop - The Paragon, of course - never flags.
The wonderful irony is that the woeful semi-fictional attempts he makes to become an actor are performed by the real Hatzimanolis with consummate skill. His writing, too, is not merely witty but contains layers of meaning which can be enjoyed at the surface but then will stir up cultural references which inevitably demand to be discussed after the show.
His rebuilt EJ Holden finally blows up; he burns down, accidentally, the fish and chip shop; the doctor tells him he has a wog in his throat; Uncle Stavros dies but, at the age of seven, he switches the TV on to watch a horror movie rather than view the body; and Nicole Kidman passes him by "eyes wide shut" on the film set when he at last gets an acting job as an extra. There are many more iconic moments which English- and Greek-speaking audiences can all appreciate.
The Paragon Files is a perfect vehicle for this festival - Oneira or The Evolution of Dreams - which is produced by Vasiliki Nihas as an Australian reflection of the Olympic Cultural Festival in Greece. Dreams change from one generation to the next, and they don't only have to be about winning at sport.
Oneira began with a Taverna Night at the Hellenic Club in early July, followed by Sydney's Maria Yiakoulis and her musical maestros, and a range of other events. Yet to come is Websong, a ceremonial performance by Canberra's A Chorus of Women (August 7-8), a guided tour of the Classics Museum at ANU (August 4) and of St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (August 8), a talk on Greek literature (August 6), the Greek Oz Writers Festival (August 7), and much more.
Go to www.oneira.net.au for details.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 24 July 2004
2004: The Foursome by Norm Foster
The Foursome by Norm Foster. Directed by Cathie Clelland for Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3, July 23 - August 14.
"Great fun!" was the comment that rose above the general hubbub of celebration as the lights went up at the end of opening night. I thought The Foursome was fun, but it's not a great play.
It takes a while to warm up, but all the actors - Michael Sparks (Donnie), Brendan Sloane (Cameron), Alex Sangston (Ted) and Simon Lissaman (Rick) - have got their characters right and work very well together as an ensemble. Clelland's direction neatly takes us into occasional set pieces which contrast with the naturalistic scenes, and the result is a sense of design in the production, an achievement on stage which the audience can justly celebrate.
The Canadian Norm Foster "has been compared to Neil Simon" and his work related to "the character-driven comedies of Woody Allen", according to the program notes. That's stretching a long bow, at least in this play about a reunion on the golf course, after 15 years, of four male Business graduates.
The situation is static, even though they play 18 holes, and the comedy comes from the particularly competitive nature of Rick, who gets dudded in the end. It's as good as one of David Williamson's lighter-weight pieces, but even in a play like Money and Friends, Williamson's one-liners get us laughing sooner and more consistently.
The set design, costumes, sound and lights are up to Rep's usual excellent standard, and it was pleasing to hear the actors very naturally using proper Canadian accents. This is important because these characters' attitudes and language are not just North American but specifically Canadian. Foster has an ear for his native English just as Williamson has for Australian idiom.
Though, in my terms at least, the play is not "great", it is certainly fun. The treatment of the issues, such as the men's relations with women, though quite daring in its day, almost seems naïve in today's upfront world, but this only adds to the humour. It's funny, in both senses, to look back to 1989 - as the characters do to 1974 - and seem to remember an innocent past.
Book at Rep on 6247 4222.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Great fun!" was the comment that rose above the general hubbub of celebration as the lights went up at the end of opening night. I thought The Foursome was fun, but it's not a great play.
It takes a while to warm up, but all the actors - Michael Sparks (Donnie), Brendan Sloane (Cameron), Alex Sangston (Ted) and Simon Lissaman (Rick) - have got their characters right and work very well together as an ensemble. Clelland's direction neatly takes us into occasional set pieces which contrast with the naturalistic scenes, and the result is a sense of design in the production, an achievement on stage which the audience can justly celebrate.
The Canadian Norm Foster "has been compared to Neil Simon" and his work related to "the character-driven comedies of Woody Allen", according to the program notes. That's stretching a long bow, at least in this play about a reunion on the golf course, after 15 years, of four male Business graduates.
The situation is static, even though they play 18 holes, and the comedy comes from the particularly competitive nature of Rick, who gets dudded in the end. It's as good as one of David Williamson's lighter-weight pieces, but even in a play like Money and Friends, Williamson's one-liners get us laughing sooner and more consistently.
The set design, costumes, sound and lights are up to Rep's usual excellent standard, and it was pleasing to hear the actors very naturally using proper Canadian accents. This is important because these characters' attitudes and language are not just North American but specifically Canadian. Foster has an ear for his native English just as Williamson has for Australian idiom.
Though, in my terms at least, the play is not "great", it is certainly fun. The treatment of the issues, such as the men's relations with women, though quite daring in its day, almost seems naïve in today's upfront world, but this only adds to the humour. It's funny, in both senses, to look back to 1989 - as the characters do to 1974 - and seem to remember an innocent past.
Book at Rep on 6247 4222.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 1 May 2004
2004: The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht
The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht. Directed by David Clapham for Moonlight at ANU Arts Centre Drama Studio, April 30, May 1 and May 4-8 8pm (matinee May 8 2pm)
The ANU drama scene has expanded. The Theatre Studies course has long supported Papermoon, mainly as a town-and-gown link. Now senior lecturer Tony Turner has helped Theatre Studies graduates set up Moonlight by providing a small budget and the DramaLab space for them to continue performing apres uni.
As a gown-and-town link, Moonlight has an academic framework. Each year a selection of works by a noted playwright will be presented. For this year's program The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mother Courage and her Children (August) and The Good Person of Setzuan (September-October) are central to Brecht's work and highly accessible for a general audience.
Beginning with Brecht is a worthwhile challenge for graduates of a course which is not designed to produce fully-trained actors. This production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a success for its sincerity of purpose. The essential theme concerning the nature of justice in a world of social inequalities is clearly developed, particularly through Steph Brewster's presentation of the role of Grusha.
What is missing is the tight timing needed for the flow of Brecht's epic theatre, especially in the travelling scenes of the first half. Design and direction also needed Brecht's "literalisation" techniques. Banners with scene titles and the words of songs would balance the emotional aspects of scenes with the intellectual recognition, for example, of the oppositional nature of society, much of which was lost because actors and singers did not have the clarity of enunciation which would be expected of professionals.
Though the performers had a reasonable idea of the epic style, only Ruth Pickard as Shauwa, Azdak's assistant, maintained the proper degree of expressionistic acting that Brecht requires. There is a particular skill in avoiding the pitfalls of naturalism and melodrama which Brecht wrote about and taught in his Berliner Ensemble productions. Moonlighters will need to do more study to find the right fine line, the edge that epic theatre needs.
It is good to make these plays available. They are essential viewing to understand modern theatre, and this production is quite successful enough for a worthwhile and often enjoyable evening.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The ANU drama scene has expanded. The Theatre Studies course has long supported Papermoon, mainly as a town-and-gown link. Now senior lecturer Tony Turner has helped Theatre Studies graduates set up Moonlight by providing a small budget and the DramaLab space for them to continue performing apres uni.
As a gown-and-town link, Moonlight has an academic framework. Each year a selection of works by a noted playwright will be presented. For this year's program The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Mother Courage and her Children (August) and The Good Person of Setzuan (September-October) are central to Brecht's work and highly accessible for a general audience.
Beginning with Brecht is a worthwhile challenge for graduates of a course which is not designed to produce fully-trained actors. This production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a success for its sincerity of purpose. The essential theme concerning the nature of justice in a world of social inequalities is clearly developed, particularly through Steph Brewster's presentation of the role of Grusha.
What is missing is the tight timing needed for the flow of Brecht's epic theatre, especially in the travelling scenes of the first half. Design and direction also needed Brecht's "literalisation" techniques. Banners with scene titles and the words of songs would balance the emotional aspects of scenes with the intellectual recognition, for example, of the oppositional nature of society, much of which was lost because actors and singers did not have the clarity of enunciation which would be expected of professionals.
Though the performers had a reasonable idea of the epic style, only Ruth Pickard as Shauwa, Azdak's assistant, maintained the proper degree of expressionistic acting that Brecht requires. There is a particular skill in avoiding the pitfalls of naturalism and melodrama which Brecht wrote about and taught in his Berliner Ensemble productions. Moonlighters will need to do more study to find the right fine line, the edge that epic theatre needs.
It is good to make these plays available. They are essential viewing to understand modern theatre, and this production is quite successful enough for a worthwhile and often enjoyable evening.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 30 April 2004
2004: The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldini
The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldini. Bell Shakespeare Company directed by John Bell at The Playhouse, April 29 until May 15, 7.30pm. Matinees Saturdays May 1 and 15, 1.30pm. Bookings: 6275 2700 or 1800 802 025.
Go, Go, Go for Gold...ini! Take the kids to the matinees, they'll love it. Ring the Bell for John and his great team of designers, choreographers and actors. First among equals is Darren Gilshenan as the wildly comic servant Truffaldino.
Toll the bell for the late Nick Enright, sadly lost to cancer in 2002 at 52. He and Ron Blair adapted this 1746 off-beat Italian romantic comedy by translating it into the very Australian comic style of performers like Graham Kennedy, the earlier vaudeville team of Stiffy and Mo, Aunty Jack (I'll come round your place and I'll rip your bloody arms off) and today's Kath and Kim.
The jokes come thick and fast, in words and action, half the time apparently nothing to do with the play, and often improvised like Theatre Sports. There are no boundaries, and gradually a standard middle-class first-night Canberra audience warmed to the freedom until Truffaldino only had to show an eyebrow through the curtain and the place went wild.
But the play works so well because Goldini knew what he was doing. He took the popular Italian commedia street theatre into the theatre for the educated classes. The stock characters now have a new significance and the play becomes a social satire in which the servant class ups the ante on the master class and a sense of equality is the name of game in the final scene. I guess most of the audience today are descendants of the working class, so the play fits our Australian egalitarian sensibility.
In fact, I find myself thinking, we need this play to remind us not to let our rough and tumble knockabout ironic humour become lost in the new corporate world. It's what makes Australia endearing and different from the overblown self-importance of other cultures. This production is true to our culture, and it's great to see. Don't miss it, or I'll send Aunty Jack round your place.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Go, Go, Go for Gold...ini! Take the kids to the matinees, they'll love it. Ring the Bell for John and his great team of designers, choreographers and actors. First among equals is Darren Gilshenan as the wildly comic servant Truffaldino.
Toll the bell for the late Nick Enright, sadly lost to cancer in 2002 at 52. He and Ron Blair adapted this 1746 off-beat Italian romantic comedy by translating it into the very Australian comic style of performers like Graham Kennedy, the earlier vaudeville team of Stiffy and Mo, Aunty Jack (I'll come round your place and I'll rip your bloody arms off) and today's Kath and Kim.
The jokes come thick and fast, in words and action, half the time apparently nothing to do with the play, and often improvised like Theatre Sports. There are no boundaries, and gradually a standard middle-class first-night Canberra audience warmed to the freedom until Truffaldino only had to show an eyebrow through the curtain and the place went wild.
But the play works so well because Goldini knew what he was doing. He took the popular Italian commedia street theatre into the theatre for the educated classes. The stock characters now have a new significance and the play becomes a social satire in which the servant class ups the ante on the master class and a sense of equality is the name of game in the final scene. I guess most of the audience today are descendants of the working class, so the play fits our Australian egalitarian sensibility.
In fact, I find myself thinking, we need this play to remind us not to let our rough and tumble knockabout ironic humour become lost in the new corporate world. It's what makes Australia endearing and different from the overblown self-importance of other cultures. This production is true to our culture, and it's great to see. Don't miss it, or I'll send Aunty Jack round your place.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 27 April 2004
2004: Wallflowering by Peta Murray
Wallflowering by Peta Murray. Starring Noeline Brown and Doug Scroope. Directed by Bruce Myles. Produced by Christine Harris and Hit Productions at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, April 27.
What a pity that such a good production of such a good play with such good actors could squeeze only 2 performances in Canberra into over 41 weeks of touring. I can only hope that Tuggeranong Arts Centre's coup can be followed up by a return season here.
Wallflowering began its stage life here at the Australian National Playwrights Conference. After a public reading at the Sydney Theatre Company in 1989, Canberra Theatre Company - our last attempt at a permanent professional mainstage company - staged Wallflowering's first full production. Since then it has been produced around Australia, in England and USA and has even been screened on Polish television, in a Polish translation. The ABC has also adapted it for radio.
I wondered whether the play may have seemed dated by now. It's like having my life flashed before my eyes as Peg and Cliff face the onslaught of feminism. As Peg's "friends" and their books turn her "old-fashioned" ideas of happiness and love topsy-turvey, Cliff's equally "old-fashioned" beliefs about his role in life are challenged. He comes to understand that adults are no more than the children they always were, taller but no less nasty towards those who don't accept the group norms.
Peg's friends prove the point when they turn up to Peg and Cliff's fancy-dress party, dressed as Peg and Cliff. Peg, in tears, dressed as a carrot, finds Cliff as Julius Caesar, in tears for the first time in his life, and realises this is the moment when she loves him the most.
Held together by their love of dancing, Noeline Brown's Peg and Doug Scroope's Cliff tell us their story with such great delicacy and skill that, in a world where selfishness and short term gains seem set to take over our lives, we know at the end that "old-fashioned" can mean lasting love. "And what's wrong with that?", as Peg says.
15 years on it seems that Wallflowering has not become dated. It now looks even more like a play for our time.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What a pity that such a good production of such a good play with such good actors could squeeze only 2 performances in Canberra into over 41 weeks of touring. I can only hope that Tuggeranong Arts Centre's coup can be followed up by a return season here.
Wallflowering began its stage life here at the Australian National Playwrights Conference. After a public reading at the Sydney Theatre Company in 1989, Canberra Theatre Company - our last attempt at a permanent professional mainstage company - staged Wallflowering's first full production. Since then it has been produced around Australia, in England and USA and has even been screened on Polish television, in a Polish translation. The ABC has also adapted it for radio.
I wondered whether the play may have seemed dated by now. It's like having my life flashed before my eyes as Peg and Cliff face the onslaught of feminism. As Peg's "friends" and their books turn her "old-fashioned" ideas of happiness and love topsy-turvey, Cliff's equally "old-fashioned" beliefs about his role in life are challenged. He comes to understand that adults are no more than the children they always were, taller but no less nasty towards those who don't accept the group norms.
Peg's friends prove the point when they turn up to Peg and Cliff's fancy-dress party, dressed as Peg and Cliff. Peg, in tears, dressed as a carrot, finds Cliff as Julius Caesar, in tears for the first time in his life, and realises this is the moment when she loves him the most.
Held together by their love of dancing, Noeline Brown's Peg and Doug Scroope's Cliff tell us their story with such great delicacy and skill that, in a world where selfishness and short term gains seem set to take over our lives, we know at the end that "old-fashioned" can mean lasting love. "And what's wrong with that?", as Peg says.
15 years on it seems that Wallflowering has not become dated. It now looks even more like a play for our time.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 8 April 2004
2004: Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums launched at Australian National Museum. Feature article.
Craddock Morton, Acting Director of the National Museum of Australia, made an interesting observation in conversation after launching Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums last Tuesday April 6. It's a dangerous profession, he said, referring not only to the review of the NMA and the discontinuation of Dawn Casey's services as Director, but to the fact that similar events have occurred recently at almost every major museum in Australia.
What's going on, and what does the future hold for the National Museum?
Knowledge Quest is an important research report published jointly by the Australian Museum in Sydney and the National Museum here in Canberra. I spoke to Susan Tonkin, co-author and leader of the Canberra team. A literature review of research into families at museums over some 70 years (in Britain, USA, Canada and Australia) gives a context for field research into 29 case studies of families in Sydney and Canberra who have visited one or other of the two local museums.
The result calls for action, but cleverly does not have the usual set of recommendations which can so easily be forgotten in a cobwebbed archive.
The conclusion to the report lays out the findings from the interviews like "Museums provided public spaces where parents could share community culture with their children" and suggests the implication of each finding. In this case "Museums have a role to play in presenting historic and contemporary topics in a form that both adults and children can engage with". There are 26 of these findings, ranging from the bigger issues to "Parents avoided places that were hard to supervise or had hazards" with the perhaps obvious implication "Spaces should not only allow easy supervision, but should be safe for children".
The clever part is Appendix 1: a Family-Friendliness Checklist. On the left are "Principles" under the headings Pre-visit, Orientation, Exhibit Design, Content, Labels/text, Programs, Practical considerations, Audience-specific (Infants and toddlers; Primary/secondary). Here's where the implications in the conclusion become manifest.
Being of simple mind, I chose Orientation. The first principle is "clear map with family facilities marked". In the right column is a box where you put Yes or No. The map I was given by a guide at NMA is a vertical cross-section of a circular structure laid out from left to right. All the bits of the museum are labelled, but it took the guide (who was very good) several minutes to explain to me how the map worked. Even then, when walking around the exhibits, I was quickly lost, and I had no children to look after. Tick No.
A new map is being prepared and should be ready in a month or two. Action is under way.
Take a principle like "facilitates developmentally-appropriate child-centred programs". I can quite confidently tick Yes for the National Museum, where events like the recent The Great Garden Game by Canberra Youth Theatre and the Tracking Kultja Festival in 2001, as well as the regular story-telling, place this museum at the forefront of modern practice.
Families represent 43% of visitors to NMA. 93% of families say they are satisfied or very satisfied, and 79% say they have "learned something interesting about Australian history which I didn't know before". But can the museum maintain the buzz of the first years? And will I soon be able to tick Yes in all the boxes? At the moment I have to put question marks against more than half of the implications from the research findings.
Craddock Morton says the new Strategic Plan, from July 1 2004, is designed to sustain the outward buzz by better underpinning with academic research. To do this well means money, of course. To do it really well means more money than in the past and submissions have gone to Cabinet. Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums is a great example of strong research which says Give the NMA the money it needs to do really well. Let's tick more Yes boxes next year.
I guess we'll have to do a family-friendliness checklist on the Budget in May....
And maybe a museum directors' friendliness checklist might make their profession a little less dangerous. This research shows that "family-friendly" means up-to-date, new approaches, being interactive, learning through exploring, or as one principle of exhibit design says: "encourages children to apply principles rather than just push buttons". Let's hope a new permanent director understands this as Dawn Casey did.
"Underpinning with academic research" surely means discovering more historical truths, but not to be put in glass cases in dusty corners. Sustaining the NMA's energy means ticking Yes in all the family-friendliness boxes.
For a copy of Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums contact Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, National Museum of Australia GPO Box 1901, Canberra ACT 2601. Ph: 6208 5120. Email: s.tonkin@nma.gov.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What's going on, and what does the future hold for the National Museum?
Knowledge Quest is an important research report published jointly by the Australian Museum in Sydney and the National Museum here in Canberra. I spoke to Susan Tonkin, co-author and leader of the Canberra team. A literature review of research into families at museums over some 70 years (in Britain, USA, Canada and Australia) gives a context for field research into 29 case studies of families in Sydney and Canberra who have visited one or other of the two local museums.
The result calls for action, but cleverly does not have the usual set of recommendations which can so easily be forgotten in a cobwebbed archive.
The conclusion to the report lays out the findings from the interviews like "Museums provided public spaces where parents could share community culture with their children" and suggests the implication of each finding. In this case "Museums have a role to play in presenting historic and contemporary topics in a form that both adults and children can engage with". There are 26 of these findings, ranging from the bigger issues to "Parents avoided places that were hard to supervise or had hazards" with the perhaps obvious implication "Spaces should not only allow easy supervision, but should be safe for children".
The clever part is Appendix 1: a Family-Friendliness Checklist. On the left are "Principles" under the headings Pre-visit, Orientation, Exhibit Design, Content, Labels/text, Programs, Practical considerations, Audience-specific (Infants and toddlers; Primary/secondary). Here's where the implications in the conclusion become manifest.
Being of simple mind, I chose Orientation. The first principle is "clear map with family facilities marked". In the right column is a box where you put Yes or No. The map I was given by a guide at NMA is a vertical cross-section of a circular structure laid out from left to right. All the bits of the museum are labelled, but it took the guide (who was very good) several minutes to explain to me how the map worked. Even then, when walking around the exhibits, I was quickly lost, and I had no children to look after. Tick No.
A new map is being prepared and should be ready in a month or two. Action is under way.
Take a principle like "facilitates developmentally-appropriate child-centred programs". I can quite confidently tick Yes for the National Museum, where events like the recent The Great Garden Game by Canberra Youth Theatre and the Tracking Kultja Festival in 2001, as well as the regular story-telling, place this museum at the forefront of modern practice.
Families represent 43% of visitors to NMA. 93% of families say they are satisfied or very satisfied, and 79% say they have "learned something interesting about Australian history which I didn't know before". But can the museum maintain the buzz of the first years? And will I soon be able to tick Yes in all the boxes? At the moment I have to put question marks against more than half of the implications from the research findings.
Craddock Morton says the new Strategic Plan, from July 1 2004, is designed to sustain the outward buzz by better underpinning with academic research. To do this well means money, of course. To do it really well means more money than in the past and submissions have gone to Cabinet. Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums is a great example of strong research which says Give the NMA the money it needs to do really well. Let's tick more Yes boxes next year.
I guess we'll have to do a family-friendliness checklist on the Budget in May....
And maybe a museum directors' friendliness checklist might make their profession a little less dangerous. This research shows that "family-friendly" means up-to-date, new approaches, being interactive, learning through exploring, or as one principle of exhibit design says: "encourages children to apply principles rather than just push buttons". Let's hope a new permanent director understands this as Dawn Casey did.
"Underpinning with academic research" surely means discovering more historical truths, but not to be put in glass cases in dusty corners. Sustaining the NMA's energy means ticking Yes in all the family-friendliness boxes.
For a copy of Knowledge Quest: Australian Families Visit Museums contact Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, National Museum of Australia GPO Box 1901, Canberra ACT 2601. Ph: 6208 5120. Email: s.tonkin@nma.gov.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 1 April 2004
2004: Dislabelled by Sofya Gollan and Caroline Conlon
Dislabelled by Sofya Gollan and Caroline Conlon. Australian Theatre of the Deaf directed by Tony Strachan. Music by Blair Greenberg. The Playhouse April 1-3 8pm.
If you think theatre of the deaf is theatre only for the deaf, think again. Open up the biscuit tin, shove your prejudice inside and firmly close the lid. Stick it in a dark cupboard, get out of the house and go and see Dislabelled. It's a hoot.
If you like sharp stand-up comedy with just enough audience participation, and who doesn't, then sharpen your wits and look out for the barbs when Gollan and Conlon get into action. As Gollan explains, deaf people don't beat about the bush. They get straight to the point, so be prepared for some R-rated sign language. These women insist they want to tell us about their awful, downtrodden lives. And then they complain because we keep on laughing!
A lot of their stories are about their sexual adventures. Of course, as they explain, there's no particular reason for deaf girls to fall in love with deaf boys, but communicating in the dark with an always-talking sweet-nothings hearing man is more than difficult - it's hilarious. Just wait till you hear how they tell each other whether they want sex or not by squeezing certain bits of anatomy.
In addition to music, song and dance, a special segment is Sophya Gollan's short film. She is not only a NIDA trained actor, but has an MA in directing from the Australian Film Television and Radio School. With a slightly satirical nod to Peter Corris she has produced a little crime mystery with a twist which is worth the trip to The Playhouse in its own right.
Caroline Conlon is a voluptuous bright-eyed joy on stage, while musician Greenberg is a great fall-guy for the two women. See the show, and see what I mean.
And after this show, you can forget about your old biscuit tin. You'll never need to open it again. You might be surprised to know that Auslan (Australian Sign Language) has over 4000 signs and is "spoken" by about 10,000 deaf people. It's an Australian original, like no other - and great fun.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
If you think theatre of the deaf is theatre only for the deaf, think again. Open up the biscuit tin, shove your prejudice inside and firmly close the lid. Stick it in a dark cupboard, get out of the house and go and see Dislabelled. It's a hoot.
If you like sharp stand-up comedy with just enough audience participation, and who doesn't, then sharpen your wits and look out for the barbs when Gollan and Conlon get into action. As Gollan explains, deaf people don't beat about the bush. They get straight to the point, so be prepared for some R-rated sign language. These women insist they want to tell us about their awful, downtrodden lives. And then they complain because we keep on laughing!
A lot of their stories are about their sexual adventures. Of course, as they explain, there's no particular reason for deaf girls to fall in love with deaf boys, but communicating in the dark with an always-talking sweet-nothings hearing man is more than difficult - it's hilarious. Just wait till you hear how they tell each other whether they want sex or not by squeezing certain bits of anatomy.
In addition to music, song and dance, a special segment is Sophya Gollan's short film. She is not only a NIDA trained actor, but has an MA in directing from the Australian Film Television and Radio School. With a slightly satirical nod to Peter Corris she has produced a little crime mystery with a twist which is worth the trip to The Playhouse in its own right.
Caroline Conlon is a voluptuous bright-eyed joy on stage, while musician Greenberg is a great fall-guy for the two women. See the show, and see what I mean.
And after this show, you can forget about your old biscuit tin. You'll never need to open it again. You might be surprised to know that Auslan (Australian Sign Language) has over 4000 signs and is "spoken" by about 10,000 deaf people. It's an Australian original, like no other - and great fun.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 23 March 2004
2004: Remember Fortune Theatre? The Street Theatre Ensemble Group. Feature article
Remember Fortune Theatre? Theatre ACT? Canberra Theatre Company? Where have all these flowers gone?
The fact that I remember them only shows my age, I guess, but age does not weary some people, hope remains eternal, and now The Street Theatre has designs on another form of professional theatre for Canberra in its new Ensemble Group. But don't get your hopes up too high. It will take time, says artistic director Herman Pretorius.
Why, I ask, can't this higher-than-average income community simply put in the money for our own national capital flagship company? Similar cities in other countries do - like Ottawa in Canada, for example. Well, maybe not so similar: "A population of over 1.2 million makes the Ottawa region the fourth-largest urban area in Canada" explains the website. But on the other hand it also says "Whether your interest is culture, history or simply natural outdoor attractions, Canada's Capital region offers a unique combination of both. 30 museums. 50 galleries and theatres. Night clubs. Fine dining. World-class shopping. Heritage sites. Stunning architecture. Festivals. Cultural activities. Attractions. Tours. Natural wonders. Sports. Friendly people."
Sounds like home, but even at one quarter the population surely we should have at least one permanent professional theatre. Will The Street do the trick?
Facts in favour are a small number of trained actors coming to or returning to Canberra looking for professional work and continued professional development, and The Street's success in pulling in more audiences: 14,000 in 2000 raised to 26,561 in 2003. Facts against are the original conception of The Street as a "community" theatre, the tendency in Canberra to form lots of small companies, the always interesting issue of funding, and perhaps our proximity to the bright lights of Sydney.
Pretorius admits that 80% of work at The Street is "community", 20% professional, and although the theatre is fully utilised throughout the year, I'm guessing that more than 80% of audience numbers is in the community sector. What looks good about The Street's 2004 program is the community / cultural / professional mix in the monthly Bunch of Fives, Saturday Club and Youth Un-Plugged, the visiting shows by Shadow House PITS, Supa Productions, Shortis & Simpson, Daramalan Theatre Company, Phoenix Players and Stopera, as well as the special events which started with the National Multicultural Fringe Festival in February, Class Clowns 2004 March 23-25, the Midwinter Choral Festival in July after The Street's own 10th birthday Gala Performance in June.
The Street is presenting 3 professional productions - Domenic Mico's Sirocco and the Angel directed by Peter Damien Hayes (June-July), The Unexpected Man by the author of Art, Yasmina Reza, directed by Catherine Langman (September), and the "mysterious comedy" Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo directed by Herman Pretorius (November-December). This is an interesting combination of local and overseas writing which should be attractive to a Canberra theatre audience.
Calling itself "home to local professional theatre" The Street is managed by Stagemaster Inc. on contract to artsACT, now with 3 year funding and Board membership. The Stagemaster Board largely consists of theatre professionals from the earlier years of Season at the Street. Following last year's Professional Development Group project, The Ensemble Group is seen as stage 2 towards a standing professional company. 7 actors have been selected from interviews, auditions and a group workshop, supported by an "Artistic Group" (designer Kauro Alfonso, manager Katriina Ovchynik, musician and composer Lachlan Cotter, writer Peter Robinson, dramaturg and technician Steven Arculus and visual artist Blaide Lallemand). Project Directors are barb barnett and Catherine Langman, who also has this year's Residency at The Street for 3 months May-July.
Ensemble projects will explore The Four Humours (blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile) and Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. There will also be readings of 5 plays by local authors Peter J Casey & Carissa Campbell, Joel Barcham, David Finnigan and Adam Hadley, Bill Fleming, Paul Cliff and Susan Pellegrino, with Catherine Langman, Herman Pretorius, Steven Arculus, Cathy Clelland and Camilla Blunden as directors/dramaturgs. The Ensemble actors Emma Strand, barb barnett, Natasha Vagg, Cameron Thomas, Andrew Bibo, Raoul Craemer and Oliver Baudert will form the company for Mistero Buffo as the final main stage production for the year.
Can Pretorius, as CEO and Artistic Director of Stagemaster Inc., pull everything together and lead the Ensemble on to a bright new world of a permanent company? With a PhD from University of Pretoria (doctoral dissertation: Apartheid and Resistance: the development of a political protest theatre in South Africa) and his earlier Master of Arts in Drama cum laude, University of Stellenbosch (thesis: The implementation of Drama and Theatre in Education in South African schools), his academic and practical theatre background plus a successful business career in New Zealand seems just the right mix of left and right for Canberra. But, he says, at each step "you have to make it work to go the next step". Like our recycling efforts, he wants to "stop the waste" of local actors having to go elsewhere for professional employment. Like ActewAGL he wants to "stop the drop". To succeed, he insists, The Street must be inclusive of community and professional practitioners, never developing an exclusive elitist group.
I'm getting on a bit now, so I hope that it doesn't take too long for The Ensemble at The Street to become permanent. It won't only depend on Herman Pretorius, of course. The ACT Government, through artsACT, will be the final arbiter. Maybe there should be some "Save the Ensemble" demonstrations before this year's election. When do we need a permanent professional theatre? Now!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The fact that I remember them only shows my age, I guess, but age does not weary some people, hope remains eternal, and now The Street Theatre has designs on another form of professional theatre for Canberra in its new Ensemble Group. But don't get your hopes up too high. It will take time, says artistic director Herman Pretorius.
Why, I ask, can't this higher-than-average income community simply put in the money for our own national capital flagship company? Similar cities in other countries do - like Ottawa in Canada, for example. Well, maybe not so similar: "A population of over 1.2 million makes the Ottawa region the fourth-largest urban area in Canada" explains the website. But on the other hand it also says "Whether your interest is culture, history or simply natural outdoor attractions, Canada's Capital region offers a unique combination of both. 30 museums. 50 galleries and theatres. Night clubs. Fine dining. World-class shopping. Heritage sites. Stunning architecture. Festivals. Cultural activities. Attractions. Tours. Natural wonders. Sports. Friendly people."
Sounds like home, but even at one quarter the population surely we should have at least one permanent professional theatre. Will The Street do the trick?
Facts in favour are a small number of trained actors coming to or returning to Canberra looking for professional work and continued professional development, and The Street's success in pulling in more audiences: 14,000 in 2000 raised to 26,561 in 2003. Facts against are the original conception of The Street as a "community" theatre, the tendency in Canberra to form lots of small companies, the always interesting issue of funding, and perhaps our proximity to the bright lights of Sydney.
Pretorius admits that 80% of work at The Street is "community", 20% professional, and although the theatre is fully utilised throughout the year, I'm guessing that more than 80% of audience numbers is in the community sector. What looks good about The Street's 2004 program is the community / cultural / professional mix in the monthly Bunch of Fives, Saturday Club and Youth Un-Plugged, the visiting shows by Shadow House PITS, Supa Productions, Shortis & Simpson, Daramalan Theatre Company, Phoenix Players and Stopera, as well as the special events which started with the National Multicultural Fringe Festival in February, Class Clowns 2004 March 23-25, the Midwinter Choral Festival in July after The Street's own 10th birthday Gala Performance in June.
The Street is presenting 3 professional productions - Domenic Mico's Sirocco and the Angel directed by Peter Damien Hayes (June-July), The Unexpected Man by the author of Art, Yasmina Reza, directed by Catherine Langman (September), and the "mysterious comedy" Mistero Buffo by Dario Fo directed by Herman Pretorius (November-December). This is an interesting combination of local and overseas writing which should be attractive to a Canberra theatre audience.
Calling itself "home to local professional theatre" The Street is managed by Stagemaster Inc. on contract to artsACT, now with 3 year funding and Board membership. The Stagemaster Board largely consists of theatre professionals from the earlier years of Season at the Street. Following last year's Professional Development Group project, The Ensemble Group is seen as stage 2 towards a standing professional company. 7 actors have been selected from interviews, auditions and a group workshop, supported by an "Artistic Group" (designer Kauro Alfonso, manager Katriina Ovchynik, musician and composer Lachlan Cotter, writer Peter Robinson, dramaturg and technician Steven Arculus and visual artist Blaide Lallemand). Project Directors are barb barnett and Catherine Langman, who also has this year's Residency at The Street for 3 months May-July.
Ensemble projects will explore The Four Humours (blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile) and Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. There will also be readings of 5 plays by local authors Peter J Casey & Carissa Campbell, Joel Barcham, David Finnigan and Adam Hadley, Bill Fleming, Paul Cliff and Susan Pellegrino, with Catherine Langman, Herman Pretorius, Steven Arculus, Cathy Clelland and Camilla Blunden as directors/dramaturgs. The Ensemble actors Emma Strand, barb barnett, Natasha Vagg, Cameron Thomas, Andrew Bibo, Raoul Craemer and Oliver Baudert will form the company for Mistero Buffo as the final main stage production for the year.
Can Pretorius, as CEO and Artistic Director of Stagemaster Inc., pull everything together and lead the Ensemble on to a bright new world of a permanent company? With a PhD from University of Pretoria (doctoral dissertation: Apartheid and Resistance: the development of a political protest theatre in South Africa) and his earlier Master of Arts in Drama cum laude, University of Stellenbosch (thesis: The implementation of Drama and Theatre in Education in South African schools), his academic and practical theatre background plus a successful business career in New Zealand seems just the right mix of left and right for Canberra. But, he says, at each step "you have to make it work to go the next step". Like our recycling efforts, he wants to "stop the waste" of local actors having to go elsewhere for professional employment. Like ActewAGL he wants to "stop the drop". To succeed, he insists, The Street must be inclusive of community and professional practitioners, never developing an exclusive elitist group.
I'm getting on a bit now, so I hope that it doesn't take too long for The Ensemble at The Street to become permanent. It won't only depend on Herman Pretorius, of course. The ACT Government, through artsACT, will be the final arbiter. Maybe there should be some "Save the Ensemble" demonstrations before this year's election. When do we need a permanent professional theatre? Now!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 5 March 2004
2004: The Great Garden Game. Canberra Youth Theatre
The Great Garden Game. Canberra Youth Theatre's interpretation of the Garden of Australian Dreams at the National Museum of Australia. Artistic Director, Linda McHugh. March 3-6 and 12-13, 7.30-8.45pm.
If we praise Canberra Youth Theatre, then praise must go even more to the National Museum for commissioning The Great Garden Game, to follow CYT's Shake, part of the Tracking Kultja Festival 2001, and Alive! in 2002. Commissioning original work of this kind is unique among museums worldwide, and places our NMA in the forefront of modern thinking about a museum's role.
As a museum of Australian national culture, NMA firstly records, secondly reflects upon our cultural heritage, and thirdly creates new culture. CYT has produced a young person's view of life in Australia, in dramatic form, by exploring the Garden of Australian Dreams, which is itself a symbolic exploration of Australia in the form of landscape architecture. In April 2003 CYT formed a team of "Germinators", older young people including Antonia Aitken, Aj Biega, Maddy Donovan and Tom Woodward, joined in October by Dörte Finke as part of her studies in Cultural Science at the University of Hildesheim in Germany. Aged between 19 and 27, the Germinators were given the opportunity to learn the ropes of directing a creative development program with younger people, mainly secondary college student members of CYT.
Encouraging this process is an important initiative by NMA, and a unique feature of its work. So what have the young people come up with? They discovered while talking with Richard Weller of Room 413, the designer of The Garden of Australian Dreams, that the tunnel represented for him the idea that much of Australia's wealth is underground, and in this sense the land itself is where our modern dreaming is located.
CYT has used the tunnel as the place where each actor presents their personal understanding of what it means to live in Australia. Amongst critical views of our involvement in war, the main theme that I heard was about their sense of freedom, of speech and action. As you pass, each actor "switches on" rather like the soundscape in City Walk - an interesting idea, but I found it difficult to pick up more than a few words from each performer as the audience pass through and several actors are speaking at once.
Contrasting with the freedom theme, I found the two strongest pieces dramatically were being "imprisoned" in the white tower, which might have represented the experiences of asylum seekers in recent years, and the picture of the convict era played out around the huge fallen tree in floodwaters, with the road water depth indicator. By this time darkness had fallen, moonlight eerily shadowed the space and our authoritarian past seemed to well up with foreboding. Taken on a tour of this dreamscape, on a warm still night with the sun slowly setting, we had begun with humour (I found myself saying "Of course I do" to a sheep which demanded in baa language "Do you love me?") and gradually slipped into a deeper fantasy, almost a cultural memory.
I hope this kind of commission by the Museum can be extended in future years to youth theatres from other parts of Australia. This way young people's cultural understanding can be made available more widely. Perhaps an annual ritual exploration of the Garden of Australian Dreams could become part of the Museum program.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
If we praise Canberra Youth Theatre, then praise must go even more to the National Museum for commissioning The Great Garden Game, to follow CYT's Shake, part of the Tracking Kultja Festival 2001, and Alive! in 2002. Commissioning original work of this kind is unique among museums worldwide, and places our NMA in the forefront of modern thinking about a museum's role.
As a museum of Australian national culture, NMA firstly records, secondly reflects upon our cultural heritage, and thirdly creates new culture. CYT has produced a young person's view of life in Australia, in dramatic form, by exploring the Garden of Australian Dreams, which is itself a symbolic exploration of Australia in the form of landscape architecture. In April 2003 CYT formed a team of "Germinators", older young people including Antonia Aitken, Aj Biega, Maddy Donovan and Tom Woodward, joined in October by Dörte Finke as part of her studies in Cultural Science at the University of Hildesheim in Germany. Aged between 19 and 27, the Germinators were given the opportunity to learn the ropes of directing a creative development program with younger people, mainly secondary college student members of CYT.
Encouraging this process is an important initiative by NMA, and a unique feature of its work. So what have the young people come up with? They discovered while talking with Richard Weller of Room 413, the designer of The Garden of Australian Dreams, that the tunnel represented for him the idea that much of Australia's wealth is underground, and in this sense the land itself is where our modern dreaming is located.
CYT has used the tunnel as the place where each actor presents their personal understanding of what it means to live in Australia. Amongst critical views of our involvement in war, the main theme that I heard was about their sense of freedom, of speech and action. As you pass, each actor "switches on" rather like the soundscape in City Walk - an interesting idea, but I found it difficult to pick up more than a few words from each performer as the audience pass through and several actors are speaking at once.
Contrasting with the freedom theme, I found the two strongest pieces dramatically were being "imprisoned" in the white tower, which might have represented the experiences of asylum seekers in recent years, and the picture of the convict era played out around the huge fallen tree in floodwaters, with the road water depth indicator. By this time darkness had fallen, moonlight eerily shadowed the space and our authoritarian past seemed to well up with foreboding. Taken on a tour of this dreamscape, on a warm still night with the sun slowly setting, we had begun with humour (I found myself saying "Of course I do" to a sheep which demanded in baa language "Do you love me?") and gradually slipped into a deeper fantasy, almost a cultural memory.
I hope this kind of commission by the Museum can be extended in future years to youth theatres from other parts of Australia. This way young people's cultural understanding can be made available more widely. Perhaps an annual ritual exploration of the Garden of Australian Dreams could become part of the Museum program.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 11 February 2004
2004: Chiao Wan Jan Puppet Troupe
THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE
Chiao Wan Jan Puppet Troupe. Ping Deng Elementary School, Taipei, Taiwan on the World Music Stage, Garema Place Wednesday, Thursday, Friday February 11-13, 6pm and Glebe Park Sunday February 15, 11am. National Multicultural Festival - free event.
One young gentleman informed me that he already knew the story of the three kings, which begins with the Monkey-king who lives in the water curtain cave where he is attacked by Ninjas, and so I realised how the Chinese tradition, via Japan's play stations, have infiltrated Australian culture. Much of what I saw, in my ignorance of the details of the story, looked like marvellous hand-puppets with all the action of a Bruce Lee / Jackie Chan movie, sometimes the subtleties of Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger, and often a sense of humour reminiscent of the English Punch and Judy.
Your children will certainly enjoy a show that for the fifth graders from Taipei was obviously good fun to perform. But there is much more to this puppet troupe. In a similar way to how the Flying Fruit Fly Circus School operates in Albury, these students choose hand puppetry as an elective class in a school which employs Puppet Master Li Tien-Lu to pass on the traditional art. For 11 year olds who have been training for less than 3 years, the current Ping Deng students have learned skills of a high order indeed in expressive manipulation of the puppets, in stage voice work, and on traditional musical instruments. The effect is a miniature but complete Chinese opera, including acrobatics and even a puppet which spins a plate balanced on a stick just as in the circus.
What I found impressive was that the teachers were so competent that they could be the facilitators and assistants for their students, who had clearly become self-reliant, independent and confident performers. They have travelled before to Korea, Canada and Singapore, so we are benefitting from their experience. These young people have learned the art of self-expression through discipline. The complexities and detail of the puppets' movements, the speaking and music are as much as most adults would find a challenge to learn, yet backstage (which we can see in the open air staging) there was absolute teamwork, cooperation and good humour. Not to be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Chiao Wan Jan Puppet Troupe. Ping Deng Elementary School, Taipei, Taiwan on the World Music Stage, Garema Place Wednesday, Thursday, Friday February 11-13, 6pm and Glebe Park Sunday February 15, 11am. National Multicultural Festival - free event.
One young gentleman informed me that he already knew the story of the three kings, which begins with the Monkey-king who lives in the water curtain cave where he is attacked by Ninjas, and so I realised how the Chinese tradition, via Japan's play stations, have infiltrated Australian culture. Much of what I saw, in my ignorance of the details of the story, looked like marvellous hand-puppets with all the action of a Bruce Lee / Jackie Chan movie, sometimes the subtleties of Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger, and often a sense of humour reminiscent of the English Punch and Judy.
Your children will certainly enjoy a show that for the fifth graders from Taipei was obviously good fun to perform. But there is much more to this puppet troupe. In a similar way to how the Flying Fruit Fly Circus School operates in Albury, these students choose hand puppetry as an elective class in a school which employs Puppet Master Li Tien-Lu to pass on the traditional art. For 11 year olds who have been training for less than 3 years, the current Ping Deng students have learned skills of a high order indeed in expressive manipulation of the puppets, in stage voice work, and on traditional musical instruments. The effect is a miniature but complete Chinese opera, including acrobatics and even a puppet which spins a plate balanced on a stick just as in the circus.
What I found impressive was that the teachers were so competent that they could be the facilitators and assistants for their students, who had clearly become self-reliant, independent and confident performers. They have travelled before to Korea, Canada and Singapore, so we are benefitting from their experience. These young people have learned the art of self-expression through discipline. The complexities and detail of the puppets' movements, the speaking and music are as much as most adults would find a challenge to learn, yet backstage (which we can see in the open air staging) there was absolute teamwork, cooperation and good humour. Not to be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 31 January 2004
2004: The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare. Thredbo Players at Cooma Little Theatre, January 30.
Despite a hailstorm of Shakespearean proportions outside, Thredbo Players succeeded in creating a relaxed warm atmosphere inside the converted Snowy Mountains Scheme shed which is Cooma Little Theatre (CLT). Since the rest of their season at Thredbo was outdoors, the Players must have appreciated proper facilities, expertly lit for them by Charles Monticone. CLT will be 50 years old next year, and the shed looks set for many more productions from Cooma itself and around the region.
It was a nice touch to set The Comedy of Errors in the Caribbean, not just because a cast member had Trinidadian dreadlocks and another a genuine Carib-English accent. The story of merchants sailing between islands, storms and shipwrecks, pirates, and the separation of husband and wife and the two sets of twins seemed natural in a fantasy island Caracus, not far from Barbados. Though many in the cast had never been on stage before, the setting and brightly-coloured costumes gave them a style and liveliness that carried them through. Playing for an audience who were not personal acquaintances allowed them to let their characters have their heads. The Cooma audience was enthusiastic, applauding each scene, giving the Thredbo players a sense of achievement that made the performance a celebration.
Thredbo Players is all that remains of the erstwhile Thredbo Shakespeare Festival, a great idea incorporating city professionals as well as the local amateurs which lasted several years, but was expensive without drawing the audience numbers needed for financial security. Directors Brett Thomas and Danni Matson have kept the spark of community drama alive, with support from a wide range of Thredbo businesses and associations. Little theatres like this are the life-blood of drama in small communities across the country.
The Comedy of Errors, though the prompt had plenty to do and received a special accolade at curtain call, proved not to be an error but a genuine expression of community spirit, with a number of people who were effective Shakespeare performers (Danni Matson as the Wife of Antipholous of Caracus in particular). The show communicated the fun and enjoyment of theatre to an appreciative audience. What more is community about?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Despite a hailstorm of Shakespearean proportions outside, Thredbo Players succeeded in creating a relaxed warm atmosphere inside the converted Snowy Mountains Scheme shed which is Cooma Little Theatre (CLT). Since the rest of their season at Thredbo was outdoors, the Players must have appreciated proper facilities, expertly lit for them by Charles Monticone. CLT will be 50 years old next year, and the shed looks set for many more productions from Cooma itself and around the region.
It was a nice touch to set The Comedy of Errors in the Caribbean, not just because a cast member had Trinidadian dreadlocks and another a genuine Carib-English accent. The story of merchants sailing between islands, storms and shipwrecks, pirates, and the separation of husband and wife and the two sets of twins seemed natural in a fantasy island Caracus, not far from Barbados. Though many in the cast had never been on stage before, the setting and brightly-coloured costumes gave them a style and liveliness that carried them through. Playing for an audience who were not personal acquaintances allowed them to let their characters have their heads. The Cooma audience was enthusiastic, applauding each scene, giving the Thredbo players a sense of achievement that made the performance a celebration.
Thredbo Players is all that remains of the erstwhile Thredbo Shakespeare Festival, a great idea incorporating city professionals as well as the local amateurs which lasted several years, but was expensive without drawing the audience numbers needed for financial security. Directors Brett Thomas and Danni Matson have kept the spark of community drama alive, with support from a wide range of Thredbo businesses and associations. Little theatres like this are the life-blood of drama in small communities across the country.
The Comedy of Errors, though the prompt had plenty to do and received a special accolade at curtain call, proved not to be an error but a genuine expression of community spirit, with a number of people who were effective Shakespeare performers (Danni Matson as the Wife of Antipholous of Caracus in particular). The show communicated the fun and enjoyment of theatre to an appreciative audience. What more is community about?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 21 January 2004
2004: In Conversation with Ian McKellen
In Conversation with Ian McKellen. Talking Culture (interviewer Bille Brown) at the Sydney Festival, Theatre Royal, January 19.
There were about 8 Gandalfs - stand-ins and even digitalised images - but the real Ian McKellen stood up before us, ending his conversation with an absolutely up-to-date speech about treating others with the respect that we would hope they would give us if we were to arrive unannounced in their country. These were Shakespeare's words in the mouth of Sir Thomas More in a play mostly written by others and never performed. The original manuscript -- the only handwritten Shakespeare speech extant - is in the British Museum.
I had wondered how McKellen coped with the ersatz Shakespeare in Lord of the Rings. The answer came in his story of a 14-year-old girl admirer. He asked her how she, at Juliet's age, could accept him playing Romeo. He was 37 at the time. "Well," she said, "it's only a play."
That humility about the actor's place was the key to appreciating Sir Ian's conversation with another actor, Bille Brown. His empathetic connection with a full house at the Theatre Royal was so strong that he could joke about the stage actor's hatred of microphones. "Fucking mikes" he exclaimed as pops, buzzes and electronic bangs reverberated around us. A 1 hour event became almost 2. The standing ovation almost made me late for my next show, Alibi, but this warmth of feeling was not to be missed. The contrast at the Town Hall was painful (see Alibi review, CT ....).
"I do have the facility," said McKellen in reply to a question about whether he plans to direct more plays or films, "as all actors have for seeing what's wrong with someone else's performance" and he admitted to being guilty, as others had said even when he refused a part, of "backing into the limelight again." But Brown described a rehearsal exercise devised by McKellen where each character tells each other character what they really think about them. This device ensures that each actor plays her or his character as if they are central to their scene and the whole play. No matter how "minor" the role, all the actors play with an equal sense of importance.
This creates true ensemble acting, for which McKellen is justifiably renowned. In this vein, he praised NSW Premier Bob Carr for supporting Robyn Nevin's plans to create a permanent ensemble at Sydney Theatre Company, and begged the Sydney Festival to have a Fringe Festival where new performers can break in. As he said, playing in 27 plays in a year in the old repertory theatres was the best training he had, but now it's much harder to get that kind of experience early in one's career.
Towards the end of his long career, McKellen finds it "very curious" that Gandalf is the part he is likely to be most remembered for. Fame is inescapable. When a woman in the street the day before made a double-take, asking "Are you Gandalf?" he promptly replied, "No, I'm not!"
But I can say he is a genuine wizard on stage.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
There were about 8 Gandalfs - stand-ins and even digitalised images - but the real Ian McKellen stood up before us, ending his conversation with an absolutely up-to-date speech about treating others with the respect that we would hope they would give us if we were to arrive unannounced in their country. These were Shakespeare's words in the mouth of Sir Thomas More in a play mostly written by others and never performed. The original manuscript -- the only handwritten Shakespeare speech extant - is in the British Museum.
I had wondered how McKellen coped with the ersatz Shakespeare in Lord of the Rings. The answer came in his story of a 14-year-old girl admirer. He asked her how she, at Juliet's age, could accept him playing Romeo. He was 37 at the time. "Well," she said, "it's only a play."
That humility about the actor's place was the key to appreciating Sir Ian's conversation with another actor, Bille Brown. His empathetic connection with a full house at the Theatre Royal was so strong that he could joke about the stage actor's hatred of microphones. "Fucking mikes" he exclaimed as pops, buzzes and electronic bangs reverberated around us. A 1 hour event became almost 2. The standing ovation almost made me late for my next show, Alibi, but this warmth of feeling was not to be missed. The contrast at the Town Hall was painful (see Alibi review, CT ....).
"I do have the facility," said McKellen in reply to a question about whether he plans to direct more plays or films, "as all actors have for seeing what's wrong with someone else's performance" and he admitted to being guilty, as others had said even when he refused a part, of "backing into the limelight again." But Brown described a rehearsal exercise devised by McKellen where each character tells each other character what they really think about them. This device ensures that each actor plays her or his character as if they are central to their scene and the whole play. No matter how "minor" the role, all the actors play with an equal sense of importance.
This creates true ensemble acting, for which McKellen is justifiably renowned. In this vein, he praised NSW Premier Bob Carr for supporting Robyn Nevin's plans to create a permanent ensemble at Sydney Theatre Company, and begged the Sydney Festival to have a Fringe Festival where new performers can break in. As he said, playing in 27 plays in a year in the old repertory theatres was the best training he had, but now it's much harder to get that kind of experience early in one's career.
Towards the end of his long career, McKellen finds it "very curious" that Gandalf is the part he is likely to be most remembered for. Fame is inescapable. When a woman in the street the day before made a double-take, asking "Are you Gandalf?" he promptly replied, "No, I'm not!"
But I can say he is a genuine wizard on stage.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2004: Eora Crossing. Legs on the Wall
Eora Crossing. Legs on the Wall with students from the Eora Centre, directed by Wesley Enoch. Sydney Festival, Museum of Sydney Forecourt, January 20-24, 9pm.
This free event was a genuine quality community festival display. Held at the site of Sydney's first Government House, the centre of the invading force which removed the Eora people from their home country, Enoch turned the modern city's buildings into images of Sydney Heads as people, spotlighted high on roof tops, observed the strangers arrive.
A smoking ceremony began proceedings. Serious business was in the offing, yet Enoch played the story of the clash of cultures with a lightness of touch emphasised by the aerial acrobatic dance we have come to expect from Legs on the Wall (remember the Opera House, New Year 2000?)
Even direct comedy had its place. An Aboriginal stand-up comedian told us "deadly" jokes, and we laughed. He raised the Aboriginal flag to stick it in the ground, just as Governor Phillip had raised the Union Jack. A volley of shots knocks him back over a high parapet. One sandshoe (a Volley, of course) waves at us cheekily as he disappears.
In spotlit office windows in surrounding real offices, besuited workers are stressed out. They have red hands - Eora blood on their hands. Later they print hand stencils on office windows - just like the red ochre hands in caves across Australia.
A figure in a black Nineteenth Century dress strips to reveal white underclothes, looking like Eliza Fraser. She dances suspended on the wall with an Aboriginal woman. A man in a grey suit pours buckets of water over a ceremonial dancer to remove his white ochre. He tries to put a suit on the Aboriginal man. But an Eora man cannot wear a suit and reverts to his own culture, to cheers and whistles from the crowd.
Finally, a rock climber - with a top rope but really climbing - slowly scales the vertical sandstone wall with Eora carvings projected on it. He links the white people on the lower parapet with the Eora people, appearing ghostlike more than 10 metres higher and more tens of metres above the audience.
Eora Crossing was both spectacular entertainment and a celebration of cultures seeking reconciliation. A Sydney Festival winner.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This free event was a genuine quality community festival display. Held at the site of Sydney's first Government House, the centre of the invading force which removed the Eora people from their home country, Enoch turned the modern city's buildings into images of Sydney Heads as people, spotlighted high on roof tops, observed the strangers arrive.
A smoking ceremony began proceedings. Serious business was in the offing, yet Enoch played the story of the clash of cultures with a lightness of touch emphasised by the aerial acrobatic dance we have come to expect from Legs on the Wall (remember the Opera House, New Year 2000?)
Even direct comedy had its place. An Aboriginal stand-up comedian told us "deadly" jokes, and we laughed. He raised the Aboriginal flag to stick it in the ground, just as Governor Phillip had raised the Union Jack. A volley of shots knocks him back over a high parapet. One sandshoe (a Volley, of course) waves at us cheekily as he disappears.
In spotlit office windows in surrounding real offices, besuited workers are stressed out. They have red hands - Eora blood on their hands. Later they print hand stencils on office windows - just like the red ochre hands in caves across Australia.
A figure in a black Nineteenth Century dress strips to reveal white underclothes, looking like Eliza Fraser. She dances suspended on the wall with an Aboriginal woman. A man in a grey suit pours buckets of water over a ceremonial dancer to remove his white ochre. He tries to put a suit on the Aboriginal man. But an Eora man cannot wear a suit and reverts to his own culture, to cheers and whistles from the crowd.
Finally, a rock climber - with a top rope but really climbing - slowly scales the vertical sandstone wall with Eora carvings projected on it. He links the white people on the lower parapet with the Eora people, appearing ghostlike more than 10 metres higher and more tens of metres above the audience.
Eora Crossing was both spectacular entertainment and a celebration of cultures seeking reconciliation. A Sydney Festival winner.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2004: Alibi. Damaged Goods (Belgium)
Alibi. Damaged Goods (Belgium) directed by Meg Stuart. Sydney Festival at Sydney Town Hall January 19, 21 and 22.
I worked it out 1 hour 30 minutes into 2 hours without interval. By attempting to confront the audience, this post-post-modern "dance" performance tried to say "because you want to be polite normal people, you allow things to happen which shouldn't be allowed to happen." A worthy theme but ....
The sound track bombarded us, lights were turned on us, among disconnected film projections dysfunctional characters accused us in long boring monologues. I saw almost no dance, but interminable repetitious mimetic movement sequences. In each the point was made in the first 30 seconds but then repeated itself with slight variations for up to 15 minutes, sequence after sequence for 2 hours.
On opening night the first of about 50 audience members clattered down the wooden bleachers after 20 minutes. I was obliged to stay, to see a grand nonentity of an ending. Movement stops, lights and sound switch off. That's it. Brilliant!
The performers were lucky the audience who stayed were good polite Australians. This piece is typical old-fashioned Continental European self-indulgent existential angst. Some people clapped and even a few cheered the bravura effort which looked and probably was exhausting.
It's not that I don't like modern dance. Remember - well I do - Merce Cunningham's completely silent dance in the late 1950s? No music! It was fascinating and showed us that our assumptions should never be taken for granted. So I suppose there are some 16-year-olds today who will say Yes (with a punch in the air) to Damaged Goods. But because their work showed so little subtlety or progression in the dance, it failed to move the audience emotionally.
Perhaps that's what they wanted to prove - that modern life so overwhelms us that we are no longer moved. A French character, simultaneously on film and on stage, said he was so ordinary that no-one would notice him. This is so old hat that we who were still there remained polite and allowed this performance to happen. No-one seriously challenged back like the audience who physically attacked an actor in the 1960s as he deliberately remained silent. Was our politeness worth it? I think not.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I worked it out 1 hour 30 minutes into 2 hours without interval. By attempting to confront the audience, this post-post-modern "dance" performance tried to say "because you want to be polite normal people, you allow things to happen which shouldn't be allowed to happen." A worthy theme but ....
The sound track bombarded us, lights were turned on us, among disconnected film projections dysfunctional characters accused us in long boring monologues. I saw almost no dance, but interminable repetitious mimetic movement sequences. In each the point was made in the first 30 seconds but then repeated itself with slight variations for up to 15 minutes, sequence after sequence for 2 hours.
On opening night the first of about 50 audience members clattered down the wooden bleachers after 20 minutes. I was obliged to stay, to see a grand nonentity of an ending. Movement stops, lights and sound switch off. That's it. Brilliant!
The performers were lucky the audience who stayed were good polite Australians. This piece is typical old-fashioned Continental European self-indulgent existential angst. Some people clapped and even a few cheered the bravura effort which looked and probably was exhausting.
It's not that I don't like modern dance. Remember - well I do - Merce Cunningham's completely silent dance in the late 1950s? No music! It was fascinating and showed us that our assumptions should never be taken for granted. So I suppose there are some 16-year-olds today who will say Yes (with a punch in the air) to Damaged Goods. But because their work showed so little subtlety or progression in the dance, it failed to move the audience emotionally.
Perhaps that's what they wanted to prove - that modern life so overwhelms us that we are no longer moved. A French character, simultaneously on film and on stage, said he was so ordinary that no-one would notice him. This is so old hat that we who were still there remained polite and allowed this performance to happen. No-one seriously challenged back like the audience who physically attacked an actor in the 1960s as he deliberately remained silent. Was our politeness worth it? I think not.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 12 January 2004
2004: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, adapted for the stage and directed by Jasan Savage. The University of Canberra Union and Young World Theatre at UCU Theatre, The Hub, UC, January 12-24 (Mon-Fri 10.30am & 2.30pm; Sat 2.30pm only).
This is a light holiday presentation for young children, quite nicely done in parts, but struggling to match its ambitions.
Though Baum wrote the original story a century ago, like most people I have lived for my 63 years with young Judy Garland's Dorothy energetically skipping along the Yellow Brick Road with the Scarecrow with no brain, Tinman without a heart and the Cowardly Lion, in the classy 1939 movie: impeccable timing and never a dull moment. So it was disappointing to walk in to the lively recording of the film soundtrack, which suddenly stopped. After a silence broken by some other unrelated music, and another silence while the Narrator and Dorothy entered the auditorium and sat about waiting, and more bits of soundtrack, and then a light on the front curtain, into which the Narrator finally walked to "tell us a story", I have to say I was amazed at the patience of toddlers and their obviously very polite parents.
After hearing the story of the Kansas tornado taking Dorothy's house up into the sky with her and Toto on board, as if from a mildy well-trained primary school teacher, the play began. At this point, I hoped, there would be action and movement to stir the children along, but no - just the Good Witch talking and answering Dorothy's questions. Only slowly did the storyline get moving towards the Emerald City and the Wizard himself. Although each actor played their character well, this adaptation left any excitement until the Scarecrow fell about needing stuffing without being tickled too much and we, the Munchkins, were asked to help Tinman not to cry so he wouldn't get rusty or to make a forest of hands for the travellers to hide in away from the nasty Witch of the West. With the small audience inevitable in this tiny theatre, it was hard work for the actors to establish warmth and rapport with the children. It wasn't quite the "magical fun filled, laughing, scary time" the program promised.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a light holiday presentation for young children, quite nicely done in parts, but struggling to match its ambitions.
Though Baum wrote the original story a century ago, like most people I have lived for my 63 years with young Judy Garland's Dorothy energetically skipping along the Yellow Brick Road with the Scarecrow with no brain, Tinman without a heart and the Cowardly Lion, in the classy 1939 movie: impeccable timing and never a dull moment. So it was disappointing to walk in to the lively recording of the film soundtrack, which suddenly stopped. After a silence broken by some other unrelated music, and another silence while the Narrator and Dorothy entered the auditorium and sat about waiting, and more bits of soundtrack, and then a light on the front curtain, into which the Narrator finally walked to "tell us a story", I have to say I was amazed at the patience of toddlers and their obviously very polite parents.
After hearing the story of the Kansas tornado taking Dorothy's house up into the sky with her and Toto on board, as if from a mildy well-trained primary school teacher, the play began. At this point, I hoped, there would be action and movement to stir the children along, but no - just the Good Witch talking and answering Dorothy's questions. Only slowly did the storyline get moving towards the Emerald City and the Wizard himself. Although each actor played their character well, this adaptation left any excitement until the Scarecrow fell about needing stuffing without being tickled too much and we, the Munchkins, were asked to help Tinman not to cry so he wouldn't get rusty or to make a forest of hands for the travellers to hide in away from the nasty Witch of the West. With the small audience inevitable in this tiny theatre, it was hard work for the actors to establish warmth and rapport with the children. It wasn't quite the "magical fun filled, laughing, scary time" the program promised.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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