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
Saturday, 31 January 2004
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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