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
Friday 30 April 2004
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
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