Multiculturalism is about understanding and appreciating the diversity of world cultures. But the National Multicultural Festival is not only important to the citizens of Canberra.
For Moscow’s Dimitry Aryupin, Marcella Soltan and Andrej Ivashnev, performing Berthrand’s Toys in Australia is one more adventure and learning experience for their independent theatre company blackSKYwhite. Soltan and Aryupin go back a long way, starting up in 1988 amidst the massive social changes then under way in Russia, with no funding. For almost 20 years “we earn money by performing and providing masterclasses around the world” using their returns for new productions.
What is it about their work which makes their theatre sustainable? What is Berthrand’s Toys about, winning the 2000 Edinburgh Festival ‘Fringe First’ and ‘Total Theatre’ awards? And how did the audience in Indonesia respond?
Eight years of struggle led to their first success. “Our first trip abroad – everything was surprising there – I was 37 and had never crossed the border of my country. It was like a moon expedition, something very new and unpredictable. Five years later there remained only four European countries we had not visited.”
Aryupin explains that their success involves two main elements. First there is the longstanding European tradition of the Auteur, much more than writer. My French dictionary says “author, creator, maker, perpetrator, achiever, contriver, framer, informant, authority”. The name that comes to my mind, because of his influence in Australia, is Poland’s Jerzy Grotowski. Australians like Rex Cramphorn and film maker Paul Cox seem to me to fit the bill.
The point Aryupin makes is that European theatre is never “based on traditional forms but [each auteur] starts from the very beginning – like our world itself [we] don’t stay on elephants and turtles – referring to Asian traditions – but [we] fly over the abyss.” This constant search for originality is part of blackSKYwhite’s success.
Second, Aryupin’s work is about fundamental philosophic understanding of reality, but, he says, not with the German intellectual emphasis. He remains true to his Russian culture, keeping in touch with people and their emotions, “going down to the layer of dreams, which is common to all homo sapiens, despite their knowledge and experience.” Berthrand’s Toys has been described as a “danse macabre” about our fear of not knowing what reality is. Not too different from Chekhov, I thought.
In Indonesia he expected a negative reaction, in a Muslim country, to theatrical representations of clownish monsters, masked figures and the strong emotional effects in this production. To anyone who has seen wayang puppets, or Ranga the Witch, and knows how Indonesians have melded their ancient traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam into an open and democratic culture, it is not surprising that people responded to blackSKYwhite’s “disturbing, terrifying and poignant” performance, coming backstage to talk about their feelings.
But who is Berthrand and what are his “toys”? Look up Sergeant Bertrand (spellings change as words float between languages) and your search engine will bring up necromancy, onanism and the real case of Bertrand who engaged in necrophagy. In 1847 this otherwise apparently sane individual believed his condition was connected to being a werewolf. After one year’s imprisonment he disappeared into obscurity. One later description of his case says he was “named a monomaniac” because he concentrated on animals’ entrails. His “focus on viscera, which is not a single object nor subjectivised, rather than a past-tense person-corpse, seems to change the inflection of the monomania beyond a perverse dialectic of subject/object.”
I see Aryupin’s concern about Germanic intellectual analysis, as early Twentieth Century psychology took over from the werewolf theory. Berthrand’s Toys concentrates on the way people like Bertrand use elements of their environment, including other people, as no more than toys for their own pleasure, however twisted or destructive the results may be.
Experiencing something of the obsession and paranoia of such a character, mediated through the theatrical art, will certainly be challenging. Yet as in the Samuel Beckett season at the Sydney Festival, referring to another European auteur, Peter Brook, the Canberra Times reviewer noted “Beckett’s characters affirm life even as they seem to deny it.”
Berthrand’s Toys, of course, is not designed for children, but is certainly an important feature of the National Multicultural Festival, bringing in concentrated form both a Russian and European vision in a “magical, radical and abstract piece of dance-theatre … where fantastic music and lighting create a world of great truth and illusion.”
Berthrand’s Toys
National Multicultural Festival
Presented by the Embassy of Russia
Courtyard Studio
Canberra Theatre Centre
Tuesday February 6 to Friday February 9 at 7.30pm
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
Tickets: $32 / $28 concessions and Festival Card holders
Link: canberratheatre.org.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Sunday, 14 January 2007
2007: The Shoemaker and the Elves by Peter Pinne and Don Battye
The Shoemaker and the Elves a children’s musical by Peter Pinne and Don Battye. Directed by Nina Stevenson at The Vikings Club Auditorium, Erindale, until Friday January 19 at 11am.
When I was six, my first theatrical role was as an elf in The Elves and the Shoemaker which my teacher adapted from the original Grimm Brothers’ story.
The shoemaker was poor simply because he was a shoemaker. When he had only enough leather left for one pair, the hard-working selfless elves made many more shoes overnight than he could, helping him through a bad patch. He and his wife wanted to thank them. Watching one night they saw the elves had no clothes, so they made clothes for the elves who were happy to receive them. From then on the shoemaker made ends meet, though still poor as shoemakers always were.
Pinne and Battye’s sentimental version pits the shoemaker Mr Buckle (Peter Fock) against the richest woman in town, Silver Sequin (Jennie Tonzing), also a shoemaker. The elves (Meg Hobson, Tom Hobson, Charly Madden, Christopher Murphy, Lauren O’Flaherty, Grace Saunders and Paige Vaughan) depend on a benevolent whistle-blowing elf Slipper (Diana Tulip) to direct their magic. Mr Buckle has no wife, but a daughter Carolinda (Maviel Tanevska) who is in love with the nice Jingles (Cameron Boxall) who works for Silver Sequin because he needs a job.
Silver Sequin glories in being nasty and has a nasty offsider called Nasty Neville (Bart Black). Shoe purchasers are Lord Loppy (Scheyla Ahmadi Pour) and Dame Squeaky (Mariana Davila). The elves’ magic shoes make people happy, even Silver Sequin in the end, and win the Shoemaker’s Award from the King (Hugh Stevenson) for Mr Buckle.
Though the production is quite well done (in an attractive set by Brian Sudding and supported by excellent musicians), this 1974 Australian “fun” version just doesn’t have the magic, or quite the same ethical message, as the original simple story I still remember after 60 years. The first half is too slow (mainly the fault of the script, and at least one family went home at interval when I saw it), but the second succeeds in gathering some momentum for a cheerful ending, though still struggling for impact in such a large auditorium.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
When I was six, my first theatrical role was as an elf in The Elves and the Shoemaker which my teacher adapted from the original Grimm Brothers’ story.
The shoemaker was poor simply because he was a shoemaker. When he had only enough leather left for one pair, the hard-working selfless elves made many more shoes overnight than he could, helping him through a bad patch. He and his wife wanted to thank them. Watching one night they saw the elves had no clothes, so they made clothes for the elves who were happy to receive them. From then on the shoemaker made ends meet, though still poor as shoemakers always were.
Pinne and Battye’s sentimental version pits the shoemaker Mr Buckle (Peter Fock) against the richest woman in town, Silver Sequin (Jennie Tonzing), also a shoemaker. The elves (Meg Hobson, Tom Hobson, Charly Madden, Christopher Murphy, Lauren O’Flaherty, Grace Saunders and Paige Vaughan) depend on a benevolent whistle-blowing elf Slipper (Diana Tulip) to direct their magic. Mr Buckle has no wife, but a daughter Carolinda (Maviel Tanevska) who is in love with the nice Jingles (Cameron Boxall) who works for Silver Sequin because he needs a job.
Silver Sequin glories in being nasty and has a nasty offsider called Nasty Neville (Bart Black). Shoe purchasers are Lord Loppy (Scheyla Ahmadi Pour) and Dame Squeaky (Mariana Davila). The elves’ magic shoes make people happy, even Silver Sequin in the end, and win the Shoemaker’s Award from the King (Hugh Stevenson) for Mr Buckle.
Though the production is quite well done (in an attractive set by Brian Sudding and supported by excellent musicians), this 1974 Australian “fun” version just doesn’t have the magic, or quite the same ethical message, as the original simple story I still remember after 60 years. The first half is too slow (mainly the fault of the script, and at least one family went home at interval when I saw it), but the second succeeds in gathering some momentum for a cheerful ending, though still struggling for impact in such a large auditorium.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 11 January 2007
2007: Sydney Festival: First Love by Samuel Beckett
Sydney Festival: First Love by Samuel Beckett. The Gate Theatre, Dublin, performed by Ralph Fiennes, directed by Michael Colgan, at Parade Theatre January 9-21, 7pm (1 hour)
We expect Ralph Fiennes to be outstanding, and he is. He held the audience absolutely engrossed, not merely because of his reputation which silenced the crowd with respect even before the curtain rose on Thursday’s performance, but because he has complete mastery of technique.
Beckett’s language requires precise timing, often down to the pauses between syllables, and ever-changing rhythms as the character reveals his inner personality in the words he allows himself to speak out loud. Fiennes, on a stage empty except for himself and a plain bench, never missed a beat.
Perhaps the greatest praise I overheard was the surprised comment “He makes it seem so easy.” This was technique used with such refinement that an emotionally stunted character seems real. Socially isolated, living rough, seeking silence, he begins “I associate my father’s death with my marriage” because from his father’s gravestone he calculates his age when a prostitute’s attentions result in the birth of his child (so she tells him), at which point he leaves the shelter she has provided him, unwilling to hear even a faint sound of crying.
The set design by Eileen Diss added expertly to Beckett’s atmosphere. The scrim backdrop evoked the fog of the canal-side location, through which the window of the prostitute’s room is dimly lit, representing the fog of his memory – perhaps more twisted fantasy than past reality. Did he actually experience love?
Beckett’s characters are never very easy to get along with, but Fiennes and director Colgan reveal the humour in his lines, occasionally recognised by the character, often only understood by us as we compare his limitations with our normality.
However much Beckett’s view of humanity seems unnecessarily bitter and unpleasant, there is a harsh reality in his work. Bringing the Gate Theatre production to the Sydney Festival is a triumph, but if you have not already obtained seats for this or the other plays in the Beckett season, you must remain disappointed, since I hear they are all fully booked.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
We expect Ralph Fiennes to be outstanding, and he is. He held the audience absolutely engrossed, not merely because of his reputation which silenced the crowd with respect even before the curtain rose on Thursday’s performance, but because he has complete mastery of technique.
Beckett’s language requires precise timing, often down to the pauses between syllables, and ever-changing rhythms as the character reveals his inner personality in the words he allows himself to speak out loud. Fiennes, on a stage empty except for himself and a plain bench, never missed a beat.
Perhaps the greatest praise I overheard was the surprised comment “He makes it seem so easy.” This was technique used with such refinement that an emotionally stunted character seems real. Socially isolated, living rough, seeking silence, he begins “I associate my father’s death with my marriage” because from his father’s gravestone he calculates his age when a prostitute’s attentions result in the birth of his child (so she tells him), at which point he leaves the shelter she has provided him, unwilling to hear even a faint sound of crying.
The set design by Eileen Diss added expertly to Beckett’s atmosphere. The scrim backdrop evoked the fog of the canal-side location, through which the window of the prostitute’s room is dimly lit, representing the fog of his memory – perhaps more twisted fantasy than past reality. Did he actually experience love?
Beckett’s characters are never very easy to get along with, but Fiennes and director Colgan reveal the humour in his lines, occasionally recognised by the character, often only understood by us as we compare his limitations with our normality.
However much Beckett’s view of humanity seems unnecessarily bitter and unpleasant, there is a harsh reality in his work. Bringing the Gate Theatre production to the Sydney Festival is a triumph, but if you have not already obtained seats for this or the other plays in the Beckett season, you must remain disappointed, since I hear they are all fully booked.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 10 January 2007
Sydney Festival: Seemannslieder, Songs of Seamen by Cristoph Marthaler
Sydney Festival: Seemannslieder by Cristoph Marthaler. NTGent and ZT Hollandia at Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay. January 10-13 at 8pm (2 hours 30 minutes,no interval). www.sydneyfestival.org.au
I find it increasingly difficult to know if my criticisms of European theatre, brought here with outstanding recommendations, are justifiable. This is the third Sydney Festival where I have felt a major European work based in movement, music and song has failed my theatrical test. Seemanrnslieder (Dutch Flemish) is rather more successful than last year’s Chronicles – A Lamentation (Teatr Piesn Kozla from Poland) and streets ahead of Alibi (Damaged Goods from Belgium) in 2004, when about half the audience walked out long before its two hours came to a sudden stop.
Australian theatre likes to be taut, structured to take the audience on a journey, without discursive (or recursive) re-iteration of ideas, and with a theatrically definite ending, even if the theme is about, say, unresolvable loneliness.
This is what Seemannslieder, Songs of Seamen, is about. The women wait, their husbands and sons sometimes never returning. Or when they do it is for a sudden sexual skirmish before they are off to sea again. So the mood in the town represented here is tense with waiting, full of sexual tension which is cleverly expressed in the words of the sea songs, broken unpredictably by frantic activity or death.
But despite Marthaler’s massive 25 year reputation in European music, opera and play productions, I had got the point, and sensed the poignancy, by the end of the first hour. I politely waited through the next hour and a half, as did the rest of the polite Australian audience (except for one gentleman who finally had to duck out to the toilet ten minutes before the end), but nothing theatrically new happened. At least the ending, a woman cradling the mask of her seaman in a soft spotlight while singing, music and surrounding lights quietly faded, was a proper conclusion.
The acting/singing/gymnasts, and the pianists, were wonderfully good at what they were asked to do, and received due applause. But, I thought, if you can’t make mood performance poetry create all that needs to be experienced in one hour, adding another hour and a half won’t help.
I feel almost guilty for criticising such sincere and especially musically creative work, but perhaps that’s just my Australian cultural cringe. You’ll have to test out your own reaction (as well as test your bladder) rather than take my word as definitive.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I find it increasingly difficult to know if my criticisms of European theatre, brought here with outstanding recommendations, are justifiable. This is the third Sydney Festival where I have felt a major European work based in movement, music and song has failed my theatrical test. Seemanrnslieder (Dutch Flemish) is rather more successful than last year’s Chronicles – A Lamentation (Teatr Piesn Kozla from Poland) and streets ahead of Alibi (Damaged Goods from Belgium) in 2004, when about half the audience walked out long before its two hours came to a sudden stop.
Australian theatre likes to be taut, structured to take the audience on a journey, without discursive (or recursive) re-iteration of ideas, and with a theatrically definite ending, even if the theme is about, say, unresolvable loneliness.
This is what Seemannslieder, Songs of Seamen, is about. The women wait, their husbands and sons sometimes never returning. Or when they do it is for a sudden sexual skirmish before they are off to sea again. So the mood in the town represented here is tense with waiting, full of sexual tension which is cleverly expressed in the words of the sea songs, broken unpredictably by frantic activity or death.
But despite Marthaler’s massive 25 year reputation in European music, opera and play productions, I had got the point, and sensed the poignancy, by the end of the first hour. I politely waited through the next hour and a half, as did the rest of the polite Australian audience (except for one gentleman who finally had to duck out to the toilet ten minutes before the end), but nothing theatrically new happened. At least the ending, a woman cradling the mask of her seaman in a soft spotlight while singing, music and surrounding lights quietly faded, was a proper conclusion.
The acting/singing/gymnasts, and the pianists, were wonderfully good at what they were asked to do, and received due applause. But, I thought, if you can’t make mood performance poetry create all that needs to be experienced in one hour, adding another hour and a half won’t help.
I feel almost guilty for criticising such sincere and especially musically creative work, but perhaps that’s just my Australian cultural cringe. You’ll have to test out your own reaction (as well as test your bladder) rather than take my word as definitive.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 9 January 2007
2007: Sydney Festival: Small Metal Objects by Back to Back Theatre
Sydney Festival: Small Metal Objects by Back to Back Theatre, directed by Bruce Gladwin, at Customs House Square, Circular Quay. January 8-13, 15-20, 22-25 at 5.30pm and January 11-12, 18-19, 22-25 at 7.30pm(one hour,no interval). www.sydneyfestival.org.au
Strangely sad while terribly funny, Small Metal Objects is street theatre to die laughing for. The plot taking place between the characters Steve (Simon Laherty), Greg (Allan Watt), Alan (Jim Russell) and Carolyn (Genevieve Morris) is probably based on a misunderstanding exacerbated particularly by Steve’s genuine but seemingly doomed attempt to become more self-aware and find a girlfriend who would be willing to move in with him. Greg is always willing to help and will not leave Steve knowing he can’t really fend for himself, while corporate lawyer Alan and corporate psychologist Carolyn believe Greg and Steve can supply them with the illicit “gear” they need to entertain, in an hour’s time, a bunch of lawyers.
But the next layer of the plot is also based on misapprehension. Only the audience, literally, sitting on the bleachers with their headphones on, can hear what the characters are saying, to each other and on their mobiles. The passing crowd at Circular Quay can see the audience, may be aware that there is something going on between some people on the concourse, but with no knowledge that this is theatre being performed. Many find the audience of great interest, especially when they laugh for apparently no reason. Many take photos of the audience.
When two police officers (real, not actors) apparently innocently walked through, the audience erupted in laughter as the characters tried desperately to complete their “deal”. One group of young men might have become a problem for Simon Laherty, standing stock still in deep thought and dressed in an old singlet looking very daggy. Fortunately after some laughter at his (really Steve’s) expense, they moved along, only to find a woman standing still, talking on her mobile. They began to be unpleasantly amused at her, when she had nothing to do with the theatre performance of which both she and the young men were unaware. But in fact the police stayed handy, and fortunately nothing too untoward happened.
The result was the best, even if potentially risky, street theatre I have ever seen. For us with the headphones, amusement came from both the performers and their expert presentation, and from the reactions of the unaware passers by. Yet concurrently we felt the sadness of people’s failure to communicate, sometimes through inability but often merely through incomprehensible circumstances. I left theatrically satisfied, yet with socially problematical thoughts – rather like the character Steve. You should certainly experience Small Metal Objects if you have the opportunity.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Strangely sad while terribly funny, Small Metal Objects is street theatre to die laughing for. The plot taking place between the characters Steve (Simon Laherty), Greg (Allan Watt), Alan (Jim Russell) and Carolyn (Genevieve Morris) is probably based on a misunderstanding exacerbated particularly by Steve’s genuine but seemingly doomed attempt to become more self-aware and find a girlfriend who would be willing to move in with him. Greg is always willing to help and will not leave Steve knowing he can’t really fend for himself, while corporate lawyer Alan and corporate psychologist Carolyn believe Greg and Steve can supply them with the illicit “gear” they need to entertain, in an hour’s time, a bunch of lawyers.
But the next layer of the plot is also based on misapprehension. Only the audience, literally, sitting on the bleachers with their headphones on, can hear what the characters are saying, to each other and on their mobiles. The passing crowd at Circular Quay can see the audience, may be aware that there is something going on between some people on the concourse, but with no knowledge that this is theatre being performed. Many find the audience of great interest, especially when they laugh for apparently no reason. Many take photos of the audience.
When two police officers (real, not actors) apparently innocently walked through, the audience erupted in laughter as the characters tried desperately to complete their “deal”. One group of young men might have become a problem for Simon Laherty, standing stock still in deep thought and dressed in an old singlet looking very daggy. Fortunately after some laughter at his (really Steve’s) expense, they moved along, only to find a woman standing still, talking on her mobile. They began to be unpleasantly amused at her, when she had nothing to do with the theatre performance of which both she and the young men were unaware. But in fact the police stayed handy, and fortunately nothing too untoward happened.
The result was the best, even if potentially risky, street theatre I have ever seen. For us with the headphones, amusement came from both the performers and their expert presentation, and from the reactions of the unaware passers by. Yet concurrently we felt the sadness of people’s failure to communicate, sometimes through inability but often merely through incomprehensible circumstances. I left theatrically satisfied, yet with socially problematical thoughts – rather like the character Steve. You should certainly experience Small Metal Objects if you have the opportunity.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2007: Sydney Festival: La Clique
Sydney Festival: La Clique at the Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North. January 5-16, 18-28 9.30pm; January 23-24 7.30pm (2 hours with interval). www.sydneyfestival.org.au
You may have dreamt of doing things so far out of the ordinary, explained Rubber Man Captain Frodo, that you have never dared to try. But now you have seen the outlandish things we do for a living, dream on.
Well I, like most readers I imagine, never did run away and join the circus. But one Canberran of my acquaintance, Michael Simic, aka Mikelangelo of the famed Black Sea Gentlemen, not only ran away to Melbourne but now leads in La Clique with his particular style of jaunty, naughty, funny songs of sex and violence. La Clique is not cabaret-circus for the fainthearted, and certainly not for the young (under 18s not admitted).
There are no naked animals in this very intimate circus in the quite small Spiegeltent, but you can guess what will happen as magician Ursula Martinez makes her little red handkerchief disappear time and time again until there seems to be nowhere left for it to re-appear from but ….
The circus acts are real. Captain Frodo is excruciating to watch getting his body parts through two tennis racket frames, Miss Behave swallows a sword far too long for my liking, while others make hula hoops do amazing things, or do trapeze tricks cleverly timed to music, or make neat comedy out of remarkable strength and balance, climaxing with the surprising David O’Mer’s bathtub gymnastics.
But the essence of the show is its continuous humour. It’s a cavalcade of characters, clowns maybe but so skilful that sincere applause for their art goes hand in hand with constant laughter – always with them, never at them. Two hours pass in no time. The bubbling excitement in the crowd grows even during interval as the bar serves a treat, and at the end of the show the stage is cleared for more music, dance and action than anyone can poke a stick at.
I was reminded by La Clique of the zany strength of Circus Oz in its early days, but with a raunchy rather than almost old-fashioned “committed” social commentary. Small scale and tightly constructed, this show is great festival material and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
You may have dreamt of doing things so far out of the ordinary, explained Rubber Man Captain Frodo, that you have never dared to try. But now you have seen the outlandish things we do for a living, dream on.
Well I, like most readers I imagine, never did run away and join the circus. But one Canberran of my acquaintance, Michael Simic, aka Mikelangelo of the famed Black Sea Gentlemen, not only ran away to Melbourne but now leads in La Clique with his particular style of jaunty, naughty, funny songs of sex and violence. La Clique is not cabaret-circus for the fainthearted, and certainly not for the young (under 18s not admitted).
There are no naked animals in this very intimate circus in the quite small Spiegeltent, but you can guess what will happen as magician Ursula Martinez makes her little red handkerchief disappear time and time again until there seems to be nowhere left for it to re-appear from but ….
The circus acts are real. Captain Frodo is excruciating to watch getting his body parts through two tennis racket frames, Miss Behave swallows a sword far too long for my liking, while others make hula hoops do amazing things, or do trapeze tricks cleverly timed to music, or make neat comedy out of remarkable strength and balance, climaxing with the surprising David O’Mer’s bathtub gymnastics.
But the essence of the show is its continuous humour. It’s a cavalcade of characters, clowns maybe but so skilful that sincere applause for their art goes hand in hand with constant laughter – always with them, never at them. Two hours pass in no time. The bubbling excitement in the crowd grows even during interval as the bar serves a treat, and at the end of the show the stage is cleared for more music, dance and action than anyone can poke a stick at.
I was reminded by La Clique of the zany strength of Circus Oz in its early days, but with a raunchy rather than almost old-fashioned “committed” social commentary. Small scale and tightly constructed, this show is great festival material and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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