Note [to subeditor at the Canberra Times]: keep ampersands in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice – this was the original film title.
Baby Boomer Blues by Alan Becher. Perth Theatre Company at The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan until July 2. Bookings: www.theq.net.au
What a funny play! Amanda Crewes's Carol, who has been 39 for the last 5 years, bounces on and off Greg McNeill's 53 year-old Bob, so there's lots of funny ha-ha. This makes for an enjoyable evening. Certainly on opening night last Friday, baby boomers laughed and occasionally shuddered, as they recognised in themselves Bob having gone to the kitchen, and come out again without doing what he had gone there to do. This was not a senior moment, he claimed. But they all knew better. Viagra gets a mention, too. I'm sure they well remembered the 1969 film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, completely unknown to Gens X, Y or Z.
Bob is a traditional Australian joker – really quite old-fashioned, covering up his insecurities, more conservative than he thinks he is, not really quite up with his own generation (despite saying how great the Woodstock movie was) and needing to find something important to do with his life after years of disillusionment. It's hard at first to imagine why Carol became his third wife some time before she was 39. Perhaps it was his air of vulnerability that attracted her, and indeed it is through her efforts that their marriage does not fall apart, and Bob does make a real decision.
Dealing with these complexities of character and subtleties in the relationship is where Becher's writing is funny peculiar. Through the first half and some way into the second the play seems to be no more than light comedy, full of jokes and banter, even in argument scenes. Then suddenly the atmosphere changes and we are expected to take Bob and Carol's conflict very seriously. It switches again as they perform in the holiday island entertainment, and again as they go to volunteer their services in a good cause.
So the play turns out to be one of good intentions, a kind of romantic comedy with satirical possibilities, but too contrived for me to accept as a top quality work. Fortunately, Crewes and McNeill are up to the challenge, keeping the energy up, making the most of good timing and providing a neat night's entertainment.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 26 June 2009
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
2009: BELONGING: Australian Playwriting in the 20th Century. By John McCallum. Book review reproduced as published in the Canberra Times.
BELONGING: Australian Playwriting in the 20th Century. By John McCallum. Currency Press. 484pp. $49.95.
Reviewer: FRANK McKONE
It was Hannie Rayson who wrote Life After George and the well-known play and film Hotel Sorrento, each a powerful drama of conflicting relationships. But did you know she also wrote "a wild, rather elaborately plotted, satirical farce" – Competitive Tenderness – in which "Dawn Snow, a Thatcherite character who claims to have made her name reforming the Ugandan police service, is appointed CEO of the city of Greater Burke . . . There is a lot of mad business with a savage pit-bull terrier, owned by Dawn, and lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. It all ends in chaos, but with Dawn rising".
Not quite the Rayson I thought I knew. McCallum surprises on many occasions from 1912 (Louis Esson's The Time is Not Yet Ripe and the first stage version of Steele Rudd's On Our Selection) to the State Theatre Company of South Australia's 2004 adaptation of Robert Dessaix's novel, Night Letters, in which "all the characters were on stage, occupying the same space, but in different stories". As Robert, dying of an AIDS-related illness, sat writing his letters home from "Europe, with its crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past" he was "framed as if in a painting, and . . . the characters from his past moved with and around him. In the theatre ghosts are never ethereal, they are always present, bodies on stage".
McCallum is a Sydney-based academic, senior lecturer in the School of English, Media & Performing Arts at University of NSW, and also a long-standing and highly respected theatre reviewer for The Australian newspaper. I think I found the awful Performance Studies word "trope" only twice in over 400 pages. The rigour of his research is exemplary and he is not afraid to write in a clear, imaginative style befitting the directness of Australian theatrical playwriting and stage production.
The distinction between plays being written and plays being staged is of key importance to McCallum's purpose. He begins by pointing out that "For much of the twentieth century, Australian drama had very little to do with Australian theatre – local plays were not often performed". At the same time, by examining the storylines, theatrical styles, writers' themes and intentions, even of playscripts some of which were never performed, McCallum successfully develops the through-line of our culture: we are always concerned with the way we belong to our country.
Each phase, like a century-long 16-Act drama, represents a change in point of view, often opposing the previous period while growing from it, sometimes diverging into previously unexplored directions. At first sight Australian drama might look like it all ends in chaos, lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. But Dawn does rise as we have gone from separating ourselves from our colonial European crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past, establishing our own voice in the 1950s and '60s, waving not drowning in The New Wave, finding ourselves in the global scene, and diversifying our playwriting among all the kinds of intellectual, social and personal communities that are the Australian reality.
Chapter headings, like "Bush and city", "The new internationalism", "Immigrants and exiles", "Aboriginal theatre", may seem ordinary enough, but the excitement is in the detail. As McCallum describes each play, from a list 51 pages long, in the context of its time and place, with just enough larger analysis but never too much, gradually it dawns upon the reader what belonging is all about. It's not about sentimental flag-waving patriotism, not about believing in myths of heroism or defeat, ideals or failures. Belonging is about accepting, exploring, critically examining, appreciating and enjoying our place in the world just as we are.
The book has an important role as a compendium of Australian drama. It's a book to search through for the many plays which should be revived. It will be good, for example, to see Bran Nue Day again soon, hopefully with the same positive energy and humour on film as it had on stage. It's a book in which to fill in gaps between plays you have seen, read or read about, and so to understand, for example, the full impact of a playwright like Nick Enright.
And, much more than a compendium, it's a book written with feeling. However much we may fear for the future of our theatre, McCallum uses Dessaix's Night Letters to ground us in his conclusion. "At the end [Robert] returns home. He is dying. [His partner] Peter is preparing for a new life without him, but they are both still looking for an exultation based on being there in a place. Of belonging."
Frank McKone is a retired drama teacher and an occasional theatre reviewer for The Canberra Times. He is author of FIRST AUDITION How to get into drama school. Currency Press 2002.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Reviewer: FRANK McKONE
It was Hannie Rayson who wrote Life After George and the well-known play and film Hotel Sorrento, each a powerful drama of conflicting relationships. But did you know she also wrote "a wild, rather elaborately plotted, satirical farce" – Competitive Tenderness – in which "Dawn Snow, a Thatcherite character who claims to have made her name reforming the Ugandan police service, is appointed CEO of the city of Greater Burke . . . There is a lot of mad business with a savage pit-bull terrier, owned by Dawn, and lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. It all ends in chaos, but with Dawn rising".
Not quite the Rayson I thought I knew. McCallum surprises on many occasions from 1912 (Louis Esson's The Time is Not Yet Ripe and the first stage version of Steele Rudd's On Our Selection) to the State Theatre Company of South Australia's 2004 adaptation of Robert Dessaix's novel, Night Letters, in which "all the characters were on stage, occupying the same space, but in different stories". As Robert, dying of an AIDS-related illness, sat writing his letters home from "Europe, with its crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past" he was "framed as if in a painting, and . . . the characters from his past moved with and around him. In the theatre ghosts are never ethereal, they are always present, bodies on stage".
McCallum is a Sydney-based academic, senior lecturer in the School of English, Media & Performing Arts at University of NSW, and also a long-standing and highly respected theatre reviewer for The Australian newspaper. I think I found the awful Performance Studies word "trope" only twice in over 400 pages. The rigour of his research is exemplary and he is not afraid to write in a clear, imaginative style befitting the directness of Australian theatrical playwriting and stage production.
The distinction between plays being written and plays being staged is of key importance to McCallum's purpose. He begins by pointing out that "For much of the twentieth century, Australian drama had very little to do with Australian theatre – local plays were not often performed". At the same time, by examining the storylines, theatrical styles, writers' themes and intentions, even of playscripts some of which were never performed, McCallum successfully develops the through-line of our culture: we are always concerned with the way we belong to our country.
Each phase, like a century-long 16-Act drama, represents a change in point of view, often opposing the previous period while growing from it, sometimes diverging into previously unexplored directions. At first sight Australian drama might look like it all ends in chaos, lots of running in and out of doors and hiding in cupboards. But Dawn does rise as we have gone from separating ourselves from our colonial European crowded corruption, petty restrictions and suffocating past, establishing our own voice in the 1950s and '60s, waving not drowning in The New Wave, finding ourselves in the global scene, and diversifying our playwriting among all the kinds of intellectual, social and personal communities that are the Australian reality.
Chapter headings, like "Bush and city", "The new internationalism", "Immigrants and exiles", "Aboriginal theatre", may seem ordinary enough, but the excitement is in the detail. As McCallum describes each play, from a list 51 pages long, in the context of its time and place, with just enough larger analysis but never too much, gradually it dawns upon the reader what belonging is all about. It's not about sentimental flag-waving patriotism, not about believing in myths of heroism or defeat, ideals or failures. Belonging is about accepting, exploring, critically examining, appreciating and enjoying our place in the world just as we are.
The book has an important role as a compendium of Australian drama. It's a book to search through for the many plays which should be revived. It will be good, for example, to see Bran Nue Day again soon, hopefully with the same positive energy and humour on film as it had on stage. It's a book in which to fill in gaps between plays you have seen, read or read about, and so to understand, for example, the full impact of a playwright like Nick Enright.
And, much more than a compendium, it's a book written with feeling. However much we may fear for the future of our theatre, McCallum uses Dessaix's Night Letters to ground us in his conclusion. "At the end [Robert] returns home. He is dying. [His partner] Peter is preparing for a new life without him, but they are both still looking for an exultation based on being there in a place. Of belonging."
Frank McKone is a retired drama teacher and an occasional theatre reviewer for The Canberra Times. He is author of FIRST AUDITION How to get into drama school. Currency Press 2002.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 12 June 2009
2009: Agamemnon by Aeschylus, adapted and directed by Rachel Hogan
Agamemnon by Aeschylus, adapted and directed by Rachel Hogan. WeThree at Belconnen Theatre, Belconnen Community Centre, June 10-13, 17-20 8pm and at Carey's Cave, Wee Jasper, June 14, 5pm (dinner and show packages available – bookings for this performance essential). Bookings: 6251 2981
2467 years ago, only 52 years after the last tyrant was expelled from ancient Athens by the new rich middle class, Aeschylus presented this play about the legendary King of Argos, Agamemnon, returning home after 10 years away, finally destroying the city of Troy where his brother's beautiful wife, also his wife's sister, Helen, had been seduced by the Trojan, Paris. In the often messy transition to democracy from dictatorships, just as we are watching in Indonesia and South Africa today, it is important to remind people of the horrors of the past.
Rachel Hogan's adaptation focusses on the personal experience of Queen Clytemnestra, played with clarity and understanding by Jenna Arnold, left "unmanned", learning to rule in her husband's place, speaking with a confidence he cannot accept on his return, and taking revenge on him for his past sacrifice of her daughter, Iphigenia, and now bringing home the Trojan king's young daughter, Cassandra.
Taking the place of the original chorus, a Wise Woman speaks to the audience directly in modern language as narrator and commentator, as well as speaking to her Queen as an observant and questioning commoner. Diane Heather, using a torch to shine a light on us as if from the past, takes a critical view of our lack of understanding, explains what we need to know, and leads us into the action. The writing of this role is well done, and Heather's characterisation is strong. Alexandra Howard, an up and coming young actor to watch, demands our sympathy for the abused Cassandra, "inspired to speak of her own sufferings".
Bart Black's performance of Agamemnon needs more of a Shakespearean sense of his own majesty. In the original text he is more of a politician rather than just a rough soldier. Perhaps Hogan cut too much here. But the women are the central focus as they should be, while the set design, use of masks, music and movement take us back to the images and ritual of ancient Greek theatre. The play works well at Belconnen Theatre, and should be a special experience in Carey's Cave.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
2467 years ago, only 52 years after the last tyrant was expelled from ancient Athens by the new rich middle class, Aeschylus presented this play about the legendary King of Argos, Agamemnon, returning home after 10 years away, finally destroying the city of Troy where his brother's beautiful wife, also his wife's sister, Helen, had been seduced by the Trojan, Paris. In the often messy transition to democracy from dictatorships, just as we are watching in Indonesia and South Africa today, it is important to remind people of the horrors of the past.
Rachel Hogan's adaptation focusses on the personal experience of Queen Clytemnestra, played with clarity and understanding by Jenna Arnold, left "unmanned", learning to rule in her husband's place, speaking with a confidence he cannot accept on his return, and taking revenge on him for his past sacrifice of her daughter, Iphigenia, and now bringing home the Trojan king's young daughter, Cassandra.
Taking the place of the original chorus, a Wise Woman speaks to the audience directly in modern language as narrator and commentator, as well as speaking to her Queen as an observant and questioning commoner. Diane Heather, using a torch to shine a light on us as if from the past, takes a critical view of our lack of understanding, explains what we need to know, and leads us into the action. The writing of this role is well done, and Heather's characterisation is strong. Alexandra Howard, an up and coming young actor to watch, demands our sympathy for the abused Cassandra, "inspired to speak of her own sufferings".
Bart Black's performance of Agamemnon needs more of a Shakespearean sense of his own majesty. In the original text he is more of a politician rather than just a rough soldier. Perhaps Hogan cut too much here. But the women are the central focus as they should be, while the set design, use of masks, music and movement take us back to the images and ritual of ancient Greek theatre. The play works well at Belconnen Theatre, and should be a special experience in Carey's Cave.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
2009: Walk the Fence by Felicity Bott and Kate Shearer. Review Version 1
Walk the Fence. Theatre-in-Education co-created and directed by Felicity Bott (Buzz Dance Theatre, Perth) and Kate Shearer (Jigsaw Theatre Company, Canberra)for Early Childhood age group. Composer, Melanie Robinson. Installation and costumes, Kaoru Alfonso. Lighting, Alex Sciberras. Courtyard Studio at Canberra Theatre, June 3-13, 10am and 12.30pm. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
Buzz and Jigsaw, with actor/dancers Keira Mason-Hill (Rachel) and Chris Palframan (Pole, Mr Troublesome, Maggie and Brick)have created a work which excited, moved and educated all the Year 1 and 2 boys and girls I sat among on Wednesday.
Teaching emotional intelligence to 4-8 year-olds means engaging the childrens' emotions first to put them in the right state of mind to learn the lesson – just what theatre is designed to do, and done beautifully in this production. The lesson for Rachel is "Breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3 (to slow down and lower your anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings – because I am the boss of me."
But I am angry and breathing hard because I am told that the ACT Department of Education no longer gives any funds to support Jigsaw Theatre Company – despite 35 years' top-class work making it arguably the nation's premier theatre-in-education team. Jigsaw walks the fence even more on their tiptoes than the young girl Rachel in the show who has to learn to cope with her parents' separation and moving away from her street.
Rachel's story, danced exquisitely by Mason-Hill, with expert help from highly gymnastic actor Palframan,reaches a positive conclusion. I asked a neighbouring 6 year-old boy was he sorry or happy for Rachel. Happy in the end, he said, and clearly understood how good it was for Rachel to learn to ground herself in reality, feeling OK on the ground instead of only up on walls and fences.
The show is a wonderful example of how movement is the basis of feeling in theatre, as it is in putting emotional intelligence into practice. All the right principles of educational drama are played out through Rachel's journey from anger, which puts her in "time-out" without resolution, to working through to acceptance and even excitement at the prospect of change.
So while parents and teachers can, indeed should, give their children the experience of Jigsaw's work under the Department of Education's Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, the Company has to face the divorce of education from the arts. ArtsACT is the only local parent providing alimony, with encouragement from a supportive aunt at the Australia Council. There is enough to pay for artistic direction and administration, but absent parent ACT Department of Education needs to pay their share to cover costs of mounting shows. After all, this is not box office commercial theatre. Teaching emotional development in early childhood is essential to our community's well-being, but where's the right response from our government to support Jigsaw's literally heart-warming work?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Buzz and Jigsaw, with actor/dancers Keira Mason-Hill (Rachel) and Chris Palframan (Pole, Mr Troublesome, Maggie and Brick)have created a work which excited, moved and educated all the Year 1 and 2 boys and girls I sat among on Wednesday.
Teaching emotional intelligence to 4-8 year-olds means engaging the childrens' emotions first to put them in the right state of mind to learn the lesson – just what theatre is designed to do, and done beautifully in this production. The lesson for Rachel is "Breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3 (to slow down and lower your anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings – because I am the boss of me."
But I am angry and breathing hard because I am told that the ACT Department of Education no longer gives any funds to support Jigsaw Theatre Company – despite 35 years' top-class work making it arguably the nation's premier theatre-in-education team. Jigsaw walks the fence even more on their tiptoes than the young girl Rachel in the show who has to learn to cope with her parents' separation and moving away from her street.
Rachel's story, danced exquisitely by Mason-Hill, with expert help from highly gymnastic actor Palframan,reaches a positive conclusion. I asked a neighbouring 6 year-old boy was he sorry or happy for Rachel. Happy in the end, he said, and clearly understood how good it was for Rachel to learn to ground herself in reality, feeling OK on the ground instead of only up on walls and fences.
The show is a wonderful example of how movement is the basis of feeling in theatre, as it is in putting emotional intelligence into practice. All the right principles of educational drama are played out through Rachel's journey from anger, which puts her in "time-out" without resolution, to working through to acceptance and even excitement at the prospect of change.
So while parents and teachers can, indeed should, give their children the experience of Jigsaw's work under the Department of Education's Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, the Company has to face the divorce of education from the arts. ArtsACT is the only local parent providing alimony, with encouragement from a supportive aunt at the Australia Council. There is enough to pay for artistic direction and administration, but absent parent ACT Department of Education needs to pay their share to cover costs of mounting shows. After all, this is not box office commercial theatre. Teaching emotional development in early childhood is essential to our community's well-being, but where's the right response from our government to support Jigsaw's literally heart-warming work?
©Frank McKone, Canberra
2009: Walk the Fence by Felicity Bott and Kate Shearer. Review Version 2
Walk the Fence. Co-created and directed by Felicity Bott (Buzz Dance Theatre, Perth) and Kate Shearer (Jigsaw Theatre Company, Canberra). Composer, Melanie Robinson. Installation and costumes, Kaoru Alfonso. Lighting, Alex Sciberras. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, June 3-13, 10am and 12.30pm. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au
In the foyer, Walk the Fence begins as the children receive tickets which tell them the number of the house they will visit in Rachel's street. Theatre staff check with the teachers and parents to keep friendship groups together. The Year 1 and 2 children I observed were excited, with anticipation building, ready to be part of the show.
Keira Mason-Hill presented Rachel, whose parents have separated, as a very angry child, unable to do her schoolwork properly, especially because her mother is about to move. "This is my street," says Rachel. "I don't want to go." Her fear of the unknown is represented in a common children's game of never touching the ground. Somehow, though, she must become grounded in reality, to learn to accept the change in her life without losing her sense of self worth. Mason-Hill is a modern dance artist as well as actor who creates Rachel's feelings wonderfully in exquisite lightness of movement. This is an education in theatre of the best kind for the young children who responded with no hesitation to the subtle moods as well as the plot.
This involves Chris Palframan, an actor and gymnast, playing a tall Pole on sprung stilts; a letterbox in which Rachel finds Mr Troublesome, the school principal to whom her mother writes about her; Maggie, a magpie who swoops all over the stage on roller skates; and finally Brick, the wall who teaches Rachel to work through her emotions with "breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3, (to slow down and lower her anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings." Finally remember "I am the boss of my feelings". This becomes an audience participation game, and the lesson is learnt.
It worked well with the 6 year-old boys sitting with me in house number 1A, who also wanted to know how Palframan learned to walk, run and jump on sprung stilts. I asked, did you feel sorry for Rachel, or happy? Happy in the end, they said, revealing to me that they understood her feelings. In the modern world, helping young children to develop their emotional intelligence is crucial for the well-being of our community, and Walk the Fence is designed to fit directly into the school curriculum in the Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, and particularly the Essential Learning Areas 4 (to act with integrity and regard for others) and 14 (to manage self and relationships).
It was humbling to hear from Kate Shearer after the show, however, that Jigsaw receives funding from ArtsACT and the Australia Council – enough to pay for artistic direction and administration – but that the longstanding commitment of funding from the ACT Department of Education, in Jigsaw's contract since the 1970s, is no longer provided. This leaves Jigsaw struggling to mount the very shows that our children desperately need. I can only hope departmental officers realise how they are making the Jigsaw Theatre Company walk even more on tiptoes on the fence than Rachel, and see their way to reinstate funding. The quality, artistically and educationally, of Walk the Fence justifies my feeling sorry now, but I would like to be happy in the end.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
In the foyer, Walk the Fence begins as the children receive tickets which tell them the number of the house they will visit in Rachel's street. Theatre staff check with the teachers and parents to keep friendship groups together. The Year 1 and 2 children I observed were excited, with anticipation building, ready to be part of the show.
Keira Mason-Hill presented Rachel, whose parents have separated, as a very angry child, unable to do her schoolwork properly, especially because her mother is about to move. "This is my street," says Rachel. "I don't want to go." Her fear of the unknown is represented in a common children's game of never touching the ground. Somehow, though, she must become grounded in reality, to learn to accept the change in her life without losing her sense of self worth. Mason-Hill is a modern dance artist as well as actor who creates Rachel's feelings wonderfully in exquisite lightness of movement. This is an education in theatre of the best kind for the young children who responded with no hesitation to the subtle moods as well as the plot.
This involves Chris Palframan, an actor and gymnast, playing a tall Pole on sprung stilts; a letterbox in which Rachel finds Mr Troublesome, the school principal to whom her mother writes about her; Maggie, a magpie who swoops all over the stage on roller skates; and finally Brick, the wall who teaches Rachel to work through her emotions with "breathe 1, breathe 2, breathe 3, (to slow down and lower her anger), shake yourself, run about and dance, then use your words to tell your feelings." Finally remember "I am the boss of my feelings". This becomes an audience participation game, and the lesson is learnt.
It worked well with the 6 year-old boys sitting with me in house number 1A, who also wanted to know how Palframan learned to walk, run and jump on sprung stilts. I asked, did you feel sorry for Rachel, or happy? Happy in the end, they said, revealing to me that they understood her feelings. In the modern world, helping young children to develop their emotional intelligence is crucial for the well-being of our community, and Walk the Fence is designed to fit directly into the school curriculum in the Key Learning Areas of The Arts and Health, and particularly the Essential Learning Areas 4 (to act with integrity and regard for others) and 14 (to manage self and relationships).
It was humbling to hear from Kate Shearer after the show, however, that Jigsaw receives funding from ArtsACT and the Australia Council – enough to pay for artistic direction and administration – but that the longstanding commitment of funding from the ACT Department of Education, in Jigsaw's contract since the 1970s, is no longer provided. This leaves Jigsaw struggling to mount the very shows that our children desperately need. I can only hope departmental officers realise how they are making the Jigsaw Theatre Company walk even more on tiptoes on the fence than Rachel, and see their way to reinstate funding. The quality, artistically and educationally, of Walk the Fence justifies my feeling sorry now, but I would like to be happy in the end.
©Frank McKone, Canberra
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)