Tin Pan Aussie Shortis & Simpson at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, April 29 – May 1, 2010.
Reviewed April 29, by Frank McKone
I first reviewed the John Shortis and Moya Simpson team at the beginning of their Canberra Region history in 1996, in Shortis & Curlies
at the erstwhile Queanbeyan School of Arts Café. There’s always been a
certain gentleness in their musical humour and political satires
throughout their 14 year career, and a kind of earnestness in John’s
stage manner. There have been times when I thought the cutting edge of
political commentary was softened too much. But Tin Pan Aussie seemed
to me to get the balance right.
Shortis plays himself,
but with a note of humorous self-deprecation in calling himself
Professor. Yet when one considers the 44 songs dating from 1900 to 1957
which tell us the story of Australian popular music related to our
social history throughout this period, his research justifies the title.
Between the Federation Polka and Wild One we see and
hear the development from ragtime, through jazz, hillbilly and songs
from the wars which ordinary Australians wrote, played and sang. For
me, a 10£ Pom who arrived in 1955, here was a new understanding of the
culture that I belong to today.
But there is nothing
academic about the performances of Moya Simpson, whose range and quality
of voice has matured markedly in recent years, of Shortis himself on
piano and singing, and especially of the band – Peter J Casey, Ian
Blake, Jon Jones and Dave O’Neill – unless you would like to class their
skills at reproducing 44 pieces of music in each of the original styles
as an academic exercise. To me it was an involving thoroughly
enjoyable entertainment.
The choice of songs, so many
expressing vernacular humour, while often telling the truth about real
people’s experiences in the good times and the bad, has taken this
Shortis & Simpson show a step further towards the edge. There
is no softening here in “My Little Wet Home in the Trench” (World War
I), “Happy Valley” (from the Depression) or “Back in Circulation”
(written in a Japanese World War II PoW camp), and wonderful contrasts
in such songs as the pseudo-Hawaiian “Memories of a Lovely Lei”.
Instead
of relying on inventing satirical commentary external to the subject
matter, the selection of material creates its own comment on Australian
life from within. The result is telling, showing us now to ourselves as
we once were. And it shows me how Shortis & Simpson have grown
in musical and political stature since their School of Arts Café days.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday 29 April 2010
Tuesday 27 April 2010
2010: The Power of Yes by David Hare
The Power of Yes by David Hare. Company B Belvoir directed by Sam Strong. Belvoir St, Sydney, April 22 – May 30, 2010.
Reviewed April 27 by Frank McKone.
This play reminds me of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House. Shaw’s response to The Great War was to write a comedy about a tragedy. David Hare has done the same for the Global Financial Crisis.
At first I thought the device of the author himself being the central character could not be sustained. It seemed suspiciously too easy, and difficult to imagine how a storyline beginning in February 2007 with “United States subprime mortgages industry worth an estimated $US1.3 trillion collapses, with 25 subprime lending firms declaring bankruptcy” and concluding on 1 June 2009 with “General Motors, the world’s largest car-maker, declares bankruptcy” could possibly develop dramatically on the stage.
Shaw used fictional characters in a house full of sea-faring references as a metaphor for an England being changed forever by the sad lie that this was the War to End War. But Hare’s characters, including himself, are real. Shaw had to delay the production of Heartbreak House until after the end of the war, but Hare lets us know in no uncertain terms that the perfidy of the banks and the people paid so much to run them that they have no interest in checking their company accounts is a system of lies whose story still has a long way to go.
In fact, the drama in The Power of Yes is successful because as the character David Hare listens to a great array of financial system stake-holders, trying to understand such things as how the Royal Bank of Scotland could amass assets greater in value than the whole of the output of the British Isles, we identify with his wanting to know and with his terrifying suspicion that no-one really knows how the GFC happened, nor what to do about it. Though George Soros does get a guernsey.
For a theatre-going Sydney audience which I guess included many of the monied class, the laughter and the still moments of embarrassed reflection rang external and internal bells. We cannot wait till after the end of the war to see this play, because we may never know when the end has come.
On the night I attended, even events in the audience and off-stage proved that the unpredictable may happen at any time, exactly as demonstrated in the play. No Harvard Business School mathematical formula could have foretold that a woman would faint, creating a 20 minute break in the performance, just as building societies were being turned into banks which were destined to fail. Nor could anyone know that actor Rhys Muldoon’s mother would be hospitalised suddenly, so that he had to leave the stage before the final scenes. We hope for the best for both families.
The evening concluded with warm appreciation from the audience for the actors’ work, not only in so clearly performing a text horribly replete in the jargon of financial complexity, but for their professionalism in the face of unfortunate unavoidable interruptions. It was a great cast for a great play.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Reviewed April 27 by Frank McKone.
This play reminds me of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House. Shaw’s response to The Great War was to write a comedy about a tragedy. David Hare has done the same for the Global Financial Crisis.
At first I thought the device of the author himself being the central character could not be sustained. It seemed suspiciously too easy, and difficult to imagine how a storyline beginning in February 2007 with “United States subprime mortgages industry worth an estimated $US1.3 trillion collapses, with 25 subprime lending firms declaring bankruptcy” and concluding on 1 June 2009 with “General Motors, the world’s largest car-maker, declares bankruptcy” could possibly develop dramatically on the stage.
Shaw used fictional characters in a house full of sea-faring references as a metaphor for an England being changed forever by the sad lie that this was the War to End War. But Hare’s characters, including himself, are real. Shaw had to delay the production of Heartbreak House until after the end of the war, but Hare lets us know in no uncertain terms that the perfidy of the banks and the people paid so much to run them that they have no interest in checking their company accounts is a system of lies whose story still has a long way to go.
In fact, the drama in The Power of Yes is successful because as the character David Hare listens to a great array of financial system stake-holders, trying to understand such things as how the Royal Bank of Scotland could amass assets greater in value than the whole of the output of the British Isles, we identify with his wanting to know and with his terrifying suspicion that no-one really knows how the GFC happened, nor what to do about it. Though George Soros does get a guernsey.
For a theatre-going Sydney audience which I guess included many of the monied class, the laughter and the still moments of embarrassed reflection rang external and internal bells. We cannot wait till after the end of the war to see this play, because we may never know when the end has come.
On the night I attended, even events in the audience and off-stage proved that the unpredictable may happen at any time, exactly as demonstrated in the play. No Harvard Business School mathematical formula could have foretold that a woman would faint, creating a 20 minute break in the performance, just as building societies were being turned into banks which were destined to fail. Nor could anyone know that actor Rhys Muldoon’s mother would be hospitalised suddenly, so that he had to leave the stage before the final scenes. We hope for the best for both families.
The evening concluded with warm appreciation from the audience for the actors’ work, not only in so clearly performing a text horribly replete in the jargon of financial complexity, but for their professionalism in the face of unfortunate unavoidable interruptions. It was a great cast for a great play.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday 16 April 2010
2010: King Lear by William Shakespeare
King Lear by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare Company
directed by Marion Potts at The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre April
15 – May 1, 2010.
If there is one thing King Lear makes clear, it is that kings can’t expect to comfortably retire on a super pension, even if it is backed by 100 knights. What about an actor/director? John Bell’s constitution is more than impressive. It’s amazing to me that he can go on putting out such energy night after night (and present himself for the public at the opening night cast party). Can he keep going?
Considering the historical significance of this play and this production, there is as much to say about Marion Potts’ directing, the design and execution, as there is about the acting. In King Lear and The Tempest, though their earthly political plots look superficially familiar, Shakespeare took flight creatively into an ethereal theatre of symbolism.
Because this production marks the 20th anniversary of the Bell Shakespeare Company as well as the year in which John Bell turns three score and ten (and the $15 Anniversary Edition Souvenir Program includes a Wesfarmers advert titled “Presenting the Extraordinary”), I cannot avoid the question, does Bell Shakespeare reach the heights of William Shakespeare?
BHPBilliton quotes Ben Johnson: He was not of an age, but for all time. They go on “This comment was made about Shakespeare but we think it also holds true for John Bell.” It’s nice of the biggest mining company in the world to pay for the privilege of saying so, but I think it’s not entirely true. John, indeed, has placed himself in a more realistic relationship with William in his note as Artistic Director, writing "It is incontestable that, to some extent, Shakespeare invented us; and through constant engagement with his work, we go on re-inventing ourselves."
So, to the performance I saw on April 16, 2010 just ten days short of William’s 446th birthday.
The beginning was extraordinary as a circular white curtain rose to reveal the Lear family isolated in an island of light. Off to the side, but made visible, the instruments of emotion interplayed with the action of the sculptural figures in the centre of our attention. Here was King Lear prefiguring The Tempest. Shakespeare’s words were as clear as we might expect from Bell, and the scene was set for “Nothing will come of nothing.” Much, in theatre, will come of simplicity. The open stage with no more than a central raised revolve, with light and sound, was all that was needed. Stage design held the play in place.
For this we must thank Marion Potts, designer Dale Ferguson, lighting designer Nick Schlieper, sound designer Stefan Gregory, and composer Bree van Reyk: seen and heard, even though largely mysterious to us spectators.
But the edge was taken off the imaginative intensity, at various points and in various ways. I found it difficult to feel the purity of truth in the naïve Cordelia, dressed as she was in a mess of clothing, in which she reappeared, with the addition of a cloak, years later as the mature Queen of France. She needed clean lines, simple in style in Scene 1 to contrast with her overblown sisters, an idealistic 15 year old who naturally would entrance the King of France, with or without a dowry. As grown-up strategic leader of the rescue invasion, she should more than match her sisters for wealth in a costume of plain elegance.
Cordelia was always my favourite Shakespeare character, and I was disappointed, even though I could not fault the quality of any of the acting. The characters seemed to be speaking just as themselves, even when speaking directly to the audience. Whatever they symbolise, there was never a hint of “speaking Shakespeare”. Perhaps the audience responded to three actors in particular (though their parts also help) – Peter Carroll as The Fool, Tim Walter as Edmund and Leah Purcell as Regan, especially when she makes her move on Edmund. So spiteful towards her rival, her sister Goneril , a ferocious Jane Montgomery Griffiths.
The speed and ease of entrances and exits made the set work wonderfully. The transitions from scene to scene are so often a major point of weakness in other productions, but never in Bell Shakespeare. However, I was surprised that the on-stage musical instruments disappeared after interval and sound became distant and only electronic. It was an emotional loss, especially because in the first half, characters used the instruments to comment on themselves. It was an imaginative master stroke, for example, to have Lear strike a cymbal and use his stick to strike an inferior character.
But the major disappointment for me was the staging of the ending of the play. Why were Lear and Cordelia left grovelling on the floor downstage left, where I could not see them except by wriggling about trying to peer between the audience’s heads in front of me? Why were they not taken to the central circle? Why didn’t the ending reprise the opening, with Lear and Cordelia isolated on the island, delicately enclosed again in the white curtain while Kent and Edgar spoke the words which reinforced what Cordelia had said in Scene 1? Am I being too obvious? Shouldn’t the symbolism be made this clear?
And, returning at last to the constitution of John Bell, I have found, over perhaps the last ten years or so, that the quality of his voice has often become restricted to a flat, rather thin sounding tone. This could work, for example, when he played Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, but it left me cold in King Lear. On the night, there was much strength and range of tone in Scene 1, but by the storm scene I lost feeling for this huge old man facing up to the elements as if he might defeat whatever they could throw at him, and in the final scene I could not feel the loss that this father felt, realising that his failing was the cause of his true daughter’s death.
Perhaps it is the clarity of meaning which John Bell has brought to the performance of Shakespeare, (which I still remember being impressed by when I first saw him in a tent in Adelaide in 1964, and still today is a great achievement), that has taken the focus off the creation of emotion in those of us watching. So I conclude that this production is in many ways a very good presentation of King Lear, but it does not reach the heady heights of Shakespeare’s imagination.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
If there is one thing King Lear makes clear, it is that kings can’t expect to comfortably retire on a super pension, even if it is backed by 100 knights. What about an actor/director? John Bell’s constitution is more than impressive. It’s amazing to me that he can go on putting out such energy night after night (and present himself for the public at the opening night cast party). Can he keep going?
Considering the historical significance of this play and this production, there is as much to say about Marion Potts’ directing, the design and execution, as there is about the acting. In King Lear and The Tempest, though their earthly political plots look superficially familiar, Shakespeare took flight creatively into an ethereal theatre of symbolism.
Because this production marks the 20th anniversary of the Bell Shakespeare Company as well as the year in which John Bell turns three score and ten (and the $15 Anniversary Edition Souvenir Program includes a Wesfarmers advert titled “Presenting the Extraordinary”), I cannot avoid the question, does Bell Shakespeare reach the heights of William Shakespeare?
BHPBilliton quotes Ben Johnson: He was not of an age, but for all time. They go on “This comment was made about Shakespeare but we think it also holds true for John Bell.” It’s nice of the biggest mining company in the world to pay for the privilege of saying so, but I think it’s not entirely true. John, indeed, has placed himself in a more realistic relationship with William in his note as Artistic Director, writing "It is incontestable that, to some extent, Shakespeare invented us; and through constant engagement with his work, we go on re-inventing ourselves."
So, to the performance I saw on April 16, 2010 just ten days short of William’s 446th birthday.
The beginning was extraordinary as a circular white curtain rose to reveal the Lear family isolated in an island of light. Off to the side, but made visible, the instruments of emotion interplayed with the action of the sculptural figures in the centre of our attention. Here was King Lear prefiguring The Tempest. Shakespeare’s words were as clear as we might expect from Bell, and the scene was set for “Nothing will come of nothing.” Much, in theatre, will come of simplicity. The open stage with no more than a central raised revolve, with light and sound, was all that was needed. Stage design held the play in place.
For this we must thank Marion Potts, designer Dale Ferguson, lighting designer Nick Schlieper, sound designer Stefan Gregory, and composer Bree van Reyk: seen and heard, even though largely mysterious to us spectators.
But the edge was taken off the imaginative intensity, at various points and in various ways. I found it difficult to feel the purity of truth in the naïve Cordelia, dressed as she was in a mess of clothing, in which she reappeared, with the addition of a cloak, years later as the mature Queen of France. She needed clean lines, simple in style in Scene 1 to contrast with her overblown sisters, an idealistic 15 year old who naturally would entrance the King of France, with or without a dowry. As grown-up strategic leader of the rescue invasion, she should more than match her sisters for wealth in a costume of plain elegance.
Cordelia was always my favourite Shakespeare character, and I was disappointed, even though I could not fault the quality of any of the acting. The characters seemed to be speaking just as themselves, even when speaking directly to the audience. Whatever they symbolise, there was never a hint of “speaking Shakespeare”. Perhaps the audience responded to three actors in particular (though their parts also help) – Peter Carroll as The Fool, Tim Walter as Edmund and Leah Purcell as Regan, especially when she makes her move on Edmund. So spiteful towards her rival, her sister Goneril , a ferocious Jane Montgomery Griffiths.
The speed and ease of entrances and exits made the set work wonderfully. The transitions from scene to scene are so often a major point of weakness in other productions, but never in Bell Shakespeare. However, I was surprised that the on-stage musical instruments disappeared after interval and sound became distant and only electronic. It was an emotional loss, especially because in the first half, characters used the instruments to comment on themselves. It was an imaginative master stroke, for example, to have Lear strike a cymbal and use his stick to strike an inferior character.
But the major disappointment for me was the staging of the ending of the play. Why were Lear and Cordelia left grovelling on the floor downstage left, where I could not see them except by wriggling about trying to peer between the audience’s heads in front of me? Why were they not taken to the central circle? Why didn’t the ending reprise the opening, with Lear and Cordelia isolated on the island, delicately enclosed again in the white curtain while Kent and Edgar spoke the words which reinforced what Cordelia had said in Scene 1? Am I being too obvious? Shouldn’t the symbolism be made this clear?
And, returning at last to the constitution of John Bell, I have found, over perhaps the last ten years or so, that the quality of his voice has often become restricted to a flat, rather thin sounding tone. This could work, for example, when he played Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, but it left me cold in King Lear. On the night, there was much strength and range of tone in Scene 1, but by the storm scene I lost feeling for this huge old man facing up to the elements as if he might defeat whatever they could throw at him, and in the final scene I could not feel the loss that this father felt, realising that his failing was the cause of his true daughter’s death.
Perhaps it is the clarity of meaning which John Bell has brought to the performance of Shakespeare, (which I still remember being impressed by when I first saw him in a tent in Adelaide in 1964, and still today is a great achievement), that has taken the focus off the creation of emotion in those of us watching. So I conclude that this production is in many ways a very good presentation of King Lear, but it does not reach the heady heights of Shakespeare’s imagination.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2010: The Age I’m In Dance Theatre by Force Majeure
The Age I’m In Dance Theatre by Force Majeure directed by Kate Champion. At The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre April 16-17, 2010.
It’s a great thrill to see work of this quality at The Q. Congratulations to program manager Stephen Pike for including The Age I’m In in his Simply Irresistible 2010 season. This show simply is.
Kate Champion’s Force Majeure won ‘Outstanding Performance by a Company’ for The Age I'm In at the 2009 Australian Dance Awards, so it’s a special coup for Queanbeyan. What I found most impressive was the natural way that diverse elements – pure dance, creative movement, mime, spoken word – are integrated with the physical space, recorded sound and music, lighting and finally back projection and portable video screens. Making a focussed artistic work using all these devices turns what, in principle is a simple or even ordinary idea – showing the experience of being different at different ages – into a higher form of art.
The video screens are the most extraordinary. It was hard to imagine how the images could appear so precisely in time with the action, while the effect of the picture on the screen often being an image of the part of the person who is behind the screen was quite unnerving, though one could not look away. This is a new way of interpreting the idea of mask, using sophisticated technology.
Yet it is the oldest form of expression, bodily movement and dance, which remains the core of the work, a commentary in action on the words spoken by Australians in real life interviews, about generational differences, family relationships, disability, ageing, drugs, sex, money, class, body image and even rock’n’roll. There is humour, sympathy, empathy and real concern, but there is also resilience, hope and success.
All in 90 minutes, through 26 scenes. There is Robyn, a woman played by both Veronica Neave and Vincent Crowley; a little boy Jack by Byron Perry and Kirstie McCracken; Tracey by Ingrid Weistfelt; Dan by Josh Mu; Sam the air guitarist by Samuel Brent; and Grandparents and Grandaughter Tilly Cobham-Hervey, Brian Harrison and Penny Everingham. Some performers originally trained in dance, while others as actors, all working together in ever changing roles and moods.
Kate Champion has put together a team of great strength behind the scenes: Geoff Cobham (designer), Roz Hervey (artistic associate), Max Lyandvert (composer), Bruce McKinven (costume designer), Mark Blackwell (sound editor), Tony Melov (audiovisual producer), Neil Jensen (audiovisual designer), and finally William Yang, the photographer whose show My Generation opened the National Portrait Gallery in December 2008.
Unfortunately you will have missed the Queanbeyan presentation by the time you read this, and will have to chase the show to Wagga Wagga, Griffith and Newcastle or to Brisbane’s Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts on May 4 – 5. I would book now. There should be spare planes to fly there while the Iceland volcano keeps erupting.
For the full touring schedule, check out http://www.forcemajeure.com.au/Resources/RoadworkPerformanceSchedule.pdf
and if you are a technical buff, have a look at http://forcemajeure.com.au/Resources/The Age I'm In - Technical Specifications Regional.pdf for the touring specifications – just fascinating.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It’s a great thrill to see work of this quality at The Q. Congratulations to program manager Stephen Pike for including The Age I’m In in his Simply Irresistible 2010 season. This show simply is.
Kate Champion’s Force Majeure won ‘Outstanding Performance by a Company’ for The Age I'm In at the 2009 Australian Dance Awards, so it’s a special coup for Queanbeyan. What I found most impressive was the natural way that diverse elements – pure dance, creative movement, mime, spoken word – are integrated with the physical space, recorded sound and music, lighting and finally back projection and portable video screens. Making a focussed artistic work using all these devices turns what, in principle is a simple or even ordinary idea – showing the experience of being different at different ages – into a higher form of art.
The video screens are the most extraordinary. It was hard to imagine how the images could appear so precisely in time with the action, while the effect of the picture on the screen often being an image of the part of the person who is behind the screen was quite unnerving, though one could not look away. This is a new way of interpreting the idea of mask, using sophisticated technology.
Yet it is the oldest form of expression, bodily movement and dance, which remains the core of the work, a commentary in action on the words spoken by Australians in real life interviews, about generational differences, family relationships, disability, ageing, drugs, sex, money, class, body image and even rock’n’roll. There is humour, sympathy, empathy and real concern, but there is also resilience, hope and success.
All in 90 minutes, through 26 scenes. There is Robyn, a woman played by both Veronica Neave and Vincent Crowley; a little boy Jack by Byron Perry and Kirstie McCracken; Tracey by Ingrid Weistfelt; Dan by Josh Mu; Sam the air guitarist by Samuel Brent; and Grandparents and Grandaughter Tilly Cobham-Hervey, Brian Harrison and Penny Everingham. Some performers originally trained in dance, while others as actors, all working together in ever changing roles and moods.
Kate Champion has put together a team of great strength behind the scenes: Geoff Cobham (designer), Roz Hervey (artistic associate), Max Lyandvert (composer), Bruce McKinven (costume designer), Mark Blackwell (sound editor), Tony Melov (audiovisual producer), Neil Jensen (audiovisual designer), and finally William Yang, the photographer whose show My Generation opened the National Portrait Gallery in December 2008.
Unfortunately you will have missed the Queanbeyan presentation by the time you read this, and will have to chase the show to Wagga Wagga, Griffith and Newcastle or to Brisbane’s Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts on May 4 – 5. I would book now. There should be spare planes to fly there while the Iceland volcano keeps erupting.
For the full touring schedule, check out http://www.forcemajeure.com.au/Resources/RoadworkPerformanceSchedule.pdf
and if you are a technical buff, have a look at http://forcemajeure.com.au/Resources/The Age I'm In - Technical Specifications Regional.pdf for the touring specifications – just fascinating.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday 6 April 2010
2010: Ich Bin Faust by Joe Woodward
Ich Bin Faust written and directed by Joe Woodward,
Coordinator of Creative Arts and Theatre, Daramalan College, Canberra.
Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, April 6-10, 2010, 8pm.
The first purpose of this production is to extend the theatre experience of a group of senior secondary students who last year presented a group devised performance based on their studies of the Faust story, mainly derived from Marlowe and Goethe.
This script, written by Woodward but with considerable workshop input from his students, is also intended to develop the students’ thinking about the relevance of the Faustian theme to present day life. The plot follows what happens to a drama group who previously worked on a piece about Faust, starting from the cast party, reaching the end of their schooling and meeting up again four years later. Characters in this story parallel characters in the Faustian dramas. Is it possible not to sell one’s soul to the devil in the modern world of “I am”?
I guess there is also a desire to demonstrate what the students can do theatrically, and raise issues about the transition into adulthood for an audience of parents and student peers.
It’s not my place to write competitive reviews of individual performances, but it is fair to say that the group standard was very much what I would expect from a seriously committed Year 12 drama class. I certainly saw some potential tertiary theatre studies students.
It took me quite some time to feel involved in the drama, so I have some doubts about the script writing. It is true that the characters begin as youngish, a bit immature, almost “typical” dramaheads and grow into young adults, but the slow pace and background broken-up video images and sound track, combined with short duo scenes interspersed with drama workshoppy group movement segments made it difficult for me to find focus in the first half. Only in the more substantial mother-daughter scene did things start to fall into place, and in the later sections the metaphorical use of masks and devil characters worked effectively, reaching a strong emotional ending which made the ethic of being principled in life rather than self-indulgent come to the fore.
As an educational exercise, the work is obviously well worthwhile. Using the Large Hadron Collider as a focus for the range of questions around science and religion, life and death, and ethical principles certainly works for young people just reaching adulthood, as they search to establish their own identities and philosophies to carry them through an uncertain future. The script, in a nice piece of irony, was written before the Collider actually proved to work, only a few days ago, without causing us all to be sucked into a black hole.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The first purpose of this production is to extend the theatre experience of a group of senior secondary students who last year presented a group devised performance based on their studies of the Faust story, mainly derived from Marlowe and Goethe.
This script, written by Woodward but with considerable workshop input from his students, is also intended to develop the students’ thinking about the relevance of the Faustian theme to present day life. The plot follows what happens to a drama group who previously worked on a piece about Faust, starting from the cast party, reaching the end of their schooling and meeting up again four years later. Characters in this story parallel characters in the Faustian dramas. Is it possible not to sell one’s soul to the devil in the modern world of “I am”?
I guess there is also a desire to demonstrate what the students can do theatrically, and raise issues about the transition into adulthood for an audience of parents and student peers.
It’s not my place to write competitive reviews of individual performances, but it is fair to say that the group standard was very much what I would expect from a seriously committed Year 12 drama class. I certainly saw some potential tertiary theatre studies students.
It took me quite some time to feel involved in the drama, so I have some doubts about the script writing. It is true that the characters begin as youngish, a bit immature, almost “typical” dramaheads and grow into young adults, but the slow pace and background broken-up video images and sound track, combined with short duo scenes interspersed with drama workshoppy group movement segments made it difficult for me to find focus in the first half. Only in the more substantial mother-daughter scene did things start to fall into place, and in the later sections the metaphorical use of masks and devil characters worked effectively, reaching a strong emotional ending which made the ethic of being principled in life rather than self-indulgent come to the fore.
As an educational exercise, the work is obviously well worthwhile. Using the Large Hadron Collider as a focus for the range of questions around science and religion, life and death, and ethical principles certainly works for young people just reaching adulthood, as they search to establish their own identities and philosophies to carry them through an uncertain future. The script, in a nice piece of irony, was written before the Collider actually proved to work, only a few days ago, without causing us all to be sucked into a black hole.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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