2012: The Polyphonic Bard – Music and Shakespeare in our time

The Polyphonic Bard – Music and Shakespeare in our time The Pocket Score Company and Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art, directed by Tamzin Nugent.  Made in Canberra Season at The Street Theatre, November 30 – December 2, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 30

My reference for this review just has to be the Bach Guild / Vanguard recording BG-606 by the Deller Consort (Alfred Deller (countertenor), Wenzinger Consort of viols - August Wenzinger, dir., April Cantelo (soprano), Eileen McLoughlin (soprano), Desmond Dupré (lute), Taylor Recorder Consort, Gustav Leonhardt (harpsichord), Ambrosian Singers) titled A Musical Panorama of Shakespeare’s England.

This was my introduction, in 1963, to the fascinating strange harmonies of Renaissance songs, beginning with the ironic humour of “We Be Soldiers Three” included in this Pocket Score show.  One song not included, which I would have loved to hear and see performed, is Ben Jonson’s “Have You Seen But A Whyte Lily Grow”, a great deflator of the conventions of romantic love which would have fitted so well in this program.

And what an odd but interesting program this is.  It certainly fulfils the Made in Canberra description of diverse works mixing up new ideas in theatre, music, dance, opera, and interdisciplinary work in live performance.

I saw The Polyphonic Bard as having two purposes.  It is an “entertainment”, which means a lot more than being merely entertaining.  There are light-hearted episodes here, but set among themes concerning the nature of love, life and even death.

For the young students of the Canberra Academy of Dramatic Art, the top-quality 5-part singing of the Pocket Score team – David Yardley (countertenor), Paul Eldon (tenor), John Virgoe (tenor), Daniel Sanderson (baritone) and Ian Blake (bass) – provides a model for them to aspire to.  They have a long way to go at this point in their quest, but this public performance is an important step along the way.

Once upon a time, when I trained young people for tertiary training auditions, requiring a Shakespeare piece, of course, I used to explain how 5- or even 8-part singing took place in the pubs of London in Shakespeare’s day, and how those complexities of rhythm, harmony and stress patterns underlie the poetry of Shakespeare’s words.  These CADA students are lucky enough to learn in practice, from the Pocket Score Company, what I could only explain to my trainees.  But, of course, in today’s theatre world, all professional actors must be able to sing well.

Though the show is indeed “diverse” and a “mixing up”, the audiovisual and photographic work of Aaron King and Danielle Osomanski – not exactly of Shakespeare’s time – often added images to the speaking and singing.  Particularly effective, I thought, was video of (I assume) swirling drops of coloured inks, which metaphorically represented ideas in the words, especially when red seemed to show the blood of warfare.  This brought the experiences of Shakespeare’s period of history into the present – artfully, rather than as a blunt instrument, in keeping with the choice of sonnets and comedy in the spoken word.

I wasn’t so sure of the success of the use of hanging ropes – literally with hangman’s nooses – which provided something for the actors, and sometimes even the singers, to hang on to.  It is a simple idea (that means a good idea) and certainly raised thoughts of dangers, social strictures and death, behind words of comedy and love, but a choreographer was needed to work up a movement design which could have lifted the actors’ performances more “artfully” to match the video.

So, once again I have to thank the recently announced Artist of the Year, Caroline Stacey, for instituting the Made in Canberra program which “through partnership relationships...puts a spotlight on independent artistic activity in the ACT and has continued to evolve in response to artists’ needs and Canberra’s creative context”.  It does indeed, and The Polyphonic Bard is a good example.


© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Glory Box by Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith

Glory Box by Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith at The Street Theatre, Canberra, November 28 – December 8, 2012.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 28

Glory Box is the latest version of The Burlesque Hour which I reviewed in February 2009 in the Canberra Times.  Some items, like strawberries and blood-red soup, are still part of the show, but this show generally did not have the same bite as before.  Only the last major scene – “Miss Finucane’s collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria (Get Wet for Art!)” – reached something like the satire of the Hour. 

Even so it was Yumi Umiumare, with her expertise in Butoh, who had been the standout in 2009.  She was missing in this action, and there was no-one to match her this time.

Of course, age may be wearying me, but Glory Box was more like a ritualised karaoke, broken by minimum (but well done) items on the trapeze and hula hoops.  And, though I had warned people back in 2009, I still forgot to take my earplugs.  The sound volume and oomph, oomph was perhaps even more penetrating this time around.

There was more nudity, too, but more nudity is less titillating, unless that’s just my age showing again.  Lots of other men in the audience cheered the swinging bits, though the women had no comparable male bits to cheer, since Paul Cordeiro was nude only for a brief discreet backside-to-the-audience exit.

The show is still funny and enjoyable, but in my view just not as engaging or thought-provoking as the original Burlesque Hour.  There were still plenty in the audience standing, stomping, clapping and dancing in what would have been a mosh pit in a larger venue – and buying Burlesque Underpants from the Glory Box on their way out.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas.  WildVoicesmusictheatre, directed by Dianna Nixon, composer Vanessay Nimmo, at The Street Theatre, Canberra, November 14-17, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 14

Since Dianna Nixon chose to present Under Milk Wood in a quite similar way on the stage to the very first performance of the Play for Voices (at the YMHA Poetry Centre, New York, May 14, 1953), I thought I should listen to my still serviceable vinyl recording as a comparison.

Different, but in some ways equal.  Dylan Thomas was commissioned by the BBC, and the “Y” performance was still a work-in-progress.  According to the sleeve notes, “The final scene was typed as the audience was being seated”!  And it was, of course, intended for and performed by adults.

Dianna Nixon has written “WildVoicesmusictheatre has been established to create and present music theatre events and activities with a commitment to cross-curricular arts pedagogy – alongside professional practice – and celebrating multiskilling.  Vocal and physical skills are central to our work.  Our pedagogy eschews the concept of talent, and instead we focus on relationships, process and long-term skills development – and on sharing our passion for the heritage on which performing arts practice is based.”

Like the “Y”, Nixon could never have afforded or found volunteers to present one actor per character, which would – as the sleeve notes say – “have given the impression of a local Philharmonic”.  As chance would have it the “Y” had only five professional actors available, plus Thomas who significantly played the 1st Voice and the Reverend Eli Jenkins.  Each one stood, still throughout except for when Thomas, on the advice of the actors, took two steps forward for Eli Jenkins’ morning prayer.  Nixon, on the other hand had her Voices for the main part seated, but with some movement carefully devised to add to the drama visually.

In her production, Nixon plays the 1st Voice and piano – she has a B.A., Music (piano) from VCA – while the other parts are played by six adult professional singer/actor/musicians: Nick Byrne, Tobias Cole, Dene Kermond, Kate Hosking, Zsuzsi Soboslay and PJ Williams, as well as 20 children.  Three teenagers, Bethany Stoney, Aidan Pierlot and Felicity Ward were the “Foley Team”, producing all the necessary sound effects devised by Vanessa Nimmo.  In the original recording there was a bare minimum of sounds beyond those heard in the imagination in response to Thomas’ poetic descriptions.

Watching this WildVoices performance I was reminded of the Goon Show.  This is in no way a derogatory thought, because it was quite fascinating, as it was for the Goon Show’s BBC studio audiences, to see the sounds being made live as the actors spoke.  In using a live foley team, Nixon has fulfilled her pedagogical aim.  The youngsters were learning the “heritage on which performing arts practice is based” – so much better than googling YouTube or downloading iTunes.

In taking this approach, and setting appropriate parts to music, Nixon has equalled Thomas.  At the same time, his more spare presentation did some things that Nixon’s softer more mellifluous approach doesn’t.  Partly because of time passing and Under Milk Wood now being a familar classic instead of a case of the shock of the new as it was in 1953, Nixon’s visit to Llareggub is almost a romantic trip.  For Thomas, as you hear in the recording, there is a hard edge behind the quaintness.  As the sleeve notes say (written by someone unfortunately unacknowledged) “Why the audience finds the motley crew of variously henpecked, overbearing, drunken, promiscuous townspeople so funny might be a study for psychologists, had psychologists not long ago determined that misfortune at this remove is cause for self-congratulation and laughter .... But the laughter is cathartic, too.”

Our applause on November 14, 2012 could not match that of  May 14, 1953 when Dylan Thomas’ “shy and stammered ‘Thank you, thank you very much’ is lost in the shouts of the audience.  The bravos come from people close enough to the stage to see the tears that rolled down his cheeks.”  But we justifiably applauded a quality production, beautiful, and a great learning experience especially for the children taking part.

Vinyl LP Recording: original recording by Caedmon; my recording by Philips B 94022 L / B 94023 L (2 records)

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Empire by Graham Jones and Jepke Goudsmit

Empire by Graham Jones and Jepke Goudsmit.  Kinetic Energy Theatre Company at the Drama Lab, Australian National University Arts Centre, Canberra, November 8-10, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 9

The evening’s program, put together by Kinetic Energy based in Sydney, began with poems of social criticism – Poetry with a Punch – by local Canberra poets, Fiona McIlroy, Sandra Renew, Jill Sutton, Laurie MacDonald and Hazel Hall.

Though, as an introduction to the presentation of what was advertised as a “gritty play”, the staging of the poetry was very ordinary, with Jones popping on and off to adjust the microphone and no special lighting, MacDonald’s and Hall’s works particularly engaged the small mainly academic audience with humanity and art.

Following the poetry, in what might have been an effective lead-in to the play, the well-known A Chorus of Women sang the Lament by Glenda Cloughley and Judith Clingan, an anthem for peace which was first sung in the foyer of the Australian Parliament as the news was being broadcast of Australia’s decision to join the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ in invading Iraq.

Lament begins with the line “Open the doors of the chambers of your hearts”, but unfortunately at this point the doors of the Drama Lab were shut behind us for some half an hour while the stage was set for Empire.  Though this was an opportunity for coffee and cake and a preparatory visit to the toilets, the momentum was lost, as people stood about waiting in an unprepossessing back corridor in the bowels of the Arts Centre.

If the poetry and song had been staged well and incorporated into the total presentation, as Act 1, then the audience would have been warmed up to face the cold hard agit-prop approach of the main event, Empire, an indictment of the role the United States plays in the modern world as a democratic equivalent of imperial dictatorships of the past.

Unfortunately, dramatically speaking, polemical theatre of this most uncompromising kind is its own worst enemy.  This is not to say that the information presented was unbelievable – in fact I would assume that especially among this ANU audience there would be few who had not known the critical works of Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky, or had not understood the importance of the revelations of  the whistle-blower Bradley Manning, or of the horror of the helicopter gunship’s murder of Reuters journalists in Baghdad.

As a history presentation, however, and including the taped conversations of US Air Force pilots during the Vietnam War and the sermons of John Winthrop, a founding father of the attitudes of Americans as he brought ‘civilisation’ to Massachusetts in the 17th Century, Empire might be a useful education piece for teenage students.

As a theatre production for a modern adult audience it was simplistic, lacking in subtlety, poorly structured, often basically boring.  The only highlights for me were the fact that I got to see the whole of the footage of the helicopter gunship episode, and I enjoyed the quality of the musicianship of the young student wind instrument players.

I can’t say I enjoyed very much of the acting performances, except for the spirited young woman who confronted Noam Chomsky.  This was almost the only occasion when something like real drama was happening – but only for a brief moment, as she left the scene in frustration and Chomsky remained in control of the intellectual battlefield.

The central conception of the play, with Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky as talking heads, espousing their political positions – quoting from their public writings and interviews – was not a bad idea in itself, but without any development of their personalities and how they may have dealt with the personal challenges they must, in real life, face, we are left with no more than cardboard cutouts.

It was disappointing, considering the artistic sensitivity and dramatic structure which characterised Graham Jones’ work in his earlier days as director and choreographer of the Kinetic Energy Dance Company, to see him decades later associated with such amateurish writing.  The art of expression through dance demands subtlety in movement without words, which was once Jones’ strength.  A drama with speaking characters demands a wholly different set of skills, to write and to perform.  Technically, too, the use of video, on a screen sometimes masked by the actors, and with confusing text above and below the image, or with far too lengthy slabs of chatroom text, showed a surprising failure in stage design.  I miss the dance Jones might have created, and would rather not have seen this quite embarrassing attempt at a play.

Bringing back A Chorus of Women to conclude the program might have worked better as the other bookend, if their first performance had been given its proper place.  But their entrance was disorganised, where it could have moved us smoothly on into a more positive note, as was clearly intended by encouraging us to sing along to When People Start to Sing (by Janet Salisbury and Johanna McBride) with the words “When people start to sing / Things are changing”.  The Women’s voices were strong and harmonious but there was no strength in the audience participation.

I could at this point launch into a lengthy essay on the tradition of agit-prop theatre, from  Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Schweik, through to Erwin Piscator’s success in 1920s Germany in having his middle-class audiences enthusiastically singing revolutionary songs after shows including film of war-time atrocities, and on, of course, to the famous Bertolt Brecht in plays such as The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

I have no doubts about the sincerity and honesty of Graham Jones and Jepke Goudsmit.  These are necessary but unfortunately not sufficient conditions for the production of successful theatre.  Like mercy, the quality of good theatre is not to be “strain’d, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven...”  In doing so it enlightens and persuades, as some of the poetry and singing did last night, but the raging storm of Empire certainly left me cold.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Diva Sheila, the Eco Diva: Takin’ it to The Street by Kate Hosking

Diva Sheila, the Eco Diva: Takin’ it to The Street by Kate Hosking.  Lighting by Kelly McGannon.  At The Street 2, Canberra, November 8-10, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 8

Brave and honest are my keywords tonight: brave because she is honest.  In her story-telling sequences, Kate Hosking leaves herself with few of the protections (and none of the pretensions) of an actor playing a role defined by a script, since her words are her own about herself; while in singing her own songs and interpreting songs by others, her arrangements and accompaniment on double bass make her performance highly personal – and original.

Takin’ it to The Street is intimate theatre, chamber theatre, almost boudoir theatre.  The Street 2, small as it is, was rather too cavernous for this work.  So it took a little while for us to come to terms with the intimacy.  It was, I think, the quiet, angry-sad quality of her rendition of I was only 19 (by John Schumann) that drew us in to Hosking’s depth of feelings about the world she has grown up in – our world, of course.

I last reviewed Kate Hosking in The Jigsaw Company’s play for children Pearl Verses the World (May 19, 2012) where her performance was very effective within the conventional frame of acting.  As Diva Sheila, she has created a role which hovers on the tight-rope between acting and reality.  Her balance is impressive.  Her voice has a great range, in this show concentrated on a blues style which allows her feelings to play out through the lyrics.  There is a maturity in this work which augurs well for a continuing career already backed by a decade of international world music performances.

In her program, as a kind of subtitle to her work, she has written “Sometimes it takes a character bigger than yourself to say what’s on your mind”.  Diva Sheila is never too big for Kate Hosking’s high-heeled shoes.  They fit very well together. 

Diva Sheila is another success of The Hive, The Street Theatre’s writers’ development program.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Bare Witness by Mari Lourey

Bare Witness by Mari Lourey.  Performing Lines and the Bare Witness Company, directed by Nadja Kostich, designed by Marg Horwell, soundscape and music composed and played by Kristin Rule, lighting by Emma Valente, video by Michael Carmody, at The Street Theatre, Canberra, November 6-10, 2012.


Reviewed by Frank McKone
November 6

Immediately outside the auditorium is a small colourful sign saying “Thank you.  We hope you enjoyed the show”.  Ironic, even shocking, on this occasion.  Bare Witness is not meant to be ‘enjoyed’, but appreciated – for its theatrical inventiveness and for its theme, questioning the role of the war-zone photojournalist.

The structure of the play is simple in concept: we are watching a slide show in reverse, from Photograph 011 to Photograph 001, of pictures taken by photojournalist Dannie as she recalls and reacts to the memories surrounding each shot, from places and wartimes like Bosnia, Chechnya, East Timor.

Her picture of a blinded woman who did not know she was being photographed sells worldwide, establishing Dannie’s career, leading to international awards, while keeping her on the move.  Despite calls home to Australia when Dannie can squeeze them in, her mother keeps the seriousness of her illness secret.  When Dannie discovers her mother has died, she has been away from home for five years, obsessed with seeking out the best shot.

The ultimate photo is probably based on the execution by the Taliban of Daniel Pearl in 2002.

In the background, the video material is not straight documentary, but imagery obliquely relevant, such as of dogs – the dogs of war.  The soundscape is created amazingly by Kristin Rule using an amplified cello for both music and sound effects which complement each situation and mood.  The action is tightly choreographed stylised movement and voice, in a set and lighting which re-creates the image of photographing in war conditions.

The result is ‘total theatre’ – imagist in form, creating moods all the way from excitement (at winning prizes or selling pics to news agencies), wild release (when photojournalists meet together in some remote hotel), love (even in the midst of terror), respect (for each other’s professionalism), despair (in the face of impossible dilemma).

Australia is justly proud of its tradition of physical theatre, and this recent play is an excellent example.  For me some of the imagery was a bit too obscure, and I found the women (Daniela Farinacci as Dannie, and Eugenia Fragos as Violetta) much clearer to understand compared to the men whose diction was not as definite as my hearing needed.  But all the cast (the men were Adam McConvell as Jack, Todd MacDonald as Jacek and Ray Chong Nee as Jose) worked perfectly together in what was often as much a dance company as an acting company.

This is original work, coming out of the long-standing Melbourne theatrical culture, and very much appreciated – a very worthwhile inclusion in The Street’s program.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo

Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo, directed by Anna Crawford.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, October 25 – December 1, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
October 31

Strange, but oddly fascinating (and often funny, but not always), until the end.

This makes for a confusing review, I guess, but despite enjoying the show and appreciating the excellent directing and acting by Sandy Gore (the mother, Suzanna, aka Susan), Catherine Moore (the daughter, Suzanna, aka, Suzy), Rupert Reid (the adopted son/brother, Max), Matthew Zeremes (Suzy’s husband, Andrew) and Anna Lise Phillips (the manipulator and/or truth teller, Becky Shaw), I came away with mixed feelings.

Suzy’s father has died, leaving a business in financial straits and perhaps having had a long-standing gay relationship with his off-stage incompetent accountant.  Susan has had (what appeared on stage) to be a mild form of MS apparently throughout her marriage, but now has an off-stage Lester as a carer, or maybe something more.  Max has grown up to be a proper professional money manager, and tries to provide for Suzy and Susan,  despite compromising emotional relations.  Andrew is entirely kind-hearted, tries to rescue Becky from self-harm, and sets her up to meet Max. 

This is, of course, a deliberately bowdlerised summary, so that when you see the show you will not be forewarned of the details of conflict and consequent laughter.  Suffice to say that Suzy was ‘very close to’ her father; Max’s father could or would not look after him after his wife had died; Susan dominates Suzy and Max, and probably her husband too; Andrew is out of touch with his parents; and Becky has lost communication with her parents after living with a middle-class black man.  The younger generation is all 20+ to 30+ existential angst, while the older generation – that is, Susan – is full of advice.

So you can see how the one-liners and sudden moments of shock-and-awe might generate laughter.  They certainly do, and did when I saw it in company with an audience mostly of my (now ancient, or at least as recently defined, elderly) generation.  Rousing applause, even whistles, at curtain call, enlivened the Ensemble no end.

But something was not quite right.  As I thought things through, I realised I had issues with the script.

The first problem was all these dead or no-longer-talking-to-their-adult-children fathers.  The psychological theory behind the play seemed too Oedipussian, too old fashioned Freudian for a 21st Century comedy.  Or does this just mean that this play, premiered at the 2008 Humana Festival of New American Plays, represents Americans as not yet so over Freud as the rest of us.  And maybe that’s just funny in itself.

Then I remembered I had reviewed another recent American play, Sex with Strangers by Laura Easson (October 3, 2012) and that they both have the same – dramatically speaking – ending.  I had thought that Easson’s leaving her protagonist standing, frozen, in the final spotlight and blackout, was a cop-out.  The author refused to finish the play, and the lack of tension at that final point took attention away from strong drama earlier in the play.

Now Gina Gionfriddo has done the same.  Andrew and Suzy say they will drive Becky away, leaving Susan and Max to have their last conflict ‘resolution’.  Becky has left or been thrown out of the car, and returns to wait for the early-morning train, in company with Max.  Susan imperiously leaves them to it.   Max and Becky stand facing each other at some distance – in every sense – and freeze.  The light is held on them briefly, and blackout.

Just as in Sex with Strangers, Becky Shaw is left unfinished.  I must say the questions left in our minds like, Does she infuriate him enough to make him kill her? or Do they make furious love? or about a dozen other questions I can think of, do lend this play a bit more gutsy feeling at the end compared with Sex with Strangers.

But maybe what’s going on here is that modern Americans are so unsure of their future that their playwrights can tell their stories only up to a certain point, and then just have to stop, freeze in the spotlight, and fade to blackout.  Is this the real angst behind the one-liner quips and the flashing retorts, however funny they seem at the time?

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Come Alive Festival of Museum Theatre

Come Alive Festival of Museum Theatre, at the National Museum of Australia, October 29 – November 2, 2012

by Frank McKone

This is the 3rd annual Come Alive week at the National Museum of Australia.

If the first performance, I Will Survive by senior students from Orana Steiner School, is anything to go by, the rest of the program involving St Francis Xavier College, Dickson College, Burgmann Anglican School, Gungahlin College, Merici College, Canberra College, St Clare’s College, and Narrabundah College, will show young people at their very best.

Over the three years more than 20 schools have participated in this Festival of Museum Theatre, coordinated – in his ‘retirement’ – by one-time Jigsaw Theatre Company director and long-time Narrabundah College drama teacher, Peter Wilkins, also well-known as a writer of reviews and articles on theatre for the Canberra Times.

Each group explores the National Museum for exhibits which stimulate research into history, out of which they make a stage show for public presentation.  In the process they not only learn history and how to put a play together; they develop confidence, learn how to work together as a group, and how valuable it is to connect with their community in performing their work.

All these elements were abundantly clear in I Will Survive, which started from the fascinating Lucille Balls dress, made by Ron Muncaster, featured in the Eternity Gallery.

The play presents the history, and the private and public controversies, behind the Sydney Mardi Gras and the changing attitudes towards gays and lesbians since the 1970s, including the violence of police action in the early period and the horrors and practicalities of dealing with AIDS.

This was 'poor' theatre in terms of the very basic facilities in the Vision Theatre at the National Museum, but in the Q&A session with the students after the Lucille Balls dress made its appearance in the context of a memorial to its original wearer, a wealth of learning for them was revealed, and continued as people, gay and straight, spoke from the audience.  This was theatre of real communication, not mere entertainment.

The National Museum of Australia has had a long association with the International Museum Theatre Alliance, which advocates for the importance of education taking place in museums using the theatre arts, based very much on the research by the well-known Harvard Professor of Psychology, Howard Gardner, famous for the Seven Intelligences.

Performances are at 12 noon and 6 pm each day.  For further information ring (02) 6208 5201 or email angela.casey@nma.gov.au .

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: The Tempest by William Shakespeare

The Tempest by William Shakespeare.  Daramalan College, Director Joe Woodward.  October 24-27, 2012-10-24

Reviewed by Frank McKone
October 24

The purpose of this production is essentially for the education of the student participants, on stage, backstage, front of house and in the audience, working in a theatre production company format titled Daramalan Theatre Company.

Head teacher Joe Woodward (who also directs the independent theatre company, Shadow House Pits) operates as overall artistic director, with a range of others – among students and staff – taking on tasks such as Co-Director (for this production, Desiree Bandle), Dramaturg / Pronunciation Coach (Tony Allan), as well as all the necessary technical designers and operators.  I noticed two jobs I regard as essential for students to learn were missing from the program: publicity and accountant.

The theatre program “varies from group devised productions [to] classic and contemporary scripts, in-house scripted works and musicals”, providing students with a wide range of opportunities to gain experience and understanding of theatre, whether or not they go on stage in later life.

This production of The Tempest ticks all the educational boxes.  Characterisation is strong; speaking Shakesperian text varies in quality as I would expect, but is well backed-up by movement work and choral sections; and there is effective experimentation in reversing gender roles, where Prospero and Gonzalo become Prospera and Gonzala, Ariel is male rather than the more usual female (at least in post-17th Century productions), and Trinculo is female, making the Stephano, Trinculo, Caliban relationship rather different from the ordinary clown format.

Visually the costumes, set and lighting, like the sound effects and music, are a mixed conglomeration of some odd but many interesting ideas.  Yet this works well for the island full of weird spirits: The Tempest is a great vehicle for experimentation, for playing with possibilities.

The atmosphere in the final scenes, where Prospera leaves her magical powers to Caliban now that she has regained her rightful position as Duchess, and Caliban regains his position of power passed down from his mother, Sycorax, was well put together.  At this point the whole cast clearly felt at one with their audience – achieving this must be the key to a good educational experience, and it was achieved on opening night.  Well done.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Red Wharf: Beyond the Rings of Satire - The Wharf Revue

Red Wharf: Beyond the Rings of Satire  The Wharf Revue written by Drew Forsythe, Phillip Scott and Jonathan Biggins.  Sydney Theatre Company at The Playhouse, Canberra, October 23-27, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
October 23


It took me a little while to work out why this year’s Wharf Revue is so good.  It’s the satire, stupid.

There’s a new maturity in the writing and the performances this year.  The best comparison I can make is to say that scenes like Julia Poppins (Amanda Bishop),  Alan “James” Joyce (Josh Quong Tart), the world tour of Foreign Minister Bob Carr (Drew Forsythe), the Fall of the Garden of Earthly Delights (Phillip Scott and audiovisual creator David Bergman), and the Call of the Peter Slipper Handicap are as clever as good David Pope cartoons.

Rather than the show ‘lampooning’ politicians, as they have done in the past, this year characters have depth.  When Julia Poppins’ parrot-headed umbrella plays back Alan Jones’ recorded chaff-bag speech, and she says “Come on, Alan, can’t you do better than that?”, there is a sympathy with Julia in our knowledge of what Alan Jones did do “better than that”, without the need to make any direct reference to his died-of-shame speech.

Connecting Alan Joyce’s Irish accent and history to James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is a brilliant play on the struggles of the Qantas CEO to keep in control of life and delay his constantly impending demise.  He must just keep talking, however absurd – and very funny – it sounds.  Tart moved into James Joyce poetic territory so well that even a literate Canberra audience were at times silenced by the language as if they were hearing the real Finnegan – until the content of the words about Aer Lingus, British Airways or Emirates just broke everyone up.

The imagery, in the manner of a mediaeval tapestry, telling the story from the unspoiled Garden of Eden to the ruination of the earth by rampant humans applying their God-given free will, and sung by Scott, following the scene where "Cardinal Bolt" and "Sister Mirabella" condemn the global-warming scientist Flannery of Padua in line with the treatment of Galileo, is artistically and thematically way beyond lampoon.  This is Swiftian satire, wonderfully illustrated.

And then there is Bob Carr, imagining himself as a kind of Gulliver but discovering that he is rather Lilliputian in comparison to the condescending, but terribly polite power of Hillary Clinton.  Forsythe captures all of Carr’s little mannerisms of head, shoulder and facial movement to reveal the character’s inner fears; while Bishop has all the voice and confidence of the most significant woman in the world.

And lastly, but not leastly, among the many other effective scenes, I must make special mention of The Same Sex Marriage of Figaro, where the rearrangement of Mozart is brilliantly done, with singing up to operatic standard – a real measure of the theatrical skills of this company.

The whole show is unified by the story of the launch from Woomera of the ark of humanity – the last survivors taking the story of Earth out to the universe.  This takes the drama above and beyond the petty politics of the day – indeed, Beyond the Rings of Satire.  A great show, not to be missed.

PS

At http://www.yell.com/s/recording+services+sound-red+wharf+bay.html perhaps Sydney Theatre Company could record Red Wharf: Beyond the Rings of Satire for posterity.

Red Wharf Bay is in Wales, not too far from Dylan Thomas’s “Llareggub” (just a little more literary allusion which might suggest next election year’s show about milking the global village electorate, or trolls under the wharf, or something ....)


© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Our Shadows Pass Only Once by David Temme

Our Shadows Pass Only Once by David Temme.  Produced by David Temme and Caroline Stacey. Directed by Andrew Holmes, lighting and set design by Gillian Schwab, sound design by Shoeb Ahmad, at The Street 2, Canberra, October 11-19, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

If this were a piece of music, it’s subtitle would be A tone poem for four voices.  The orchestral continuo is provided by Shoeb Ahmad’s electronic soundscape, foregrounded by a soprano (Sarah Nathan-Truesdale), a tenor (Josh Wiseman), a contralto (Caroline Simone O’Brien), and a baritone (Raoul Craemer).  The two higher voices represent a younger couple; the lower voices an older couple.

The essence of the interplay of voices is to show the stresses and strains of love – which binds, and in doing so pulls couples together while equally pushing them apart.  If Our Shadows Pass Only Once were presented on radio, the final sound would be footsteps and the opening and closing click of a door.

On stage, the visual “orchestration” consists of pale colours in the younger characters’ costumes, darker colours in the older, against black and white, in both the physical setting of chairs, walls and floor, and in the live camera projections, which often provided different angles from what we could see on the stage before us.  The movement “orchestration”, keeping pace with Ahmad’s slowly changing pitch, tone and timbre, consists of gradual rearrangement of position of characters, chairs and lighting which sometimes seem to represent physical relationships but as often emotional distances.

The author has called his work “abstract” but it is so only in the same sense that music may be called abstract.  It creates a continually changing sense of emotional engagement in us, and takes us through a wide range of feeling qualities, until the question is asked “How long can we go on doing this?”

The spell is broken, the characters walk, not quite together yet perhaps not entirely apart, to the rear door of the stage, push the release bar and exit – in the case of The Street 2, out into the open air as if into the city and its lights.  The coda is complete, and we are left with the experience of the music in our memory.

As theatre goes, Our Shadows is unusual but, for me at least, satisfying, so long as you attend to what you see, hear and feel as you would in a concert hall.

As a work in progress from The Hive, The Street’s development program for new writers, I judge it to be highly successful, in its own right as a complete work at this stage, and as a stepping off point for David Temme.  He can confidently move on to writing more new and exploratory theatre which I certainly will look forward to.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: From the Ground Up - Circus Oz

“For gorsake, stop laughing: this is serious!”

From the Ground Up Circus Oz at Canberra Theatre Centre, October 3-7, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
October 5

I have nothing to say about Circus Oz except that it’s just brilliant to see the irreverence, social conscience, performance skills, exciting acts and a sense of a community working together on stage and including us in the audience.

However biassed this may be, I have to say that where Cirque du Soleil is a spectacular arty construct, French cool style, From the Ground Up is no-bullshit Australian culture, which grabs our audience by the throat and makes us cheer the daredevils on, laugh, and be made aware of social justice all at once.  This is the art of Circus Oz.

“For gorsake, stop laughing: this is serious!”  is the caption of the famous cartoon by Stan Cross originally published 29 July, 1933.  An excellent reproduction is at http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-65/fig-latrobe-65-053a.html , showing two blokes high up on scaffolding.  One is holding on for dear life to a girder, while the other, as he falls off, has grabbed his mate’s legs and pulled down his trousers.  From the Ground Up is about the building site of the new Circus Oz home base in Melbourne, now under construction.  The circus acts take place on flying girders, dogman’s ropes and almost anything else you might find on a building site, but the site foreman nowadays is Ghenoa Gela, a Torres Strait Islander from Rockhampton, in character as Indie G (an Indie Genius Australian) – aka Fruit Ninja.

We laughed as we were divided into apples and mangoes by Indie G, but understood the serious message when the imagery grew into Australia as a fruit salad – each fruit different but all tasting great together.  The word ‘multiculturalism’ didn’t need to be spoken.

At http://www.circusoz.com/digitalAssets/1479_1234416397068_The%20History%20of%20Circus%20Oz.pdf you can read Jon Hawkes’ history.  My memories of the early shows agree entirely with Hawkes’ comment that “although Circus Oz may be one of the few surviving remnants of the seventies, the group continues to demonstrate that the values espoused then retain all their vigour and relevance now.”

Indeed, they do.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Sex with Strangers by Laura Eason

Fragments of literary aphorisms

Photos by Brett Boardman

 Sex with Strangers by Laura Eason.  Sydney Theatre Company directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, designed by Tracy Grant Lord, performed by Jacqueline McKenzie (Olivia) and Ryan Corr (Ethan) at Wharf 1, September 28 – November 24, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
October 3

I have absolutely no quarrel with the directing, design and acting of this new play from Chicago, while the theme – about the generational shift from ‘old-fashioned values’ (like having a printed book on your shelves) to today’s instant gratification and lack of privacy on the internet (and selling cheap e-books with no hard copy, never smelling of ‘library’) – is perfectly valid, worthwhile and up-to-date.

On these grounds I can genuinely encourage you to see Sex with Strangers.

But I do have a quibble with the author.  I present it here, on the blog, and if you wish, you are invited by her to ‘share your thoughts about the play with me, I’d love to hear them.  Through one of the miracles of our time, lauraeason@gmail.com will reach me in New York.  Call me old fashioned, but I still find that amazing.’

If I may use an Americanism, the play is just too ‘neat’.  I’ll explain more later, but you need to know something of the plot and dramatic structure first.

Each half has five scenes, each introduced with a projection on the backdrop of a quote from a different well-known writer, of the kind that both Olivia and Ethan would like to emulate.  Aphorisms include “The truth will set you free.  But not until it is finished with you” (David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest), or Anaïs Nin’s “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect”.  This is a technique made famous in American theatre by Tennessee Williams’ “Blue Roses” in The Glass Menagerie and more generally based on Brecht’s “literalisation of theatre” to cue the audience in to thinking at a “distance” about the scene they are about to witness.

Ryan Corr as Ethan      Jacqueline McKenzie as Olivia

Though Ethan (at 27) is a stranger to Olivia (in her mid- or maybe later-thirties) when he turns up in the middle of a snowstorm at the otherwise empty retreat where she is holed up trying to write,  he is connected by having had a teacher (as Olivia also is) who went to school with Olivia, and with whom he has become friends.  Olivia’s so far one and only novel could not find a publisher (print, of course) but her old friend had passed a copy to Ethan who has come to find Olivia with a proposition to publish both her first novel and the one she is just completing, for only 10% commission, on his website.  Ethan has already become famous for blogging a year’s sexual encounters with women, one night stands, whose comments and tweets add to his salacious descriptions, attracting sponsors wanting to invest in the e-book and upcoming film Sex with Strangers.

From here on the plot tangles in a way that requires a viewing, but suffice to say Olivia has sex with this stranger Ethan, scene after scene (off stage for the climactic bits, so they can change costumes) throughout the first half, which ends as Olivia, in horror, begins to read Ethan’s book.

After interval, Ethan assumes he has a long-term relationship going.  He publishes her new novel, and destroys her chance of success with a New York publisher famous for “22 Nobel Prize winning titles since their establishment in 1946”.  By the final scene, a year and a half later, she is contemplating marrying a nice teacher who wants children before it is too late for her, when Ethan, now an infamous celebrity, seeks reconciliation.

At last, in the final spotlight in Olivia’s doorway, my quibble comes to light.  She orders Ethan to leave, since she can’t stop herself wanting him sexually despite knowing she could never live with him.  As he leaves he tells her he will be waiting, apparently for ever, in the bar on the corner – his last attempt to manipulate her.  She goes to follow him, turns back, turns to go out again, then stands immobile in the doorway.  Lights fade.  The end.

This is just too neat – it’s a cop out on the part of the author, who leaves us feeling cheated.  We know, of course, that whichever choice Olivia makes will never be entirely satisfactory, but this turns the drama into no more than a superficial guessing game.  Around where I was sitting next to two very Sydney fashionable young women there was an audible exhalation of tension.  Some kind of denouement, I suppose, but I’m glad I wasn’t the actor left there, ghost-like, just fading away. 

As her character Olivia is unable to face up to the possibility of failure, as a writer, so Laura Eason fails to give us a satisfactory conclusion.  Olivia’s and Ethan’s vicious argument earlier in Act Two stands out as the strong point in the drama, while the ending is a let-down.

The issue for me is that the characters are finally seen as agents in a plot contrived to raise something of an intellectual conundrum.  Jocelyn Moorhouse has written in her notes that the drama “on the surface, seems like romantic comedy, but if you dig deeper you find it is about much more.”  Fortunately she took the opportunity to make the comedy work well, and had actors who could carry the script through effectively. 

I thank them for this, especially Jacqueline McKenzie for holding on professionally at the end, and leave you – after you have seen the show, of course – to email the author as you see fit.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Private Lives by Noël Coward

Zahra Newman (Amanda)  Toby Schmitz (Elyot)

Love or ...

Toby Truslove (Victor)  Eloise Mignon (Sibyl)
                  Mish Grigor (the maid Louise) not pictured                                                                                                           Mayhem!

Rehearsal photos by Brett Boardman

 Private Lives by Noël Coward.  Belvoir Upstairs directed and designed by Ralph Myers at Belvoir Street, Sydney, September 22 – November 11, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
October 2

Because I had time on my hands and no smoking in my eyes, I wrote a small poem as a mental preparation for reviewing Private Lives:

    At the Central end of Sydney city,
    Down at heel among the feet in
    High heeled glass slipper towers, is this
    Sophistication when viewed
    From my suburban bungalow
    On the outer edge
    Of the Bush Capital?

    Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

    But here’s the Belvoir B
    Company of players bravely
    Or Cowardly playing Noël.

    Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

    We shall see.  Are they still
    On the edge?  Like me?

    Perhaps….

As you can see, I had my doubts – about whether Noël Coward was the right sort of playwright for Belvoir, whether the play would be a piece of museum theatre (which I couldn’t imagine), or whether it could be “modernised” and whether it should be if it could.

Still with time to have coffee and cake before going in, I broke my usual rule and read the director’s notes before seeing his work.  It’s always better to judge first and then see what the director intended.  So I thought.

The stage was empty.  The set was a white wall with two white doors and a white double door between that might be a lift entry.

Aha! I thought.  Modern Minimalism – no Noël Coward high fashion here.

Oho! I remembered.  The last play I saw with a set like this was a blood-and-gore Greek Tragedy at the Wharf – was it The Trojan Women?

This was looking serious.

The trouble was that I had never thought of Coward as a serious contender in his era compared with, say, Eugene O’Neill or George Bernard Shaw.

Well, I needn’t have worried.  This Private Lives is not the slightest bit serious – just bloody (to quote Shaw) funny.

Instead of the false glamour of the 1930’s rich and famous, and the exposé of their superficiality – the interpretation you could look for in Coward’s day – this stripped down study of the destructive nature of love has taken us out of the conventional social criticism mode into the universal.  Just as the director promised in his notes.

Love conquers all because it has to – there is so much that needs to be conquered.  Like demeaning comments or jokes at other people’s expense.  Like Alan Jones, say.

Alan Jones, of course, is not funny – even when he tries to apologise, and then blames others for vilifying him – because he is real.

Coward’s characters become more and more funny, struggling against their own worst natures, until the play reaches a crescendo of laughing, clapping and cheering (on our part, not theirs) as the lights dim on the mayhem of a stage now totally full of clutter, physical and emotional – because we are safe in our seats watching what we know to be fiction.

Yet we also know even while we laugh that “tearing each other apart”, as Myers’ notes describe it, is real enough.

Maybe Alan Jones will understand this one day.

Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

So, yes, using a clearly defined modern acting style, in modern costumes, with modern accents in a modern set gives Coward a new edge.  There is a level of sophistication here which is central to Sydney, in the great tradition of Belvoir Street.  I saw it clearly from the Bush Capital, and it made the 300 km trip well worthwhile.

Or if that is a trip too far, you can wait for the Canberra Theatre season November 21-24.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: The School for Wives by Molière

Harriet Dyer, John Adam, Meyne Wyatt

The School for Wives by Molière, translated by Justin Fleming.  Bell Shakespeare directed by Lee Lewis.  Designer: Marg Horwell, Lighting Designer: Niklas Pajanti, Composer: Kelly Ryall, Movement Director: Penny Baron.  Canberra Theatre Playhouse, September 26 – October 6, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 26

Originality + is my assessment for the translation into modern Australian rhymed verse, a movable feast of a set design, the Parisien Charlston era setting, precision characterisation, and the especially clever use of pause and silent movement.

The + is for John Adam’s voice in the lead role of Arnolde, the man whose wealth leads him into territory rather akin to some more modern moguls or mining magnates: assuming he has the right (because he has the power) to arrange other people’s lives to suit his own requirements.  Except, of course, his expectations don’t match other people’s reality, so he comes seriously unstuck.

I’ll deal with Arnolde’s sticky end later; the + for Adam’s voice is because I was aware that he almost had to abandon opening night to the vicissitudes of a throat infection.  Anyone not in the know would never have known – a great performance which I can only hope he can maintain.

Originality abounded everywhere.  Pianist and percussionist Mark Jones had a ball (you’ll see what I mean when you see the play), tinkling the ivories like the accompaniment to a Charlie Chaplin silent movie – always the right ironic mood, but never dominating the scene, even when he became a comic character in his own right.  If Jean-Baptiste Poquelin had had a Kelly Ryall and a Mark Jones available in 1643, he would have surely realised that comedy was his métier, would never have tried to act (in his stage name of Molière) the tragedies of writers like Corneille, would have employed them in his Illustre-Théâtre – and would never have gone to debtor’s prison. 

Poquelin would also have appreciated aluminium scaffolding on wheels to make frames, screens and even Agnes’s balcony.  It didn’t look 17th Century, or even 1920’s Paris (unless you wanted to see a reference to the iron-frame Eiffel Tower :-), but what a touring set, for France in his day or for playing Australia today.  This set took the old Peter Brooks’ Empty Space to its ultimate point – to create the scene  in the audience’s imagination, not by filling up the stage with predetermined pictures on immovable flats and blocks.

Then there was the rhyming, coming thick and fast, first and last.  Justin Fleming is a stickler for getting it right, working with all his might for rhyming couplets (AA/BB) when Arnolde is raving on, 1st and 4th – 2nd and 3rd line couplets (ABBA) when he is dealing with his young rival Horace, alternate rhymes (ABAB) for Agnes as she begins to realise her position, and back to rhyming couplets for the ensemble at the end.  Poquelin and Fleming could have been a great team – and still are.  The language itself becomes a character full of humour with which the actors play.

And this brings us to the style of acting, a combination I guess of the efforts of Lee Lewis, Penny Baron and Vocal Coach Anne McCrossin-Owen – and the skills of John Adam (Arnolde, originally Arnolphe); Harriet Dyer (Agnes – Agnès – all pure honesty and naiveté); Meyne Wyatt (the lovely Horace – rhymed on one occasion with “horses” for a great laugh); Arnolde’s commedia-like servants Georgette (Alexandra Aldrich) and Alan – Alain (Andrew Johnston); Jonathan Elsom (Notary and Henri); Mark Jones (Laurence, as well the musician); and Chrysalde – known in Australia as Chris – played magnificently by Damien Richardson.

Theatre of the era can be called “presentational” or maybe “representational”, as characters “present” themselves to the audience, sometimes directly and sometimes in the manner in which they speak and act towards other characters.  Later in history, Brecht would turn this into a theory of “alienation effect”, because stylisation sets the audience back from identifying with characters in a personal way, and allows them to see the characters for what they represent.  At one end of this scale is much of 19th Century English melodrama; at the other end I would put Shakespeare; while on the way between is commedia dell’arte. 

Molière sits towards the Shakespeare end, but – as I have mentioned – he was never a good tragic actor.  Shakespeare probably was.  So this production uses devices in mime, gestures, facial expression, expressive movement, silences, which we recognise from melodrama and commedia, but takes them at times into an expressionistic level, which makes the comedy into the kind of humour which tells – about character, social convention and ultimately about the human condition.  Arnolphe’s treatment of Agnès is far beyond acceptable norms, yet is understandable because he has human needs – for gratification and love.

The ending of this production raises for me what may be a difference between the 17th Century Jean-Baptiste Poquelin and the 21st Century Lee Lewis, perhaps between the centuries and perhaps between the sexes over the centuries.

Molière’s Chrysalde tells Arnolphe that he will never be able to marry, and Arnolphe leaves the stage transportè, et ne pouvant parler, just managing to huff and puff “Oh!”, implying that he will never change.  Lewis’s Arnolde seemed to me to leave rather sadly, leaving open the possibility that he might recognise his faults and mend his ways, or at least realise that he should change even if he can’t bring himself to do it.  Maybe our time is just a little softer in judgment of others than 350 years ago.

Whatever your interpretation, this is a great production.



© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Rolling Home by Greg Lissaman

Catherine Hagarty and Chrissie Shaw

Rolling Home by Greg Lissaman.  Music and songs by John Shortis.  Presented by Canberra Theatre Centre in the Courtyard Studio September 17-22, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 21

Greg Lissaman, himself once-upon-a-time an artistic director of The Jigsaw Company – Canberra’s regular theatre-in-education team – has written, produced and directed this independent production for 7-10 year olds with support from the Canberra Theatre Centre, ArtsACT and Riverside Theatres, Parramatta (Sydney).  He has pulled together an experienced team in composer John Shortis, lighting designer Matt Cox, sound designer Kimmo Vennonen, costume designers Hilary Talbot and Imogen Keen, and puppetry director Catherine Roach, with actors Catherine Hagarty and Chrissie Shaw.

The result is high quality material and performance which held a mixed audience from Kindergarten to Year 5 this morning, including an enthusiastic 20 minute Q&A session conducted by the actors when the story was finally finished.

“Finally finished” is not a criticism of the script, but its main theme.  You could call Rolling Home Brechtian theatre for littlies.  The two main characters are Figaro (Shaw) and Georgio (Hagarty) who are fairytale story tellers, in the story they tell to us in the audience, singing songs as they go along.  They slip easily between their characters as wandering story tellers, the characters they become in the stories they tell, and as out-of-role actors in teacher mode, asking questions of the children about the characters they played, as well as in actor mode explaining about the business of theatre.

Georgio is young and rather naive, seeking to settle down in his own home – his story cannot finish until the story of the magic crystal belonging to the Queen of the Dark Forest is concluded.  Figaro is older, craftier, and prefers to keep moving on, even after their caravan has rolled away downhill and smashed to pieces.  In the end, they find their “home” in their friendship, built up through all the experiences they have had together in returning the crystal to its rightful owner.  Only then does Figaro reveal to Georgio that the King (who had stolen the Queen’s crystal, and from whom Georgio had taken it) had actually paid 12 gold pieces for their storytelling, not the 3 he had at first said the King had paid.

So the story finally finishes when true friendship means honesty – Georgio can build a home, Figaro can travel on, but both are welcome in each other’s life.

Would this complexity of levels of understanding come through to the children watching? 

In the session I saw, my half of the audience were mainly well below the age of 7, while the half I could watch in the opposite seats were mainly 8 plus.  On my side the children responded to everything as if they understood (after the little boy in front of me had wondered after the first song and we all clapped “Is that the end?"), but when it came to Q&A, the littlies had questions which they couldn’t remember when asked to speak.  The actors handled these potentially embarrassing situations with positive encouragement but without improper pressure.  Good teaching approach, in other words.

On the other side, I could see faces light up during the performance as children picked up what was happening in the relationship between Georgio and Figaro, and there were many very thoughtful and insightful questions in the Q&A.  Good theatre-in-education at work, in other words.

I don’t need many more words then to say that this is an interesting and well worthwhile theatre and educational experience, especially for the intended age group but even for much younger children.

But then I had other thoughts about the concept.  Essentially the script, songs and music draw upon a range of storytelling traditions which come down to us from Europe, including the key “quest for the holy grail” element in the magic crystal story and the “royalty / commoner” characters.  In the Australian context this material is in the background of most people, but is quite outside the traditions of Indigenous Australians. 

Though there is great value in Rolling Home, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders it is a confirmation of the power of invasive culture, with no counterbalance.  So I proposed to Greg Lissaman that he might take up the search for a way to make a play for young children which would draw on maintaining country and community from the ancient Australian tradition.

I suppose this is just another quest, but in our conversation we wondered how David and Stephen Page, and Frances Rings, might like to take Bangarra into work for young children, now that Terrain has shown how their work can ring true across our cultural differences – as Lissaman’s Georgio and Figaro found in friendship and honesty.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Hair – The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical

Hair – The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical  Book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado.  Music by Galt MacDermot.  Presented by Queanbeyan City Council, directed by Stephen Pike at The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, September 19 – October 6, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 19

Excellent musicianship by a neatly arranged band led by Major Geoff Grey set the tone for a quality all-singing-acting-dancing cast on a set (Brian Sudding) and in lighting (Adrian Rytir) that thoroughly loved to rock.

The shocks that reverberated through the audience in the war scenes, ostensibly in Claude’s pot-driven imagination but terrifyingly real to those of us who have seen the footage of all the wars since Hair was first produced in 1967, were a special achievement in sound, lighting and movement.  And the final tragic scene was played with just the right level of intensity – touching our hearts and minds without over-stepping into sentimentality, which is always a risk in American musicals.

Especially wonderful is to know that here, in the Capital region of Australia, 45 years on and despite the “demeaning” politics of our democracy today (according to Tony Windsor, Member for New England, discussing with Anne Summers and Natasha Mitchell Civility, sexism and democracy, on Life Matters, Radio National, 20 September 2012), young people can respond to the feelings and the message of peace with so much enthusiasm and sincerity as this cast achieved.  This production is not an imitation of the 1967 Hair, but a highly successful re-creation.

After reading David Marr’s Quarterly Essay 47 Political Animal: The Making of Tony Abbott, I naturally searched for a quote from B.A.Santamaria about the production of Hair which I saw in Sydney in 1969.  No luck, except that Wikipedia states “The Sydney, Australia production's opening night was interrupted by a bomb scare in June 1969”.  I wasn’t surprised, then, to see that a bomb was actually exploded at a theatre in Cleveland, Ohio in 1971.

Though I remember that people around me reacted most to the shock of nudity on stage in sophisticated 60’s Sydney, I realised yesterday that for Americans the most shocking scene concerned the “Folding of the Flag”, perhaps the most emotive nationalistic ceremony one can imagine, taking the people back to the horrors and final resolution of the Civil War.  Yet it is interesting to note that though both the issues of nudity and the desecration of the American flag were taken to the Massachusetts and the Federal Supreme Courts, nudity caused the most problems for the continued presentation of Hair, since, on the flag issue, the show "constitutes ... an obscure form of protest protected under the First Amendment."

In Queanbeyan 2012, the nudity, which is essential to complete the first half, was managed with great delicacy as the spotlights went to blackout and no more than some unspecified flesh tints were visible.  I’m guessing that this doesn’t mean that regional Australians are more prudish today.  I think it’s more likely that nudity no longer shocks, and that the lessening of this scene’s impact allowed the major theme of the production to take its proper place.

The same effect could be seen in the treatment of the pot-smoking.  For us the greatest shock was to see smoking represented on stage (I have that reaction when I watch old Hollywood movies), but the effects of marijuana were acted out in a light-hearted way since we are long past believing that pot-smoking means the end of the world as we know it.  We just know it is part of the world, and even the occasional US president admits it, even though we also know of the psychological effects.

Of course, the draft – or in Australia’s case, the lottery – which was used to force people to fight in the unwinnable Vietnam War, has fallen into the wastebasket of history, perhaps to at least some extent due to Hair.  But the decision, represented by Claude’s dilemma, to be willing to kill or be killed in the name of one’s country or ideology, or to seek to live peaceably without causing deliberate harm to others, has been a difficult, if not impossible, choice to make throughout human history.

Entertaining as Hair is, and especially so in this Queanbeyan production, I think Stephen Pike’s direction has made the right balance of high energy youthful life-affirming enjoyment against the truth of human self-destructive tendencies.

I went to the show with some trepidation about a Hair revival, but revived I have been by such strong performances by all concerned.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Terrain Bangarra Dance Theatre

Terrain    Bangarra Dance Theatre: Cultural Advisor – Arabunna elder Reg Dodd, Choreographer - Frances Rings, Composer - David Page, Set Designer – Jacob Nash, Costume Designer – Jennifer Irwin, Lighting Designer – Karen Norris.  Canberra Theatre Centre September 13-15, 2012.

Review by Frank McKone
September 13

David Page and Frances Rings, speaking at the pre-show forum, said that dance is its own language, so it is difficult to explain in words.  The best I can do is to describe Terrain as a symphonic poem in nine movements, however trite, old-fashioned and European that sounds.

The nearest Frances herself could give us was to say it is an abstract work, not a narrative, and I suppose this refers to visual art rather than music.

Like a symphony, there are leitmotifs in action creating such a complexity of movement around Rings’ original style that I found myself thinking of Brahms for depth of feeling.  As a poem, it has the terse, and I may say, dry quality of T.S.Eliot’s Four Quartets, though in nine parts rather than just four.

As an art work it is indeed an abstraction in which, as in many Aboriginal paintings, an almost hidden angle of a woman’s bent arm, a man’s knees briefly widened apart remind us of traditional dance, or a momentary flow of loose feathery costume denotes a mother emu, or hands brought up briefly show us a powerful male kangaroo.  This is not a dripping Jackson Pollack, but referential and entirely reverential expression of feelings constructed with the flair, speed of action and linear detail of a Blue Poles.

Then realise that the dance work and the music are integrated in close creative cooperation between Rings and Page, and wonderfully enveloped in the set by Jacob Nash and costumes by Jennifer Irwin,  and you understand you are experiencing a major work.

Terrain draws us away from the world of city cacophony, beyond the boundaries of settlement, into the centre of our land itself, where tiny groups of people have learned to understand the harshness and the beauty of their country, from the whiteness of ever-extending salt in the dry times to the rippling colours of water in times of flood.  For any Australian, Terrain is essential viewing.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Widowbird by Emma Gibson

Widowbird by Emma Gibson, directed by Joanne Schultz at The Street Theatre, September 8-16, 2012.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 8

An epic play of mythical proportions, Widowbird is interesting for its ancient Greek tragedy sensibility.  It is still a work in progress, coming out of the Street Theatre’s Hive Development Program.  Emma Gibson is surely a busy bee.  There’s enough honey here to make the presentation of the work worthwhile at this stage, but the royal jelly will take some more buzzing.

The meaning of the title eluded me – until I looked up Percy Bysshe Shelley.  I didn’t understand what he meant either.  But he gave me a clue to the sort of buzzing Emma Gibson might need to make.  Shelley’s rhymes can sometimes be execrable, but Emma needs poetry to give her work regal quality.

Her entirely original folk tale of a woman whose sympathetic tears instantly heal anyone’s illness or injury is exactly on the money in modern times.  Just send $13 a month and the world will be saved.  But what would happen if your charitable tears really worked?  Gibson’s mediaeval-style King just uses the woman’s tears to repair his battalions and keep his wars going until ... well, until he chooses to stop being King, which he will never do.  Political parties of all modern stripes, from Al Qaeda and the Taliban to the ALP or the LNP are not so different in their desire to be in, or stay in, power.

That’s some of the honey – the symbolism which allows you much metaphorical interpretation – but in the second act, where the now blinded woman tries to protect her daughter from the world by blinding her so that she cannot produce tears, we see dramatic quality beginning to gel.  In Act 1 the story is told and acted out with accompaniment on drums and xylophone, all a bit too illustrative rather than emotionally engaging.  In Act 2, the action becomes more central, while the story-telling becomes more explanatory, so we understand and identify with the implications for ourselves and our family relations.  A bit more like Sophocles’ Oedipus and Antigone.

But the heightened effect of the Greek tragedies was achieved by the dialogue being in verse, not ordinary prose, and sung by the Chorus, with music to which the actors danced.   If Gibson can turn her play into a total poetic work, in words, movement and music, then her symbols and metaphors will begin to vibrate with meaning.  Experiencing a performance will then be a real buzz.

At this point praise must be awarded to Caroline Stacey, The Street’s director and originator of the Hive.  Canberra’s role has long been the incubator of original new work, hiving off performers, writers and directors from myriad small companies to the big cities which think of themselves as the real Australia.  Despite many attempts previously to coordinate our theatrical creativity – think Carol Woodrow (Fool’s Gallery and Wildwood), Camilla Blunden (Women on a Shoestring), David Atfield (BITS Theatre) or the CIA (Canberra Innovative Arts) and maverick David Branson – only recently have we begun to get our act together.

Stacey brings in solid professional help for new writers, like Peter Matheson, one of Australia’s best recognised  dramaturgs, who has worked with Emma Gibson to turn an idea – “For me, this play really began as an exploration of how far a person must be pushed before their goodness is corrupted” – into a story on stage.  Stacey’s abiding purpose is to provide the theatrical “infrastructure” for the writers to transport themselves to a place where they find their “voice”, and thus their confidence, learning the skills of playwriting along the way.

But rather than a linear journey, it’s all about collaboration and networking – buzzing and dancing like bees in a hive – all supported by government through artsACT, the Australia Council through the Local Stages program, and Canberra 100, as well as the ACT Government supporting Gibson to attend the recent Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm, where Widowbird was first presented as a reading.

May Stacey’s work continue and grow to match the extensions of The Street Theatre, coming soon.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2012: Australia Day by Jonathan Biggins

Australia Day by Jonathan Biggins.  Sydney Theatre Company and Melbourne Theatre Company co-production at Canberra Theatre Centre, The Playhouse, August 29 – September 1, 2012.

Review by Frank McKone
August 29

It’s a bit weird, I know, but Biggins’ name always reminds me of Lord of the Rings, J.R.R.Tolkien and English culture.  So watching Australia Day reminded me of an English comic playwright, famous for The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn.

In 1974, critic Eric Shorter wrote “The latest [Ayckbourn play] is called Confusions and consists of five sketches in a typically jaunty manner which have no bearing on each other but which again exhibit the author's delicious sense of humour in droll abundance.”  In fact, in my view, the second last of the five, Gosforth’s Fête, is not as frothy as this sounds, just as Australia Day is more than a witty spoof of country town incompetency.

The odd thing is that the plot of Gosforth’s Fête is almost the same as the second act of Australia Day (was Biggin’s channelling his English heritage, or borrowing from Ayckbourn?), but the social satire says that Australia is indeed very different from the Mother Country.

Both plays involve a conservative politician, a public occasion in a village/country town, speaking over a public address system which is accidentally left turned on to reveal dastardly behaviour as a tremendous thunderstorm explodes all around.  The details of the two plays are, of course, a little different, but the comic elements work beautifully in both.  The difference is how the central characters – Gordon Gosforth and Brian, the mayor of Coriole (all the Australian characters have only first names) – end up as the forces of nature and human failure reach their last gasp, and the audience’s last laugh.

The English Gosforth turns into a Hitlerian dictator, or at least would like to.  Brian, on the other hand, realises his ambition to micromanage and manipulate everything and everybody is justifiably washed away in the final downpour. 

Ayckbourn effectively warns of the dictator at the core of English whimsy.  And I suspect the Lord of the Rings makes the same point, though Tolkien and Ayckbourn were personally on opposite sides politically (Ayckbourn still is, though Tolkien died in 1973).

But, the Australian Liberal Party Mayor, Brian (played by Geoff Morell) , seeking preselection for a Federal seat, and his political opponent  Australian Greens Party, Helen (Alison Whyte), reach an understanding on two levels as the roof of the marquee caves in: respect and empathy are the keys to a workable community,  and honesty in politics is preferable.

After the laughter, Ayckbourn leaves a nasty taste about English life, which ironically our ex-pat Rupert Murdoch has tapped into since Gosforth’s Fête was written.

Biggins recognises our political game-playing, but leaves us with the good taste of common sense and compromise which can be distilled from the Australian culture.

Theatrically, Biggins’ Act 1 doesn’t match up to Ayckbourn’s playlets which lead up to Gosforth’s Fête in Confusions.  Eric Shorter seemed critical of their having “no bearing on each other”, but Ayckbourn was writing in the days when absurdism had moved on from an esoteric theatre form after World War II to the popularity of The Goons, The Goodies and Monty Python.  When I directed Confusions each of the first three playlets built the mood of impending disaster which came crashing down upon Gosforth, which is followed by a reflective Talk in the Park.

The short scenes in Act 1 of Australia Day, as the Committee meets over the months before 26th January  (or 25th March, or October – who knows?), the characters are introduced and divisions between them are laid out, but there need to be more clues, like an Agatha Christie mystery, which would lead us to talk during interval about the possible developments.  But without enough direction in the plot, we found ourselves over coffee and champagne without much to talk about, though much to laugh over. 

And much to appreciate in the performances.  But we were concerned that the role played by Kaeng Chan as Chester, an Australian born teacher of Vietnamese refugee parents, appeared, in the first Act, as token rather than of equal value.  But when it came to Act 2, Chester comes through as the most rational, the best organised, with the least personal issues and certainly incorruptible (after all, he is a teacher), alongside the rough-mouthed dogmatic, but truthful and practical Wally (powerfully played by Peter Kowitz),  the old-fashioned but genuinely caring CWA lady Marie (Valerie Bader, bravely wearing a “numbat dreaming” costume, who reconciles Wally and the Green feminist Helen), and finally the honest Robert (David James) who stands up to the culture of political manipulation (revealed over the public address system via CB radios which he thoughtfully imagined would make things go more smoothly), and who makes it clear that he is happy being a deputy rather than being corruptly made mayor.

The Coriole Australia Day Committee being democratic meant that all the actors were equal, and they certainly performed as an exemplary team.  The plot, as the Day itself turns to mud, flood, thunder and lightning, enlightens us about the Greens’ agenda.  Helen outmanoeuvres Brian, as Alison Whyte matches Geoff Morrell.  It is fair to say that here is where Biggins goes one better than Alan Ayckbourn, just as Baggins wins honourably against the Lord of the Rings.  (I won’t try to push this envelope too far!)

Rather than the sense of deep absurdity in English life leading to a simple, if horrific, conclusion – the final cynical words, in Talk in the Park, are “Might as well talk to yourself” – Australia Day brings the complex inanities of Australian life to a positive conclusion where we have seen professional give-and-take among the actors, between the actors and us in the audience, and finally among the characters of Coriole.  The play, more subtly than Gosforth’s Fête, represents the life of its culture.  This Australia Day is certainly not a disaster, whatever the forces of nature – human and atmospheric – bring to bear.

Footnote: Alan Ayckbourn went on to write 74 plays so far; this is Jonathan Biggins’ first ‘proper’ play, but he is already famous for the annual Wharf Revue.

© Frank McKone, Canberra