Barry Crocker in Almost a Legend at the School of Arts Cafe, Queanbeyan. Wednesday to Saturday June 24 - 27.
Where can you meet Nat King C., Tony B., Al J., Johnny M., Billy E., Frank S., Johnny R., Jerry L., Humphrey B., Jimmy S., Boris K., Dean M., Mario L. and Elvis P. all in close proximity to venison, ostrich, kangaroo, duck and crocodile pie? Only at the School of Arts Cafe in the company of Bazza. Where else would you want to be on a night so cold that he, as only Bazza could, claimed to have had a certain part of his anatomy stuck to the toilet bowl in the back paddock not long before coming on stage.
So it's all a fun fantasy of the Life of Bazza from the days of the Geelong Musical Comedy Society, which he accidentally joined in pursuit of s-e-x. On the way from natural and presumably irrepressible mimic to Queanbeyan via Las Vegas, New York, London, Australian, American and British television, Carols in the Domain, a United Nations UNICEF Concert and 33 gold records, Barry Crocker has added technique to talent and probably sings better now than ever, even though people keep saying he's dead.
Though he whinged about being the same age as Elvis who's been resting for twenty years, it's salutary to remember that Bazza is still alive and entertaining. He presents a melange, or what in the fifties of his youth would have been called a flummery, which I will define as a whipped up medley of mainly old favourites which entirely suited potato and leek soup, Aussie mixed-meat pie (excepting the ring-in ostrich - where was the emu?) and apple and peach bread pudding.
It's a great night out at the School of Arts, but it may be a waste of time trying to book by the time you read this. Still you could drop by and purchase the new CD called Bazazz behind which there is a complicated story which we never heard the end of. We did hear about the accompanist Dave Macrae, pianist and backing tape-deck player extraordinaire who wrote The Goodies theme music and played for the real Frank S.
Missed Bazza? Catch Jeanne Little in July.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 25 June 1998
Thursday, 18 June 1998
1998: Play Strindberg by Friedrich Durrenmatt
Play Strindberg by Friedrich Durrenmatt. Director Neal Roach. New Erektions Fringe Season, Currong Theatre, June 18 - 22. Professional.
"Critics are bastards." "But not imbeciles." Durrenmatt's attempt to undermine the carping class will not stop me. I will carp - about the play, and a little about the production.
Play Strindberg is a late play (1970) in the Durrenmatt canon. A re-working of Strindberg's Dance of Death, it feels as if it belongs to a Europe decades earlier than the social upheaval of 1968.
A "world-renowned military literary gentleman" can never become more than a major, and only then because he is "well-regarded by the colonel". He marries a "famous actress" who nobody has ever heard of. She should have married her cousin who on the rebound marries her friend.
The cousin's marriage breaks up; he spends 15 years "not doing much" except making millions in America; he visits the actress. The military man and the actress stay together despite hating each other. The actress is left at the end of the play with a dead husband and a lover who leaves her, presumably to make more millions. All this is played out absurdly in 12 rounds, like a boxing match.
I think even in 1970 this was old-hat. Ionesco, Beckett, Peter Weiss and Durrenmatt himself had done it all before, and better from the mid-1940's to the early 1960's. It's a play satirising a class structure which, even in Durrenmatt's Switzerland, was rapidly changing.
Yet done in the right style, Play Strindberg is a nasty nihilist farce about marriage. Sarah Snell (Alice), Peter Robinson (her husband Edgar) and Lachlan Abrahams (the cousin) have the elements of the style correct. First night was not well paced and only some of the unexpected changes in mood were done well enough to cause the nervous laughter that Durrenmatt aimed at, but the actors are good enough for this to improve through the season.
Roach's changed setting from a Danish island to "somewhere in or beyond far north Australia" doesn't work: the script is too European. The design needs a big expressionistic style, inspired by Andy Warhol or the later Super-Realist painters, to lift the play out of apparently ordinary intimacy.
An interesting but not thoroughly exciting production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Critics are bastards." "But not imbeciles." Durrenmatt's attempt to undermine the carping class will not stop me. I will carp - about the play, and a little about the production.
Play Strindberg is a late play (1970) in the Durrenmatt canon. A re-working of Strindberg's Dance of Death, it feels as if it belongs to a Europe decades earlier than the social upheaval of 1968.
A "world-renowned military literary gentleman" can never become more than a major, and only then because he is "well-regarded by the colonel". He marries a "famous actress" who nobody has ever heard of. She should have married her cousin who on the rebound marries her friend.
The cousin's marriage breaks up; he spends 15 years "not doing much" except making millions in America; he visits the actress. The military man and the actress stay together despite hating each other. The actress is left at the end of the play with a dead husband and a lover who leaves her, presumably to make more millions. All this is played out absurdly in 12 rounds, like a boxing match.
I think even in 1970 this was old-hat. Ionesco, Beckett, Peter Weiss and Durrenmatt himself had done it all before, and better from the mid-1940's to the early 1960's. It's a play satirising a class structure which, even in Durrenmatt's Switzerland, was rapidly changing.
Yet done in the right style, Play Strindberg is a nasty nihilist farce about marriage. Sarah Snell (Alice), Peter Robinson (her husband Edgar) and Lachlan Abrahams (the cousin) have the elements of the style correct. First night was not well paced and only some of the unexpected changes in mood were done well enough to cause the nervous laughter that Durrenmatt aimed at, but the actors are good enough for this to improve through the season.
Roach's changed setting from a Danish island to "somewhere in or beyond far north Australia" doesn't work: the script is too European. The design needs a big expressionistic style, inspired by Andy Warhol or the later Super-Realist painters, to lift the play out of apparently ordinary intimacy.
An interesting but not thoroughly exciting production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 30 May 1998
1998: Feature article on Tim Stephens -Tim's in the Showbiz
Tim's in the Showbiz - a day in the life of Tim Stephens at the School of Arts Cafe. Youth Video Production Unit of the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan. Launched by Mayor Frank Pangallo MBE.
Feel the power of Queanbeyan as I did last Saturday at the City Library, and you touch the heart of the Country Town. The Mayor launches and tells stories about Tim; Tim tells kitchen stories and thanks his parents; CCQ President John McGlynn thanks everybody, including local sponsors Palmers TV; the video upstages everyone, though the sound wasn't in synch. The librarian Peter Conlon says the place is full of energy, and too full of people: there were barely enough scones, jam and cream to go around.
Not sophisticated enough for cities like Canberra, or Sydney? Perish the thought. I'm not so sure that false "Feel the Power" campaigns are better value than the community and family feeling of the country town. And Queanbeyan maintains its identity against its potentially overwhelming neighbour - perhaps because it's in another state. Maybe we need federalism to grow in diversity.
Gunnar Isaacson's quality work at the CCQ shines through in Tim's in the Showbiz. The young production team of Tom Murphy (producer/presenter), John Paul Moloney and Ian Andre (editor) have put together a documentary which is creatively shot, informative and creates the mood of the School of Arts Cafe.
An important element in the final version screened, however, was the work of technician Carl Looper, who assists CCQ - and thereby hangs a tale of young achievers at CCQ making videos of Young Achievers of Queanbeyan, but without the quality equipment needed to make original stock technically up to scratch. And even with help, the money was not there to lipsynch the computer projection.
Tim Stephens also shines through as much more than the comedian he appears as presenter at the School of Arts Cafe. We were told (by the Mayor no less) of banging about in the kitchen as Tim expresses his creativity, but in truth Tim is the House Manager in team with Pat, the Administrator, and Bill, the Theatrical Manager, forming a highly professional family company whose power is felt locally, interstate and internationally. Last year's Canberra Critics' Circle Award to the Stephens family clearly belongs equally to all three.
At the end of this year Tim will spend some time working in Sydney - though he promises never, ever, to abandon Queanbeyan - and I wonder a little if the School of Arts Cafe will be the same without him.
CCQ will continue its series of documentaries, following Megan Still, Olympic Rowing Champion, and Tim's in the Showbiz, with Nicole Smith, who established and publishes the free Entertainment Guide in Queanbeyan, and young playwright Tom Murphy, 1997 The Globe Young Shakespearean of the Year who has just left for his prize two weeks at the Globe Theatre, London.
But can this clearly valuable work carry on without equipment? The young media hopefuls have to borrow a camera, and have editing facilities so old that they can learn very little of the techniques which are now the norm in video production. The issue is two-pronged, I think.
Queanbeyan has in the CCQ an original outfit that could easily be outshone by a Canberra group - except that the country town community feeling is what helps produce the quality. So I hope that the Queanbeyan Council, already strongly supportive via Ann Rocca and John Wright, can find a way to establish CCQ on a firmer footing than its current hold on a likely-to-be-condemned building.
And I suspect that without improved equipment, young people - even with a drive to learn equal to the team behind Tim's in the Showbiz - will begin to tire of being unable to begin with technically good pictures. With good basic equipment, they will be excited to learn production and editing, knowing that the final product will stand up in public without apology. Maybe this needs a one-off injection of funds which Queanbeyan Council's Donation Fund could provide, with some sponsorship from a supplier.
It's worth looking at, because these CCQ documentaries help the community celebrate their own young people's achievements and record the town's history - and they're well enough made to be worth looking at in their own right. If it were technically up to broadcast standard, Tim's in the Showbiz could well go further afield.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Feel the power of Queanbeyan as I did last Saturday at the City Library, and you touch the heart of the Country Town. The Mayor launches and tells stories about Tim; Tim tells kitchen stories and thanks his parents; CCQ President John McGlynn thanks everybody, including local sponsors Palmers TV; the video upstages everyone, though the sound wasn't in synch. The librarian Peter Conlon says the place is full of energy, and too full of people: there were barely enough scones, jam and cream to go around.
Not sophisticated enough for cities like Canberra, or Sydney? Perish the thought. I'm not so sure that false "Feel the Power" campaigns are better value than the community and family feeling of the country town. And Queanbeyan maintains its identity against its potentially overwhelming neighbour - perhaps because it's in another state. Maybe we need federalism to grow in diversity.
Gunnar Isaacson's quality work at the CCQ shines through in Tim's in the Showbiz. The young production team of Tom Murphy (producer/presenter), John Paul Moloney and Ian Andre (editor) have put together a documentary which is creatively shot, informative and creates the mood of the School of Arts Cafe.
An important element in the final version screened, however, was the work of technician Carl Looper, who assists CCQ - and thereby hangs a tale of young achievers at CCQ making videos of Young Achievers of Queanbeyan, but without the quality equipment needed to make original stock technically up to scratch. And even with help, the money was not there to lipsynch the computer projection.
Tim Stephens also shines through as much more than the comedian he appears as presenter at the School of Arts Cafe. We were told (by the Mayor no less) of banging about in the kitchen as Tim expresses his creativity, but in truth Tim is the House Manager in team with Pat, the Administrator, and Bill, the Theatrical Manager, forming a highly professional family company whose power is felt locally, interstate and internationally. Last year's Canberra Critics' Circle Award to the Stephens family clearly belongs equally to all three.
At the end of this year Tim will spend some time working in Sydney - though he promises never, ever, to abandon Queanbeyan - and I wonder a little if the School of Arts Cafe will be the same without him.
CCQ will continue its series of documentaries, following Megan Still, Olympic Rowing Champion, and Tim's in the Showbiz, with Nicole Smith, who established and publishes the free Entertainment Guide in Queanbeyan, and young playwright Tom Murphy, 1997 The Globe Young Shakespearean of the Year who has just left for his prize two weeks at the Globe Theatre, London.
But can this clearly valuable work carry on without equipment? The young media hopefuls have to borrow a camera, and have editing facilities so old that they can learn very little of the techniques which are now the norm in video production. The issue is two-pronged, I think.
Queanbeyan has in the CCQ an original outfit that could easily be outshone by a Canberra group - except that the country town community feeling is what helps produce the quality. So I hope that the Queanbeyan Council, already strongly supportive via Ann Rocca and John Wright, can find a way to establish CCQ on a firmer footing than its current hold on a likely-to-be-condemned building.
And I suspect that without improved equipment, young people - even with a drive to learn equal to the team behind Tim's in the Showbiz - will begin to tire of being unable to begin with technically good pictures. With good basic equipment, they will be excited to learn production and editing, knowing that the final product will stand up in public without apology. Maybe this needs a one-off injection of funds which Queanbeyan Council's Donation Fund could provide, with some sponsorship from a supplier.
It's worth looking at, because these CCQ documentaries help the community celebrate their own young people's achievements and record the town's history - and they're well enough made to be worth looking at in their own right. If it were technically up to broadcast standard, Tim's in the Showbiz could well go further afield.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 26 May 1998
1998: Honour the Grief Ceremony. Commentary - National Sorry Day
Honour the Grief Ceremony. National Sorry Day at Parliament House. Marking the first anniversary of the "Bringing Them Home" Report.
By Frank McKone
A single candle "to light their way home".
"It was like a warm wind blowing through" said someone who couldn't get in to the Theatrette and watched with the crowd outside on closed circuit television. Inside the most extraordinary feelings of deep sadness for the terrible wrongs done in the name of doing good mixed with an amazing elation that our culture has changed forever.
I have experienced wonderful theatre before - where all the elements of lighting, sound, colour, costume and character come together with stunning effect. But artifice can never achieve real theatre like this Honouring the Grief. One candle was enough. This is the drama of our human origins, the storytelling which began long before there were theatres to separate us from the immediate experience of our emotions. And it was Theatre of Integrity.
Through a few thicknesses of cold marble, the Theatre of Insincerity was playing - the bear-baiting and bull-roaring of Question Time. The finger-stabbing, the silly-smiling, the fake-aggression and the deals behind the scenes. This was on a different closed-circuit. Who can be bothered to seriously cheer when one or other cliche role-player briefly wins a telling point?
When Gatjil Djerrkura rose to speak, with tears in his eyes, as people across the cultures held hands and personally expressed their sorrow while Torres Strait Islanders sang a slow hymn, he was heard by all of us with complete respect. When he explained that to say "Sorry" is nothing to do with guilt, but is to express sorrow and so allow us all to go forward, everyone applauded. When he described the people he had met who refuse to say sorry, he spoke with dignity and respect about how Sorry Day is also for them. The standing ovation he received was genuine, spontaneous and felt as if it should never end.
O that this might happen in that other Theatre of Parliament. I fear the hot breath and icy stares of adversarial government will never notice the warm wind there. I wish both the "Other Places" were as irrelevant as they seemed on National Sorry Day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
By Frank McKone
A single candle "to light their way home".
"It was like a warm wind blowing through" said someone who couldn't get in to the Theatrette and watched with the crowd outside on closed circuit television. Inside the most extraordinary feelings of deep sadness for the terrible wrongs done in the name of doing good mixed with an amazing elation that our culture has changed forever.
I have experienced wonderful theatre before - where all the elements of lighting, sound, colour, costume and character come together with stunning effect. But artifice can never achieve real theatre like this Honouring the Grief. One candle was enough. This is the drama of our human origins, the storytelling which began long before there were theatres to separate us from the immediate experience of our emotions. And it was Theatre of Integrity.
Through a few thicknesses of cold marble, the Theatre of Insincerity was playing - the bear-baiting and bull-roaring of Question Time. The finger-stabbing, the silly-smiling, the fake-aggression and the deals behind the scenes. This was on a different closed-circuit. Who can be bothered to seriously cheer when one or other cliche role-player briefly wins a telling point?
When Gatjil Djerrkura rose to speak, with tears in his eyes, as people across the cultures held hands and personally expressed their sorrow while Torres Strait Islanders sang a slow hymn, he was heard by all of us with complete respect. When he explained that to say "Sorry" is nothing to do with guilt, but is to express sorrow and so allow us all to go forward, everyone applauded. When he described the people he had met who refuse to say sorry, he spoke with dignity and respect about how Sorry Day is also for them. The standing ovation he received was genuine, spontaneous and felt as if it should never end.
O that this might happen in that other Theatre of Parliament. I fear the hot breath and icy stares of adversarial government will never notice the warm wind there. I wish both the "Other Places" were as irrelevant as they seemed on National Sorry Day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 25 May 1998
1998: Cliffhanger by Mardi McConnochie
Cliffhanger by Mardi McConnochie. The Jigsaw Company directed by Lynette Wallis at The Street Theatre, Thursday to Saturday May 28 - 30 and June 4 - 6, 1998, 8 pm. Professional.
The Jigsaw Company must be the oldest fully professional theatre company in Canberra, coming up to 22 this year. Originally funded largely by ACT Education as our theatre-in-education company, Jigsaw has continued to win contracts every three years through the 1980's and '90's giving school children an education in and through theatre - and professionally developing the teachers.
Cliffhanger more than maintains Jigsaw's reputation - it extends into a new form of theatre. Like the new "young adult" novel, this is theatre which begins to cross over the boundary between genres.
It is no longer theatre for children. The characters are young but their chaotic feelings, their internalised restraints and excesses, and the power of the future over the choices they make now, place them in the adult world. Yet the theatrical form - the acting style, the design, the use of comedy - is directly in the theatre-in-education tradition. Probably the nearest other genres are the Workers' Theatre and Community Theatre of recent decades, but they usually espouse a clear political or social viewpoint.
McConnochie has stuck to the integrity of theatre-in-education which can raise issues but must not be didactic or polemical. Wallis's direction, and the characterisation and timing skills of Jane O'Donnell (Katie) and Nick Hardcastle (Stefan), create a play which is just as much an education for adults - about their own lives in retrospect - as it is for young people trying to deal with love in an unstable out-of-control world. It is a tough play, though leavened by humour, multi-media (used in very innovative ways) and stunts dangerous enough to require a stunt director (Adam Kronenberg).
Cliffhanger is playing school matinees as well as evenings at The Street. I think late teenagers and their parents should go, together or separately, and young ragers up to at least 25 will surely recognise themselves and enjoy the experience. I also recommend to Playing Australia that they help fund the projected country town tour, especially where an original Palais Picture Theatre still stands. See Cliffhanger, and you'll see why.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Jigsaw Company must be the oldest fully professional theatre company in Canberra, coming up to 22 this year. Originally funded largely by ACT Education as our theatre-in-education company, Jigsaw has continued to win contracts every three years through the 1980's and '90's giving school children an education in and through theatre - and professionally developing the teachers.
Cliffhanger more than maintains Jigsaw's reputation - it extends into a new form of theatre. Like the new "young adult" novel, this is theatre which begins to cross over the boundary between genres.
It is no longer theatre for children. The characters are young but their chaotic feelings, their internalised restraints and excesses, and the power of the future over the choices they make now, place them in the adult world. Yet the theatrical form - the acting style, the design, the use of comedy - is directly in the theatre-in-education tradition. Probably the nearest other genres are the Workers' Theatre and Community Theatre of recent decades, but they usually espouse a clear political or social viewpoint.
McConnochie has stuck to the integrity of theatre-in-education which can raise issues but must not be didactic or polemical. Wallis's direction, and the characterisation and timing skills of Jane O'Donnell (Katie) and Nick Hardcastle (Stefan), create a play which is just as much an education for adults - about their own lives in retrospect - as it is for young people trying to deal with love in an unstable out-of-control world. It is a tough play, though leavened by humour, multi-media (used in very innovative ways) and stunts dangerous enough to require a stunt director (Adam Kronenberg).
Cliffhanger is playing school matinees as well as evenings at The Street. I think late teenagers and their parents should go, together or separately, and young ragers up to at least 25 will surely recognise themselves and enjoy the experience. I also recommend to Playing Australia that they help fund the projected country town tour, especially where an original Palais Picture Theatre still stands. See Cliffhanger, and you'll see why.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 24 May 1998
1998: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. Paradox Theatre directed by Ian Carcary at Currong Theatre. May 21-June 6, 1998, Wednesdays to Saturdays
I think there are three ways that Guards! Guards! can be played. As a broad comedy with lots of slapstick timing, in an English tradition which goes right back to Henry IV. Or it could be a biting satire about political power. It could also be done in the whimsy tradition.
Unfortunately Carcary seems to me unsure about which way to do it. Errol the Swamp Dragon is tickled under the chin continuously, but the light flights of fantasy are not played consistently. The Thieves Guild and the Watch have elements of comedy, but the pacing is never quite up to the mark. The Patrician, on the other hand, makes a final speech about how good people are only good at getting rid of bad people, but only bad people know how to run a country. This is an expose of dictatorship ("It isn't that good people say yes to bad people; it's that they don't say no"). It was played so understated and seemed so unassailable that I'm sure I heard it said in Indonesia this week.
As usual for Paradox, the costumes, sound and lighting effects are excellent, especially for such a small theatre. Diction was clear and the storyline - twisted as Pratchett's mind can be - is easily followed. Among Pratchett fans (there was obviously one group in Friday's audience) the jokes, with which we are all familiar from Monty Python days, got their laughs. But for me the momentum was lost too often, though it seemed to come together a bit better in the second half. The non-sequiturs and double takes which are Pratchett's hallmarks just weren't played up enough, and the audience responded spasmodically rather than with the flow of delight which I expected.
So which is it to be: rough comedy, hard-hitting politics or gentle fantasy? Maybe in the final weeks of the run, this production will settle in and take us away with the fairies - or rather the dragons.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I think there are three ways that Guards! Guards! can be played. As a broad comedy with lots of slapstick timing, in an English tradition which goes right back to Henry IV. Or it could be a biting satire about political power. It could also be done in the whimsy tradition.
Unfortunately Carcary seems to me unsure about which way to do it. Errol the Swamp Dragon is tickled under the chin continuously, but the light flights of fantasy are not played consistently. The Thieves Guild and the Watch have elements of comedy, but the pacing is never quite up to the mark. The Patrician, on the other hand, makes a final speech about how good people are only good at getting rid of bad people, but only bad people know how to run a country. This is an expose of dictatorship ("It isn't that good people say yes to bad people; it's that they don't say no"). It was played so understated and seemed so unassailable that I'm sure I heard it said in Indonesia this week.
As usual for Paradox, the costumes, sound and lighting effects are excellent, especially for such a small theatre. Diction was clear and the storyline - twisted as Pratchett's mind can be - is easily followed. Among Pratchett fans (there was obviously one group in Friday's audience) the jokes, with which we are all familiar from Monty Python days, got their laughs. But for me the momentum was lost too often, though it seemed to come together a bit better in the second half. The non-sequiturs and double takes which are Pratchett's hallmarks just weren't played up enough, and the audience responded spasmodically rather than with the flow of delight which I expected.
So which is it to be: rough comedy, hard-hitting politics or gentle fantasy? Maybe in the final weeks of the run, this production will settle in and take us away with the fairies - or rather the dragons.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 7 May 1998
1998: Feature article - Interview with Tom Murphy
[Tom Murphy, later known as Tommy Murphy, went on to become a significant Australian playwright. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Murphy_%28Australian_playwright%29]
"I'll stay with something till I find something good in it," said 18 year old Tom Murphy over chips and gravy at the Central Cafe, Queanbeyan. For the young playwright, recently back from a United Nations Youth Association forum in The Hague, and visits to New York, Sweden and Norway, there was no incongruity. The world may be an oyster, but Murphy knows that a young blade needs to be determined to open it up.
The UNYA trip seemed to be accidental. They needed a boy to represent the ACT at the national meeting, and Tom put up his hand - and then was selected for Holland. The Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) came in on the back of the UN, asking Murphy to explore similar young people's theatre and media organisations, largely following up CCQ's contacts in Europe and USA through their inimitable director, Gunnar Isaacson.
Murphy, already having had a successful production of For God, Queen and Country directed by Garry Fry and become the Shakespeare Globe Centre's Young Shakespearean of the Year in 1997, as well as completing his Year 12 - feeling a little guilty for being too busy to help much at CCQ - has agreed to be a roving promoter especially now that CCQ is taking on a new and already well-loved teacher, Allan Wylie.
But the nub of Tom Murphy now is a new script, as yet in first draft, growing out of his experience finishing school and finding himself alone and travelling. He met media directors and observed productions: "Of course Tom Murphy will be welcome"; "He is just great"; "He seems like a very nice guy". Email provides instant responses across the world, while Tom is sending back messages about the Media Factory in Sweden: "They send their regards and look forward to future contact with us. They provide a wonderful service to the community, the young people and to art here. It is somewhat of a dream for CCQ because of the range of people it reaches. I will explain more on my return but I hope this will help the vision of CCQ. Thank you for everything. I cannot express how amazing this is and has been. I have seen so much and met so many inspirational people."
For CCQ's Intima Theatre, The House on the Hill has been written to help Murphy resolve, through a group of characters more or less his own age, touring Parliament House today, in Paris and in a Museum of the Future, shadowed by their "minds", how he feels about his options as the world opens up before him. Each character represents each of the different approaches Murphy can imagine; each "mind" shadow is like his own capacity to reflect on his potential choices. Though he lives in this crowded scene, the least determined among these characters - currently named Troy - the most apparently settled, the one most unlike the organised always-going-somewhere Tom Murphy --- just disappears.
Felicity: I wonder what ever happened to him.
Ben: We always will.
Murphy is, to my mind, at core a writer. He is excited by writing. He is worried about the writing. He intends to go to university to see what good he can find in the study of literature, history and philosophy. Why philosophy? Because it's all about questioning. What is life about? You achieve things and there are things you don't achieve, but then you look at all these things as experiences you can use - and you look for the next thing you can stay with "till I find something good in it". This year "I'm examining what my process is - I'm training myself before I get any training".
Unlike Troy, Tom Murphy won't disappear. He'll extract every drop of juice from the Shakespeare Globe Centre in London in June. He'll chip away with his sharp strong blade. I wouldn't be surprised if he achieves his aim of becoming a theatre professional in the seven years he has set himself. Yet somehow he is like Troy. While others lock themselves in to the conventions of achievement - the next paper qualification - Murphy will move to the next necessary thing rather than merely satisfy an obligation. Slippery as an oyster, he can disappear from one scene to another. I suspect the rest of us will gain from the experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"I'll stay with something till I find something good in it," said 18 year old Tom Murphy over chips and gravy at the Central Cafe, Queanbeyan. For the young playwright, recently back from a United Nations Youth Association forum in The Hague, and visits to New York, Sweden and Norway, there was no incongruity. The world may be an oyster, but Murphy knows that a young blade needs to be determined to open it up.
The UNYA trip seemed to be accidental. They needed a boy to represent the ACT at the national meeting, and Tom put up his hand - and then was selected for Holland. The Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) came in on the back of the UN, asking Murphy to explore similar young people's theatre and media organisations, largely following up CCQ's contacts in Europe and USA through their inimitable director, Gunnar Isaacson.
Murphy, already having had a successful production of For God, Queen and Country directed by Garry Fry and become the Shakespeare Globe Centre's Young Shakespearean of the Year in 1997, as well as completing his Year 12 - feeling a little guilty for being too busy to help much at CCQ - has agreed to be a roving promoter especially now that CCQ is taking on a new and already well-loved teacher, Allan Wylie.
But the nub of Tom Murphy now is a new script, as yet in first draft, growing out of his experience finishing school and finding himself alone and travelling. He met media directors and observed productions: "Of course Tom Murphy will be welcome"; "He is just great"; "He seems like a very nice guy". Email provides instant responses across the world, while Tom is sending back messages about the Media Factory in Sweden: "They send their regards and look forward to future contact with us. They provide a wonderful service to the community, the young people and to art here. It is somewhat of a dream for CCQ because of the range of people it reaches. I will explain more on my return but I hope this will help the vision of CCQ. Thank you for everything. I cannot express how amazing this is and has been. I have seen so much and met so many inspirational people."
For CCQ's Intima Theatre, The House on the Hill has been written to help Murphy resolve, through a group of characters more or less his own age, touring Parliament House today, in Paris and in a Museum of the Future, shadowed by their "minds", how he feels about his options as the world opens up before him. Each character represents each of the different approaches Murphy can imagine; each "mind" shadow is like his own capacity to reflect on his potential choices. Though he lives in this crowded scene, the least determined among these characters - currently named Troy - the most apparently settled, the one most unlike the organised always-going-somewhere Tom Murphy --- just disappears.
Felicity: I wonder what ever happened to him.
Ben: We always will.
Murphy is, to my mind, at core a writer. He is excited by writing. He is worried about the writing. He intends to go to university to see what good he can find in the study of literature, history and philosophy. Why philosophy? Because it's all about questioning. What is life about? You achieve things and there are things you don't achieve, but then you look at all these things as experiences you can use - and you look for the next thing you can stay with "till I find something good in it". This year "I'm examining what my process is - I'm training myself before I get any training".
Unlike Troy, Tom Murphy won't disappear. He'll extract every drop of juice from the Shakespeare Globe Centre in London in June. He'll chip away with his sharp strong blade. I wouldn't be surprised if he achieves his aim of becoming a theatre professional in the seven years he has set himself. Yet somehow he is like Troy. While others lock themselves in to the conventions of achievement - the next paper qualification - Murphy will move to the next necessary thing rather than merely satisfy an obligation. Slippery as an oyster, he can disappear from one scene to another. I suspect the rest of us will gain from the experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 4 May 1998
1998: Top-Secret Forensic-Science
Top-Secret Forensic-Science. Australian Federal Police at the Australian Science Festival May 4 - 6, 1998.
The scenario: Tom Stoewer, criminal, breaks into the house before our very eyes, is discovered and challenged inside. Three shots ring out. A phone call is made to Emergency 000, but Tom escapes before the police can reach the crime scene.
Tom removes his balaclava and returns to his post, manning the AFP display in another part of the exhibition, while the school students are shown the crime scene by Petra Clissold; study the fingerprints found at the scene with David Reece and Hilary Fletcher; compare the shoe prints down to the slightest detail with John Doyle; put together the photofit image for the media release with help from Wendy Griffiths; and learn how to use ultraviolet and infrared photography equipment with Phil Turner.
How much can they learn about the crime and the criminal from the forensic evidence? Not enough in an hour to convict, perhaps, but certainly enough to realise what a painstaking task forensic science is and to see how crucial this evidence may be to finding out the truth.
Top-Secret Forensic-Science is not ordinary theatre, though it uses theatrical elements to set the scene. It is a good example of experiential education, however, and I discovered from coordinator Keith Howard that the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society has been using the scenario method since the early 1990's for competency based training of police officers in forensic techniques. They have two houses at the Majura driver training centre where they can set up full scale crime scenes which will test the trainees to the limit - both AFP and other State police are trained here.
Theatre is experience deliberately removed from reality into a special frame, which we enter through the foyer and leave as we go for coffee after the show. Forensic scientists have discovered, out of the necessity to train police properly, that a fictional scenario - a little bit of theatre - can be the source of learning as good as the real thing. Even better, perhaps, as details can be included which might be rare occurrences on the job. Theatre is emotional experience; here is theatre serving science.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The scenario: Tom Stoewer, criminal, breaks into the house before our very eyes, is discovered and challenged inside. Three shots ring out. A phone call is made to Emergency 000, but Tom escapes before the police can reach the crime scene.
Tom removes his balaclava and returns to his post, manning the AFP display in another part of the exhibition, while the school students are shown the crime scene by Petra Clissold; study the fingerprints found at the scene with David Reece and Hilary Fletcher; compare the shoe prints down to the slightest detail with John Doyle; put together the photofit image for the media release with help from Wendy Griffiths; and learn how to use ultraviolet and infrared photography equipment with Phil Turner.
How much can they learn about the crime and the criminal from the forensic evidence? Not enough in an hour to convict, perhaps, but certainly enough to realise what a painstaking task forensic science is and to see how crucial this evidence may be to finding out the truth.
Top-Secret Forensic-Science is not ordinary theatre, though it uses theatrical elements to set the scene. It is a good example of experiential education, however, and I discovered from coordinator Keith Howard that the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society has been using the scenario method since the early 1990's for competency based training of police officers in forensic techniques. They have two houses at the Majura driver training centre where they can set up full scale crime scenes which will test the trainees to the limit - both AFP and other State police are trained here.
Theatre is experience deliberately removed from reality into a special frame, which we enter through the foyer and leave as we go for coffee after the show. Forensic scientists have discovered, out of the necessity to train police properly, that a fictional scenario - a little bit of theatre - can be the source of learning as good as the real thing. Even better, perhaps, as details can be included which might be rare occurrences on the job. Theatre is emotional experience; here is theatre serving science.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1998: Science Smorgasbord
Science Smorgasbord. The Artful Scientists: Travelling Science Shows for Schools. Australian Science Festival May 2 - 6, 1998.
The Artful Scientists, Rebecca Colless (biologist) and Alan Reid (physicist) do the Professor Julius Sumner Miller thing, but their young audiences don't know about that - and the response I saw showed they wouldn't have worried if they did. Even when they knew what would happen, they cheered when the lid blew off the coffee tin and liquid nitrogen shrank the balloon.
Dramatic suspense, moments of revelation, climaxes galore and denouements of relief kept the children thoroughly entertained - even when I, a balding old man with glasses, was brought out to go fishing with an electromagnet. The atmosphere was electric, partly I thought because the Australian Science Festival arrangements gave the performers a limited time - not enough to relax, play more with ideas or ask the questions during or after the show which would lead to more understanding of the science behind the demonstrations. The hubbub and the need to push on turned the show more into a slick set of tricks.
The Festival has brought in young Australian representatives from the Science and Mathematics Olympiads to introduce the events. Thomas Lam did his bit very well, and made me start thinking about science shows. The Artful Scientists are certainly highly entertaining, but I wondered why it is that fewer people seem to be studying science at matriculation level than in the past? Though I find drama in holding a glass of water upside down above an audience member's head, with only a margarine container lid and air pressure to prevent a wet disaster, does this experience transfer to young people deciding to study science?
Despite my predilection towards seeing drama as the solution of all problems, maybe some scientific research is needed here. Colless and Reid are Artful Scientists indeed, but I felt I needed to see some educational proof. Of course the show I saw is not the full range of work they present in schools and teachers respond with enthusiasm. Yet I can't help fearing that more science as entertainment might mean less science as wonderment, personal discovery, mathematical analysis and new truths - where science and art come together.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Artful Scientists, Rebecca Colless (biologist) and Alan Reid (physicist) do the Professor Julius Sumner Miller thing, but their young audiences don't know about that - and the response I saw showed they wouldn't have worried if they did. Even when they knew what would happen, they cheered when the lid blew off the coffee tin and liquid nitrogen shrank the balloon.
Dramatic suspense, moments of revelation, climaxes galore and denouements of relief kept the children thoroughly entertained - even when I, a balding old man with glasses, was brought out to go fishing with an electromagnet. The atmosphere was electric, partly I thought because the Australian Science Festival arrangements gave the performers a limited time - not enough to relax, play more with ideas or ask the questions during or after the show which would lead to more understanding of the science behind the demonstrations. The hubbub and the need to push on turned the show more into a slick set of tricks.
The Festival has brought in young Australian representatives from the Science and Mathematics Olympiads to introduce the events. Thomas Lam did his bit very well, and made me start thinking about science shows. The Artful Scientists are certainly highly entertaining, but I wondered why it is that fewer people seem to be studying science at matriculation level than in the past? Though I find drama in holding a glass of water upside down above an audience member's head, with only a margarine container lid and air pressure to prevent a wet disaster, does this experience transfer to young people deciding to study science?
Despite my predilection towards seeing drama as the solution of all problems, maybe some scientific research is needed here. Colless and Reid are Artful Scientists indeed, but I felt I needed to see some educational proof. Of course the show I saw is not the full range of work they present in schools and teachers respond with enthusiasm. Yet I can't help fearing that more science as entertainment might mean less science as wonderment, personal discovery, mathematical analysis and new truths - where science and art come together.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1998: Mary Anning: A Curious Woman by Suzanne Roux
Mary Anning: A Curious Woman. Written and directed by Suzanne Roux. ?Cogito at the Australian Science Festival, May 2 - 6, 1998.
Top science theatre-in-education, Mary Anning is true to both science and theatre. Donna Cohen is a disciplined professional actor and a highly experienced scientific researcher. She represents what Mary Anning (1799 - 1847) might have become if her social class and the male-controlled scientific establishment of her day had been different.
Mary Anning is a forgotten figure in science - her discoveries of the ichthyosaurus and the pterodactyl fossils were fundamental to our interest in dinosaurs. Yet I had never heard of her till now. The fossils, on display in places like the Natural History Museum in London, are labelled with the names of the collectors who bought them from Mary Anning - but not with her name. She did the work, became the expert, was a public figure visited by the rich and famous in her curiosity shop, but has disappeared from history.
Suzanne Roux - actor, writer and student of philosophy - introduces Mary Anning through a short lecture on the history of the earth, always a fascination to Year 5 - 8 students. Cohen, in a sense, plays herself as lecturer: a very good one at that. After the show, How do we date fossils? becomes an important question. The real scientist provides the answers and discusses the problems.
When Mary Anning appears, the emotional stuff of science draws the audience in to the story of a girl, her carpenter father (whose hammer she used to chip out fossils after his death in a cliff collapse), her dog (killed the same way as her father), her discovery of wonderful new "curiosities", her fame and the way she was viewed by famous scientists, her death from breast cancer. Cohen expertly creates in us the feelings of each episode, and without dwelling on her sad untimely end, smoothly reviews the responses to Mary's death as she seems to look down from on high. I felt as if Mary is still hanging around up there 150 years down the track, watching Roux and Cohen do the right thing by her at last.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Top science theatre-in-education, Mary Anning is true to both science and theatre. Donna Cohen is a disciplined professional actor and a highly experienced scientific researcher. She represents what Mary Anning (1799 - 1847) might have become if her social class and the male-controlled scientific establishment of her day had been different.
Mary Anning is a forgotten figure in science - her discoveries of the ichthyosaurus and the pterodactyl fossils were fundamental to our interest in dinosaurs. Yet I had never heard of her till now. The fossils, on display in places like the Natural History Museum in London, are labelled with the names of the collectors who bought them from Mary Anning - but not with her name. She did the work, became the expert, was a public figure visited by the rich and famous in her curiosity shop, but has disappeared from history.
Suzanne Roux - actor, writer and student of philosophy - introduces Mary Anning through a short lecture on the history of the earth, always a fascination to Year 5 - 8 students. Cohen, in a sense, plays herself as lecturer: a very good one at that. After the show, How do we date fossils? becomes an important question. The real scientist provides the answers and discusses the problems.
When Mary Anning appears, the emotional stuff of science draws the audience in to the story of a girl, her carpenter father (whose hammer she used to chip out fossils after his death in a cliff collapse), her dog (killed the same way as her father), her discovery of wonderful new "curiosities", her fame and the way she was viewed by famous scientists, her death from breast cancer. Cohen expertly creates in us the feelings of each episode, and without dwelling on her sad untimely end, smoothly reviews the responses to Mary's death as she seems to look down from on high. I felt as if Mary is still hanging around up there 150 years down the track, watching Roux and Cohen do the right thing by her at last.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 1 May 1998
Cosi by Louis Nowra
Cosi by Louis Nowra. Free-Rain Theatre Company at Currong Theatre, Gorman House, Thurs - Sat April 30 - May 9, 1998.
Nowra's play works at many different levels, emphasising the humanity of mentally ill people against the background of the inhumanity of warfare. Anne Somes' production, with a young company, of this often funny but terribly ironic drama is competent and effective, though without the subtlety which a fully professional company would bring to it.
The play (rather than the film version) is well worth seeing for tight interweaving of characters and themes. Somes has formed a strong ensemble of actors who, although differing in degrees of experience, each create a clearly delineated character. The result is a definite sense of purpose. The humour and the issues in the script come through.
This production is part of the New EreKtions program in which The Jigsaw Company supports the work of young companies. Director Lynnette Wallis sees the program as a natural extension of Jigsaw's educational drama work in schools, providing a continuing development opportunity for our young adults. This production of Cosi demonstrates the value, and success, of Jigsaw's aims.
Cosi is confronting, as the young Lewis (immediately called "Jerry" by his cast) attempts to direct a theatre production with inhabitants of a Melbourne mental institution in 1971. Sexual and destructive motivations are expressed with few inhibitions; violent mood swings take place in an institutional space which includes us, the audience. And Somes added large projections of those horrifying television news images which turned people in the US and here against the war in Vietnam. It really is disturbing to see these again, so explicit and uncompromising, and unavoidable.
My personal response was that presenting these images in between the Nowra scenes became a distraction from the central focus of Lewis's coming to recognise how feeling for each other is more important than what we feel about, or against, each other. Julie, drug addict and potential sexual partner for Lewis, mentions the boredom of watching TV in the institutional lounge room. Maybe, for me, a representation of this lounge, with the TV news from Vietnam playing continuously, mostly silently, in the background, might have clarified the symbolic nature of the play and have had a more subtle effect.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Nowra's play works at many different levels, emphasising the humanity of mentally ill people against the background of the inhumanity of warfare. Anne Somes' production, with a young company, of this often funny but terribly ironic drama is competent and effective, though without the subtlety which a fully professional company would bring to it.
The play (rather than the film version) is well worth seeing for tight interweaving of characters and themes. Somes has formed a strong ensemble of actors who, although differing in degrees of experience, each create a clearly delineated character. The result is a definite sense of purpose. The humour and the issues in the script come through.
This production is part of the New EreKtions program in which The Jigsaw Company supports the work of young companies. Director Lynnette Wallis sees the program as a natural extension of Jigsaw's educational drama work in schools, providing a continuing development opportunity for our young adults. This production of Cosi demonstrates the value, and success, of Jigsaw's aims.
Cosi is confronting, as the young Lewis (immediately called "Jerry" by his cast) attempts to direct a theatre production with inhabitants of a Melbourne mental institution in 1971. Sexual and destructive motivations are expressed with few inhibitions; violent mood swings take place in an institutional space which includes us, the audience. And Somes added large projections of those horrifying television news images which turned people in the US and here against the war in Vietnam. It really is disturbing to see these again, so explicit and uncompromising, and unavoidable.
My personal response was that presenting these images in between the Nowra scenes became a distraction from the central focus of Lewis's coming to recognise how feeling for each other is more important than what we feel about, or against, each other. Julie, drug addict and potential sexual partner for Lewis, mentions the boredom of watching TV in the institutional lounge room. Maybe, for me, a representation of this lounge, with the TV news from Vietnam playing continuously, mostly silently, in the background, might have clarified the symbolic nature of the play and have had a more subtle effect.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 29 April 1998
1998: Mr Affogato by Full Tilt
Mr Affogato by Full Tilt Performance Troupe. The Street Theatre Studio 8.30 pm April 29 - May 9, 1998.
Whatever you do in the next week, you should not miss this engaging, beguiling story of two hospitality venues, head-to-head in competition. The Cafe Affogato is never relaxed and comfortable and it is unlikely you will actually receive the caffe latte you hope for. But you are quite likely to win a glass of beer from Mr Tattaglia's Romany Bar. Just make sure you sit at one of the front tables. Mind you, expect to be kissed, have a hair from your very own head used to commit love's suicide, dance with a philosopher and hide a fearful soldier under your chair.
Thoroughly modern commedia dell'arte is a rare and wonderful thing - and here it is in central Canberra. One television channel which will remain nameless announced on opening night that commedia is half a century old - half a millenium, more like, still energetic, full of verbal and physical tumbling and creating continuous laughter. In a kind of children's theatre for adults, director Tony Kishawi and actors Danny Diesendorf, Robin Davidson and Mark Johnson have discovered the art in commedia, using the traditional Italian characters to comment on our lives - and the first night's highly sophisticated audience of theatricals loved it from the first Once Upon a Time.
There will be an important announcement, which will raise a great cheer, from the High Court to say that the nasty bosses have been defeated by the absolutely justified workers; and Death once again will be cheated by the power of Arlecchino's violin - but only after an agonising period of dramatic terror, when Mr Affogato gains an injunction against the playing of music at the rival Romany (read Gipsy) Bar.
I never quite worked out what happened to the Lovers, but I think they remained unrequited. The Demon did amazing handstands on a pocket handkerchief stage. The Captain waved his sword alarmingly. The Doctor (lawyer and philosophical pedant) spoke sparklingly. Mr Punch threatened terribly, but unctuously flattered his customers. And all eleven characters were played at Full Tilt by the three actors, with startling transformations. Well worth a muggacino!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Whatever you do in the next week, you should not miss this engaging, beguiling story of two hospitality venues, head-to-head in competition. The Cafe Affogato is never relaxed and comfortable and it is unlikely you will actually receive the caffe latte you hope for. But you are quite likely to win a glass of beer from Mr Tattaglia's Romany Bar. Just make sure you sit at one of the front tables. Mind you, expect to be kissed, have a hair from your very own head used to commit love's suicide, dance with a philosopher and hide a fearful soldier under your chair.
Thoroughly modern commedia dell'arte is a rare and wonderful thing - and here it is in central Canberra. One television channel which will remain nameless announced on opening night that commedia is half a century old - half a millenium, more like, still energetic, full of verbal and physical tumbling and creating continuous laughter. In a kind of children's theatre for adults, director Tony Kishawi and actors Danny Diesendorf, Robin Davidson and Mark Johnson have discovered the art in commedia, using the traditional Italian characters to comment on our lives - and the first night's highly sophisticated audience of theatricals loved it from the first Once Upon a Time.
There will be an important announcement, which will raise a great cheer, from the High Court to say that the nasty bosses have been defeated by the absolutely justified workers; and Death once again will be cheated by the power of Arlecchino's violin - but only after an agonising period of dramatic terror, when Mr Affogato gains an injunction against the playing of music at the rival Romany (read Gipsy) Bar.
I never quite worked out what happened to the Lovers, but I think they remained unrequited. The Demon did amazing handstands on a pocket handkerchief stage. The Captain waved his sword alarmingly. The Doctor (lawyer and philosophical pedant) spoke sparklingly. Mr Punch threatened terribly, but unctuously flattered his customers. And all eleven characters were played at Full Tilt by the three actors, with startling transformations. Well worth a muggacino!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 22 April 1998
1998: Yours Truly, Arthur Streeton.
Yours Truly, Arthur Streeton The letters of Sir Arthur Streeton between 1890 and 1942 selected and compiled by Anne Gray from the book Letters from Smike, edited by Ann Galbally and Anne Gray. Performed by Phil Roberts with music selected and performed by violinist Louise Hildyard as a tribute to Nora Clench (Mrs Arthur Streeton). The Acting Company, directed by Peter Wilkins in the New Worlds From Old exhibition space at the National Gallery of Australia, April 22 - 23, 1998.
Though there are some technical problems performing theatre in the Gallery, where acoustics are designed for people to stare, quietly, and spotlights spoil the art, the "salon" setting works wonders. For Samantha Littley, NGA's Public Programs organiser, Peter Wilkins' aim to "reflect life through the art and art through the life" has given the New Worlds From Old exhibition new meaning. This kind of cross-art experience should become a common feature of exhibitions in future.
For me it was a minor weakness that Sir Arthur was surrounded, in the only gallery where the performance could be accommodated, by American art of his period while his own "Golden Summer, Eaglemont" and "The Purple Noon's Transparent Might" stood head and shoulders above the American work, in the next room.
These paintings set the scene for Streeton's letters covering his life in England during most of this century's first two decades; his return and life at 'Olinda'; and his death in 1942. It would have been a powerful focus if they could have been set behind him as we heard him recall those early days with such clarity, in the midst of a ten year courtship, living among the "inartistic" English, an awful five years of war which took him away from Nora who had "something rare in a woman - original ideas", the sale of "Golden Summer" for $1000 guineas in 1924, and his feelings when Nora died in 1938: "I find oblivion difficult".
With simple costume changes, Phil Roberts transported us from the sometimes rather precious young Streeton, through love and war to the mature reflective artist in old age. Nora is revealed as a person of great independence, an artist in her own right, represented musically for us by Louise Hildyard. Art was made alive by the drama of Streeton's letters: I hope we will see many more projects of this kind.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Though there are some technical problems performing theatre in the Gallery, where acoustics are designed for people to stare, quietly, and spotlights spoil the art, the "salon" setting works wonders. For Samantha Littley, NGA's Public Programs organiser, Peter Wilkins' aim to "reflect life through the art and art through the life" has given the New Worlds From Old exhibition new meaning. This kind of cross-art experience should become a common feature of exhibitions in future.
For me it was a minor weakness that Sir Arthur was surrounded, in the only gallery where the performance could be accommodated, by American art of his period while his own "Golden Summer, Eaglemont" and "The Purple Noon's Transparent Might" stood head and shoulders above the American work, in the next room.
These paintings set the scene for Streeton's letters covering his life in England during most of this century's first two decades; his return and life at 'Olinda'; and his death in 1942. It would have been a powerful focus if they could have been set behind him as we heard him recall those early days with such clarity, in the midst of a ten year courtship, living among the "inartistic" English, an awful five years of war which took him away from Nora who had "something rare in a woman - original ideas", the sale of "Golden Summer" for $1000 guineas in 1924, and his feelings when Nora died in 1938: "I find oblivion difficult".
With simple costume changes, Phil Roberts transported us from the sometimes rather precious young Streeton, through love and war to the mature reflective artist in old age. Nora is revealed as a person of great independence, an artist in her own right, represented musically for us by Louise Hildyard. Art was made alive by the drama of Streeton's letters: I hope we will see many more projects of this kind.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 25 March 1998
1998: Prime Suspect by Duncan Ley
Prime Suspect by Duncan Ley. Canvas Sky Productions directed by Liz Bradley. Currong Theatre, Gorman House, March 25 till April 4, 1998.
My mother read Agatha Christie novels ad nauseam, so at a very young age my mental solution became thoroughly saturated with the murder mystery genre.
Early childhood experience, however, did not innoculate me against Shakespeare. It was never a question of, Who killed Hamlet? but how to understand the complex of relationships which led Laertes to do the dishonorable deed, and how to come to terms with the tragedies which we all play out in real life.
Agatha Christie's stories were, of course, never to be confused with reality. They were intellectual games on a par with my child prodigy career in chinese checkers. I failed at chess, but that was probably because Shakespeare got to me first.
Prime Suspect, says the program, "was written primarily as a personal writing exercise" and "the primary role of the thriller is to entertain". I was satisfied neither at the Miss Marples nor the Hamlet ends of the thriller continuum.
The Catch-22 situation (if Jonathon is mad he will be certified; if not he will be tried for murder - and incarcerated for life either way) had the potential for an Iago-Othello head-to-head, but the characters' motivations are simply insubstantial. And the revelation of the murderer in the final scene, however true to the evidence, made me feel as though I had been taken for a long walk down the garden path. This wasn't intellectual fun - not the promised entertainment - that a real thriller should be.
Duncan Ley played Jonathon well, within the limits he set for the role. Ian Carcary seemed unsettled as the criminal psychiatrist Dr Banks - but perhaps this was an attempt to prefigure the play's climactic revelation. Production quality - sets, costumes, sound - was excellent, especially considering the lack of funding. And Phil O'Brien's ABC newsreader voice-overs were spot on.
In the end the most original part of the show is The Daily Programme, with its headline Newtown Stunned: The year's most shocking murder. Excitement was promised, but my prime suspect is the author who really has given us a personal writing exercise.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
My mother read Agatha Christie novels ad nauseam, so at a very young age my mental solution became thoroughly saturated with the murder mystery genre.
Early childhood experience, however, did not innoculate me against Shakespeare. It was never a question of, Who killed Hamlet? but how to understand the complex of relationships which led Laertes to do the dishonorable deed, and how to come to terms with the tragedies which we all play out in real life.
Agatha Christie's stories were, of course, never to be confused with reality. They were intellectual games on a par with my child prodigy career in chinese checkers. I failed at chess, but that was probably because Shakespeare got to me first.
Prime Suspect, says the program, "was written primarily as a personal writing exercise" and "the primary role of the thriller is to entertain". I was satisfied neither at the Miss Marples nor the Hamlet ends of the thriller continuum.
The Catch-22 situation (if Jonathon is mad he will be certified; if not he will be tried for murder - and incarcerated for life either way) had the potential for an Iago-Othello head-to-head, but the characters' motivations are simply insubstantial. And the revelation of the murderer in the final scene, however true to the evidence, made me feel as though I had been taken for a long walk down the garden path. This wasn't intellectual fun - not the promised entertainment - that a real thriller should be.
Duncan Ley played Jonathon well, within the limits he set for the role. Ian Carcary seemed unsettled as the criminal psychiatrist Dr Banks - but perhaps this was an attempt to prefigure the play's climactic revelation. Production quality - sets, costumes, sound - was excellent, especially considering the lack of funding. And Phil O'Brien's ABC newsreader voice-overs were spot on.
In the end the most original part of the show is The Daily Programme, with its headline Newtown Stunned: The year's most shocking murder. Excitement was promised, but my prime suspect is the author who really has given us a personal writing exercise.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 20 March 1998
1998: Amendment to previous feature article on Canberra Dance Theatre
Where has Canberra Dance Theatre come from, and where is it going?
CDT has been invited to appear in South Korea, presenting Journey, choreographed by Artistic Director Stephanie Burridge and danced by Sydney-based Anca Frakenhaeuser and Patrick Harding-Irmer. This 50 minute duet, of an independent pioneer woman's relationship with a convict, has had successful seasons in Sydney and Canberra, most recently at the Festival of the Contemporary Arts at Gorman House last October.
Journey was requested by Joo Youn Hee, Manager of Korea Dance Institute, for the International Dance Festival in Taegu City on April 5, after she viewed the video of the Sydney production. CDT's videos present Burridge's work to the modern dance network, while Asian companies seek out works - in Joo's case from 10 western and eastern cultures. The Festival tours from Taegu to Pusan, Ulsan, Pohang, Andong and Taejean over four days.
Unfortunately two weeks is a long time in dance, especially when the Asian currency meltdown is hotting up. We have just heard that Taegu has been forced to withdraw the CDT invitation for purely financial reasons.
[The remainder of the article, as published in the Canberra Times, was the same as in the earlier text]
© Frank McKone, Canberra
CDT has been invited to appear in South Korea, presenting Journey, choreographed by Artistic Director Stephanie Burridge and danced by Sydney-based Anca Frakenhaeuser and Patrick Harding-Irmer. This 50 minute duet, of an independent pioneer woman's relationship with a convict, has had successful seasons in Sydney and Canberra, most recently at the Festival of the Contemporary Arts at Gorman House last October.
Journey was requested by Joo Youn Hee, Manager of Korea Dance Institute, for the International Dance Festival in Taegu City on April 5, after she viewed the video of the Sydney production. CDT's videos present Burridge's work to the modern dance network, while Asian companies seek out works - in Joo's case from 10 western and eastern cultures. The Festival tours from Taegu to Pusan, Ulsan, Pohang, Andong and Taejean over four days.
Unfortunately two weeks is a long time in dance, especially when the Asian currency meltdown is hotting up. We have just heard that Taegu has been forced to withdraw the CDT invitation for purely financial reasons.
[The remainder of the article, as published in the Canberra Times, was the same as in the earlier text]
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 12 March 1998
1998: Educating Rita by Willy Russell
Educating Rita by Willy Russell. Paradox Theatre directed by Ivor Selby, with Margaret Forster and Peter Morris. Currong Theatre, Gorman House March 11 - 14 and 18 - 21, 1998.
Paradox Theatre is not easy to pigeonhole. Like coral on the Barrier Reef, Canberra spawns theatre companies. This group has survived for three years with no funding, on projects ranging from Amnesty International fund-raisers, work for other companies (Wildwood's Bod and Artistories for The Company in 1997) to productions of Terry Pratchett and now Educating Rita.
I think the unifying link in this apparently eclectic history is sincerity of intention and professionalism, even when, of this production's director and actors only Margaret Forster demonstrates any professional training.
Selby has taken this play seriously, even though Frank, the debilitated academic, criticises Rita for her unfashionable Marxist analysis of literature (while she at this point is too academically naive to know that this is what she is doing). This production is worth seeing because it reveals the relevance of Marx's concept of the alienated worker. Rita arrives with a sense of alienation that only learning can resolve - but paradoxically her success almost undermines her tutor Frank's sense of his own worth.
This production is not played for laughs or simple romanticism - as the popular film was - but the humour is not lost. In fact I preferred the greater irony in the laughs, which came from a much sadder picture of the failed poet and an often harder woman determined to establish her freedom. I saw the place of this play in the G.B.Shaw tradition which I hadn't seriously considered before: an inevitable comparison with Pygmalion.
The direction needs more depth in characterisation and control of the momentary shifts in relationship between Frank and Rita; while Peter Morris needs to learn to express frustration and despair without the audible huffing which is common in amateur actors trying to "emote". But he made up for this in the difficult - paradoxically sobering - drunken scenes. Margaret Forster has nice timing, voice, movement and mood changes, and for me carries the play. Sound, lighting and costumes are excellent.
Overall, an interesting first night, with the promise of performances settling in well.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Paradox Theatre is not easy to pigeonhole. Like coral on the Barrier Reef, Canberra spawns theatre companies. This group has survived for three years with no funding, on projects ranging from Amnesty International fund-raisers, work for other companies (Wildwood's Bod and Artistories for The Company in 1997) to productions of Terry Pratchett and now Educating Rita.
I think the unifying link in this apparently eclectic history is sincerity of intention and professionalism, even when, of this production's director and actors only Margaret Forster demonstrates any professional training.
Selby has taken this play seriously, even though Frank, the debilitated academic, criticises Rita for her unfashionable Marxist analysis of literature (while she at this point is too academically naive to know that this is what she is doing). This production is worth seeing because it reveals the relevance of Marx's concept of the alienated worker. Rita arrives with a sense of alienation that only learning can resolve - but paradoxically her success almost undermines her tutor Frank's sense of his own worth.
This production is not played for laughs or simple romanticism - as the popular film was - but the humour is not lost. In fact I preferred the greater irony in the laughs, which came from a much sadder picture of the failed poet and an often harder woman determined to establish her freedom. I saw the place of this play in the G.B.Shaw tradition which I hadn't seriously considered before: an inevitable comparison with Pygmalion.
The direction needs more depth in characterisation and control of the momentary shifts in relationship between Frank and Rita; while Peter Morris needs to learn to express frustration and despair without the audible huffing which is common in amateur actors trying to "emote". But he made up for this in the difficult - paradoxically sobering - drunken scenes. Margaret Forster has nice timing, voice, movement and mood changes, and for me carries the play. Sound, lighting and costumes are excellent.
Overall, an interesting first night, with the promise of performances settling in well.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 9 March 1998
1998: Feature article on Stephanie Burridge, Canberra Dance Theatre
Where has Canberra Dance Theatre come from, and where is it going?
On April 5 CDT will appear in South Korea, presenting Journey, choreographed by Artistic Director Stephanie Burridge and danced by Sydney-based Anca Frakenhaeuser and Patrick Harding-Irmer. This 50 minute duet, of an independent pioneer woman's relationship with a convict, has had successful seasons in Sydney and Canberra, most recently at the Festival of the Contemporary Arts at Gorman House last October.
South Korea is a new destination for Burridge, after The Philippines, Hong Kong and India of recent years, not to mention her now completed doctoral study of the influence of Aboriginal dance on choreography in Australia.
Long ago, 20 years in fact, Stephanie Burridge was invited to direct Canberra Dance Ensemble, a local company with big ambitions. In the mid-80's the name changed to Canberra Dance Theatre - a more significant development than it seems. The 90's has seen a new approach to funding: the one-off project approach instead of funding the company for a year at a time.
Other dance companies have come and gone - Human Veins to Meryl Tankard - but CDT continues, growing from its early strength in the local community to an international outreach company. This is a significant achievement which has not received wide enough recognition locally, maybe because Burridge's work is so firmly centred in the contemporary or "modern" dance tradition in a town where classical ballet has such a hold.
Burridge trained at the Rudolph Laban Centre in London. Laban's theories about movement, and his method of recording dance (sometimes called Labanotation), are credited with being the basis for modern dance in both Europe and America. Coming from so close to the source, Burridge's CDT has always had two elements of Laban's work: an analysis of dance into its essential movement qualities, and a cross-cultural emphasis. Her training gave her the framework for creating quality work, teaching modern method, and relating to other cultures through what is now an international language in dance.
Dance Theatre was the concept preferred by Laban - dance designed to have theatrical impact - while "ensemble" suggested a smaller scale perhaps less expressive ambition. So CDE became CDT. The change in funding has been a force, good and bad. Project funding starves the artists between projects, so Burridge had no choice but to free-lance and promote CDT further afield, and the Asia connection has developed as a result.
So you can certainly go to Gorman House to see CDT in action or to train, but this April 5 you'll need to be at the Great Theatre in the Cultural Arts Centre in Taegu City, South Korea, and you can follow the International Dance Festival around Pusan, Ulsan, Pohang, Andong and Taejean over the next four days.
Journey was requested by Joo Youn Hee, Manager of Korea Dance Institute, after she viewed the video of the Sydney production. CDT's videos present Burridge's work to the modern dance network, while Asian companies seek out works - in Joo's case from 10 western and eastern cultures.
Following Burridge's visits in 1996 and 1997, CDT now has a strong connection with Ballet Philippines. We shall see them here in October in a season including Islands, developed from Burridge's Choreographic Centre Fellowship work, and her new work Spirit of Place. Ballet Philippines has already toured excerpts from Islands to various other Asian countries.
So Canberra Dance Theatre is now a local teaching and development company, a company drawing on top quality dancers nationally, and a source of choreography for other companies internationally. Maybe it's time for funding arrangements to reflect the consistent dedication over two decades and into the foreseeable future of an Artistic Director who will almost certainly soon be Dr Stephanie Burridge.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On April 5 CDT will appear in South Korea, presenting Journey, choreographed by Artistic Director Stephanie Burridge and danced by Sydney-based Anca Frakenhaeuser and Patrick Harding-Irmer. This 50 minute duet, of an independent pioneer woman's relationship with a convict, has had successful seasons in Sydney and Canberra, most recently at the Festival of the Contemporary Arts at Gorman House last October.
South Korea is a new destination for Burridge, after The Philippines, Hong Kong and India of recent years, not to mention her now completed doctoral study of the influence of Aboriginal dance on choreography in Australia.
Long ago, 20 years in fact, Stephanie Burridge was invited to direct Canberra Dance Ensemble, a local company with big ambitions. In the mid-80's the name changed to Canberra Dance Theatre - a more significant development than it seems. The 90's has seen a new approach to funding: the one-off project approach instead of funding the company for a year at a time.
Other dance companies have come and gone - Human Veins to Meryl Tankard - but CDT continues, growing from its early strength in the local community to an international outreach company. This is a significant achievement which has not received wide enough recognition locally, maybe because Burridge's work is so firmly centred in the contemporary or "modern" dance tradition in a town where classical ballet has such a hold.
Burridge trained at the Rudolph Laban Centre in London. Laban's theories about movement, and his method of recording dance (sometimes called Labanotation), are credited with being the basis for modern dance in both Europe and America. Coming from so close to the source, Burridge's CDT has always had two elements of Laban's work: an analysis of dance into its essential movement qualities, and a cross-cultural emphasis. Her training gave her the framework for creating quality work, teaching modern method, and relating to other cultures through what is now an international language in dance.
Dance Theatre was the concept preferred by Laban - dance designed to have theatrical impact - while "ensemble" suggested a smaller scale perhaps less expressive ambition. So CDE became CDT. The change in funding has been a force, good and bad. Project funding starves the artists between projects, so Burridge had no choice but to free-lance and promote CDT further afield, and the Asia connection has developed as a result.
So you can certainly go to Gorman House to see CDT in action or to train, but this April 5 you'll need to be at the Great Theatre in the Cultural Arts Centre in Taegu City, South Korea, and you can follow the International Dance Festival around Pusan, Ulsan, Pohang, Andong and Taejean over the next four days.
Journey was requested by Joo Youn Hee, Manager of Korea Dance Institute, after she viewed the video of the Sydney production. CDT's videos present Burridge's work to the modern dance network, while Asian companies seek out works - in Joo's case from 10 western and eastern cultures.
Following Burridge's visits in 1996 and 1997, CDT now has a strong connection with Ballet Philippines. We shall see them here in October in a season including Islands, developed from Burridge's Choreographic Centre Fellowship work, and her new work Spirit of Place. Ballet Philippines has already toured excerpts from Islands to various other Asian countries.
So Canberra Dance Theatre is now a local teaching and development company, a company drawing on top quality dancers nationally, and a source of choreography for other companies internationally. Maybe it's time for funding arrangements to reflect the consistent dedication over two decades and into the foreseeable future of an Artistic Director who will almost certainly soon be Dr Stephanie Burridge.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 5 March 1998
1998: Feature article on Gunnar Isaacson, Cultural Centre Queanbeyan
Gunnar Isaacson - check your 1963 ABC TV program for the first and last time you saw his name in print. Yet Isaacson's camera lit your television screen with international news and documentaries from the 1950's to the 1980's.
Now 77 (he expects to retire at 80), still self-effacing but a dynamic organiser, Isaacson has directed his enduring interest in children - famous in his travel documentary series Stina's Diary, featuring his own family and children they met in countries all over Europe and Asia (and repeated in 1963 under the title Gunnar Isaacson without his knowledge) - into the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan Inc (CCQ). In Studio 17, provided by Queanbeyan Council without rent, Isaacson uses garage sale video equipment and a small acting space to help young people put their theatre and media interests into practice.
His work, using CCQ membership fees, sponsorship from local businesses and project by project grants from Queanbeyan Council, focusses on creating real outcomes: the production of a theatre script by a new young writer; making a video documentary of Queanbeyan's recent Youth Festival; documentaries on Queanbeyan's young achievers from Olympic Gold champion rower Megan Still to Tim Stephens of School of Arts Cafe fame.
The essential thing is, he says, that young people must have a chance to go on and achieve without fear or favour; with their own sense of direction.
After World War II, the young Isaacson felt that drive, leaving Sweden for South America, meeting the Swedish King's brother in Buenos Aires to make documentaries. He came to Australia in 1948 after a stint in film school at the College of the City of New York. 50 years on he is proud that his protege, Tom Murphy (1997 Australian Young Shakespearean of the Year), is currently taking courses in the same college before going on to a study tour at The Globe Theatre, London.
Isaacson sees himself as a stimulator of talent, whatever the young person's background, so there is no charge for activities. Most participants are between 16 and 19, but occasionally someone younger - in the present group even an 11 year old - will arrive with the motivation to learn technique and the desire to follow through a project, working in a highly democratic team approach. Isaacson worked closely with well known educator Norman Baker to create what they have called "integrated learning".
Yet until the 1970's, the roving cameraman - the news "stringer" - that Isaacson was, worked solo, shooting the news and documentary material on 16mm film with no sound track. It was a shock when one day he found that the next contract required on-the-spot sound recording - and this could only be done with a crew. How could he continue to get the intimate, personalised shots - especially of children - which were his hallmark and central to his concerns with humanity, when two other people would be there watching and recording?
Now, says Isaacson, new technology has come full circle. He moved into work with Film Australia, with many films made for schools which led to a new understanding of education. At CCQ his young colleagues can once again experience solo work, recording sound and vision on video as they go. Look at the ABC's Race Around the World, says Isaacson, and there are the young people with the filmic freedom he had years ago.
Gunnar Isaacson began his recent relationship with young playwrights by taking a street kid to the Australian National Playwrights Conference in 1994. With strong support from ANPC director May-Brit Akerholt and local representative Carol Woodrow (well known for establishing the Canberra Children's Theatre in the early 1970's - spawning Canberra Youth Theatre and The Jigsaw Theatre Company), young people who might not otherwise have the chance now go to each ANPC Conference, and the ANPC sends young writers' scripts to Isaacson. He uses Queanbeyan Council grants for travel and accommodation for two week workshops at Studio 17 for these writers, often with professional dramaturgs, leading to public readings or workshop productions.
The key to Issacson's method is that the young people see themselves as helping other, maybe less fortunate, young people. Through their theatre script development and video productions, the young provide their own role models. The need for Gunnar Issacson to make this happen, he believes, lies in the young people's need for building self-esteem in a world where governments, sadly, are antagonistic to human values and focus on the bottom line.
The bottom line in Studio 17 is the reverse of a long tradition. Instead of supplying potato chips to go and see someone else's film, when the youngsters arrive here Gunnar Isaacson, the ultimate stimulator, brings out the chips while they plan making their own.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Now 77 (he expects to retire at 80), still self-effacing but a dynamic organiser, Isaacson has directed his enduring interest in children - famous in his travel documentary series Stina's Diary, featuring his own family and children they met in countries all over Europe and Asia (and repeated in 1963 under the title Gunnar Isaacson without his knowledge) - into the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan Inc (CCQ). In Studio 17, provided by Queanbeyan Council without rent, Isaacson uses garage sale video equipment and a small acting space to help young people put their theatre and media interests into practice.
His work, using CCQ membership fees, sponsorship from local businesses and project by project grants from Queanbeyan Council, focusses on creating real outcomes: the production of a theatre script by a new young writer; making a video documentary of Queanbeyan's recent Youth Festival; documentaries on Queanbeyan's young achievers from Olympic Gold champion rower Megan Still to Tim Stephens of School of Arts Cafe fame.
The essential thing is, he says, that young people must have a chance to go on and achieve without fear or favour; with their own sense of direction.
After World War II, the young Isaacson felt that drive, leaving Sweden for South America, meeting the Swedish King's brother in Buenos Aires to make documentaries. He came to Australia in 1948 after a stint in film school at the College of the City of New York. 50 years on he is proud that his protege, Tom Murphy (1997 Australian Young Shakespearean of the Year), is currently taking courses in the same college before going on to a study tour at The Globe Theatre, London.
Isaacson sees himself as a stimulator of talent, whatever the young person's background, so there is no charge for activities. Most participants are between 16 and 19, but occasionally someone younger - in the present group even an 11 year old - will arrive with the motivation to learn technique and the desire to follow through a project, working in a highly democratic team approach. Isaacson worked closely with well known educator Norman Baker to create what they have called "integrated learning".
Yet until the 1970's, the roving cameraman - the news "stringer" - that Isaacson was, worked solo, shooting the news and documentary material on 16mm film with no sound track. It was a shock when one day he found that the next contract required on-the-spot sound recording - and this could only be done with a crew. How could he continue to get the intimate, personalised shots - especially of children - which were his hallmark and central to his concerns with humanity, when two other people would be there watching and recording?
Now, says Isaacson, new technology has come full circle. He moved into work with Film Australia, with many films made for schools which led to a new understanding of education. At CCQ his young colleagues can once again experience solo work, recording sound and vision on video as they go. Look at the ABC's Race Around the World, says Isaacson, and there are the young people with the filmic freedom he had years ago.
Gunnar Isaacson began his recent relationship with young playwrights by taking a street kid to the Australian National Playwrights Conference in 1994. With strong support from ANPC director May-Brit Akerholt and local representative Carol Woodrow (well known for establishing the Canberra Children's Theatre in the early 1970's - spawning Canberra Youth Theatre and The Jigsaw Theatre Company), young people who might not otherwise have the chance now go to each ANPC Conference, and the ANPC sends young writers' scripts to Isaacson. He uses Queanbeyan Council grants for travel and accommodation for two week workshops at Studio 17 for these writers, often with professional dramaturgs, leading to public readings or workshop productions.
The key to Issacson's method is that the young people see themselves as helping other, maybe less fortunate, young people. Through their theatre script development and video productions, the young provide their own role models. The need for Gunnar Issacson to make this happen, he believes, lies in the young people's need for building self-esteem in a world where governments, sadly, are antagonistic to human values and focus on the bottom line.
The bottom line in Studio 17 is the reverse of a long tradition. Instead of supplying potato chips to go and see someone else's film, when the youngsters arrive here Gunnar Isaacson, the ultimate stimulator, brings out the chips while they plan making their own.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 4 March 1998
1998: Short feature on Shakespeare Globe Centre program
The Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia has launched its 1998 program. As in previous years, there will be the Shakespeare Globe Centre Youth Festival running in schools throughout the country. Last year's Australian Young Shakespearean Artist of the Year was Tom Murphy from Queanbeyan, who is currently exploring overseas and will take up his award visiting the London Globe Theatre in June.
The Teacher of the Year award will be offered again this year: a chance to "celebrate, study and share the first-hand Shakespearean experience" at the London Globe. Teachers need to present a detailed proposal for the professional development they would like to undertake.
This year the prize for the young Shakespearean Artist of the Year will include a full scholarship for four weeks at the London Globe in the northern summer along with the winners from USA, Japan, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and Germany.
These "Globe Apprentices" will be immersed into the life of the Globe Theatre; will benefit from master classes with professional actors and directors and join in regular movement and vocal work with the Globe company. They will observe rehearsals and technical sessions, and will attend productions.
The apprentices will also train as an Apprentice Company and present sonnets, monologues and scenes in the Globe Theatre on Sunday afternoons. In this intensive four weeks apprentices will help in the production office, box office, wardrobe and front of house, as well as going to classes on the historical, social, cultural and political contexts of the playhouse and the plays.
The Australian Shakespeare Globe Centre is based at Sydney University. Enquiries should be directed to Diana Denley or Hugh O'Keefe by phone 02 9351 5231 or fax 02 9351 5230.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Teacher of the Year award will be offered again this year: a chance to "celebrate, study and share the first-hand Shakespearean experience" at the London Globe. Teachers need to present a detailed proposal for the professional development they would like to undertake.
This year the prize for the young Shakespearean Artist of the Year will include a full scholarship for four weeks at the London Globe in the northern summer along with the winners from USA, Japan, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand and Germany.
These "Globe Apprentices" will be immersed into the life of the Globe Theatre; will benefit from master classes with professional actors and directors and join in regular movement and vocal work with the Globe company. They will observe rehearsals and technical sessions, and will attend productions.
The apprentices will also train as an Apprentice Company and present sonnets, monologues and scenes in the Globe Theatre on Sunday afternoons. In this intensive four weeks apprentices will help in the production office, box office, wardrobe and front of house, as well as going to classes on the historical, social, cultural and political contexts of the playhouse and the plays.
The Australian Shakespeare Globe Centre is based at Sydney University. Enquiries should be directed to Diana Denley or Hugh O'Keefe by phone 02 9351 5231 or fax 02 9351 5230.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 2 March 1998
1998: Wallpaper Stories by Lynette Wallis
Wallpaper Stories, written and directed by Lynette Wallis. Jigsaw Theatre Company. Touring ACT primary schools February 23 to March 21, 1998. Professional.
Most houses in Canberra have few layers of wallpaper, yet none of the 80 young people at Forrest School last Monday were fazed when Louis exposed 1956, 1932 and 1885 and met the other 10 year olds who had lived in his house. Kenneth Spiteri played Louis' fears, excitement and sadness, yet he had perhaps an easier time than Sarah Snell who played all the other characters in a set only Elizabeth Patterson could have designed - more extrances and exits than the funniest farce.
Entertaining as the show is - the teachers pointed out that not one child lost concentration - the key is education: what last century would have called an education in sensibility. Louis' day at home sick, while his recently divorced mother goes to work, is the beginning of new understanding - for him and for the audience. Divorce makes sense to him - his parents are happier and he has a much better time with them both. But Jeannie from 1956 sees divorce as sin and thinks it's dreadful that his mother has to work. "But she likes going to work," says Louis. So there is Issue Number One.
Especially clever is Wallis' research into language. Maybe Humphrey from 1885, when the house was in an expensive suburb (I imagine somewhere in North Fitzroy or Surrey Hills), is a bit too stereotypically upper class but the script humorously shows language changing over time and between social classes. Issue Number Two.
The big issue for me was human rights, especially the rights of children. Charlie Kelly, aged 10, has his arm torn off by the machine he works on in Humphrey's father's factory. Humphrey's father gives Mrs Kelly £5 so she won't inform the police. 13 is the employment age limit. This year Amnesty International has a campaign on Women's and Children's Rights. Issue Number Three - and the saddest moment in the play, as Louis, with his audience, realises the enormity of what happened to Charlie in 1885.
Fully booked for this tour, I expect Wallpaper Stories will go interstate as it surely deserves. If your school has missed out this time, ring Wayne Collins at Jigsaw on 6247 2133.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Most houses in Canberra have few layers of wallpaper, yet none of the 80 young people at Forrest School last Monday were fazed when Louis exposed 1956, 1932 and 1885 and met the other 10 year olds who had lived in his house. Kenneth Spiteri played Louis' fears, excitement and sadness, yet he had perhaps an easier time than Sarah Snell who played all the other characters in a set only Elizabeth Patterson could have designed - more extrances and exits than the funniest farce.
Entertaining as the show is - the teachers pointed out that not one child lost concentration - the key is education: what last century would have called an education in sensibility. Louis' day at home sick, while his recently divorced mother goes to work, is the beginning of new understanding - for him and for the audience. Divorce makes sense to him - his parents are happier and he has a much better time with them both. But Jeannie from 1956 sees divorce as sin and thinks it's dreadful that his mother has to work. "But she likes going to work," says Louis. So there is Issue Number One.
Especially clever is Wallis' research into language. Maybe Humphrey from 1885, when the house was in an expensive suburb (I imagine somewhere in North Fitzroy or Surrey Hills), is a bit too stereotypically upper class but the script humorously shows language changing over time and between social classes. Issue Number Two.
The big issue for me was human rights, especially the rights of children. Charlie Kelly, aged 10, has his arm torn off by the machine he works on in Humphrey's father's factory. Humphrey's father gives Mrs Kelly £5 so she won't inform the police. 13 is the employment age limit. This year Amnesty International has a campaign on Women's and Children's Rights. Issue Number Three - and the saddest moment in the play, as Louis, with his audience, realises the enormity of what happened to Charlie in 1885.
Fully booked for this tour, I expect Wallpaper Stories will go interstate as it surely deserves. If your school has missed out this time, ring Wayne Collins at Jigsaw on 6247 2133.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 26 February 1998
1998: Feature article on Dr Geoffrey Borny at the Australian National University
A new drama is about to unfold at the Australian National University. Senior Lecturer and Convenor of Drama and Theatre Studies, Dr Geoffrey Borny, has taken advantage of the restructuring of the University - so much a matter of contention especially in the Arts Faculty. Drama is on the move.
Theatre people are nothing if not eclectic gatherers of any opportunity. Drama began at ANU some 10 years ago when a position became available in the Department of Modern European Languages. "Post-Modern" was in the offing, and semiotics, including the semiotics of theatre, was all the go. Therefore Theatre was a Modern European Language! Especially when there was a job vacancy in that department, but not in the English Department. So Professor Stephen Prickett, Head of English at the time, put up a third of the cost, while MEL paid the rest. The Drama job was supposed to be a kind of service provider to literature and language courses so that students reading plays would learn something about how play production worked. ANU was just catching up with the movement to study the practice of theatre which began in the late 1970's in other academic institutions.
Until Borny arrived in 1991, the purpose of Drama at ANU was a matter of fuzzy logic. Coming from 3 years as Head of Theatre Studies at University of New England, Borny fitted easily into the culture of an Australian university town. Dr Borny prefers to be known as Geoffrey, being open to all students with an interest in theatre from the shy introspective theoretician to the budding professional practitioner. His egalitarian attitudes have seen the enrolments in Drama at ANU increase over the years as the total university enrolment has decreased.
Within the Modern European Languages Department Borny has had independence as the only expert in theatre, building up a small department of his own with Lecturer Tony Turner and part time staff Cathie Clelland, Hilary Taylor and Eulea Kiraly, all well-known locally in their own right. Why should he move?
ANU's internal politics in a time of cuts, especially in the climate of the new ideology which sees building up Business Administration (with an emphasis on Asia) as essential but Arts and apparently Modern European Languages in particular as expendable, have fortuitously re-directed Borny's attention to an English Department which now includes three expert theatre academicians: Professor Iain Wright, Dr Gillian Russell and Dr Jacqueline Lo.
The agreements are in writing and shortly we will see a new Department of English and Theatre Studies. For Geoffrey Borny this is a step in his plan to create at ANU a high profile, firmly based Theatre Studies institution.
This amalgamation offers students a wider and deeper range of opportunities at undergraduate, honours and doctoral levels of study, on the understanding that ANU does not pretend to be a training institution in professional theatre. Borny sees three equally important focusses in theatre studies. Professional training is highly technical, for the few who are sincerely dedicated to the practice (and who can expect to take up the limited employment opportunities). At the theoretical end is the study of texts and texts in production for the themes they explore: literary themes, sociological ideas, philosophies.
Borny takes a middle way, the crossover focus examining the conventions of theatre. He takes his students through the production process as they study a text, using the Drama Lab and the mainstage at the ANU Arts Centre, and putting on productions for the public through the vehicle of Papermoon Theatre, always with both the engagement / entertainment values of theatre and an educational purpose in mind. Often research into a past theatrical convention is tested on a modern audience: does Tennessee Williams' use of visual projections still work in The Glass Menagerie; or the use of direct address to the audience in Othello? Genre studies can mean studying farce via Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear. The need to see important plays which no-one else would present in Canberra led to the production last year of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts.
Now Drama at ANU has a clear logical place between the experience of secondary college drama and mature age training at institutions like NIDA. Dr Borny offers to develop the knowledge base and depth of understanding required of the modern actor or the modern drama teacher. There is a parallel with the new approach to medical training: take a degree first and then add the training. The result should be more erudite professionals, but, Geoffrey Borny will insist, never at the expense of the enjoyment of theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Theatre people are nothing if not eclectic gatherers of any opportunity. Drama began at ANU some 10 years ago when a position became available in the Department of Modern European Languages. "Post-Modern" was in the offing, and semiotics, including the semiotics of theatre, was all the go. Therefore Theatre was a Modern European Language! Especially when there was a job vacancy in that department, but not in the English Department. So Professor Stephen Prickett, Head of English at the time, put up a third of the cost, while MEL paid the rest. The Drama job was supposed to be a kind of service provider to literature and language courses so that students reading plays would learn something about how play production worked. ANU was just catching up with the movement to study the practice of theatre which began in the late 1970's in other academic institutions.
Until Borny arrived in 1991, the purpose of Drama at ANU was a matter of fuzzy logic. Coming from 3 years as Head of Theatre Studies at University of New England, Borny fitted easily into the culture of an Australian university town. Dr Borny prefers to be known as Geoffrey, being open to all students with an interest in theatre from the shy introspective theoretician to the budding professional practitioner. His egalitarian attitudes have seen the enrolments in Drama at ANU increase over the years as the total university enrolment has decreased.
Within the Modern European Languages Department Borny has had independence as the only expert in theatre, building up a small department of his own with Lecturer Tony Turner and part time staff Cathie Clelland, Hilary Taylor and Eulea Kiraly, all well-known locally in their own right. Why should he move?
ANU's internal politics in a time of cuts, especially in the climate of the new ideology which sees building up Business Administration (with an emphasis on Asia) as essential but Arts and apparently Modern European Languages in particular as expendable, have fortuitously re-directed Borny's attention to an English Department which now includes three expert theatre academicians: Professor Iain Wright, Dr Gillian Russell and Dr Jacqueline Lo.
The agreements are in writing and shortly we will see a new Department of English and Theatre Studies. For Geoffrey Borny this is a step in his plan to create at ANU a high profile, firmly based Theatre Studies institution.
This amalgamation offers students a wider and deeper range of opportunities at undergraduate, honours and doctoral levels of study, on the understanding that ANU does not pretend to be a training institution in professional theatre. Borny sees three equally important focusses in theatre studies. Professional training is highly technical, for the few who are sincerely dedicated to the practice (and who can expect to take up the limited employment opportunities). At the theoretical end is the study of texts and texts in production for the themes they explore: literary themes, sociological ideas, philosophies.
Borny takes a middle way, the crossover focus examining the conventions of theatre. He takes his students through the production process as they study a text, using the Drama Lab and the mainstage at the ANU Arts Centre, and putting on productions for the public through the vehicle of Papermoon Theatre, always with both the engagement / entertainment values of theatre and an educational purpose in mind. Often research into a past theatrical convention is tested on a modern audience: does Tennessee Williams' use of visual projections still work in The Glass Menagerie; or the use of direct address to the audience in Othello? Genre studies can mean studying farce via Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear. The need to see important plays which no-one else would present in Canberra led to the production last year of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts.
Now Drama at ANU has a clear logical place between the experience of secondary college drama and mature age training at institutions like NIDA. Dr Borny offers to develop the knowledge base and depth of understanding required of the modern actor or the modern drama teacher. There is a parallel with the new approach to medical training: take a degree first and then add the training. The result should be more erudite professionals, but, Geoffrey Borny will insist, never at the expense of the enjoyment of theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 19 February 1998
1998: At the Crossroads by Jan Cornall
At the Crossroads by Jan Cornall. Women on a Shoestring directed by Camilla Blunden at the Street Theatre Studio, 8.30 pm February 18 - 28, 1998. Professional.
This is Australian theatre of the best traditional kind: entertaining in a slightly larrikin way, encouraging the audience to clap, cheer and whistle, while also eliciting silent appreciation of the reality of people's lives in the bush. A travelling show like the melodramas and music halls of last century, with a touch of Dad and Dave, At the Crossroads has a long touring future in the Northern Territory first up, with the other states to follow.
Justine Saunders plays Bernice, an educated middle class person whose Aboriginal mother was denied her rightful inheritance. In an unexpected twist of history, Bernice becomes the legal owner of the land at the Crossroads "in the middle of nowhere".
Alice (Chrissie Shaw) is a traditionalist farmer's wife: great organiser in dust, flood and fire. Liliana (Maria De Marco), banana farmer, has all the social ebullience of her original Italian village. Charmaine (Julie Ross) is educated and green, married her farmer for love and works for a sustainable future on the land.
Now that Beryl is dead, though not forgotten - she was the President and Secretary and everything else of the CWA, the Bush Fire Brigade, the local Red Cross and all the hundred or so other organisations run by country women - who should now be elected President at this Extraordinary General Meeting? Through song, story and dance we find out the truth behind each candidate, take part in the vote, and discover the power of the deceased Beryl.
At the Crossroads is polished theatre from a longstanding, very experienced team, designed to be toured to city and country venues around Australia. Issues are confronted through the women's stories, gathered in research across the nation, not in an ideological way but with humanity, humour and sensitivity to how complex are the questions of land ownership, ecological degradation, love, loyalty and spirituality. The perfect antidote to the Pauline Hanson black spectre view of history for country and city audiences alike. Not to be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is Australian theatre of the best traditional kind: entertaining in a slightly larrikin way, encouraging the audience to clap, cheer and whistle, while also eliciting silent appreciation of the reality of people's lives in the bush. A travelling show like the melodramas and music halls of last century, with a touch of Dad and Dave, At the Crossroads has a long touring future in the Northern Territory first up, with the other states to follow.
Justine Saunders plays Bernice, an educated middle class person whose Aboriginal mother was denied her rightful inheritance. In an unexpected twist of history, Bernice becomes the legal owner of the land at the Crossroads "in the middle of nowhere".
Alice (Chrissie Shaw) is a traditionalist farmer's wife: great organiser in dust, flood and fire. Liliana (Maria De Marco), banana farmer, has all the social ebullience of her original Italian village. Charmaine (Julie Ross) is educated and green, married her farmer for love and works for a sustainable future on the land.
Now that Beryl is dead, though not forgotten - she was the President and Secretary and everything else of the CWA, the Bush Fire Brigade, the local Red Cross and all the hundred or so other organisations run by country women - who should now be elected President at this Extraordinary General Meeting? Through song, story and dance we find out the truth behind each candidate, take part in the vote, and discover the power of the deceased Beryl.
At the Crossroads is polished theatre from a longstanding, very experienced team, designed to be toured to city and country venues around Australia. Issues are confronted through the women's stories, gathered in research across the nation, not in an ideological way but with humanity, humour and sensitivity to how complex are the questions of land ownership, ecological degradation, love, loyalty and spirituality. The perfect antidote to the Pauline Hanson black spectre view of history for country and city audiences alike. Not to be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 18 February 1998
1998: Preview article for The Ghost Sonata by Judith Crispin-Creswell, directed by David Atfield
Australian opera, according to composer Judith Crispin-Creswell, is more complex than traditional European work, because composers can have more faith in their audience being intelligent and literate here.
On the other hand, funding bodies such as the ACT Cultural Council, perhaps more influenced by bums on seats and previous successes, find it difficult to put money up for brand new work like The Ghost Sonata, Crispin-Creswell's adaptation of the 1907 play by August Strindberg. So, without financial support, we will see a professional production at the ANU Arts Centre (February 26 - 28) in which none of the performers will be paid and the production team will receive very little.
Singers in the main roles - including Tom Layton (The Old Man), Kent McIntosh (The Student) and Erika Tolano (The Mummy) - are mainly graduates of the Canberra School of Music, where Larry Sitsky is the force behind the composition course. Crispin-Creswell is completing honours degrees in both composition and opera singing and appears to be the first such student in Australia to produce a complete opera. Her director for The Ghost Sonata is David Atfield, winner of a Canberra Critics' Circle Award last year for his powerful production of Furious by Michael Gow at The Street Theatre.
Between composer and director there could easily be conflict, as we have seen between the conductor and director of Wagner's Tannhauser in Sydney, but the contrasts between Crispin-Creswell and Atfield will create an interesting interplay between colour and mood in the music and social commentary in the staging. Atfield has found the imagery in Strindberg's original - a house has just collapsed as the play begins, while the house on stage seems to offer hope, but is found to contain moral collapse within - can represent our modern conundrum called economic rationalism. Publicly it is touted as our saviour, while it destroys the fabric of society.
Crispin-Creswell's music, which she says uses melody and leit motifs in ways which other "strictly modern" composers may feel are too beautiful, will be supported by David Longmuir's set design, which wraps and lights the physical objects to make them dream-like, allowing the singers to take the stage. Atfield, at the same time, is treating the singers as actors, focussing his direction on the Stanislawski method. In this way the objectives of characters will reveal both the social and class issues in the drama and develop strong motivations in the way they relate to each other.
The music emphasises the personal hopes and sense of failure which led to Strindberg's sonata of ghosts, and seems to me to hang the play together better than the original words alone. The set, including Longmuir's intuitive hands-on lighting which will respond to the music and acting, will give visual form to the moods in the music. The acting, using perhaps a quarter of Strindberg's words, will give us the outer shell for the inner feelings. This is sure to be an exciting, though demanding, experience for an audience looking for a new form of opera.
You can't have opera without a chorus, of course - one reason why opera is even more expensive to produce than straight plays - and Crispin-Creswell uses her Chorus to expand on one of Strindberg's dramatic ideas. He was perhaps the originator of splitting a character into several different aspects, each one presented on stage to confront the central character (The Student in The Ghost Sonata) with his own hopes, fears and guilt. In this opera, the Chorus, singing from the pit, present The Student with the warnings he needs to heed as he questions, tries to understand, and hopes to set up a successful life. But they sing in languages and musical forms which, though he can hear and feel, he cannot understand. He continues to hope throughout, but the end is just another beginning and the Chorus's efforts, in the tradition of Greek tragedy, will be never-ending.
The Student sings: "Wrong that was wrought in moments of anger / Never by added wrong can be righted". Judith Crispin-Creswell and David Atfield are an exciting combination of mood and motivation who may, in art, achieve what The Student hopes for in life. Public funding ought, of course, to support them. In its absence, professionals will still present this work because, as the economic rationalists would say, the fundamentals are in place.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On the other hand, funding bodies such as the ACT Cultural Council, perhaps more influenced by bums on seats and previous successes, find it difficult to put money up for brand new work like The Ghost Sonata, Crispin-Creswell's adaptation of the 1907 play by August Strindberg. So, without financial support, we will see a professional production at the ANU Arts Centre (February 26 - 28) in which none of the performers will be paid and the production team will receive very little.
Singers in the main roles - including Tom Layton (The Old Man), Kent McIntosh (The Student) and Erika Tolano (The Mummy) - are mainly graduates of the Canberra School of Music, where Larry Sitsky is the force behind the composition course. Crispin-Creswell is completing honours degrees in both composition and opera singing and appears to be the first such student in Australia to produce a complete opera. Her director for The Ghost Sonata is David Atfield, winner of a Canberra Critics' Circle Award last year for his powerful production of Furious by Michael Gow at The Street Theatre.
Between composer and director there could easily be conflict, as we have seen between the conductor and director of Wagner's Tannhauser in Sydney, but the contrasts between Crispin-Creswell and Atfield will create an interesting interplay between colour and mood in the music and social commentary in the staging. Atfield has found the imagery in Strindberg's original - a house has just collapsed as the play begins, while the house on stage seems to offer hope, but is found to contain moral collapse within - can represent our modern conundrum called economic rationalism. Publicly it is touted as our saviour, while it destroys the fabric of society.
Crispin-Creswell's music, which she says uses melody and leit motifs in ways which other "strictly modern" composers may feel are too beautiful, will be supported by David Longmuir's set design, which wraps and lights the physical objects to make them dream-like, allowing the singers to take the stage. Atfield, at the same time, is treating the singers as actors, focussing his direction on the Stanislawski method. In this way the objectives of characters will reveal both the social and class issues in the drama and develop strong motivations in the way they relate to each other.
The music emphasises the personal hopes and sense of failure which led to Strindberg's sonata of ghosts, and seems to me to hang the play together better than the original words alone. The set, including Longmuir's intuitive hands-on lighting which will respond to the music and acting, will give visual form to the moods in the music. The acting, using perhaps a quarter of Strindberg's words, will give us the outer shell for the inner feelings. This is sure to be an exciting, though demanding, experience for an audience looking for a new form of opera.
You can't have opera without a chorus, of course - one reason why opera is even more expensive to produce than straight plays - and Crispin-Creswell uses her Chorus to expand on one of Strindberg's dramatic ideas. He was perhaps the originator of splitting a character into several different aspects, each one presented on stage to confront the central character (The Student in The Ghost Sonata) with his own hopes, fears and guilt. In this opera, the Chorus, singing from the pit, present The Student with the warnings he needs to heed as he questions, tries to understand, and hopes to set up a successful life. But they sing in languages and musical forms which, though he can hear and feel, he cannot understand. He continues to hope throughout, but the end is just another beginning and the Chorus's efforts, in the tradition of Greek tragedy, will be never-ending.
The Student sings: "Wrong that was wrought in moments of anger / Never by added wrong can be righted". Judith Crispin-Creswell and David Atfield are an exciting combination of mood and motivation who may, in art, achieve what The Student hopes for in life. Public funding ought, of course, to support them. In its absence, professionals will still present this work because, as the economic rationalists would say, the fundamentals are in place.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 1 February 1998
1998: Ubuntu by Golden Future Faces
Ubuntu created and performed by South African youth theatre company Golden Future Faces. Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Sunday February 1.
"Ubuntu" means "all people together". The theme of their songs, dances and acting was reflected not only in their use of classical traditions from Xhosa, Zulu and Bantu cultures, but in the multicultural mix of the audience in the bright, new and exciting Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Golden Future Faces is a coup for Domenic Mico, artistic director of Tuggeranong Community Arts, which he says has been only one among many equally thrilling events in the National Multicultural Arts Festival.
The young people's skills, coming from cultures in which rhythm, dance and storytelling are endemic, put to shame the traditional Anglo cultural inhibitions. Spontaneous applause for the drumming, the drink can dance by the girls and the wellington boot dance by the boys could not be held back by the afternoon heat, occasionally tempered by a brief southerly buster across the lake.
The hour long show took us from the past to the present, and looked to the future. The classical past needs preserving in a changing world, and the present is not a happy place. The strength of social criticism, not only of apartheid but nowadays even more of the violence among black Africans, made the central scenes highly confrontational. I felt some embarrassment in the audience as we realised what these young people had to face in their lives: Sharpeville Day; the isolation from their families of the mineworkers; the prayer "We pray for happiness, so that once again our children can play in the streets - with no fear, with no fear, with no fear."
"Those killers, they must go", they sang. I feared for their safety when performing in South Africa with such direct messages, but no, they told me, no-one has tried to interfere. This is brave youth theatre, the quality of the performance strengthened by the commitment to Ubuntu. Extended applause and the giving of gifts from the Tuggeranong community gives hope that cultural exchange is no longer politely applauding exotic art. The South Africans, like Daniel Williams, Ngunnawal arts administration trainee who welcomed us on the didgeridoo, were here "to stamp our authority on the existence of our identity".
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Ubuntu" means "all people together". The theme of their songs, dances and acting was reflected not only in their use of classical traditions from Xhosa, Zulu and Bantu cultures, but in the multicultural mix of the audience in the bright, new and exciting Tuggeranong Arts Centre. Golden Future Faces is a coup for Domenic Mico, artistic director of Tuggeranong Community Arts, which he says has been only one among many equally thrilling events in the National Multicultural Arts Festival.
The young people's skills, coming from cultures in which rhythm, dance and storytelling are endemic, put to shame the traditional Anglo cultural inhibitions. Spontaneous applause for the drumming, the drink can dance by the girls and the wellington boot dance by the boys could not be held back by the afternoon heat, occasionally tempered by a brief southerly buster across the lake.
The hour long show took us from the past to the present, and looked to the future. The classical past needs preserving in a changing world, and the present is not a happy place. The strength of social criticism, not only of apartheid but nowadays even more of the violence among black Africans, made the central scenes highly confrontational. I felt some embarrassment in the audience as we realised what these young people had to face in their lives: Sharpeville Day; the isolation from their families of the mineworkers; the prayer "We pray for happiness, so that once again our children can play in the streets - with no fear, with no fear, with no fear."
"Those killers, they must go", they sang. I feared for their safety when performing in South Africa with such direct messages, but no, they told me, no-one has tried to interfere. This is brave youth theatre, the quality of the performance strengthened by the commitment to Ubuntu. Extended applause and the giving of gifts from the Tuggeranong community gives hope that cultural exchange is no longer politely applauding exotic art. The South Africans, like Daniel Williams, Ngunnawal arts administration trainee who welcomed us on the didgeridoo, were here "to stamp our authority on the existence of our identity".
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1998: Man Friday by Adrian Mitchell
Man Friday by Adrian Mitchell. The Acting Company at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, February 1 - 8, 1998.
The value of a festival, like the National Multicultural Festival, is having comparisons thrust upon you. Having in the afternoon seen Golden Future Faces, a youth theatre from South Africa whose energy and commitment is drawn directly from the real experience of oppression, Adrian Mitchell's rather superficial, though politically correct, play appears no more than a mild philosophical argy-bargy. Written in the 1960's, even though during real race riots in Britain, Mitchell's less than worldly idealism shines through.
Alexander Selkirk, the real shipwrecked sailor who was Defoe's model for Robinson Crusoe, apparently had no companion through all the years isolated on his island. Defoe invented Man Friday to give his story some extra life. Unfortunately Adrian Mitchell's Friday is so much the noble enlightened quick-witted indigene, and his Crusoe so much the guilt ridden Christian imperialist capitalist racist, that the actors Adam McConvell and Phil Roberts, and director Estelle Muspratt, must be praised for keeping the piece moving for nearly an hour and a half.
In the end the question becomes clear: should Friday's people do the right thing and accept Crusoe, or is the risk of cultural pollution even from this one source so great that Crusoe must be sent back to his island, to live alone forever. But in getting to this point, Friday is so mellifluous and Crusoe so harsh that McConvell gets all our sympathy and Roberts has no choice but to rant loudly and often.
As an issues play for young people, there is value in seeing this production. The set, lighting and sound are all competently handled, extracting as much mood as the piece will allow, but in the end the script simply hasn't got the depth of humanity in the characters which the issue of racism deserves. The young South Africans showed the difference in their presentation, Ubuntu - all people together. Nothing is just black or white, accept or reject. In the real world there is no island where we can leave Crusoe safely in isolation.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The value of a festival, like the National Multicultural Festival, is having comparisons thrust upon you. Having in the afternoon seen Golden Future Faces, a youth theatre from South Africa whose energy and commitment is drawn directly from the real experience of oppression, Adrian Mitchell's rather superficial, though politically correct, play appears no more than a mild philosophical argy-bargy. Written in the 1960's, even though during real race riots in Britain, Mitchell's less than worldly idealism shines through.
Alexander Selkirk, the real shipwrecked sailor who was Defoe's model for Robinson Crusoe, apparently had no companion through all the years isolated on his island. Defoe invented Man Friday to give his story some extra life. Unfortunately Adrian Mitchell's Friday is so much the noble enlightened quick-witted indigene, and his Crusoe so much the guilt ridden Christian imperialist capitalist racist, that the actors Adam McConvell and Phil Roberts, and director Estelle Muspratt, must be praised for keeping the piece moving for nearly an hour and a half.
In the end the question becomes clear: should Friday's people do the right thing and accept Crusoe, or is the risk of cultural pollution even from this one source so great that Crusoe must be sent back to his island, to live alone forever. But in getting to this point, Friday is so mellifluous and Crusoe so harsh that McConvell gets all our sympathy and Roberts has no choice but to rant loudly and often.
As an issues play for young people, there is value in seeing this production. The set, lighting and sound are all competently handled, extracting as much mood as the piece will allow, but in the end the script simply hasn't got the depth of humanity in the characters which the issue of racism deserves. The young South Africans showed the difference in their presentation, Ubuntu - all people together. Nothing is just black or white, accept or reject. In the real world there is no island where we can leave Crusoe safely in isolation.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 25 January 1998
1998: Black Elk Speaks by Christopher Sergel
Black Elk Speaks by Christopher Sergel. The Company at Weston Park. Follow the red and black flags.
Black Elk Speaks has been postponed until Tuesday January 27 at 6.30pm at Weston Park. The wind and rain coming across the lake today (Sunday) would have made the dialogue impossible to hear, but the plans for the choreography look interesting. A large crowd turned up, even though the weather was truly black, bearing down on Black Mountain from the Brindabellas, but Black Elk was unable to speak today. We will need an un-rain (and un-wind)dance for Tuesday.
The Review
Black Elk Speaks by Christopher Sergel. Reading directed by Telia Nevile for The Company. Weston Park, January 27, 1998, only.
Someone must have danced, and danced well, after Sunday's wind and rain postponement. 29 degrees, gentle wafts, green pines, blue sky, sun setting as Black Elk spoke. Traffic on the parkway across the lake was an almost soothing distant reminder of modern living. In our little amphitheatre among the pines, symbolic of Pine Tree Ridge and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1876, people were quiet before the play began, maybe a little nervous of their sense that the earth should not be disturbed.
As Black Elk told his story, in simple pictures so we could understand, the Tuggeranong Parkway became, slicing through Aboriginal land, like the road to the goldfields murderously forced through Cheyenne country. As the story of Tambo, taken to America as a circus exhibit, currently on display at the National Library, indigenous people in the 19th Century were effectively seen as more animal than human. "Before the road signs were erected to their memory, these were people" says Black Elk, an old man remembering what he saw at Wounded Knee.
"What about the human beings who already live here?" asks a person ordered to leave her country in favour of the settlement of US citizens. "You're not citizens" is the government official's reply. "Red skin people are not mentioned in the Bible, which raises the question of whether they are actually human beings."
This play is a pageant of the invaders' hypocrisy and betrayal of the American indigenous peoples. As Marlon Brando mentions in his autobiography, almost 400 treaties were signed, but all were broken "with the blessing and sanction of our courts". Among the pine trees, the rocks and ridges, if this had been not merely a reading but a fully costumed production, it would be powerful theatre in education indeed. Despite the devastation of more than two centuries, Black Elk concludes: "We offer you the wooden cup filled with water. It is yours. We have spoken." He turned, an old man, to climb the final ridge. The audience remained silent, respectful of the earth and indigenous history. A fine moment of reconciliation for Australia Day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Black Elk Speaks has been postponed until Tuesday January 27 at 6.30pm at Weston Park. The wind and rain coming across the lake today (Sunday) would have made the dialogue impossible to hear, but the plans for the choreography look interesting. A large crowd turned up, even though the weather was truly black, bearing down on Black Mountain from the Brindabellas, but Black Elk was unable to speak today. We will need an un-rain (and un-wind)dance for Tuesday.
The Review
Black Elk Speaks by Christopher Sergel. Reading directed by Telia Nevile for The Company. Weston Park, January 27, 1998, only.
Someone must have danced, and danced well, after Sunday's wind and rain postponement. 29 degrees, gentle wafts, green pines, blue sky, sun setting as Black Elk spoke. Traffic on the parkway across the lake was an almost soothing distant reminder of modern living. In our little amphitheatre among the pines, symbolic of Pine Tree Ridge and the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1876, people were quiet before the play began, maybe a little nervous of their sense that the earth should not be disturbed.
As Black Elk told his story, in simple pictures so we could understand, the Tuggeranong Parkway became, slicing through Aboriginal land, like the road to the goldfields murderously forced through Cheyenne country. As the story of Tambo, taken to America as a circus exhibit, currently on display at the National Library, indigenous people in the 19th Century were effectively seen as more animal than human. "Before the road signs were erected to their memory, these were people" says Black Elk, an old man remembering what he saw at Wounded Knee.
"What about the human beings who already live here?" asks a person ordered to leave her country in favour of the settlement of US citizens. "You're not citizens" is the government official's reply. "Red skin people are not mentioned in the Bible, which raises the question of whether they are actually human beings."
This play is a pageant of the invaders' hypocrisy and betrayal of the American indigenous peoples. As Marlon Brando mentions in his autobiography, almost 400 treaties were signed, but all were broken "with the blessing and sanction of our courts". Among the pine trees, the rocks and ridges, if this had been not merely a reading but a fully costumed production, it would be powerful theatre in education indeed. Despite the devastation of more than two centuries, Black Elk concludes: "We offer you the wooden cup filled with water. It is yours. We have spoken." He turned, an old man, to climb the final ridge. The audience remained silent, respectful of the earth and indigenous history. A fine moment of reconciliation for Australia Day.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 22 January 1998
1998: A Streetcar Named Datsun 120Y by Mary Brown; I Am The Shark, You Are The Prey by Kurt Shean
A Streetcar Named Datsun 120Y by Mary Brown; I Am The Shark, You Are The Prey by Kurt Shean. Directed by Iain Sinclair for Elbow Theatre Company at the Currong Theatre, Gorman House. Season: January 22-24 and 28-31, 1998. Bookings: 6230 4828.
Critics are justifiably loath to enthuse too much, even about excellent work, in the knowledge that the future can so easily prove them wrong. There are times and places in history when theatre suddenly flares with imagination. From often small sparks, like Melbourne's La Mama 35 years ago, smouldering embers become continuing sources of heat and light.
Canberra's theatrical fire has glowed with occasional sparks for more than 25 years: what I saw at Elbow's preview on Wednesday was a jet of flame in comparison.
Simon Clarke's movement, voice and characterisation perfectly presented all the details of Kurt Shean's storytelling, so we came to understand the nature of myth. In Mary Brown's horrifyingly funny study of Rex (seen last year in Pig Biting Mad, now in the complete version), Kenneth Spiteri had me on the edge of the seat ready to run if his insanity became seriously dangerous. Two Canberra writers, two Canberra actors and two pieces of modern theatre you cannot afford to miss.
Before and between the plays are songs by Lonesome Fred Smith, sung with Fiona and Heather Bolton, in the form of satirical ballads, in which absurdities become both humorous and telling. It's sad to find ourselves laughing at society's inhumanity, even though it's educational to perceive hypocrisy.
Elbow Theatre is on the edge, or rather presents us the double-edged sword of humour in inescapable truth. The quality of their irony is not strained: a compliment to the intelligence of the writers, performers and director, Iain Sinclair. I feel I have been waiting for this to happen in Canberra.
The show goes from here to the Adelaide Festival Fringe. Other new plays are in the offing. The company will offer workshops. I sense that this new theatre is at the right time and place. This is capital city quality firing up in our very own capital city - but the actors can only afford to stay here if you give them an audience. You won't be disappointed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Critics are justifiably loath to enthuse too much, even about excellent work, in the knowledge that the future can so easily prove them wrong. There are times and places in history when theatre suddenly flares with imagination. From often small sparks, like Melbourne's La Mama 35 years ago, smouldering embers become continuing sources of heat and light.
Canberra's theatrical fire has glowed with occasional sparks for more than 25 years: what I saw at Elbow's preview on Wednesday was a jet of flame in comparison.
Simon Clarke's movement, voice and characterisation perfectly presented all the details of Kurt Shean's storytelling, so we came to understand the nature of myth. In Mary Brown's horrifyingly funny study of Rex (seen last year in Pig Biting Mad, now in the complete version), Kenneth Spiteri had me on the edge of the seat ready to run if his insanity became seriously dangerous. Two Canberra writers, two Canberra actors and two pieces of modern theatre you cannot afford to miss.
Before and between the plays are songs by Lonesome Fred Smith, sung with Fiona and Heather Bolton, in the form of satirical ballads, in which absurdities become both humorous and telling. It's sad to find ourselves laughing at society's inhumanity, even though it's educational to perceive hypocrisy.
Elbow Theatre is on the edge, or rather presents us the double-edged sword of humour in inescapable truth. The quality of their irony is not strained: a compliment to the intelligence of the writers, performers and director, Iain Sinclair. I feel I have been waiting for this to happen in Canberra.
The show goes from here to the Adelaide Festival Fringe. Other new plays are in the offing. The company will offer workshops. I sense that this new theatre is at the right time and place. This is capital city quality firing up in our very own capital city - but the actors can only afford to stay here if you give them an audience. You won't be disappointed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 19 December 1997
1997: Short Stabs Program 3 - Culturally Innovative Arts directed by David Branson
Short Stabs Program 3. Culturally Innovative Arts at Gorman House till December 20, 1997.
Convoy: Men in Cars and Trucks by Kathleen Bleakley; acoustic guitar music composed and performed by Mark Norton; and three short plays by Daniel Keene.
Bleakley is a performance poet whose cycle of poems Men in Cars and Trucks has been adapted for stage, directed by Roland Manderson. Previously performed on radio in Adelaide and 2XX, and later to be published in book form with images by Canberra photographer 'pling, these pieces are better off-stage than on. The physical representation of the men in the cars and trucks who assume that all women are available for their sexual gratification put the focus on the men, even making them comic in some cases, instead of re-creating the sense of women's despair at never being allowed their personal freedom. The poems, as a voice on the radio, have an emotional depth missing from miming the action on stage, though Anna Voronoff's performance is excellent.
Mark Norton's music is an interesting crossover between classical and folk guitar. He has experimented with combining tuning and fingering from both traditions, and the results are three highly original compositions which for me, and, judging by the applause, for many others, are the highlight of the evening.
Daniel Keene (you may remember Cho Cho San) in Night, a Wall, Two Men, performed with tight clarity by Tim Wood and Thomas Holgrove, seems to be Melbourne's Samuel Beckett. "Love, charity, pity ... it's all very common, that sort of thing" - certainly not your usual Christmas message in this Waiting for Godot version of A Christmas Carol in which the poor starve and Ebenezer Scrooge never comes good. Keene is writing about basic human rights in all three pieces presented here. The Prisoner and his Keeper (Danny Diesendorf and Simon Aylott), perhaps needing some cutting or tighter direction, shows how the Keeper is as much demeaned by his role as the Prisoner. Foxes is a monologue, performed well by Miranda Rose - a strange, almost suicidal piece about innocence and loneliness.
CIA's presentation is hopefully the beginning of a clearer focus for the "experimental, innovative and investigative" theatre that David Branson tells me he is aiming for.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Convoy: Men in Cars and Trucks by Kathleen Bleakley; acoustic guitar music composed and performed by Mark Norton; and three short plays by Daniel Keene.
Bleakley is a performance poet whose cycle of poems Men in Cars and Trucks has been adapted for stage, directed by Roland Manderson. Previously performed on radio in Adelaide and 2XX, and later to be published in book form with images by Canberra photographer 'pling, these pieces are better off-stage than on. The physical representation of the men in the cars and trucks who assume that all women are available for their sexual gratification put the focus on the men, even making them comic in some cases, instead of re-creating the sense of women's despair at never being allowed their personal freedom. The poems, as a voice on the radio, have an emotional depth missing from miming the action on stage, though Anna Voronoff's performance is excellent.
Mark Norton's music is an interesting crossover between classical and folk guitar. He has experimented with combining tuning and fingering from both traditions, and the results are three highly original compositions which for me, and, judging by the applause, for many others, are the highlight of the evening.
Daniel Keene (you may remember Cho Cho San) in Night, a Wall, Two Men, performed with tight clarity by Tim Wood and Thomas Holgrove, seems to be Melbourne's Samuel Beckett. "Love, charity, pity ... it's all very common, that sort of thing" - certainly not your usual Christmas message in this Waiting for Godot version of A Christmas Carol in which the poor starve and Ebenezer Scrooge never comes good. Keene is writing about basic human rights in all three pieces presented here. The Prisoner and his Keeper (Danny Diesendorf and Simon Aylott), perhaps needing some cutting or tighter direction, shows how the Keeper is as much demeaned by his role as the Prisoner. Foxes is a monologue, performed well by Miranda Rose - a strange, almost suicidal piece about innocence and loneliness.
CIA's presentation is hopefully the beginning of a clearer focus for the "experimental, innovative and investigative" theatre that David Branson tells me he is aiming for.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 11 December 1997
1997: The 1997 Bull 'n Bush Christmas Revue
The 1997 Bull 'n Bush Christmas Revue, School of Arts Cafe, Queanbeyan. Starring Graham and Norma Robertson, Jan Carey, Coralie Wood. Weds to Sats till December 31, 1997 (except Christmas and Boxing Days).
Despite my best efforts, Mattie Hellyer, suspiciously sitting at the table nearest Tim, the judge, won the Christmas Bell last Wednesday because she knew all the words to all the songs. But how could I be resentful or judgemental on a night of Christmas cheer, enjoying excellent soup, beef and Christmas pudding?
The night is light, an eclectic collection of titbits and we certainly weren't bored. The "stars" above are the whole cast and they worked well together in the constraints of the tiny stage, though I think I would give my Christmas bell to Norma Robertson on the grand piano. Her 19 years' experience playing for Rep's Old Time Music Hall held the show together.
Unpretentious is one word I heard to describe the Revue - a relaxed approach which put together items like the Brick Story (Why I Am Not At Work Today) made famous by the wonderful Hoffnung, and told well by Graham Robertson; the audience banging our bon-bons in unison; lots of New York Jewish phone calls; singing Master of the House from Les Mis with reference to Maitre d' Bill Stephens; more mobile phone conversations; I Wanna Be Rich, Famous and Powerful sung by Coralie in the guise of a failed Barbra Streisand and so on.
Critics were given the goodbye in I Wanna Be Rich, but I think it's fair to comment that only some items actually qualified for the title Revue. Absurdity, ironic humour and satire are key revue elements, and these appeared occasionally between entree, mains and sweets. Oh No, John Howard ("Will he leave us in a mess? Oh Yes, John, Yes!"), an awfully funny geriatric Let's Do It, My Body is Nobody's But My Own, and the Anorexic Ballet Girls were the genuine articles - for me the highlights of the night, and the pieces which clearly were appreciated by the house, which was just about full.
In other words for a bit of Bull 'n some satirical Bush you'll need to book well ahead on 6297 6857.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Despite my best efforts, Mattie Hellyer, suspiciously sitting at the table nearest Tim, the judge, won the Christmas Bell last Wednesday because she knew all the words to all the songs. But how could I be resentful or judgemental on a night of Christmas cheer, enjoying excellent soup, beef and Christmas pudding?
The night is light, an eclectic collection of titbits and we certainly weren't bored. The "stars" above are the whole cast and they worked well together in the constraints of the tiny stage, though I think I would give my Christmas bell to Norma Robertson on the grand piano. Her 19 years' experience playing for Rep's Old Time Music Hall held the show together.
Unpretentious is one word I heard to describe the Revue - a relaxed approach which put together items like the Brick Story (Why I Am Not At Work Today) made famous by the wonderful Hoffnung, and told well by Graham Robertson; the audience banging our bon-bons in unison; lots of New York Jewish phone calls; singing Master of the House from Les Mis with reference to Maitre d' Bill Stephens; more mobile phone conversations; I Wanna Be Rich, Famous and Powerful sung by Coralie in the guise of a failed Barbra Streisand and so on.
Critics were given the goodbye in I Wanna Be Rich, but I think it's fair to comment that only some items actually qualified for the title Revue. Absurdity, ironic humour and satire are key revue elements, and these appeared occasionally between entree, mains and sweets. Oh No, John Howard ("Will he leave us in a mess? Oh Yes, John, Yes!"), an awfully funny geriatric Let's Do It, My Body is Nobody's But My Own, and the Anorexic Ballet Girls were the genuine articles - for me the highlights of the night, and the pieces which clearly were appreciated by the house, which was just about full.
In other words for a bit of Bull 'n some satirical Bush you'll need to book well ahead on 6297 6857.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 27 November 1997
1997: News report on Jenny Kay, finalist in Dolly/McDonalds Career Start contest
A Year 11 drama student at Hawker College, Jenny Kay, is in the running to win $20 000 to start her career in theatre.
The 1997 Dolly/McDonald's Career Start contest began for Jenny when she noticed the advertisement in her younger sister's copy of Dolly and made the mistake of saying how great it would be to get money to put on a play. She found herself committed, by the enthusiasm of her parents and friends, writing the required 500 word proposal with an additonal budget.
Jenny's proposal, judged by Susie Pitts, Editor of Dolly, Charlie Bell, Managing Director of McDonald's Australia, and Catriona Rowntree, Getaway reporter on the Nine Network, has placed her among the 7 finalists - and has already won her $5 000.
On Tuesday December 2, Jenny attends a celebratory lunch at Pavilion on the Park in Sydney where the winner will be announced.
What will Jenny do with the money? The core of her proposal is to demonstrate young people's abilities in theatre production. She comes to this from a strong background at Canberra Youth Theatre where she has already directed Jack Hibberd's Slam Dunk, which received a good review in The Canberra Times.
She has lined up friends Brendan Hayes (writer and assistant director), Sarah Davies (media producer) and Eliza-Jane Oliver (stage manager) to work on a play already partly written but as yet untitled. For $5 000 she plans a small scale production, but if she wins $20 000 she plans to put some aside to help her through university studies, with a view further down the track of taking the Victorian College of the Arts Directing course.
Since she will be in Year 12 next year, Jenny plans to present her play in March or April. She is considering using the Canberra Youth Theatre venue, partly as a recognition of her admiration for Roland Manderson and the support CYT has given her, and noting the irony of the recent loss of funding, and of Manderson as CYT Director.
The finalists' 10 minute presentations in Sydney, in which they explain why they should win $20,000, will certainly be a nailbiting time, but Jenny has been a debater for some years and hopes to show that the award would not only benefit her towards her chosen career, but all the other people who will work with her in creative and managerial roles.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The 1997 Dolly/McDonald's Career Start contest began for Jenny when she noticed the advertisement in her younger sister's copy of Dolly and made the mistake of saying how great it would be to get money to put on a play. She found herself committed, by the enthusiasm of her parents and friends, writing the required 500 word proposal with an additonal budget.
Jenny's proposal, judged by Susie Pitts, Editor of Dolly, Charlie Bell, Managing Director of McDonald's Australia, and Catriona Rowntree, Getaway reporter on the Nine Network, has placed her among the 7 finalists - and has already won her $5 000.
On Tuesday December 2, Jenny attends a celebratory lunch at Pavilion on the Park in Sydney where the winner will be announced.
What will Jenny do with the money? The core of her proposal is to demonstrate young people's abilities in theatre production. She comes to this from a strong background at Canberra Youth Theatre where she has already directed Jack Hibberd's Slam Dunk, which received a good review in The Canberra Times.
She has lined up friends Brendan Hayes (writer and assistant director), Sarah Davies (media producer) and Eliza-Jane Oliver (stage manager) to work on a play already partly written but as yet untitled. For $5 000 she plans a small scale production, but if she wins $20 000 she plans to put some aside to help her through university studies, with a view further down the track of taking the Victorian College of the Arts Directing course.
Since she will be in Year 12 next year, Jenny plans to present her play in March or April. She is considering using the Canberra Youth Theatre venue, partly as a recognition of her admiration for Roland Manderson and the support CYT has given her, and noting the irony of the recent loss of funding, and of Manderson as CYT Director.
The finalists' 10 minute presentations in Sydney, in which they explain why they should win $20,000, will certainly be a nailbiting time, but Jenny has been a debater for some years and hopes to show that the award would not only benefit her towards her chosen career, but all the other people who will work with her in creative and managerial roles.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 20 November 1997
1997: Leader of the Pack - The Ellie Greenwich Musical
Leader of the Pack - The Ellie Greenwich Musical. Phoenix Players at Belconnen Community Centre. Amateur.
The Mills & Boon story is kept to a minimum between songs, all of which you will recognise if you lived through the Sixties. The year Ellie Greenwich won 6 awards, the Beatles won 10. As the Beatles worked towards Sergeant Pepper, Greenwich was writing "And Then He Kissed Me" - the pop teeny-bopper romance music which never grew up.
Greenwich had to deal with reality when her song-writer whirlwind-romance husband Jeff Barry gave her the choice of house-bound motherhood while he became famous - or divorce. She took divorce, and wrote her only creative song "Rock of Rages".
But time heals all ... at least that's what this show says.
Susannah Gallie presents a credible Ellie, and Mimma Furlan does well as Darlene Love. The musical direction by Garrick Smith is excellent and the singing, though not always strong, is well rehearsed.
I spoke to Margo Mitchell from the management team working to make Belconnen Community Centre fulfil its function. She is clearly succeeding, and Phoenix Players' President and Director of The Pack, Ian Davenport, is enthusiastic about the good feeling at the Centre. The audience on opening night last Thursday was substantial and very appreciative of the efforts of everyone in the show. Whole families seem to take part on and off stage - in other words Phoenix has found its niche in the local community.
This show, I thought, was more sophisticated than earlier Phoenix productions, with stylish choreography by Natalie Antoine and an interesting cartoon set and props designed by Michael Winters. An amateur group such as this may not be expected to have actors and singers to match fully professional standards, but with intelligent design, choreography and musical direction the elements of drama - humour, pathos and joy - can be put together effectively. People knew what they were doing on stage, and the audience justifiably responded with enthusiasm.
So if you want to know "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts?", or to find out if you are "Not Too Young (To Get Married)", or just to toe-tap along to "Do Wah Diddy", join the community with Phoenix Players.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Mills & Boon story is kept to a minimum between songs, all of which you will recognise if you lived through the Sixties. The year Ellie Greenwich won 6 awards, the Beatles won 10. As the Beatles worked towards Sergeant Pepper, Greenwich was writing "And Then He Kissed Me" - the pop teeny-bopper romance music which never grew up.
Greenwich had to deal with reality when her song-writer whirlwind-romance husband Jeff Barry gave her the choice of house-bound motherhood while he became famous - or divorce. She took divorce, and wrote her only creative song "Rock of Rages".
But time heals all ... at least that's what this show says.
Susannah Gallie presents a credible Ellie, and Mimma Furlan does well as Darlene Love. The musical direction by Garrick Smith is excellent and the singing, though not always strong, is well rehearsed.
I spoke to Margo Mitchell from the management team working to make Belconnen Community Centre fulfil its function. She is clearly succeeding, and Phoenix Players' President and Director of The Pack, Ian Davenport, is enthusiastic about the good feeling at the Centre. The audience on opening night last Thursday was substantial and very appreciative of the efforts of everyone in the show. Whole families seem to take part on and off stage - in other words Phoenix has found its niche in the local community.
This show, I thought, was more sophisticated than earlier Phoenix productions, with stylish choreography by Natalie Antoine and an interesting cartoon set and props designed by Michael Winters. An amateur group such as this may not be expected to have actors and singers to match fully professional standards, but with intelligent design, choreography and musical direction the elements of drama - humour, pathos and joy - can be put together effectively. People knew what they were doing on stage, and the audience justifiably responded with enthusiasm.
So if you want to know "Why Do Lovers Break Each Others' Hearts?", or to find out if you are "Not Too Young (To Get Married)", or just to toe-tap along to "Do Wah Diddy", join the community with Phoenix Players.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 14 November 1997
1997: HAIR The Tribal Rock-Love Musical - Supa Productions
HAIR The Tribal Rock-Love Musical. Joint production by Tuggeranong Community Arts, SUPA Productions and The Street Theatre. 8pm at The Street until November 19. Bookings: 6247 1223.
This is a terrific production, with a revised script which adds maturity to this "flower-power" musical. It is both a celebration of all the good things the young people of 1968 stood for - peace, love and freedom - and a sad memorial to all those ideals which we have still not achieved.
Everyone in the cast seemed to have absorbed the commitment which the original performers felt. Only last Monday the ABC's Timeframe documented the first Sydney production and opening night here on Thursday stood the comparison very well indeed.
When a cast is as evenly matched as this one, and so much of the show is a group presentation - originally done deliberately to avoid creating "stars" - it may be unfair to highlight only some performers, but I feel I must mention Kirrily Cornwell's wonderful voice, the beautiful rendition of the "Air" in Act One by Simone Bresser, Jacqui Hoy and Rachel Burleigh, and the characterisation of Claude, who can't bring himself to burn his draft card, by Ra Khahn.
Oddly enough, despite what we think we remember (many in the audience were at least in the vicinity in 1968), the story is quite thin and is strongly male-centred, notwithstanding the excellent women's singing roles. But the band (called "Headband") never let the action flag and the choreography was always inventive, especially given the rather small range of wafty movements that the real flower people thought were creative.
The result is a musical drama, set within the frame of appearances - on what was definitely an Admiral TV set - by President Johnson (with Harold Holt grinning in the background) going all the way to Vietnam and President Nixon uncomfortably announcing the end of the war he couldn't win, moving many in the audience to tears.
Director Sue Belsham has maintained integrity, judging well the levels of glorious freedom, satirical humour and sad recognition of human frailty which makes HAIR well worth seeing. Among others, the surprise appearance of the anthropologist Margaret Mead is a special highlight. Don't miss it!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a terrific production, with a revised script which adds maturity to this "flower-power" musical. It is both a celebration of all the good things the young people of 1968 stood for - peace, love and freedom - and a sad memorial to all those ideals which we have still not achieved.
Everyone in the cast seemed to have absorbed the commitment which the original performers felt. Only last Monday the ABC's Timeframe documented the first Sydney production and opening night here on Thursday stood the comparison very well indeed.
When a cast is as evenly matched as this one, and so much of the show is a group presentation - originally done deliberately to avoid creating "stars" - it may be unfair to highlight only some performers, but I feel I must mention Kirrily Cornwell's wonderful voice, the beautiful rendition of the "Air" in Act One by Simone Bresser, Jacqui Hoy and Rachel Burleigh, and the characterisation of Claude, who can't bring himself to burn his draft card, by Ra Khahn.
Oddly enough, despite what we think we remember (many in the audience were at least in the vicinity in 1968), the story is quite thin and is strongly male-centred, notwithstanding the excellent women's singing roles. But the band (called "Headband") never let the action flag and the choreography was always inventive, especially given the rather small range of wafty movements that the real flower people thought were creative.
The result is a musical drama, set within the frame of appearances - on what was definitely an Admiral TV set - by President Johnson (with Harold Holt grinning in the background) going all the way to Vietnam and President Nixon uncomfortably announcing the end of the war he couldn't win, moving many in the audience to tears.
Director Sue Belsham has maintained integrity, judging well the levels of glorious freedom, satirical humour and sad recognition of human frailty which makes HAIR well worth seeing. Among others, the surprise appearance of the anthropologist Margaret Mead is a special highlight. Don't miss it!
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 5 November 1997
1997: Canberra Performance Poets at Tilley's Devine Cafe
Nurrunderi - the Milky Way - watches over us, reminding us of the need for ceremony and keeping up the lore which protects the country from degradation. This was the theme of the story told by Martakupat Potawurtj about how Nurrunderi, chasing his errant wives, formed the lower reaches of the Murray River and created many features of the Coorong. His wives, feeling guilty for breaking the lore, are now the rocks off Kangaroo Island where they drowned themselves. In sadness at their plight, Nurrunderi was taken by the Great Spirit from Kangaroo Island to become the Milky Way.
Martakupat Potawurtj, a Bindjali man whose English name is Darren Perry, is a second-generation stolen child, currently studying Cultural Heritage Management at University of Canberra. Brought up by foster parents in Queensland, he has only recently been able to trace his family back via his birth in the infirmary of Long Bay Gaol and his mother's institutional upbringing in Melbourne to his South Australian Bindjali and Narinjeri origins. He told his story at the Cabaret for Native Title presented by Australians for Native Title and Canberra Performance Poets at Tilley's Devine Cafe on Tuesday November 4.
The Poets, in conjunction with Second Stage, present a monthly eclectic form of theatre they call "Crash Cabaret": unadorned readings of new poems (this time by Anne Edgeworth, Peter Latona, Ken Brewer, Pauline Brooks, Laurie McDonald); strongly dramatised readings (Hal Judge, Kim Houghton) often with accompaniments, this week on digeridoo, guitar and violin; the ubiquitous comedians Fabulous Fred and Wicked Barb; musical acts of all kinds. Eugene Vincent produced amazing harmonics on the digeridoo on Tuesday, as an intro to a C&W style song about the importance of Albert Namatjira.
The purpose of Crash Cabaret is to give the chance for poets to perform their work, new writers to find an audience, and break the bounds of expectations with events which are at least half unplanned - relying on an unpredictable mix of writers and performers who turn up on the night. This is a kind of open-house (open-cafe?) theatre which suits Tilley's, perhaps the only place in town brave enough to put it on.
Nights must vary in quality and excitement level, but for me it was invaluable to hear the Aboriginal story among other people's poetry of place. The non-Aboriginal work all seemed to require degrees of intellectual decoding in order to find the feeling, while a young first timer, Yuga Avatar Hart, went straight to the heart with simple words about identity. Talking of non-indigenous people who have genuinely tried to help, he said "All their words, their kindness / Can they never feel the pain?" and left in the air the past, the present and the dilemma of reconciliation.
While Canberra Performance Poets and Tilley's give the opportunity for moments like this to happen, maybe Nurrunderi can smile a little and look down on us with some hope, after two centuries, of renewed lore and ceremony.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Martakupat Potawurtj, a Bindjali man whose English name is Darren Perry, is a second-generation stolen child, currently studying Cultural Heritage Management at University of Canberra. Brought up by foster parents in Queensland, he has only recently been able to trace his family back via his birth in the infirmary of Long Bay Gaol and his mother's institutional upbringing in Melbourne to his South Australian Bindjali and Narinjeri origins. He told his story at the Cabaret for Native Title presented by Australians for Native Title and Canberra Performance Poets at Tilley's Devine Cafe on Tuesday November 4.
The Poets, in conjunction with Second Stage, present a monthly eclectic form of theatre they call "Crash Cabaret": unadorned readings of new poems (this time by Anne Edgeworth, Peter Latona, Ken Brewer, Pauline Brooks, Laurie McDonald); strongly dramatised readings (Hal Judge, Kim Houghton) often with accompaniments, this week on digeridoo, guitar and violin; the ubiquitous comedians Fabulous Fred and Wicked Barb; musical acts of all kinds. Eugene Vincent produced amazing harmonics on the digeridoo on Tuesday, as an intro to a C&W style song about the importance of Albert Namatjira.
The purpose of Crash Cabaret is to give the chance for poets to perform their work, new writers to find an audience, and break the bounds of expectations with events which are at least half unplanned - relying on an unpredictable mix of writers and performers who turn up on the night. This is a kind of open-house (open-cafe?) theatre which suits Tilley's, perhaps the only place in town brave enough to put it on.
Nights must vary in quality and excitement level, but for me it was invaluable to hear the Aboriginal story among other people's poetry of place. The non-Aboriginal work all seemed to require degrees of intellectual decoding in order to find the feeling, while a young first timer, Yuga Avatar Hart, went straight to the heart with simple words about identity. Talking of non-indigenous people who have genuinely tried to help, he said "All their words, their kindness / Can they never feel the pain?" and left in the air the past, the present and the dilemma of reconciliation.
While Canberra Performance Poets and Tilley's give the opportunity for moments like this to happen, maybe Nurrunderi can smile a little and look down on us with some hope, after two centuries, of renewed lore and ceremony.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 14 October 1997
1997: Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams - Splinters Theatre of Spectacle
Autogeddon by Heathcote Williams. Director, Patrick Troy. Choreographer, Cheryl Heazlewood. Splinters Theatre of Spectacle, Festival of Contemporary Arts, Gorman House. October 14 to 18, 1997.
Splinters have departed from the simply spectacular and arrived at a soundscape with meaning. Autogeddon is "a tone poem and photographic essay" which presents Williams' apocalyptic view of a world in which an alien would see cars as the dominant lifeform.
Patrick Troy, a founder of the radical visual arts / drama combo company when Splinters began in the mid-1980's, and recently an associate director with the Sydney Theatre Company, has used Williams' work as the core of a series of images in sound and mimetic enactments. "This is a drive through installation, drive in live theatre spectacular, drive out spiritually cleansed event."
Audience participation is quite safe in this production - though it is a good idea to be upwind of the firefighters' hose when the stage is covered in foam, a dramatic effect which seemed to me to represent the horror of a nuclear winter. The final scene is strongly focussed as blackened, barely dressed figures slowly form a holocaust image - the ultimate destruction of humanity by our own technology.
Ironically the most successful devices in this production use modern technology. You buy your ticket at Gorman House, drive to the secret car park location (be in the first 30 cars to get the best positions), and tune your car radio to FM 107.9 - radio splinters. You watch most of the sequences from inside your car, hearing the main dialogue on your radio against the background technobeat and huge sound effects amplified outside across the stage: the reverse of the techno booner drive-by experience in Civic on Friday night.
When you leave your car to watch an intimate scene between a girl dancer and a radio-controlled toy racing car, take a large woolly jumper. The actors seemed to cope with the reality of a cold Canberra wind much more easily than I did, probably the result of Heazlewood's butoh training.
I thought the show promised more than it delivered, but it comes together well in the end. It's a fitting piece in a Festival of this kind and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Splinters have departed from the simply spectacular and arrived at a soundscape with meaning. Autogeddon is "a tone poem and photographic essay" which presents Williams' apocalyptic view of a world in which an alien would see cars as the dominant lifeform.
Patrick Troy, a founder of the radical visual arts / drama combo company when Splinters began in the mid-1980's, and recently an associate director with the Sydney Theatre Company, has used Williams' work as the core of a series of images in sound and mimetic enactments. "This is a drive through installation, drive in live theatre spectacular, drive out spiritually cleansed event."
Audience participation is quite safe in this production - though it is a good idea to be upwind of the firefighters' hose when the stage is covered in foam, a dramatic effect which seemed to me to represent the horror of a nuclear winter. The final scene is strongly focussed as blackened, barely dressed figures slowly form a holocaust image - the ultimate destruction of humanity by our own technology.
Ironically the most successful devices in this production use modern technology. You buy your ticket at Gorman House, drive to the secret car park location (be in the first 30 cars to get the best positions), and tune your car radio to FM 107.9 - radio splinters. You watch most of the sequences from inside your car, hearing the main dialogue on your radio against the background technobeat and huge sound effects amplified outside across the stage: the reverse of the techno booner drive-by experience in Civic on Friday night.
When you leave your car to watch an intimate scene between a girl dancer and a radio-controlled toy racing car, take a large woolly jumper. The actors seemed to cope with the reality of a cold Canberra wind much more easily than I did, probably the result of Heazlewood's butoh training.
I thought the show promised more than it delivered, but it comes together well in the end. It's a fitting piece in a Festival of this kind and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 8 October 1997
1997: Feature article on Roland Manderson, director Canberra Youth Theatre
"I think I've always been an extravert!" Iconoclast extraordinaire, Roland Manderson will be remembered for his unlikely performance as a bird in Andrew Bovell's early play An Ocean Out My Window. That was in 1986 in a company called Ensemble Theatre Project. ETP no longer exists, but Roland goes on forever.
Since 1991 he has been Director of Canberra Youth Theatre, where his quirky combination of an absurdist world-view and a seriousness about the importance of theatre works a treat with young people looking for the meaning of life. Roland aims for the top, or indeed even over-the-top when a Youth Theatre group recently stirred the ire of Parliament House security with plans to perform on the grass over the heads of the politicians! Despite rejection of the proposal, the grass being sacrosanct, he still managed to conduct a rehearsal in situ just to prove a peaceful and dramatic point about the nature of democracy.
Symbolic action is perhaps the key to Roland Manderson. In manner he fluctuates between growls and grins in a most beguiling way, representing not just his volatility but more his concern for people's rights and the expression of this concern through theatre. Youth Theatre is not, for Manderson, a pleasant training experience for the future daughters of Mrs Worthington, but a centre of theatrical activism.
Therefore he encourages young people to write and perform their own works, and take up challenges against normal expectations. Under Manderson's overall direction, some 18 tutor/directors have given Youth Theatre members and students from two Colleges experience in around 36 productions during 1996 and 1997. Many of these were under the immediate direction of Youth Theatre members themselves, making Gorman House a-buzz with youthful energy and ideas.
In answer to the Great Brechtian debate about football being more theatre than theatre itself, CYT created the Giant Raider (in the days when the Raiders were still the local team) - a 7 metre tall puppet which went to the football. This was part of Manderson's vision of art for young people enabling them to see themselves as part of the community. As football is community celebration, so is theatre. The traditional conflict between the arts and sport is negative thinking from Manderson's viewpoint. "But I'd relinquish an Artist of the Year award for an extra $40,000 a year for Canberra Youth Theatre" he says, hopefully.
Two highlights of recent times are The Maze by young writer Niamh Kearney, touring to NSW and Victoria (a study of how for young people life can seem to be a maze without an exit), and an exciting collaboration with the Song Ngoc Water Puppetry Troupe of Hanoi in Water Stories with performances at the Sydney and Canberra Festivals earlier this year. A challenging experience was the performance of Malai Mongkol by the Makhampon Theatre Company of Thailand, about Thai prostitution and AIDS.
CYT has a special role because it is part of the theatre industry, not a school, but Manderson would like to build a bigger organisation with a full training and development component to give Youth Theatre the profile it deserves. "It must be fun" is still the perception of being director of CYT - but it's much more than just fun.
Roland wants to examine "the nature of the place we live in - that is, Canberra". Parliament House featured back in 1991, when youth theatres from several states joined CYT in planting their flag on top of this august institution. That time, there was no complaint from security. Have times changed? "Mostly I suffer fools very gladly" says Roland Manderson.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Since 1991 he has been Director of Canberra Youth Theatre, where his quirky combination of an absurdist world-view and a seriousness about the importance of theatre works a treat with young people looking for the meaning of life. Roland aims for the top, or indeed even over-the-top when a Youth Theatre group recently stirred the ire of Parliament House security with plans to perform on the grass over the heads of the politicians! Despite rejection of the proposal, the grass being sacrosanct, he still managed to conduct a rehearsal in situ just to prove a peaceful and dramatic point about the nature of democracy.
Symbolic action is perhaps the key to Roland Manderson. In manner he fluctuates between growls and grins in a most beguiling way, representing not just his volatility but more his concern for people's rights and the expression of this concern through theatre. Youth Theatre is not, for Manderson, a pleasant training experience for the future daughters of Mrs Worthington, but a centre of theatrical activism.
Therefore he encourages young people to write and perform their own works, and take up challenges against normal expectations. Under Manderson's overall direction, some 18 tutor/directors have given Youth Theatre members and students from two Colleges experience in around 36 productions during 1996 and 1997. Many of these were under the immediate direction of Youth Theatre members themselves, making Gorman House a-buzz with youthful energy and ideas.
In answer to the Great Brechtian debate about football being more theatre than theatre itself, CYT created the Giant Raider (in the days when the Raiders were still the local team) - a 7 metre tall puppet which went to the football. This was part of Manderson's vision of art for young people enabling them to see themselves as part of the community. As football is community celebration, so is theatre. The traditional conflict between the arts and sport is negative thinking from Manderson's viewpoint. "But I'd relinquish an Artist of the Year award for an extra $40,000 a year for Canberra Youth Theatre" he says, hopefully.
Two highlights of recent times are The Maze by young writer Niamh Kearney, touring to NSW and Victoria (a study of how for young people life can seem to be a maze without an exit), and an exciting collaboration with the Song Ngoc Water Puppetry Troupe of Hanoi in Water Stories with performances at the Sydney and Canberra Festivals earlier this year. A challenging experience was the performance of Malai Mongkol by the Makhampon Theatre Company of Thailand, about Thai prostitution and AIDS.
CYT has a special role because it is part of the theatre industry, not a school, but Manderson would like to build a bigger organisation with a full training and development component to give Youth Theatre the profile it deserves. "It must be fun" is still the perception of being director of CYT - but it's much more than just fun.
Roland wants to examine "the nature of the place we live in - that is, Canberra". Parliament House featured back in 1991, when youth theatres from several states joined CYT in planting their flag on top of this august institution. That time, there was no complaint from security. Have times changed? "Mostly I suffer fools very gladly" says Roland Manderson.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)