Multiculturalism is about understanding and appreciating the diversity of world cultures. But the National Multicultural Festival is not only important to the citizens of Canberra.
For Moscow’s Dimitry Aryupin, Marcella Soltan and Andrej Ivashnev, performing Berthrand’s Toys in Australia is one more adventure and learning experience for their independent theatre company blackSKYwhite. Soltan and Aryupin go back a long way, starting up in 1988 amidst the massive social changes then under way in Russia, with no funding. For almost 20 years “we earn money by performing and providing masterclasses around the world” using their returns for new productions.
What is it about their work which makes their theatre sustainable? What is Berthrand’s Toys about, winning the 2000 Edinburgh Festival ‘Fringe First’ and ‘Total Theatre’ awards? And how did the audience in Indonesia respond?
Eight years of struggle led to their first success. “Our first trip abroad – everything was surprising there – I was 37 and had never crossed the border of my country. It was like a moon expedition, something very new and unpredictable. Five years later there remained only four European countries we had not visited.”
Aryupin explains that their success involves two main elements. First there is the longstanding European tradition of the Auteur, much more than writer. My French dictionary says “author, creator, maker, perpetrator, achiever, contriver, framer, informant, authority”. The name that comes to my mind, because of his influence in Australia, is Poland’s Jerzy Grotowski. Australians like Rex Cramphorn and film maker Paul Cox seem to me to fit the bill.
The point Aryupin makes is that European theatre is never “based on traditional forms but [each auteur] starts from the very beginning – like our world itself [we] don’t stay on elephants and turtles – referring to Asian traditions – but [we] fly over the abyss.” This constant search for originality is part of blackSKYwhite’s success.
Second, Aryupin’s work is about fundamental philosophic understanding of reality, but, he says, not with the German intellectual emphasis. He remains true to his Russian culture, keeping in touch with people and their emotions, “going down to the layer of dreams, which is common to all homo sapiens, despite their knowledge and experience.” Berthrand’s Toys has been described as a “danse macabre” about our fear of not knowing what reality is. Not too different from Chekhov, I thought.
In Indonesia he expected a negative reaction, in a Muslim country, to theatrical representations of clownish monsters, masked figures and the strong emotional effects in this production. To anyone who has seen wayang puppets, or Ranga the Witch, and knows how Indonesians have melded their ancient traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam into an open and democratic culture, it is not surprising that people responded to blackSKYwhite’s “disturbing, terrifying and poignant” performance, coming backstage to talk about their feelings.
But who is Berthrand and what are his “toys”? Look up Sergeant Bertrand (spellings change as words float between languages) and your search engine will bring up necromancy, onanism and the real case of Bertrand who engaged in necrophagy. In 1847 this otherwise apparently sane individual believed his condition was connected to being a werewolf. After one year’s imprisonment he disappeared into obscurity. One later description of his case says he was “named a monomaniac” because he concentrated on animals’ entrails. His “focus on viscera, which is not a single object nor subjectivised, rather than a past-tense person-corpse, seems to change the inflection of the monomania beyond a perverse dialectic of subject/object.”
I see Aryupin’s concern about Germanic intellectual analysis, as early Twentieth Century psychology took over from the werewolf theory. Berthrand’s Toys concentrates on the way people like Bertrand use elements of their environment, including other people, as no more than toys for their own pleasure, however twisted or destructive the results may be.
Experiencing something of the obsession and paranoia of such a character, mediated through the theatrical art, will certainly be challenging. Yet as in the Samuel Beckett season at the Sydney Festival, referring to another European auteur, Peter Brook, the Canberra Times reviewer noted “Beckett’s characters affirm life even as they seem to deny it.”
Berthrand’s Toys, of course, is not designed for children, but is certainly an important feature of the National Multicultural Festival, bringing in concentrated form both a Russian and European vision in a “magical, radical and abstract piece of dance-theatre … where fantastic music and lighting create a world of great truth and illusion.”
Berthrand’s Toys
National Multicultural Festival
Presented by the Embassy of Russia
Courtyard Studio
Canberra Theatre Centre
Tuesday February 6 to Friday February 9 at 7.30pm
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
Tickets: $32 / $28 concessions and Festival Card holders
Link: canberratheatre.org.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Sunday, 14 January 2007
2007: The Shoemaker and the Elves by Peter Pinne and Don Battye
The Shoemaker and the Elves a children’s musical by Peter Pinne and Don Battye. Directed by Nina Stevenson at The Vikings Club Auditorium, Erindale, until Friday January 19 at 11am.
When I was six, my first theatrical role was as an elf in The Elves and the Shoemaker which my teacher adapted from the original Grimm Brothers’ story.
The shoemaker was poor simply because he was a shoemaker. When he had only enough leather left for one pair, the hard-working selfless elves made many more shoes overnight than he could, helping him through a bad patch. He and his wife wanted to thank them. Watching one night they saw the elves had no clothes, so they made clothes for the elves who were happy to receive them. From then on the shoemaker made ends meet, though still poor as shoemakers always were.
Pinne and Battye’s sentimental version pits the shoemaker Mr Buckle (Peter Fock) against the richest woman in town, Silver Sequin (Jennie Tonzing), also a shoemaker. The elves (Meg Hobson, Tom Hobson, Charly Madden, Christopher Murphy, Lauren O’Flaherty, Grace Saunders and Paige Vaughan) depend on a benevolent whistle-blowing elf Slipper (Diana Tulip) to direct their magic. Mr Buckle has no wife, but a daughter Carolinda (Maviel Tanevska) who is in love with the nice Jingles (Cameron Boxall) who works for Silver Sequin because he needs a job.
Silver Sequin glories in being nasty and has a nasty offsider called Nasty Neville (Bart Black). Shoe purchasers are Lord Loppy (Scheyla Ahmadi Pour) and Dame Squeaky (Mariana Davila). The elves’ magic shoes make people happy, even Silver Sequin in the end, and win the Shoemaker’s Award from the King (Hugh Stevenson) for Mr Buckle.
Though the production is quite well done (in an attractive set by Brian Sudding and supported by excellent musicians), this 1974 Australian “fun” version just doesn’t have the magic, or quite the same ethical message, as the original simple story I still remember after 60 years. The first half is too slow (mainly the fault of the script, and at least one family went home at interval when I saw it), but the second succeeds in gathering some momentum for a cheerful ending, though still struggling for impact in such a large auditorium.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
When I was six, my first theatrical role was as an elf in The Elves and the Shoemaker which my teacher adapted from the original Grimm Brothers’ story.
The shoemaker was poor simply because he was a shoemaker. When he had only enough leather left for one pair, the hard-working selfless elves made many more shoes overnight than he could, helping him through a bad patch. He and his wife wanted to thank them. Watching one night they saw the elves had no clothes, so they made clothes for the elves who were happy to receive them. From then on the shoemaker made ends meet, though still poor as shoemakers always were.
Pinne and Battye’s sentimental version pits the shoemaker Mr Buckle (Peter Fock) against the richest woman in town, Silver Sequin (Jennie Tonzing), also a shoemaker. The elves (Meg Hobson, Tom Hobson, Charly Madden, Christopher Murphy, Lauren O’Flaherty, Grace Saunders and Paige Vaughan) depend on a benevolent whistle-blowing elf Slipper (Diana Tulip) to direct their magic. Mr Buckle has no wife, but a daughter Carolinda (Maviel Tanevska) who is in love with the nice Jingles (Cameron Boxall) who works for Silver Sequin because he needs a job.
Silver Sequin glories in being nasty and has a nasty offsider called Nasty Neville (Bart Black). Shoe purchasers are Lord Loppy (Scheyla Ahmadi Pour) and Dame Squeaky (Mariana Davila). The elves’ magic shoes make people happy, even Silver Sequin in the end, and win the Shoemaker’s Award from the King (Hugh Stevenson) for Mr Buckle.
Though the production is quite well done (in an attractive set by Brian Sudding and supported by excellent musicians), this 1974 Australian “fun” version just doesn’t have the magic, or quite the same ethical message, as the original simple story I still remember after 60 years. The first half is too slow (mainly the fault of the script, and at least one family went home at interval when I saw it), but the second succeeds in gathering some momentum for a cheerful ending, though still struggling for impact in such a large auditorium.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 11 January 2007
2007: Sydney Festival: First Love by Samuel Beckett
Sydney Festival: First Love by Samuel Beckett. The Gate Theatre, Dublin, performed by Ralph Fiennes, directed by Michael Colgan, at Parade Theatre January 9-21, 7pm (1 hour)
We expect Ralph Fiennes to be outstanding, and he is. He held the audience absolutely engrossed, not merely because of his reputation which silenced the crowd with respect even before the curtain rose on Thursday’s performance, but because he has complete mastery of technique.
Beckett’s language requires precise timing, often down to the pauses between syllables, and ever-changing rhythms as the character reveals his inner personality in the words he allows himself to speak out loud. Fiennes, on a stage empty except for himself and a plain bench, never missed a beat.
Perhaps the greatest praise I overheard was the surprised comment “He makes it seem so easy.” This was technique used with such refinement that an emotionally stunted character seems real. Socially isolated, living rough, seeking silence, he begins “I associate my father’s death with my marriage” because from his father’s gravestone he calculates his age when a prostitute’s attentions result in the birth of his child (so she tells him), at which point he leaves the shelter she has provided him, unwilling to hear even a faint sound of crying.
The set design by Eileen Diss added expertly to Beckett’s atmosphere. The scrim backdrop evoked the fog of the canal-side location, through which the window of the prostitute’s room is dimly lit, representing the fog of his memory – perhaps more twisted fantasy than past reality. Did he actually experience love?
Beckett’s characters are never very easy to get along with, but Fiennes and director Colgan reveal the humour in his lines, occasionally recognised by the character, often only understood by us as we compare his limitations with our normality.
However much Beckett’s view of humanity seems unnecessarily bitter and unpleasant, there is a harsh reality in his work. Bringing the Gate Theatre production to the Sydney Festival is a triumph, but if you have not already obtained seats for this or the other plays in the Beckett season, you must remain disappointed, since I hear they are all fully booked.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
We expect Ralph Fiennes to be outstanding, and he is. He held the audience absolutely engrossed, not merely because of his reputation which silenced the crowd with respect even before the curtain rose on Thursday’s performance, but because he has complete mastery of technique.
Beckett’s language requires precise timing, often down to the pauses between syllables, and ever-changing rhythms as the character reveals his inner personality in the words he allows himself to speak out loud. Fiennes, on a stage empty except for himself and a plain bench, never missed a beat.
Perhaps the greatest praise I overheard was the surprised comment “He makes it seem so easy.” This was technique used with such refinement that an emotionally stunted character seems real. Socially isolated, living rough, seeking silence, he begins “I associate my father’s death with my marriage” because from his father’s gravestone he calculates his age when a prostitute’s attentions result in the birth of his child (so she tells him), at which point he leaves the shelter she has provided him, unwilling to hear even a faint sound of crying.
The set design by Eileen Diss added expertly to Beckett’s atmosphere. The scrim backdrop evoked the fog of the canal-side location, through which the window of the prostitute’s room is dimly lit, representing the fog of his memory – perhaps more twisted fantasy than past reality. Did he actually experience love?
Beckett’s characters are never very easy to get along with, but Fiennes and director Colgan reveal the humour in his lines, occasionally recognised by the character, often only understood by us as we compare his limitations with our normality.
However much Beckett’s view of humanity seems unnecessarily bitter and unpleasant, there is a harsh reality in his work. Bringing the Gate Theatre production to the Sydney Festival is a triumph, but if you have not already obtained seats for this or the other plays in the Beckett season, you must remain disappointed, since I hear they are all fully booked.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 10 January 2007
Sydney Festival: Seemannslieder, Songs of Seamen by Cristoph Marthaler
Sydney Festival: Seemannslieder by Cristoph Marthaler. NTGent and ZT Hollandia at Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay. January 10-13 at 8pm (2 hours 30 minutes,no interval). www.sydneyfestival.org.au
I find it increasingly difficult to know if my criticisms of European theatre, brought here with outstanding recommendations, are justifiable. This is the third Sydney Festival where I have felt a major European work based in movement, music and song has failed my theatrical test. Seemanrnslieder (Dutch Flemish) is rather more successful than last year’s Chronicles – A Lamentation (Teatr Piesn Kozla from Poland) and streets ahead of Alibi (Damaged Goods from Belgium) in 2004, when about half the audience walked out long before its two hours came to a sudden stop.
Australian theatre likes to be taut, structured to take the audience on a journey, without discursive (or recursive) re-iteration of ideas, and with a theatrically definite ending, even if the theme is about, say, unresolvable loneliness.
This is what Seemannslieder, Songs of Seamen, is about. The women wait, their husbands and sons sometimes never returning. Or when they do it is for a sudden sexual skirmish before they are off to sea again. So the mood in the town represented here is tense with waiting, full of sexual tension which is cleverly expressed in the words of the sea songs, broken unpredictably by frantic activity or death.
But despite Marthaler’s massive 25 year reputation in European music, opera and play productions, I had got the point, and sensed the poignancy, by the end of the first hour. I politely waited through the next hour and a half, as did the rest of the polite Australian audience (except for one gentleman who finally had to duck out to the toilet ten minutes before the end), but nothing theatrically new happened. At least the ending, a woman cradling the mask of her seaman in a soft spotlight while singing, music and surrounding lights quietly faded, was a proper conclusion.
The acting/singing/gymnasts, and the pianists, were wonderfully good at what they were asked to do, and received due applause. But, I thought, if you can’t make mood performance poetry create all that needs to be experienced in one hour, adding another hour and a half won’t help.
I feel almost guilty for criticising such sincere and especially musically creative work, but perhaps that’s just my Australian cultural cringe. You’ll have to test out your own reaction (as well as test your bladder) rather than take my word as definitive.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I find it increasingly difficult to know if my criticisms of European theatre, brought here with outstanding recommendations, are justifiable. This is the third Sydney Festival where I have felt a major European work based in movement, music and song has failed my theatrical test. Seemanrnslieder (Dutch Flemish) is rather more successful than last year’s Chronicles – A Lamentation (Teatr Piesn Kozla from Poland) and streets ahead of Alibi (Damaged Goods from Belgium) in 2004, when about half the audience walked out long before its two hours came to a sudden stop.
Australian theatre likes to be taut, structured to take the audience on a journey, without discursive (or recursive) re-iteration of ideas, and with a theatrically definite ending, even if the theme is about, say, unresolvable loneliness.
This is what Seemannslieder, Songs of Seamen, is about. The women wait, their husbands and sons sometimes never returning. Or when they do it is for a sudden sexual skirmish before they are off to sea again. So the mood in the town represented here is tense with waiting, full of sexual tension which is cleverly expressed in the words of the sea songs, broken unpredictably by frantic activity or death.
But despite Marthaler’s massive 25 year reputation in European music, opera and play productions, I had got the point, and sensed the poignancy, by the end of the first hour. I politely waited through the next hour and a half, as did the rest of the polite Australian audience (except for one gentleman who finally had to duck out to the toilet ten minutes before the end), but nothing theatrically new happened. At least the ending, a woman cradling the mask of her seaman in a soft spotlight while singing, music and surrounding lights quietly faded, was a proper conclusion.
The acting/singing/gymnasts, and the pianists, were wonderfully good at what they were asked to do, and received due applause. But, I thought, if you can’t make mood performance poetry create all that needs to be experienced in one hour, adding another hour and a half won’t help.
I feel almost guilty for criticising such sincere and especially musically creative work, but perhaps that’s just my Australian cultural cringe. You’ll have to test out your own reaction (as well as test your bladder) rather than take my word as definitive.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 9 January 2007
2007: Sydney Festival: Small Metal Objects by Back to Back Theatre
Sydney Festival: Small Metal Objects by Back to Back Theatre, directed by Bruce Gladwin, at Customs House Square, Circular Quay. January 8-13, 15-20, 22-25 at 5.30pm and January 11-12, 18-19, 22-25 at 7.30pm(one hour,no interval). www.sydneyfestival.org.au
Strangely sad while terribly funny, Small Metal Objects is street theatre to die laughing for. The plot taking place between the characters Steve (Simon Laherty), Greg (Allan Watt), Alan (Jim Russell) and Carolyn (Genevieve Morris) is probably based on a misunderstanding exacerbated particularly by Steve’s genuine but seemingly doomed attempt to become more self-aware and find a girlfriend who would be willing to move in with him. Greg is always willing to help and will not leave Steve knowing he can’t really fend for himself, while corporate lawyer Alan and corporate psychologist Carolyn believe Greg and Steve can supply them with the illicit “gear” they need to entertain, in an hour’s time, a bunch of lawyers.
But the next layer of the plot is also based on misapprehension. Only the audience, literally, sitting on the bleachers with their headphones on, can hear what the characters are saying, to each other and on their mobiles. The passing crowd at Circular Quay can see the audience, may be aware that there is something going on between some people on the concourse, but with no knowledge that this is theatre being performed. Many find the audience of great interest, especially when they laugh for apparently no reason. Many take photos of the audience.
When two police officers (real, not actors) apparently innocently walked through, the audience erupted in laughter as the characters tried desperately to complete their “deal”. One group of young men might have become a problem for Simon Laherty, standing stock still in deep thought and dressed in an old singlet looking very daggy. Fortunately after some laughter at his (really Steve’s) expense, they moved along, only to find a woman standing still, talking on her mobile. They began to be unpleasantly amused at her, when she had nothing to do with the theatre performance of which both she and the young men were unaware. But in fact the police stayed handy, and fortunately nothing too untoward happened.
The result was the best, even if potentially risky, street theatre I have ever seen. For us with the headphones, amusement came from both the performers and their expert presentation, and from the reactions of the unaware passers by. Yet concurrently we felt the sadness of people’s failure to communicate, sometimes through inability but often merely through incomprehensible circumstances. I left theatrically satisfied, yet with socially problematical thoughts – rather like the character Steve. You should certainly experience Small Metal Objects if you have the opportunity.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Strangely sad while terribly funny, Small Metal Objects is street theatre to die laughing for. The plot taking place between the characters Steve (Simon Laherty), Greg (Allan Watt), Alan (Jim Russell) and Carolyn (Genevieve Morris) is probably based on a misunderstanding exacerbated particularly by Steve’s genuine but seemingly doomed attempt to become more self-aware and find a girlfriend who would be willing to move in with him. Greg is always willing to help and will not leave Steve knowing he can’t really fend for himself, while corporate lawyer Alan and corporate psychologist Carolyn believe Greg and Steve can supply them with the illicit “gear” they need to entertain, in an hour’s time, a bunch of lawyers.
But the next layer of the plot is also based on misapprehension. Only the audience, literally, sitting on the bleachers with their headphones on, can hear what the characters are saying, to each other and on their mobiles. The passing crowd at Circular Quay can see the audience, may be aware that there is something going on between some people on the concourse, but with no knowledge that this is theatre being performed. Many find the audience of great interest, especially when they laugh for apparently no reason. Many take photos of the audience.
When two police officers (real, not actors) apparently innocently walked through, the audience erupted in laughter as the characters tried desperately to complete their “deal”. One group of young men might have become a problem for Simon Laherty, standing stock still in deep thought and dressed in an old singlet looking very daggy. Fortunately after some laughter at his (really Steve’s) expense, they moved along, only to find a woman standing still, talking on her mobile. They began to be unpleasantly amused at her, when she had nothing to do with the theatre performance of which both she and the young men were unaware. But in fact the police stayed handy, and fortunately nothing too untoward happened.
The result was the best, even if potentially risky, street theatre I have ever seen. For us with the headphones, amusement came from both the performers and their expert presentation, and from the reactions of the unaware passers by. Yet concurrently we felt the sadness of people’s failure to communicate, sometimes through inability but often merely through incomprehensible circumstances. I left theatrically satisfied, yet with socially problematical thoughts – rather like the character Steve. You should certainly experience Small Metal Objects if you have the opportunity.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2007: Sydney Festival: La Clique
Sydney Festival: La Clique at the Famous Spiegeltent, Hyde Park North. January 5-16, 18-28 9.30pm; January 23-24 7.30pm (2 hours with interval). www.sydneyfestival.org.au
You may have dreamt of doing things so far out of the ordinary, explained Rubber Man Captain Frodo, that you have never dared to try. But now you have seen the outlandish things we do for a living, dream on.
Well I, like most readers I imagine, never did run away and join the circus. But one Canberran of my acquaintance, Michael Simic, aka Mikelangelo of the famed Black Sea Gentlemen, not only ran away to Melbourne but now leads in La Clique with his particular style of jaunty, naughty, funny songs of sex and violence. La Clique is not cabaret-circus for the fainthearted, and certainly not for the young (under 18s not admitted).
There are no naked animals in this very intimate circus in the quite small Spiegeltent, but you can guess what will happen as magician Ursula Martinez makes her little red handkerchief disappear time and time again until there seems to be nowhere left for it to re-appear from but ….
The circus acts are real. Captain Frodo is excruciating to watch getting his body parts through two tennis racket frames, Miss Behave swallows a sword far too long for my liking, while others make hula hoops do amazing things, or do trapeze tricks cleverly timed to music, or make neat comedy out of remarkable strength and balance, climaxing with the surprising David O’Mer’s bathtub gymnastics.
But the essence of the show is its continuous humour. It’s a cavalcade of characters, clowns maybe but so skilful that sincere applause for their art goes hand in hand with constant laughter – always with them, never at them. Two hours pass in no time. The bubbling excitement in the crowd grows even during interval as the bar serves a treat, and at the end of the show the stage is cleared for more music, dance and action than anyone can poke a stick at.
I was reminded by La Clique of the zany strength of Circus Oz in its early days, but with a raunchy rather than almost old-fashioned “committed” social commentary. Small scale and tightly constructed, this show is great festival material and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
You may have dreamt of doing things so far out of the ordinary, explained Rubber Man Captain Frodo, that you have never dared to try. But now you have seen the outlandish things we do for a living, dream on.
Well I, like most readers I imagine, never did run away and join the circus. But one Canberran of my acquaintance, Michael Simic, aka Mikelangelo of the famed Black Sea Gentlemen, not only ran away to Melbourne but now leads in La Clique with his particular style of jaunty, naughty, funny songs of sex and violence. La Clique is not cabaret-circus for the fainthearted, and certainly not for the young (under 18s not admitted).
There are no naked animals in this very intimate circus in the quite small Spiegeltent, but you can guess what will happen as magician Ursula Martinez makes her little red handkerchief disappear time and time again until there seems to be nowhere left for it to re-appear from but ….
The circus acts are real. Captain Frodo is excruciating to watch getting his body parts through two tennis racket frames, Miss Behave swallows a sword far too long for my liking, while others make hula hoops do amazing things, or do trapeze tricks cleverly timed to music, or make neat comedy out of remarkable strength and balance, climaxing with the surprising David O’Mer’s bathtub gymnastics.
But the essence of the show is its continuous humour. It’s a cavalcade of characters, clowns maybe but so skilful that sincere applause for their art goes hand in hand with constant laughter – always with them, never at them. Two hours pass in no time. The bubbling excitement in the crowd grows even during interval as the bar serves a treat, and at the end of the show the stage is cleared for more music, dance and action than anyone can poke a stick at.
I was reminded by La Clique of the zany strength of Circus Oz in its early days, but with a raunchy rather than almost old-fashioned “committed” social commentary. Small scale and tightly constructed, this show is great festival material and should not be missed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 19 December 2006
2006: An Australian Nativity Story by Kabu Okai-Davies. Promo feature article.
An Australian Nativity Story is a special presentation at Belconnen Community Church tonight and Canberra City Uniting Church on Christmas Eve. The two churches have joined together for this multicultural musical and dramatic celebration written and directed by recent migrant to Australia, Kabu Okai-Davies.
Okai-Davies, originally from Ghana, lived in America for 18 years where he founded and directed the African Globe TheatreWorks Company. He brings to this production his personal beliefs, as a Methodist in Ghana and being active in the St James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey, mixed with his extensive experience in community theatre as a writer and director.
He has taken the Black Nativity, written by the iconic African-American poet Langston Hughes, as a basis for writing scenes using Biblical text, workshopping with the church members, young and old, to find ways of re-working his ideas into an Australian context, re-writing the script and incorporating music and song from all the cultures represented in these churches.
A particular delight is a Christmas carol such as Silent Night sung by three Tongan women with the slow haunting harmonies and rhythms of their sea-going people.
Though the participants on stage are not experienced performers – indeed this is a celebration by church members for themselves as much as for the general public – the production process has been as much about learning theatre as about celebrating religious faith. With Stopera stage manager Liz Topperwien as production manager, training has not only been in performing by Okai-Davies. Stage Manager Nell Feneck has already been fingered by Topperwien to take over the whole production next year.
Okai-Davies has a grand vision, seeing the Bible as the source of drama, tragedy, comedy and satire which he plans to use for bigger and better celebrations of this kind as the years go by. He sees An Australian Nativity Story as the beginning of a new tradition in a new theatrical genre which he calls Theatre of Faith.
However, this is not to be seen as limited to a particular sect or even a particular religion. Okai-Davies explains that “entertainment transcends race, sex and all of humanity’s issues” bringing together people of all religions and cultures. He starts from the Shakespearean quotation “If music be the food of love, play on” and reinterprets it to say “Music is the food of love, and let us all play together”.
This year’s small-scale work, which has been prepared in only one month, is planned to become a “mass ecumenical celebration” in Civic Square in the future. Bringing people of all beliefs together in celebration is the “key to what Christianity is all about”, says Okai-Davies.
In developing the characters in the spoken drama and the songs, the play takes Biblical figures, using text from a range of translations, and places them in a thematic structure so that they become symbols relevant to modern life rather than only representing the ancient past.
And to make the point, the children in the workshop stage of production made it clear that the conventional blue with silver stars would not do in Australia. So look for the green and gold!
An Australian Nativity Story
by Kabu Okai-Davies
Belconnen Community Church
93 Hennessy St, Belconnen
December 22, 7pm
Canberra City Uniting Church
69 Northborne Ave, Civic
December 24, 7pm
Donations: Adults $10, Children $5, Family $25
For further information: 6255 5532 or 0405 447 845
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Okai-Davies, originally from Ghana, lived in America for 18 years where he founded and directed the African Globe TheatreWorks Company. He brings to this production his personal beliefs, as a Methodist in Ghana and being active in the St James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey, mixed with his extensive experience in community theatre as a writer and director.
He has taken the Black Nativity, written by the iconic African-American poet Langston Hughes, as a basis for writing scenes using Biblical text, workshopping with the church members, young and old, to find ways of re-working his ideas into an Australian context, re-writing the script and incorporating music and song from all the cultures represented in these churches.
A particular delight is a Christmas carol such as Silent Night sung by three Tongan women with the slow haunting harmonies and rhythms of their sea-going people.
Though the participants on stage are not experienced performers – indeed this is a celebration by church members for themselves as much as for the general public – the production process has been as much about learning theatre as about celebrating religious faith. With Stopera stage manager Liz Topperwien as production manager, training has not only been in performing by Okai-Davies. Stage Manager Nell Feneck has already been fingered by Topperwien to take over the whole production next year.
Okai-Davies has a grand vision, seeing the Bible as the source of drama, tragedy, comedy and satire which he plans to use for bigger and better celebrations of this kind as the years go by. He sees An Australian Nativity Story as the beginning of a new tradition in a new theatrical genre which he calls Theatre of Faith.
However, this is not to be seen as limited to a particular sect or even a particular religion. Okai-Davies explains that “entertainment transcends race, sex and all of humanity’s issues” bringing together people of all religions and cultures. He starts from the Shakespearean quotation “If music be the food of love, play on” and reinterprets it to say “Music is the food of love, and let us all play together”.
This year’s small-scale work, which has been prepared in only one month, is planned to become a “mass ecumenical celebration” in Civic Square in the future. Bringing people of all beliefs together in celebration is the “key to what Christianity is all about”, says Okai-Davies.
In developing the characters in the spoken drama and the songs, the play takes Biblical figures, using text from a range of translations, and places them in a thematic structure so that they become symbols relevant to modern life rather than only representing the ancient past.
And to make the point, the children in the workshop stage of production made it clear that the conventional blue with silver stars would not do in Australia. So look for the green and gold!
An Australian Nativity Story
by Kabu Okai-Davies
Belconnen Community Church
93 Hennessy St, Belconnen
December 22, 7pm
Canberra City Uniting Church
69 Northborne Ave, Civic
December 24, 7pm
Donations: Adults $10, Children $5, Family $25
For further information: 6255 5532 or 0405 447 845
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2006: Kabu Okai-Davies - feature article
A new arrival on Canberra’s theatre scene is Kabu Okai-Davies. University studies in his home country, Ghana, began his interest in theatre.
In America from 1988, where he studied film, taught African film and theatre courses and became resident playwright at New York’s Ensemble Theatre Company, his major achievement before migrating here has been African Globe TheatreWorks, a company he formed originally in Newark, New Jersey, a city where he found African-Americans needed an outlet to celebrate their culture.
By 2002, his still struggling independent company had produced a long series of plays, often re-worked to suit his African-American performers and audience. One critic commented “Though the playhouse’s seats are plastic, its productions are not.”
The company was attracting considerable corporate sponsorship, and yet, says Okai-Davies, he became aware of a major shift in American attitudes as the Bush administration took over from the Clinton era, when the arts and community had been exciting arenas for him to work in.
Though he had become a ‘legal resident alien’, especially after the September 11 disaster he felt society becoming “too saturated with its own self, insular, parochial”. He had to face the question, Have I finished here?
In Australia, he says in contrast, he has found new “exciting people who have a sense of natural friendliness” which was reinforced when he brought his African Globe TheatreWorks production of When a Man Loves a Woman by Solomon F Caudle to Canberra for the 2005 Multicultural Festival.
With his family now settled in, and after involvement backstage in local productions, his immediate venture this Christmas is An Australian Nativity for the Canberra City Uniting and Belconnen Community Churches, partly based on the Black Nativity by Langston Hughes, who was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture.
In May 2007 at The Street Theatre, Okai-Davies will direct local writer Mark Taylor’s Young Followers, a play about bastardisation and the ‘accelerated deconstruction’ of officer cadets.
If all his plans come to fruition, a new organisation will form with a strong emphasis on multicultural theatre. Multiculturalism is an Australian reality, he says. Integration never works. In the meantime he is taking a post-graduate course in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra with projects already in mind for at least the next three years.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In America from 1988, where he studied film, taught African film and theatre courses and became resident playwright at New York’s Ensemble Theatre Company, his major achievement before migrating here has been African Globe TheatreWorks, a company he formed originally in Newark, New Jersey, a city where he found African-Americans needed an outlet to celebrate their culture.
By 2002, his still struggling independent company had produced a long series of plays, often re-worked to suit his African-American performers and audience. One critic commented “Though the playhouse’s seats are plastic, its productions are not.”
The company was attracting considerable corporate sponsorship, and yet, says Okai-Davies, he became aware of a major shift in American attitudes as the Bush administration took over from the Clinton era, when the arts and community had been exciting arenas for him to work in.
Though he had become a ‘legal resident alien’, especially after the September 11 disaster he felt society becoming “too saturated with its own self, insular, parochial”. He had to face the question, Have I finished here?
In Australia, he says in contrast, he has found new “exciting people who have a sense of natural friendliness” which was reinforced when he brought his African Globe TheatreWorks production of When a Man Loves a Woman by Solomon F Caudle to Canberra for the 2005 Multicultural Festival.
With his family now settled in, and after involvement backstage in local productions, his immediate venture this Christmas is An Australian Nativity for the Canberra City Uniting and Belconnen Community Churches, partly based on the Black Nativity by Langston Hughes, who was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, the African-American artistic movement in the 1920s that celebrated black life and culture.
In May 2007 at The Street Theatre, Okai-Davies will direct local writer Mark Taylor’s Young Followers, a play about bastardisation and the ‘accelerated deconstruction’ of officer cadets.
If all his plans come to fruition, a new organisation will form with a strong emphasis on multicultural theatre. Multiculturalism is an Australian reality, he says. Integration never works. In the meantime he is taking a post-graduate course in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra with projects already in mind for at least the next three years.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 14 December 2006
2006: Red Riding Hood by Peter McDonald
Red Riding Hood, a pantomime by Peter McDonald. Ickle Pickle Productions at Belconnen Community Centre Theatre December 14-22 3pm and 7pm, except Tuesday December 19 11am. Bookings: 6247 1223.
Following last year’s Goldilocks success, director Justin Watson and writer Peter McDonald have conspired to produce the only version of Red Riding Hood to mention the corrupt failed company Enron which, news reports said, “lied about its profits and stands accused of a range of shady dealings, including concealing debts so they didn't show up in the company's accounts”.
But don’t worry, this is just a pantomime in the long tradition of humorous social commentary. Even the younger audience members followed a very twisted plot in which Granny and the Wolf are business rivals. They quickly learned when and how to call for the Good Fairy of Marketing, played nicely by Josie Dunham as a quite daffy character who finally brings a new cookie-making cooperative into being and marries off Granny Hood (Dave Smith as the panto dame) to Wolf Jackman (Peter Rousell) who baulks at wearing Granny’s skirt and shawl because he is a male wolf (while she gets hot under the collar in his oven).
Red Riding Hood (Kat Brand) marries Martin from Accounts (Anna O’Leary), the 3 evil robotic blind mice (well-played mechanically by Grace Connelly, Rebecca de Costa and Clare Sheehan) are properly defeated by management consultants Michael Mouse (Jennifer Maclean), Stuart Mouse (Erin Cassidy) and Gerald Mouse (Irena Reedy). While Wolf’s offsider Crookwell, played strongly by Jaime Isfahani, is left rather lonely, except that Santa appears to make everyone happy in the end.
You’ll have to see the show to appreciate McDonald’s Terry Pratchett-like mind, with any number of musical references and bits of other fairy stories built in. It’s just as much fun for the adults as the children.
Directing, choreography and an intriguingly simple set change device all show the skills which we have come to expect from Ickle Pickle, resulting in excellent performances from all the young actors in an engaging production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Following last year’s Goldilocks success, director Justin Watson and writer Peter McDonald have conspired to produce the only version of Red Riding Hood to mention the corrupt failed company Enron which, news reports said, “lied about its profits and stands accused of a range of shady dealings, including concealing debts so they didn't show up in the company's accounts”.
But don’t worry, this is just a pantomime in the long tradition of humorous social commentary. Even the younger audience members followed a very twisted plot in which Granny and the Wolf are business rivals. They quickly learned when and how to call for the Good Fairy of Marketing, played nicely by Josie Dunham as a quite daffy character who finally brings a new cookie-making cooperative into being and marries off Granny Hood (Dave Smith as the panto dame) to Wolf Jackman (Peter Rousell) who baulks at wearing Granny’s skirt and shawl because he is a male wolf (while she gets hot under the collar in his oven).
Red Riding Hood (Kat Brand) marries Martin from Accounts (Anna O’Leary), the 3 evil robotic blind mice (well-played mechanically by Grace Connelly, Rebecca de Costa and Clare Sheehan) are properly defeated by management consultants Michael Mouse (Jennifer Maclean), Stuart Mouse (Erin Cassidy) and Gerald Mouse (Irena Reedy). While Wolf’s offsider Crookwell, played strongly by Jaime Isfahani, is left rather lonely, except that Santa appears to make everyone happy in the end.
You’ll have to see the show to appreciate McDonald’s Terry Pratchett-like mind, with any number of musical references and bits of other fairy stories built in. It’s just as much fun for the adults as the children.
Directing, choreography and an intriguingly simple set change device all show the skills which we have come to expect from Ickle Pickle, resulting in excellent performances from all the young actors in an engaging production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
2006: The Moth Tree: An Awesome Adventure. Promo feature article - Canberra Youth Theatre
Opening December 5, Canberra Youth Theatre will present their end-of-year major production The Moth Tree: An Awesome Adventure at Gorman House Arts Centre.
16 students, ranging in age from 8 to 12, have worked since July with director Tim Hansen, Sydney writer Shiereen Magsalin, designer Hilary Talbot and combat trainer Elena Kirschbaum. For these young people,learning how to create and present The Moth Tree has been an awesome adventure in its own right.
Hansen has tutored and directed at CYT for the past 4 years. With qualifications in theatre/media from Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and in music composition from ANU School of Music, he takes an interesting approach to the production process. Through regular workshops, including weekend and week-long intensive sessions, he takes on board the students’ ideas, working with them to create theatrical “beats”, which he describes as major points of emphasis to form a dramatic “score”.
With this group, all of whom have shown great initiative, energy and determination, CYT has employed a young emerging writer in an interactive process – sometimes directly working with the students and their director, sometimes using email to pass on ideas and sections of script – to come up with a completed play. The copyright is owned by CYT, so that the script will be available for other groups, but in the most important sense The Moth Tree is owned by all those involved.
Hansen and his student group have had the same kind of relationship with Talbot and Kirschbaum, with the result that there has been great excitement among the young people when a professional adult arrives to work with them. In parallel with the way a director of a professional production might operate, the students create the vision and have the services of dramaturg, writer, stage manager, production manager, designer and trainer available to help them turn their ideas into theatrical reality.
This is surely a quality learning experience, with CYT’s aim, as Hansen puts it, “to create the next generation of theatre creators.”
The Moth Tree is a quest story in the tradition of ancient myth, especially appropriate for this age group. Hansen’s adventure included its own challenges: cast members have sustained a broken thumb and 2 broken wrists. Neither injury occurred at CYT, who say they are now considering asking parents to wrap their children in cotton wool between rehearsals.
The story that has evolved began from the significance of bogong moths. Set, like Canberra, in a quiet part of the world is the city of Algoma. In the surrounding countryside is an enchanted tree on which grow moths who protect the city, a haven of harmony and gentle joy. But at the Festival, held every 10 years, the people discover the moths have disappeared. The twins, Asha and Caleb, must find out what has happened, face up to the challenges of their quest, and hopefully return the city and all its people to the protection of the moths.
Wonderful trees, lit up internally, create a magic forest for the Awesome Adventure. Every student has found their niche on stage among the huge number of characters they wrote about in their first exercise of imagination. It produced a wad of papers at least half a metre thick, so Hansen says. “A bit of every single one of these kids is in the script.”
Live characters, puppets and, of course, beautiful moths abound. Let the awesome adventure begin.
The Moth Tree: An Awesome Adventure
Canberra Youth Theatre
December 5-12 at 7pm (matinee Saturday December 9, 2pm)
C Block Theatre
Gorman House Arts Centre, Braddon
Bookings and information: 6248 5057
© Frank McKone, Canberra
16 students, ranging in age from 8 to 12, have worked since July with director Tim Hansen, Sydney writer Shiereen Magsalin, designer Hilary Talbot and combat trainer Elena Kirschbaum. For these young people,learning how to create and present The Moth Tree has been an awesome adventure in its own right.
Hansen has tutored and directed at CYT for the past 4 years. With qualifications in theatre/media from Charles Sturt University, Bathurst and in music composition from ANU School of Music, he takes an interesting approach to the production process. Through regular workshops, including weekend and week-long intensive sessions, he takes on board the students’ ideas, working with them to create theatrical “beats”, which he describes as major points of emphasis to form a dramatic “score”.
With this group, all of whom have shown great initiative, energy and determination, CYT has employed a young emerging writer in an interactive process – sometimes directly working with the students and their director, sometimes using email to pass on ideas and sections of script – to come up with a completed play. The copyright is owned by CYT, so that the script will be available for other groups, but in the most important sense The Moth Tree is owned by all those involved.
Hansen and his student group have had the same kind of relationship with Talbot and Kirschbaum, with the result that there has been great excitement among the young people when a professional adult arrives to work with them. In parallel with the way a director of a professional production might operate, the students create the vision and have the services of dramaturg, writer, stage manager, production manager, designer and trainer available to help them turn their ideas into theatrical reality.
This is surely a quality learning experience, with CYT’s aim, as Hansen puts it, “to create the next generation of theatre creators.”
The Moth Tree is a quest story in the tradition of ancient myth, especially appropriate for this age group. Hansen’s adventure included its own challenges: cast members have sustained a broken thumb and 2 broken wrists. Neither injury occurred at CYT, who say they are now considering asking parents to wrap their children in cotton wool between rehearsals.
The story that has evolved began from the significance of bogong moths. Set, like Canberra, in a quiet part of the world is the city of Algoma. In the surrounding countryside is an enchanted tree on which grow moths who protect the city, a haven of harmony and gentle joy. But at the Festival, held every 10 years, the people discover the moths have disappeared. The twins, Asha and Caleb, must find out what has happened, face up to the challenges of their quest, and hopefully return the city and all its people to the protection of the moths.
Wonderful trees, lit up internally, create a magic forest for the Awesome Adventure. Every student has found their niche on stage among the huge number of characters they wrote about in their first exercise of imagination. It produced a wad of papers at least half a metre thick, so Hansen says. “A bit of every single one of these kids is in the script.”
Live characters, puppets and, of course, beautiful moths abound. Let the awesome adventure begin.
The Moth Tree: An Awesome Adventure
Canberra Youth Theatre
December 5-12 at 7pm (matinee Saturday December 9, 2pm)
C Block Theatre
Gorman House Arts Centre, Braddon
Bookings and information: 6248 5057
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 17 November 2006
2006: I'll Be Back Before Midnight by Peter Colley
Ill Be Back Before Midnight by Peter Colley. Canberra Rep directed by Walter Learning at Theatre 3, November 17 – December 9. Bookings: 6247 1950
O what foul and fearful farce is this, what theatrical self-indulgence. You will certainly scream and laugh in the same breath. O horror – a play to be enjoyed!
Just the right illusion of reality in the midst of ludicrous twists of plot is achieved by all the actors. Leah Baulch plays Jan, who knows she is sane after experiencing a nervous breakdown. Ian Croker plays Farmer George, so warm-hearted, sympathetic and helpful, and – but I must not give the plot away. Lucy Goleby’s Laura and Duncan Ley’s Greg are brother and sister of the most awful kind. The trick is to make us suspend our disbelief to create feelings of terror, and then to suspend our belief to make us laugh.
Learning directed the original Rep production 20 years ago. I didn’t see it then, but I suspect that he has taught today’s actors perhaps even more skilfully than before. Without the correct finesse in timing and emotional expression, all the technical tricks in the world would not make the play work. But work it does.
You can’t help but be entertained by this spoof of an Agatha Christie, without a detective to help you work out the devious logic. Every character did it, except the butler because there isn’t one.
For people who want a justification for going to the theatre, a bit of academic effort shows the play actually reveals how politicians and terrorists can tap into our fears so easily. Remember the weapons of mass destruction which never existed, or how to respect women by killing them in a soccer stadium just before the afternoon game?
Of course I’ll Be Back Before Midnight was never meant to bear responsibility for such heavy thoughts, so don’t worry, be happy and you will indeed have as the program advertises “A wonderful night of blood-curdling fun!”
© Frank McKone, Canberra
O what foul and fearful farce is this, what theatrical self-indulgence. You will certainly scream and laugh in the same breath. O horror – a play to be enjoyed!
Just the right illusion of reality in the midst of ludicrous twists of plot is achieved by all the actors. Leah Baulch plays Jan, who knows she is sane after experiencing a nervous breakdown. Ian Croker plays Farmer George, so warm-hearted, sympathetic and helpful, and – but I must not give the plot away. Lucy Goleby’s Laura and Duncan Ley’s Greg are brother and sister of the most awful kind. The trick is to make us suspend our disbelief to create feelings of terror, and then to suspend our belief to make us laugh.
Learning directed the original Rep production 20 years ago. I didn’t see it then, but I suspect that he has taught today’s actors perhaps even more skilfully than before. Without the correct finesse in timing and emotional expression, all the technical tricks in the world would not make the play work. But work it does.
You can’t help but be entertained by this spoof of an Agatha Christie, without a detective to help you work out the devious logic. Every character did it, except the butler because there isn’t one.
For people who want a justification for going to the theatre, a bit of academic effort shows the play actually reveals how politicians and terrorists can tap into our fears so easily. Remember the weapons of mass destruction which never existed, or how to respect women by killing them in a soccer stadium just before the afternoon game?
Of course I’ll Be Back Before Midnight was never meant to bear responsibility for such heavy thoughts, so don’t worry, be happy and you will indeed have as the program advertises “A wonderful night of blood-curdling fun!”
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 13 November 2006
2006: Norm and Ahmed by Alex Buzo. Preview feature article.
The latest theatrical incarnation in Canberra – Australian Capital Theatre Inc – has a clever logo of its initials representing a figure standing in a spotlight.
To find out about this new company I turned the spotlight onto Peter Copeman, co-director with Dione McAlary of their first production, Norm and Ahmed. By Alex Buzo, who sadly died of cancer recently, the play was famously banned 40 years ago for its use of f*** on stage. But the real controversy should have been about the traditional Australian racism seen in the character Norm against the Pakistani Ahmed.
Today, the theme of the play has become more terribly relevant than ever. Copeman explains that this theatre is “of passion rather than profit” and that this production is a “toe in the water” in the hope that ACT Inc will continue “in and for the capital and for Australia”. A community needs to be “telling its own stories to itself”, especially in a globalised world, where people “crave a sense of locality and local identity”.
Though he admits he hasn’t yet read In Good Company - A manual for producing independent theatre by Lyn Wallis (reviewed in The Canberra Times last March), where warnings abound about planning for sustainability, I discovered that Copeman’s range of experience should stand the company in good stead. He began by training as a director at NIDA, has a masters degree in dramaturgy from Canada, became a writer largely through work in community theatre, particularly with Melbourne’s Jika Jika Theatre with Australia Council and Community Employment Program funding in the 1980s.
Learning discipline in writing came from an Australian Film and Television School course and 18 months writing television scripts for the second last series of Prisoner, including the first script with an Aboriginal woman’s role based on experiences at Fairlea Women’s Prison.
John Clark, recently retired director of NIDA, persuaded Copeman to accept an appointment as executive director of the Northern Territory Theatre Company in Darwin, the short-lived attempt by then Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Paul Everingham to set up a state theatre company to match the southern states. A top-down decision, facing considerable hostility from the incumbent pro-am Darwin Theatre Group and funding cuts by the Federal Labour government meant pensioner concessions on buses were subsequently preferred over an expensive theatre company. Not even its first year’s program could be completed.
In Brisbane, writing and teaching at Queensland University of Technology led to a production of Sinakulo, a play about Australian / Filipino relations, which received an AWGIE in 2003. In Canberra since 2004, Copeman directed the registered vocational training course Theatre Arts Diploma in Entertainment for ANU Enterprises, which won an ACT Training Excellence Award for a training initiative while one student was named Vocational Student of the Year.
The lack of a standard apprenticeship system in theatre, however, saw the course funding cut, so Copeman and graduate students tried in 2005 for a grant to re-present Sinakulo, working with Canberra’s Filipino community, but without success despite their previously successful production of House Arrest at Old Parliament House. Though some of the original group have inevitably moved away from Canberra, ACT Inc is the result of an 18 month gestation period.
Relying entirely on private funds, Norm and Ahmed is a deliberate choice. It has only two actors (Peter Fock and Ian Fallon). Its presentation on the Kingston Foreshore of the Old Bus Depot Markets means no set building is required, since the architecture creates the right imagery as Buzo pictured his play. Using a “found” space rather than a purpose built theatre is consistent with Copeman’s community theatre interests, while the play is an excellent example of telling our story to ourselves.
With this theme in mind, Australian Capital Theatre Inc plans to follow on with other works of the Australian canon, as well as other Australian plays which may have had one professional run and then become forgotten, and may not have been published, yet should be seen again especially in the National Capital.
One concept of ACT Inc is to become an attraction for visitors to Canberra, from Australia and overseas, to see Australian culture in action, while our discussion also led to the need for unpublished scripts from around the country to be retrieved from people’s sheds, cardboard boxes and filing cabinets – even their hard drives – to be collected and archived in one place such as the National Library.
In a previous article I have noted more than 70 theatre groups that of have come and mostly gone in Canberra over the past decade. Perhaps ACT Inc will establish a niche and survive against all the odds.
Norm and Ahmed by Alex Buzo
Australian Capital Theatre
Old Bus Depot Markets
Wentworth Ave (on the Kingston Foreshore)
Tuesday to Friday November 21 – December 1, 8.30pm
$16 / $12 / $10 groups of 10 or more
Bookings 0417 639 521
© Frank McKone, Canberra
To find out about this new company I turned the spotlight onto Peter Copeman, co-director with Dione McAlary of their first production, Norm and Ahmed. By Alex Buzo, who sadly died of cancer recently, the play was famously banned 40 years ago for its use of f*** on stage. But the real controversy should have been about the traditional Australian racism seen in the character Norm against the Pakistani Ahmed.
Today, the theme of the play has become more terribly relevant than ever. Copeman explains that this theatre is “of passion rather than profit” and that this production is a “toe in the water” in the hope that ACT Inc will continue “in and for the capital and for Australia”. A community needs to be “telling its own stories to itself”, especially in a globalised world, where people “crave a sense of locality and local identity”.
Though he admits he hasn’t yet read In Good Company - A manual for producing independent theatre by Lyn Wallis (reviewed in The Canberra Times last March), where warnings abound about planning for sustainability, I discovered that Copeman’s range of experience should stand the company in good stead. He began by training as a director at NIDA, has a masters degree in dramaturgy from Canada, became a writer largely through work in community theatre, particularly with Melbourne’s Jika Jika Theatre with Australia Council and Community Employment Program funding in the 1980s.
Learning discipline in writing came from an Australian Film and Television School course and 18 months writing television scripts for the second last series of Prisoner, including the first script with an Aboriginal woman’s role based on experiences at Fairlea Women’s Prison.
John Clark, recently retired director of NIDA, persuaded Copeman to accept an appointment as executive director of the Northern Territory Theatre Company in Darwin, the short-lived attempt by then Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Paul Everingham to set up a state theatre company to match the southern states. A top-down decision, facing considerable hostility from the incumbent pro-am Darwin Theatre Group and funding cuts by the Federal Labour government meant pensioner concessions on buses were subsequently preferred over an expensive theatre company. Not even its first year’s program could be completed.
In Brisbane, writing and teaching at Queensland University of Technology led to a production of Sinakulo, a play about Australian / Filipino relations, which received an AWGIE in 2003. In Canberra since 2004, Copeman directed the registered vocational training course Theatre Arts Diploma in Entertainment for ANU Enterprises, which won an ACT Training Excellence Award for a training initiative while one student was named Vocational Student of the Year.
The lack of a standard apprenticeship system in theatre, however, saw the course funding cut, so Copeman and graduate students tried in 2005 for a grant to re-present Sinakulo, working with Canberra’s Filipino community, but without success despite their previously successful production of House Arrest at Old Parliament House. Though some of the original group have inevitably moved away from Canberra, ACT Inc is the result of an 18 month gestation period.
Relying entirely on private funds, Norm and Ahmed is a deliberate choice. It has only two actors (Peter Fock and Ian Fallon). Its presentation on the Kingston Foreshore of the Old Bus Depot Markets means no set building is required, since the architecture creates the right imagery as Buzo pictured his play. Using a “found” space rather than a purpose built theatre is consistent with Copeman’s community theatre interests, while the play is an excellent example of telling our story to ourselves.
With this theme in mind, Australian Capital Theatre Inc plans to follow on with other works of the Australian canon, as well as other Australian plays which may have had one professional run and then become forgotten, and may not have been published, yet should be seen again especially in the National Capital.
One concept of ACT Inc is to become an attraction for visitors to Canberra, from Australia and overseas, to see Australian culture in action, while our discussion also led to the need for unpublished scripts from around the country to be retrieved from people’s sheds, cardboard boxes and filing cabinets – even their hard drives – to be collected and archived in one place such as the National Library.
In a previous article I have noted more than 70 theatre groups that of have come and mostly gone in Canberra over the past decade. Perhaps ACT Inc will establish a niche and survive against all the odds.
Norm and Ahmed by Alex Buzo
Australian Capital Theatre
Old Bus Depot Markets
Wentworth Ave (on the Kingston Foreshore)
Tuesday to Friday November 21 – December 1, 8.30pm
$16 / $12 / $10 groups of 10 or more
Bookings 0417 639 521
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 10 November 2006
2006: “Are You Being Served?” by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft. Preview feature article.
Who, we may well ask, is being served when Nina Stevenson as Mrs Slocum refers pointedly to her pussy in “Are Your Being Served?” at the Gallery Café, University of Canberra, opening this Friday?
Asking this of director Jasan Savage revealed much more than even he expected. How is it possible that he has attracted full theatre-restaurant houses to some 45 shows of this kind over 9 years? Who goes so far, usually finding themselves lost in the out-of-the-way confusion of UC buildings, to see old television favourites? And who is Jasan Savage anyway?
Way back in the mists of time (the 1950s) Young Jasan began a quest to become a theatre designer. The famous stage hypnotist The Great Franquin, after putting him under, invited Jay, as he became known, to be his advertising illustrator. From Melbourne, Franquin took Jay all over Australia, New Zealand, and, on one trip, to 40 American cities in 40 days. 7 years later, when Franquin retired, having reached his target of amassing a million pounds, Betty Pounder of J C Williamson’s theatre pushed Jay into auditioning and his life as an actor began, taking him all over the world (except Russia, he says, regretfully).
For the past 10 years he has worked for University of Canberra Union (UCU) as director (which means doing absolutely everything) at the UCU Theatre in The Hub. The first attempt at theatre-restaurant, in 1997, was The Diary of Adam and Eve, based on Mark Twain’s work, which was a surprising success. Searching for other short plays suitable for a restaurant atmosphere revealed that many television comedy writers had adapted their work for stage. Fawlty Towers was good but needed some changes for the local audience. So Savage rang John Cleese’s agent in London, who passed the phone to Cleese himself. “Do what you like with it,” he said!
And so followed Absolutely Fabulous, Dad’s Army, ‘Allo ‘Allo, The Vicar of Dibley, Black Adder, MASH, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as well as other non-tv scripts like Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, short pieces by Chekhov (Chekhov’s Funniest), the Wizard of Oz. Even the Vampire Lesbians of Sodom brought in the crowds, averaging about 2600 per show. That’s 117,000 bums on seats in 9 years.
The UCU theatre is dark nowadays, except for rehearsals and university lectures, as the restaurant stage dominates the work. Do people just come for the food and wine? “After all,” says Savage, “I’m just putting on pure entertainment.” But discussion brings us round to the people who come. “Mums and dads from Nappy Valley. They bring the whole family, often ringing to ask if it’s too shocking for Grandma, and then bringing her too.”
Not quite the audience you would expect at a university venue? No, the university people never come, but they are interested in the money the shows earn, even when it costs thousands of dollars to mount them. Gradually we realise that Savage is doing something that theatre has always done – subverting people’s assumptions.
A non-academic audience attends university without thinking “I’m going to university”. But many also then come to other events at UC such as Stonefest. It might be beneath the dignity of the academics to go to these plays, but they are an important bridge between the university and the surrounding society.
“I usually add in some tit jokes,” says Savage, to bring me back to earth. But these scripts “are a bit like the Shakespearean stage where characters talk about what isn’t on stage - like Mrs Slocum’s pussy. It’s about people using their imaginations.” Then when I push further about why families of tv watchers come, Savage at last admits it’s quite different “to see Mrs Slocum in the flesh, talking about her pussy.” They come to see the characters they know. But they want to see them live on stage. This is what theatre can do that television can never do.
So it will be a “screamingly funny night” - judging by the costume rehearsal - when the Grace Brothers staff go to Spain for a Christmas holiday in a non-star hotel which, they discover, hasn’t yet been built. Tent hopping and mistaken identities follow naturally, and the innuendoes … well, say no more.
I’m thinking Canberra society is being surpisingly well served by Jason Savage and his small core of regular actors - Nina Stevenson, Dan Cole, Craig Marvell, Hugh Stevenson and John Rogers - as well as the many occasional performers. UC Players’ dinner theatre is a quirky aberration in a city full of conventional expectations. Light relief, yes - but a bit of the eccentricity which we can all enjoy and which so many of these plays represent. A bit like Jasan Savage himself.
“Are You Being Served” by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft
UC Players at the Gallery Café
UCU Conference Centre
University of Canberra
Fridays and Saturdays November 17 – December 16
Show and 3 Course Dinner $60
Bookings essential: 6201 2645
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Asking this of director Jasan Savage revealed much more than even he expected. How is it possible that he has attracted full theatre-restaurant houses to some 45 shows of this kind over 9 years? Who goes so far, usually finding themselves lost in the out-of-the-way confusion of UC buildings, to see old television favourites? And who is Jasan Savage anyway?
Way back in the mists of time (the 1950s) Young Jasan began a quest to become a theatre designer. The famous stage hypnotist The Great Franquin, after putting him under, invited Jay, as he became known, to be his advertising illustrator. From Melbourne, Franquin took Jay all over Australia, New Zealand, and, on one trip, to 40 American cities in 40 days. 7 years later, when Franquin retired, having reached his target of amassing a million pounds, Betty Pounder of J C Williamson’s theatre pushed Jay into auditioning and his life as an actor began, taking him all over the world (except Russia, he says, regretfully).
For the past 10 years he has worked for University of Canberra Union (UCU) as director (which means doing absolutely everything) at the UCU Theatre in The Hub. The first attempt at theatre-restaurant, in 1997, was The Diary of Adam and Eve, based on Mark Twain’s work, which was a surprising success. Searching for other short plays suitable for a restaurant atmosphere revealed that many television comedy writers had adapted their work for stage. Fawlty Towers was good but needed some changes for the local audience. So Savage rang John Cleese’s agent in London, who passed the phone to Cleese himself. “Do what you like with it,” he said!
And so followed Absolutely Fabulous, Dad’s Army, ‘Allo ‘Allo, The Vicar of Dibley, Black Adder, MASH, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as well as other non-tv scripts like Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, short pieces by Chekhov (Chekhov’s Funniest), the Wizard of Oz. Even the Vampire Lesbians of Sodom brought in the crowds, averaging about 2600 per show. That’s 117,000 bums on seats in 9 years.
The UCU theatre is dark nowadays, except for rehearsals and university lectures, as the restaurant stage dominates the work. Do people just come for the food and wine? “After all,” says Savage, “I’m just putting on pure entertainment.” But discussion brings us round to the people who come. “Mums and dads from Nappy Valley. They bring the whole family, often ringing to ask if it’s too shocking for Grandma, and then bringing her too.”
Not quite the audience you would expect at a university venue? No, the university people never come, but they are interested in the money the shows earn, even when it costs thousands of dollars to mount them. Gradually we realise that Savage is doing something that theatre has always done – subverting people’s assumptions.
A non-academic audience attends university without thinking “I’m going to university”. But many also then come to other events at UC such as Stonefest. It might be beneath the dignity of the academics to go to these plays, but they are an important bridge between the university and the surrounding society.
“I usually add in some tit jokes,” says Savage, to bring me back to earth. But these scripts “are a bit like the Shakespearean stage where characters talk about what isn’t on stage - like Mrs Slocum’s pussy. It’s about people using their imaginations.” Then when I push further about why families of tv watchers come, Savage at last admits it’s quite different “to see Mrs Slocum in the flesh, talking about her pussy.” They come to see the characters they know. But they want to see them live on stage. This is what theatre can do that television can never do.
So it will be a “screamingly funny night” - judging by the costume rehearsal - when the Grace Brothers staff go to Spain for a Christmas holiday in a non-star hotel which, they discover, hasn’t yet been built. Tent hopping and mistaken identities follow naturally, and the innuendoes … well, say no more.
I’m thinking Canberra society is being surpisingly well served by Jason Savage and his small core of regular actors - Nina Stevenson, Dan Cole, Craig Marvell, Hugh Stevenson and John Rogers - as well as the many occasional performers. UC Players’ dinner theatre is a quirky aberration in a city full of conventional expectations. Light relief, yes - but a bit of the eccentricity which we can all enjoy and which so many of these plays represent. A bit like Jasan Savage himself.
“Are You Being Served” by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft
UC Players at the Gallery Café
UCU Conference Centre
University of Canberra
Fridays and Saturdays November 17 – December 16
Show and 3 Course Dinner $60
Bookings essential: 6201 2645
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 8 November 2006
2006: Australian National Playwrights’ Centre is dead. Feature article.
Buried alongside its younger sister Playworks, the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre is dead.
Deep sadness wells up within me, remembering my own rough and tumble treatment 25 years ago. Every day for two weeks my script - the avant-garde play of 1981 according to ANPC founding member Katharine Brisbane - was tried and tested by top actors like Helen Morse, shredded by the famous Nimrod director Ken Horler, while I was personally advised by iconic writer Barry Oakley. Every night I added, subtracted and reorganised ready for the next day’s flagellation. I’ll never forget the satisfaction I felt when the public reading created the exact feeling in the audience I had aimed for.
Depression, unfortunately, did not a theatrical success make. The Death of Willy died after one Sunday night reading at Anthill Theatre in Melbourne. A man in a raincoat and I were the only audience.
I apologise for this personal intrusion, but this was what the ANPC was about - bringing the reality of theatre production to bear on the work of new writers, as well as developing new works by established playwrights. In my year I watched Dorothy Hewett receive the same kind of treatment.
But can the Australia Council, by taking the money previously given to Playworks and ANPC to fund the new national script development organisation PlayWriting Australia, expect to ever engender the old excitement, tears and driving force?
Money isn’t everything, as politicians in power regularly tell the rest of us. PlayWriting Australia will begin with $330,000, a little more than the defunct bodies received between them. If you were to operate a business servicing a constant demand in every state and territory, plus running an annual two-week day-and-night practical development program employing the professionals needed to work with perhaps 20 new writers, how would you go with a budget of less than $150,000?
ANPC director Mary-Anne Gifford told me this level of funding over the past few years has meant the annual Playwrights Conference was almost all that was left of the wide-ranging work which is needed to support new theatre across Australia. How much should it be? At least $500,000, preferably a million to cover the work of both ANPC and Playworks.
Is our culture worth funding properly? May-Brit Akerholt directed ANPC from 1992 to 2002, a powerhouse of energy, I remember, at conferences in those days held at ANU. Canberra’s Carol Woodrow, with Timothy Daly, focussed on new script development for many years in special programs outside the annual conference. Both are adamant that the Australia Council funding must be seen as an investment in this core support function.
Akerholt’s key point is that innovation and risk-taking is essential. The freedom to fail underpins the success of the ANPC and Playworks in getting scripts to professional production stage. Woodrow notes that Tom Healey, 2006 Conference director, had to rely on workshop directors being offered free by the large established theatre companies. Risky work is of less interest in these circumstances. Even the name PlayWriting Australia smacks of bureaucratic fashion rather than challenging theatrical guts.
Up and coming young director, based at ANU Arts Centre, Rhys Holden organised the first Australian Theatre Directors’ Conference in September this year. The university had to pick up the shortfall, though all staff were volunteers, the keynote speakers, including leading director Aubrey Mellor, were not paid apart from fares and accommodation while the other 80 participants paid their own way entirely. Mellor said, “Over-worked and under-paid, we work in isolation in an atmosphere of general artistic timidity and in a climate where political passion is scorned, where writers lack ambition and where the media tends to see anything ‘Australian’ as box-office disaster.” He also said of the annual Australian National Playwrights’ Conference, as Holden recalls, “As a director, if you’re not there you don’t exist on the Australian theatrical map.”
In Akerholt’s view, the one good thing is that the very well regarded playwright Michael Gow, currently artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company, has accepted the chair of the interim board of PlayWriting Australia. His reputation was established when his play The Kid went on through the ANPC process to critical and commercial success, followed by the even more widely known Away.
I found myself in agreement when Gow told me that he has the same concerns. The Australia Council, representing government, commissioned a report, saw that both ANPC and Playworks were struggling, and is acting as broker to ensure that support for new playwrights will continue. The interim board has Council staff and facilities available to it until the end of the year, when the old bodies are finally wrapped up and PlayWriting Australia begins its independent incorporated existence. Death and resurrection is an ancient theatrical theme. (The new name, by the way, was decided by the interim board, not imposed from above.)
The call is out for an artistic director and administrator. The first annual conference in July 2007 will accept some new plays for showcasing, but its main purpose will be to plan how to rejuvenate, reinvigorate and recreate the atmosphere, the excitement and the process that Gow remembers as such a positive force when he was the new kid on the block in 1982.
Gow believes that there is political indifference, but the ball is still in play. His aim is for “a bigger and better ball, and more fun to play with”. More news early in the new year.
And, I was pleased to hear, with Gow’s fond memories and because a fixed place and time on everyone’s calendar is essential for success, PlayWriting Australia will return the annual playwrights’ conference to Canberra.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Deep sadness wells up within me, remembering my own rough and tumble treatment 25 years ago. Every day for two weeks my script - the avant-garde play of 1981 according to ANPC founding member Katharine Brisbane - was tried and tested by top actors like Helen Morse, shredded by the famous Nimrod director Ken Horler, while I was personally advised by iconic writer Barry Oakley. Every night I added, subtracted and reorganised ready for the next day’s flagellation. I’ll never forget the satisfaction I felt when the public reading created the exact feeling in the audience I had aimed for.
Depression, unfortunately, did not a theatrical success make. The Death of Willy died after one Sunday night reading at Anthill Theatre in Melbourne. A man in a raincoat and I were the only audience.
I apologise for this personal intrusion, but this was what the ANPC was about - bringing the reality of theatre production to bear on the work of new writers, as well as developing new works by established playwrights. In my year I watched Dorothy Hewett receive the same kind of treatment.
But can the Australia Council, by taking the money previously given to Playworks and ANPC to fund the new national script development organisation PlayWriting Australia, expect to ever engender the old excitement, tears and driving force?
Money isn’t everything, as politicians in power regularly tell the rest of us. PlayWriting Australia will begin with $330,000, a little more than the defunct bodies received between them. If you were to operate a business servicing a constant demand in every state and territory, plus running an annual two-week day-and-night practical development program employing the professionals needed to work with perhaps 20 new writers, how would you go with a budget of less than $150,000?
ANPC director Mary-Anne Gifford told me this level of funding over the past few years has meant the annual Playwrights Conference was almost all that was left of the wide-ranging work which is needed to support new theatre across Australia. How much should it be? At least $500,000, preferably a million to cover the work of both ANPC and Playworks.
Is our culture worth funding properly? May-Brit Akerholt directed ANPC from 1992 to 2002, a powerhouse of energy, I remember, at conferences in those days held at ANU. Canberra’s Carol Woodrow, with Timothy Daly, focussed on new script development for many years in special programs outside the annual conference. Both are adamant that the Australia Council funding must be seen as an investment in this core support function.
Akerholt’s key point is that innovation and risk-taking is essential. The freedom to fail underpins the success of the ANPC and Playworks in getting scripts to professional production stage. Woodrow notes that Tom Healey, 2006 Conference director, had to rely on workshop directors being offered free by the large established theatre companies. Risky work is of less interest in these circumstances. Even the name PlayWriting Australia smacks of bureaucratic fashion rather than challenging theatrical guts.
Up and coming young director, based at ANU Arts Centre, Rhys Holden organised the first Australian Theatre Directors’ Conference in September this year. The university had to pick up the shortfall, though all staff were volunteers, the keynote speakers, including leading director Aubrey Mellor, were not paid apart from fares and accommodation while the other 80 participants paid their own way entirely. Mellor said, “Over-worked and under-paid, we work in isolation in an atmosphere of general artistic timidity and in a climate where political passion is scorned, where writers lack ambition and where the media tends to see anything ‘Australian’ as box-office disaster.” He also said of the annual Australian National Playwrights’ Conference, as Holden recalls, “As a director, if you’re not there you don’t exist on the Australian theatrical map.”
In Akerholt’s view, the one good thing is that the very well regarded playwright Michael Gow, currently artistic director of Queensland Theatre Company, has accepted the chair of the interim board of PlayWriting Australia. His reputation was established when his play The Kid went on through the ANPC process to critical and commercial success, followed by the even more widely known Away.
I found myself in agreement when Gow told me that he has the same concerns. The Australia Council, representing government, commissioned a report, saw that both ANPC and Playworks were struggling, and is acting as broker to ensure that support for new playwrights will continue. The interim board has Council staff and facilities available to it until the end of the year, when the old bodies are finally wrapped up and PlayWriting Australia begins its independent incorporated existence. Death and resurrection is an ancient theatrical theme. (The new name, by the way, was decided by the interim board, not imposed from above.)
The call is out for an artistic director and administrator. The first annual conference in July 2007 will accept some new plays for showcasing, but its main purpose will be to plan how to rejuvenate, reinvigorate and recreate the atmosphere, the excitement and the process that Gow remembers as such a positive force when he was the new kid on the block in 1982.
Gow believes that there is political indifference, but the ball is still in play. His aim is for “a bigger and better ball, and more fun to play with”. More news early in the new year.
And, I was pleased to hear, with Gow’s fond memories and because a fixed place and time on everyone’s calendar is essential for success, PlayWriting Australia will return the annual playwrights’ conference to Canberra.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 25 August 2006
2006: The Tempest by William Shakespeare
The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare Company directed by Peter Evans at The Playhouse, August 23 to September 2, 7.30pm.
The magic arts came to life in this production of The Tempest on opening night last Friday. Our imagination was transported to a theatrical island, a small space within a confusing universe, where we were given the opportunity to come to grips with personal and political reality, just as Shakespeare intended. Bell Shakespeare deserves our gratitude.
Evans has done the right thing by the play. The acting is simple and sincere, taking place in a beautiful forest filled with ethereal music. Designer Robert Kemp, composer Basil Hogios and the lighting designer, Canberran Mark Truebridge have created an environment exactly suited to the play’s moods.
Acting which looks so simple requires awesome technique. The cast ranges from a Gonzalo played with great clarity by Ron Haddrick, who received an MBE in 1974 for his already longstanding services to the arts, to Saskia Smith, a recent NIDA graduate, whose characterisation and singing voice as the spirit Ariel focussed our attention on the theme of power, justice and freedom.
The drunkards Trinculo and Stephano (James Wardlaw and Tony Taylor) were very funny. We felt for the honest King Alonso (Paul Bertram), and found the scheming Antonio and Sebastian (David Whitney and Andrew McDonell) hateful. They were the cause of Prospero’s banishment and justifiable desire for revenge.
John Bell, starring as Prospero, has a harshness in his voice, a quality which has annoyed me in past productions. But his ability to communicate Prospero’s feelings and thoughts, often with no more than a turn of his head, soon concentrated my mind on important matters. Ferdinand and Miranda’s love, for example, so freshly played by Stephen Phillips and Freya Stafford. Or dealing with Nathan Lovejoy’s high-energy Caliban, an angry slave who clearly deserved proper treatment. And finally in speaking directly to us, the audience, asking us to release him from his role, which we did with genuine and respectful applause for Bell and the whole company.
This is among the most satisfying performances of The Tempest I have seen.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The magic arts came to life in this production of The Tempest on opening night last Friday. Our imagination was transported to a theatrical island, a small space within a confusing universe, where we were given the opportunity to come to grips with personal and political reality, just as Shakespeare intended. Bell Shakespeare deserves our gratitude.
Evans has done the right thing by the play. The acting is simple and sincere, taking place in a beautiful forest filled with ethereal music. Designer Robert Kemp, composer Basil Hogios and the lighting designer, Canberran Mark Truebridge have created an environment exactly suited to the play’s moods.
Acting which looks so simple requires awesome technique. The cast ranges from a Gonzalo played with great clarity by Ron Haddrick, who received an MBE in 1974 for his already longstanding services to the arts, to Saskia Smith, a recent NIDA graduate, whose characterisation and singing voice as the spirit Ariel focussed our attention on the theme of power, justice and freedom.
The drunkards Trinculo and Stephano (James Wardlaw and Tony Taylor) were very funny. We felt for the honest King Alonso (Paul Bertram), and found the scheming Antonio and Sebastian (David Whitney and Andrew McDonell) hateful. They were the cause of Prospero’s banishment and justifiable desire for revenge.
John Bell, starring as Prospero, has a harshness in his voice, a quality which has annoyed me in past productions. But his ability to communicate Prospero’s feelings and thoughts, often with no more than a turn of his head, soon concentrated my mind on important matters. Ferdinand and Miranda’s love, for example, so freshly played by Stephen Phillips and Freya Stafford. Or dealing with Nathan Lovejoy’s high-energy Caliban, an angry slave who clearly deserved proper treatment. And finally in speaking directly to us, the audience, asking us to release him from his role, which we did with genuine and respectful applause for Bell and the whole company.
This is among the most satisfying performances of The Tempest I have seen.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 3 August 2006
2006: Black Coffee by Agatha Christie
Black Coffee by Agatha Christie. Tempo Theatre directed by Jon Elphick at Belconnen Community Centre, August 3,4,5,9,10,11,12 at 7.30pm. Matinees August 5,12 at 2pm. Twilight show August 6 at 4pm. Bookings: 6247 1223 (The Street is handling their bookings)
After writing several Hercule Poirot novels, Black Coffee was Agatha Christie’s first play, written in 1930. Her works are still popular in television adaptations and particularly among amateur theatre companies. This production is one in a series of Christie classics presented by Tempo.
The attraction of murder mysteries when cleverly constructed as Christie’s are is that any number of the characters have the motivation, while only one is guilty. The enjoyment for the audience is not about becoming deeply involved with the characters’ feelings. Their main concern is the intellectual exercise of solving the puzzle.
Elphick has understood this and has not asked his actors to play up the characters. The focus is on what happens in the first act when the murder takes place, and then on following Poirot’s observations of details and his logical analysis. I found this forensic approach more appealing than the overblown characterisation that Poirot appears to have been given by Francis L Sullivan, backed by Donald Wolfit as Captain Hastings, in the original production, which began the tradition of the “lovable” Poirot still seen in the television productions.
Although pacing was often rather slow on opening night, leaving gaps while we waited for the next move rather than developing suspicious tension, the actors – especially when led by Garry Robinson as Poirot in Acts 2 and 3 – held the plot together with appropriate characters, clear voices and definite action. The set, lighting and particularly costumes were very good, despite the difficulties that often arise when setting up in this kind of theatre.
I thought the result overall was effective and stimulated some thoughts about the purpose of crime fiction – to reveal how the guilty may be trapped into telling the truth, while the not guilty are not necessarily as innocent as they may seem.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
After writing several Hercule Poirot novels, Black Coffee was Agatha Christie’s first play, written in 1930. Her works are still popular in television adaptations and particularly among amateur theatre companies. This production is one in a series of Christie classics presented by Tempo.
The attraction of murder mysteries when cleverly constructed as Christie’s are is that any number of the characters have the motivation, while only one is guilty. The enjoyment for the audience is not about becoming deeply involved with the characters’ feelings. Their main concern is the intellectual exercise of solving the puzzle.
Elphick has understood this and has not asked his actors to play up the characters. The focus is on what happens in the first act when the murder takes place, and then on following Poirot’s observations of details and his logical analysis. I found this forensic approach more appealing than the overblown characterisation that Poirot appears to have been given by Francis L Sullivan, backed by Donald Wolfit as Captain Hastings, in the original production, which began the tradition of the “lovable” Poirot still seen in the television productions.
Although pacing was often rather slow on opening night, leaving gaps while we waited for the next move rather than developing suspicious tension, the actors – especially when led by Garry Robinson as Poirot in Acts 2 and 3 – held the plot together with appropriate characters, clear voices and definite action. The set, lighting and particularly costumes were very good, despite the difficulties that often arise when setting up in this kind of theatre.
I thought the result overall was effective and stimulated some thoughts about the purpose of crime fiction – to reveal how the guilty may be trapped into telling the truth, while the not guilty are not necessarily as innocent as they may seem.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 31 July 2006
2006: Don’s Party by David Williamson. Preview feature article.
When David Williamson received a royalty cheque (or “check”) he thought “Who the f*** would put Don’s Party on in Texas?” The answer is Colin Anderson, who has also directed the play for students of Commonwealth Literary Studies in Denmark.
He let the Americans keep their accent, but had to explain the meaning of “chook” among many iconic Australian words, while the Danes, who all spoke perfect English, hardly understood anything. This was not so much because of their lack of vocabulary but more a matter of the rhythm and flow of Australian English. The Texans couldn’t believe how fast they had to talk to make the lines funny. So much for the myth of the laconic Australian compared to the Texan drawl.
So, Anderson says, directing Don’s Party for Canberra Repertory, not too far from the Lyneham High School National Tally Room, is easy – like coming home.
Yet 35 years after the play was written, one actor wondered “Are we doing it with Australian accents?”, while another needed to be trained out of his “stage” educated Anglo accent. Anderson also had to explain about the DLP (Democratic Labor Party), Archbishop Mannix and Bob Santamaria to his cast, who are about the age of the young marrieds they are acting at Don’s 1969 election night party. In case you’ve forgotten, or never knew, the program includes brief notes on key political figures (strictly in alphabetical order) Bob Hawke, John McEwen, Malcolm Mackay, Frank McManus, Daniel Mannix, Bartholomew Augustus Santamaria and Gough Whitlam.
Such references in the play mean a director has to choose between updating the production or keeping to the original period. Anderson has chosen an accurate representation of 1969 as the right way to go, and he has been backed magnificently by set designer Quentin Mitchell, properties manager Fay Butcher and costume designer Judy Wemyss. Watch carefully when the beer cans come out of the frig – they have the correct labels for that year. Orange, flamingo and a certain kind of yellow were the designer colours of the day, and the short, triangular Modigliani art dress that Susan (Anne Mewburn) wears is quite startling.
But perhaps the comedy begins with the men’s flairs – ankle flappers, as one cast member calls them. Anderson’s central focus is on the play as a comedy – he certainly hopes the audience will still be laughing at the end – yet he points out that this play, along with The Removalists, has become the long-laster among Williamson’s huge output. Why is this so?
Anderson’s answer is that Don’s Party is more personal than political. There is a “human truth – that life catches up with you” in the lives of these 11 people as their great expectations of themselves and each other fail to be fulfilled. Just as Don’s great hope that Labor would win was dashed in that election. Some consider that Don represents David Williamson himself at that time, and, quite by chance according to Anderson, Soren Jensen who plays the role has the same two metre height and lean aspect as Williamson. I found it quite uncanny watching a rehearsal as if Williamson was in the wrong part of the theatre.
Some commentators have seen a similarity with Chekhov. There is something poignant, even “sad and embittered” says Anderson, underlying the superficially funny. It is this which gives the play an “historical dimension” and requires that it be played “true to its period and its spirit”.
As I watched Jensen rehearsing Don, I could see Anderson’s point. Don is a teacher and, though he has invited the raucous characters like Cooley, Mack and Mal (with or without women partners) which make the party swing (and it certainly does), he spends a lot of time hesitant, somewhat apart from the action, watching and reflecting on his own and others’ behaviour. Although I didn’t see the end, I think it will be through Don that we will find ourselves reflecting on the “comedy” of our personal and political lives today.
This explains, for me, the quite extensive use of four-letter words in Don’s Party. This was not merely Williamson keeping up with the recent trend after Alex Buzo’s Norm and Ahmed had resulted in actors being charged with obscenity, and winning the legal right to swear on stage. The characters who swear in this play are the least secure personalities with the least self-awareness, however successful they may be at one-night sexual stands. So, I suppose too, Williamson’s reaction to a production in the American mid-west was not surprising.
It will be interesting to see how today’s Canberra audience responds.
Don’s Party by David Williamson
Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3
Opening this Friday August 4, 8pm
Bookings: 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
He let the Americans keep their accent, but had to explain the meaning of “chook” among many iconic Australian words, while the Danes, who all spoke perfect English, hardly understood anything. This was not so much because of their lack of vocabulary but more a matter of the rhythm and flow of Australian English. The Texans couldn’t believe how fast they had to talk to make the lines funny. So much for the myth of the laconic Australian compared to the Texan drawl.
So, Anderson says, directing Don’s Party for Canberra Repertory, not too far from the Lyneham High School National Tally Room, is easy – like coming home.
Yet 35 years after the play was written, one actor wondered “Are we doing it with Australian accents?”, while another needed to be trained out of his “stage” educated Anglo accent. Anderson also had to explain about the DLP (Democratic Labor Party), Archbishop Mannix and Bob Santamaria to his cast, who are about the age of the young marrieds they are acting at Don’s 1969 election night party. In case you’ve forgotten, or never knew, the program includes brief notes on key political figures (strictly in alphabetical order) Bob Hawke, John McEwen, Malcolm Mackay, Frank McManus, Daniel Mannix, Bartholomew Augustus Santamaria and Gough Whitlam.
Such references in the play mean a director has to choose between updating the production or keeping to the original period. Anderson has chosen an accurate representation of 1969 as the right way to go, and he has been backed magnificently by set designer Quentin Mitchell, properties manager Fay Butcher and costume designer Judy Wemyss. Watch carefully when the beer cans come out of the frig – they have the correct labels for that year. Orange, flamingo and a certain kind of yellow were the designer colours of the day, and the short, triangular Modigliani art dress that Susan (Anne Mewburn) wears is quite startling.
But perhaps the comedy begins with the men’s flairs – ankle flappers, as one cast member calls them. Anderson’s central focus is on the play as a comedy – he certainly hopes the audience will still be laughing at the end – yet he points out that this play, along with The Removalists, has become the long-laster among Williamson’s huge output. Why is this so?
Anderson’s answer is that Don’s Party is more personal than political. There is a “human truth – that life catches up with you” in the lives of these 11 people as their great expectations of themselves and each other fail to be fulfilled. Just as Don’s great hope that Labor would win was dashed in that election. Some consider that Don represents David Williamson himself at that time, and, quite by chance according to Anderson, Soren Jensen who plays the role has the same two metre height and lean aspect as Williamson. I found it quite uncanny watching a rehearsal as if Williamson was in the wrong part of the theatre.
Some commentators have seen a similarity with Chekhov. There is something poignant, even “sad and embittered” says Anderson, underlying the superficially funny. It is this which gives the play an “historical dimension” and requires that it be played “true to its period and its spirit”.
As I watched Jensen rehearsing Don, I could see Anderson’s point. Don is a teacher and, though he has invited the raucous characters like Cooley, Mack and Mal (with or without women partners) which make the party swing (and it certainly does), he spends a lot of time hesitant, somewhat apart from the action, watching and reflecting on his own and others’ behaviour. Although I didn’t see the end, I think it will be through Don that we will find ourselves reflecting on the “comedy” of our personal and political lives today.
This explains, for me, the quite extensive use of four-letter words in Don’s Party. This was not merely Williamson keeping up with the recent trend after Alex Buzo’s Norm and Ahmed had resulted in actors being charged with obscenity, and winning the legal right to swear on stage. The characters who swear in this play are the least secure personalities with the least self-awareness, however successful they may be at one-night sexual stands. So, I suppose too, Williamson’s reaction to a production in the American mid-west was not surprising.
It will be interesting to see how today’s Canberra audience responds.
Don’s Party by David Williamson
Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3
Opening this Friday August 4, 8pm
Bookings: 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 27 July 2006
2006: Wolf Lullaby by Hilary Bell.
Wolf Lullaby by Hilary Bell. Centrepiece Theatre directed by Jordan Best at The Street Theatre Studio, July 27–29, August 2–5 and 9–12 at 7:30pm.
Matinées: August 6 at 5pm and August 12 at 2pm. Tickets: $20–$25. Special rates for members, students, U27, Wednesdays and matinées.
Wolf Lullaby is a little over an hour long. Based quite closely on the 1968 British case of 11-year-old murderer Mary Bell, I was reminded of the short stories of James Joyce in Dubliners. There is a concentrated intensity which builds characters and explores their relationships until an end point is reached artistically. However this does not mean that the author provides us with simple answers to real life questions like, in this play, how can parents accept that their 9-year-old has killed a 2-year-old child?
Best’s direction focuses on the steady progression of the story through the eyes of the murderer, Lizzie, her separated parents Angela and Warren, and the policeman, Ray. The pacing is deliberately slow, demanding our attention – the right choice I think.
The actors each rise to the demands made of them, as has been the case in previous Centrepiece productions. Tain Stangret creates a very believable 9-year-old whose fantasy and fears combine in the act of killing. Jim Adamik’s ordinary working-man character struggles with the complexity of feelings and distrust in reality which Veronica Merton creates very effectively in Angela, while Jay Sullivan as the policeman required to find and have the child admit to the truth shows us the frustrations caused by the limitations of his official position and those of his personality.
The result is tragedy on a personal scale, something like what James Joyce called an epiphany – a new brief glimpse into an aspect of life, put into focus for us by the artist. It doesn’t explain the unexplainable, but now the world is a little different for the experience.
The design and execution of the visual and especially the audio setting enhance the actors’ work very well. Another Centrepiece production which I highly recommend.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Matinées: August 6 at 5pm and August 12 at 2pm. Tickets: $20–$25. Special rates for members, students, U27, Wednesdays and matinées.
Wolf Lullaby is a little over an hour long. Based quite closely on the 1968 British case of 11-year-old murderer Mary Bell, I was reminded of the short stories of James Joyce in Dubliners. There is a concentrated intensity which builds characters and explores their relationships until an end point is reached artistically. However this does not mean that the author provides us with simple answers to real life questions like, in this play, how can parents accept that their 9-year-old has killed a 2-year-old child?
Best’s direction focuses on the steady progression of the story through the eyes of the murderer, Lizzie, her separated parents Angela and Warren, and the policeman, Ray. The pacing is deliberately slow, demanding our attention – the right choice I think.
The actors each rise to the demands made of them, as has been the case in previous Centrepiece productions. Tain Stangret creates a very believable 9-year-old whose fantasy and fears combine in the act of killing. Jim Adamik’s ordinary working-man character struggles with the complexity of feelings and distrust in reality which Veronica Merton creates very effectively in Angela, while Jay Sullivan as the policeman required to find and have the child admit to the truth shows us the frustrations caused by the limitations of his official position and those of his personality.
The result is tragedy on a personal scale, something like what James Joyce called an epiphany – a new brief glimpse into an aspect of life, put into focus for us by the artist. It doesn’t explain the unexplainable, but now the world is a little different for the experience.
The design and execution of the visual and especially the audio setting enhance the actors’ work very well. Another Centrepiece production which I highly recommend.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 21 July 2006
2006: Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century: National Museum of Australia. Feature Article.
Presenting history is an art which the National Museum of Australia does very well. Cook’s Pacific Encounters is much more than a static display of fascinating objects collected on Captain Cook’s three Pacific Ocean voyages.
In the Nation Focus Gallery on the lower floor there is a free photographic exhibition of Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century. In an educational project, largely funded by the State of Hawai’i and the US National Endowment for the Arts, to complement the Cook-Forster exhibition, digital cameras were given to 80 school students from many Pacific Islander communities to document their cultures.
Some show traditional arts and crafts, dance and music in modern contexts. Many attractive shots show the beauty and importance of island scenery and the environment, and there are photos by the young of their elders which enhance their sense of respect, as well as others of modern youth culture. Comments by the students emphasised how they had learned much more about the diversity and depth of their own societies. These pictures are certainly worth a visit.
But there’s more. On Sunday August 6, 12-3pm, an afternoon of Pacific Islander culture will be held in the Hall at the Museum. Free performances and activities feature Tahitian, Maori, Hawaiian, Torres Strait Islander and Tongan groups, making arts and crafts, performing dances, even demonstrating traditional weapons. Films to be shown include Whale Rider, and there will be a “conversation” on the maintenance of traditional culture with Dr Lissant Bolton from the British Museum, NMA curator Dr Ian Coates and Ralph Regenvanu, director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre..
Lissant Bolton will also speak on Friday this week, July 28, with other experts including Adrienne Kaeppler of the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, Doreen Mellor, an Indigenous Australian and Director of Development at the National Library of Australia, and Paul Tapsell, Director Maori – Tumuaki Maori at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The NMA and ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research are collaborating in this major symposium, Discovering Cook’s Collections.
A less intensive forum will also be presented for the general public the evening before, 6–7pm this Thursday, featuring Adrienne Kaeppler, Paul Tapsell and Lissant Bolton.
So the National Museum has put the Cook-Forster collection from the Georg-August University of Göttingen into the full context of today and of the period 1768 to 1780 when Cook, with secret instructions to find the expected Great South Land and claim it for Britain, encountered a wide range of Polynesian peoples.
Johann Reinhold Forster replaced Joseph Banks on Cook’s third voyage. Forster’s personality alienated most on board, but he and Swedish naturalist Andes Sparrman described some 500 new plants and 300 animals. An account by the ‘gentlemen skilled in natural history and drawing’ was prevented from being published by Lord Sandwich, leaving Cook’s detailed but largely navigational account as the version we know today.
It was Forster’s collection which the University of Göttingen bought on his death. Now we can see the beauty and the skilled workmanship of tools, ceremonial head-dresses, clothes, household objects and weapons, set among paintings made both by Europeans and Pacific Islanders of life and times 220 years ago.
Despite those who think Australian history began with Captain Cook, he knew very well that he was meeting ancient and impressive cultures. An important display shows the probable migration routes of the Polynesians, leaving the islands off South East Asia aound 1600BC, reaching the Marquesas Islands about 300BC. From there they went to Hawai’i, Easter Island and Raratonga, finally reaching New Zealand around 1000AD. But the winds and currents left Australia isolated.
It was actor Nigel Sutton as Robbie the Rat, who claims to have come with the First Fleet, who showed me, among a group of young children and their parents, how all this history is the story of real people leading real lives. He took us on an adventure where we saw the transit of Venus (a parent) between a small boy Earth and a smiling, indeed beaming, young girl Sun. A highlight was the beautifully back-lit display of fish hooks, hanging as if under water, from small to one so large “it would catch a shark”, so one boy reckoned.
In telling how Cook was killed, Robbie made clear how shaky historical truth can be when even people who were there told different and even conflicting stories. But he had no doubt about the 1769 surfing contest at Tahiti. For the adults, Robbie explained that Tahitian “massages” were popular among the sailors, too, “to relieve their back pain” – and such activities may well have been one cause of the conflict which arose in Cook’s last days on Hawai’i.
Now the school holidays are over, visitors will have to miss the art of Robbie the Rat, whose prodigious memory and ability to incorporate unsolicited commentary from excited children into the story was a joy to experience. At least make sure you include Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century, Discovering Cook’s Collections and the Pacific Festival if you can.
Discovering Cook’s Collections:
One-day Public Symposium
ANU Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at National Museum of Australia,
Visions Theatre, Friday July 28
Register at www.anu.edu.au/culture/cook_conference_july/cook_conference.php
Free Evening Public Forum
Visions Theatre, Thursday July 27, 6-7pm
Cook’s Pacific Encounters
Cook-Forster Exhibition from the Georg-August University of Göttingen
Until September 10
Adult: $10 Concession: $8 Child: $4 Family: $22
Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century
Free Photographic Exhibition
Nation Focus Gallery
Until September 10
Pacific Festival
Main Hall, Sunday August 6, 12-3pm
Free entry
Details: www.nma.gov.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In the Nation Focus Gallery on the lower floor there is a free photographic exhibition of Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century. In an educational project, largely funded by the State of Hawai’i and the US National Endowment for the Arts, to complement the Cook-Forster exhibition, digital cameras were given to 80 school students from many Pacific Islander communities to document their cultures.
Some show traditional arts and crafts, dance and music in modern contexts. Many attractive shots show the beauty and importance of island scenery and the environment, and there are photos by the young of their elders which enhance their sense of respect, as well as others of modern youth culture. Comments by the students emphasised how they had learned much more about the diversity and depth of their own societies. These pictures are certainly worth a visit.
But there’s more. On Sunday August 6, 12-3pm, an afternoon of Pacific Islander culture will be held in the Hall at the Museum. Free performances and activities feature Tahitian, Maori, Hawaiian, Torres Strait Islander and Tongan groups, making arts and crafts, performing dances, even demonstrating traditional weapons. Films to be shown include Whale Rider, and there will be a “conversation” on the maintenance of traditional culture with Dr Lissant Bolton from the British Museum, NMA curator Dr Ian Coates and Ralph Regenvanu, director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre..
Lissant Bolton will also speak on Friday this week, July 28, with other experts including Adrienne Kaeppler of the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, Doreen Mellor, an Indigenous Australian and Director of Development at the National Library of Australia, and Paul Tapsell, Director Maori – Tumuaki Maori at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The NMA and ANU’s Centre for Cross-Cultural Research are collaborating in this major symposium, Discovering Cook’s Collections.
A less intensive forum will also be presented for the general public the evening before, 6–7pm this Thursday, featuring Adrienne Kaeppler, Paul Tapsell and Lissant Bolton.
So the National Museum has put the Cook-Forster collection from the Georg-August University of Göttingen into the full context of today and of the period 1768 to 1780 when Cook, with secret instructions to find the expected Great South Land and claim it for Britain, encountered a wide range of Polynesian peoples.
Johann Reinhold Forster replaced Joseph Banks on Cook’s third voyage. Forster’s personality alienated most on board, but he and Swedish naturalist Andes Sparrman described some 500 new plants and 300 animals. An account by the ‘gentlemen skilled in natural history and drawing’ was prevented from being published by Lord Sandwich, leaving Cook’s detailed but largely navigational account as the version we know today.
It was Forster’s collection which the University of Göttingen bought on his death. Now we can see the beauty and the skilled workmanship of tools, ceremonial head-dresses, clothes, household objects and weapons, set among paintings made both by Europeans and Pacific Islanders of life and times 220 years ago.
Despite those who think Australian history began with Captain Cook, he knew very well that he was meeting ancient and impressive cultures. An important display shows the probable migration routes of the Polynesians, leaving the islands off South East Asia aound 1600BC, reaching the Marquesas Islands about 300BC. From there they went to Hawai’i, Easter Island and Raratonga, finally reaching New Zealand around 1000AD. But the winds and currents left Australia isolated.
It was actor Nigel Sutton as Robbie the Rat, who claims to have come with the First Fleet, who showed me, among a group of young children and their parents, how all this history is the story of real people leading real lives. He took us on an adventure where we saw the transit of Venus (a parent) between a small boy Earth and a smiling, indeed beaming, young girl Sun. A highlight was the beautifully back-lit display of fish hooks, hanging as if under water, from small to one so large “it would catch a shark”, so one boy reckoned.
In telling how Cook was killed, Robbie made clear how shaky historical truth can be when even people who were there told different and even conflicting stories. But he had no doubt about the 1769 surfing contest at Tahiti. For the adults, Robbie explained that Tahitian “massages” were popular among the sailors, too, “to relieve their back pain” – and such activities may well have been one cause of the conflict which arose in Cook’s last days on Hawai’i.
Now the school holidays are over, visitors will have to miss the art of Robbie the Rat, whose prodigious memory and ability to incorporate unsolicited commentary from excited children into the story was a joy to experience. At least make sure you include Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century, Discovering Cook’s Collections and the Pacific Festival if you can.
Discovering Cook’s Collections:
One-day Public Symposium
ANU Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at National Museum of Australia,
Visions Theatre, Friday July 28
Register at www.anu.edu.au/culture/cook_conference_july/cook_conference.php
Free Evening Public Forum
Visions Theatre, Thursday July 27, 6-7pm
Cook’s Pacific Encounters
Cook-Forster Exhibition from the Georg-August University of Göttingen
Until September 10
Adult: $10 Concession: $8 Child: $4 Family: $22
Life in the Pacific: The 21st Century
Free Photographic Exhibition
Nation Focus Gallery
Until September 10
Pacific Festival
Main Hall, Sunday August 6, 12-3pm
Free entry
Details: www.nma.gov.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 27 June 2006
2006: Who Sank the Boat? Based on this and other books by Pamela Allen. Preview feature article.
Reading Snugglepot and Cuddlepie to my 9 months old grandson, surely too young for such dramatic emotions, I experienced an important revelation. He looks at the pictures and even the words in the usual baby books, but instead I found him watching me, especially my facial expressions, as the gumnut babies became lost and then found each other again.
When Patch Theatre brings Who Sank the Boat? to the Playhouse at Canberra Theatre Centre, their production of Pamela Allen’s popular children’s story has extensive research behind it which shows the absolute importance of emotional interaction for a child’s health and well-being. Artistic director Dave Brown’s career began as a teacher in South Australia, where drama and, indeed, all the arts have had a high profile in schools since the 1980s.
Brown, working within the SA Department of Education during the first flush of enthusiasm (the “golden years”, he says), established Jumbuk, a youth musical theatre where he worked with “exemplary young talent” from around the state to put on one major production each year in The Space in Adelaide. During the 1990s support waned somewhat, but by 2000 a resurgence of arts in education was under way at the same time as Brown felt he needed a new beginning - to find something “worthwhile to do with the rest of my life”. He believes a swing towards the positive still means working “against the notion of credibility” of drama, which for him is central to children’s learning, never mere entertainment.
At this time he began reading, to discover first the idea that two thirds of a person’s development takes place in our first 8 years, and that artists have a special place in human development. He quotes Pablo Picasso: “All children are artists; the challenge is to keep them so.” And so Patch Theatre concentrates on 4 to 8 year-olds, and brings together performing artists, children and teachers, not just in theatres but in a Play Package Group Development program.
We will see on stage, as part of a major national tour funded by Playing Australia, a show which will “entertain children of all ages as they investigate the culprit of the dastardly crime” in Who Sank the Boat?, incorporating characters from this and several other Pamela Allen books (“the best ones,” says Brown) - Mr McGee Goes to Sea, My Cat Maisie, Black Dog, The Bear’s Lunch, The Pear and Pear Tree, Herbert and Harry, and Bertie the Bear. But behind the scenes is a group of some 15 preschool, primary school and special school teachers who work monthly with Patch performers, workshop leaders and other artists on the most recent play package program, called Special Delivery, funded by the SA Health Promotion through the Arts Community Arts Fund.
This work goes on at a very unusual educational venue. Sturt Street Community School in Adelaide, re-opened by the Labor Government 2 years ago after previously being closed by a Coalition Government because of small numbers, takes children from ages 0 to 8. Brown has been testing out the way drama works not only with children in his 4 to 8 range, but with some as young as 15 months. For teachers and parents who would like to follow up this work, Patch Theatre has produced a 24 page Special Delivery Play Package, which uses the illustrated book In the Middle of the Night by Amanda Graham as source material and includes a set of “Foundation” games and rituals and “Special Delivery” games and rituals, which focus very much on the children learning to take care when handling the “Fragile Box”.
Brown explains that when very young children are prepared through drama activities, they “process the stage show in a more sophisticated way” than children who have not had preparation. Even though this can’t be done for Who Sank the Boat? on tour, he recommends that animated reading of Pamela Allen’s books with the children before they see the show will greatly enhance their theatre experience. Let the children “workshop” their own games and dramas based on the stories, and they will appreciate even more Patch Theatre’s “inventive theatrics incorporating puppetry, black theatre, operetta, mime, dance and live music”. And, I suspect, will parents and teachers.
Who Sank the Boat?
Based on this and other books by Pamela Allen.
Patch Theatre at The Playhouse
Public Performances: Wednesday July 5 at 6.30pm, Saturday July 8 at 10am (Audio Described) and 11.45am (Live Captioned)
Schools Peformances: July 6 and 7 at 10am and 11.45am
Bookings: Phone: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700 or www.canberraticketing.com.au
For follow-up: www.patchtheatre.org.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
When Patch Theatre brings Who Sank the Boat? to the Playhouse at Canberra Theatre Centre, their production of Pamela Allen’s popular children’s story has extensive research behind it which shows the absolute importance of emotional interaction for a child’s health and well-being. Artistic director Dave Brown’s career began as a teacher in South Australia, where drama and, indeed, all the arts have had a high profile in schools since the 1980s.
Brown, working within the SA Department of Education during the first flush of enthusiasm (the “golden years”, he says), established Jumbuk, a youth musical theatre where he worked with “exemplary young talent” from around the state to put on one major production each year in The Space in Adelaide. During the 1990s support waned somewhat, but by 2000 a resurgence of arts in education was under way at the same time as Brown felt he needed a new beginning - to find something “worthwhile to do with the rest of my life”. He believes a swing towards the positive still means working “against the notion of credibility” of drama, which for him is central to children’s learning, never mere entertainment.
At this time he began reading, to discover first the idea that two thirds of a person’s development takes place in our first 8 years, and that artists have a special place in human development. He quotes Pablo Picasso: “All children are artists; the challenge is to keep them so.” And so Patch Theatre concentrates on 4 to 8 year-olds, and brings together performing artists, children and teachers, not just in theatres but in a Play Package Group Development program.
We will see on stage, as part of a major national tour funded by Playing Australia, a show which will “entertain children of all ages as they investigate the culprit of the dastardly crime” in Who Sank the Boat?, incorporating characters from this and several other Pamela Allen books (“the best ones,” says Brown) - Mr McGee Goes to Sea, My Cat Maisie, Black Dog, The Bear’s Lunch, The Pear and Pear Tree, Herbert and Harry, and Bertie the Bear. But behind the scenes is a group of some 15 preschool, primary school and special school teachers who work monthly with Patch performers, workshop leaders and other artists on the most recent play package program, called Special Delivery, funded by the SA Health Promotion through the Arts Community Arts Fund.
This work goes on at a very unusual educational venue. Sturt Street Community School in Adelaide, re-opened by the Labor Government 2 years ago after previously being closed by a Coalition Government because of small numbers, takes children from ages 0 to 8. Brown has been testing out the way drama works not only with children in his 4 to 8 range, but with some as young as 15 months. For teachers and parents who would like to follow up this work, Patch Theatre has produced a 24 page Special Delivery Play Package, which uses the illustrated book In the Middle of the Night by Amanda Graham as source material and includes a set of “Foundation” games and rituals and “Special Delivery” games and rituals, which focus very much on the children learning to take care when handling the “Fragile Box”.
Brown explains that when very young children are prepared through drama activities, they “process the stage show in a more sophisticated way” than children who have not had preparation. Even though this can’t be done for Who Sank the Boat? on tour, he recommends that animated reading of Pamela Allen’s books with the children before they see the show will greatly enhance their theatre experience. Let the children “workshop” their own games and dramas based on the stories, and they will appreciate even more Patch Theatre’s “inventive theatrics incorporating puppetry, black theatre, operetta, mime, dance and live music”. And, I suspect, will parents and teachers.
Who Sank the Boat?
Based on this and other books by Pamela Allen.
Patch Theatre at The Playhouse
Public Performances: Wednesday July 5 at 6.30pm, Saturday July 8 at 10am (Audio Described) and 11.45am (Live Captioned)
Schools Peformances: July 6 and 7 at 10am and 11.45am
Bookings: Phone: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700 or www.canberraticketing.com.au
For follow-up: www.patchtheatre.org.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 26 June 2006
2006: Australian National Playwrights’ Conference. Feature article.
It’s a bit of a worry when Tom Healey is called the curator of the Australian National Playwrights’ Conference 2006. I remember when he would have been the artistic director. Wot’s in a name? sez Doreen. Quite a lot, when the Australia Council is forced by budgetary constraints to either give their money to the ANPC or to the other main Australian playscript development organisation, Playworks; or to put developing new plays out to tender. Signs of our economic and political times.
Healey is kind enough to suggest that at least this gave the two contenders the option of joining together to bid, which means there will be a new organisation hopefully able to cover the diverse field of the ANPC and Playworks’ particular interest in women’s writing. What will it be called? “We don’t know,” says Healey, sounding far less sure than Doreen about roses being the same by any other name. “Curating”, to me, just sounds a bit too much like a museum function than “artistically directing”.
Ironically, perhaps, Tom Healey began his post-Lyneham Primary, Lyneham High and Phillip College career (and post-failing in all 4 Sydney University first year subjects while directing 11 productions for Sydney University Dramatic Society) when his step-father Ken Healey went to the American Playwrights’ Conference in 1984. Realising Tom had other things in mind than repeating failed subjects, Ken - well-known to Canberra Opera, original director of the ANU Arts Centre and Canberra Times theatre critic, and later theatre history lecturer at the National Institute of Dramatic Art - offered Tom the chance to attend a 3 month course in New York run by the American Playwrights’ Conference for college students.
With iconic teachers such as Stella Adler, New York became the 18-year-old’s theatrical heaven, until he had only enough cash left to get to his mother’s homeland, England. Janet Hough had been a well-known amateur singer whose second marriage to opera director Ken Healey was a fate her son could not escape. After seeing Madonna wed Sean Penn in New York, Tom became a dresser in West End theatre in London. Fate continued to “look after me” when he flew home and applied for NIDA and the Victorian College of the Arts, being accepted at VCA.
Was VCA second-best? In those days NIDA was the “industry-tough” training institution, but Healey had long experience of the discipline of opera. He had, as a result, a “rigid formal classical comprehension of theatre”. To his surprise and joy VCA, under the British-Canadian David Latham, where the industry was more or less ignored in favour of creative expression, was just the training he needed. This explains Healey’s pleasure at working with new Australian writers at the Playwrights’ Conference in Perth, and why the Conference needs him.
After directing and teaching theatre and opera in Melbourne for 10 years, in 1999 Healey became Artistic Associate at Playbox Theatre, where only premieres of new Australian plays were presented. Playbox closed in 2004, having been established in the Paul Keating era of belief in Australian culture in 1990, but unable to survive in today’s political climate. Healey thinks it would be “unintelligent” to simply blame our current prime minister’s cultural leadership, yet finds it hard to see the swing away from new Australian work in the programs of the main subsidised theatre companies as just a matter of a natural cultural see-saw which the government feels it has to follow, up or down as the case may be.
So Healey has just the right experience which the ANPC needs, and has put together an exciting program for the Perth conference. 11 new plays by a mix of new and experienced writers will be given the full workshop treatment, chosen from 140 submissions, while a special development and reading will be led by May Britt Akerholt for Jila’s Bush Meeting by Sam Cook, a Nyikina woman from the Kimberley region. Cutting to the short list of 20, and more especially from 15 to the 12 that funding allowed was “difficult”, says Healey, with no need to elaborate.
And speaking of Akerholt, who was artistic director at Burgmann College in 2002, will the Playwrights’ Conference return to Canberra? In the not too distant future, says Healey, while also pointing out that being in Perth means he can employ 10 West Australian actors this year who would not get this chance if the conference were always held on the east coast. But, hanging on to his mobile while stacking his dirty dishes and getting a coffee from the urn in the college canteen at University of Western Australia, he told me it feels just like Burgmann College of the old days, which he remembers fondly. The name may change, but the buzz remains the same.
Australian National Playwrights’ Conference
University of Western Australia July 2 - 15
Booking Enquiries: Phone (02) 9555 9377
Details: www.anpc.org.au/conference.html
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Healey is kind enough to suggest that at least this gave the two contenders the option of joining together to bid, which means there will be a new organisation hopefully able to cover the diverse field of the ANPC and Playworks’ particular interest in women’s writing. What will it be called? “We don’t know,” says Healey, sounding far less sure than Doreen about roses being the same by any other name. “Curating”, to me, just sounds a bit too much like a museum function than “artistically directing”.
Ironically, perhaps, Tom Healey began his post-Lyneham Primary, Lyneham High and Phillip College career (and post-failing in all 4 Sydney University first year subjects while directing 11 productions for Sydney University Dramatic Society) when his step-father Ken Healey went to the American Playwrights’ Conference in 1984. Realising Tom had other things in mind than repeating failed subjects, Ken - well-known to Canberra Opera, original director of the ANU Arts Centre and Canberra Times theatre critic, and later theatre history lecturer at the National Institute of Dramatic Art - offered Tom the chance to attend a 3 month course in New York run by the American Playwrights’ Conference for college students.
With iconic teachers such as Stella Adler, New York became the 18-year-old’s theatrical heaven, until he had only enough cash left to get to his mother’s homeland, England. Janet Hough had been a well-known amateur singer whose second marriage to opera director Ken Healey was a fate her son could not escape. After seeing Madonna wed Sean Penn in New York, Tom became a dresser in West End theatre in London. Fate continued to “look after me” when he flew home and applied for NIDA and the Victorian College of the Arts, being accepted at VCA.
Was VCA second-best? In those days NIDA was the “industry-tough” training institution, but Healey had long experience of the discipline of opera. He had, as a result, a “rigid formal classical comprehension of theatre”. To his surprise and joy VCA, under the British-Canadian David Latham, where the industry was more or less ignored in favour of creative expression, was just the training he needed. This explains Healey’s pleasure at working with new Australian writers at the Playwrights’ Conference in Perth, and why the Conference needs him.
After directing and teaching theatre and opera in Melbourne for 10 years, in 1999 Healey became Artistic Associate at Playbox Theatre, where only premieres of new Australian plays were presented. Playbox closed in 2004, having been established in the Paul Keating era of belief in Australian culture in 1990, but unable to survive in today’s political climate. Healey thinks it would be “unintelligent” to simply blame our current prime minister’s cultural leadership, yet finds it hard to see the swing away from new Australian work in the programs of the main subsidised theatre companies as just a matter of a natural cultural see-saw which the government feels it has to follow, up or down as the case may be.
So Healey has just the right experience which the ANPC needs, and has put together an exciting program for the Perth conference. 11 new plays by a mix of new and experienced writers will be given the full workshop treatment, chosen from 140 submissions, while a special development and reading will be led by May Britt Akerholt for Jila’s Bush Meeting by Sam Cook, a Nyikina woman from the Kimberley region. Cutting to the short list of 20, and more especially from 15 to the 12 that funding allowed was “difficult”, says Healey, with no need to elaborate.
And speaking of Akerholt, who was artistic director at Burgmann College in 2002, will the Playwrights’ Conference return to Canberra? In the not too distant future, says Healey, while also pointing out that being in Perth means he can employ 10 West Australian actors this year who would not get this chance if the conference were always held on the east coast. But, hanging on to his mobile while stacking his dirty dishes and getting a coffee from the urn in the college canteen at University of Western Australia, he told me it feels just like Burgmann College of the old days, which he remembers fondly. The name may change, but the buzz remains the same.
Australian National Playwrights’ Conference
University of Western Australia July 2 - 15
Booking Enquiries: Phone (02) 9555 9377
Details: www.anpc.org.au/conference.html
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 5 June 2006
2006: All in Favour Said No! by Bernard Farrell
THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE
All in Favour Said No! by Bernard Farrell. The Irish Community Players directed by Ian Phillips at the Canberra Irish Club, Weston, June 5 – 8, 8pm.
Watching this farcical Irish comedy about a strike caused by a demarcation dispute deliberately engineered by a new Max the Axe manager, performed by Irish accented players in an Irish club, written in 1981, reminded me of the good old days when Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (when he was still a stone hearted Easter Island god) locked teachers out of ACT schools with the CEEP Act. No-one can remember what the dispute was about, or now knows what CEEP stood for. It was just one more move in the everlasting union-employer chess game.
Teachers are about to go through it all again, I suspect, but not in the manner of this play. The Irish way is to divert attention from the serious matter at hand by singing and telling stories, while behind the scenes the bosses and union leaders do deals. Daily life in the office is a fantastical mayhem, while the machinery on the factory floor may or may not be switched on according to which union the switcher unwittingly joins, while a ship waits in the harbour to load product for Hamburg (the Hamburger Contract). Don’t expect to understand everything. Most of the characters are in the same boat.
A small audience on opening night got into the right laughing mood in the second half, when the players settled more confidently into action, timing and remembering lines, but in this close-knit community even potentially embarrassing pauses are accepted sympathetically and become part of the fun. And there were some strong performances, particularly from Susan Murray as the manager’s officious secretary Dee Kavanagh, and Joan Lindley as the possibly blind Miss Temple, who may or may not have murdered a Red Indian in Canada and bought off a Mountie a la the musical Rose Marie. You have to see the play to work this one out, but it may not be easy to compete with the Irish who book backwards. Closing night is already full, but some places are available on Wednesday.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
All in Favour Said No! by Bernard Farrell. The Irish Community Players directed by Ian Phillips at the Canberra Irish Club, Weston, June 5 – 8, 8pm.
Watching this farcical Irish comedy about a strike caused by a demarcation dispute deliberately engineered by a new Max the Axe manager, performed by Irish accented players in an Irish club, written in 1981, reminded me of the good old days when Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser (when he was still a stone hearted Easter Island god) locked teachers out of ACT schools with the CEEP Act. No-one can remember what the dispute was about, or now knows what CEEP stood for. It was just one more move in the everlasting union-employer chess game.
Teachers are about to go through it all again, I suspect, but not in the manner of this play. The Irish way is to divert attention from the serious matter at hand by singing and telling stories, while behind the scenes the bosses and union leaders do deals. Daily life in the office is a fantastical mayhem, while the machinery on the factory floor may or may not be switched on according to which union the switcher unwittingly joins, while a ship waits in the harbour to load product for Hamburg (the Hamburger Contract). Don’t expect to understand everything. Most of the characters are in the same boat.
A small audience on opening night got into the right laughing mood in the second half, when the players settled more confidently into action, timing and remembering lines, but in this close-knit community even potentially embarrassing pauses are accepted sympathetically and become part of the fun. And there were some strong performances, particularly from Susan Murray as the manager’s officious secretary Dee Kavanagh, and Joan Lindley as the possibly blind Miss Temple, who may or may not have murdered a Red Indian in Canada and bought off a Mountie a la the musical Rose Marie. You have to see the play to work this one out, but it may not be easy to compete with the Irish who book backwards. Closing night is already full, but some places are available on Wednesday.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 25 May 2006
2006: Victorian Parlour by Friends of the National Museum of Australia. Preview feature article.
Friends of the National Museum of Australia will present a Victorian Parlour performance next Sunday afternoon, to complement the Exiles and Emigrants exhibition, which runs until June 4.
“Let’s do a tea party!” (the original idea of curator Cheryl Crilly and public programs manager Gabrielle Hyslop) has become a two-hour program of songs, poetry and prose readings performed by Mr Tom Layton, former Friends’ Executive Officer and professional bass baritone, actor and director Dr Geoffrey Borny, former head of Theatre Studies at ANU, Miss Georgia Pike, also well-known on Canberra stages, pianist and specialist dealer in pianos Mr Carl Rafferty, and Mrs Hyslop herself, whose illustrious career began in the Sydney University student Victorian Music Hall in the 1960s, and who has published research on the subject of 19th Century popular culture.
Among many items of note, Mr Rafferty will present a piano solo, Hearts and Flowers, composed by Alphons Czibulka, while under the heading Love and Marriage Dr Borny will read, as Charles Dickens did on his American tour, Mr Tracy Tupman woos the Spinster Aunt from Pickwick Papers, and Mr Layton and Miss Pike will sing the affecting duet by the well-loved American Stephen Foster If You’ve Only Got a Moustache.
Mr John Howard Payne’s everlasting song, set to music by Sir Henry Bishop, will bring memories flooding back to all Exiles and Emigrants when Miss Pike presents Home Sweet Home while Thinking of England. But later Poverty and Death must be confronted when Miss Pike and the company sing Father’s a Drunkard and Mother is Dead, written by the anonymous ‘Stella’ with music composed by Mrs Parkhurst.
Intended to be for Friends and their friends, word of the event rapidly spread from the NMA website, so that the venue is already fully booked. Entertaining rather than strictly educational, perhaps we may look forward to more performance of this kind, complementary to exhibitions, including in this case the current display of 40 objects from our local region’s Springfield collection in the Horizons Gallery “Settlers and Settling In”.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
“Let’s do a tea party!” (the original idea of curator Cheryl Crilly and public programs manager Gabrielle Hyslop) has become a two-hour program of songs, poetry and prose readings performed by Mr Tom Layton, former Friends’ Executive Officer and professional bass baritone, actor and director Dr Geoffrey Borny, former head of Theatre Studies at ANU, Miss Georgia Pike, also well-known on Canberra stages, pianist and specialist dealer in pianos Mr Carl Rafferty, and Mrs Hyslop herself, whose illustrious career began in the Sydney University student Victorian Music Hall in the 1960s, and who has published research on the subject of 19th Century popular culture.
Among many items of note, Mr Rafferty will present a piano solo, Hearts and Flowers, composed by Alphons Czibulka, while under the heading Love and Marriage Dr Borny will read, as Charles Dickens did on his American tour, Mr Tracy Tupman woos the Spinster Aunt from Pickwick Papers, and Mr Layton and Miss Pike will sing the affecting duet by the well-loved American Stephen Foster If You’ve Only Got a Moustache.
Mr John Howard Payne’s everlasting song, set to music by Sir Henry Bishop, will bring memories flooding back to all Exiles and Emigrants when Miss Pike presents Home Sweet Home while Thinking of England. But later Poverty and Death must be confronted when Miss Pike and the company sing Father’s a Drunkard and Mother is Dead, written by the anonymous ‘Stella’ with music composed by Mrs Parkhurst.
Intended to be for Friends and their friends, word of the event rapidly spread from the NMA website, so that the venue is already fully booked. Entertaining rather than strictly educational, perhaps we may look forward to more performance of this kind, complementary to exhibitions, including in this case the current display of 40 objects from our local region’s Springfield collection in the Horizons Gallery “Settlers and Settling In”.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 18 May 2006
2006: Political Animals by Shortis & Simpson
Political Animals by Shortis & Simpson, with cartoons by Geoff Pryor. The Street Theatre Studio May 18 to June 3, 8.30pm. Bookings: 6247 1223.
Satire can be such sweet revenge, sometimes bitter sorrow – but not too much of the latter, or it will become less entertainment and more pill to swallow. John Shortis gives us the whole gamut, though the balance is best achieved in the second half of Political Animals.
The offending cartoons include Amanda Vanstone as the migrating mutton bird who should have stayed at home, guess who as Gorillis Kirribillis, Kimbat the almost wombat, Costello the Bull, the Julia Bird, Sugar Glider Bob, and the empty cage from which the Nationals animals have escaped and gone wild. The songs, derived from Pryor’s pictures, vary in tone from the quite frightening Gorillis who would dictate to all 20 million of us if not kept on what looked like a rather flimsy leash, to the wonderfully sweet-dreaming green and brown sugar glider in the old-growth forest who stops the Stihl, which leads us into the poem “How Stihl the pool…” where we discover the sharp-beaked Julia Bird who pecks at nasty chain-saws.
Not all the songs succeeded - the fighting bull, for example, was a fuzzy concept – but much of the writing was more original than in previous shows and more captivating musically, especially when pre-recorded by the excellent string quartet Vincent G Edwards, Har-bei Seng, Olga Haydon and Charlotte Winslade. Moya Simpson found a stronger and richer voice to match the moods and the imitations of past popular singers, which gave an extra point to the satirical lyrics which covered many topics in songs beyond the cartoons – like Sadaam in the guise of a Cockney spiv offering a deal to the AWB where they pay him to buy their wheat.
Bob McMullan, the only politician brave enough to attend opening night, explained, when invited onto the stage, why politicians hate satirists and cartoonists. “Who would come and pay to see us?” he asked. As Simpson interjected, “But we do – pay, that is!”, he redeemed himself by pointing out the value of satire, and the Shortis & Simpson tradition in Canberra, in maintaining our democracy.
And so say all of us, say I.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Satire can be such sweet revenge, sometimes bitter sorrow – but not too much of the latter, or it will become less entertainment and more pill to swallow. John Shortis gives us the whole gamut, though the balance is best achieved in the second half of Political Animals.
The offending cartoons include Amanda Vanstone as the migrating mutton bird who should have stayed at home, guess who as Gorillis Kirribillis, Kimbat the almost wombat, Costello the Bull, the Julia Bird, Sugar Glider Bob, and the empty cage from which the Nationals animals have escaped and gone wild. The songs, derived from Pryor’s pictures, vary in tone from the quite frightening Gorillis who would dictate to all 20 million of us if not kept on what looked like a rather flimsy leash, to the wonderfully sweet-dreaming green and brown sugar glider in the old-growth forest who stops the Stihl, which leads us into the poem “How Stihl the pool…” where we discover the sharp-beaked Julia Bird who pecks at nasty chain-saws.
Not all the songs succeeded - the fighting bull, for example, was a fuzzy concept – but much of the writing was more original than in previous shows and more captivating musically, especially when pre-recorded by the excellent string quartet Vincent G Edwards, Har-bei Seng, Olga Haydon and Charlotte Winslade. Moya Simpson found a stronger and richer voice to match the moods and the imitations of past popular singers, which gave an extra point to the satirical lyrics which covered many topics in songs beyond the cartoons – like Sadaam in the guise of a Cockney spiv offering a deal to the AWB where they pay him to buy their wheat.
Bob McMullan, the only politician brave enough to attend opening night, explained, when invited onto the stage, why politicians hate satirists and cartoonists. “Who would come and pay to see us?” he asked. As Simpson interjected, “But we do – pay, that is!”, he redeemed himself by pointing out the value of satire, and the Shortis & Simpson tradition in Canberra, in maintaining our democracy.
And so say all of us, say I.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 1 May 2006
2006: Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson
Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson. Directed by Bruce Myles for HIT Productions at Tuggeranong Community Arts Centre, May 1-2.
An excellent play deserves excellent directing of excellent actors, and just desserts were what we received on Monday night at TCA.
Hotel Sorrento, Rayson's first major success in 1990, has justifiably become a key modern Australian play. In short movie-like scenes, 8 characters' intertwined relationships reveal the personal and the global complexities of their lives. Everyone in the audience found themselves recognising their own experiences and responding with emotions from joy to sadness, as the central three sisters deal with the past and the present. If you've missed this production, see the DVD of the 1995 film.
Though I liked the film, I loved this production of the play. On the small TCA stage so close to the audience, every detail of the actors' expressions and body language directly communicated their feelings and thoughts to us. Myles' directing and the set and lighting design took our attention from character to character, from within the house and garden to the jetty and across the world to London, all linked with clear-noted guitar music (by Andrew Pendlebury), so smoothly that we were transported into the world on stage as if it were the most natural place to be. Figures moved in and out of light and shadow, scene changes becoming a choreographed dance of movement and stillness - the perfect model from which to learn the art of changing scenes.
All the actors - the sisters Celia de Burgh (Hilary), Marcella Russo (Pippa), Jane Nolan (Meg, whose novel Melancholy is short-listed for the Booker Prize), John Flaus (the sisters' father), Jared Daperis (Hilary's son Troy), Roger Oakley (Meg's English husband Edwin), Beverley Dunn (Marge, a new neighbour who recognises Sorrento in Meg's novel), and Kevin Harrington (who publishes socio-political essays about Australian culture) - formed a team of great strength, lifting the play off the stage and into our heads and hearts.
This Hotel Sorrento is a great success for producer Christine Harris and HIT Productions, and proves the special value of the role of Tuggeranong Community Arts in the Canberra theatre scene.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
An excellent play deserves excellent directing of excellent actors, and just desserts were what we received on Monday night at TCA.
Hotel Sorrento, Rayson's first major success in 1990, has justifiably become a key modern Australian play. In short movie-like scenes, 8 characters' intertwined relationships reveal the personal and the global complexities of their lives. Everyone in the audience found themselves recognising their own experiences and responding with emotions from joy to sadness, as the central three sisters deal with the past and the present. If you've missed this production, see the DVD of the 1995 film.
Though I liked the film, I loved this production of the play. On the small TCA stage so close to the audience, every detail of the actors' expressions and body language directly communicated their feelings and thoughts to us. Myles' directing and the set and lighting design took our attention from character to character, from within the house and garden to the jetty and across the world to London, all linked with clear-noted guitar music (by Andrew Pendlebury), so smoothly that we were transported into the world on stage as if it were the most natural place to be. Figures moved in and out of light and shadow, scene changes becoming a choreographed dance of movement and stillness - the perfect model from which to learn the art of changing scenes.
All the actors - the sisters Celia de Burgh (Hilary), Marcella Russo (Pippa), Jane Nolan (Meg, whose novel Melancholy is short-listed for the Booker Prize), John Flaus (the sisters' father), Jared Daperis (Hilary's son Troy), Roger Oakley (Meg's English husband Edwin), Beverley Dunn (Marge, a new neighbour who recognises Sorrento in Meg's novel), and Kevin Harrington (who publishes socio-political essays about Australian culture) - formed a team of great strength, lifting the play off the stage and into our heads and hearts.
This Hotel Sorrento is a great success for producer Christine Harris and HIT Productions, and proves the special value of the role of Tuggeranong Community Arts in the Canberra theatre scene.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 28 April 2006
2006: Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. Papermoon directed by Tony Turner at ANU Arts Centre, April 28 - May 13, 7.30pm. Bookings 6275 2700 or www.canberraticketing.com.au
This production leaves me in a quandary. Is it an intellectual representation of themes, or is it emotionally engaging theatre? Either intention is possible, but neither is successfully achieved.
Praise first, however. Ian Croker stood out as Enobarbus. In the difficult acoustics of the Arts Centre, his enunciation was clear and the character's emotions and understanding of the political and warfare manoeuvrings were plain to see. He held the play together. It was a mistake to ask him to also play the Clown who brings the asp to Cleopatra, but Croker managed even that transition very well.
Christa de Jager's Cleopatra became much more successful after Antony's death than before it. Shakespeare's poetry worked its wonder as it should in her final speeches.
But otherwise things fell short of good intentions. Mark Antony (Douglas Amarfio) was never "the crown o' the earth" as Cleopatra calls him, nor ever "my brother, my competitor in top of all design, my mate in empire" at whose death Octavius (Duncan Ley) weeps. Amarfio's vocal skills and presence on stage were just not up to the mark. Ley, too, despite strong performances in other plays, was constrained by a business suited Octavius - even at the height of battle - and could give no more than occasional flashes of the consummate strategist that he needed to be to defeat Pompey, then Antony and Cleopatra, and go on to become Augustus Caesar.
Costume design seemed to try to be thematic, but the mix of beautiful and erotic ancient Egyptian women among modern suits and army gear made Cleopatra look too much like a good time girl on the make in Bangkok instead of the powerful Queen of Egypt which de Jager did her best to play. If the Romans had also been dressed in their historically correct costumes, the setting would have been immediately established in a consistent style, allowing the play to tell its own story without problems like soldiers with modern guns committing suicide by falling on their swords. Otherwise go all modern, or timeless, but be consistent.
The result? "Take to you no hard thoughts" but don't expect too much.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This production leaves me in a quandary. Is it an intellectual representation of themes, or is it emotionally engaging theatre? Either intention is possible, but neither is successfully achieved.
Praise first, however. Ian Croker stood out as Enobarbus. In the difficult acoustics of the Arts Centre, his enunciation was clear and the character's emotions and understanding of the political and warfare manoeuvrings were plain to see. He held the play together. It was a mistake to ask him to also play the Clown who brings the asp to Cleopatra, but Croker managed even that transition very well.
Christa de Jager's Cleopatra became much more successful after Antony's death than before it. Shakespeare's poetry worked its wonder as it should in her final speeches.
But otherwise things fell short of good intentions. Mark Antony (Douglas Amarfio) was never "the crown o' the earth" as Cleopatra calls him, nor ever "my brother, my competitor in top of all design, my mate in empire" at whose death Octavius (Duncan Ley) weeps. Amarfio's vocal skills and presence on stage were just not up to the mark. Ley, too, despite strong performances in other plays, was constrained by a business suited Octavius - even at the height of battle - and could give no more than occasional flashes of the consummate strategist that he needed to be to defeat Pompey, then Antony and Cleopatra, and go on to become Augustus Caesar.
Costume design seemed to try to be thematic, but the mix of beautiful and erotic ancient Egyptian women among modern suits and army gear made Cleopatra look too much like a good time girl on the make in Bangkok instead of the powerful Queen of Egypt which de Jager did her best to play. If the Romans had also been dressed in their historically correct costumes, the setting would have been immediately established in a consistent style, allowing the play to tell its own story without problems like soldiers with modern guns committing suicide by falling on their swords. Otherwise go all modern, or timeless, but be consistent.
The result? "Take to you no hard thoughts" but don't expect too much.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 20 April 2006
2006: Tartuffe by Moliere
Tartuffe by Moliere. Centrepiece Theatre directed by Jordan Best at The Street Theatre Studio, Wednesdays to Saturdays until May 6, 7.30pm. Matinees Sunday April 30 and Saturday May 6 at 2pm. Bookings: 6247 1223.
It really is satisfying to see a production done with assurance and wit. Jordan Best and her cast understand the style needed for Moliere's form of comedy and have the confidence to play with a genuine sense of fun. There is a special visual joke, which may be interpreted to be a reference to a certain recent political cartoon, during the curtain call which is worth waiting for.
The use of religious humbug for personal gain and power was as common in the 17th Century as it is today, so this play was banned from public performance for 5 years after it was written in 1664. Played with a light touch, as Centrepiece have done, it is the comedy which gives immediate enjoyment while the criticism of dastardly human behaviour pokes its satirical head up between the lines to add to the fun. I suspect, though, there are still countries where a ban would be in the offing.
Performances are very good throughout, with minor roles showing as much character as major roles. A tricky part to play is Dorine, the servant who survives in this household ruled by the delusional Orgon not by being submissive but by challenging and manipulating her employers. Erin Pugh played with the art of commedia very effectively, as Moliere intended. Matt Marshall, as "humble" but lecherous Tartuffe, and Veronica Merton, as Elmire (Orgon's wife who exposes Tartuffe's sexual predations) made an excellent oppositional pair, while Liz Bradley (Mme Pernelle - Orgon's peremptory mother) provided the strong framework in the first and last scenes which the play needs.
Particularly amusing was Carly Jacobs' very petulant Marianne, Orgon's daughter, paired well with the sincere if slightly goofy Valere (Jim Adamik), especially in their "domestic", rejecting each other when they actually are in love. Calm down, says Dorine - you can have this argument after you're married.
This is a good beginning to the second year of Centrepiece. May there be many more.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It really is satisfying to see a production done with assurance and wit. Jordan Best and her cast understand the style needed for Moliere's form of comedy and have the confidence to play with a genuine sense of fun. There is a special visual joke, which may be interpreted to be a reference to a certain recent political cartoon, during the curtain call which is worth waiting for.
The use of religious humbug for personal gain and power was as common in the 17th Century as it is today, so this play was banned from public performance for 5 years after it was written in 1664. Played with a light touch, as Centrepiece have done, it is the comedy which gives immediate enjoyment while the criticism of dastardly human behaviour pokes its satirical head up between the lines to add to the fun. I suspect, though, there are still countries where a ban would be in the offing.
Performances are very good throughout, with minor roles showing as much character as major roles. A tricky part to play is Dorine, the servant who survives in this household ruled by the delusional Orgon not by being submissive but by challenging and manipulating her employers. Erin Pugh played with the art of commedia very effectively, as Moliere intended. Matt Marshall, as "humble" but lecherous Tartuffe, and Veronica Merton, as Elmire (Orgon's wife who exposes Tartuffe's sexual predations) made an excellent oppositional pair, while Liz Bradley (Mme Pernelle - Orgon's peremptory mother) provided the strong framework in the first and last scenes which the play needs.
Particularly amusing was Carly Jacobs' very petulant Marianne, Orgon's daughter, paired well with the sincere if slightly goofy Valere (Jim Adamik), especially in their "domestic", rejecting each other when they actually are in love. Calm down, says Dorine - you can have this argument after you're married.
This is a good beginning to the second year of Centrepiece. May there be many more.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 18 April 2006
2006: Kate Shearer: new artistic director for Jigsaw Theatre Co and Big Sister Little Brother. Feature article and preview.
Jigsaw Theatre Company has a new artistic director, Kate Shearer. What does this mean for the future of quality theatre for children and young people in Canberra? My expectation is that Jigsaw's reputation is safe and sound.
I have to admit my bias. 30 years ago, while I was briefly chair of Canberra Children's Theatre Committee which included the legal strong-arm of today's Public Prosecutor Richard Refshauge, the decision was made to formalise the structure of The Jigsaw Company as a professional organisation in its own right. This was a high point in the work of director Carol Woodrow, the driving force behind Jigsaw and Canberra Youth Theatre, both still essential elements in the ever-swirling flux that is Canberra theatre.
From the beginning Jigsaw has been unusual, if not unique, in being funded on the one hand as an independent theatre company by the Australia Council and on the other as a provider of children's theatre experience and professional development for teachers by the ACT government school system. In other places education department teams have come and gone as state government spending has fluctuated, while independent theatre-in-education companies have relied on beating ever-increasing competition - with many consequent demises.
Jigsaw is not completely immune, but Shearer is not only an experienced actor, teacher and director, but a successful theatre company administrator, well able to put up the quality grant applications and tender bids that the Australia Council and ACT Government expect. It is, first of all, her wide ranging background and ability to integrate, in the best Jigsaw tradition, the theatrical, educational and administrative aspects of her job that gives me confidence.
As the previous director, Greg Lissaman, has moved on after 7 years, budget tightening is necessary as grants are less forthcoming and the ACT undertakes its review of expenditure. Jigsaw began with an artistic director, an administrator, a team of 5 actors/tutors including a seconded teacher, and a part-time secretary. Peter Wilkins - now Narrabundah College teacher and Canberra Times reviewer - was able to maintain this structure when he directed Jigsaw from 1980 to 1985. There were various arrangements with more or less full time staff through the directorships of Rod Wilson and Steven Champion until Lyn Wallis, whose manual for independent theatre companies In Good Company was recently reviewed in Times 2, took the reins in 1995 and made Jigsaw into a leaner company, employing actors, tutors, technical staff and writers as needed for each project. Lissaman followed this structure with a staff of 4 - artistic director, administrative director, production manager and education officer.
Shearer has herself and the position of General Manager has been advertised. Her first production for 4 to 12 year olds, Big Sister Little Brother by Mike Kenny, opens with a special school holiday showing on Friday April 28 and goes on into primary schools for a 3 week season (there are still a couple of slots left for schools to book). Her next show for secondary schools is Shopping for Shoes, employing one actor and 30 pairs of shoes, designed to challenge young people's understanding of consumerism and their concepts of theatre. Then, with HealthPact support, we will see Smokefree Showpod, a new development from the successful Burning Boards program. Taking the pressure off teachers, Showpod will run out of school with students in a 10 week program working with theatre professionals, leading to non-competitive productions involving all the performing arts - "a celebration of excellence."
The school shows also include cross-curriculum resource kits for teachers, while The Teacher's Toolbox is a professional development program, particularly for primary teachers.
Can Kate Shearer cope? Her history says absolutely yes. A performer since the age of 4, whose mother directed and acted and whose father was a history teacher (and theatre technician), Shearer has a theatre degree and graduate diploma of education from Queensland University of Technology, worked through her twenties as an actor and drama teacher in Australia, teaching actor training in Britain where at 30 she was offered directing work, and has returned each year since 2002 to work on schools' touring productions and summer school drama programs. "Being an actor," she says, "has made me a much better director" because she knows how difficult, exhausting and complex the work of an actor is. In between employment, she set up her own company, learning the management details on the way. Having only one job with a contract which says she can only work outside with Jigsaw Committee's approval, is almost easing off for this energetic woman.
In her thirties she has discovered that directing is "what I was really meant to be doing with my life". She "loves the making" of theatre, working with each different actor, caring for them individually and facilitating them to find their way into the work. Like being a teacher, I suggest. Yes, she says, but I can be strong when I need to be. I realise it is her strength combined with her energy which makes her a survivor in the uncertain world of theatre, and it is her inclusive approach which is right for The Jigsaw Company - its original name - where theatre and education work as one.
Big Sister Little Brother
Jigsaw Theatre Company
Tuggeranong Arts Centre
Friday and Saturday April 28 - 29, 10.30am, 1pm and 3pm
Tickets: $8 concession, $10 adult, $30 family (2 adults, 2 children)
Bookings: Phone 6293 1443
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I have to admit my bias. 30 years ago, while I was briefly chair of Canberra Children's Theatre Committee which included the legal strong-arm of today's Public Prosecutor Richard Refshauge, the decision was made to formalise the structure of The Jigsaw Company as a professional organisation in its own right. This was a high point in the work of director Carol Woodrow, the driving force behind Jigsaw and Canberra Youth Theatre, both still essential elements in the ever-swirling flux that is Canberra theatre.
From the beginning Jigsaw has been unusual, if not unique, in being funded on the one hand as an independent theatre company by the Australia Council and on the other as a provider of children's theatre experience and professional development for teachers by the ACT government school system. In other places education department teams have come and gone as state government spending has fluctuated, while independent theatre-in-education companies have relied on beating ever-increasing competition - with many consequent demises.
Jigsaw is not completely immune, but Shearer is not only an experienced actor, teacher and director, but a successful theatre company administrator, well able to put up the quality grant applications and tender bids that the Australia Council and ACT Government expect. It is, first of all, her wide ranging background and ability to integrate, in the best Jigsaw tradition, the theatrical, educational and administrative aspects of her job that gives me confidence.
As the previous director, Greg Lissaman, has moved on after 7 years, budget tightening is necessary as grants are less forthcoming and the ACT undertakes its review of expenditure. Jigsaw began with an artistic director, an administrator, a team of 5 actors/tutors including a seconded teacher, and a part-time secretary. Peter Wilkins - now Narrabundah College teacher and Canberra Times reviewer - was able to maintain this structure when he directed Jigsaw from 1980 to 1985. There were various arrangements with more or less full time staff through the directorships of Rod Wilson and Steven Champion until Lyn Wallis, whose manual for independent theatre companies In Good Company was recently reviewed in Times 2, took the reins in 1995 and made Jigsaw into a leaner company, employing actors, tutors, technical staff and writers as needed for each project. Lissaman followed this structure with a staff of 4 - artistic director, administrative director, production manager and education officer.
Shearer has herself and the position of General Manager has been advertised. Her first production for 4 to 12 year olds, Big Sister Little Brother by Mike Kenny, opens with a special school holiday showing on Friday April 28 and goes on into primary schools for a 3 week season (there are still a couple of slots left for schools to book). Her next show for secondary schools is Shopping for Shoes, employing one actor and 30 pairs of shoes, designed to challenge young people's understanding of consumerism and their concepts of theatre. Then, with HealthPact support, we will see Smokefree Showpod, a new development from the successful Burning Boards program. Taking the pressure off teachers, Showpod will run out of school with students in a 10 week program working with theatre professionals, leading to non-competitive productions involving all the performing arts - "a celebration of excellence."
The school shows also include cross-curriculum resource kits for teachers, while The Teacher's Toolbox is a professional development program, particularly for primary teachers.
Can Kate Shearer cope? Her history says absolutely yes. A performer since the age of 4, whose mother directed and acted and whose father was a history teacher (and theatre technician), Shearer has a theatre degree and graduate diploma of education from Queensland University of Technology, worked through her twenties as an actor and drama teacher in Australia, teaching actor training in Britain where at 30 she was offered directing work, and has returned each year since 2002 to work on schools' touring productions and summer school drama programs. "Being an actor," she says, "has made me a much better director" because she knows how difficult, exhausting and complex the work of an actor is. In between employment, she set up her own company, learning the management details on the way. Having only one job with a contract which says she can only work outside with Jigsaw Committee's approval, is almost easing off for this energetic woman.
In her thirties she has discovered that directing is "what I was really meant to be doing with my life". She "loves the making" of theatre, working with each different actor, caring for them individually and facilitating them to find their way into the work. Like being a teacher, I suggest. Yes, she says, but I can be strong when I need to be. I realise it is her strength combined with her energy which makes her a survivor in the uncertain world of theatre, and it is her inclusive approach which is right for The Jigsaw Company - its original name - where theatre and education work as one.
Big Sister Little Brother
Jigsaw Theatre Company
Tuggeranong Arts Centre
Friday and Saturday April 28 - 29, 10.30am, 1pm and 3pm
Tickets: $8 concession, $10 adult, $30 family (2 adults, 2 children)
Bookings: Phone 6293 1443
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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