As ... You ... Like ... It. Just think about it. What sort of "it" do you like? How would you like it? Who would you like it with? How would you like it to finish? Who asked you in the first place?
William Shakespeare did just about 400 years ago.
He took what was then a modern 1590 novel, Rosalynde by Thomas Lodge, and posed the ultimate post-modern conundrum: truth is a matter of fact, but since facts have already happened and are therefore in the past, and the past is another country, facts are no more than stories we create which we believe to be true. Ergo, truth, when properly deconstructed, is fiction. As the very modern cynic Jaques says in Act 2: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players."
But As You Like It is real enough, appearing at The Playhouse September 4 - 13. The Bell Shakespeare Company brings us director Lindy Davies, whose credentials in theatre go back to the original Marvellous Melbourne at the Pram Factory where the new wave in Australian theatre is claimed (by Melburnians) to have begun. Along the way, mixed in among work in Australia, Britain and Russia, Davies taught Cate Blanchett at NIDA, telling Geoffrey Rush about this "astonishing young woman in her class", and nowadays is Head of Acting at the Victorian College of the Arts.
She brings with her another young woman star, Alice McConnell (Caitlin in MDA)to play Rosalind, as well as a young man who has played Euripedes in Xena, the Warrior Princess, Joe Manning, playing the love-lorn Orlando.
Lorn or not, Manning says the Lindy Davies technique of exploring "what the text does to us" has led him to find a boldness and purity in Orlando. He is on fire with love. The comedy, Manning says, is in the complex situations which grow from the characters' completely different perspectives. Sounds very post-modern indeed.
And you may remember Jennie Tate's wonderful set design and costumes for Bell's The Comedy of Errors last year. A close friend and colleague of Davies, Tate has gone this year into chandeliers, mirrors, crystals and jewels to create a "spectacular world of mystery and magic". As you will like it, without a doubt, while also being a sparkling symbol of see-through and reflection, of myriad perspectives, of shifting surfaces of understanding.
Having just finished working in television, returning to the stage for Alice McConnell makes her "feel like an absolute virgin", which suits the character of Rosalind very well. Letting the text reveal the character, as McConnell describes the Davies process, takes her to a Rosalind who follows the extremes of her instincts. In pretending to be a man, Ganymede, she finds absolute freedom as a woman. She flirts like mad, pushing her luck when she can see she is on to a good thing. While having such fun, she discovers an inner empowerment not merely as a woman but as a person, as an individual.
This production also brings Canberra's Patrick Brammall home for a visit. After Marist College, Free Rain Theatre, a year at the Actors' Centre in Sydney, and a lucky break getting late into VCA when someone else resigned, he worked for Bell Company's Actors at Work Education Team in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
Brammall plays William, the rustic lover of Audrey who is beaten to the altar by Touchstone's wit. Rather than accept poor William's sad fate, however, Brammall suggests the audience come prepared for his exit (Act V Scene 1) with placards to say that Touchstone is really a bounder, in fact just a clown. Audrey will regret her marriage to him, and William, though rather dim it is true, should have his place in the sun. And why not? Surely in Shakespeare's day the downtrodden in the pit would have stood up for poor William.
After all, as Lindy Davies says "The characters embark on a journey in which they discover the joy that love can bring and the virtues of loyalty and moral courage. They are empowered through standing up for their beliefs and by venturing into the unknown."
The other virtue Davies insists on is rigorous emotional and physical training of her actors. She praises Bell Shakespeare Company for supporting her approach and we can be assured of what she calls "virtuosity" in the performances we will see. Like top quality concert musicians, her actors become virtuosos who play their instruments - their bodies and brains - with consummate skill.
Consummation is, of course, what As You Like It is really about, with the celebration of 4 marriages in the final scene. Much witty word-play and flirting in the forest, skilfully acted, is great fun for us to watch. Australian actors are noted for their rough and tumble irreverence, in contrast to Americans' demand for intensity and Britons' focus on reverence for the art. Lindy Davies' early experience at the Pram Factory has combined with her later work training with Peter Brook and Jerzy Grotowski to bring both the priest and the clown together, just as Shakespeare did in his plays.
Shakespeare's, of course, is the art the British are so reverent about. But, as the film Shakespeare in Love suggested, William enjoyed the moment, pushed the envelope, and sought consummation in interesting ways. More post-modern than you can poke a stick (or whatever) at. Let's just do it, As You Like It, with
Bell Shakespeare
As You Like It
Canberra Playhouse
Thursday September 4 to Saturday September 13 7.30pm
Matinee Sat September 6 1.30pm
Mon September 8 6.30pm
Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700
Don't forget your placards for poor unconsummated William's exit.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 22 August 2003
Thursday, 21 August 2003
2003: Conversations with the Dead by Richard Frankland
THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE previously published in The Canberra Times, August 2003.
Conversations with the Dead by Richard Frankland. Company Belvoir B directed by Wesley Enoch at Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, till August 31, 2003, 8pm.
I have been waiting for many decades for an Australian play which would hit dead centre. David Williamson tries, but even his recent therapeutic Conversations are too neat for reality. Louis Nowra and Alma de Groen get near at times. Last year I thought Adam Cook's version of Patrick White's novel The Aunt's Story was very close to the guts of the big dramas like Sophocles' Antigone, Shakespeare's King Lear, or Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
I'm not talking academic airy-fairy bullshit here. I'm talking about plays that churn you up because you know that at any time you are as vulnerable as Antigone, who only wanted to do the right thing by her dead brother, or Willy Loman, whose life in this world full of salesmen was only hype and self-advertisement, with no life at all once you are 'past it'.
I'm talking about what Dean Carey said at the launch of a new book Don't Tell Me, Show Me by Adam Macaulay (Currency Press) in which directors talk about acting: "If I'm going to spend three hours of my time in a theatre I want to be shown something extra-ordinary". [please keep the hyphen]
The key to why Conversations with the Dead is extraordinary lies in both the writing and the staging. Frankland, writing out of his direct experience as a researcher for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, has found a voice in poetry, music, and the character of Jack, played with remarkable emotional and physical energy by Wayne Blair.
As Jack struggles against his own demons, including the ingrained sense of inadequacy which the past 200 years has injected into Aboriginal people, he asks questions of himself which we all ask of ourselves when faced with a seemingly impossible task. We see him, in a clifftop scene reminiscent of King Lear's inviting the storm to destroy him, face up to the images and voices of the dead whose spirits are borne in the harsh calls of black crows and the unpredictable power of the wind so near to blowing him away.
Enoch's direction, working with young designer Ralph Myers and top actors Luke Carroll, Elaine Crombie, Lillian Crombie and Rachael Maza, turns every ordinary action, word and prop, every shadow, every light, into an extraordinary symbol of Jack's despair: a piece of rope, a power cord, football socks, a knife, and pistol bullets carefully made to stand up before one is chosen to go in the chamber.
But, unlike the usual tragic characters, Jack does not die. He is still here, as the Aboriginal people are still here, and he wonders about other people leading their ordinary lives - he wonders about us - and what we would do if we knew all that he knows about the 99 deaths he investigated, the other 25 deaths up to 1989 the Commission decided not to investigate, the deaths rising from 11 in 1991 to 19 in 2001, and the deaths still happening in custody today. If we knew, as he says, "all that every Koori knows".
So Frankland's play, now trimmed taut by Wesley Enoch, is the central Australian tragedy I have been seeking. Rather than feeling sorry for Jack, however, we are forced to see the tragedy in ourselves. As Lear understands his role in the death of his favourite daughter Cordelia; as Linda Loman sees all the human forces, including her own attitudes, which have made Willy kill himself; so we know that we have failed Jack's people.
Jack faces the truth, learns at last who he is, and is not afraid to converse with the dead. Can the rest of us do at least as much as Edgar advises at the end of King Lear: "The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
Conversations with the Dead by Richard Frankland. Company Belvoir B directed by Wesley Enoch at Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, till August 31, 2003, 8pm.
I have been waiting for many decades for an Australian play which would hit dead centre. David Williamson tries, but even his recent therapeutic Conversations are too neat for reality. Louis Nowra and Alma de Groen get near at times. Last year I thought Adam Cook's version of Patrick White's novel The Aunt's Story was very close to the guts of the big dramas like Sophocles' Antigone, Shakespeare's King Lear, or Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
I'm not talking academic airy-fairy bullshit here. I'm talking about plays that churn you up because you know that at any time you are as vulnerable as Antigone, who only wanted to do the right thing by her dead brother, or Willy Loman, whose life in this world full of salesmen was only hype and self-advertisement, with no life at all once you are 'past it'.
I'm talking about what Dean Carey said at the launch of a new book Don't Tell Me, Show Me by Adam Macaulay (Currency Press) in which directors talk about acting: "If I'm going to spend three hours of my time in a theatre I want to be shown something extra-ordinary". [please keep the hyphen]
The key to why Conversations with the Dead is extraordinary lies in both the writing and the staging. Frankland, writing out of his direct experience as a researcher for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, has found a voice in poetry, music, and the character of Jack, played with remarkable emotional and physical energy by Wayne Blair.
As Jack struggles against his own demons, including the ingrained sense of inadequacy which the past 200 years has injected into Aboriginal people, he asks questions of himself which we all ask of ourselves when faced with a seemingly impossible task. We see him, in a clifftop scene reminiscent of King Lear's inviting the storm to destroy him, face up to the images and voices of the dead whose spirits are borne in the harsh calls of black crows and the unpredictable power of the wind so near to blowing him away.
Enoch's direction, working with young designer Ralph Myers and top actors Luke Carroll, Elaine Crombie, Lillian Crombie and Rachael Maza, turns every ordinary action, word and prop, every shadow, every light, into an extraordinary symbol of Jack's despair: a piece of rope, a power cord, football socks, a knife, and pistol bullets carefully made to stand up before one is chosen to go in the chamber.
But, unlike the usual tragic characters, Jack does not die. He is still here, as the Aboriginal people are still here, and he wonders about other people leading their ordinary lives - he wonders about us - and what we would do if we knew all that he knows about the 99 deaths he investigated, the other 25 deaths up to 1989 the Commission decided not to investigate, the deaths rising from 11 in 1991 to 19 in 2001, and the deaths still happening in custody today. If we knew, as he says, "all that every Koori knows".
So Frankland's play, now trimmed taut by Wesley Enoch, is the central Australian tragedy I have been seeking. Rather than feeling sorry for Jack, however, we are forced to see the tragedy in ourselves. As Lear understands his role in the death of his favourite daughter Cordelia; as Linda Loman sees all the human forces, including her own attitudes, which have made Willy kill himself; so we know that we have failed Jack's people.
Jack faces the truth, learns at last who he is, and is not afraid to converse with the dead. Can the rest of us do at least as much as Edgar advises at the end of King Lear: "The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
Wednesday, 20 August 2003
2003: It Stands Alone by John Breen
It Stands Alone by John Breen. Ross Mollison Productions. Directed by Wayne Harrison. Canberra Playhouse August 19-23.
"If you pay a visit to Ireland, you are taken in at first by all that extremely rapid, very clever kind of gabble; they talk and tell stories and are amusing for a while, but after a little time you discover the interest does not really sustain itself."
In my own self-defence, I quote a famous Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who has written exactly my reaction to It Stands Alone. He wrote this in 1919; things haven't changed.
The story of how Munster defeated the All Blacks 12-0 in 1978 has been turned into a Mouse That Roared myth which John Breen takes as a given truth. The mawkish sentimental ending, singing Alone It Stands about this "little Isle" as if winning a football match gives Ireland all the dignity and freedom it deserves just turned my stomach.
Although the cleverly choreographed clowning and slapstick cameos which represented the football match were performed by the ensemble with considerable skill, and were suitably rewarded with laughter, the references to the real world outside football were made but were allowed to die on the vine when they should have grown to significant fruition.
The death of Donal Canniffe's father from heart attack while his son was on the field was not tragic (as claimed by the author in his notes): it was no more than a case of unfortunate timing. Gerry's failure to be with his wife for the birth of their twins was turned into a weak joke about the names she gives them. A brief discussion about Ireland glorifying its failures disappeared without a trace of development after it got its laugh. And the parallel story of the young teenager gangs' bonfire competition wasn't even funny. When the fire was lit and explosions of bullets nicked from one of the terrorist groups made the kids duck for cover, there was an opportunity for some real satire, or a dramatic shift into tragedy. But absolutely nothing happened. The next little cameo joke appeared and all reality was forgotten.
Go along for a humorous replay of a rugby game with a few standard jokes about sheep in New Zealand and some rough language concerning various kinds of balls, but don't bother if you want to see anything subtle, theatrically exciting or seriously satirical. Don't blame the actors: they're as good or rather better than the script allows them to be.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"If you pay a visit to Ireland, you are taken in at first by all that extremely rapid, very clever kind of gabble; they talk and tell stories and are amusing for a while, but after a little time you discover the interest does not really sustain itself."
In my own self-defence, I quote a famous Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who has written exactly my reaction to It Stands Alone. He wrote this in 1919; things haven't changed.
The story of how Munster defeated the All Blacks 12-0 in 1978 has been turned into a Mouse That Roared myth which John Breen takes as a given truth. The mawkish sentimental ending, singing Alone It Stands about this "little Isle" as if winning a football match gives Ireland all the dignity and freedom it deserves just turned my stomach.
Although the cleverly choreographed clowning and slapstick cameos which represented the football match were performed by the ensemble with considerable skill, and were suitably rewarded with laughter, the references to the real world outside football were made but were allowed to die on the vine when they should have grown to significant fruition.
The death of Donal Canniffe's father from heart attack while his son was on the field was not tragic (as claimed by the author in his notes): it was no more than a case of unfortunate timing. Gerry's failure to be with his wife for the birth of their twins was turned into a weak joke about the names she gives them. A brief discussion about Ireland glorifying its failures disappeared without a trace of development after it got its laugh. And the parallel story of the young teenager gangs' bonfire competition wasn't even funny. When the fire was lit and explosions of bullets nicked from one of the terrorist groups made the kids duck for cover, there was an opportunity for some real satire, or a dramatic shift into tragedy. But absolutely nothing happened. The next little cameo joke appeared and all reality was forgotten.
Go along for a humorous replay of a rugby game with a few standard jokes about sheep in New Zealand and some rough language concerning various kinds of balls, but don't bother if you want to see anything subtle, theatrically exciting or seriously satirical. Don't blame the actors: they're as good or rather better than the script allows them to be.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 14 August 2003
2003: In Cold Light by Duncan Ley
In Cold Light by Duncan Ley. New Century Productions directed by Stephen Pike at Theatre 3 Wed-Sat August 14-30.
It's not fashionable to talk too directly of the ethics in telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Too many people in positions of responsibility might be embarrassed, and we should respect their feelings after all. In Cold Light is an old-fashioned play on this point, and therefore is a highly relevant allegorical investigation of social leaders like Governors-General, Prime and other Ministers, and business CEOs of recent years.
The author, and indeed God, will not permit me to reveal much of the plot of The Inspector's (Duncan Ley) examination of Father Christian Lamori (Michael Sparks), Deputy Principal of St Matthew's Boys' School. The Inspector interrogates at times obliquely, sometimes bluntly, once or twice even violently, but always unswervingly. It takes only an hour and a half for the shamelessly symbolically named Lamori to reveal his inner life, and the manner of his leaving it.
If this sounds mysterious, so be it. This mystery is enticing as Lamori wriggles under The Inspector's pin. Following the twists and turns of Ley's script, performed with admirable technical skill by both actors, becomes an intellectual exercise which any crime fiction addict cannot afford to miss. The ending is a neat surprise / reprise.
At first I thought, Oh God, not another play about Christian, even specifically Catholic guilt, but gradually The Inspector's role in playing with Lamori's cover-ups to avoid the truth, came to parallel the author's playing with our understanding of the situation. The final revelation, the folk-Christian picture of the after-life, is left for us to consider as a humorous metaphor rather than deadly serious literal truth.
Though there are potential depths of characterisation left unexplored, In Cold Light, Ley's second play, is well worth a visit. Technical design and production is excellent. We can look forward to more New Century Productions and more Duncan Ley plays.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
It's not fashionable to talk too directly of the ethics in telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Too many people in positions of responsibility might be embarrassed, and we should respect their feelings after all. In Cold Light is an old-fashioned play on this point, and therefore is a highly relevant allegorical investigation of social leaders like Governors-General, Prime and other Ministers, and business CEOs of recent years.
The author, and indeed God, will not permit me to reveal much of the plot of The Inspector's (Duncan Ley) examination of Father Christian Lamori (Michael Sparks), Deputy Principal of St Matthew's Boys' School. The Inspector interrogates at times obliquely, sometimes bluntly, once or twice even violently, but always unswervingly. It takes only an hour and a half for the shamelessly symbolically named Lamori to reveal his inner life, and the manner of his leaving it.
If this sounds mysterious, so be it. This mystery is enticing as Lamori wriggles under The Inspector's pin. Following the twists and turns of Ley's script, performed with admirable technical skill by both actors, becomes an intellectual exercise which any crime fiction addict cannot afford to miss. The ending is a neat surprise / reprise.
At first I thought, Oh God, not another play about Christian, even specifically Catholic guilt, but gradually The Inspector's role in playing with Lamori's cover-ups to avoid the truth, came to parallel the author's playing with our understanding of the situation. The final revelation, the folk-Christian picture of the after-life, is left for us to consider as a humorous metaphor rather than deadly serious literal truth.
Though there are potential depths of characterisation left unexplored, In Cold Light, Ley's second play, is well worth a visit. Technical design and production is excellent. We can look forward to more New Century Productions and more Duncan Ley plays.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 5 April 2003
2003: The Masters of Space and Time and Howard's Game
The Masters of Space and Time directed by Stuart Roberts. The Street Theatre Studio April 2-12, 8.30pm.
Canberra's tendency to spawn new theatre groups like coral on a full moon has created a metamorphosed Bohemian Productions now called The Masters of Space and Time. This is the title of the second short play in this program. The first is Howard's Game. Both are tightly scripted and directed.
Both plays show how depth of meaning is achieved in theatre by telling a story well rather than by trying too hard to be meaningful. Howard is a sad one-time children's television presenter who told his stories by having Mr Jimmy, a toy monkey, whisper what to say into his ear. We see Howard on screen from the past as well as on stage in the present, now grey haired, having just received a parcel which contains Mr Jimmy. His children's stories developed dark endings and seemed to predict disasters in real life, so he had been dismissed and the TV station had kept Mr Jimmy. We discover that Mr Jimmy's last screen story presaged Howard's own death. Reality is entirely blurred by imagination, leaving us laughing at the absurdity of the situation while aware that we are all vulnerable like Howard.
The style of The Masters of Space and Time is much more clearly absurdist. Jack owns the flat in which Mort and Hampton also live. Jack plans his life in every detail, including the moment when he will propose to Ellyse. Mort and Hampton will have to leave. They play the Consequences Game, in which a single event - throwing a paper aeroplane out the window - causes more and more extensive ripples in reality and finally disasters on a grand scale, following the chaos concept of the flutter of a butterfly's wing.
The consequence is not just that Jack's plans are destroyed and the lodgers remain in his flat, but everything collapses into some kind of earthquake inferno. No-one is the master of space and time, despite our fantastic belief in our central place in the universe.
Production values, in terms of lighting, sound, video, props, costumes and make-up, are high, once again by careful cutting back and avoiding unnecessary extravagance. The result is a night of excellent theatre from a young group whose work is developing fast.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Canberra's tendency to spawn new theatre groups like coral on a full moon has created a metamorphosed Bohemian Productions now called The Masters of Space and Time. This is the title of the second short play in this program. The first is Howard's Game. Both are tightly scripted and directed.
Both plays show how depth of meaning is achieved in theatre by telling a story well rather than by trying too hard to be meaningful. Howard is a sad one-time children's television presenter who told his stories by having Mr Jimmy, a toy monkey, whisper what to say into his ear. We see Howard on screen from the past as well as on stage in the present, now grey haired, having just received a parcel which contains Mr Jimmy. His children's stories developed dark endings and seemed to predict disasters in real life, so he had been dismissed and the TV station had kept Mr Jimmy. We discover that Mr Jimmy's last screen story presaged Howard's own death. Reality is entirely blurred by imagination, leaving us laughing at the absurdity of the situation while aware that we are all vulnerable like Howard.
The style of The Masters of Space and Time is much more clearly absurdist. Jack owns the flat in which Mort and Hampton also live. Jack plans his life in every detail, including the moment when he will propose to Ellyse. Mort and Hampton will have to leave. They play the Consequences Game, in which a single event - throwing a paper aeroplane out the window - causes more and more extensive ripples in reality and finally disasters on a grand scale, following the chaos concept of the flutter of a butterfly's wing.
The consequence is not just that Jack's plans are destroyed and the lodgers remain in his flat, but everything collapses into some kind of earthquake inferno. No-one is the master of space and time, despite our fantastic belief in our central place in the universe.
Production values, in terms of lighting, sound, video, props, costumes and make-up, are high, once again by careful cutting back and avoiding unnecessary extravagance. The result is a night of excellent theatre from a young group whose work is developing fast.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 15 February 2003
2003: Show Us Your Roots
THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE
Show Us Your Roots. "The biggest line up of Australia's Multicultural Comedians ever assembled in one place at one time", produced by Laing Special Events in association with the National Multicultural Festival. Llewellyn Hall, Friday February 14.
13 comedians in one night might not seem to augur well, but all except one stood up to my expectations. And really there were 14, because the compere, Peter Rowsthorn, was a quality comedian in his own right. He set the standard of good relations with the audience from the beginning, with humour in mime especially, when the dreaded echo of Llewellyn Hall might have turned the evening sour.
The least successful was Bev Killick of English and Scots origins. Though her vocal bagpipes were well done, too much of her act consisted of imitations (of Tina Turner and AC/DC doing advertising jingles) which could not compare with the traditional storytelling stand-up acts of the others.
What fascinated me was the common thread of irony, done in the Australian laconic manner (itself the butt of many of the jokes), which linked performers from such diverse backgrounds: Jilkamu (Indigenous Australian), Joe June (China), Desh (India, South Africa), Gabriel Rossi (Italy), Jackie Loeb (Germany, Austria), Dave Callan (Ireland), Tahir Bilgic (Turkey), George Smilovici (Cuba, Romania), Chris Wainhouse (New Zealand), Tommy Dean (USA), Hung Lee (Vietnam) and Anthony Mir (Lebanon).
The 3 hour program was too full of laughs for me to give a complete picture. Some highlights were a very brave Jackie Loeb in an underwear routine which began from a visit to the Miss America swimsuit competition, a terrific didgeridoo performance representing hitchhiking in a truck by Jilkamu, and Dave Callan's image of Irish people - trying to be sophisticated - drinking potato daquiris.
Hung Lee's probably true story of his mother, unable to understand English, deciding to make sandwiches for his school lunch filled with corn flakes and soy sauce dressing, showed the light side of cultural confusion. But it was the American Tommy Dean's probably fictional story of the September 11 highjackers secretly laughing at the air hostess demonstrating the safety features of their aircraft which provided the blackest humour of the night.
The hall was full for this one-night stand-up, which I think deserves to become a National Multicultural Festival tradition.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Show Us Your Roots. "The biggest line up of Australia's Multicultural Comedians ever assembled in one place at one time", produced by Laing Special Events in association with the National Multicultural Festival. Llewellyn Hall, Friday February 14.
13 comedians in one night might not seem to augur well, but all except one stood up to my expectations. And really there were 14, because the compere, Peter Rowsthorn, was a quality comedian in his own right. He set the standard of good relations with the audience from the beginning, with humour in mime especially, when the dreaded echo of Llewellyn Hall might have turned the evening sour.
The least successful was Bev Killick of English and Scots origins. Though her vocal bagpipes were well done, too much of her act consisted of imitations (of Tina Turner and AC/DC doing advertising jingles) which could not compare with the traditional storytelling stand-up acts of the others.
What fascinated me was the common thread of irony, done in the Australian laconic manner (itself the butt of many of the jokes), which linked performers from such diverse backgrounds: Jilkamu (Indigenous Australian), Joe June (China), Desh (India, South Africa), Gabriel Rossi (Italy), Jackie Loeb (Germany, Austria), Dave Callan (Ireland), Tahir Bilgic (Turkey), George Smilovici (Cuba, Romania), Chris Wainhouse (New Zealand), Tommy Dean (USA), Hung Lee (Vietnam) and Anthony Mir (Lebanon).
The 3 hour program was too full of laughs for me to give a complete picture. Some highlights were a very brave Jackie Loeb in an underwear routine which began from a visit to the Miss America swimsuit competition, a terrific didgeridoo performance representing hitchhiking in a truck by Jilkamu, and Dave Callan's image of Irish people - trying to be sophisticated - drinking potato daquiris.
Hung Lee's probably true story of his mother, unable to understand English, deciding to make sandwiches for his school lunch filled with corn flakes and soy sauce dressing, showed the light side of cultural confusion. But it was the American Tommy Dean's probably fictional story of the September 11 highjackers secretly laughing at the air hostess demonstrating the safety features of their aircraft which provided the blackest humour of the night.
The hall was full for this one-night stand-up, which I think deserves to become a National Multicultural Festival tradition.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 12 February 2003
2003: Carboni by John Romeril
Carboni by John Romeril. Renato Musolino as Rafaello Carboni, directed by Peter Dunn. Tuggeranong Arts Centre in association with the National Multicultural Festival, February 11-15 8pm.
Rafaello Carboni stayed up on watch at the Eureka Stockade over Thursday and Friday nights. By midnight Saturday December 2, 1854, his need for sleep overcame his dedication to the cause of defence against the expected troopers. He, as Peter Lalor's valued interpreter - he spoke 6 languages - was allowed to leave the stockade while things seemed quiet, only to be awakened by gunfire at dawn.
What sense of guilt he must have felt, being forced merely to watch while 20 of his mates were killed and some twice that number left injured, all for the sake of their objection to the Victorian Government's demand, enforced by constant police harrassment, that they pay a licence fee to dig for gold at Ballarat.
Surviving a false charge of treason, Carboni wrote his record of these seminal events in Australian history in a book The Eureka Stockade, was elected a member of the local court in Ballarat, and later returned to Italy where he marched alongside Garibaldi.
Romeril's play, though rather theatre-in-education in style, gives us Carboni the writer, political activist, and defender of the barricades - often rather melodramatic in speech and mannerisms, but a sincere and clear thinker. The result is a perfect multicultural festival presentation. Those 6 languages were needed at Ballarat 150 years ago, and his lack of Chinese was a severe frustration for Carboni.
Musolino performs the play in an Italian translation as well as English. I felt I needed to experience more complexity of emotion in Carboni's character in the English version I saw, but an Italian speaker at the all-Italian opening night was very impressed with the powerful effect of the play in that language, where its strength lay in a dramatic story-telling tradition. For me the action was rather too slow and studied, yet this style gradually built to a strong ending and a clear understanding of the brutal reality of the massacre.
The visual design by Casey van Sebille was a strength of this production: clever back projections reinforced the story and the theme very effectively. The Southern Cross flag now has much greater meaning for me.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Rafaello Carboni stayed up on watch at the Eureka Stockade over Thursday and Friday nights. By midnight Saturday December 2, 1854, his need for sleep overcame his dedication to the cause of defence against the expected troopers. He, as Peter Lalor's valued interpreter - he spoke 6 languages - was allowed to leave the stockade while things seemed quiet, only to be awakened by gunfire at dawn.
What sense of guilt he must have felt, being forced merely to watch while 20 of his mates were killed and some twice that number left injured, all for the sake of their objection to the Victorian Government's demand, enforced by constant police harrassment, that they pay a licence fee to dig for gold at Ballarat.
Surviving a false charge of treason, Carboni wrote his record of these seminal events in Australian history in a book The Eureka Stockade, was elected a member of the local court in Ballarat, and later returned to Italy where he marched alongside Garibaldi.
Romeril's play, though rather theatre-in-education in style, gives us Carboni the writer, political activist, and defender of the barricades - often rather melodramatic in speech and mannerisms, but a sincere and clear thinker. The result is a perfect multicultural festival presentation. Those 6 languages were needed at Ballarat 150 years ago, and his lack of Chinese was a severe frustration for Carboni.
Musolino performs the play in an Italian translation as well as English. I felt I needed to experience more complexity of emotion in Carboni's character in the English version I saw, but an Italian speaker at the all-Italian opening night was very impressed with the powerful effect of the play in that language, where its strength lay in a dramatic story-telling tradition. For me the action was rather too slow and studied, yet this style gradually built to a strong ending and a clear understanding of the brutal reality of the massacre.
The visual design by Casey van Sebille was a strength of this production: clever back projections reinforced the story and the theme very effectively. The Southern Cross flag now has much greater meaning for me.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 19 January 2003
2003: Chronicle of a Death Foretold from the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold adapted by Fabio Rubiano from the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. National Theatre of Colombia directed by Jorge Ali Triana. Theatre Royal: Sydney Festival January 17-18, 20-25.
An honour killing in a small town. Angela Vicario is found not to be a virgin on her wedding night. Other women knew beforehand and advised her how to deceive her husband, but she would rather tell the truth.
Everyone knew the Vicario brothers intended to kill Santiago Nasar, whose name was beaten out of Angela by her mother, when her husband dumped her home. Everyone said they didn't think the brothers would do it. But they do.
What are the rights and wrongs here? The final question is not whether Santiago was actually guilty of deflowering Angela, but what can we do to have people take action to prevent the real crime - murder - especially when they all have their own small town agendas.
By using a flashback technique, Rubiano reveals the many different viewpoints before and after the murder, but when even the priest and the mayor turn a blind eye, the rule of law is effectively abandoned. Only the doctor tried hard to prevent the killing, but was called away suddenly to someone's dying father. A convenient move for someone, probably.
The program notes describe this play as a "powerful story of revenge", but I found it a tough analysis of social failure.
The use of choral chant, song and dance to highlight a contrasting presentational style of delivering dialogue was particularly successful - both emotions and intellect were engaged in this production, in the Brechtian tradition of distancing us from mere sentimental involvement in a story of revenge so that we could see the political workings of each part of this society. And, sadly, just as in reality, there was no final solution. "Man is man", as Brecht wrote.
The only hope in the play came from a woman, Angela. Beaten, deserted and with no social standing, she writes loving letters to her estranged husband for 17 years. Though he never opens the letters, at last, now fatter, balding and wearing glasses, he returns to stay. May we hope, then, that Angela's insistence on telling the truth, however destructive its effect, will shine eternally? Well, an audience member on opening night in a pause between curtain call applause, called "Viva la Colombia" - and we all felt one with that.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
An honour killing in a small town. Angela Vicario is found not to be a virgin on her wedding night. Other women knew beforehand and advised her how to deceive her husband, but she would rather tell the truth.
Everyone knew the Vicario brothers intended to kill Santiago Nasar, whose name was beaten out of Angela by her mother, when her husband dumped her home. Everyone said they didn't think the brothers would do it. But they do.
What are the rights and wrongs here? The final question is not whether Santiago was actually guilty of deflowering Angela, but what can we do to have people take action to prevent the real crime - murder - especially when they all have their own small town agendas.
By using a flashback technique, Rubiano reveals the many different viewpoints before and after the murder, but when even the priest and the mayor turn a blind eye, the rule of law is effectively abandoned. Only the doctor tried hard to prevent the killing, but was called away suddenly to someone's dying father. A convenient move for someone, probably.
The program notes describe this play as a "powerful story of revenge", but I found it a tough analysis of social failure.
The use of choral chant, song and dance to highlight a contrasting presentational style of delivering dialogue was particularly successful - both emotions and intellect were engaged in this production, in the Brechtian tradition of distancing us from mere sentimental involvement in a story of revenge so that we could see the political workings of each part of this society. And, sadly, just as in reality, there was no final solution. "Man is man", as Brecht wrote.
The only hope in the play came from a woman, Angela. Beaten, deserted and with no social standing, she writes loving letters to her estranged husband for 17 years. Though he never opens the letters, at last, now fatter, balding and wearing glasses, he returns to stay. May we hope, then, that Angela's insistence on telling the truth, however destructive its effect, will shine eternally? Well, an audience member on opening night in a pause between curtain call applause, called "Viva la Colombia" - and we all felt one with that.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2003: Black Chicks Talking by Leah Purcell and Sean Mee
Black Chicks Talking by Leah Purcell and Sean Mee. La Boite Theatre and Queensland Performing Arts Centre in association with Bungabura Productions. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House: Sydney Festival January 17-18, 20-25.
Leah Purcell has now turned Aboriginal women's true stories from her book and television documentary into a dramatic fiction. Four women representing different Aboriginal backgrounds - Elizabeth (Leah Purcell) who has been brought up white, Patricia (Kyas Sherriff) who knows she's black and learns Aboriginal Studies at Uni, Michelle (Sher Williams-Hood) who's proud to be black, despite a life of poverty, drink and drugs, and Sophie (Tessa Rose) who is closest to traditional knowledge while also educated in European ways - are brought together mysteriously to a mythic bush setting by the spirit of Jeanine, the younger sister of Patricia.
When their Aboriginal mother left, their white father kept Patricia but fostered out Jeanine in the hope that she would not remember, being only 5 at the time of her removal. But, of course, her father is the one person she cannot forget, and she now searches for the knowledge of her real family.
For this play non-Indigenous people must suspend disbelief. The Aboriginal spirit world is absolutely frightening and hard to interpret, even for Sophie, when in someone else's country. We never get to understand how these diverse women come to be in Jeanine's country, but this is not the issue. This is spirit business.
In the end, each character - and that means each of us - must face the realities of their own past, seeing how their present behaviour is not based on truth: only then can they grow into real knowledge, understanding and compassion.
The theme is unexceptional and universal, but in my opinion the play is not as powerful as the SBS documentary where we saw the real women speak. This is because the script needs tightening. For example the message that Elizabeth, who could only see herself as part-Aboriginal (which part? says Michelle), finally found her way in a dance experience, was immediately clear, but the dance sequence then went on far too long, as if repeating the message unnecessarily.
Much more heightened poetic language would also lift sequences above and beyond the ordinary and deepen the emotional effect. So Black Chicks Talking is a good play, but not yet a great play.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Leah Purcell has now turned Aboriginal women's true stories from her book and television documentary into a dramatic fiction. Four women representing different Aboriginal backgrounds - Elizabeth (Leah Purcell) who has been brought up white, Patricia (Kyas Sherriff) who knows she's black and learns Aboriginal Studies at Uni, Michelle (Sher Williams-Hood) who's proud to be black, despite a life of poverty, drink and drugs, and Sophie (Tessa Rose) who is closest to traditional knowledge while also educated in European ways - are brought together mysteriously to a mythic bush setting by the spirit of Jeanine, the younger sister of Patricia.
When their Aboriginal mother left, their white father kept Patricia but fostered out Jeanine in the hope that she would not remember, being only 5 at the time of her removal. But, of course, her father is the one person she cannot forget, and she now searches for the knowledge of her real family.
For this play non-Indigenous people must suspend disbelief. The Aboriginal spirit world is absolutely frightening and hard to interpret, even for Sophie, when in someone else's country. We never get to understand how these diverse women come to be in Jeanine's country, but this is not the issue. This is spirit business.
In the end, each character - and that means each of us - must face the realities of their own past, seeing how their present behaviour is not based on truth: only then can they grow into real knowledge, understanding and compassion.
The theme is unexceptional and universal, but in my opinion the play is not as powerful as the SBS documentary where we saw the real women speak. This is because the script needs tightening. For example the message that Elizabeth, who could only see herself as part-Aboriginal (which part? says Michelle), finally found her way in a dance experience, was immediately clear, but the dance sequence then went on far too long, as if repeating the message unnecessarily.
Much more heightened poetic language would also lift sequences above and beyond the ordinary and deepen the emotional effect. So Black Chicks Talking is a good play, but not yet a great play.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 18 January 2003
2003: The Junebug Symphony by James Thierree
The Junebug Symphony by James Thierree and La Compagnie du Hanneton. State Theatre: The Sydney Festival. January 16-25.
For a summer festival in Tinsel Town this show is real glitter. It's the French version of Circus Oz - terrific acrobatics, with a special note of admiration for contortionist Raphaelle Boitel, all thoroughly mixed up with images of fantasie extraordinaire.
Like all good circus you can enjoy it from 3 to 300, and there were some great observations made in the most dramatic silences by unselfconscious very little ones on opening night. After all it is hard not to respond when, as Thierree describes it, "a man loses his head, his legs and his arms, but not his temper".
The pièce de résistance has to be the final scene of a kind of mediaeval mayhem where an armoured insect wearing cutlery and other kitchenware battles something vaguely like a soft toy, each "animal" played by 2 people.
On the way people had great difficulty on either side of a door with no walls, with a wardrobe which produced a surprising range of very loud music, with books that burst into flame, and so many other unsettling experiences packed into 90 minutes that I can't remember them all. The junebug caused all this wierdness in the mind of the man by buzzing around so he couldn't sleep. That's when he began to lose his head ....
Of course, if you really feel the need, you can look for the "Surrealism, primarily an artistic movement, [which] concerns the expression of the imagination as it is revealed in dreams" as Erica Fryberg explains in her very serious program notes. But I suggest you just let the visual and musical jokes have their place in the Sydney sun and leave the Dada stuff to the Samuel Beckett part of the Festival. Or to the London Daily Telegraph, no less, which we are told invited "comparisons with Dali and Chagall...."
Why not simply enjoy laughing at the erratic junebug (mayfly in English) and appreciate the acrobatic skills of Thierree, Boitel, Uma Ysamat (also an excellent operatic singer) and the mime Magnus Jakobsson. We can worry about the existential nightmare when we grow up - maybe when we get to 300. For me the Junebug Symphony was much more fantastical fun than the Lord of the Rings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
For a summer festival in Tinsel Town this show is real glitter. It's the French version of Circus Oz - terrific acrobatics, with a special note of admiration for contortionist Raphaelle Boitel, all thoroughly mixed up with images of fantasie extraordinaire.
Like all good circus you can enjoy it from 3 to 300, and there were some great observations made in the most dramatic silences by unselfconscious very little ones on opening night. After all it is hard not to respond when, as Thierree describes it, "a man loses his head, his legs and his arms, but not his temper".
The pièce de résistance has to be the final scene of a kind of mediaeval mayhem where an armoured insect wearing cutlery and other kitchenware battles something vaguely like a soft toy, each "animal" played by 2 people.
On the way people had great difficulty on either side of a door with no walls, with a wardrobe which produced a surprising range of very loud music, with books that burst into flame, and so many other unsettling experiences packed into 90 minutes that I can't remember them all. The junebug caused all this wierdness in the mind of the man by buzzing around so he couldn't sleep. That's when he began to lose his head ....
Of course, if you really feel the need, you can look for the "Surrealism, primarily an artistic movement, [which] concerns the expression of the imagination as it is revealed in dreams" as Erica Fryberg explains in her very serious program notes. But I suggest you just let the visual and musical jokes have their place in the Sydney sun and leave the Dada stuff to the Samuel Beckett part of the Festival. Or to the London Daily Telegraph, no less, which we are told invited "comparisons with Dali and Chagall...."
Why not simply enjoy laughing at the erratic junebug (mayfly in English) and appreciate the acrobatic skills of Thierree, Boitel, Uma Ysamat (also an excellent operatic singer) and the mime Magnus Jakobsson. We can worry about the existential nightmare when we grow up - maybe when we get to 300. For me the Junebug Symphony was much more fantastical fun than the Lord of the Rings.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 10 January 2003
2003: A Night Down the Hole
A Night Down the Hole. A program of one-act plays, film and music directed by Soren Jensen and Christian Doran for The Nineteenth Hole at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, January 8-11.
Soren Jensen describes one-act plays as escaping "the cultural trap of 'the serious' while being very serious indeed. They have the immense advantage of flying below the level of cultural radar.... Such is also the case with The Nineteenth Hole." "We act to entertain each other rather than [for] the glory of a paying audience," says Christian Doran.
Their recognition of the modest theatrical place they occupy seems to me to have kept The Nineteenth Hole on track over the two years since they were just a group of friends at college. A Night Down the Hole is a neatly structured entertainment, exploring the differences between love, lust and friendship. "I can't be your friend," says a young man to his now married ex-girlfriend, "because I love you."
The task of linking 8 plays, some local and others mainly American (Apres Opera by Michael Bigelow and Valerie Smith, Pvt. Wars by James McClure, Anything for You by Cathy Celesia, Tom's Lament by Justin Greenaway, 4AM by Bob Krakower, Sure Thing by David Ives, Downtown by Jeffrey Hatcher and Success by Arthur Kopit) into scenes in a pub so that the transitions are seamless and the themes develop sensibly was demanding and certainly done well enough for a paying audience.
The Nineteenth Hole may be flying low, but radar over the horizon shows a strong cultural development since I last saw them a year ago. Not only is the material - the film sequences, musical interludes and scripts - much more tightly integrated now, but individual actors have matured. I noted particularly Jensen as Barman Jim (who plans this year to take on further training in Sydney), Imogen Fayed in Anything for You, and Jack Millyn and Clare Martin in Sure Thing. They may "act to entertain each other" but the company has surely been a worthwhile self-development group for all involved. They have found a style, absurdist and witty, which suits them well. It challenges them and in doing so made A Night Down the Hole a satisfying evening's entertainment.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Soren Jensen describes one-act plays as escaping "the cultural trap of 'the serious' while being very serious indeed. They have the immense advantage of flying below the level of cultural radar.... Such is also the case with The Nineteenth Hole." "We act to entertain each other rather than [for] the glory of a paying audience," says Christian Doran.
Their recognition of the modest theatrical place they occupy seems to me to have kept The Nineteenth Hole on track over the two years since they were just a group of friends at college. A Night Down the Hole is a neatly structured entertainment, exploring the differences between love, lust and friendship. "I can't be your friend," says a young man to his now married ex-girlfriend, "because I love you."
The task of linking 8 plays, some local and others mainly American (Apres Opera by Michael Bigelow and Valerie Smith, Pvt. Wars by James McClure, Anything for You by Cathy Celesia, Tom's Lament by Justin Greenaway, 4AM by Bob Krakower, Sure Thing by David Ives, Downtown by Jeffrey Hatcher and Success by Arthur Kopit) into scenes in a pub so that the transitions are seamless and the themes develop sensibly was demanding and certainly done well enough for a paying audience.
The Nineteenth Hole may be flying low, but radar over the horizon shows a strong cultural development since I last saw them a year ago. Not only is the material - the film sequences, musical interludes and scripts - much more tightly integrated now, but individual actors have matured. I noted particularly Jensen as Barman Jim (who plans this year to take on further training in Sydney), Imogen Fayed in Anything for You, and Jack Millyn and Clare Martin in Sure Thing. They may "act to entertain each other" but the company has surely been a worthwhile self-development group for all involved. They have found a style, absurdist and witty, which suits them well. It challenges them and in doing so made A Night Down the Hole a satisfying evening's entertainment.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 8 January 2003
2003: Constructed Realities by Clare Dyson
Constructed Realities. Concept, choreography and direction by Clare Dyson. Canberra Theatre January 9-11 and 15-18, 8pm. Bookings 6251 3959.
Following her two months residency at the Powerhouse, Brisbane, where this work was created, Dyson has received support from artsACT and the Canberra Theatre Centre to bring her vision of the Australian landscape back to her home town. The work is well worth the journey in many senses.
Rather than relegating her audience to merely watching a distant performance, Dyson invites us to explore the landscape of the theatre - inside and outside - travelling from station to station, from image to image, in a kind of almost religious meditation on the central theme "for white Australia, landscape is seen as similar to the unconscious". The real sensations we experience, of wind and dust, of the built environment, traffic noise on City Circle, of the darkened stage, of controlled light and recorded music, become naturally mixed with images created by dancers, images on video screens, in sets and costumes, in words you hear and read.
The effect is to change one's perception of Australia as, in Gordon White's words, "we huddle on the coast, our faces turned to the waters, and to a world that despite the vast oceans and skies between us is closer than this voiceless arid void at our backs." There is no Aboriginal perspective here, deliberately so Dyson tells me, because though she finds herself drawn to the inland country of Tibooburra, The Corner and Innamincka, she realises she has no right to interpret the landscape "that is ours only in name, because we proclaim it to be ... never to possess. Never to know."
Yet her images of the well-dressed woman rearranging nature to make a nice garden, of the young woman in her wedding gown attached to her suburban green lawn, of relaxing with sexual overtones to a popular song with a cup of tea behind a city facade, are drawn not negatively, but with humour. All this is part of the landscape, too.
So go prepared for some real wind - take a jumper. And go prepared for an hour's journey from the city to the outback and return, except that you may find a little more of the inland stays with you back on the edge of the continent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Following her two months residency at the Powerhouse, Brisbane, where this work was created, Dyson has received support from artsACT and the Canberra Theatre Centre to bring her vision of the Australian landscape back to her home town. The work is well worth the journey in many senses.
Rather than relegating her audience to merely watching a distant performance, Dyson invites us to explore the landscape of the theatre - inside and outside - travelling from station to station, from image to image, in a kind of almost religious meditation on the central theme "for white Australia, landscape is seen as similar to the unconscious". The real sensations we experience, of wind and dust, of the built environment, traffic noise on City Circle, of the darkened stage, of controlled light and recorded music, become naturally mixed with images created by dancers, images on video screens, in sets and costumes, in words you hear and read.
The effect is to change one's perception of Australia as, in Gordon White's words, "we huddle on the coast, our faces turned to the waters, and to a world that despite the vast oceans and skies between us is closer than this voiceless arid void at our backs." There is no Aboriginal perspective here, deliberately so Dyson tells me, because though she finds herself drawn to the inland country of Tibooburra, The Corner and Innamincka, she realises she has no right to interpret the landscape "that is ours only in name, because we proclaim it to be ... never to possess. Never to know."
Yet her images of the well-dressed woman rearranging nature to make a nice garden, of the young woman in her wedding gown attached to her suburban green lawn, of relaxing with sexual overtones to a popular song with a cup of tea behind a city facade, are drawn not negatively, but with humour. All this is part of the landscape, too.
So go prepared for some real wind - take a jumper. And go prepared for an hour's journey from the city to the outback and return, except that you may find a little more of the inland stays with you back on the edge of the continent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 16 December 2002
2002: Rarely Everage: The Lives of Barry Humphries
Rarely Everage: The Lives of Barry Humphries. National Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House, until February 16, 2003.
Dame Edna Everage, wife of Norm Everage (deceased), first took to the stage in high dudgeon. According to her own autobiography My Gorgeous Life, when callow 1950's university student, Barry Humphries, invited her to watch a rehearsal, his portrayal of a housewife was "cynically promoted by a man 'en travestie' who mocks and denigrates all that we stand for and hold sacred". She had no hesitation in showing him how to do it properly, as she has continued to do ever since.
I seem to pry improperly if I write about Humphries separately from Dame Edna, the megastar I know so well on stage and television. But this excellent exhibition gives us permission to know the man whose remarkable artistic creation she is. If she is "rarely everage", Humphries has never been average.
His mother seems to have been very average, giving away his collection of books on the arts, when he was still in his mid-teens, to the Salvation Army, with the justification in the face of his complaints "But you've already read them!" And how could young Barry not develop a satirical view of life when his parents got him a job with a record company - to prevent him from becoming an actor - just as 78s were being replaced by LPs. Every day he was ordered to destroy - literally smash with a hammer - beautiful but now commercially out-of-date recordings of the classical music he had come to love. With friends like his parents ....
Rather than give you mere highlights of the exhibition - after all if you haven't seen it you surely will by February 16 - there is a story behind the display that people should know. Despite Humphries being mentioned in Hansard back in the 1980s as an unacceptable representative of Australia overseas, the public servants who staff the National Portrait Gallery had no hesitation in selecting him to be the first in a projected series of exhibitions that "explore the biography and the achievements of significant Australians".
Assistant Director Simon Elliott, who took the lead role in negotiating, collecting and designing the exhibition deserves our accolades for showing us not a "still life" portrait but a moving picture of Humphries as a child growing into a theatrical artist of stature.
In creating Bazza McKenzie, Sir Les Paterson, Dame Edna, and many others, but especially the gentle spirit of Alexander Horace 'Sandy' Stone, Humphries has placed Australians in a universal context. The display of paintings, sculpture, photos, costumes, scripts, letters, posters and video elicits Humphries' humanity and intellect. His honorary doctorates from Melbourne and Griffith Universities are thoroughly justified; his Order of Australia makes obvious sense; his Special Tony Award and Critics Award just go without saying.
In his commitment to his art, to the integrity of his characters and the stand they represent in the face of shallow morality, we see Humphries' human understanding. We discover, too, his struggle with the inevitable thoughts of failure, perhaps represented in his battle with alcoholism, and with just the sheer hard work needed to make his creations successful, against all advice: first in home-town Melbourne, then in brash Sydney, then in uncomprehending London, then in absolutely impossible New York, and finally even in conservative middle America. In the US Dame Edna is now well recognised and returns shortly for a second mega-tour.
His work is in the Australian tradition of poets like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, comic performers and writers like Roy Rene ('Mo'), C.J.Dennis, and Steele Rudd before him; while Gary Macdonald and Reg Livermore have followed Humphries's court shoes. Norman Gunston is the closest to Dame Edna, but Macdonald's brushes with depression - and his need to divorce himself from a role played out off the conventional stage - have shown how demanding this work is.
We can now recognise Humphries' standing among serious Australian artists with international reputations. His creative work on stage is parallel to that of icons like Sydney Nolan and Patrick White, or Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Emily Kame Kngwarreye, representing quite different aspects of Australian culture over his lifetime. Barry Humphries continues the ratbag tradition. At the age of 68, he describes his hobby as "baiting humourless and self-seeking republicans".
Sandy Stone has been compared with Samuel Beckett's characters who forever are Waiting for Godot. Humphries himself played Estragon in his early days in London. Simon Elliott has displayed Humphries' search: he was never one to just wait. But now I wonder who we must wait for to follow Dame Edna when she at last slips away into Sandy Stone's armchair?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Dame Edna Everage, wife of Norm Everage (deceased), first took to the stage in high dudgeon. According to her own autobiography My Gorgeous Life, when callow 1950's university student, Barry Humphries, invited her to watch a rehearsal, his portrayal of a housewife was "cynically promoted by a man 'en travestie' who mocks and denigrates all that we stand for and hold sacred". She had no hesitation in showing him how to do it properly, as she has continued to do ever since.
I seem to pry improperly if I write about Humphries separately from Dame Edna, the megastar I know so well on stage and television. But this excellent exhibition gives us permission to know the man whose remarkable artistic creation she is. If she is "rarely everage", Humphries has never been average.
His mother seems to have been very average, giving away his collection of books on the arts, when he was still in his mid-teens, to the Salvation Army, with the justification in the face of his complaints "But you've already read them!" And how could young Barry not develop a satirical view of life when his parents got him a job with a record company - to prevent him from becoming an actor - just as 78s were being replaced by LPs. Every day he was ordered to destroy - literally smash with a hammer - beautiful but now commercially out-of-date recordings of the classical music he had come to love. With friends like his parents ....
Rather than give you mere highlights of the exhibition - after all if you haven't seen it you surely will by February 16 - there is a story behind the display that people should know. Despite Humphries being mentioned in Hansard back in the 1980s as an unacceptable representative of Australia overseas, the public servants who staff the National Portrait Gallery had no hesitation in selecting him to be the first in a projected series of exhibitions that "explore the biography and the achievements of significant Australians".
Assistant Director Simon Elliott, who took the lead role in negotiating, collecting and designing the exhibition deserves our accolades for showing us not a "still life" portrait but a moving picture of Humphries as a child growing into a theatrical artist of stature.
In creating Bazza McKenzie, Sir Les Paterson, Dame Edna, and many others, but especially the gentle spirit of Alexander Horace 'Sandy' Stone, Humphries has placed Australians in a universal context. The display of paintings, sculpture, photos, costumes, scripts, letters, posters and video elicits Humphries' humanity and intellect. His honorary doctorates from Melbourne and Griffith Universities are thoroughly justified; his Order of Australia makes obvious sense; his Special Tony Award and Critics Award just go without saying.
In his commitment to his art, to the integrity of his characters and the stand they represent in the face of shallow morality, we see Humphries' human understanding. We discover, too, his struggle with the inevitable thoughts of failure, perhaps represented in his battle with alcoholism, and with just the sheer hard work needed to make his creations successful, against all advice: first in home-town Melbourne, then in brash Sydney, then in uncomprehending London, then in absolutely impossible New York, and finally even in conservative middle America. In the US Dame Edna is now well recognised and returns shortly for a second mega-tour.
His work is in the Australian tradition of poets like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, comic performers and writers like Roy Rene ('Mo'), C.J.Dennis, and Steele Rudd before him; while Gary Macdonald and Reg Livermore have followed Humphries's court shoes. Norman Gunston is the closest to Dame Edna, but Macdonald's brushes with depression - and his need to divorce himself from a role played out off the conventional stage - have shown how demanding this work is.
We can now recognise Humphries' standing among serious Australian artists with international reputations. His creative work on stage is parallel to that of icons like Sydney Nolan and Patrick White, or Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Emily Kame Kngwarreye, representing quite different aspects of Australian culture over his lifetime. Barry Humphries continues the ratbag tradition. At the age of 68, he describes his hobby as "baiting humourless and self-seeking republicans".
Sandy Stone has been compared with Samuel Beckett's characters who forever are Waiting for Godot. Humphries himself played Estragon in his early days in London. Simon Elliott has displayed Humphries' search: he was never one to just wait. But now I wonder who we must wait for to follow Dame Edna when she at last slips away into Sandy Stone's armchair?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 13 December 2002
2002: Indigenous Youth Access Project at Australian Museum, Sydney. Feature article.
"Indigenous youth are the future leaders of their community but often miss out because they are a [small] group of Australians. The more we listen, however, the more we learn just how interested and motivated a group they are."
This is how the director of the Australian Museum, Professor Mike Archer, introduces a first-of-its-kind research study Indigenous Youth and Museums, a report of the Museum's Indigenous Youth Access Project, supported by the Commonwealth Government's arts funding body the Australia Council through its Audience and Market Development Division.
The report, by Lynda Kelly, Allison Bartlett and Phil Gordon, found that "Youth and, specifically, Indigenous youth, expressed a desire for inclusion and involvement to both stimulate their learning and test their skills in a peer and adult arena."
But the question has to be asked, do the museums have the will and the leadership in place to make the required "major shift in attitude ... to provide broad access to resources and collections, while taking a mentoring role and allowing Indigenous youth to control their own experiences through exhibition curation and progam management, as well as reflecting contemporary issues in their collection policies and acquisition programs?"
In the light of the recent High Court decision against the Yorta Yorta people, and the concerns about the renewal of Dawn Casey's contract at the National Museum of Australia, it is ironic that the NMA reports that "the use of Indigenous curators and community consultation about how communities were profiled at the NMA had helped draw Indigenous visitors to the Museum. The Gallery of First Australians is the largest and most popular of the Museum's five permanent exhibitions."
The NMA's emphasis on consultation with and involvement of the communities seen in the exhibitions is not restricted to Indigenous communities. The NMA represents the modern end of the museum spectrum for all Australian communities. At the other end, the Australian Museum writers asked of the general run of institutions "Will they change practices embedded in tradition?" and noted that "strategic decisions about audience focus are often made at managerial level and are usually resource-dependent", and they were "not sure that the will is there" for change even though operational staff showed a "keen interest and enthusiasm".
To bring the stories home, the report describes "Holly", a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl from inner Sydney and 13-year-old "Paul" of Western Sydney. Paul, despite juvenile detention experience and a lack of educational and family support structures, found the CD-ROM Keeping Culture extremely interesting, recognised names of people he may have been related to, and became keen to research animals and the natural world at the Museum. Holly's major interests were "being with friends, music and dance", but the focus group experience after visits to the Australian Museum and the Powerhouse Museum led her to express a desire to work at the Reception Desk of a museum or gallery, where she would "take great pride in talking to visitors about her people and culture". She wanted to see black faces at the front desk and among the floor staff and felt more comfortable at places that accepted her for what she was - "a young, proud, black woman".
As a comparison for Australia, again another irony, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council gave a large grant to Indigenous people in Alaska for the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository on Kodiak Island. Governed by the Alutiiq Heritage Foundation, representing 8 tribal organisations, the museum promotes awareness of Alutiiq history, language and arts. It enriches communities through innovative educational programs, including revitalising the Alutiiq language. (www.alutiiqmuseum.com).
Australia, without such generosity from guilty multinational corporations, has its own examples of locally focussed institutions such as the Koori Gardening Team at Melbourne's Living Museum of the West (www.livingmuseum.org.au) and the Minjungbal Resource Museum and Study Centre, Tweed Heads, NSW (www.amonline.net.au/ahu/keep/keep09.htm). Maybe the Australian Museum's research will bring old and new traditions together, in both Indigenous culture and Museum culture.
Indigenous Youth and Museums: A Report on the Indigenous Youth Access Project is available from the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre (www.amonline.net.au/amarc/).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is how the director of the Australian Museum, Professor Mike Archer, introduces a first-of-its-kind research study Indigenous Youth and Museums, a report of the Museum's Indigenous Youth Access Project, supported by the Commonwealth Government's arts funding body the Australia Council through its Audience and Market Development Division.
The report, by Lynda Kelly, Allison Bartlett and Phil Gordon, found that "Youth and, specifically, Indigenous youth, expressed a desire for inclusion and involvement to both stimulate their learning and test their skills in a peer and adult arena."
But the question has to be asked, do the museums have the will and the leadership in place to make the required "major shift in attitude ... to provide broad access to resources and collections, while taking a mentoring role and allowing Indigenous youth to control their own experiences through exhibition curation and progam management, as well as reflecting contemporary issues in their collection policies and acquisition programs?"
In the light of the recent High Court decision against the Yorta Yorta people, and the concerns about the renewal of Dawn Casey's contract at the National Museum of Australia, it is ironic that the NMA reports that "the use of Indigenous curators and community consultation about how communities were profiled at the NMA had helped draw Indigenous visitors to the Museum. The Gallery of First Australians is the largest and most popular of the Museum's five permanent exhibitions."
The NMA's emphasis on consultation with and involvement of the communities seen in the exhibitions is not restricted to Indigenous communities. The NMA represents the modern end of the museum spectrum for all Australian communities. At the other end, the Australian Museum writers asked of the general run of institutions "Will they change practices embedded in tradition?" and noted that "strategic decisions about audience focus are often made at managerial level and are usually resource-dependent", and they were "not sure that the will is there" for change even though operational staff showed a "keen interest and enthusiasm".
To bring the stories home, the report describes "Holly", a 15-year-old Aboriginal girl from inner Sydney and 13-year-old "Paul" of Western Sydney. Paul, despite juvenile detention experience and a lack of educational and family support structures, found the CD-ROM Keeping Culture extremely interesting, recognised names of people he may have been related to, and became keen to research animals and the natural world at the Museum. Holly's major interests were "being with friends, music and dance", but the focus group experience after visits to the Australian Museum and the Powerhouse Museum led her to express a desire to work at the Reception Desk of a museum or gallery, where she would "take great pride in talking to visitors about her people and culture". She wanted to see black faces at the front desk and among the floor staff and felt more comfortable at places that accepted her for what she was - "a young, proud, black woman".
As a comparison for Australia, again another irony, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council gave a large grant to Indigenous people in Alaska for the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository on Kodiak Island. Governed by the Alutiiq Heritage Foundation, representing 8 tribal organisations, the museum promotes awareness of Alutiiq history, language and arts. It enriches communities through innovative educational programs, including revitalising the Alutiiq language. (www.alutiiqmuseum.com).
Australia, without such generosity from guilty multinational corporations, has its own examples of locally focussed institutions such as the Koori Gardening Team at Melbourne's Living Museum of the West (www.livingmuseum.org.au) and the Minjungbal Resource Museum and Study Centre, Tweed Heads, NSW (www.amonline.net.au/ahu/keep/keep09.htm). Maybe the Australian Museum's research will bring old and new traditions together, in both Indigenous culture and Museum culture.
Indigenous Youth and Museums: A Report on the Indigenous Youth Access Project is available from the Australian Museum Audience Research Centre (www.amonline.net.au/amarc/).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 11 December 2002
2002: Shakespeare a la Carte. Canberra Youth Theatre / Warehouse Circus. Feature article.
Shakespeare a la Carte. A Canberra Youth Theatre / Warehouse Circus workshop production directed by Iain Sinclair. Musical director, Pip Branson. Circus director, Karen Yeldon. In Western Courtyard, Gorman House. December 11-14 and 18-21, 6.30-8.30pm.
Linda McHugh, CYT artistic director, announced at last Wednesday's opening, the establishment of a fund - the Branson Gift - for an annual award to a young theatrical artist working in the tradition of the late David Branson. Takings that night, and from the Viva Branson event at Toast on the same evening, have been donated to start the fund rolling.
The Branson's Gift Fund will be administered by Canberra Community Arts Front. For information and to arrange donations, call Canberra Youth Theatre on 6248 5057.
Meanwhile, the cart, with a convenient arras for stabbing people through, rolled into the acting space which included not only the grassed area - with appropriate gymnastic mats - but also the verandah roof of the Bogong Restaurant and up the tree.
Probably out of the tree would be a better description of this eclectic mix of original Shakespeare with up-to-date parodies in television style. Buffy the Vampire Killer is star-crossed lover Hermia. Steven Irwin captures Caliban, probably the most endangered species in the world. Jamie Oliver shows Titus Andronicus how to cook children.
The a la carte menu includes soup, which audience members can jump into, after an exciting auction, by taking part in a scene. On first night a certain well-known theatrical personality bid, largely against herself, to a winning $25 and became Charlotte the Great Big Heifer who briefly played Polonius and got stabbed in the arras.
Somehow circus jugglers and gymnasts were incorporated, at one point successfully representing Romeo and Juliet on the balcony by tossing a spinning diabolo from one to the other. Some say the young people, ranging from age 8 to 18, directed Iain Sinclair at least as much as he directed them.
This is surely in the Branson celebratory tradition: both iconoclastic and a learning experience. The show's energy will build after first night into an enjoyable mad-cap communal village green entertainment. All that's missing is a bear - but they do have a lion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Linda McHugh, CYT artistic director, announced at last Wednesday's opening, the establishment of a fund - the Branson Gift - for an annual award to a young theatrical artist working in the tradition of the late David Branson. Takings that night, and from the Viva Branson event at Toast on the same evening, have been donated to start the fund rolling.
The Branson's Gift Fund will be administered by Canberra Community Arts Front. For information and to arrange donations, call Canberra Youth Theatre on 6248 5057.
Meanwhile, the cart, with a convenient arras for stabbing people through, rolled into the acting space which included not only the grassed area - with appropriate gymnastic mats - but also the verandah roof of the Bogong Restaurant and up the tree.
Probably out of the tree would be a better description of this eclectic mix of original Shakespeare with up-to-date parodies in television style. Buffy the Vampire Killer is star-crossed lover Hermia. Steven Irwin captures Caliban, probably the most endangered species in the world. Jamie Oliver shows Titus Andronicus how to cook children.
The a la carte menu includes soup, which audience members can jump into, after an exciting auction, by taking part in a scene. On first night a certain well-known theatrical personality bid, largely against herself, to a winning $25 and became Charlotte the Great Big Heifer who briefly played Polonius and got stabbed in the arras.
Somehow circus jugglers and gymnasts were incorporated, at one point successfully representing Romeo and Juliet on the balcony by tossing a spinning diabolo from one to the other. Some say the young people, ranging from age 8 to 18, directed Iain Sinclair at least as much as he directed them.
This is surely in the Branson celebratory tradition: both iconoclastic and a learning experience. The show's energy will build after first night into an enjoyable mad-cap communal village green entertainment. All that's missing is a bear - but they do have a lion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 8 December 2002
2002: Cartoons 2002 Conference. Feature article.
Cartoons 2002 Conference, SAS Visions Theatre, National Museum of Australia December 7-8.
What does a Cartoon Conference look like? Raked blue seating. Black lectern and twin microphones. Overhead projector, laptop slide presentation, big screen. Just another board room. But in this case never a bored room.
Look, there's Little Johnny and Big Kim both trying to pretend to be Winston Churchill. Here's a photo of Maggie Thatcher's eyes, proving that Steve Bell's impression (in The Guardian) of her half-hooded malevolent right eye and her wild artificial-looking staring left eye was the truth, and not just his satirical warped view. Then wasn't it surprising to see how Tony Blair's eyes are just like Maggie Thatcher's. No wonder he goes for privatisation and war on whomever.
Starting with a UK perspective put the Aussie experiences of 2001 and 2002 in context. Where Bell's work draws so easily on Britain's long comic history from Hogarth and Gilray, producing complex absurdist fantasies, Australians drew so many spare and direct cartoons, about refugees especially. Here's a picture of lots of water, no land in sight. From the distant horizon to the foreground is a row of children's heads barely showing above the surface. A cheerful John Howard treads firmly along the "stepping stones". Only at this point do you notice that the heads behind him are sinking to their deaths, while those ahead await their destiny. Vale Siev X.
What's upsetting is to learn from academic Robert Phiddian that cartoons of "tough" politicians, meant to be satirical, serve only to immortalise the very image the politician seeks to impress us with. The polls prove it when large numbers want refugees turned back, despite sympathetic cartoons in every newspaper, tabloid and broadsheet, around Australia. The picture of Howard with regularly extended use-by dates will not make him retire at 64. After all isn't he proposing pushing the retirement age for everyone out to 70 or even 75?
As Fiona Katauskas put it in a neat little illustrated table: LIES Illegals, terrorists & queue jumpers (Ruddock); DAMNED LIES They throw their own children overboard (Howard); & STATISTICS 77%.
Political cartoons particularly rely on the use of irony - the contrast between what someone says, thinks or maybe even believes is the truth compared with reality. The problem is, despite what we like to think about Australians as against Americans, most people don't recognise irony when it stares them in the face. Dean Alston's 1997 cartoon in which Yagan's head yearns for "a warm beer in a quiet Pommy pub" rather than face the divided opinions regarding his return to Australia, is likely to be taken to the Full Bench of the Federal Court now that Justice Nicholson, while agreeing that this was a "demeaning portrait of Yagan", has found that it was published "in good faith" (Canberra Sunday Times, December 8). The irony is that the court case itself diverts attention from the real divisions among the Nyoongar community and possibly sours relations between the Aboriginal and white communities.
Cases like this are ripe for education, and perhaps the best way to set this up is by running a Schools Cartoon Competition. Lyn Beasley and David Arnold from NMA have done exactly that. Freelance cartoonist Fiona Katauskas, our own drive-time Rod Quinn, and NMA's Guy Hansen (who has organised the annual Cartoon Conferences since its inception in 1997) chose "Federal Politics" by Anderson Clarke of Willetton Senior High, WA (3rd Prize); "The Wizard of Aus" by Callum Padgham of Lyneham High, ACT (2nd Prize); while 1st Prize went to Pete Bramley of Scots School, Albury NSW for "God Bless America". Prizes are $1000, $750 and $500 to the schools and smaller cash amounts to the individual winners.
You can visit the Cartoons 2002 Exhibition at the National Museum for $7 Adult, $5 Concession, $3 Children. There you will not only see a large selection of the 250 Schools Competition entries, but also the best 100 cartoons of the year from newspapers across the nation covering the full range of political issues, videos of television satire and work by Peter Nicholson (of Ulysses fame), and the special exhibition Leunig Animated, opened last Friday by a favourite of cartoonists, Peter Costello, who complained that his ears are actually much higher up.
As a diversion to entertain myself, I surveyed 2 conference attendees. 100% supported keeping the old name for the exhibition, Bringing the House Down. 50% supported returning to the original venue at Old Parliament House. Like me, some people had not realised that the Cartoons each year are collected and exhibited by the National Museum, so I suppose they've come home now.
My conclusion from the Conference was in tune with Sydney Morning Herald's Mike Bowers who saw cartoonists as rather like court jesters: the only people with the licence to criticise the king. But then I remember King Lear's Fool. He died for his art, and the King learned the lesson - but too late to save the world.
But Sean Leahy (Courier-Mail) gave me hope that cartoons and education, hand in hand, may lead us to a new dawn when he said of readers: "They want to be provoked, entertained and to think for themselves". At the NMA, of course, it's the Dawn that may lead us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What does a Cartoon Conference look like? Raked blue seating. Black lectern and twin microphones. Overhead projector, laptop slide presentation, big screen. Just another board room. But in this case never a bored room.
Look, there's Little Johnny and Big Kim both trying to pretend to be Winston Churchill. Here's a photo of Maggie Thatcher's eyes, proving that Steve Bell's impression (in The Guardian) of her half-hooded malevolent right eye and her wild artificial-looking staring left eye was the truth, and not just his satirical warped view. Then wasn't it surprising to see how Tony Blair's eyes are just like Maggie Thatcher's. No wonder he goes for privatisation and war on whomever.
Starting with a UK perspective put the Aussie experiences of 2001 and 2002 in context. Where Bell's work draws so easily on Britain's long comic history from Hogarth and Gilray, producing complex absurdist fantasies, Australians drew so many spare and direct cartoons, about refugees especially. Here's a picture of lots of water, no land in sight. From the distant horizon to the foreground is a row of children's heads barely showing above the surface. A cheerful John Howard treads firmly along the "stepping stones". Only at this point do you notice that the heads behind him are sinking to their deaths, while those ahead await their destiny. Vale Siev X.
What's upsetting is to learn from academic Robert Phiddian that cartoons of "tough" politicians, meant to be satirical, serve only to immortalise the very image the politician seeks to impress us with. The polls prove it when large numbers want refugees turned back, despite sympathetic cartoons in every newspaper, tabloid and broadsheet, around Australia. The picture of Howard with regularly extended use-by dates will not make him retire at 64. After all isn't he proposing pushing the retirement age for everyone out to 70 or even 75?
As Fiona Katauskas put it in a neat little illustrated table: LIES Illegals, terrorists & queue jumpers (Ruddock); DAMNED LIES They throw their own children overboard (Howard); & STATISTICS 77%.
Political cartoons particularly rely on the use of irony - the contrast between what someone says, thinks or maybe even believes is the truth compared with reality. The problem is, despite what we like to think about Australians as against Americans, most people don't recognise irony when it stares them in the face. Dean Alston's 1997 cartoon in which Yagan's head yearns for "a warm beer in a quiet Pommy pub" rather than face the divided opinions regarding his return to Australia, is likely to be taken to the Full Bench of the Federal Court now that Justice Nicholson, while agreeing that this was a "demeaning portrait of Yagan", has found that it was published "in good faith" (Canberra Sunday Times, December 8). The irony is that the court case itself diverts attention from the real divisions among the Nyoongar community and possibly sours relations between the Aboriginal and white communities.
Cases like this are ripe for education, and perhaps the best way to set this up is by running a Schools Cartoon Competition. Lyn Beasley and David Arnold from NMA have done exactly that. Freelance cartoonist Fiona Katauskas, our own drive-time Rod Quinn, and NMA's Guy Hansen (who has organised the annual Cartoon Conferences since its inception in 1997) chose "Federal Politics" by Anderson Clarke of Willetton Senior High, WA (3rd Prize); "The Wizard of Aus" by Callum Padgham of Lyneham High, ACT (2nd Prize); while 1st Prize went to Pete Bramley of Scots School, Albury NSW for "God Bless America". Prizes are $1000, $750 and $500 to the schools and smaller cash amounts to the individual winners.
You can visit the Cartoons 2002 Exhibition at the National Museum for $7 Adult, $5 Concession, $3 Children. There you will not only see a large selection of the 250 Schools Competition entries, but also the best 100 cartoons of the year from newspapers across the nation covering the full range of political issues, videos of television satire and work by Peter Nicholson (of Ulysses fame), and the special exhibition Leunig Animated, opened last Friday by a favourite of cartoonists, Peter Costello, who complained that his ears are actually much higher up.
As a diversion to entertain myself, I surveyed 2 conference attendees. 100% supported keeping the old name for the exhibition, Bringing the House Down. 50% supported returning to the original venue at Old Parliament House. Like me, some people had not realised that the Cartoons each year are collected and exhibited by the National Museum, so I suppose they've come home now.
My conclusion from the Conference was in tune with Sydney Morning Herald's Mike Bowers who saw cartoonists as rather like court jesters: the only people with the licence to criticise the king. But then I remember King Lear's Fool. He died for his art, and the King learned the lesson - but too late to save the world.
But Sean Leahy (Courier-Mail) gave me hope that cartoons and education, hand in hand, may lead us to a new dawn when he said of readers: "They want to be provoked, entertained and to think for themselves". At the NMA, of course, it's the Dawn that may lead us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 30 November 2002
2002: Rinsing the Princess
Rinsing the Princess - 5 short works about love, sexuality ... and everything else. Aberrant Genotype Productions at The Street Theatre Studio, November 29 - December 7, 8.30pm.
Just ignore the overblown title this group have given themselves: this is the only sign of unnecessary pretension in a delightful evening of theatre.
Though Artistic Director Catherine Langman seeks to follow in the footsteps of the late David Branson, these 20 minute playlets are less confronting than his Short Stabs seasons, more conventional, less polemical, more lightly humorous, yet genuinely thoughtful. It was nice to find a quote from Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics used to make fun of intellectual pretension in Rosemary Fitzgerald's My Sinister Sister.
Perhaps the Medea sequence in Kate MacNamara's The Carnie Queen was the most disturbing in the Branson manner. She killed her children in this version because of Jason's physical and mental abuse. Yet by placing this and the scenes of Joan of Arc and Antigone as magic acts within a cheap circus setting, MacNamara distances us in the Brechtian sense, making women's issues stand out clearly.
Trampoline, by Mary Rachel Brown, has been seen in Sydney but here receives an original treatment by director Kelly Somes where the physical action reveals the metaphor of the poor jumping for their lives in the world of the rich.
Langman's A Stitch in Time was a much more predictable script, but with another interesting metaphor for life: grandmother's knitting does not follow a pattern, like her life, yet still things happen and seem to fall into place.
Puddle's Revenge by Adam Hadley was the most consistent script, giving Patrick Wenholz the most applause of the night. The absurdity of Puddle's life as a public servant was matched by his fantasy of becoming a Texas Lone Ranger, leaving us all wondering about love, sexuality ... and everything else.
Lighting, sound, sets, props and costumes were simple but effective thoughout. Enjoy the evening, and don't forget to discuss with your neighbours what the title Rinsing the Princess refers to. There's certainly irony there which David Branson would have appreciated.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Just ignore the overblown title this group have given themselves: this is the only sign of unnecessary pretension in a delightful evening of theatre.
Though Artistic Director Catherine Langman seeks to follow in the footsteps of the late David Branson, these 20 minute playlets are less confronting than his Short Stabs seasons, more conventional, less polemical, more lightly humorous, yet genuinely thoughtful. It was nice to find a quote from Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics used to make fun of intellectual pretension in Rosemary Fitzgerald's My Sinister Sister.
Perhaps the Medea sequence in Kate MacNamara's The Carnie Queen was the most disturbing in the Branson manner. She killed her children in this version because of Jason's physical and mental abuse. Yet by placing this and the scenes of Joan of Arc and Antigone as magic acts within a cheap circus setting, MacNamara distances us in the Brechtian sense, making women's issues stand out clearly.
Trampoline, by Mary Rachel Brown, has been seen in Sydney but here receives an original treatment by director Kelly Somes where the physical action reveals the metaphor of the poor jumping for their lives in the world of the rich.
Langman's A Stitch in Time was a much more predictable script, but with another interesting metaphor for life: grandmother's knitting does not follow a pattern, like her life, yet still things happen and seem to fall into place.
Puddle's Revenge by Adam Hadley was the most consistent script, giving Patrick Wenholz the most applause of the night. The absurdity of Puddle's life as a public servant was matched by his fantasy of becoming a Texas Lone Ranger, leaving us all wondering about love, sexuality ... and everything else.
Lighting, sound, sets, props and costumes were simple but effective thoughout. Enjoy the evening, and don't forget to discuss with your neighbours what the title Rinsing the Princess refers to. There's certainly irony there which David Branson would have appreciated.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 29 November 2002
2002: Dawn Casey as Director of the National Museum of Australia
Suspicion had been aroused about the long-term prospects of Dawn Casey as Director of the National Museum of Australia.
According to one report (by Penny Brown in The Australian 29/11/02), Minister for Arts and Sport Rod Kemp has informed Ms Casey that her contract will be renewed for only one year from this December, rather than a longer period of perhaps three or five years.
One external provider of theatre services to NMA expressed surprise at this possibility, considering the very great regard for Ms Casey's leadership style and program intitiatives among her staff. As a member of the Museum Performance Advisory Panel, in close contact with NMA Board members, he had heard nothing of the rumour. NMA's first Annual Report shows that more than 1 million people passed through the doors, and in evaluation responses covering the full year "91% of visitors state they are satisfied or very satisfied with their NMA experience."
Ms Casey will make no comment at this stage, her office stating that the report is no more than speculation. There is a suggestion, however, that an announcement may be made in about ten days. The Minister's office also refuses to make any comment either about the term of Ms Casey's contract or about any forthcoming announcement. On the other hand, neither the National Museum nor the Minister have issued a denial of the speculation.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
According to one report (by Penny Brown in The Australian 29/11/02), Minister for Arts and Sport Rod Kemp has informed Ms Casey that her contract will be renewed for only one year from this December, rather than a longer period of perhaps three or five years.
One external provider of theatre services to NMA expressed surprise at this possibility, considering the very great regard for Ms Casey's leadership style and program intitiatives among her staff. As a member of the Museum Performance Advisory Panel, in close contact with NMA Board members, he had heard nothing of the rumour. NMA's first Annual Report shows that more than 1 million people passed through the doors, and in evaluation responses covering the full year "91% of visitors state they are satisfied or very satisfied with their NMA experience."
Ms Casey will make no comment at this stage, her office stating that the report is no more than speculation. There is a suggestion, however, that an announcement may be made in about ten days. The Minister's office also refuses to make any comment either about the term of Ms Casey's contract or about any forthcoming announcement. On the other hand, neither the National Museum nor the Minister have issued a denial of the speculation.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 28 November 2002
2002: Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums
Little did I think, when I first sang the song, that When I'm 64 would suddenly be only two years away. Will you still love me? Or is it time to display me in some Museum of Ancient Icons: an original Beatles fan who saw Paul wave his hand from the Sheraton window in Kings Cross, 1964.
Well, perhaps not. You see, I'd be embarrassed by all the Young-olds (aged 65-74 years), Old-olds (75-84) and Oldest-olds (over 85) bending down with increasing difficulty to read the label at my feet and wondering who on earth (or on Wings) Paul McCartney was. They might be having problems with the font being too small, and the overhead halogen lights are probably reflecting in their glasses so they can't really see me at all. If they're wearing multifocus glasses, they may as well give up and let the grandchildren take them on to K-Space.
Of course, when they get themselves down the stairs, they'll find all the interactive media flashes too fast for them to understand what's happening, and the background noise will mask their hearing aids. In fact having all those children around is just a bit too much as their energy fades.
What they really need now is not love, but peace, in the form of a comfortable high backed seat in a quiet corner. But not so quiet that nothing is happening. Something stimulating to watch, maybe about stories from our past, mainly entertaining but with new things to learn. A bit of a different perspective on history without trying to tell us that what we remember never really happened.
So we pick up a coffee from the mobile unit on the way to the theatre. Comfortable seats, with nice upright backs. The house lights dim to reveal some black-and-white television footage: the Sheraton, Kings Cross 1964, a window close-up with curtain drawn. Then the street below crowded with young people, cheering. Wait a minute: they are not facing the Sheraton, but the hotel opposite. Even the policemen (lots of them) are smiling.
On his balcony, waving to the ecstatic crowd, is the world renowned classical concert pianist, Artur Rubenstein. If the Beatles won't show, why shouldn't Artur get the applause?
But then, a hand - it must be Paul's (it's not long and thin enough for John's, or rough enough for George or Ringo) - slightly pushes the Sheraton curtain aside. It waves. And the crowd turns into even more ecstasy - while poor old Artur stands alone on his balcony and begins to understand what the new world of pop idols means for him.
The four Beatles walk onto stage left, Artur Rubenstein on stage right, as if they are apparitions from the film become real. They slowly approach each other, and Paul shakes Artur's hand. Films show behind them of their concerts. As the sound fades, Paul and Artur talk over their memories - the exciting concerts, the fears and failures. Ringo leaves the stage, John goes, Artur goes, George quietly fades away. Only Paul is left, looking 64 himself by now, to tell his latest story - about how he couldn't come to Australia in 2002 because he didn't want to offend the feelings of the families of those killed in Bali, and perhaps because of the fear of a terrorist attack if he gave a concert here.
According to the report Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums, this theatre show would be just the ticket for Canberra's Olds especially. The research shows they have twice the interest in arts activities ( 8% against 4%) and three times the involvement in learning activities (24% against 8%) as Olds from Sydney.
When it comes to older people's motivation for visiting museums/galleries, in a survey of over-55s, 77% said "to experience something new" and 71% looked for entertainment. 67% considered themselves to be very interested in the arts (1.16 times the population average). What better way to satisfy these interests than by incorporating theatre in museums and galleries?
Yet the Report's 15 recommendations do not once mention the expansion of arts and theatre performances as important for Older Australians in museums, despite the international museum theatre movement which we have reported in The Canberra Times. Lots about labels, glasses, lights, wheelchair access, seating, sound, technical interfaces and cost - all most worthy issues which should not be ignored. But nothing explicit about the arts.
I just hope this nearly Young-old can look forward to an amendment to this Report before he reaches 64.
Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums by Lynda Kelly, Gillian Savage, Peta Landman & Susan Tonkin. A joint publication by the Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia. Copies available from Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, NMA (s.tonkin@nma.gov.au).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Well, perhaps not. You see, I'd be embarrassed by all the Young-olds (aged 65-74 years), Old-olds (75-84) and Oldest-olds (over 85) bending down with increasing difficulty to read the label at my feet and wondering who on earth (or on Wings) Paul McCartney was. They might be having problems with the font being too small, and the overhead halogen lights are probably reflecting in their glasses so they can't really see me at all. If they're wearing multifocus glasses, they may as well give up and let the grandchildren take them on to K-Space.
Of course, when they get themselves down the stairs, they'll find all the interactive media flashes too fast for them to understand what's happening, and the background noise will mask their hearing aids. In fact having all those children around is just a bit too much as their energy fades.
What they really need now is not love, but peace, in the form of a comfortable high backed seat in a quiet corner. But not so quiet that nothing is happening. Something stimulating to watch, maybe about stories from our past, mainly entertaining but with new things to learn. A bit of a different perspective on history without trying to tell us that what we remember never really happened.
So we pick up a coffee from the mobile unit on the way to the theatre. Comfortable seats, with nice upright backs. The house lights dim to reveal some black-and-white television footage: the Sheraton, Kings Cross 1964, a window close-up with curtain drawn. Then the street below crowded with young people, cheering. Wait a minute: they are not facing the Sheraton, but the hotel opposite. Even the policemen (lots of them) are smiling.
On his balcony, waving to the ecstatic crowd, is the world renowned classical concert pianist, Artur Rubenstein. If the Beatles won't show, why shouldn't Artur get the applause?
But then, a hand - it must be Paul's (it's not long and thin enough for John's, or rough enough for George or Ringo) - slightly pushes the Sheraton curtain aside. It waves. And the crowd turns into even more ecstasy - while poor old Artur stands alone on his balcony and begins to understand what the new world of pop idols means for him.
The four Beatles walk onto stage left, Artur Rubenstein on stage right, as if they are apparitions from the film become real. They slowly approach each other, and Paul shakes Artur's hand. Films show behind them of their concerts. As the sound fades, Paul and Artur talk over their memories - the exciting concerts, the fears and failures. Ringo leaves the stage, John goes, Artur goes, George quietly fades away. Only Paul is left, looking 64 himself by now, to tell his latest story - about how he couldn't come to Australia in 2002 because he didn't want to offend the feelings of the families of those killed in Bali, and perhaps because of the fear of a terrorist attack if he gave a concert here.
According to the report Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums, this theatre show would be just the ticket for Canberra's Olds especially. The research shows they have twice the interest in arts activities ( 8% against 4%) and three times the involvement in learning activities (24% against 8%) as Olds from Sydney.
When it comes to older people's motivation for visiting museums/galleries, in a survey of over-55s, 77% said "to experience something new" and 71% looked for entertainment. 67% considered themselves to be very interested in the arts (1.16 times the population average). What better way to satisfy these interests than by incorporating theatre in museums and galleries?
Yet the Report's 15 recommendations do not once mention the expansion of arts and theatre performances as important for Older Australians in museums, despite the international museum theatre movement which we have reported in The Canberra Times. Lots about labels, glasses, lights, wheelchair access, seating, sound, technical interfaces and cost - all most worthy issues which should not be ignored. But nothing explicit about the arts.
I just hope this nearly Young-old can look forward to an amendment to this Report before he reaches 64.
Energised, Engaged, Everywhere: Older Australians and Museums by Lynda Kelly, Gillian Savage, Peta Landman & Susan Tonkin. A joint publication by the Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia. Copies available from Susan Tonkin, Evaluation and Visitor Research, NMA (s.tonkin@nma.gov.au).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 25 November 2002
2002: Eye of the Needle by Peter Robinson. Short feature.
Eye of the Needle by Peter Robinson, a script in development, received its first public reading last Friday evening.
Elbow Theatre, directed by Canberra Critics Circle award winner Iain Sinclair, used its second last bucket of grant money to employ a professional team of actors for a week: new young actors, Lara Lightfoot and Tom Woodward, with the well-known Hec Macmillan, Camilla Ah Kin, Susan Lyons and William Zappa (recently seen here with Bell Shakespeare).
The script is an interesting study, with a nice sense of humour and touching sadness, of a Canberra diplomat's attempt to bring his family together at what surely must be his Malua Bay coast house: he couldn't live in the Canberra house after his wife died, and now realises that he is on the way out too. His son, daughter-in-law, her sister, and their children have a skeleton in their cupboards which becomes revealed to all.
Though in the form of a farce, the revelation leaves the future to a dysfunctional arrangement. At the end of the reading (at this point only an hour long), there was a palpable sigh from an audience wishing for more. So Robinson now faces the task of either taking more time to reach the revelation, keeping the focus on the old man, or peeking into the inevitable emotional mess of a third act.
I spent some time talking with William Zappa about the week's process. He was clearly impressed with the easy relationship which Sinclair had set up between the actors and author: a thoroughly satisfying experience for him. I found myself immersed in top-quality professional development discussion, here, at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra. No need to go to Sydney, or Melbourne, or anywhere.
Elbow Theatre is the descendant of Theatre ACT and Canberra Theatre Company: the in-town professional company complementing the largely touring Women on a Shoestring and the specialist Jigsaw Company. But what's this about the second last bucket?
The last bucketful will go on the development of Mary Rachel Brown's Intimate Strangers, to be seen in February/March 2003. After that Elbow Theatre goes the way of its predecessors, ironically just as Iain Sinclair travels away on a Churchill Fellowship to build on his already extensive international training.
Once again at the political and administrative level Canberra fails its arts community. What will happen to Peter Robinson's script - a play directly relevant to Canberra audiences? Is the problem in the Cultural Council, in artsACT, in lack of Ministerial leadership? Any other city of 300,000 worth its salt would have three Elbow Theatres.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Elbow Theatre, directed by Canberra Critics Circle award winner Iain Sinclair, used its second last bucket of grant money to employ a professional team of actors for a week: new young actors, Lara Lightfoot and Tom Woodward, with the well-known Hec Macmillan, Camilla Ah Kin, Susan Lyons and William Zappa (recently seen here with Bell Shakespeare).
The script is an interesting study, with a nice sense of humour and touching sadness, of a Canberra diplomat's attempt to bring his family together at what surely must be his Malua Bay coast house: he couldn't live in the Canberra house after his wife died, and now realises that he is on the way out too. His son, daughter-in-law, her sister, and their children have a skeleton in their cupboards which becomes revealed to all.
Though in the form of a farce, the revelation leaves the future to a dysfunctional arrangement. At the end of the reading (at this point only an hour long), there was a palpable sigh from an audience wishing for more. So Robinson now faces the task of either taking more time to reach the revelation, keeping the focus on the old man, or peeking into the inevitable emotional mess of a third act.
I spent some time talking with William Zappa about the week's process. He was clearly impressed with the easy relationship which Sinclair had set up between the actors and author: a thoroughly satisfying experience for him. I found myself immersed in top-quality professional development discussion, here, at the Courtyard Studio in Canberra. No need to go to Sydney, or Melbourne, or anywhere.
Elbow Theatre is the descendant of Theatre ACT and Canberra Theatre Company: the in-town professional company complementing the largely touring Women on a Shoestring and the specialist Jigsaw Company. But what's this about the second last bucket?
The last bucketful will go on the development of Mary Rachel Brown's Intimate Strangers, to be seen in February/March 2003. After that Elbow Theatre goes the way of its predecessors, ironically just as Iain Sinclair travels away on a Churchill Fellowship to build on his already extensive international training.
Once again at the political and administrative level Canberra fails its arts community. What will happen to Peter Robinson's script - a play directly relevant to Canberra audiences? Is the problem in the Cultural Council, in artsACT, in lack of Ministerial leadership? Any other city of 300,000 worth its salt would have three Elbow Theatres.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 3 October 2002
2002: The Dead Sea - Seed 2
The Dead Sea - Seed 2 in Rainsford's The Nightgardener series. Chapel of Change at The Street Theatre, February 14-16. 2002 National Multicultural Festival.
What a fascinating failure! What a mesmerising mess of slow-mo imagery which we are allowed to interpret in any way we like. "As with all Chapel of Change work, the intuitive calling in the performer takes precedence over any attempt to manufacture meaning or content." They said it: it's printed in their program.
And they achieved exactly what they set out to do: a tremendous sense of achievement for the performers, whose concentration never wavered for two hours; an enormous black hole of boredom for the audience, who were excellently polite on opening night of this 'world premier' until the final scene when it became obvious that the "ritual planting of 33 seeds" was going to take at least 15 minutes. The only excitement was that the globe blew in one, so that "seed" remained infertile; and everyone hoped that surely one of these water-filled plastic inverted cones would burst and cause some really dramatic chaos. But no - some dripped rather forlornly, making a mess in the salt (of the Dead Sea, you see).
The program does give a narrative rundown, about the daytime Motherfish and the night time Nightgardener, the Draki twins of the sea who become Adam and Eve .... If you don't read the program first, you will have no idea what the series of images are supposed to represent: but the company is so coy, writing "This story, the 'suggested' linear plot, has not been part of the process of development, it is written only for these program notes. There are many other levels and interpretations. So be brave, and choose not to read on ...."
I'll be accused, I suppose, of being insensitive, old-fashioned, unappreciative of theatrical imagery, unimaginative, certainly without a spiritual dimension. But I worked out all by myself that the 33 seeds represent the 33 years of the life of Christ (it didn't say this in the program) - though I couldn't for the life of me fathom what that had to do with anything else that I saw. So I tried, and was obviously found wanting.
Wanting clarity, connectedness, dramatic development, meaning. Not wanting self-indulgence, however beautifully presented.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
What a fascinating failure! What a mesmerising mess of slow-mo imagery which we are allowed to interpret in any way we like. "As with all Chapel of Change work, the intuitive calling in the performer takes precedence over any attempt to manufacture meaning or content." They said it: it's printed in their program.
And they achieved exactly what they set out to do: a tremendous sense of achievement for the performers, whose concentration never wavered for two hours; an enormous black hole of boredom for the audience, who were excellently polite on opening night of this 'world premier' until the final scene when it became obvious that the "ritual planting of 33 seeds" was going to take at least 15 minutes. The only excitement was that the globe blew in one, so that "seed" remained infertile; and everyone hoped that surely one of these water-filled plastic inverted cones would burst and cause some really dramatic chaos. But no - some dripped rather forlornly, making a mess in the salt (of the Dead Sea, you see).
The program does give a narrative rundown, about the daytime Motherfish and the night time Nightgardener, the Draki twins of the sea who become Adam and Eve .... If you don't read the program first, you will have no idea what the series of images are supposed to represent: but the company is so coy, writing "This story, the 'suggested' linear plot, has not been part of the process of development, it is written only for these program notes. There are many other levels and interpretations. So be brave, and choose not to read on ...."
I'll be accused, I suppose, of being insensitive, old-fashioned, unappreciative of theatrical imagery, unimaginative, certainly without a spiritual dimension. But I worked out all by myself that the 33 seeds represent the 33 years of the life of Christ (it didn't say this in the program) - though I couldn't for the life of me fathom what that had to do with anything else that I saw. So I tried, and was obviously found wanting.
Wanting clarity, connectedness, dramatic development, meaning. Not wanting self-indulgence, however beautifully presented.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 16 September 2002
2002: Talking Heads by Alan Bennett
Talking Heads by Alan Bennett: A Chip in the Sugar performed by Kevin Harrington; A Lady of Letters performed by Joan Sydney. HIT Productions directed by Gary Down. Tuggeranong Arts Centre September 16.
Yorkshire, England 1987. On the telly you're watching this middle-aged man rabbiting on about his Mam. Still living with her, you know, this Graham. And he gets all upset because, at her age of 72 mind you, she meets up with an "old flame" from "before your time". Before Graham's father's time, too. Calls her Vera, but Graham's Dad never did. But it turns out alright when the old flame's daughter turns up and takes him away. He's always doing this, she says. Graham's Mam cries a bit, but she's forgotten him the next day, and says she still loves Graham.
A sad little story of circumscribed lives. Next week you watch this lady Miss Ruddock telling you all about the letters she writes and the replies she gets, and how she ends up in gaol. And it's funny because on her own at home she's so spiteful, but amongst the women in gaol she brightens up no end. But you wonder what she'll be like when she gets out: she won't really get a job typing letters, will she? She'll be round the bend again in no time.
Kevin Harrington (SeaChange) and Joan Sydney (A Country Practice) received what they said was the ultimate praise in the forum, after performing these monologues on stage in Canberra in 2002: "You were real for me" and "My mother was just like that", and it was generally agreed that these little scraps of English, even specifically Yorkshire, lives were given universal humanity by Alan Bennett.
We're just jobbing actors, explained Sydney, taking what work we can get. It's all in the writing, even the pauses. Bennett makes it easy for us. But it's not our job to tell you what we think about the interpretation of the plays, said Harrington. We just act, and it's your job to decide what you think.
"It was really good to see famous actors in the flesh," said a couple of TCA regulars. "We've never been to a forum after a show like this. A great night out."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Yorkshire, England 1987. On the telly you're watching this middle-aged man rabbiting on about his Mam. Still living with her, you know, this Graham. And he gets all upset because, at her age of 72 mind you, she meets up with an "old flame" from "before your time". Before Graham's father's time, too. Calls her Vera, but Graham's Dad never did. But it turns out alright when the old flame's daughter turns up and takes him away. He's always doing this, she says. Graham's Mam cries a bit, but she's forgotten him the next day, and says she still loves Graham.
A sad little story of circumscribed lives. Next week you watch this lady Miss Ruddock telling you all about the letters she writes and the replies she gets, and how she ends up in gaol. And it's funny because on her own at home she's so spiteful, but amongst the women in gaol she brightens up no end. But you wonder what she'll be like when she gets out: she won't really get a job typing letters, will she? She'll be round the bend again in no time.
Kevin Harrington (SeaChange) and Joan Sydney (A Country Practice) received what they said was the ultimate praise in the forum, after performing these monologues on stage in Canberra in 2002: "You were real for me" and "My mother was just like that", and it was generally agreed that these little scraps of English, even specifically Yorkshire, lives were given universal humanity by Alan Bennett.
We're just jobbing actors, explained Sydney, taking what work we can get. It's all in the writing, even the pauses. Bennett makes it easy for us. But it's not our job to tell you what we think about the interpretation of the plays, said Harrington. We just act, and it's your job to decide what you think.
"It was really good to see famous actors in the flesh," said a couple of TCA regulars. "We've never been to a forum after a show like this. A great night out."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 13 September 2002
2002: National Institute of Circus Arts. Feature article.
We are all aware of NIDA, whose graduates we see every night on television, as well as on the live stage. Now the new acronym is NICA - National Institute of Circus Arts. Based at Swinburne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, the 3-year Bachelor of Circus Arts began in 2001 and already has over 40 students, including Canberran Christian Reid.
Like Alex O'Lachlan and Gordon Rymer, currently at NIDA, Christian did not train for the circus at school in Canberra: but he spent years as a teenage member and coach in the Woden Valley Gymnastics Club, with support he still values from Alfred Deakin High School. Like the others he travelled after Year 12 to Europe where bar work (not the gymnastic type) sustained him, and came home looking for a new direction to take his gymnastic skills. What could be better than the circus for a gymnast who had never specialised but who loved floor work, the parallel bars, the trampoline and aerial work?
So what's the difference between circus and gym? Nowadays, it's about making meaning through theatre. It's called "new circus" and Circus Oz is the innovator and the continuing example in the Australian tradition. In France, nouveau cirque comprises 500 companies and 250 schools. In Italy the scene is similar. And in Canada and in .... In March this year, NICA hosted the Cirque du Monde's Social Circus Instructor's Program. Participants came from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Broken Hill to join with local Melbourne people to "share their experiences of working through circus with young people defined as being at risk". The program is currently taught in Montreal, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and Cape Town. So new circus is not just about entertaining people by twirling yourself and other things around in space.
In a recent industry forum, chaired by Pam Creed, director of NICA, Geoff Dunstan of Dislocate Circus explained "I feel it's really important in physical theatre, especially new circus theatre - and I think this is the greatest hurdle that we have to get over - is the ego of the acrobatic act itself. The trick can be fantastic, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the show, you have to leave that [the ego] aside." He also described a "great piece of theatre I saw was on the news, with a bunch of uranium cans with people - protestors - jumping inside them through one of the gates [of Lucas Heights nuclear reactor]. The message was 'if you are a terrorist you can walk into this place', the form was protest and the medium was the media ... and I think it is really important that we don't limit ourselves in terms of where we can go in our theatrical expression."
So this is why Christian Reid works 40 hours in class each week, plus doing bar work and gym coaching despite the physically tiring days - and he still claims to have a social life. In vacations he returns to Canberra for a break in the gym to keep up his fitness and strength. Classes are not just in circus tricks, but include clowning, character work, ballet, modern dance as well as business administration. And that's not mentioning helping set up the Big Top for Ashton's traditional family circus. As Becky Ashton said: "It's not a job where you turn up and perform and that's it. I'm a trapeze artist for three minutes each night and the rest of the time I do everything from filling show bags to putting up the tent."
NICA is now calling for applications for the 2003 BCA course, which incorporates a Certificate IV in Circus Arts and a Diploma of Circus Arts. The NICA team, led by the Head of Circus Training, Lu Guang Rong, originally from Shanghai, will conduct auditions in Sydney on September 26 and Melbourne on October 13, travelling to Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart in between.
If you want to see NICA in action in early December, call in to Melbourne's Federation Square. Marketing Manager Stan Liacos says NICA offers "exactly the kind of innovative, cutting-edge performances we need to help us activate Federation Square." You can find all the details you need at www.nica.swin.edu.au.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Like Alex O'Lachlan and Gordon Rymer, currently at NIDA, Christian did not train for the circus at school in Canberra: but he spent years as a teenage member and coach in the Woden Valley Gymnastics Club, with support he still values from Alfred Deakin High School. Like the others he travelled after Year 12 to Europe where bar work (not the gymnastic type) sustained him, and came home looking for a new direction to take his gymnastic skills. What could be better than the circus for a gymnast who had never specialised but who loved floor work, the parallel bars, the trampoline and aerial work?
So what's the difference between circus and gym? Nowadays, it's about making meaning through theatre. It's called "new circus" and Circus Oz is the innovator and the continuing example in the Australian tradition. In France, nouveau cirque comprises 500 companies and 250 schools. In Italy the scene is similar. And in Canada and in .... In March this year, NICA hosted the Cirque du Monde's Social Circus Instructor's Program. Participants came from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Broken Hill to join with local Melbourne people to "share their experiences of working through circus with young people defined as being at risk". The program is currently taught in Montreal, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago and Cape Town. So new circus is not just about entertaining people by twirling yourself and other things around in space.
In a recent industry forum, chaired by Pam Creed, director of NICA, Geoff Dunstan of Dislocate Circus explained "I feel it's really important in physical theatre, especially new circus theatre - and I think this is the greatest hurdle that we have to get over - is the ego of the acrobatic act itself. The trick can be fantastic, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the show, you have to leave that [the ego] aside." He also described a "great piece of theatre I saw was on the news, with a bunch of uranium cans with people - protestors - jumping inside them through one of the gates [of Lucas Heights nuclear reactor]. The message was 'if you are a terrorist you can walk into this place', the form was protest and the medium was the media ... and I think it is really important that we don't limit ourselves in terms of where we can go in our theatrical expression."
So this is why Christian Reid works 40 hours in class each week, plus doing bar work and gym coaching despite the physically tiring days - and he still claims to have a social life. In vacations he returns to Canberra for a break in the gym to keep up his fitness and strength. Classes are not just in circus tricks, but include clowning, character work, ballet, modern dance as well as business administration. And that's not mentioning helping set up the Big Top for Ashton's traditional family circus. As Becky Ashton said: "It's not a job where you turn up and perform and that's it. I'm a trapeze artist for three minutes each night and the rest of the time I do everything from filling show bags to putting up the tent."
NICA is now calling for applications for the 2003 BCA course, which incorporates a Certificate IV in Circus Arts and a Diploma of Circus Arts. The NICA team, led by the Head of Circus Training, Lu Guang Rong, originally from Shanghai, will conduct auditions in Sydney on September 26 and Melbourne on October 13, travelling to Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart in between.
If you want to see NICA in action in early December, call in to Melbourne's Federation Square. Marketing Manager Stan Liacos says NICA offers "exactly the kind of innovative, cutting-edge performances we need to help us activate Federation Square." You can find all the details you need at www.nica.swin.edu.au.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 11 September 2002
2002: The Wish Palace by Eva Kaufman / Kate McNamara
The Wish Palace directed and adapted by Eva Kaufman, based on a play by Kate McNamara. Spandex Theatre at The Street Theatre Studio September 10-14, 7.30pm.
Spandex is new and its members young, heading out from college drama to explore the world through theatre. Eva Kaufman's intentions are sincere and this first production shows intelligence. But the script she chose is flawed. The result is a tension of the wrong kind between McNamara's dated and rather pretentious attempt to present heroin addiction as artistic expression and Kaufman's desire to show something more realistic about human capacity for self-delusion.
The group is entirely amateur, but one actor, Lara Lightfoot, had both the strength and sensitivity needed for these roles. Set in a psychiatric ward, Lightfoot's Julia discharges herself, perhaps now capable of coping outside, after the suicide of the heroin addict Bone (Max Barker) and the collapse into a vegetable state of Chat (Lydia Connell) from shock therapy. The parallels with Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were unavoidable and unfortunate, especially in the nurse's character (Sophie Rutzou).
What Kaufman tried to do was to find a theatrical format or genre to allow issues about using drugs and psychiatric treatment to be brought to our attention, but the melodrama - especially of the writer/addict/depressive Bone - could only lead to a kind of neo-Romanticism. Maybe Chekov could have written what she needed, but, being young, Kaufman perhaps saw more depth and importance in the script than was really there to work on. This also meant that "experimental" features like the appearance of a live string instrument for one scene, or the continuous mime of the conventional wife in another, seemed disconnected from the rest of the action rather than enhancing its meaning.
For Spandex to develop, Kaufman will need stronger material, but this also means training for herself and her actors to match.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Spandex is new and its members young, heading out from college drama to explore the world through theatre. Eva Kaufman's intentions are sincere and this first production shows intelligence. But the script she chose is flawed. The result is a tension of the wrong kind between McNamara's dated and rather pretentious attempt to present heroin addiction as artistic expression and Kaufman's desire to show something more realistic about human capacity for self-delusion.
The group is entirely amateur, but one actor, Lara Lightfoot, had both the strength and sensitivity needed for these roles. Set in a psychiatric ward, Lightfoot's Julia discharges herself, perhaps now capable of coping outside, after the suicide of the heroin addict Bone (Max Barker) and the collapse into a vegetable state of Chat (Lydia Connell) from shock therapy. The parallels with Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were unavoidable and unfortunate, especially in the nurse's character (Sophie Rutzou).
What Kaufman tried to do was to find a theatrical format or genre to allow issues about using drugs and psychiatric treatment to be brought to our attention, but the melodrama - especially of the writer/addict/depressive Bone - could only lead to a kind of neo-Romanticism. Maybe Chekov could have written what she needed, but, being young, Kaufman perhaps saw more depth and importance in the script than was really there to work on. This also meant that "experimental" features like the appearance of a live string instrument for one scene, or the continuous mime of the conventional wife in another, seemed disconnected from the rest of the action rather than enhancing its meaning.
For Spandex to develop, Kaufman will need stronger material, but this also means training for herself and her actors to match.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 5 September 2002
2002: Soulmates by David Williamson
Soulmates by David Williamson. Sydney Theatre Company directed by Gale Edwards at The Playhouse September 4-14.
I don't know about you, but I go to the theatre for two reasons.
I want to appreciate the theatrical artistry of actors, designers and directors. As we should expect of STC, I was certainly not disappointed by this production. I loved Amanda Muggleton as the steamy novelist Katie Best, and it was a thrill to see Jacki Weaver's nicely presented changes of mood in a role which some may find a surprise. The post-modern silver set was right for this play (though I wasn't sure of the relevance of all of the paintings projected behind), while the direction moved the play along at the pace it deserves.
Then I want to be "transported", taken into some level of experience beyond my own imagining. No matter how professional the actors are, the writer must give them the material to work on. Williamson, despite much good writing in recent plays, has made fun of his own craft of writing in Soulmates but without making me laugh except at fairly superficial cleverness.
You may think, when you see the play, that my criticism is mere sour grapes, since Danny - played by William Zappa as very Melbourne - is an academic critic seeking always the best of high art and dismissing the commercial entertainment of Katie Best's novels. He refuses to accept the post-modern belief that all that is written is culturally equal and his ideals about art are floored in Act 2, yet Williamson seems to me to be just playing games with the issues for the sake of the laughs. The laughs bring in the bums (and various other parts of the anatomy) on seats, but I found quite a few first night audience members feeling cheated at interval and only a little more satisfied at the end.
So I found myself searching for what was wrong. Act 1, on reflection, was really only a teaser. There were some unsavoury jokes about September 11 which never led anywhere. Yabby coulis got several laughs completely without connection to the rest of the play. It was only in Act 2 that the characters were given some sense of having real relationships that we might identify with. I suppose the last line about the pragmatic, perhaps cynical approach of writers' using people they know as material - "That's what writers do!" - might have been meant to be satirical. I thought it left Williamson trapped in his own post-modern mire.
But then, I'm just the critic. You'd better go and decide for yourself.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I don't know about you, but I go to the theatre for two reasons.
I want to appreciate the theatrical artistry of actors, designers and directors. As we should expect of STC, I was certainly not disappointed by this production. I loved Amanda Muggleton as the steamy novelist Katie Best, and it was a thrill to see Jacki Weaver's nicely presented changes of mood in a role which some may find a surprise. The post-modern silver set was right for this play (though I wasn't sure of the relevance of all of the paintings projected behind), while the direction moved the play along at the pace it deserves.
Then I want to be "transported", taken into some level of experience beyond my own imagining. No matter how professional the actors are, the writer must give them the material to work on. Williamson, despite much good writing in recent plays, has made fun of his own craft of writing in Soulmates but without making me laugh except at fairly superficial cleverness.
You may think, when you see the play, that my criticism is mere sour grapes, since Danny - played by William Zappa as very Melbourne - is an academic critic seeking always the best of high art and dismissing the commercial entertainment of Katie Best's novels. He refuses to accept the post-modern belief that all that is written is culturally equal and his ideals about art are floored in Act 2, yet Williamson seems to me to be just playing games with the issues for the sake of the laughs. The laughs bring in the bums (and various other parts of the anatomy) on seats, but I found quite a few first night audience members feeling cheated at interval and only a little more satisfied at the end.
So I found myself searching for what was wrong. Act 1, on reflection, was really only a teaser. There were some unsavoury jokes about September 11 which never led anywhere. Yabby coulis got several laughs completely without connection to the rest of the play. It was only in Act 2 that the characters were given some sense of having real relationships that we might identify with. I suppose the last line about the pragmatic, perhaps cynical approach of writers' using people they know as material - "That's what writers do!" - might have been meant to be satirical. I thought it left Williamson trapped in his own post-modern mire.
But then, I'm just the critic. You'd better go and decide for yourself.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 21 August 2002
2002: The Aunt's Story by Patrick White
The Aunt's Story by Patrick White, adapted for the stage and directed by Adam Cook. Melbourne Theatre Company presented by Company B at Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, until September 8. Note: 6.30pm (ends 9.45pm).
There's a joke in Act 2, among the mad denizens of a cheap 1930s hotel somewhere in Europe, about how boring life is: "It's probable that God created Adam on a rainy day." I can only say that if this nail-paring God created Adam Cook, and Helen Morse, and the Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir B, then do it again, Sam. Morse, as the shamelessly symbolically named Theodora Goodman, is on stage throughout: a tour de force and a wonder to behold. Absolutely the opposite of boring.
The rest of the cast - Andrew Blackman, Julia Blake, Ralph Cotterill, Sarah Kants, Roger Oakley and Genevieve Picot - speak for themselves if you are looking for a quality production. This is MTC at its most marvellous, each of these actors playing Patrick White's amazing array of characters in Theodora's life, the real people and her fantasies. Costumes change, accents change, make-up changes, mannerisms change so smoothly that though you can see it all happening you are never made conscious of the acting. The illusion is complete in the theatre, just as it should be for Patrick White's examination of the question, How can we be sure when illusion is reality, or reality is illusion?
Although you do not need to read White's original novel - Cook's script stands alone on stage - the program is worth a few dollars for its excellent discussion of White's story and its themes. Act 1 covers the death of Theodora's father who appreciates her as a real thinking person, in contrast to her air-headed sister Fanny, whose only interest is to marry a wealthy man and have babies. This Act is a memory play, a flashback triggered by the death of her mother, who describes Theodora as a thin stick, and yellow, (while Fanny is exactly the daughter she wanted).
After these two deaths and a decent interval, we observe Theodora escape from the dry sheep farm of her first 45 years (Fanny had her children, Theodora looked after her mother). Act 2 is in the Jardin Exotique, where the mad tumbledown pretend nobility draw her into an unreal world. White's ideas for the novel were developing as World War 2 drew on apace, and he wrote the novel immediately he escaped from the Royal Air Force at the war's end. Maybe people thought America would be the saviour from chaos, so Theodora travels on a train there, pulls the emergency cord in the middle of nowhere and finds a shack with a ghost who is clearly her father. Finding a kind of peace here, the so-sensible Americans see her fantasy as insanity and she is committed for treatment. Is this the 'rational' world we really want? Is ordinary reality enough?
Watch out for the thunder, lightning and gunshots. I shuddered in my safe seat as these effects seemed so real that I might myself be struck down like the huge tree in Theodora's garden, or shot through the heart like the little hawk. Signs in the foyer forewarn you: be warned. Dale Ferguson (design), Gavan Swift (lighting) and Ian McDonald (sound) have created just the strength of emotional response that White's imagination demands.
Add to all that a sound score created by Peter Sculthorpe which crept into my consciousness as if it naturally belonged there, and you may imagine why this production is among the best I have ever seen. Patrick White is a towering figure in Australian culture. Adam Cook has done him proud. Maybe God did have something to do with it - but maybe God is just another illusion, and we can do it all by ourselves, like Theodora Goodman.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
There's a joke in Act 2, among the mad denizens of a cheap 1930s hotel somewhere in Europe, about how boring life is: "It's probable that God created Adam on a rainy day." I can only say that if this nail-paring God created Adam Cook, and Helen Morse, and the Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir B, then do it again, Sam. Morse, as the shamelessly symbolically named Theodora Goodman, is on stage throughout: a tour de force and a wonder to behold. Absolutely the opposite of boring.
The rest of the cast - Andrew Blackman, Julia Blake, Ralph Cotterill, Sarah Kants, Roger Oakley and Genevieve Picot - speak for themselves if you are looking for a quality production. This is MTC at its most marvellous, each of these actors playing Patrick White's amazing array of characters in Theodora's life, the real people and her fantasies. Costumes change, accents change, make-up changes, mannerisms change so smoothly that though you can see it all happening you are never made conscious of the acting. The illusion is complete in the theatre, just as it should be for Patrick White's examination of the question, How can we be sure when illusion is reality, or reality is illusion?
Although you do not need to read White's original novel - Cook's script stands alone on stage - the program is worth a few dollars for its excellent discussion of White's story and its themes. Act 1 covers the death of Theodora's father who appreciates her as a real thinking person, in contrast to her air-headed sister Fanny, whose only interest is to marry a wealthy man and have babies. This Act is a memory play, a flashback triggered by the death of her mother, who describes Theodora as a thin stick, and yellow, (while Fanny is exactly the daughter she wanted).
After these two deaths and a decent interval, we observe Theodora escape from the dry sheep farm of her first 45 years (Fanny had her children, Theodora looked after her mother). Act 2 is in the Jardin Exotique, where the mad tumbledown pretend nobility draw her into an unreal world. White's ideas for the novel were developing as World War 2 drew on apace, and he wrote the novel immediately he escaped from the Royal Air Force at the war's end. Maybe people thought America would be the saviour from chaos, so Theodora travels on a train there, pulls the emergency cord in the middle of nowhere and finds a shack with a ghost who is clearly her father. Finding a kind of peace here, the so-sensible Americans see her fantasy as insanity and she is committed for treatment. Is this the 'rational' world we really want? Is ordinary reality enough?
Watch out for the thunder, lightning and gunshots. I shuddered in my safe seat as these effects seemed so real that I might myself be struck down like the huge tree in Theodora's garden, or shot through the heart like the little hawk. Signs in the foyer forewarn you: be warned. Dale Ferguson (design), Gavan Swift (lighting) and Ian McDonald (sound) have created just the strength of emotional response that White's imagination demands.
Add to all that a sound score created by Peter Sculthorpe which crept into my consciousness as if it naturally belonged there, and you may imagine why this production is among the best I have ever seen. Patrick White is a towering figure in Australian culture. Adam Cook has done him proud. Maybe God did have something to do with it - but maybe God is just another illusion, and we can do it all by ourselves, like Theodora Goodman.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 16 August 2002
2002: The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon by REM Theatre. Feature article.
If you were to imagine the musical sound of a wombat, you would quite likely agree with the popular choice in REM Theatre's The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon. The tuba really has no competition. But you might be a bit surprised to find the emu played on the 'cello and conga drums. There you go, though - that's what a creative presentation of the orchestra for young people can do. Give you lots of laughter and surprises.
The story of the kookaburra's laugh is quite simple. If you fell in love with the moon, and you were a kookaburra, you'd gobble it down like all those other tasty morsels you love - like lizards and snakes - wouldn't you? But what about all those dark and scary nights without the moon? How would you get the moon back out of the kookaburra in the proper way? You can't chop him open because you shouldn't do such violent things to others. And if you're simply pragmatic, you'll soon see that if you did you might hurt the moon, and you'd end up with no kookaburra. But if you make him laugh, and laugh, and laugh so much that the moon can escape from his wide open beak, everyone can be happy. And that's why the kookaburras laugh every evening just at sundown.
Making the kookaburra laugh is sure to keep the audience of youngsters rolling in the aisles, according to Catherine Pease, a founding member of REM Theatre and the narrator for this show. She should know after more than 10 years touring all over Australia, Britain, Europe, USA, the South Pacific and Asia, where the Artistic Director, Roger Rynd, has a special association with the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. Audiences there have given Rynd awards for best play, while a reviewer in The Scotsman on the opposite side of the globe wrote "Rarely have I seen so many people so thoroughly and happily engrossed".
That reviewer surely wasn't talking only about the children, anywhere between 3 and 12, that the show is mainly for. People of all ages can respond directly to music and dance which tells such a story - and take part with the children in recognising the instruments of the orchestra as each animal's theme appears. It has to be fun, too, when the children are taught each animal's movements by Gamillaroi artists Tanya and Eric Ellis. Eric plays the kookaburra; Tanya plays all the others. And when the children do the movements, the whole orchestra stands to do the movements too.
This is getting to sound a bit like going to a Rocky Horror Show, or The Sound of Music, and Catherine admits that things get a bit chaotic at times. This writer, when he was that young, was excited enough by Peter and the Wolf.
In fact, that classic musical tale was the origin of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon. As Peter and the Wolf was a Russian folk tale, so The Kookaburra is an Australian approach to ancient myths. Peter Winkler - who directed the music for the opening of the Paralympics and has a long history as a music educator (he co-founded the Bondi Youth Wave annual rock music school) - wrote both the script and the music for The Kookaburra, combining an Aboriginal myth with ideas from Aesop's tales. Rather like the development of world music, this show combines elements from many cultures, and REM's productions have seen Tanya Ellis become the first Koori to perform in Korean language, while she has also maintained her traditional dance forms as well as working as a puppeteer with Plasticienne Volants in Europe.
What may seem superficially to be a simple children's educational show has behind it a complex system of support. Each venue - in our case the Canberra Theatre Centre - provides the orchestra: the Canberra Symphony here, the Tasmanian Symphony a few weeks ago, the Frankston Symphony in Victoria last week. The commitment of people all over the country and the world has been so effective that Playing Australia, the Australia Council's funding body for touring companies, has taken a major role in supporting The Kookaburra.
There are also technical issues to be solved. The two didgeridoos in the orchestra are very special: one tuned in the key of D and the other in B flat. When the show began back in 1990, didge players had to be sent back to the drawing boards when their sounds were not quite in harmony with the classical orchestral instruments. Maybe it's this kind of reconciliation that this show represents. The music is onomatopaeic, but creating sounds not merely like the sounds each animal makes, but giving the feeling associated with each animal's character. The cross-cultural effect is also embedded in the music, where you will notice subtle touches of different popular dance forms as well as the Australian indigenous forms.
In other words, there is more education in this show than at first meets the ear and eye, for adults as well as for children. At the same time, the basic rule of theatre - always entertain - is the core of the show in performance. When the Producer is Marguerite Pepper, who has produced major cultural events since the 1980s (including being Associate Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Paralympics); the Music Director is Peter Winkler, winner of the Federal Government's Roz Bower Award for his contribution to Australia's community music scene; the Narrator, Catherine Pease, has been Director Community Programs for the Queensland Performing Arts Trust; the key performers Eric and Tanya Ellis come with the full respect they deserve from the indigenous community; and when the orchestra is the Canberra Symphony - what more needs to be said about the professional credentials of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon.
REM Theatre Company's 2002 tour of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon comes to Canberra for schools performances at 10am and 11.45am on August 29 and 30. There will be one public performance at The Playhouse on Saturday August 31 at 11.45am. Book at Canberra Theatre on 6257 1077.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The story of the kookaburra's laugh is quite simple. If you fell in love with the moon, and you were a kookaburra, you'd gobble it down like all those other tasty morsels you love - like lizards and snakes - wouldn't you? But what about all those dark and scary nights without the moon? How would you get the moon back out of the kookaburra in the proper way? You can't chop him open because you shouldn't do such violent things to others. And if you're simply pragmatic, you'll soon see that if you did you might hurt the moon, and you'd end up with no kookaburra. But if you make him laugh, and laugh, and laugh so much that the moon can escape from his wide open beak, everyone can be happy. And that's why the kookaburras laugh every evening just at sundown.
Making the kookaburra laugh is sure to keep the audience of youngsters rolling in the aisles, according to Catherine Pease, a founding member of REM Theatre and the narrator for this show. She should know after more than 10 years touring all over Australia, Britain, Europe, USA, the South Pacific and Asia, where the Artistic Director, Roger Rynd, has a special association with the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. Audiences there have given Rynd awards for best play, while a reviewer in The Scotsman on the opposite side of the globe wrote "Rarely have I seen so many people so thoroughly and happily engrossed".
That reviewer surely wasn't talking only about the children, anywhere between 3 and 12, that the show is mainly for. People of all ages can respond directly to music and dance which tells such a story - and take part with the children in recognising the instruments of the orchestra as each animal's theme appears. It has to be fun, too, when the children are taught each animal's movements by Gamillaroi artists Tanya and Eric Ellis. Eric plays the kookaburra; Tanya plays all the others. And when the children do the movements, the whole orchestra stands to do the movements too.
This is getting to sound a bit like going to a Rocky Horror Show, or The Sound of Music, and Catherine admits that things get a bit chaotic at times. This writer, when he was that young, was excited enough by Peter and the Wolf.
In fact, that classic musical tale was the origin of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon. As Peter and the Wolf was a Russian folk tale, so The Kookaburra is an Australian approach to ancient myths. Peter Winkler - who directed the music for the opening of the Paralympics and has a long history as a music educator (he co-founded the Bondi Youth Wave annual rock music school) - wrote both the script and the music for The Kookaburra, combining an Aboriginal myth with ideas from Aesop's tales. Rather like the development of world music, this show combines elements from many cultures, and REM's productions have seen Tanya Ellis become the first Koori to perform in Korean language, while she has also maintained her traditional dance forms as well as working as a puppeteer with Plasticienne Volants in Europe.
What may seem superficially to be a simple children's educational show has behind it a complex system of support. Each venue - in our case the Canberra Theatre Centre - provides the orchestra: the Canberra Symphony here, the Tasmanian Symphony a few weeks ago, the Frankston Symphony in Victoria last week. The commitment of people all over the country and the world has been so effective that Playing Australia, the Australia Council's funding body for touring companies, has taken a major role in supporting The Kookaburra.
There are also technical issues to be solved. The two didgeridoos in the orchestra are very special: one tuned in the key of D and the other in B flat. When the show began back in 1990, didge players had to be sent back to the drawing boards when their sounds were not quite in harmony with the classical orchestral instruments. Maybe it's this kind of reconciliation that this show represents. The music is onomatopaeic, but creating sounds not merely like the sounds each animal makes, but giving the feeling associated with each animal's character. The cross-cultural effect is also embedded in the music, where you will notice subtle touches of different popular dance forms as well as the Australian indigenous forms.
In other words, there is more education in this show than at first meets the ear and eye, for adults as well as for children. At the same time, the basic rule of theatre - always entertain - is the core of the show in performance. When the Producer is Marguerite Pepper, who has produced major cultural events since the 1980s (including being Associate Producer of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Paralympics); the Music Director is Peter Winkler, winner of the Federal Government's Roz Bower Award for his contribution to Australia's community music scene; the Narrator, Catherine Pease, has been Director Community Programs for the Queensland Performing Arts Trust; the key performers Eric and Tanya Ellis come with the full respect they deserve from the indigenous community; and when the orchestra is the Canberra Symphony - what more needs to be said about the professional credentials of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon.
REM Theatre Company's 2002 tour of The Kookaburra Who Stole the Moon comes to Canberra for schools performances at 10am and 11.45am on August 29 and 30. There will be one public performance at The Playhouse on Saturday August 31 at 11.45am. Book at Canberra Theatre on 6257 1077.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 15 August 2002
2002: NIDA invites applications for 2003. Feature article.
NIDA INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR 2003. What better invitation could you imagine? Until, maybe, you remember the tv makeover: backstage at NIDA seemed pretty daunting.
And, of course, you can't forget that your invitation has about a 1% chance of getting you into the party. Is it really possible to get into NIDA? Two Canberrans are there now, so I asked them how they did it.
Just to begin with a downer for drama teachers, neither Alex O'Lachlan or Gordon Rymer beavered away at drama through high school and college. Gordon did all the right things, like study hard across the normal range of subjects, until he started to seriously worry his parents at the beginning of Year 12. Who said he could act? What about his nice career, as an accountant or something? Help!!
Well, Gordon found indeed that he wasn't a great actor, or likely ever to become one, but he became fascinated with the way theatre production works. So even more horrors - he became stage manager for the bloodthirsty story of Sweeney Todd with a collapsible barber's chair on a truck. In Semester 2, Year 12! Oh, what will become of him?
He's actually a calm and sensible lad who now praises the drama teacher who left him to face up to solving problems like what to do when the wheels literally fell off the truck, on which most of the set was built, as it was being shouldered on for final dress rehearsal. He took a year off after that, went travelling to Europe, worked as a dishwasher in a large hotel for 10-14 hour days, and thus proved to his parents that he was able to look after himself, and proved to himself that he could work the long hours that NIDA now demands of him. Only then did he take up the invitation to apply, built a set model with lighting, sound and costume design for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which he claims was "not very good") and wrote some 3000 words about why his design was eminently workable. Phew!
Now in Second Year, Gordon recently was deputy stage manager for NIDA's Third Year production of Country Music by Nick Enright, in which Alex O'Lachlan was a leading actor. Wheels falling off trucks was nothing, says Gordon, compared with a 4 hour long play being written in the wings, with pauses for writing lighting plots extending technical rehearsals over a whole week. Both Gordon and Alex seem to have revelled in the challenge.
But how did Alex get there, via a story which could be entitled, How Not To Get to NIDA? He was the bad boy of high school and college that many teachers would recognise. Actually, they won't because his name is not in the records, not just because he often wasn't in school (and never did drama past primary). Alex needed to escape a Canberra which did nothing for him before he changed his life, and his name.
Perhaps the first solid book he read was AB Facey's A Fortunate Life, when he was 19. Here he discovered a common spirit in touch with humanity, a kind of innocence, and a person of honesty who would not deceive another. Facey was a model for a new life, and as Alex travelled, also in Europe, he watched films with an ache which he finally recognised. He wanted to perform with the same commitment and honesty he now saw in so many great actors.
Back in Australia, but in vibrant Sydney, not the cold Canberra of old, he says he literally woke up one morning and knew he must apply for NIDA. They didn't invite him: he invited himself, at the age of 23.
As soon as his real life began, commitment to the work has led to an avid interest in theatre history covered in essays which would surprise his earlier teachers. He told me he is an "instinctual actor - I feel my way through it" but very soon was explaining detailed techniques of characterisation. He seems to have just the right mix of method and emotion, and control of his life, for us to sincerely hope for professional success.
Alex is the one with the photo, but Gordon will be there in the backstage gloom, making sure all the calls are spot on. He didn't mind not having a photo, he said. That's not his role.
For NIDA, ring the Admissions Officer on (02) 9697 7600 or at www.nida.edu.au, but if you may not be in that particular 1%, don't forget all the other drama and theatre courses available after Year 12. You can find them all on university websites.
Frank McKone's First Audition - How to Get Into Drama School (Currency Press) will be launched at the National Conference of Drama Australia in Fremantle WA on September 28.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
And, of course, you can't forget that your invitation has about a 1% chance of getting you into the party. Is it really possible to get into NIDA? Two Canberrans are there now, so I asked them how they did it.
Just to begin with a downer for drama teachers, neither Alex O'Lachlan or Gordon Rymer beavered away at drama through high school and college. Gordon did all the right things, like study hard across the normal range of subjects, until he started to seriously worry his parents at the beginning of Year 12. Who said he could act? What about his nice career, as an accountant or something? Help!!
Well, Gordon found indeed that he wasn't a great actor, or likely ever to become one, but he became fascinated with the way theatre production works. So even more horrors - he became stage manager for the bloodthirsty story of Sweeney Todd with a collapsible barber's chair on a truck. In Semester 2, Year 12! Oh, what will become of him?
He's actually a calm and sensible lad who now praises the drama teacher who left him to face up to solving problems like what to do when the wheels literally fell off the truck, on which most of the set was built, as it was being shouldered on for final dress rehearsal. He took a year off after that, went travelling to Europe, worked as a dishwasher in a large hotel for 10-14 hour days, and thus proved to his parents that he was able to look after himself, and proved to himself that he could work the long hours that NIDA now demands of him. Only then did he take up the invitation to apply, built a set model with lighting, sound and costume design for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which he claims was "not very good") and wrote some 3000 words about why his design was eminently workable. Phew!
Now in Second Year, Gordon recently was deputy stage manager for NIDA's Third Year production of Country Music by Nick Enright, in which Alex O'Lachlan was a leading actor. Wheels falling off trucks was nothing, says Gordon, compared with a 4 hour long play being written in the wings, with pauses for writing lighting plots extending technical rehearsals over a whole week. Both Gordon and Alex seem to have revelled in the challenge.
But how did Alex get there, via a story which could be entitled, How Not To Get to NIDA? He was the bad boy of high school and college that many teachers would recognise. Actually, they won't because his name is not in the records, not just because he often wasn't in school (and never did drama past primary). Alex needed to escape a Canberra which did nothing for him before he changed his life, and his name.
Perhaps the first solid book he read was AB Facey's A Fortunate Life, when he was 19. Here he discovered a common spirit in touch with humanity, a kind of innocence, and a person of honesty who would not deceive another. Facey was a model for a new life, and as Alex travelled, also in Europe, he watched films with an ache which he finally recognised. He wanted to perform with the same commitment and honesty he now saw in so many great actors.
Back in Australia, but in vibrant Sydney, not the cold Canberra of old, he says he literally woke up one morning and knew he must apply for NIDA. They didn't invite him: he invited himself, at the age of 23.
As soon as his real life began, commitment to the work has led to an avid interest in theatre history covered in essays which would surprise his earlier teachers. He told me he is an "instinctual actor - I feel my way through it" but very soon was explaining detailed techniques of characterisation. He seems to have just the right mix of method and emotion, and control of his life, for us to sincerely hope for professional success.
Alex is the one with the photo, but Gordon will be there in the backstage gloom, making sure all the calls are spot on. He didn't mind not having a photo, he said. That's not his role.
For NIDA, ring the Admissions Officer on (02) 9697 7600 or at www.nida.edu.au, but if you may not be in that particular 1%, don't forget all the other drama and theatre courses available after Year 12. You can find them all on university websites.
Frank McKone's First Audition - How to Get Into Drama School (Currency Press) will be launched at the National Conference of Drama Australia in Fremantle WA on September 28.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 14 August 2002
2002: Ordinary/Extraordinary: Exhibition in a Suitcase. Feature article.
Ordinary/Extraordinary: Exhibition in a Suitcase. Coming to a school near you from Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG).
On a lonely luggage carousel, somewhere in the universe, an artful suitcase (or a suitcase full of art) circulates forever. No-one knows where it is, but we know where it came from. Way back in the 1970s Craft ACT's Inspiration program made this suitcase which then circulated to many schools, until the day came when it never came back. Maybe those garden gnomes who go on world trips visit it, but they never reveal the secrets of their journeys.
So, last Wednesday, Mr Bill Wood, ACT Minister for Urban Services and the Arts, the obvious combination for a lost suitcase, launched two more Ordinary/Extraordinary suitcases full of art into circulation, one red (with objects of design) and one blue (with objects of creative inspiration). Ten local artists have their works encased: Robert Foster, Anna Gianakis, Myles Gostelow, Gilbert Riedelbauch, Carrie Webster, Hamilton Darroch, Bev Hogg, Megan Munro, Jaishree Srinivasan and Indigenous artist Lorraine Webb. From Foster's computer generated Tulip Vase to Webb's literally Handpainted Child's Shoes, these objets d'art have already travelled through diverse cultures and now form a harmonious set of companions, setting off together on the road to education.
"This is an innovative, exciting and hands-on approach to learning, likely to stimulate active participation and dialogue among young people in schools," said the Minister. I found this to be the case at Gold Creek School, who were so keen to billet the exhibition that they have been using the two suitcases for a month already. Melissa Brodis makes sure the visitors are handled in a carpeted area, team-teaching in the middle school Years 6-8. With real art works to see and appreciate close-up, the Year 6 group I observed were learning design concepts beyond my expectation for their age. Then it was back to the art room to put the ideas into practice.
I asked, in view of concerns about teacher overload, how Melissa coped with the touring suitcases, but she explained she had less work to do because the art works spark teaching ideas for all kinds of classes, making preparation and motivation of the students so much easier. At CMAG, Education Officers Lisa De Santis and especially Megan Nicolson, who has taken on the main responsibility for Ordinary/Extraordinary, are getting prepared to be run off their feet. One suitcase disappeared years ago; two more have begun their journey: who can predict how many more will expect to travel in the coming years? Nicolson, Kate Murphy and Catrina Vignando have written a top-flight teachers' guide which fully justifies the grants for this project from artsACT and the Australia Council Audience Development program. I can see lots more grant applications ahead.
Behind the concept of Ordinary/Extraordinary - exploring the extraordinary nature of ordinary things - is the strengthening movement towards education by immersion. Over two decades or so, as researchers like Harvard's Howard Gardner show the many different kinds of intelligences we each have, innovative teaching has taken the students out of the classroom, into the environment where they can learn from more direct experience. Work experience, say, is a huge program across all states in Australia today, after a tentative Participation and Equity Program in the mid-1980s. Museum education - taking students to museums with interactive and dramatic exhibitions - is another aspect of this movement. CMAG's Suitcases take the exhibition to the students for a different kind of interaction.
Immersion doesn't mean drowning. Waving, not drowning, is what it's about: learning to swim in a new environment. It all sounds rather like a holiday - and why not? Why should children whose imaginations dance in the arts not have the opportunity to dive down under, hold their breath and discover new creations?
The initial concept of the travelling suitcase - the one that never came back - came from the Canberra Art Teachers' Association, Craft ACT's Fiona Hooton, Caris Tirrell and Jenny Deves. The Education Kit Teachers' Guide was designed by msquared and Kate Murphy, with Steven Murray's excellent photos. The suitcases, like theatrical roadcases with built in handles and wheels, are by Kenetic Flight Cases and Zeljko Markov designed the internal structure which enfolds the artworks so firmly and delicately. From the outside to the inside the suitcases are an exciting exhibition of art.
Schools in the Canberra region can borrow for free what Bill Wood said is "the sort of 'baggage' I'm happy to be associated with." What better recommendation could you get from the Arts Minister? All teachers need to do is ring Megan Nicolson at CMAG on 6207 1775. If you would like to talk to Craft ACT about more ideas, ring Catrina Vignando on 6292 9333.
If you're a parent, do your bit to encourage more magical mystery suitcase tours for your children - they'll appreciate the experience. And if you know where the original suitcase has gone, please send a postcard.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On a lonely luggage carousel, somewhere in the universe, an artful suitcase (or a suitcase full of art) circulates forever. No-one knows where it is, but we know where it came from. Way back in the 1970s Craft ACT's Inspiration program made this suitcase which then circulated to many schools, until the day came when it never came back. Maybe those garden gnomes who go on world trips visit it, but they never reveal the secrets of their journeys.
So, last Wednesday, Mr Bill Wood, ACT Minister for Urban Services and the Arts, the obvious combination for a lost suitcase, launched two more Ordinary/Extraordinary suitcases full of art into circulation, one red (with objects of design) and one blue (with objects of creative inspiration). Ten local artists have their works encased: Robert Foster, Anna Gianakis, Myles Gostelow, Gilbert Riedelbauch, Carrie Webster, Hamilton Darroch, Bev Hogg, Megan Munro, Jaishree Srinivasan and Indigenous artist Lorraine Webb. From Foster's computer generated Tulip Vase to Webb's literally Handpainted Child's Shoes, these objets d'art have already travelled through diverse cultures and now form a harmonious set of companions, setting off together on the road to education.
"This is an innovative, exciting and hands-on approach to learning, likely to stimulate active participation and dialogue among young people in schools," said the Minister. I found this to be the case at Gold Creek School, who were so keen to billet the exhibition that they have been using the two suitcases for a month already. Melissa Brodis makes sure the visitors are handled in a carpeted area, team-teaching in the middle school Years 6-8. With real art works to see and appreciate close-up, the Year 6 group I observed were learning design concepts beyond my expectation for their age. Then it was back to the art room to put the ideas into practice.
I asked, in view of concerns about teacher overload, how Melissa coped with the touring suitcases, but she explained she had less work to do because the art works spark teaching ideas for all kinds of classes, making preparation and motivation of the students so much easier. At CMAG, Education Officers Lisa De Santis and especially Megan Nicolson, who has taken on the main responsibility for Ordinary/Extraordinary, are getting prepared to be run off their feet. One suitcase disappeared years ago; two more have begun their journey: who can predict how many more will expect to travel in the coming years? Nicolson, Kate Murphy and Catrina Vignando have written a top-flight teachers' guide which fully justifies the grants for this project from artsACT and the Australia Council Audience Development program. I can see lots more grant applications ahead.
Behind the concept of Ordinary/Extraordinary - exploring the extraordinary nature of ordinary things - is the strengthening movement towards education by immersion. Over two decades or so, as researchers like Harvard's Howard Gardner show the many different kinds of intelligences we each have, innovative teaching has taken the students out of the classroom, into the environment where they can learn from more direct experience. Work experience, say, is a huge program across all states in Australia today, after a tentative Participation and Equity Program in the mid-1980s. Museum education - taking students to museums with interactive and dramatic exhibitions - is another aspect of this movement. CMAG's Suitcases take the exhibition to the students for a different kind of interaction.
Immersion doesn't mean drowning. Waving, not drowning, is what it's about: learning to swim in a new environment. It all sounds rather like a holiday - and why not? Why should children whose imaginations dance in the arts not have the opportunity to dive down under, hold their breath and discover new creations?
The initial concept of the travelling suitcase - the one that never came back - came from the Canberra Art Teachers' Association, Craft ACT's Fiona Hooton, Caris Tirrell and Jenny Deves. The Education Kit Teachers' Guide was designed by msquared and Kate Murphy, with Steven Murray's excellent photos. The suitcases, like theatrical roadcases with built in handles and wheels, are by Kenetic Flight Cases and Zeljko Markov designed the internal structure which enfolds the artworks so firmly and delicately. From the outside to the inside the suitcases are an exciting exhibition of art.
Schools in the Canberra region can borrow for free what Bill Wood said is "the sort of 'baggage' I'm happy to be associated with." What better recommendation could you get from the Arts Minister? All teachers need to do is ring Megan Nicolson at CMAG on 6207 1775. If you would like to talk to Craft ACT about more ideas, ring Catrina Vignando on 6292 9333.
If you're a parent, do your bit to encourage more magical mystery suitcase tours for your children - they'll appreciate the experience. And if you know where the original suitcase has gone, please send a postcard.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 9 August 2002
2002: Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson
Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson. Free Rain Theatre Company directed and designed by Kelly Somes. Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre August 7-24 Wed-Sat 8pm.
Hotel Sorrento has been compared to Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, and seems to have the same kind of appeal to amateur companies. It's a seductive play about societal change in a backwater played out in a family of three sisters, bonded together yet fighting to break their bonds. Written in 1990, it remains an iconic Australian drama.
Somes claims to have set the play in its period, when Margaret Thatcher was still in power in Britain: a point which is important to the politics of the play. At the same time, though, to deal with the family's memories and emotional conflicts, she has seen the characters as costumed figures against a blank background, making the whole set white except for the symbolic painting of "Hotel Sorrento" (in which all of the older generation pictured have now died). Though this is ostensibly a good idea, the contrast in the first act between scenes in British London and the Australian beach village of Sorrento is not made as obvious as the drama demands. Or, on the other hand, a much more stylised set, using perhaps something like a Whiteley painting as a model, might have given the design the visual life it needs.
Free Rain intends to be a company of development for young people between amateur and professional levels, and Somes' directing here has worked quite well. The key roles of the sisters (Bronwyn Grannall as Hilary, Helen Tsongas as Meg, Lucy Goleby as Pippa) and Hilary's son Troy (Rhys Holden) made an effective ensemble, though I couldn't see Wal (David Ives), with an odd accent and manner, as these Australian girls' father. Characterisations were intelligent, though early in the season showed how much more training is needed for the full depth of the relationships to have immediate impact from the opening moment. By the second half energy was on the rise and dramatic action and silences began to make their points.
Good intentions and the sincerity of this production are strong reasons for seeing this play which won the NSW Premier's Award in 1991 and established Hannie Rayson in the Australian canon.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Hotel Sorrento has been compared to Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, and seems to have the same kind of appeal to amateur companies. It's a seductive play about societal change in a backwater played out in a family of three sisters, bonded together yet fighting to break their bonds. Written in 1990, it remains an iconic Australian drama.
Somes claims to have set the play in its period, when Margaret Thatcher was still in power in Britain: a point which is important to the politics of the play. At the same time, though, to deal with the family's memories and emotional conflicts, she has seen the characters as costumed figures against a blank background, making the whole set white except for the symbolic painting of "Hotel Sorrento" (in which all of the older generation pictured have now died). Though this is ostensibly a good idea, the contrast in the first act between scenes in British London and the Australian beach village of Sorrento is not made as obvious as the drama demands. Or, on the other hand, a much more stylised set, using perhaps something like a Whiteley painting as a model, might have given the design the visual life it needs.
Free Rain intends to be a company of development for young people between amateur and professional levels, and Somes' directing here has worked quite well. The key roles of the sisters (Bronwyn Grannall as Hilary, Helen Tsongas as Meg, Lucy Goleby as Pippa) and Hilary's son Troy (Rhys Holden) made an effective ensemble, though I couldn't see Wal (David Ives), with an odd accent and manner, as these Australian girls' father. Characterisations were intelligent, though early in the season showed how much more training is needed for the full depth of the relationships to have immediate impact from the opening moment. By the second half energy was on the rise and dramatic action and silences began to make their points.
Good intentions and the sincerity of this production are strong reasons for seeing this play which won the NSW Premier's Award in 1991 and established Hannie Rayson in the Australian canon.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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