I think the Bell Shakespeare Company will blow up a storm this weekend with the opening of The Tempest. Jim Sharman took The Tempest to re-read while holidaying on Bali. The magic of the island worked: he came home to an invitation from John Bell to direct this production.
On Tuesday a substantial crowd, from traditional thespians to young Triple J's, heard new voices singing, saw a new conception of set design, and felt that Sharman will illuminate the Bell Company.
We heard from Sharman about more than a year's work on "ideas of great gravity expressed with marvellous lightness". Antony Ernst, the dramaturg, took us through a play which is "clearly symbolic, but it is not clear what it is symbolic of". Rather than a problem, this is an advantage because interpretations of all kinds - Prospero as the retiring Shakespeare; theatre as a microcosm of the real world; the world as a theatrical illusion; the tempest as a Jungian archetype; a play about a manipulator who wants to get his daughter on the throne of Naples - are all plausible. We can take the play at any level.
I was excited by the dynamic acting and singing, though we were given only a taste of the opening scene, by Bell and a close-knit team of six men and three women, a fascinating combination from Rachael Maza to Lani John Tupu.
Michael Wilkinson's set represents at the same time the intellectual tradition of science and the art of magic. It is Prospero's workshop, all decked in knotty timber, in which he has created a transparent island with a ladder to heaven, where we see his geometry and his philosophical words - in Egyptian, Greek, Arabic, Chinese and English.
Yet hidden in the island is music: written, directed, played and sung by Tyrone Landau - stunning, original, magical music. It crosses the boundaries from high-brow contemporary, through popular musical to husky jazz. It opens up the play to people across cultures and classes. It is the music of the spheres, the magic in the show, and I can't wait to see the full production - preview on Friday September 19; opening night Saturday September 20 at the Canberra Theatre.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 17 September 1997
Thursday, 11 September 1997
1997: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen
Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. Paper Moon Productions at ANU Arts Centre, directed by Geoffrey Borny. September 11 - 20, 1997, 7.30 pm.
Ghosts (1881), sequel to the perhaps more well-known A Doll's House, is about a woman's duty and freedom, but also opens up other issues very much in today's news: sexually transmitted disease, a child's inherited defects, hiding the truth from children about their parents, and euthanasia.
Geoffrey Borny directs a new translation from the original Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt (dramaturg for the Sydney Theatre Company and director of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference) and the playwright Louis Nowra. The result is a play of subtle twists in emotional relationships, handled well by all the actors but especially by Naoné Carrel and Tony Turner as Mrs Alving and Pastor Manders.
Ibsen wrote to August Lindberg, director of the 1883 Hälsinborg production (who also played Helene Alving's son Oswald), that the play depends a great deal on "making the spectator feel as if he were actually sitting, listening and looking at events happening in real life". This was the new realism in theatre which was, I think, not fully achieved on opening night. Some intensity is lost in movements which "use the stage" but are psychologically unnecessary. Lighting changes need to be smoother and slower so the emotional effect on the audience is achieved more subliminally. The openness of the set design works well in the Arts Centre space for sight-lines, but requires greater intensity of stillness to focus us on each character's conflicting feelings. Especially I felt the final stages of Oswald's decline into insanity as the sun rises needed to gradually build more horror in us sitting, looking and listening, before his mother on stage realises what has happened.
Regine (Sarah Chalmers) and her "father" Jacob Engstrand (Richard Anderson) open the play with a strong, lively interchange. Patrick Brammall presents Oswald's dramatic mood changes well. Tony Turner and Naoné Carrell are consistently good, experienced actors. I sense that the production will deepen and intensify through the season.
Ghosts is a highly relevant classic play well worth seeing in this intelligent production - and remember curtain-up is at 7.30, giving plenty of time at the end for coffee and discussion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Ghosts (1881), sequel to the perhaps more well-known A Doll's House, is about a woman's duty and freedom, but also opens up other issues very much in today's news: sexually transmitted disease, a child's inherited defects, hiding the truth from children about their parents, and euthanasia.
Geoffrey Borny directs a new translation from the original Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt (dramaturg for the Sydney Theatre Company and director of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference) and the playwright Louis Nowra. The result is a play of subtle twists in emotional relationships, handled well by all the actors but especially by Naoné Carrel and Tony Turner as Mrs Alving and Pastor Manders.
Ibsen wrote to August Lindberg, director of the 1883 Hälsinborg production (who also played Helene Alving's son Oswald), that the play depends a great deal on "making the spectator feel as if he were actually sitting, listening and looking at events happening in real life". This was the new realism in theatre which was, I think, not fully achieved on opening night. Some intensity is lost in movements which "use the stage" but are psychologically unnecessary. Lighting changes need to be smoother and slower so the emotional effect on the audience is achieved more subliminally. The openness of the set design works well in the Arts Centre space for sight-lines, but requires greater intensity of stillness to focus us on each character's conflicting feelings. Especially I felt the final stages of Oswald's decline into insanity as the sun rises needed to gradually build more horror in us sitting, looking and listening, before his mother on stage realises what has happened.
Regine (Sarah Chalmers) and her "father" Jacob Engstrand (Richard Anderson) open the play with a strong, lively interchange. Patrick Brammall presents Oswald's dramatic mood changes well. Tony Turner and Naoné Carrell are consistently good, experienced actors. I sense that the production will deepen and intensify through the season.
Ghosts is a highly relevant classic play well worth seeing in this intelligent production - and remember curtain-up is at 7.30, giving plenty of time at the end for coffee and discussion.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 5 September 1997
1997: An Ordinary Day by Franca Rame and Dario Fo and Can't Pay Won't Pay by Dario Fo
An Ordinary Day by Franca Rame and Dario Fo and Can't Pay Won't Pay by Dario Fo. Ugly Duckling and Canberra Independent Artists in the Fo Festival at The Street Theatre Studio 7.30 pm till September 13 (Tuesdays to Saturdays).
The Fo Festival's second opening night last Thursday turned out to be a more exciting evening of theatre than the first night. The band led a more substantial and lively audience, and Can't Pay Won't Pay is not so intent on following logical twists and turns of political polemics as Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
The program alternates Waking Up / Accidental Death with Ordinary Day / Can't Pay on the weekday evenings, but on Saturday September 6 at 5.00 pm Waking Up is teamed with Ordinary Day, while on Saturday evenings Accidental Death and Can't Pay go together. Be prepared for a long evening on Saturdays.
For me, the best combination for performance quality would be Waking Up and Can't Pay Won't Pay. An Ordinary Day makes a slow start because it is presented too naturalistically until towards the end when her "ordinary day" finally gets the better of the woman who no longer wants to commit suicide but is about to be mistakenly committed as insane. The play, like all Rame / Fo plays, is essentially expressionistic and needs to emphasise the humour until the last moment when the reality of life's absurdity hits home.
Can't Pay Won't Pay is much closer to commedia, farce and circus and is performed with appropriate gusto. Its theme - that people must take things into their own hands and not wait for governments, unions or (in the Italian tradition) even the communist party to solve society's problems - is built into the fun revolving around apparently pregnant women rounded out by bags of food nicked from the supermarket whose manager blames "market forces" for high prices. Being light-hearted, like Waking Up, I feel the satirical points sink in more firmly and the characters become more human than in Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Performances will soon settle in: you will need to go to two shows to get the best of the Fo Festival and the best is worth seeing.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Fo Festival's second opening night last Thursday turned out to be a more exciting evening of theatre than the first night. The band led a more substantial and lively audience, and Can't Pay Won't Pay is not so intent on following logical twists and turns of political polemics as Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
The program alternates Waking Up / Accidental Death with Ordinary Day / Can't Pay on the weekday evenings, but on Saturday September 6 at 5.00 pm Waking Up is teamed with Ordinary Day, while on Saturday evenings Accidental Death and Can't Pay go together. Be prepared for a long evening on Saturdays.
For me, the best combination for performance quality would be Waking Up and Can't Pay Won't Pay. An Ordinary Day makes a slow start because it is presented too naturalistically until towards the end when her "ordinary day" finally gets the better of the woman who no longer wants to commit suicide but is about to be mistakenly committed as insane. The play, like all Rame / Fo plays, is essentially expressionistic and needs to emphasise the humour until the last moment when the reality of life's absurdity hits home.
Can't Pay Won't Pay is much closer to commedia, farce and circus and is performed with appropriate gusto. Its theme - that people must take things into their own hands and not wait for governments, unions or (in the Italian tradition) even the communist party to solve society's problems - is built into the fun revolving around apparently pregnant women rounded out by bags of food nicked from the supermarket whose manager blames "market forces" for high prices. Being light-hearted, like Waking Up, I feel the satirical points sink in more firmly and the characters become more human than in Accidental Death of an Anarchist.
Performances will soon settle in: you will need to go to two shows to get the best of the Fo Festival and the best is worth seeing.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 3 September 1997
1997: Waking up by Franca Rame and Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo
Waking up by Franca Rame and Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo. The Fo Festival at The Street Theatre Studio, September 3 - 13, 1997.
The Franca Rame - Dario Fo Company has, since the 1950's, taken their plays of social criticism to the towns and working people of Italy, using pantomime and commedia dell'arte traditions to amuse, educate people in the skills of social analysis, and rouse people to action in the face of corruption and social control by powerful elite groups.
Waking Up is a short, humorous yet ultimately sad study of a working woman who forgets that Sunday is her day off. Anna Voronoff creates a warm, attractive character using excellent mime and voice skills. She is tuned in to Rame's theatrical style: we hear and feel the message.
Accidental Death is a surrealist very funny romp through a story of police corruption, based on a real case of an anarchist's supposed suicide by leaping from the fourth floor window of a police station. Fo's aim is to show that police are corrupt because they are an arm of the law of a society essentially based on corruption. At least that's what his anarchist character says: he doesn't end up committing suicide. Newspaper reporters get it in the neck in this play, and I'm not sure where theatre critics stand.
The performers from the Ugly Duckling Theatre Company are not all as skilled as Anna Voronoff in Waking Up, but they clearly understand the style and purpose of this kind of theatre and the energy rarely flags.
The Fo Festival is under the banner of the Tuggeranong Community Arts Association, bringing together Ugly Duckling (hatched by the John Oakley / Ian Phillips drama classes at the old Stirling College) and the professional arts/theatre collective Canberra Independent Artists. The Rame-Fo plays suit these performers and the times are perhaps ripe for Canberra audiences to appreciate themes of social awareness and conscience.
I may be accused of politicising my review, but Fo would shoot me down if I didn't. I can only say if you think a package is the answer to your workplace relations, then you should see these plays and make up your own mind.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Franca Rame - Dario Fo Company has, since the 1950's, taken their plays of social criticism to the towns and working people of Italy, using pantomime and commedia dell'arte traditions to amuse, educate people in the skills of social analysis, and rouse people to action in the face of corruption and social control by powerful elite groups.
Waking Up is a short, humorous yet ultimately sad study of a working woman who forgets that Sunday is her day off. Anna Voronoff creates a warm, attractive character using excellent mime and voice skills. She is tuned in to Rame's theatrical style: we hear and feel the message.
Accidental Death is a surrealist very funny romp through a story of police corruption, based on a real case of an anarchist's supposed suicide by leaping from the fourth floor window of a police station. Fo's aim is to show that police are corrupt because they are an arm of the law of a society essentially based on corruption. At least that's what his anarchist character says: he doesn't end up committing suicide. Newspaper reporters get it in the neck in this play, and I'm not sure where theatre critics stand.
The performers from the Ugly Duckling Theatre Company are not all as skilled as Anna Voronoff in Waking Up, but they clearly understand the style and purpose of this kind of theatre and the energy rarely flags.
The Fo Festival is under the banner of the Tuggeranong Community Arts Association, bringing together Ugly Duckling (hatched by the John Oakley / Ian Phillips drama classes at the old Stirling College) and the professional arts/theatre collective Canberra Independent Artists. The Rame-Fo plays suit these performers and the times are perhaps ripe for Canberra audiences to appreciate themes of social awareness and conscience.
I may be accused of politicising my review, but Fo would shoot me down if I didn't. I can only say if you think a package is the answer to your workplace relations, then you should see these plays and make up your own mind.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 19 June 1997
1997: For God, Queen and Country by Tommy Murphy (when he was still Thomas)
For God, Queen and Country by Thomas Murphy. Canberra Youth Theatre, directed by Garry Fry. Gorman House Arts Centre June 19 - 28, 1997.
Excellent. Rad. Cool. It was exciting to see a new young playwright's work well presented in an intimate setting. The performing space was in-the-round: even in the back row I was close enough to feel almost in Hugh's bedroom.
Sean Smeaton played Hugh lightly, bemused by his life experience. His relationships with his mother (Suzanne Smith), the girl he was always with (Lucy Vincent), Nathan - the boy next door (Robert Hogarth), Brendan (Edward Cocks) who gets a back-hoe apprenticeship, and the apparition of his Religious Education teacher (played by Renee Bechara) were cleverly encased in his poems.
Hugh is awakened to an understanding of himself by his own poems. Tom Murphy displays, in this character, a quite remarkable insight and sense of irony for a writer only a little older than his creation. He has given the actors material which they could genuinely draw on - the first night suggests that they will fill in the colours more strongly as the season progresses. The script is structured very well, taking us through two-edged laughter and contrasting reflective silences, exploring a theme which is revealed to us only gradually as Hugh's self-awareness grows.
This is work which sits well with Youth Theatre. Everyone - audience, actors, writer and director - felt in tune. Murphy has been strongly supported by the Cultural Centre of his home town Queanbeyan, enabling him to be a delegate at last year's Australian National Playwrights' Conference. He learned there, from observing many plays in workshop, how to turn his original set of poems into theatre. CCQ backed him again for a reading with Intima Theatre, leading to the 1996 Young Playwrights' Weekend where the script was polished and prepared for this production.
There is youthful sincerity, a truth of vision and a professionalism in this work which puts Canberra Youth Theatre on the dramatic map, and bodes well for the future career of Thomas Murphy. It's cool; it's rad; and it's excellent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Excellent. Rad. Cool. It was exciting to see a new young playwright's work well presented in an intimate setting. The performing space was in-the-round: even in the back row I was close enough to feel almost in Hugh's bedroom.
Sean Smeaton played Hugh lightly, bemused by his life experience. His relationships with his mother (Suzanne Smith), the girl he was always with (Lucy Vincent), Nathan - the boy next door (Robert Hogarth), Brendan (Edward Cocks) who gets a back-hoe apprenticeship, and the apparition of his Religious Education teacher (played by Renee Bechara) were cleverly encased in his poems.
Hugh is awakened to an understanding of himself by his own poems. Tom Murphy displays, in this character, a quite remarkable insight and sense of irony for a writer only a little older than his creation. He has given the actors material which they could genuinely draw on - the first night suggests that they will fill in the colours more strongly as the season progresses. The script is structured very well, taking us through two-edged laughter and contrasting reflective silences, exploring a theme which is revealed to us only gradually as Hugh's self-awareness grows.
This is work which sits well with Youth Theatre. Everyone - audience, actors, writer and director - felt in tune. Murphy has been strongly supported by the Cultural Centre of his home town Queanbeyan, enabling him to be a delegate at last year's Australian National Playwrights' Conference. He learned there, from observing many plays in workshop, how to turn his original set of poems into theatre. CCQ backed him again for a reading with Intima Theatre, leading to the 1996 Young Playwrights' Weekend where the script was polished and prepared for this production.
There is youthful sincerity, a truth of vision and a professionalism in this work which puts Canberra Youth Theatre on the dramatic map, and bodes well for the future career of Thomas Murphy. It's cool; it's rad; and it's excellent.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 25 May 1997
1997: The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare. The Bell Shakespeare Company directed by Adam Cook at the Canberra Theatre. May 24 - 31, 1997. Starring John Bell, Deidre Rubenstein, Ron Haddrick, Heather Mitchell.
This is an excellent production, not to be missed - yet not quite as wonderful as it might be.
Maybe it's churlish to criticise a company of such standards, where every actor so technically skilled. Clever artifice makes it hard for me to be sure of my grounds, but there seemed to be something missing in the first half, though all was redeemed in the second.
I was disappointed by the bear. In this production, lights and sound for "Exit, pursued by a bear" combined to create the right dramatic effect, but oddly the image of the bear was not clear enough for those who do not know the script well. Leontes wore a cloak of bear skin, later worn again by the shepherd's son after the truth about Perdita has been revealed. The symbolic linking was surely intended - so why was the the image of the bear not held so that we really knew it was a bear: the representation of Leontes' "shadow"?
I found a fatal flaw in the first encounter between Polixenes and Leontes. Polixenes, after a nine month stay, announces he will leave Leontes' court "to-morrow". Leontes, in Bell's version, has decided that something is going on between the pregnant Hermione and Polixenes: he opens with vicious jealousy. Why, when we are told in Scene I that Leontes and Polixenes have had such a strong affection since childhood? Scene II needs to begin with Polixenes genuinely not wanting to go, catching himself by surprise when he says "that's to-morrow"; while Leontes accepts his friend's necessary decision, and then is himself taken by surprise by Hermione's success in reversing the decision.
The first inkling of jealousy should appear only as Leontes reminds Hermione of her accepting his marriage proposal. Then we could see an honest Leontes trapped in the twists and turns of jealousy, triggered by a misinterpretation of a minor event. John Bell's Leontes was too evil from the start for me to believe in his redemption at the end.
You should see The Winter's Tale. The end is beautiful, and you may find me quite wrong about the first half.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is an excellent production, not to be missed - yet not quite as wonderful as it might be.
Maybe it's churlish to criticise a company of such standards, where every actor so technically skilled. Clever artifice makes it hard for me to be sure of my grounds, but there seemed to be something missing in the first half, though all was redeemed in the second.
I was disappointed by the bear. In this production, lights and sound for "Exit, pursued by a bear" combined to create the right dramatic effect, but oddly the image of the bear was not clear enough for those who do not know the script well. Leontes wore a cloak of bear skin, later worn again by the shepherd's son after the truth about Perdita has been revealed. The symbolic linking was surely intended - so why was the the image of the bear not held so that we really knew it was a bear: the representation of Leontes' "shadow"?
I found a fatal flaw in the first encounter between Polixenes and Leontes. Polixenes, after a nine month stay, announces he will leave Leontes' court "to-morrow". Leontes, in Bell's version, has decided that something is going on between the pregnant Hermione and Polixenes: he opens with vicious jealousy. Why, when we are told in Scene I that Leontes and Polixenes have had such a strong affection since childhood? Scene II needs to begin with Polixenes genuinely not wanting to go, catching himself by surprise when he says "that's to-morrow"; while Leontes accepts his friend's necessary decision, and then is himself taken by surprise by Hermione's success in reversing the decision.
The first inkling of jealousy should appear only as Leontes reminds Hermione of her accepting his marriage proposal. Then we could see an honest Leontes trapped in the twists and turns of jealousy, triggered by a misinterpretation of a minor event. John Bell's Leontes was too evil from the start for me to believe in his redemption at the end.
You should see The Winter's Tale. The end is beautiful, and you may find me quite wrong about the first half.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1997: News item on the Swan Shakespeare Foundation of Australia
Canberra is currently the Shakespeare capital of the nation. The Bell Shakespeare Company has opened its national tour of The Winter's Tale here, and at a small-scale launching ceremony of a large-scale project in the Green Room of the Canberra Theatre last Saturday, the Artistic Director John Bell, AM, signed an agreement with the Swan Shakespeare Foundation of Australia making The Winter's Tale the first production in The Season of the Canon.
The Swan Foundation, the culmination of a dream of Hazel Treweek, MBE, OAM, will celebrate Shakespeare's canon by reaching agreement with companies across Australia to perform all of Shakespeare's 37 plays, all his sonnets and his five other major poetic works. Productions will take place from May 24 1997 to May 24 1999, commemorating Shakespeare's becoming one of the 'householders', with a 10 per cent share, of the new Globe Theatre in 1599.
There are currently fifteen companies, university departments and individuals in the Foundation's program, supported by a large range of sponsorships. Personal donations have provided the start-up money including a substantial amount from Thailand. The Thai Government was represented at the launch by Mr Krairawee Sirikul, First Secretary, Cultural Attaché.
The Foundation is seeking expressions of interest from companies under several category headings: professional companies; amateur companies of exceptional standard; community theatre and musical societies; university drama schools and societies; and a special category of professional children's theatre.
Contacts for the Swan Foundation are the President, Hazel Treweek (02-9416-3939) or the Artistic Director, Peter Edge (02-9743-6330).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Swan Foundation, the culmination of a dream of Hazel Treweek, MBE, OAM, will celebrate Shakespeare's canon by reaching agreement with companies across Australia to perform all of Shakespeare's 37 plays, all his sonnets and his five other major poetic works. Productions will take place from May 24 1997 to May 24 1999, commemorating Shakespeare's becoming one of the 'householders', with a 10 per cent share, of the new Globe Theatre in 1599.
There are currently fifteen companies, university departments and individuals in the Foundation's program, supported by a large range of sponsorships. Personal donations have provided the start-up money including a substantial amount from Thailand. The Thai Government was represented at the launch by Mr Krairawee Sirikul, First Secretary, Cultural Attaché.
The Foundation is seeking expressions of interest from companies under several category headings: professional companies; amateur companies of exceptional standard; community theatre and musical societies; university drama schools and societies; and a special category of professional children's theatre.
Contacts for the Swan Foundation are the President, Hazel Treweek (02-9416-3939) or the Artistic Director, Peter Edge (02-9743-6330).
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 22 May 1997
1997: Sitomania by Odd Productions
Sitomania. Odd Productions at the Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, Gorman House. May 22 - 24, 1997, at 8.00 pm with late shows on Friday and Saturday at 10.30 pm.
On the one hand "this show is inspired by the 21st Century", but on the other "this project is made from completely recycled and borrowed materials."
I think these program notes define the parameters of this humorous study of the seven deadly sins - so much so that all die except Pride, who is clearly clinically paranoid. Maybe self-serving obsessiveness with "brilopads (sic), nailbrushes, disinfectants and detergents" is what the 21st Century promises. "My life is steeped in meaning. I know what's going on, I watch the news everyday."
The cynicism which makes us laugh as we walk around this little theatre watching Lust (Tim Wood), Greed (Rebecca Rutter), Sloth (Anne-Marie Sinclair, also the director), Gluttony (Remo Vallance), Anger (Rohini Sharma) and Envy (Kelly Ryall) act out the story told, more or less, by Pride (Estelle Muspratt) is probably the new element in this drama. There is lots of social criticism but no sense of social purpose. I suppose it's a kind of black farce.
Oddly enough, though, the theatrical style of Sitomania seems to me almost old-fashioned in the mid-1990's. The audience is not seated - not comfortable and relaxed. You can expect to participate in twisted versions of The Price is Right or Ballroom Dancing. Yet none of this is done with as much flair or challenge as The Open Theatre did in the 1960's. Maybe only explicit penile representations and real bare bums push the old limits a little.
Even the idea of mediaeval morality belongs to The Seventh Seal or to myriad teenage drama creations. However, the use of mixed-media and much of the acting was well done. The set is engaging in its detail. Pride's Windex even gets up your nose as she cleans her cigarettes before drawing back the tar.
It's a bit like being inside a living Roald Dahl story. So don't go if you are old and staid, but if you like standing up for an hour, being bombarded by images and taken on a twisted fairy-story journey, you won't be bored.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
On the one hand "this show is inspired by the 21st Century", but on the other "this project is made from completely recycled and borrowed materials."
I think these program notes define the parameters of this humorous study of the seven deadly sins - so much so that all die except Pride, who is clearly clinically paranoid. Maybe self-serving obsessiveness with "brilopads (sic), nailbrushes, disinfectants and detergents" is what the 21st Century promises. "My life is steeped in meaning. I know what's going on, I watch the news everyday."
The cynicism which makes us laugh as we walk around this little theatre watching Lust (Tim Wood), Greed (Rebecca Rutter), Sloth (Anne-Marie Sinclair, also the director), Gluttony (Remo Vallance), Anger (Rohini Sharma) and Envy (Kelly Ryall) act out the story told, more or less, by Pride (Estelle Muspratt) is probably the new element in this drama. There is lots of social criticism but no sense of social purpose. I suppose it's a kind of black farce.
Oddly enough, though, the theatrical style of Sitomania seems to me almost old-fashioned in the mid-1990's. The audience is not seated - not comfortable and relaxed. You can expect to participate in twisted versions of The Price is Right or Ballroom Dancing. Yet none of this is done with as much flair or challenge as The Open Theatre did in the 1960's. Maybe only explicit penile representations and real bare bums push the old limits a little.
Even the idea of mediaeval morality belongs to The Seventh Seal or to myriad teenage drama creations. However, the use of mixed-media and much of the acting was well done. The set is engaging in its detail. Pride's Windex even gets up your nose as she cleans her cigarettes before drawing back the tar.
It's a bit like being inside a living Roald Dahl story. So don't go if you are old and staid, but if you like standing up for an hour, being bombarded by images and taken on a twisted fairy-story journey, you won't be bored.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 20 May 1997
1997: Short preview of Bell Shakespeare - Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr
The Bell Shakespeare Company has grown four tentacles, two of which reach out to Canberra this week. The main company opens its 1997 tour with The Winter's Tale at the Canberra Theatre on Saturday. The theatre-in-education company, on contract to Young Australia Workshop, is performing Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes at the Albert Hall during weekdays for primary schools.
Bell Shakespeare has taken on a tradition which has a long history in Australia: taking Shakespeare to the people in large and small communities across the country. Their high school education team, Actors at Work, workshops scenes from the Bard with teenage students, following in the footsteps of the Young Elizabethan Players of 30 years ago. The fourth team presents Shakespeare Without Technology, currently performing Macbeth in rural towns. These are minimal productions, rather along the lines of those on the goldfields a century and a half ago.
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is the story of Sadako Sasaki who died from leukemia at the age of eleven, nine years after the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Bravery in the face of inevitable death, and the spiritual positives in the Japanese culture, are the themes of Eleanor Coerr's narrative, adapted for the stage and directed by Chris Canute.
The Bell Company decided that Shakespeare should be left to older audiences, but for younger children this play has the same effect as any of his tragedies. Re-telling of traumatic memories can help someone cope with a dreadful past, and theatre can do the same for a whole society. Sadako tries to make a thousand paper cranes before she dies, a task which was completed by the other children in her school. Her statue stands in the Peace Park in Hiroshima. Her mother's haiku poem says:
Out of coloured paper
the cranes come flying
into our house.
The play ends with: This is our prayer - Peace in the World.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Bell Shakespeare has taken on a tradition which has a long history in Australia: taking Shakespeare to the people in large and small communities across the country. Their high school education team, Actors at Work, workshops scenes from the Bard with teenage students, following in the footsteps of the Young Elizabethan Players of 30 years ago. The fourth team presents Shakespeare Without Technology, currently performing Macbeth in rural towns. These are minimal productions, rather along the lines of those on the goldfields a century and a half ago.
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes is the story of Sadako Sasaki who died from leukemia at the age of eleven, nine years after the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Bravery in the face of inevitable death, and the spiritual positives in the Japanese culture, are the themes of Eleanor Coerr's narrative, adapted for the stage and directed by Chris Canute.
The Bell Company decided that Shakespeare should be left to older audiences, but for younger children this play has the same effect as any of his tragedies. Re-telling of traumatic memories can help someone cope with a dreadful past, and theatre can do the same for a whole society. Sadako tries to make a thousand paper cranes before she dies, a task which was completed by the other children in her school. Her statue stands in the Peace Park in Hiroshima. Her mother's haiku poem says:
Out of coloured paper
the cranes come flying
into our house.
The play ends with: This is our prayer - Peace in the World.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 8 May 1997
1997: Dimboola by Jack Hibberd
Dimboola by Jack Hibberd at Woden Tradesmen's Union Club. Thursdays only. Tempo Theatre directed by Myles Leon.
Laid-ees an gennul-men. I'd like t' begin, first up - an' up's always better th'n down, except in relation to drink, when down's definitely better th'n up - it won't be easy, an' it won't be 'ard, so I 'ope yer all enjoyin' yerselfs, 'cos I'm 'aving a good time ternight.
Excuse me.
'Allo, 'oo are you, eh? You'se look like an interlecshul.
Yes, well I write for the local newspaper, you see.
Toffy nosed bastard, eh?
Well I do find it hard to believe that ordinary Australians could behave in such a manner at a wedding reception for their own sons and daughters. There seems to be no moral dignity on what should be an occasion for genuine celebration of future joy, family values and the unity of marriage.
Er, what wus that? 'Oo 've you been talkin' to - that Pauline Hanson? You 'aving a go at us, or something. Listen, mate - and I calls yer a mate advisedly - if you can't get up on the floor 'ere and partake in a bit of line dancin', or join the Canadian three-step (just ignore these stupid drunken bastards), then you don't belong 'ere, see?
Well, yes, I suppose I do. Maybe I should leave now.
Aarr, no, mate, stay about for a bit. Yer see, the priest's gotta give 'is speech yet (though you've gotta watch Father Pat or 'e'll be looking up yer skirt, or worse if yer a boy). And Donna's gonna sing Ave Maria again at the end, and yer can't miss that. An' you've gotta sing "Fer they yar jolly good fellows" an' "More beer, more beer" (that's meant ter be "Auld Lang Syne" o'course, but you won't get any o' this mob ter sing the right words!)
So I stayed about, and I would like to thank the ladies who did the decorations and everyone else from Tempo Theatre for putting on a bright and lively show, and the Tradies for the wine, an' fin'lly I'sh like to shay Thursday's a great nigh' s'long as yer don't have ter work on Friday! No worries, mate.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Laid-ees an gennul-men. I'd like t' begin, first up - an' up's always better th'n down, except in relation to drink, when down's definitely better th'n up - it won't be easy, an' it won't be 'ard, so I 'ope yer all enjoyin' yerselfs, 'cos I'm 'aving a good time ternight.
Excuse me.
'Allo, 'oo are you, eh? You'se look like an interlecshul.
Yes, well I write for the local newspaper, you see.
Toffy nosed bastard, eh?
Well I do find it hard to believe that ordinary Australians could behave in such a manner at a wedding reception for their own sons and daughters. There seems to be no moral dignity on what should be an occasion for genuine celebration of future joy, family values and the unity of marriage.
Er, what wus that? 'Oo 've you been talkin' to - that Pauline Hanson? You 'aving a go at us, or something. Listen, mate - and I calls yer a mate advisedly - if you can't get up on the floor 'ere and partake in a bit of line dancin', or join the Canadian three-step (just ignore these stupid drunken bastards), then you don't belong 'ere, see?
Well, yes, I suppose I do. Maybe I should leave now.
Aarr, no, mate, stay about for a bit. Yer see, the priest's gotta give 'is speech yet (though you've gotta watch Father Pat or 'e'll be looking up yer skirt, or worse if yer a boy). And Donna's gonna sing Ave Maria again at the end, and yer can't miss that. An' you've gotta sing "Fer they yar jolly good fellows" an' "More beer, more beer" (that's meant ter be "Auld Lang Syne" o'course, but you won't get any o' this mob ter sing the right words!)
So I stayed about, and I would like to thank the ladies who did the decorations and everyone else from Tempo Theatre for putting on a bright and lively show, and the Tradies for the wine, an' fin'lly I'sh like to shay Thursday's a great nigh' s'long as yer don't have ter work on Friday! No worries, mate.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 3 May 1997
1997: Feature article on Australian National Playwrights' Conference '97
Something peculiar has been going on at this year's Australian National Playwrights' Conference, which ended last Saturday. Returning to its ancient autumnal time slot, preventing me from characterising the playwrights as young Floriade plants going through the process of fertilisation and growth as I did last spring, the Conference seemed more reflective, at least in the sessions I observed.
Usually the Conference is avidly practical, turning scripts into blueprints for production. And indeed we are seeing last week and this, in BOD at The Street Theatre, one result of four years' development started at the 1993 Playwrights' Conference. After BOD's opening night, I found myself at the ANU Arts Centre returning to the beginnings.
The Conference always has too much on to see everything unless one can be a full time aficionado: I saw the final readings of The Other Woman by Heather Nimmo and The Woman in the Window by Alma De Groen.
But the unusual was manifest in the Forum called The Very Peculiar Language of Theatre. Here for more than two hours a panel of five argued with each other and with the audience, despite determined efforts by Elizabeth Perkins (James Cook University) to keep the session in order, on the very esoteric question of what is peculiar about the language of theatre.
Lenora Champagne from New York laid her writing soul on the line: get away from naturalism. Play with the elements of theatre, she said: use light as light; the actor as the actor. Work the language and make it extreme. Be poetic, peculiar, eccentric.
But Nicholas Parsons, the writer of the play and film script Dead Heart, after Neill Gladwyn introduced the idea that film and television are limiting compared with theatre, fell about with fury saying that there is no real difference in writing for the different mediums - it's all about telling stories. Except that to me it seemed he meant naturalism all the way.
Ian Robinson and Tom Guttridge seemed to be on the same side as each other, against the devilish Nick, and finally after probably half the audience had had their say, something important came out which caused me to reflect on the qualities of the two readings I attended.
Tom had remarked early on that the relationship between the actors and the audience is "gladiatorial". The language of theatre is not limited by what is set down by the writer, but is a matter of live interaction: audiences are different every night and actors use their skills, their theatrical language ability, to work on the audience and so the play is created anew at each performance.
So what's the writer there for? I concluded that a good writer, using dialogue for the most part, creates an illusion of reality in the script in such a way that directors, designers and actors are given permission, in fact encouragement, to devise their own way of presenting that illusion - of representing that reality.
Maybe this sounds like useless philosophy, but I discovered that Heather Nimmo's play - based on the politics of WA in recent years, centring on the question of how an honest politician can survive an honest mistake - at this stage of its development does not offer the imaginative openings to make it a great play. Set in corridors, party rooms and motels, the script consists almost entirely of two-person talking heads, rather like bad television, and it seems to prove the point of the book by Jerry Mander - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television - that it's impossible to present serious argument on television. The story of The Other Woman is based on reality, but it remains a pale illusion on stage.
Alma De Groen, on the other hand, writes every word so that myriad implications are brought to mind, and so, apparently quite effortlessly, her play can take us back and forth between Stalinist Russia of 1951, a fictional society 300 years in the future, and a sudden flash of Australia right now. The Woman at the Window is potentially a great play because it gives the audience, as Tom Guttridge said in the earlier forum, the freedom to create their own meaning.
So a funny peculiar thing happened to me on the way from the Forum: I discovered a clearer understanding of how to judge a play. To writers, then, I say: listen to Lenora Champagne. Play with all the elements of the theatre - the light and shadow; the sounds and silences; the movements and stillnesses. And be poetic, eccentric, peculiar and extreme.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Usually the Conference is avidly practical, turning scripts into blueprints for production. And indeed we are seeing last week and this, in BOD at The Street Theatre, one result of four years' development started at the 1993 Playwrights' Conference. After BOD's opening night, I found myself at the ANU Arts Centre returning to the beginnings.
The Conference always has too much on to see everything unless one can be a full time aficionado: I saw the final readings of The Other Woman by Heather Nimmo and The Woman in the Window by Alma De Groen.
But the unusual was manifest in the Forum called The Very Peculiar Language of Theatre. Here for more than two hours a panel of five argued with each other and with the audience, despite determined efforts by Elizabeth Perkins (James Cook University) to keep the session in order, on the very esoteric question of what is peculiar about the language of theatre.
Lenora Champagne from New York laid her writing soul on the line: get away from naturalism. Play with the elements of theatre, she said: use light as light; the actor as the actor. Work the language and make it extreme. Be poetic, peculiar, eccentric.
But Nicholas Parsons, the writer of the play and film script Dead Heart, after Neill Gladwyn introduced the idea that film and television are limiting compared with theatre, fell about with fury saying that there is no real difference in writing for the different mediums - it's all about telling stories. Except that to me it seemed he meant naturalism all the way.
Ian Robinson and Tom Guttridge seemed to be on the same side as each other, against the devilish Nick, and finally after probably half the audience had had their say, something important came out which caused me to reflect on the qualities of the two readings I attended.
Tom had remarked early on that the relationship between the actors and the audience is "gladiatorial". The language of theatre is not limited by what is set down by the writer, but is a matter of live interaction: audiences are different every night and actors use their skills, their theatrical language ability, to work on the audience and so the play is created anew at each performance.
So what's the writer there for? I concluded that a good writer, using dialogue for the most part, creates an illusion of reality in the script in such a way that directors, designers and actors are given permission, in fact encouragement, to devise their own way of presenting that illusion - of representing that reality.
Maybe this sounds like useless philosophy, but I discovered that Heather Nimmo's play - based on the politics of WA in recent years, centring on the question of how an honest politician can survive an honest mistake - at this stage of its development does not offer the imaginative openings to make it a great play. Set in corridors, party rooms and motels, the script consists almost entirely of two-person talking heads, rather like bad television, and it seems to prove the point of the book by Jerry Mander - Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television - that it's impossible to present serious argument on television. The story of The Other Woman is based on reality, but it remains a pale illusion on stage.
Alma De Groen, on the other hand, writes every word so that myriad implications are brought to mind, and so, apparently quite effortlessly, her play can take us back and forth between Stalinist Russia of 1951, a fictional society 300 years in the future, and a sudden flash of Australia right now. The Woman at the Window is potentially a great play because it gives the audience, as Tom Guttridge said in the earlier forum, the freedom to create their own meaning.
So a funny peculiar thing happened to me on the way from the Forum: I discovered a clearer understanding of how to judge a play. To writers, then, I say: listen to Lenora Champagne. Play with all the elements of the theatre - the light and shadow; the sounds and silences; the movements and stillnesses. And be poetic, eccentric, peculiar and extreme.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 23 April 1997
1997: Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw
Pygmalion by Bernard Shaw. Sydney Theatre Company, directed by Marion Potts. Canberra Theatre Centre April 22 - 26, 1997.
A friend asked me, expectantly under the exit sign, "Will you write a good review?"
Yes, Yes, Yes.
I wish I had Shaw's wit and wonderful words. All I can report is that this production is "bloody" good. If you think that it's not worth going because My Fair Lady would have to have more glitter, then just remember that "all that glisters is not gold". The original play is pure gold, and Marion Potts has polished it with a sure hand.
The music before the play began was a tad too loud on opening night. It didn't need to be to make the point that this is a comedy of issues which are as relevant in Australia today as in England in 1913 - however egalitarian we think we are.
The beauty of the production is that every actor has control of Shaw's language - and with the great Australian tradition of physical theatre, they create warm humour, a theatre full of laughter in a moment of silence, and the silence of recognition in a moment of chilling laughter on the stage. Bernard Shaw has been accused often enough for writing too many words. Here at last is a director who has understood the words as vehicles for her actors. And they drive the action along with terrific energy.
The audience even applauded a scene change, as well as many scenes. Jonathan Hardy, (Alfred Doolittle as a Gough Whitlam look alike), led the way with his first "middle class morality" speech. For Eliza we silently applauded the skill with which Anita Hegh led us from broad slapstick in the "gutter", through frustration with little boy Higgins (Luciano Martucci), to her final test of her "creator" and recognition that her strength is in her independence.
Pygmalion's mythical sculptor, Galatea, created a real woman who, ironically, did not love him as he hoped. Higgins, indeed all of us who are parents, partners, teachers or mentors, are in the same plight. La commedia e finita - or at least it will on Saturday: don't miss it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
A friend asked me, expectantly under the exit sign, "Will you write a good review?"
Yes, Yes, Yes.
I wish I had Shaw's wit and wonderful words. All I can report is that this production is "bloody" good. If you think that it's not worth going because My Fair Lady would have to have more glitter, then just remember that "all that glisters is not gold". The original play is pure gold, and Marion Potts has polished it with a sure hand.
The music before the play began was a tad too loud on opening night. It didn't need to be to make the point that this is a comedy of issues which are as relevant in Australia today as in England in 1913 - however egalitarian we think we are.
The beauty of the production is that every actor has control of Shaw's language - and with the great Australian tradition of physical theatre, they create warm humour, a theatre full of laughter in a moment of silence, and the silence of recognition in a moment of chilling laughter on the stage. Bernard Shaw has been accused often enough for writing too many words. Here at last is a director who has understood the words as vehicles for her actors. And they drive the action along with terrific energy.
The audience even applauded a scene change, as well as many scenes. Jonathan Hardy, (Alfred Doolittle as a Gough Whitlam look alike), led the way with his first "middle class morality" speech. For Eliza we silently applauded the skill with which Anita Hegh led us from broad slapstick in the "gutter", through frustration with little boy Higgins (Luciano Martucci), to her final test of her "creator" and recognition that her strength is in her independence.
Pygmalion's mythical sculptor, Galatea, created a real woman who, ironically, did not love him as he hoped. Higgins, indeed all of us who are parents, partners, teachers or mentors, are in the same plight. La commedia e finita - or at least it will on Saturday: don't miss it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 13 April 1997
1997: Bod by Elaine Acworth - feature article and review by Peter Wilkins
[BOD was directed by Carol Woodrow. At the time Frank McKone was Chair of the Board of her company, Wildwood Theatre, and therefore could not review the production. Peter Wilkins, with Alanna Maclean and Frank McKone were the regular review team for the Canberra Times at this time.]
Elaine Acworth sat shocked in her small London flat as the stark images of Chinese oppression during the 1988 Tibetan uprising flashed across her small television screen. Sequestered within the austere gloom of Thatcher’s dismantled nation, Acworth’s political consciousness was vividly ignited into a passion that would inspire a seven year journey to bring her epic tribute to Tibetan courage to the stage. BOD (pronounced “peu” - the Tibetan name for the province of Tibet) was born in the flickering images of extraordinary home footage. “It was unbelievable and the roughness of the quality of the footage added to the feeling of panic and chaos that was happening in the streets. Monks were being beaten; people were being coshed over the heads. Shots rang out as monks, in Buddhist robes, ran for their lives through the streets of Lhasa.”
The journey had begun for the Australian actor, who had come to London’s E15 School of Acting and discovered, not the fame and fortune of the stage, but the passions and beliefs of the playwright. In front of the horrific images of brutality, and appalled at the news of a monk’s self immolation, Acworth started thinking about the level of commitment and belief that was involved in that ultimate sacrifice. For her, the clergy were actually representing the voice of freedom. The voice of the writer was giving expression to questions that would guide her seven year quest.
The panoramic themes of her epic were beginning to emerge. The spirit of the Tibetan people came alive in the streets as they struggled to maintain the requirements of human dignity, and regain the ability to live the life one actually wishes to live. “I started getting tremendously interested about what was happening in the country and thinking how people maintain themselves in these circumstances. How do you continue to do things that are important to you? How do you celebrate your religion when you’re officially not allowed to? What happens to your language when it is no longer the currency of education?”
The burning, universal questions roll off the tongue and fuel the themes of Acworth’s flaming passion. “When Life is your belief, and you face losing it, how do you choose? How do you maintain your own integrity, and the things you believe in against this eternal onslaught?” BOD’s director, Carol Woodrow, adds reverently, “The central question of the play.” She contributes her view on Acworth’s themes. “Life is about hope, rolling with the punches - nothing is fixed, permanent. It is about change. If you cannot practise your faith where you are, then you take it with you.”
The vast questions of faith, spirituality and myth defied containment in Acworth’s first work - 120 pages long; with 30 characters in 30 scenes and covering 60 years! “This is not an appropriate play,” Acworth thought. “Go away. Put it away. You don’t have enough skill.”
But BOD refused to go away. In 1991, Acworth visited the western areas of China, bordering what the Chinese refer to as the autonomous province of Tibet. For several months, she steeped herself in the culture and history of the Tibetan nation, discoursing for hours in broken English and sign language with the monks. Gradually BOD began to metamorphose, enriched by research and informed by Acworth’s quest.
“Writers have territories that they’re interested in, and they’ll keep revisiting those territories in different forms.. I realized that every play I’d written had a character who’s died in it. My Dad died when I was very young and that is something I keep reexamining.” Acworth perceives events in the context of a continuum and she is interested in the incessant nature of change. BOD reflects the requirement to constantly adapt to new circumstances, new surroundings. The prevailing question drives her inspiration and gives birth to her epic story of a Tibetan village, prior to and immediately after the 1959 invasion of this holy nation by the Chinese. “How do you maintain the existence of what has been valuable here and how do you allow it to come to life and breathe in these new circumstances - the notions of death, change and hope?”
More reading and research followed these questions. Acworth spoke with Tibetans in London and considered writing a community play, because of a nervousness about writing something that wasn’t from her own culture. However, she soon realized that BOD could not be done as a community play. “Even if the play was not going to be as big as I’d written it, it was still going to be bloody big. It needed performers who could get their heads around story arcs, time shifts and the journey that I was going to ask them to do.
At about the same time, Acworth was lured home to her native Brisbane by the euphoria surrounding the resignation of Bjelke Peterson. She arrived just as the Queensland Theatre Company was soliciting new scripts. Acworth submitted “Torch”, an urban grunge piece about Thatcherite Britiain. On the basis of this she was commissioned to write her own work, and the fairytale dream became “Composing Venus”, which opened the Q.T.C.’s ‘94 season and won the prestigious George Landon-Downe Award in 1993.
Fired with enthusiasm, Acworth submitted Bod for consideration by the Australian National Playwright’s Centre. Mae-Britt Ackerholt, Artistic Director of the ANPC wrote back, “Phenomenal writing. Huge! Do you want to come down and do some development work?” This had been the first time that such an offer had been made to a playwright. BOD was emerging from its cocoon.
Carol Woodrow takes up the story. “Mae-Britt rang me and said, “Look, I have this extraordinary piece of writing. I don’t think it’s somewhere near a play, but I can’t ignore it. I don’t know what you can do with it,but you’re the right director for it.” Woodrow remembers those early impressions: “mind-blowing, impossible to stage but fantastic, just fantastic.” I ask her what she found fantastic about it. “Incredible quality of writing - incredibly poetic, muscular, layered, deep, complex - like no Australian work I have ever encountered - the language itself was like bonfire stuff. I just fell in love with it.”
After two weeks of round the clock immersion, Woodrow and Acworth felt that they had discovered the spine of this epic of myth, spirituality, history and generational flow. Delegates at the Conference were fascinated by the rough, skeletal outline that was presented.
“It’s the pull of the play.” explains Woodrow. “It winds people into it. People become passionate and absorbed and committed to it. It feels like climbing Mount Everest, and we have to be very prepared for it.” Acworth adds, “BOD exemplifies that nothing is permanent, and everything changes its course. It (the play) has its own will. It’s the one that’s in charge. I’m just a medium. It runs itself. I don’t run it.”
I am tugged by the density of the myth and ideas through this layered story of faith, hope, war and compassion. Director and playwright seduce me with their fiery passion. I am filled with curiosity and possessed by a sense of connection with the heart. Woodrow expresses it in words. “The grabbing thing was that you just started to love these people. You laugh with them, around them in this core of humanity. It’s hard to sell the show, because every time you talk about it, it’s so heavy, but it’s so light. People are so rich and truthful and interesting and funny, expressing the huge generous humour of the Tibetan people.”
I wonder how I will ever express such vast humanity within this deeply layered, intriguing and powerful story in just one brief interview. We’ve already been swept along by BOD’s all-encompassing will for two hours, and so much more remains unsaid. What of the huge presence of the female, or the interwoven symbolism of the Creation Myths or the stories of the characters, the intimate village life, the life of the court, and the history of oppression, invasion and the struggle for survival.
“Do as little about me as you can,” Acworth concludes. “Concentrate on the play.”
Muse and myth fuse and reveal a writer of great humanity and compassion. Her journey of seven years now draws to a close. The time is right. Playwright and play are prepared to meet their audience. The spell is cast on an epic scale and the medium prepares to entrance with her labour of love. In a world of incessant change , one thing remains certain. For those fortunate enough to see the culmination of Acworth’s search for enlightenment, nothing will ever be quite the same.
REVIEW BY PETER WILKINS
Bod by Elaine Acworth. Directed by Carol Woodrow. Wildwood. The Street Theatre. May 1-3;6-10, 1997, at 8 p.m. Matinees May 3rd and 10th, at 2 p.m. Professional
The Street Theatre has launched its premiere season of contemporary Australian plays with the difficult birth of a drama of mythical grandeur, penetrating inquiry, richly textured language and epic narrative. Bod spans the life of a Tibetan village over 30 years, leading up to the Chinese invasion of 1959 and beyond. It is a tale of struggle against oppression, survival against all odds and the power of faith against adversity. It is the story of Thangme and his training to become a monk It is the moving account of a mother’s resolute will to fight for her family, her village and her way of life. It is the tragic chronicle of invasion and subjugation of an innocent people by the dark forces of tyranny. It is a metaphor for Life.
Like a new born colt, Bod totters uneasily upon its infant legs. The first act is overladen with images of myth and ritual, which, although visually striking and atmospheric, obscure the story of innocent souls, who live out their simple acts of faith and existence beneath Tibet’s lofty peaks. Woodrow’s action is excessively rumbustious as she strives to deal with Acworth’s dense mythology, Amanda McNamara’s magnificently expansive set and Nyree Smith’s evocative lighting. The production elements envelop the Street Theatre stage with professional gloss, but the talented ensemble of actors struggle throughout the first act to reveal a narrative that will breathe life into their characters and touch the audience with their story. Only Edward Wightman as the humorous and appealing Small, the Lama’s attendant, and Danielle Antaki in the dual role of Youdan, the mother, and Tag Senmo, the rock ogress, achieve the necessary stillness and depth of characterization.
In the second act, writer and director allow the characters to tell their tale, and the sweeping saga of a people’s spirit begins to move us with its humanity and truth. Wildwood and The Street Theatre have given this play breath in a new-born production that manifests the promise of Bod’s future life.
© Peter Wilkins, published here by kind permission.
Saturday, 12 April 1997
1997: Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark
Whose Life Is It Anyway? by Brian Clark. Director, Colin Anderson. Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3. Wednesdays to Saturdays April 11 to May 3.
A sculptor lies paralysed from the neck down. His injuries are "stabilised": he requires 24 hour nursing to keep him "alive". A man of intelligence and wit, Ken Harrison (Allan Cope) instructs a solicitor to argue for his release from hospital - to his certain death. Senior Dr Emerson (Ian Carcary), under oath to preserve life, uses the Mental Health Act to keep him in hosptial.
Like Justice Millhouse (Fay Butcher) I must try to make a balanced judgement: she, about the man's dilemma; I, about production values. The evidence she hears for clinical depression is unsustained: she concludes Harrison's freedom to make his own decision is paramount. I found evidence of theatrical dilemma, but not certain death.
The play's life is in Colin Anderson's hands, in Brian Clark's 1978 text, and in the minds of a sympathetic audience responding to Michael Moore's withdrawal of his active euthanasia bill following the passing of Andrews' bill in the Senate.
The text is dated: it's a theatre-in-education piece of its period, where characters represent aspects of an Issue, and the audience should have a class discussion with Teacher's Notes. Because the director did not properly respect this theatrical form, there was confusion between stylised set design and blocking of movements (which belong to the form) and naturalistic acting (which does not). Rep being largely a voluntary theatre group, actors' ability to produce naturalistic performance is quite variable: Alison Murphy (Sister Anderson) proved the value of her training; while Lainie Hart (Nurse Sadler) and Chris Fox (John) were the natural talents. Allan Cope struggled with an impossible task through the first act, warmed up in the second, but had nowhere to go at the end. Tightly controlled levels and timing (to stylise the acting) could have created much greater emotional responses to the issues.
The committed audience, however, despite my gritty criticisms, resonated to the feelings and thoughts raised by the play, praising the actors with strong applause at curtain call. The play, like Ken Harrison, if not entirely in the best condition, has a life of its own.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
A sculptor lies paralysed from the neck down. His injuries are "stabilised": he requires 24 hour nursing to keep him "alive". A man of intelligence and wit, Ken Harrison (Allan Cope) instructs a solicitor to argue for his release from hospital - to his certain death. Senior Dr Emerson (Ian Carcary), under oath to preserve life, uses the Mental Health Act to keep him in hosptial.
Like Justice Millhouse (Fay Butcher) I must try to make a balanced judgement: she, about the man's dilemma; I, about production values. The evidence she hears for clinical depression is unsustained: she concludes Harrison's freedom to make his own decision is paramount. I found evidence of theatrical dilemma, but not certain death.
The play's life is in Colin Anderson's hands, in Brian Clark's 1978 text, and in the minds of a sympathetic audience responding to Michael Moore's withdrawal of his active euthanasia bill following the passing of Andrews' bill in the Senate.
The text is dated: it's a theatre-in-education piece of its period, where characters represent aspects of an Issue, and the audience should have a class discussion with Teacher's Notes. Because the director did not properly respect this theatrical form, there was confusion between stylised set design and blocking of movements (which belong to the form) and naturalistic acting (which does not). Rep being largely a voluntary theatre group, actors' ability to produce naturalistic performance is quite variable: Alison Murphy (Sister Anderson) proved the value of her training; while Lainie Hart (Nurse Sadler) and Chris Fox (John) were the natural talents. Allan Cope struggled with an impossible task through the first act, warmed up in the second, but had nowhere to go at the end. Tightly controlled levels and timing (to stylise the acting) could have created much greater emotional responses to the issues.
The committed audience, however, despite my gritty criticisms, resonated to the feelings and thoughts raised by the play, praising the actors with strong applause at curtain call. The play, like Ken Harrison, if not entirely in the best condition, has a life of its own.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 20 March 1997
1997: Private Lives by Noël Coward
Private Lives by Noël Coward. Melbourne Theatre Company directed by Roger Hodgman at The Canberra Theatre Centre, March 19 - 22, 1997.
Hodgman and designer Shaun Gurton have turned this well-made play into a small gem - a comedy of upper class British manners of 1930 played with a 1990's sensibility. Coward's wit is amusing in its own right: this production adds visual style and comic timing par excellence.
As a critic I am placed by Coward in an invidious position - though nothing compared to some positions of characters in the play. Watch for Victor Prynne (Mark Pegler) on what I can only describe as an art nouveau couch à la exercise bike, opening Act III. And I am not surprised to learn, from Gertrude Lawrence in the excellent program, that the Lord Chamberlain's critical eye focussed severely on the sofa scene - until Noël charmed Lord Cromer with a personal reading and "not a word of Noël's script was censored."
My problem is that if I take the play seriously I shall appear to lack humour like Victor Prynne - a fault which even silly Sybil Chase (played by Rebekah Robertson) recognises. But if I laugh (as I did a lot on opening night) at a playwright which the director's notes refer to as "a thoroughly 'modern' writer" whose name was "synonymous with the sort of smart, witty, decadent and 'fast' image of twenties' youth, which indeed he helped create", then maybe I am undervaluing Noël Coward.
Elyot Chase (Philip Holder) and Amanda Prynne (Nicki Wendt), divorced for five years, use a sophisticated sense of the absurd to deal with accidentally meeting again on their second-time around honeymoons. Coward originally played Elyot, and leaves any critical tendentiousness with no role to play. Yet Amanda refers to her heart being "jagged with sophistication": seeing the funny side can only redeem the vicious ingredient in the chemistry of love for short periods. Though the structure of play has a neat ending, there is no resolution to the chaos of love.
I used to think of Coward as 'decadent', but these actors with this director in Gurton's subtly accurate set, have found a facet - reflecting over 65 years - which shows gem quality after all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Hodgman and designer Shaun Gurton have turned this well-made play into a small gem - a comedy of upper class British manners of 1930 played with a 1990's sensibility. Coward's wit is amusing in its own right: this production adds visual style and comic timing par excellence.
As a critic I am placed by Coward in an invidious position - though nothing compared to some positions of characters in the play. Watch for Victor Prynne (Mark Pegler) on what I can only describe as an art nouveau couch à la exercise bike, opening Act III. And I am not surprised to learn, from Gertrude Lawrence in the excellent program, that the Lord Chamberlain's critical eye focussed severely on the sofa scene - until Noël charmed Lord Cromer with a personal reading and "not a word of Noël's script was censored."
My problem is that if I take the play seriously I shall appear to lack humour like Victor Prynne - a fault which even silly Sybil Chase (played by Rebekah Robertson) recognises. But if I laugh (as I did a lot on opening night) at a playwright which the director's notes refer to as "a thoroughly 'modern' writer" whose name was "synonymous with the sort of smart, witty, decadent and 'fast' image of twenties' youth, which indeed he helped create", then maybe I am undervaluing Noël Coward.
Elyot Chase (Philip Holder) and Amanda Prynne (Nicki Wendt), divorced for five years, use a sophisticated sense of the absurd to deal with accidentally meeting again on their second-time around honeymoons. Coward originally played Elyot, and leaves any critical tendentiousness with no role to play. Yet Amanda refers to her heart being "jagged with sophistication": seeing the funny side can only redeem the vicious ingredient in the chemistry of love for short periods. Though the structure of play has a neat ending, there is no resolution to the chaos of love.
I used to think of Coward as 'decadent', but these actors with this director in Gurton's subtly accurate set, have found a facet - reflecting over 65 years - which shows gem quality after all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 10 March 1997
1997: Water Stories. Song Ngoc Company and Canberra Youth Theatre
Water Stories. Song Ngoc Company and Canberra Youth Theatre. Canberra Festival in Glebe Park. Schools program: Monday March 10 - Thursday March 13, 11 am and 1 pm. General Public: Friday March 14, 7.30 pm. Saturday - Sunday March 15 - 16, 1 pm and 4 pm. Monday March 17, 1 pm. Bookings on 248 5057.
Surely among all these time-slots you can find one to suit. Water Stories is towards the Casino end of Glebe Park, but this is anything but crass materialism.
Song Ngoc has revived the water puppets traditional to their home village in northern Vietnam after decades of war threatened them with extinction. They have been brave enough to collaborate with Australian iconoclasts even to the extent that they have created a wonderful golden kangaroo as the ultimate down-under tourist pointing a camera at everything in Vietnam.
The young primary school children when I saw the show were as fascinated as the adults by the variety, and strangeness, of the mixture of Vietnamese and Australian images - created by puppets of all kinds and Youth Theatre underwater actors, with many weird things on their heads. Among the stories was one of sailing ships arriving on Australian shores, prior to and including the final invasion, seen from our Aborigines' point of view. Captain Cook's Norfolk Broads wherry might have come a long way to get here, but it doesn't match the beautiful barque, perhaps representing William Dampier, the model of which was crafted in Saigon.
In the Vietnamese tradition, the puppets are like dancers working in strict time to the music (which will be played live in the public program). For this show, Le Tuan Hung, with Geoff Grey conducting, has created an aural feast of imagery to match the puppets; and the Canberra Youth Wind Ensemble performs beautifully.
Youth Theatre Director Roland Manderson's efforts in bringing this show together need rewarding - maybe with more financial backing to help take it back to Vietnam to complete the cultural link. I'm sure the children there will be as fascinated as the children here - and greater multicultural understanding can only be of benefit to us all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Surely among all these time-slots you can find one to suit. Water Stories is towards the Casino end of Glebe Park, but this is anything but crass materialism.
Song Ngoc has revived the water puppets traditional to their home village in northern Vietnam after decades of war threatened them with extinction. They have been brave enough to collaborate with Australian iconoclasts even to the extent that they have created a wonderful golden kangaroo as the ultimate down-under tourist pointing a camera at everything in Vietnam.
The young primary school children when I saw the show were as fascinated as the adults by the variety, and strangeness, of the mixture of Vietnamese and Australian images - created by puppets of all kinds and Youth Theatre underwater actors, with many weird things on their heads. Among the stories was one of sailing ships arriving on Australian shores, prior to and including the final invasion, seen from our Aborigines' point of view. Captain Cook's Norfolk Broads wherry might have come a long way to get here, but it doesn't match the beautiful barque, perhaps representing William Dampier, the model of which was crafted in Saigon.
In the Vietnamese tradition, the puppets are like dancers working in strict time to the music (which will be played live in the public program). For this show, Le Tuan Hung, with Geoff Grey conducting, has created an aural feast of imagery to match the puppets; and the Canberra Youth Wind Ensemble performs beautifully.
Youth Theatre Director Roland Manderson's efforts in bringing this show together need rewarding - maybe with more financial backing to help take it back to Vietnam to complete the cultural link. I'm sure the children there will be as fascinated as the children here - and greater multicultural understanding can only be of benefit to us all.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 9 March 1997
1997: Pink Triangles by David Atfield
Pink Triangles, written and directed by David Atfield. BITS Theatre at the Ralph Wilson Theatre, Gorman House. Dramaturgy by Campion Decent. Saturday April 15, 1997.
This was a one-off work-in-progress presentation, aiming at a full touring production in 1998. I think it is a script that has the potential to succeed - though there is something about the first half which worries me.
As I arrived - a balding mid-fifties man, on my own, in a blue shirt, sleeves rolled up (but only to the elbows), neat trousers and gently coloured sleeveless cardigan - I heard a woman say, "We'll be the only straight people here, by the look of it."
I dismissed it at the time, but now I have seen the play through, the assumption this person made that she could tell people's sexuality in a superficial glance stands out not just for its overt prejudice, but because it is this prejudice which sent people perceived as homosexual to Germany's death camps in the 1930's and 40's. More horrifying, if that is possible, is the continuing prejudice after the war, even among the rescuers of the concentration camp victims.
This is a story which must be told, yet David Atfield's research led often to people who would not tell their truths, 50 years later, for fear of humiliation. All of us need to face this reality, and Atfield's play will help us do it.
What worried me was that the first half seemed less focussed than the second. Each vignette is successful individually, but I felt lost without clearer links. In the second half, the stories are juxtaposed so that each one - the gay, the lesbian and the Jew - reflects on the others until we meet the real people, whose stories these are, at the very end.
I don't have a simple answer to this dramaturgical problem - maybe it's to do with turning an almost cabaret style into something more stylistically expressionist - but my hope is that Atfield will continue his work. He has had deserved support so far from the ACT Cultural Council, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Goethe Institut, Canberra. I think we need a full production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This was a one-off work-in-progress presentation, aiming at a full touring production in 1998. I think it is a script that has the potential to succeed - though there is something about the first half which worries me.
As I arrived - a balding mid-fifties man, on my own, in a blue shirt, sleeves rolled up (but only to the elbows), neat trousers and gently coloured sleeveless cardigan - I heard a woman say, "We'll be the only straight people here, by the look of it."
I dismissed it at the time, but now I have seen the play through, the assumption this person made that she could tell people's sexuality in a superficial glance stands out not just for its overt prejudice, but because it is this prejudice which sent people perceived as homosexual to Germany's death camps in the 1930's and 40's. More horrifying, if that is possible, is the continuing prejudice after the war, even among the rescuers of the concentration camp victims.
This is a story which must be told, yet David Atfield's research led often to people who would not tell their truths, 50 years later, for fear of humiliation. All of us need to face this reality, and Atfield's play will help us do it.
What worried me was that the first half seemed less focussed than the second. Each vignette is successful individually, but I felt lost without clearer links. In the second half, the stories are juxtaposed so that each one - the gay, the lesbian and the Jew - reflects on the others until we meet the real people, whose stories these are, at the very end.
I don't have a simple answer to this dramaturgical problem - maybe it's to do with turning an almost cabaret style into something more stylistically expressionist - but my hope is that Atfield will continue his work. He has had deserved support so far from the ACT Cultural Council, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Goethe Institut, Canberra. I think we need a full production.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 25 February 1997
1997: Articles on artstart '97 (arts teachers' workshop / conference)
NOTE for [Arts Editor, the Canberra Times] Helen Musa: I'm sending two pieces. A short piece (275 words) which I think could be used on the Arts page and a longer piece (485 words) which seems better on the Education page. On the other hand you can use some of each if you like and as you like. They want bookings made by February 28, which is probably too soon for publication(?), but I would still include the phone numbers anyway.
Some extra points, in case you need them for your speech:
The conference theme is aimed not just at "breaking down the barriers", but at breaking down (deconstructing, I think) the concept of cultural constructs, and coming to understand different cultural constructions through the arts.
Have they sent you the green sheet with the program on it? It's got terrible typos in it - claimed to be the result of a Level 1 teacher typing it overload.
The major purpose of the workshops is motivational, based on research (according to Phil) which shows a) arts teachers need constant renewal, mostly so that they don't feel so alone; b) arts teachers need opportunities to be artists - to make art, at whatever level, so they have the confidence to work directly with their students.
Another benefit of the workshops is that specialist teachers who are mainly in high schools and colleges are presenting workshops which will include a large proportion of primary teachers as participants, and it is hoped that communication between the sectors will be enhanced.
THEATRE BY FRANK MCKONE
artstart '97 is a program of speakers, workshops and performances presented by ACTATA - the ACT Arts Teachers Association. This year begins with The Arts Bites Back, Friday March 7, 1997, 4.30 - 7.30 pm at the Australian National Gallery and Saturday March 8, all day, at the O'Connell Centre, Griffith.
The keynote speakers are the Arts Editor of The Canberra Times, Helen Musa; Indigenous Arts Liaison Officer, Rob Russell; community theatre director Dominic Mico; and script writer Graham Pitt. This diverse set of speakers will set the scene on Friday night for teachers to put themselves through their artistic paces on Saturday.
The essence of the program is in the theme: Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding. Workshops cover anything from African dance, studio media production, music in the primary classroom, through to curriculum course writing - bring your own disk!
Performances are by Sabrina Kabibi (African Soukousse dance), The Jigsaw Company (Intaglio), Caroline Chisholm High School (Body Bags), ACT Drama Association (Neither Here Nor There), Southern Aurora Jazz Band and, to celebrate International Women's Day, the Australian Education Union Women's Choir.
Many teachers want to be able to put the arts into their classroom programs and here is the way to begin, by participating, experiencing, appreciating and understanding. It's a packed program with lots of choices, but this will be the first in a series which ACTATA will provide in their professional development program for teachers across the arts and from pre-school to college.
ACTATA is a new cross-arts body, so there will also be the first ACTATA AGM - and a dinner if you book in fast. Ring Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125.
__________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION BY FRANK MCKONE
There is an old myth, perpetuated by George Bernard Shaw, who should have known better, that those who can, do and those who can't, teach. Arts teachers in Canberra are organising their professional development to debunk this too common view.
artstart '97: The Arts Bites Back is an evening of keynote speakers, on Friday March 7, followed by a full Saturday of workshops and performances designed to help any teacher - from pre-school to college - learn arts skills which they can pass on in the classroom. The program is centred on the understanding that a teacher in the arts needs to be a maker of art: you can't teach without doing.
Of course, professional development can't happen without money. artstart '97 is the program of a quite new body, ACTATA - ACT Arts Teachers Association. The Drama, Music, Visual Art, Media, and Dance professional associations have joined with the Canberra Cultural Centre, the Australian Catholic University's Arts Factory and NAAE (National Affiliation of Arts Educators) based at University of Canberra and have successfully bid for funds from the National Professional Development Program.
Earlier in the 1990's the Federal Government's enquiry into the status of teaching reported that, though teachers provided most of their own professional development through their own associations, teacher-leaders were not rewarded with credentials or remuneration. New arrangements were made for the ACT Department of Education to channel funding, made available through the University of Canberra, through to the teacher associations.
The present Federal Government has cut the National PD Program in its previous form, but a reincarnation is possible through another new body which is in the process of birthing: each state and territory will have a Council of Professional Associations of teachers (covering all curriculum areas) and funds will be channelled through this body.
The Arts Bites Back, using funds handed over last year, has the theme Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding, even though governments seem to favour centralisation and hierarchy. Yet it is also true according to Phil Hopkins (previously Curriculum Executive Officer for the Arts and now teaching at Lanyon High School) that teachers from the different arts areas have come to appreciate the cross-flow of ideas and experiences in ACTATA - and perhaps the Council of Professional Associations will also become an effective co-operative body. In the interim, the ACT no longer has an arts curriculum officer despite the fact that the arts is one of the key learning areas.
Hopefully the new system can be working by the time last year's money runs out - and, hopefully, this government will provide enough funding for the Council to avoid becoming the centre of bitter conflict between different subject areas.
In the meantime, teachers should book to "Heart Start Your Year with Artstart" by ringing Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125. Registration is $20, which includes all catering for Friday evening and Saturday.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Some extra points, in case you need them for your speech:
The conference theme is aimed not just at "breaking down the barriers", but at breaking down (deconstructing, I think) the concept of cultural constructs, and coming to understand different cultural constructions through the arts.
Have they sent you the green sheet with the program on it? It's got terrible typos in it - claimed to be the result of a Level 1 teacher typing it overload.
The major purpose of the workshops is motivational, based on research (according to Phil) which shows a) arts teachers need constant renewal, mostly so that they don't feel so alone; b) arts teachers need opportunities to be artists - to make art, at whatever level, so they have the confidence to work directly with their students.
Another benefit of the workshops is that specialist teachers who are mainly in high schools and colleges are presenting workshops which will include a large proportion of primary teachers as participants, and it is hoped that communication between the sectors will be enhanced.
THEATRE BY FRANK MCKONE
artstart '97 is a program of speakers, workshops and performances presented by ACTATA - the ACT Arts Teachers Association. This year begins with The Arts Bites Back, Friday March 7, 1997, 4.30 - 7.30 pm at the Australian National Gallery and Saturday March 8, all day, at the O'Connell Centre, Griffith.
The keynote speakers are the Arts Editor of The Canberra Times, Helen Musa; Indigenous Arts Liaison Officer, Rob Russell; community theatre director Dominic Mico; and script writer Graham Pitt. This diverse set of speakers will set the scene on Friday night for teachers to put themselves through their artistic paces on Saturday.
The essence of the program is in the theme: Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding. Workshops cover anything from African dance, studio media production, music in the primary classroom, through to curriculum course writing - bring your own disk!
Performances are by Sabrina Kabibi (African Soukousse dance), The Jigsaw Company (Intaglio), Caroline Chisholm High School (Body Bags), ACT Drama Association (Neither Here Nor There), Southern Aurora Jazz Band and, to celebrate International Women's Day, the Australian Education Union Women's Choir.
Many teachers want to be able to put the arts into their classroom programs and here is the way to begin, by participating, experiencing, appreciating and understanding. It's a packed program with lots of choices, but this will be the first in a series which ACTATA will provide in their professional development program for teachers across the arts and from pre-school to college.
ACTATA is a new cross-arts body, so there will also be the first ACTATA AGM - and a dinner if you book in fast. Ring Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125.
__________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION BY FRANK MCKONE
There is an old myth, perpetuated by George Bernard Shaw, who should have known better, that those who can, do and those who can't, teach. Arts teachers in Canberra are organising their professional development to debunk this too common view.
artstart '97: The Arts Bites Back is an evening of keynote speakers, on Friday March 7, followed by a full Saturday of workshops and performances designed to help any teacher - from pre-school to college - learn arts skills which they can pass on in the classroom. The program is centred on the understanding that a teacher in the arts needs to be a maker of art: you can't teach without doing.
Of course, professional development can't happen without money. artstart '97 is the program of a quite new body, ACTATA - ACT Arts Teachers Association. The Drama, Music, Visual Art, Media, and Dance professional associations have joined with the Canberra Cultural Centre, the Australian Catholic University's Arts Factory and NAAE (National Affiliation of Arts Educators) based at University of Canberra and have successfully bid for funds from the National Professional Development Program.
Earlier in the 1990's the Federal Government's enquiry into the status of teaching reported that, though teachers provided most of their own professional development through their own associations, teacher-leaders were not rewarded with credentials or remuneration. New arrangements were made for the ACT Department of Education to channel funding, made available through the University of Canberra, through to the teacher associations.
The present Federal Government has cut the National PD Program in its previous form, but a reincarnation is possible through another new body which is in the process of birthing: each state and territory will have a Council of Professional Associations of teachers (covering all curriculum areas) and funds will be channelled through this body.
The Arts Bites Back, using funds handed over last year, has the theme Towards a Diverse Cultural Understanding, even though governments seem to favour centralisation and hierarchy. Yet it is also true according to Phil Hopkins (previously Curriculum Executive Officer for the Arts and now teaching at Lanyon High School) that teachers from the different arts areas have come to appreciate the cross-flow of ideas and experiences in ACTATA - and perhaps the Council of Professional Associations will also become an effective co-operative body. In the interim, the ACT no longer has an arts curriculum officer despite the fact that the arts is one of the key learning areas.
Hopefully the new system can be working by the time last year's money runs out - and, hopefully, this government will provide enough funding for the Council to avoid becoming the centre of bitter conflict between different subject areas.
In the meantime, teachers should book to "Heart Start Your Year with Artstart" by ringing Phil Hopkins on 205 7676 or Naomi Nicholson on 205 6125. Registration is $20, which includes all catering for Friday evening and Saturday.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 23 February 1997
1997: The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto
The Shoe-Horn Sonata by John Misto. Reading directed by Eulea Kiraly. The Company at Currong Theatre, Sunday February 23, 1997.
The Company began this year's monthly Sunday readings (book on 247 1561) with excellent performances in heat and humidity so bad that everyone agreed to Phil McKenzie's motion that the second half be played outdoors. Though this meant I sat on a rock, both Pat Hutchinson and Helen Vaughan-Roberts maintained my focus. Last year's high standards are clearly established again for 1997.
Why hold readings? Eulea Kiraly explained there are reasons anew each month. Hers was to test this script, winner of the 1995 Australia Remembers National Play Competition, with the intention of full production next year.
The author's reason for writing the play is a justification for production: "In 1995 the United Nations announced that more civilians now die in war than soldiers. Yet they have no equivalent of Anzac Day on which their suffering is recognised. They are simply forgotten....Although the characters of [Australian nurse] Bridie and [English schoolgirl] Sheila are fictional, every incident they describe is true and occurred between 1942 [when they were captured off Singapore] and 1995 [when they met again after 50 years to be interviewed on television]." Their story is horrific and poignant: an indictment of the stupidity of war.
Unfortunately because, I suggest, the TV documentary interviewer provides no critical analysis, all we hear is one side of the history and the play seems to gratuitously reinforce anti-Japanese attitudes. I am sure this was not John Misto's intention, but this is the effect: the script needs more work to put the women's experiences into another context, not to undermine the truth or impact of their story, but to give it greater credence.
I think the journalist making the documentary needs to become more than a male voice-over: perhaps a modern woman making her decisions about how to present these women's war-time experiences and their inevitably biassed attitudes. In their personal relationship, the war finally ends after 50 years of misunderstanding. This idea has to be made a clear symbol for people of all nations to respond to. This for me is the challenge in presenting a full production of The Shoe-Horn Sonata.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Company began this year's monthly Sunday readings (book on 247 1561) with excellent performances in heat and humidity so bad that everyone agreed to Phil McKenzie's motion that the second half be played outdoors. Though this meant I sat on a rock, both Pat Hutchinson and Helen Vaughan-Roberts maintained my focus. Last year's high standards are clearly established again for 1997.
Why hold readings? Eulea Kiraly explained there are reasons anew each month. Hers was to test this script, winner of the 1995 Australia Remembers National Play Competition, with the intention of full production next year.
The author's reason for writing the play is a justification for production: "In 1995 the United Nations announced that more civilians now die in war than soldiers. Yet they have no equivalent of Anzac Day on which their suffering is recognised. They are simply forgotten....Although the characters of [Australian nurse] Bridie and [English schoolgirl] Sheila are fictional, every incident they describe is true and occurred between 1942 [when they were captured off Singapore] and 1995 [when they met again after 50 years to be interviewed on television]." Their story is horrific and poignant: an indictment of the stupidity of war.
Unfortunately because, I suggest, the TV documentary interviewer provides no critical analysis, all we hear is one side of the history and the play seems to gratuitously reinforce anti-Japanese attitudes. I am sure this was not John Misto's intention, but this is the effect: the script needs more work to put the women's experiences into another context, not to undermine the truth or impact of their story, but to give it greater credence.
I think the journalist making the documentary needs to become more than a male voice-over: perhaps a modern woman making her decisions about how to present these women's war-time experiences and their inevitably biassed attitudes. In their personal relationship, the war finally ends after 50 years of misunderstanding. This idea has to be made a clear symbol for people of all nations to respond to. This for me is the challenge in presenting a full production of The Shoe-Horn Sonata.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 8 February 1997
1997: The Tempest by William Shakespeare on Aspen Island
The Tempest on Aspen Island. Directed by Nicholas Bolonkin. February 7 to March 1, 1997, Tuesdays to Sundays 8 pm.
National Summer Shakespeare presentations are an established ritual, and deservedly so. The Tempest, stylistically a conventional production, gains much and loses a little from being performed on Aspen Island. It's strength is the accuracy of the language - accessible Shakespeare in which the sense of every speech is clear.
The spirit world of the island became manifest when the opening storm scene blew up gusty breezes in the trees and Prospero's star appeared as a spectacular meteor over the lake. Each night will be different as far as these natural portents go, but the Carillon tower is an impressive cell for Prospero and cyclorama for lighting effects.
The production is quite spare, focussing on the text and the plot. For my taste, there could have been much more movement, particularly when Prospero recounts the background story to Miranda. I found myself looking for a larger, more magical Prospero to show his power over the whole island. However, as the action moved around the audience, the story began to tell itself and we were drawn in.
Acoustics are problematical, usually because, with the audience in the centre and the action alternating from one side to the other, someone on the edge as I was could find the more distant voices hard to hear. My thought would be to place the audience in four groups so that action could surround them or could take place in the centre for scenes where the words needed to be clearly distinguishable.
Ian Macdonald's music - some Purcell, Dr Arne and his own compositions - and the surround sound effects made the atmosphere come alive, with some nice singing from the spirits. Kate Early's Ariel held together what otherwise can be scattered scenes: her relationship with Prospero was strong and her singing, recorder playing and quality of movement kept up our interest in the character.
There was a relaxed warmth in the air on opening night. I see The Tempest as a worthwhile community event, connecting people from the university and theatre scenes, with an audience looking to renew their acquaintance with an old friend - Shakespeare.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
National Summer Shakespeare presentations are an established ritual, and deservedly so. The Tempest, stylistically a conventional production, gains much and loses a little from being performed on Aspen Island. It's strength is the accuracy of the language - accessible Shakespeare in which the sense of every speech is clear.
The spirit world of the island became manifest when the opening storm scene blew up gusty breezes in the trees and Prospero's star appeared as a spectacular meteor over the lake. Each night will be different as far as these natural portents go, but the Carillon tower is an impressive cell for Prospero and cyclorama for lighting effects.
The production is quite spare, focussing on the text and the plot. For my taste, there could have been much more movement, particularly when Prospero recounts the background story to Miranda. I found myself looking for a larger, more magical Prospero to show his power over the whole island. However, as the action moved around the audience, the story began to tell itself and we were drawn in.
Acoustics are problematical, usually because, with the audience in the centre and the action alternating from one side to the other, someone on the edge as I was could find the more distant voices hard to hear. My thought would be to place the audience in four groups so that action could surround them or could take place in the centre for scenes where the words needed to be clearly distinguishable.
Ian Macdonald's music - some Purcell, Dr Arne and his own compositions - and the surround sound effects made the atmosphere come alive, with some nice singing from the spirits. Kate Early's Ariel held together what otherwise can be scattered scenes: her relationship with Prospero was strong and her singing, recorder playing and quality of movement kept up our interest in the character.
There was a relaxed warmth in the air on opening night. I see The Tempest as a worthwhile community event, connecting people from the university and theatre scenes, with an audience looking to renew their acquaintance with an old friend - Shakespeare.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 7 February 1997
1997: Tony Delarte - Alive at The School of Arts Cafe
Tony Delarte - Alive at The School of Arts Cafe, Queanbeyan. February 6, 7 and 8, 1997. Professional Cabaret.
"If it's de-lightful, if it's de-lovely, it's delarte" says this "sophisticated, sensuous, unassuming megastar" direct from the Purple Pussycat Lounge, Las Vegas - if you can believe it.
Tony Delarte is an interesting character, probably a cousin of Frank Sinatra, even down to the Ol' Blue Eyes, except that he admits to the influence of his Mafioso family. This explains why his technical assistant "accidentally" fell out of his Lear Jet after not doing so good at the Pussycat - and why therefore his (real) assistant had not rehearsed the tape cues. In truth this was the only weakness of the show, though Tony used improvised ironic patter to cover up pretty well.
Patter and banter and direct participation with audience members made what I had feared might have been a simply nostalgic cabaret night into an enjoyable evening of parody. Delarte's turned down mouth and hooded eyes, presented in crafty profile, created a Sinatra-like character with that horribly smooth style and a voice almost as rounded and certainly with the characteristic tonal quality of the godfather of cabaret.
We found ourselves tracing a musical miscellany from songs like "I've got you under my skin" (a little lumpy), through Paul Anka (the Shakespeare of pop music); a rap about rap called "C-rap"; techno gym workout music with accompanying video of Succulente and Slab and a doll to work out with that you can eat afterwards; bar blues so sad that, Delarte claimed, a patron threatened suicide at the toilets out back during interval; Phantom of the Opera in strictly nightclub style; singing along with his cousin Louise Ciccone (Madonna - another family success story) doing her pop thing with Don't Cry for Me, Argentina; and ending with the love theme from Strictly Ballroom, Love is in the Air. And much more.
The food is good, the entertainment great - a hot night in Queanbeyan, the cultural centre of the South East. Or as Delarte's version of Sinatra sings: "New York, New York - just like Queanbeyan - the city that never sleeps. That's where I wanna be."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"If it's de-lightful, if it's de-lovely, it's delarte" says this "sophisticated, sensuous, unassuming megastar" direct from the Purple Pussycat Lounge, Las Vegas - if you can believe it.
Tony Delarte is an interesting character, probably a cousin of Frank Sinatra, even down to the Ol' Blue Eyes, except that he admits to the influence of his Mafioso family. This explains why his technical assistant "accidentally" fell out of his Lear Jet after not doing so good at the Pussycat - and why therefore his (real) assistant had not rehearsed the tape cues. In truth this was the only weakness of the show, though Tony used improvised ironic patter to cover up pretty well.
Patter and banter and direct participation with audience members made what I had feared might have been a simply nostalgic cabaret night into an enjoyable evening of parody. Delarte's turned down mouth and hooded eyes, presented in crafty profile, created a Sinatra-like character with that horribly smooth style and a voice almost as rounded and certainly with the characteristic tonal quality of the godfather of cabaret.
We found ourselves tracing a musical miscellany from songs like "I've got you under my skin" (a little lumpy), through Paul Anka (the Shakespeare of pop music); a rap about rap called "C-rap"; techno gym workout music with accompanying video of Succulente and Slab and a doll to work out with that you can eat afterwards; bar blues so sad that, Delarte claimed, a patron threatened suicide at the toilets out back during interval; Phantom of the Opera in strictly nightclub style; singing along with his cousin Louise Ciccone (Madonna - another family success story) doing her pop thing with Don't Cry for Me, Argentina; and ending with the love theme from Strictly Ballroom, Love is in the Air. And much more.
The food is good, the entertainment great - a hot night in Queanbeyan, the cultural centre of the South East. Or as Delarte's version of Sinatra sings: "New York, New York - just like Queanbeyan - the city that never sleeps. That's where I wanna be."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 3 February 1997
1997: Education feature article on Using Your Brain, inservice conference for teachers
EDUCATION BY FRANK MCKONE
[For further information see http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-interview . Link added 22 September 2015]
When Hawker Brownlow, education publishers, advertised a conference in the second last week of January, during peak Australian beach time, they thought perhaps 300 teachers would attend. But from across Australia, New Zealand and further afield, some 800 people found $400 a more than worthwhile investment, including a dozen from the ACT. Here was a summer school par excellence: with Professor Howard Gardner from the Harvard Graduate School of Education the main presenter, who would not forego three days of sun and sand?
Titled Using Your Brain, this conference at the World Congress Centre, Melbourne, was important not simply because innovative ideas about teaching were given philosophical support, and certainly not as a self-congratulatory talk-fest. Here, at last, real information was presented which scientifically backs the creative approaches which teachers in Australia and Canberra in particular have been experimenting with, developing and improving for more than 20 years.
Professor Gardner told his research story, backed by detailed sessions on teaching practice from already locally known American authors Dr David Lazear (Seven Pathways of Learning) and Dr Robin Fogarty (Blueprints for Thinking in the Co-operative Classroom), as well as widely respected Australian consultants Dr Julia Atkin and Dr John Baird.
The story begins in Paris, 1900, but you won't see it at the National Gallery. A psychologist, Alfred Binet, was asked to "devise some kind of a measure that would predict which youngsters would succeed and which would fail in the primary grades of Paris schools." For nearly a century since then we have lived with the IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which depends on the idea that people's different types of abilities are aspects of just one thing: General Intelligence (g), and convenient tests can be made up to measure 'g' with the average set at 100. People's results can range from very low (below 60 IQ) to occasional prodigies (above 200 IQ).
However, in 1983, after 4 years' research, Gardner published Frames of Mind and introduced the theory of multiple intelligences. He discovered by studying gifted children and brain-damaged people that people's different types of abilities could not be added together and averaged to make 'g'. 80 years after Binet, neurological studies of the brain showed probably seven different "intelligences", only two of which were measured by the standard IQ tests. Each intelligence is distinct, with its own centre in the brain. Some people are good in all seven areas, but each of us has our own personal profile which makes us different from the next person.
Pencil and paper IQ tests only measure Verbal-Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical intelligences. Some others can measure Visual-Spatial intelligence. But the 'g' approach ignored the Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Musical-Rhythmic and Bodily-Kinaesthetic intelligences. As a consequence, our education systems in the western world valued only those areas which could be measured, while the rest have been vilified as Mickey Mouse.
The Multiple Intelligence theory is scientifically derived from neurological studies. More recent techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) support Gardner's theory more strongly today than 15 years ago, and it seems that there may be two more intelligences yet to be revealed - Naturalist and Existential - though claims for these have yet to be thoroughly researched.
Australian teachers have long been suspicious of 'g'. Cook Primary School, with Judy Perry at the helm, has made a special project of teaching through multiple intelligences. Dr Baird's Melbourne-based Project for Enhancing Effective Learning has been widely successful in Scandinavia. Dr Julia Atkin, from Harden - only a short distance from Canberra - works in schools throughout Australia demonstrating her highly practical, how-to-do-it application of learning and thinking theory.
Thanks to this conference, teachers can teach and assess their students' learning not just on tests of the old kind, but by using visual materials; activities like drama, dance, music and song; group interaction activities (interpersonal intelligence); and especially "processfolios". These are collections of activities which students present which reveal the process and progress of their learning in any subject area. Students enhance their intrapersonal intelligence as they publicly reflect on their folios, reassessing their strengths and weaknesses. This is called "metacognition" - thinking about one's own thinking. Where conventional tests, through fear of failure, often cause people's thinking to shut down and rely on simple memorising, processfolios cause people's thinking to open up and expand - and so they learn much more, and more quickly.
Gardner talks of "education for understanding" (not going to school just to get a higher score). If the IQ represents the 20th Century, then multiple intelligences (MI) is the educational stuff of the 21st.
(Note [sent with submission to The Canberra Times]: Photos of the ACT contingent were taken by Irene Lind, Principal, Lyneham Primary School)
© Frank McKone, Canberra
[For further information see http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-interview . Link added 22 September 2015]
When Hawker Brownlow, education publishers, advertised a conference in the second last week of January, during peak Australian beach time, they thought perhaps 300 teachers would attend. But from across Australia, New Zealand and further afield, some 800 people found $400 a more than worthwhile investment, including a dozen from the ACT. Here was a summer school par excellence: with Professor Howard Gardner from the Harvard Graduate School of Education the main presenter, who would not forego three days of sun and sand?
Titled Using Your Brain, this conference at the World Congress Centre, Melbourne, was important not simply because innovative ideas about teaching were given philosophical support, and certainly not as a self-congratulatory talk-fest. Here, at last, real information was presented which scientifically backs the creative approaches which teachers in Australia and Canberra in particular have been experimenting with, developing and improving for more than 20 years.
Professor Gardner told his research story, backed by detailed sessions on teaching practice from already locally known American authors Dr David Lazear (Seven Pathways of Learning) and Dr Robin Fogarty (Blueprints for Thinking in the Co-operative Classroom), as well as widely respected Australian consultants Dr Julia Atkin and Dr John Baird.
The story begins in Paris, 1900, but you won't see it at the National Gallery. A psychologist, Alfred Binet, was asked to "devise some kind of a measure that would predict which youngsters would succeed and which would fail in the primary grades of Paris schools." For nearly a century since then we have lived with the IQ (Intelligence Quotient), which depends on the idea that people's different types of abilities are aspects of just one thing: General Intelligence (g), and convenient tests can be made up to measure 'g' with the average set at 100. People's results can range from very low (below 60 IQ) to occasional prodigies (above 200 IQ).
However, in 1983, after 4 years' research, Gardner published Frames of Mind and introduced the theory of multiple intelligences. He discovered by studying gifted children and brain-damaged people that people's different types of abilities could not be added together and averaged to make 'g'. 80 years after Binet, neurological studies of the brain showed probably seven different "intelligences", only two of which were measured by the standard IQ tests. Each intelligence is distinct, with its own centre in the brain. Some people are good in all seven areas, but each of us has our own personal profile which makes us different from the next person.
Pencil and paper IQ tests only measure Verbal-Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical intelligences. Some others can measure Visual-Spatial intelligence. But the 'g' approach ignored the Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Musical-Rhythmic and Bodily-Kinaesthetic intelligences. As a consequence, our education systems in the western world valued only those areas which could be measured, while the rest have been vilified as Mickey Mouse.
The Multiple Intelligence theory is scientifically derived from neurological studies. More recent techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) support Gardner's theory more strongly today than 15 years ago, and it seems that there may be two more intelligences yet to be revealed - Naturalist and Existential - though claims for these have yet to be thoroughly researched.
Australian teachers have long been suspicious of 'g'. Cook Primary School, with Judy Perry at the helm, has made a special project of teaching through multiple intelligences. Dr Baird's Melbourne-based Project for Enhancing Effective Learning has been widely successful in Scandinavia. Dr Julia Atkin, from Harden - only a short distance from Canberra - works in schools throughout Australia demonstrating her highly practical, how-to-do-it application of learning and thinking theory.
Thanks to this conference, teachers can teach and assess their students' learning not just on tests of the old kind, but by using visual materials; activities like drama, dance, music and song; group interaction activities (interpersonal intelligence); and especially "processfolios". These are collections of activities which students present which reveal the process and progress of their learning in any subject area. Students enhance their intrapersonal intelligence as they publicly reflect on their folios, reassessing their strengths and weaknesses. This is called "metacognition" - thinking about one's own thinking. Where conventional tests, through fear of failure, often cause people's thinking to shut down and rely on simple memorising, processfolios cause people's thinking to open up and expand - and so they learn much more, and more quickly.
Gardner talks of "education for understanding" (not going to school just to get a higher score). If the IQ represents the 20th Century, then multiple intelligences (MI) is the educational stuff of the 21st.
(Note [sent with submission to The Canberra Times]: Photos of the ACT contingent were taken by Irene Lind, Principal, Lyneham Primary School)
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 5 December 1996
1996: Love Puke by Duncan Sarkies and Icarus' Mother by Sam Shepard
First Choice - Week 1. Canberra Youth Theatre at Gorman House. December 5 - 7, 1996. Love Puke by Duncan Sarkies and Icarus' Mother by Sam Shepard.
These productions, and the Week 2 program (December 12-14) of Five Visits from Mister Whitcomb by Carter L. Bays and The Balcony by Jean Genet, are "an experiment; 2 professional tutors, 30 odd young people, no budget. Each play was co-directed by a young cast member while David Branson and I (Robin Davidson) divided our time between several groups and production management." Branson writes: "Each script has its own demands, the major decisions with all the work was made by the young people themselves. I think it has been valuable for us in terms of handing authority to the members." If this is an experiment, then it has been done many times before, and indeed is a common process in our secondary colleges.
By chance I have seen rehearsals and performances in three colleges recently, including a much more sophisticated Love Puke, also directed by a student. This play is a neat very stylish satire about sexual relationships, but the Youth Theatre cast, co-directed by Naomi Milthorpe, did not understand clearly the need for polished timing and most were too young to carry the sexuality required. They played sincerely, but this script demands more than they could be expected to give.
Jess Baxter and her cast did much better with Icarus' Mother - but I wish in the program they could have spelt Sam Shepard's name correctly. This is performed outdoors, so watch out for storms. The play is in the Samuel Beckett tradition, and I thought the directing found a good level at the beginning, with silences and implications being made with or sometimes deliberately without eye contact. However the actors were not able to maintain their first strength of focus, but still did a creditable performance.
I'm not sure, after watching these productions, what Canberra Youth Theatre is offering different from secondary college drama programs. Maybe I expected more evidence of skills training and greater sophistication from an institution with a longer history than the colleges and drawing people from across the whole Canberra region. Maybe the colleges have simply caught up.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
These productions, and the Week 2 program (December 12-14) of Five Visits from Mister Whitcomb by Carter L. Bays and The Balcony by Jean Genet, are "an experiment; 2 professional tutors, 30 odd young people, no budget. Each play was co-directed by a young cast member while David Branson and I (Robin Davidson) divided our time between several groups and production management." Branson writes: "Each script has its own demands, the major decisions with all the work was made by the young people themselves. I think it has been valuable for us in terms of handing authority to the members." If this is an experiment, then it has been done many times before, and indeed is a common process in our secondary colleges.
By chance I have seen rehearsals and performances in three colleges recently, including a much more sophisticated Love Puke, also directed by a student. This play is a neat very stylish satire about sexual relationships, but the Youth Theatre cast, co-directed by Naomi Milthorpe, did not understand clearly the need for polished timing and most were too young to carry the sexuality required. They played sincerely, but this script demands more than they could be expected to give.
Jess Baxter and her cast did much better with Icarus' Mother - but I wish in the program they could have spelt Sam Shepard's name correctly. This is performed outdoors, so watch out for storms. The play is in the Samuel Beckett tradition, and I thought the directing found a good level at the beginning, with silences and implications being made with or sometimes deliberately without eye contact. However the actors were not able to maintain their first strength of focus, but still did a creditable performance.
I'm not sure, after watching these productions, what Canberra Youth Theatre is offering different from secondary college drama programs. Maybe I expected more evidence of skills training and greater sophistication from an institution with a longer history than the colleges and drawing people from across the whole Canberra region. Maybe the colleges have simply caught up.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 11 November 1996
1996: Feature article on The Choreographic Centre
The Choreographic Centre at Gorman House Arts Centre. Public program November 24 - December 8, 1996. Bookings: 247 3103
The Minister for the Arts, Gary Humphries, will officiate at the celebration of the opening of The Choreographic Centre on Tuesday November 26 at 6.00 pm.
In the past Canberra has driven a hard bargain with modern professional dancers. Leading choreographers have been based here - Don Asker (Human Veins), Meryl Tankard, Sue Healey (Vis a Vis) - but a small town attitude, combined perhaps with a Hansonesque favouring of an ethnic European dance form (classical ballet), has put up the xenophobic barriers as if these original companies of national and international standing were somehow imposed on the local culture. They justifiably felt they never really belonged - and moved on.
In fact there has always been a local Board, chaired currently by Andrew Goledzinowski, which has now taken a new, exciting and Canberra-friendly direction. Instead of employing another artistic director with a personal creative agenda, the Board has created The Choreographic Centre, bringing dance/drama/media multi-personality Mark Gordon from the National Theatre, Melbourne, to be director.
Originally trained at Rusden College as a teacher, starting off in Drama and Media and taking advantage of the new Dance course back in the mid 70's, Gordon was selected from a remarkable field of candidates. The Board was assisted in its decision by Don Asker and Sue Street who is head of dance at Queensland University of Technology.
Gordon is best known within the dance community as the past Executive Officer of Ausdance Victoria, but he has also served as Assistant to the Artistic Director at Tasdance, on the Board of the Green Mill Dance Project, and as a teacher at Deakin University, the National Theatre Ballet School and the Dance Factory. With this history, and a sympathetic administrator in Gavin Findlay, Gordon has initiated a very significant change for professional dance, beginning with a program in three parts.
Part One is called Unchoreographed: Trotman & Morrish in Residence. Andrew Trotman presents a Dance Therapy Workshop ($10) Sunday November 24 (3 - 6 pm), and a free Research Forum November 29 (11 am). Peter Morrish offers a Squirmy Darting Workshop: computer driven dance improvisation for everybody (free) November 25 (7 pm). Together they will conduct an Improvisation Workshop ($20) November 30 and December 1, 10 am - 4 pm, and there are open rehearsals at 4 pm on November 28 and 30.
As well, you can see Trotman & Morrish perform Unchoreographed, consisting of five linked improvisations, Wednesday November 27 to Sunday December 1 (6 pm) for only $5 each day. Here is a cheap and exciting way to see, learn about and become involved in one of the recent focus points in modern dance - improvisation in performance. This will shake you out of the classical mould.
Part Two contains two Choreographic Addresses and the first of the Centre's Fellowship programs. Shirley McKechnie OAM, Patron of the Centre, speaks on Another Season, Another Shore (November 27, 8 pm) and Sandra Parker discusses The Performance of Disappearance (December 2, 7 pm). The ideas and issues embedded in dance as an art form need to be articulated - here is your opportunity.
Stephanie Burridge gets due, maybe overdue, recognition. Her Fellowship gives her six weeks in the studio, developing new work (exploring the theme "Islands") with dancers Jonathan Rees-Osborne, Patrick Harding-Irmer, Lisa Ffrench and Amalia Hordern. Titled Drafts and Sketches, this work in progress can be seen on November 29-30 and December 1 at 8 pm. This is a pilot fellowship, which will examine the process of Centre fellowships: what kinds of outcomes can be expected; how should the artist and the Centre relate to each other. An observer group of local dance artists and commentators will evaluate the pilot to help structure future fellowships.
In Part Three we see Finished Works, examining choreographic achievement over three decades. Elizabeth Cameron Dalman performs her own work from the 1970's - showing how the artistic context, including the artist herself, has changed. Fiona Cullen dances work by Helen Herbertson from the 1980's. Brett Daffy presents a re-working of his first professional piece from earlier in the 1990's. Helen Herbertson will show her current solo work; while Paul Shembri will dance a piece by Kim Vincs created in October 1996. You can see open rehearsals on December 2 (8 pm) and 3 (4 pm and 8 pm) with a student preview on December 4 (8 pm), and the final performances ($10) on December 5 - 6 (8 pm), December 7 (2 pm and 8 pm) and December 8 (2 pm and 5 pm).
If you are putting all this in your diary, you'll realise that the Choreographic Centre is providing a remarkably cheap and fascinating festival of dance for two weeks. Mark Gordon makes it abundantly clear that his task is a kind of healing process, designed to bring together the local and out-of-town professionals for the benefit of Canberra audiences and students - and ultimately as a centre of excellence in the national scene. Funding for the current program is 50/50 Australia Council and ACT Cultural Council - and for the future needs not only a similar level of support as the previous companies received from government but active support from local people as audiences, participants and sponsors.
The concept of the Centre is to see modern dance (post post-modern) as we see multiculturalism. Each form of dance is valid in its own right, from "release dance", through post-modern dance, cross-cultural forms, jazz ballet, to modern ballet and classical ballet; not excluding ethnic and folk dance. You can see Gordon's background in Ausdance shining through: no longer is modern dance essentially a line of progressive development from Americans like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and their offspring all around the world: be eclectic, says Mark Gordon.
Sally Bane wrote in 1980 "Modern dance identifies itself as aesthetic" - as opposed to being merely entertaining. The work of Canberra's new research and development centre in dance - the Choreographic Centre - is certainly focussed on the aesthetic, in the knowledge that this means entertainment of the most satisfying kind. The door of the Centre is literally always open to new ways; dance here is most surely not elitist or exclusivist: accessibility is the keynote. This is the excitement of this new beginning in Canberra dance: the marriage of the educative, the innovative and the entertaining at the fully professional level.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The Minister for the Arts, Gary Humphries, will officiate at the celebration of the opening of The Choreographic Centre on Tuesday November 26 at 6.00 pm.
In the past Canberra has driven a hard bargain with modern professional dancers. Leading choreographers have been based here - Don Asker (Human Veins), Meryl Tankard, Sue Healey (Vis a Vis) - but a small town attitude, combined perhaps with a Hansonesque favouring of an ethnic European dance form (classical ballet), has put up the xenophobic barriers as if these original companies of national and international standing were somehow imposed on the local culture. They justifiably felt they never really belonged - and moved on.
In fact there has always been a local Board, chaired currently by Andrew Goledzinowski, which has now taken a new, exciting and Canberra-friendly direction. Instead of employing another artistic director with a personal creative agenda, the Board has created The Choreographic Centre, bringing dance/drama/media multi-personality Mark Gordon from the National Theatre, Melbourne, to be director.
Originally trained at Rusden College as a teacher, starting off in Drama and Media and taking advantage of the new Dance course back in the mid 70's, Gordon was selected from a remarkable field of candidates. The Board was assisted in its decision by Don Asker and Sue Street who is head of dance at Queensland University of Technology.
Gordon is best known within the dance community as the past Executive Officer of Ausdance Victoria, but he has also served as Assistant to the Artistic Director at Tasdance, on the Board of the Green Mill Dance Project, and as a teacher at Deakin University, the National Theatre Ballet School and the Dance Factory. With this history, and a sympathetic administrator in Gavin Findlay, Gordon has initiated a very significant change for professional dance, beginning with a program in three parts.
Part One is called Unchoreographed: Trotman & Morrish in Residence. Andrew Trotman presents a Dance Therapy Workshop ($10) Sunday November 24 (3 - 6 pm), and a free Research Forum November 29 (11 am). Peter Morrish offers a Squirmy Darting Workshop: computer driven dance improvisation for everybody (free) November 25 (7 pm). Together they will conduct an Improvisation Workshop ($20) November 30 and December 1, 10 am - 4 pm, and there are open rehearsals at 4 pm on November 28 and 30.
As well, you can see Trotman & Morrish perform Unchoreographed, consisting of five linked improvisations, Wednesday November 27 to Sunday December 1 (6 pm) for only $5 each day. Here is a cheap and exciting way to see, learn about and become involved in one of the recent focus points in modern dance - improvisation in performance. This will shake you out of the classical mould.
Part Two contains two Choreographic Addresses and the first of the Centre's Fellowship programs. Shirley McKechnie OAM, Patron of the Centre, speaks on Another Season, Another Shore (November 27, 8 pm) and Sandra Parker discusses The Performance of Disappearance (December 2, 7 pm). The ideas and issues embedded in dance as an art form need to be articulated - here is your opportunity.
Stephanie Burridge gets due, maybe overdue, recognition. Her Fellowship gives her six weeks in the studio, developing new work (exploring the theme "Islands") with dancers Jonathan Rees-Osborne, Patrick Harding-Irmer, Lisa Ffrench and Amalia Hordern. Titled Drafts and Sketches, this work in progress can be seen on November 29-30 and December 1 at 8 pm. This is a pilot fellowship, which will examine the process of Centre fellowships: what kinds of outcomes can be expected; how should the artist and the Centre relate to each other. An observer group of local dance artists and commentators will evaluate the pilot to help structure future fellowships.
In Part Three we see Finished Works, examining choreographic achievement over three decades. Elizabeth Cameron Dalman performs her own work from the 1970's - showing how the artistic context, including the artist herself, has changed. Fiona Cullen dances work by Helen Herbertson from the 1980's. Brett Daffy presents a re-working of his first professional piece from earlier in the 1990's. Helen Herbertson will show her current solo work; while Paul Shembri will dance a piece by Kim Vincs created in October 1996. You can see open rehearsals on December 2 (8 pm) and 3 (4 pm and 8 pm) with a student preview on December 4 (8 pm), and the final performances ($10) on December 5 - 6 (8 pm), December 7 (2 pm and 8 pm) and December 8 (2 pm and 5 pm).
If you are putting all this in your diary, you'll realise that the Choreographic Centre is providing a remarkably cheap and fascinating festival of dance for two weeks. Mark Gordon makes it abundantly clear that his task is a kind of healing process, designed to bring together the local and out-of-town professionals for the benefit of Canberra audiences and students - and ultimately as a centre of excellence in the national scene. Funding for the current program is 50/50 Australia Council and ACT Cultural Council - and for the future needs not only a similar level of support as the previous companies received from government but active support from local people as audiences, participants and sponsors.
The concept of the Centre is to see modern dance (post post-modern) as we see multiculturalism. Each form of dance is valid in its own right, from "release dance", through post-modern dance, cross-cultural forms, jazz ballet, to modern ballet and classical ballet; not excluding ethnic and folk dance. You can see Gordon's background in Ausdance shining through: no longer is modern dance essentially a line of progressive development from Americans like Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham and their offspring all around the world: be eclectic, says Mark Gordon.
Sally Bane wrote in 1980 "Modern dance identifies itself as aesthetic" - as opposed to being merely entertaining. The work of Canberra's new research and development centre in dance - the Choreographic Centre - is certainly focussed on the aesthetic, in the knowledge that this means entertainment of the most satisfying kind. The door of the Centre is literally always open to new ways; dance here is most surely not elitist or exclusivist: accessibility is the keynote. This is the excitement of this new beginning in Canberra dance: the marriage of the educative, the innovative and the entertaining at the fully professional level.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 6 November 1996
1996: Sanctimony by Joe Woodward
Sanctimony written and directed by Joe Woodward. Music by Dirk Zeylmans and Jeff Evans. The Street Theatre Studio November 6 - 10 and 12 - 16, 1996, 6.30 and/or 9.30 pm. Professional.
This is a personal and public commentary by Joe Woodward designed to expose the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Public Service. The manic stress-related breakdown of Bede Rashamon, knowing the truth of the inner sanctum of the Department of Spiritual Affirmation and doubting the reality of his role as Chief Overseer, is represented wonderfully in a jazz/rap fusion break dance - a mimed culmination of Woodward's acting skills.
Bede is "replaced by a younger woman", Chess Reason, played by Melinda Donnell with exactly the right degree of cold calculation. She is a singer of range and power; while Dirk Zeylmans van Emmichoven fades expertly in and out of a warm blues saxophone and the black role of Predator Kite, playing the Perseus myth - "the bird pecking at my torso, ripping into my innards". Chess has reached the bureaucratic peak because she can talk, but can she survive the secret knowledge - the real truth - known only to the inner circle?
Sanctimony is an exciting expressionistic work - humorous, satirical and sad. It's a script which still needs trimming, partly because it deals with many layers of ideas and the thread attenuates sometimes; and partly because the dramatic form needs clarifying, especially in the first half. It is a brave and worthwhile play because of the risks Woodward has taken. I saw the first night of new experimental theatre, mixing live acting, band and singer, with live and recorded video, a computer whose typist was not allowed to see the secret material on the screen, and brief but significant audience participation.
No wonder the focus was fuzzy for a while, but in the end the message comes through: "Be honest with yourself, lest others be honest for you." Even I come in for a slice from the razor gang: "Who are these critics - these self-appointed guardians of our lives?" Well, this critic says "Go and see for yourself. You'll arrive sanctimonious, but you'll leave a better person." After all what more could you ask from good theatre?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a personal and public commentary by Joe Woodward designed to expose the sanctimonious hypocrisy of the Public Service. The manic stress-related breakdown of Bede Rashamon, knowing the truth of the inner sanctum of the Department of Spiritual Affirmation and doubting the reality of his role as Chief Overseer, is represented wonderfully in a jazz/rap fusion break dance - a mimed culmination of Woodward's acting skills.
Bede is "replaced by a younger woman", Chess Reason, played by Melinda Donnell with exactly the right degree of cold calculation. She is a singer of range and power; while Dirk Zeylmans van Emmichoven fades expertly in and out of a warm blues saxophone and the black role of Predator Kite, playing the Perseus myth - "the bird pecking at my torso, ripping into my innards". Chess has reached the bureaucratic peak because she can talk, but can she survive the secret knowledge - the real truth - known only to the inner circle?
Sanctimony is an exciting expressionistic work - humorous, satirical and sad. It's a script which still needs trimming, partly because it deals with many layers of ideas and the thread attenuates sometimes; and partly because the dramatic form needs clarifying, especially in the first half. It is a brave and worthwhile play because of the risks Woodward has taken. I saw the first night of new experimental theatre, mixing live acting, band and singer, with live and recorded video, a computer whose typist was not allowed to see the secret material on the screen, and brief but significant audience participation.
No wonder the focus was fuzzy for a while, but in the end the message comes through: "Be honest with yourself, lest others be honest for you." Even I come in for a slice from the razor gang: "Who are these critics - these self-appointed guardians of our lives?" Well, this critic says "Go and see for yourself. You'll arrive sanctimonious, but you'll leave a better person." After all what more could you ask from good theatre?
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 31 October 1996
1996: One for the Road by Harold Pinter
One for the Road by Harold Pinter. Paradox Theatre Company at the Currong Contemporary Arts Theatre, Gorman House Arts Centre. Directed by Belinda Pearson. October 31 - November 2 and November 6 - 9, 1996, 8.00 pm. All proceeds to support Amnesty International.
This is a short play - barely 40 minutes - but the combination of Pinter's honesty and writing skills with the clarity of characterisation achieved particularly by Phil Roberts, as Nicolas the interrogator, makes this production one you should not miss. It's a confronting play because you come away understanding how a torturer thinks. I'm glad it didn't last longer because I was ready to break all my principles of non-violence: I could easily have shot that interrogator if someone had handed me the gun.
Pinter has said "I'm aware that I do possess two things. One is that I'm quite violent myself....On the other hand, however, I'm quite reticent." He has used this self-knowledge in creating Nicolas, who we see interrogating a man, his wife and their son - each separately. Torture is the norm, happening off-stage before and after each interview. The reality which Amnesty International confronts every day in probably 90 countries around the world is made real for us in the theatre in the slippery character of Nicolas.
This is a brave production for Amnesty for it forces us to come to terms with the effort we must make to turn around the figures from 1995: 85 countries holding prisoners of conscience; 46,000 people held without charge; 27 countries imprisoning people after unfair trials; 10,000 people subjected to torture including 4,500 who died in custody in 54 countries; 63 countries where people were executed without trial; 140,000 people in 49 countries who have 'disappeared'; 2,900 people executed in 41 countries which still impose the death penalty.
Intelligent direction of Pinter's tightly controlled, carefully stylised dialogue has created spine-chilling tension. I would like this play to be put on as inservice training in every police station and prison in the country: our own human rights record is not yet perfect - enacting this torturer before those who hold such power daily, in Paradox's minimal setting, must help change the dark side of our culture.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a short play - barely 40 minutes - but the combination of Pinter's honesty and writing skills with the clarity of characterisation achieved particularly by Phil Roberts, as Nicolas the interrogator, makes this production one you should not miss. It's a confronting play because you come away understanding how a torturer thinks. I'm glad it didn't last longer because I was ready to break all my principles of non-violence: I could easily have shot that interrogator if someone had handed me the gun.
Pinter has said "I'm aware that I do possess two things. One is that I'm quite violent myself....On the other hand, however, I'm quite reticent." He has used this self-knowledge in creating Nicolas, who we see interrogating a man, his wife and their son - each separately. Torture is the norm, happening off-stage before and after each interview. The reality which Amnesty International confronts every day in probably 90 countries around the world is made real for us in the theatre in the slippery character of Nicolas.
This is a brave production for Amnesty for it forces us to come to terms with the effort we must make to turn around the figures from 1995: 85 countries holding prisoners of conscience; 46,000 people held without charge; 27 countries imprisoning people after unfair trials; 10,000 people subjected to torture including 4,500 who died in custody in 54 countries; 63 countries where people were executed without trial; 140,000 people in 49 countries who have 'disappeared'; 2,900 people executed in 41 countries which still impose the death penalty.
Intelligent direction of Pinter's tightly controlled, carefully stylised dialogue has created spine-chilling tension. I would like this play to be put on as inservice training in every police station and prison in the country: our own human rights record is not yet perfect - enacting this torturer before those who hold such power daily, in Paradox's minimal setting, must help change the dark side of our culture.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 28 October 1996
1996: Preview for The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. The Looking Glass Theatre, directed by Nicholas Bolonkin. The Street Theatre, November 2 - 9, 1996, 8 pm (matinees Sunday 3rd and Saturday 9th, 3 pm).
"The skull beneath the skin" is where you will begin with this revenge thriller, opening on Saturday. Where you will end is being emotionally stirred, intellectually challenged and thoroughly entertained, if Nicholas Bolonkin achieves his aims. The Looking Glass Theatre has already had great success with its Shakespeare Festival productions. As William's career was concluding with The Tempest in 1612, John Webster was writing "passionate tragedies of love and political intrigue in Renaissance Italy, full of horror and exceptional cruelty, but validated by the macabre power of imagination, the dramatic force of their greatest scenes and the beauty of their poetry."
Will you have to pretend to be 400 years old to enjoy this play? The answer is both yes and no. Bolonkin is almost a Renaissance figure himself - an Honours graduate in Chemistry who finds it necessary to study for an Arts degree with Drama, because of "all those productions I've seen which make me want to tear my hair out!" He says he is a cynic, befitting our post-1980s times, when Bond, Skase et al tear the social fabric for their personal gain and politicians speak mealy-mouthed about social values while getting into bed with big business here and internationally. Just as we may mourn today the possibilities of the 1970s, so, according to Bolonkin, Webster's conception was "Our Virgin Queen [Elizabeth I] is dead - our new King [James I] is a poof - our World is going to End."
Rather than ask you to transport yourself so far back in time, Bolonkin has found the 19th Century's obsession with sex and death exactly parallels Webster's time - and ours. The connection is in science: the need to codify, classify and catalogue every little detail in the encyclopaedias of the 1850s produced exquisite drawings - images of scientific precision and neurotic obsession which we feel are part of our world yet connect us back to the world of Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. So Phil Rolfe has produced huge visual images crisply front-projected on three screens, with more subliminal effects on the cyclorama, all designed to focus the intensity of the play. Entertained you will be, but be prepared not to be squeamish. The skull beneath the skin will be laid bare.
Talking to Nicholas Bolonkin is exciting, for here maybe, at last, is the energy and intellectual drive coming from the ANU for which Canberra theatre has been hungry for fifty years. Somehow, this city, for so many of those years a swag of public servants alongside one of the top research institutions, cringed to the Sydney/Melbourne world of theatre. Perhaps this was because the research was so centred on science, and the practical arts have been fogged in like a Canberra winter's morning - the sun was shining above, but hidden. Bolonkin crosses the boundaries, a cynic with a purpose, demystifying history.
Webster's play may be a revenge tragedy; I suspect Bolonkin's production will be the cynic's revenge. In the 1990s we are gradually becoming inured not just to violence, sex and death but to the underlying belief that we can always get away with just a little bit more - until evil overreaches itself, and finally everything collapses. It will be ironic to be entertained by The Duchess of Malfi as our World goes towards its End.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"The skull beneath the skin" is where you will begin with this revenge thriller, opening on Saturday. Where you will end is being emotionally stirred, intellectually challenged and thoroughly entertained, if Nicholas Bolonkin achieves his aims. The Looking Glass Theatre has already had great success with its Shakespeare Festival productions. As William's career was concluding with The Tempest in 1612, John Webster was writing "passionate tragedies of love and political intrigue in Renaissance Italy, full of horror and exceptional cruelty, but validated by the macabre power of imagination, the dramatic force of their greatest scenes and the beauty of their poetry."
Will you have to pretend to be 400 years old to enjoy this play? The answer is both yes and no. Bolonkin is almost a Renaissance figure himself - an Honours graduate in Chemistry who finds it necessary to study for an Arts degree with Drama, because of "all those productions I've seen which make me want to tear my hair out!" He says he is a cynic, befitting our post-1980s times, when Bond, Skase et al tear the social fabric for their personal gain and politicians speak mealy-mouthed about social values while getting into bed with big business here and internationally. Just as we may mourn today the possibilities of the 1970s, so, according to Bolonkin, Webster's conception was "Our Virgin Queen [Elizabeth I] is dead - our new King [James I] is a poof - our World is going to End."
Rather than ask you to transport yourself so far back in time, Bolonkin has found the 19th Century's obsession with sex and death exactly parallels Webster's time - and ours. The connection is in science: the need to codify, classify and catalogue every little detail in the encyclopaedias of the 1850s produced exquisite drawings - images of scientific precision and neurotic obsession which we feel are part of our world yet connect us back to the world of Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo. So Phil Rolfe has produced huge visual images crisply front-projected on three screens, with more subliminal effects on the cyclorama, all designed to focus the intensity of the play. Entertained you will be, but be prepared not to be squeamish. The skull beneath the skin will be laid bare.
Talking to Nicholas Bolonkin is exciting, for here maybe, at last, is the energy and intellectual drive coming from the ANU for which Canberra theatre has been hungry for fifty years. Somehow, this city, for so many of those years a swag of public servants alongside one of the top research institutions, cringed to the Sydney/Melbourne world of theatre. Perhaps this was because the research was so centred on science, and the practical arts have been fogged in like a Canberra winter's morning - the sun was shining above, but hidden. Bolonkin crosses the boundaries, a cynic with a purpose, demystifying history.
Webster's play may be a revenge tragedy; I suspect Bolonkin's production will be the cynic's revenge. In the 1990s we are gradually becoming inured not just to violence, sex and death but to the underlying belief that we can always get away with just a little bit more - until evil overreaches itself, and finally everything collapses. It will be ironic to be entertained by The Duchess of Malfi as our World goes towards its End.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 18 October 1996
1996: Feature article "Lunch in the Scarth Room" with Company Skylark
Lunch in the Scarth Room. Company Skylark at University House. October 18, 1996. Very professional. Co-ordination by Mark Soulsby and Rae Teasdale.
This was a low-key high-powered performance, starring Skylark Patron Bob McMullan with Chairperson Judy Tier, Artistic Director Peter Wilson and well-known playwright John Romeril, touching base over lasagne with Colin Mackenzie (EPVAT from DEFAT), David Williams (ACDU), Cathy Winters (Canberra Festival Director), Rob Brookman (Festival of Australian Theatre Director), Boris Kelly (freelance theatre and film maker, currently with projects in Belgium and Ireland) and, last but certainly not least, with their major sponsors Ansett Australia and Ten Capital Television.
Acronyms are apocryphal, but EPVAT is about the performing and visual arts touring overseas, with a special emphasis on our Asian region. The program aims to make Australia synonymous with high quality productions in Asian nations, building up a regular clientele for our touring companies. ACDU is our local government Arts and Cultural Development Unit: between EPVAT and ACDU lies the field of action for Company Skylark.
If you are a company with an audience base here in Canberra and touring Australia and overseas, what better sponsors than an airline for travel deals and local television for advertising support. Puppets may seem like playthings on stage, but behind the scenes Max Mercer at Ansett has kept them on the move since 1995, while Ten Capital's Bronwyn Barrett will be highlighting three Skylark shows as well as giving overall support through 1997. Cathy Winters suggested that corporations are beginning to realise the benefits, to themselves and the arts companies, of long term (3 or 5 year) sponsorships - maybe Ansett has already set the mood for Skylark.
Bob McMullan spoke - sitting down informally in contrast to the stance required in the House - about the role of government in the arts. As an ex-Minister for the Arts, he felt satisfied that governments should not be involved in what people create and perform, but should provide the infrastructure for supply, helping create demand and systems for distribution of the arts. He saw Playing Australia as crucial to the interchange of the arts among the cities and country areas of Australia - a two-way approach which, for example, saw Dance North assisted to perform in Sydney before Sydney productions toured to the regions. He believed Australia needs a strong intra-national arts culture - only on this basis can we succeed internationally. For this reason, he supports the proper maintenance of the ABC, the source of cultural leadership, and the systematic funding of the film industry (not the simplistic tax-break system which created films like Coolangatta Gold) because the broad-range attraction of film creates spin-offs for the rest of the performing arts. Shine, only one example, has engendered a series of popular concert performances by David Helfgott.
The program of new work and old favourites for 1997 is exciting, particularly because John Romeril's new work, Love's Suicide, derived from 18th Century Japanese theatre, is a co-operative effort between Skylark and Playbox in Melbourne, with a 6 week season planned in November/December. Rich fare at lunch, indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This was a low-key high-powered performance, starring Skylark Patron Bob McMullan with Chairperson Judy Tier, Artistic Director Peter Wilson and well-known playwright John Romeril, touching base over lasagne with Colin Mackenzie (EPVAT from DEFAT), David Williams (ACDU), Cathy Winters (Canberra Festival Director), Rob Brookman (Festival of Australian Theatre Director), Boris Kelly (freelance theatre and film maker, currently with projects in Belgium and Ireland) and, last but certainly not least, with their major sponsors Ansett Australia and Ten Capital Television.
Acronyms are apocryphal, but EPVAT is about the performing and visual arts touring overseas, with a special emphasis on our Asian region. The program aims to make Australia synonymous with high quality productions in Asian nations, building up a regular clientele for our touring companies. ACDU is our local government Arts and Cultural Development Unit: between EPVAT and ACDU lies the field of action for Company Skylark.
If you are a company with an audience base here in Canberra and touring Australia and overseas, what better sponsors than an airline for travel deals and local television for advertising support. Puppets may seem like playthings on stage, but behind the scenes Max Mercer at Ansett has kept them on the move since 1995, while Ten Capital's Bronwyn Barrett will be highlighting three Skylark shows as well as giving overall support through 1997. Cathy Winters suggested that corporations are beginning to realise the benefits, to themselves and the arts companies, of long term (3 or 5 year) sponsorships - maybe Ansett has already set the mood for Skylark.
Bob McMullan spoke - sitting down informally in contrast to the stance required in the House - about the role of government in the arts. As an ex-Minister for the Arts, he felt satisfied that governments should not be involved in what people create and perform, but should provide the infrastructure for supply, helping create demand and systems for distribution of the arts. He saw Playing Australia as crucial to the interchange of the arts among the cities and country areas of Australia - a two-way approach which, for example, saw Dance North assisted to perform in Sydney before Sydney productions toured to the regions. He believed Australia needs a strong intra-national arts culture - only on this basis can we succeed internationally. For this reason, he supports the proper maintenance of the ABC, the source of cultural leadership, and the systematic funding of the film industry (not the simplistic tax-break system which created films like Coolangatta Gold) because the broad-range attraction of film creates spin-offs for the rest of the performing arts. Shine, only one example, has engendered a series of popular concert performances by David Helfgott.
The program of new work and old favourites for 1997 is exciting, particularly because John Romeril's new work, Love's Suicide, derived from 18th Century Japanese theatre, is a co-operative effort between Skylark and Playbox in Melbourne, with a 6 week season planned in November/December. Rich fare at lunch, indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
1996: Blue Murder by Beatrix Christian
Blue Murder by Beatrix Christian. Eureka! at The Street Theatre, directed by Camilla Blunden. Season October 17-26, 1996. Professional.
In the foyer: - I'm still thinking about it - I need a cigarette - I feel a bit shell-shocked - - Beatrix Christian is a new voice in Australian writing - I felt quite apprehensive about what was going to happen - I thought Eureka! wouldn't be sexy enough for this script - It made me feel quite disturbed, but I can't pinpoint why.
This play is a complex study, in the new form of imagist theatre, of the way men have created the fantasy that their art is more important than reality - even more real than death. In this case, the deaths of the writer's three previous wives. Evelyn, a modern girl, has made her escape from the country town where she seduced the priest behind the pub after her total immersion baptism. Blue wrote the stories Evelyn absorbed as a child - How Howard Saved Father Christmas - and takes her in as his personal live-in assistant. The current working title is Howard the Cynic.
The play begins behind a scrim: we can see reality but are separated from it. When the scrim is removed, we see the fantasy life of the writer directly, without any barrier. The layers of implications are strongly supported in the set design (Michael Wilkinson), lighting design (Philip Lethlean) and the music composed by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson. For Evelyn, the task is to see through the apparent reality of Blue's stories. As she does so, she gains strength - representing all women - and the mythic male as artist is finally and deliberately destroyed.
Christian is important not just as an imagist related to playwrights like the early Louis Nowra and more recently Jenny Kemp, but because she has more powerful language with which she opens up possibilities of meaning. She plays heightened dialogue against the mundane in ways which at first seem surreal, yet create those disturbing feelings in the foyer. I would call her a new symbolist: she is for this century what Strindberg was for the last. Except that Strindberg would have been a Blue - a misogynist whose artistic golden moon has set forever. Strongly recommended.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
In the foyer: - I'm still thinking about it - I need a cigarette - I feel a bit shell-shocked - - Beatrix Christian is a new voice in Australian writing - I felt quite apprehensive about what was going to happen - I thought Eureka! wouldn't be sexy enough for this script - It made me feel quite disturbed, but I can't pinpoint why.
This play is a complex study, in the new form of imagist theatre, of the way men have created the fantasy that their art is more important than reality - even more real than death. In this case, the deaths of the writer's three previous wives. Evelyn, a modern girl, has made her escape from the country town where she seduced the priest behind the pub after her total immersion baptism. Blue wrote the stories Evelyn absorbed as a child - How Howard Saved Father Christmas - and takes her in as his personal live-in assistant. The current working title is Howard the Cynic.
The play begins behind a scrim: we can see reality but are separated from it. When the scrim is removed, we see the fantasy life of the writer directly, without any barrier. The layers of implications are strongly supported in the set design (Michael Wilkinson), lighting design (Philip Lethlean) and the music composed by Margaret Legge-Wilkinson. For Evelyn, the task is to see through the apparent reality of Blue's stories. As she does so, she gains strength - representing all women - and the mythic male as artist is finally and deliberately destroyed.
Christian is important not just as an imagist related to playwrights like the early Louis Nowra and more recently Jenny Kemp, but because she has more powerful language with which she opens up possibilities of meaning. She plays heightened dialogue against the mundane in ways which at first seem surreal, yet create those disturbing feelings in the foyer. I would call her a new symbolist: she is for this century what Strindberg was for the last. Except that Strindberg would have been a Blue - a misogynist whose artistic golden moon has set forever. Strongly recommended.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 16 October 1996
1996: Freeze Frame by Full Tilt
Freeze Frame. Full Tilt Performance Troupe. Festival of Contemporary Arts at Gorman House Arts Centre, October 16, 1996. Professional
Intimations of William Dobell frozen in mime, eyes and mouth wide open for a very long time. The "painting" takes the new recruit art gallery explainer's spectacles. His vision is impaired as he leaps through the frame into a world where surrealism is deconstructed against the intermittent front-projected backdrop of Erika Harper's post-romantic tarot cards, interspersed by works from Rebecca Robinson, Ed Radclyffe, Deborah Matrice, Sean Kenan, U.F.A., Hayley Hillis and Felicity Jenkins.
Will, the gallery attendant, learns about privatisation and reality, steps back through the frame and finds his glasses on the floor after all. Was it all a dream?
Fringe festivals are meant for experimentation and try-outs, but this company operates too much on the scent of the milk of human kindness. The art works were generally interesting but the dramatic responses were relatively mundane. The origin of Full Tilt's work is in successful children's entertainment at the National Gallery of Australia, but only some of the dialogue draws on an adult view of art. The plot and characters are too naive in conception to carry the full weight of political commentary and reflective criticism of post-modernism which seems to be the objective.
The performers use commedia and circus skills, but not with the precision of timing and dramatic pacing which can amaze an audience seeing fools who could only appear so foolish because of their physical and intellectual prowess. Rapid-fire wit in words and mime is the first requisite for commedia: the Troupe has the idea right, but needs much more training.
The idea, the humour, and the critical analysis behind Freeze Frame are well worth developing, so now it is up to Danny Diesendorf, Robin Davidson, Mark Johnson and Sean Kenan - perhaps with the addition of a woman or two - to go Full Tilt towards sophistication of style, depth of research and theatrical discipline.
This year, the fringe: next year, towards the centre....
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Intimations of William Dobell frozen in mime, eyes and mouth wide open for a very long time. The "painting" takes the new recruit art gallery explainer's spectacles. His vision is impaired as he leaps through the frame into a world where surrealism is deconstructed against the intermittent front-projected backdrop of Erika Harper's post-romantic tarot cards, interspersed by works from Rebecca Robinson, Ed Radclyffe, Deborah Matrice, Sean Kenan, U.F.A., Hayley Hillis and Felicity Jenkins.
Will, the gallery attendant, learns about privatisation and reality, steps back through the frame and finds his glasses on the floor after all. Was it all a dream?
Fringe festivals are meant for experimentation and try-outs, but this company operates too much on the scent of the milk of human kindness. The art works were generally interesting but the dramatic responses were relatively mundane. The origin of Full Tilt's work is in successful children's entertainment at the National Gallery of Australia, but only some of the dialogue draws on an adult view of art. The plot and characters are too naive in conception to carry the full weight of political commentary and reflective criticism of post-modernism which seems to be the objective.
The performers use commedia and circus skills, but not with the precision of timing and dramatic pacing which can amaze an audience seeing fools who could only appear so foolish because of their physical and intellectual prowess. Rapid-fire wit in words and mime is the first requisite for commedia: the Troupe has the idea right, but needs much more training.
The idea, the humour, and the critical analysis behind Freeze Frame are well worth developing, so now it is up to Danny Diesendorf, Robin Davidson, Mark Johnson and Sean Kenan - perhaps with the addition of a woman or two - to go Full Tilt towards sophistication of style, depth of research and theatrical discipline.
This year, the fringe: next year, towards the centre....
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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