2001: The Old Time Music Hall 2001

 The Old Time Music Hall 2001.  Canberra Repertory at The Playhouse, June 14-23.

    Ritual theatre, as this has surely become after 27 seasons, has a role to play which I am sure some sociologist from ANU could tease out for us.  Something about preserving continuity in the face of constant change, maintaining the power of the mythic, bonding particular social groupings.  But since some would say this analysis is not my task here, I'll leave theory to others, except to say that this year's show is much less Howard-esque (I'm nodding towards Ian Warden) than the last one I saw 5 years ago.

    The difference is partly in a more sophisticated production - better choice of numbers and acts, excellent choreography (simple in style but just right for each situation), equally good costumes and backdrops, all directed with clarity by Cathie Clelland.  The quality that really lifts the show, however, is the satirical humour - not present in every item (Pennies From Heaven was too gawky for me), but brilliant in numbers like the two emus and a sort of lizard tap-dancing to an almost monotone regular-rhythm primary school version of My Country by Dorothea Mackellar.

    It is nice, too, to see Federation put in its place - Canberra - by working out of the old song "Come, Josephine, in my flying machine ... Oh, let's spoon in a hot air balloon" into the new song written by Musical Maestro Dr Andrew Kay called Fed-air-ation: "When people say, What's good about Canberra? we say, hot air!"

    Original English Music Hall was so popular for so long because comedians and singers caught the changing moods of the ordinary people of that nation, and it is interesting to see how in this show it is the mostly quite absurd numbers that make fun of Australian attitudes which move the audience to cheers.

    Unfair as it is to select individuals from an all-round excellent cast, I'm going to give guernseys to Lesley Smith and Julie McElhone as the best actors this year.  And the best icon is clearly Rosemary Hyde, unable to direct this time, whose image revealed at the end raises the roof.  Ritual theatre, indeed, and nicely done.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Up For Grabs by David Williamson

 Up For Grabs by David Williamson.  Sydney Theatre Company directed by Gale Edwards at The Playhouse May 30 - June 2, June 4-9.

    Casting Garry McDonald as the ruthless Manny, fifth richest man in Australia with an interesting sexual identity problem, has to mean a thoroughly entertaining night.  His comic timing is superb; his transition from veniality to vunerability is wonderful to watch.

    McDonald was offered the part by Gale Edwards because she knew his integrity as an actor would do the trick (watch out for the end of Act 1), and the whole ensemble - Helen Dallimore, Tina Bursill, Angela Punch McGregor, Simon Burke, Kirstie Hutton and Felix Williamson - came up to scratch, sometimes literally (though on opening night Punch McGregor did get stuck on a high pitch and volume for a while, losing comic effect and audience sympathy, before regaining strength in her final revelation speech).

    David Williamson, whom I have criticised before for not having full control of dramatic form (seeking to be naturalistic when one-liners and neat finishes are at odds with this quest), has found in Edwards a director who sees the style his work needs - while Williamson has also at last clarified his understanding of form by allowing characters to speak direct to the audience in soliloquies which reveal themselves to us and draw us along with them into the action. 

As a result, Dallimore's art dealer, Simone, doing everything (the details of which I won't reveal) to make her 2 million dollar sale remains a character we can feel sympathy for.  It's interesting, perhaps ironic, that through non-naturalistic devices the characters seem more real.  And Williamson's writing seems much freer and more daring than in many earlier plays.  His younger damagecontrol.com instant new wealth couple, Mindy (Hutton) and Kel (Williamson) display a wildness that I think is new and exciting.

Everyone I spoke to on opening night emphasised how entertaining the performance was, and especially how exquisite the stage and lighting designs are, so no-one will be disappointed in this night out at the theatre.  Yet for me, this play is less layered with meaning than, say, Face to Face, though it is better than his other financial competition play, Emerald City.  I guess I'm looking for a harder satirical edge which could make this play greater than just a great night out.


©Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Tuggeranong Community Arts - Community Cultural Development Project. Feature Article.

 "The play made me angry that we 'protect' children but deny them love and their right to self-worth; and then jail them when they fail to cope as adults, denying them their freedom instead of helping them to regain the freedom we all deserve - from the violence, sexual abuse, emotional manipulation, financial pressure which we do too little to restrain."

    This comment in reviewing Tell her that I love her..., performed by Somebody's Daughter Theatre at Tuggeranong Arts Centre in October 1999, remains true of director Maud Clark's recent work for Tuggeranong Community Arts: a five weeks' project funded by the Community Cultural Development Fund of the Australia Council. 

Bringing together some 20 young people from Inanna's Well Being Group, the Karalika Therapeutic Community and Dickson College's Alternative Program with TCA workshop directors Garry Fry and Eulea Kiraly, Community Arts Officer Louise Haigh and Gallery Coordinator Susie Edwards, Clark worked with Somebody's Daughter Musical Director Greg Sneddon and Odyssey House Visual Art Consultant Maria Fillipow on an integrated arts development workshop with several objectives. 

While the TCA staff were learning new techniques for engaging young people in the process of discovering and expressing their understanding of love, in all its positives and negatives, the young participants, many of whom have had difficulty fitting in with social norms, were finding new levels of self-confidence, learning to work successfully in a new group, and creating a work-in-progress last Tuesday to show in visual, musical and theatrical forms how "Love is an onion" - many layered, rich in texture and shape, bringing tears to the eyes.  Poems and mimed images in the Gallery space were followed by movement and music in the Dance Studio, and song and text-based scenes in the Theatre. 
   
    Eulea Kiraly will take some members of the group, and others who may join, further in what Clark refers to as "opening a window", and next year plans to use the Somebody's Daughter approach to work with teenage boys involved in bullying.  Clark explains that the work is not specifically therapy, but aims at leading young people to find a passion to follow - maybe in theatre, art or music, or indeed in surfing - the theme of one scene developed from one boy's writing in this group.  Clark calls this "crossing the bridge to understanding why". 

    Helping to allay young people's anger and frustration is important community arts work: TCA is based at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre, but works with people across the city.  Contact TCA General Manager Ms Evol McLeod if you are interested in, or would like to take part in this kind of project.  Ring 6293 1443.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Museum Theatre: Making Our Stories Accessible. Feature article.

Museum Theatre: Making Our Stories Accessible

    "Banging a visitor over the head with a message will only serve to concuss their mind, not expand it." - Catherine Hughes, Boston Museum of Science, Executive Director of the International Museum Theatre Alliance (IMTA).  So I'll begin with an old joke, along the lines of when is a horse not a horse?  When it turns into a field.

    When is museum theatre not museum theatre?  When it's in a museum, not in a theatre.  Traditionally, museum theatre - in the theatre - is an unimaginative reproduction of an old play with no modern relevance beyond maybe an academic interest in how it was done a century ago.  But museum theatre in a museum turns all this on its head.  And it's happening right here at the National Museum of Australia.  This is where the audience participation starts.

    Old dark brown timber, linoleum floor, green and cream wall tiling and glass cases with fascinating stuffed animals and ancient spear points.  This was the Australian Museum I remember in Sydney in the 1950s.  For me, an exciting place which turned me on to anthropology, archaeology and environmental issues.  But Greg Lissaman, director of Canberra's Jigsaw Theatre Company, says things have changed.

    Young people live now in a visual and information world in which not only is museum theatre (in the theatre) irrelevant, but museums need to be interactive places where learning happens through people participating.  Machines and computers, of course, can provide exciting activities - go to K-Space at the National Museum of Australia (NMA) to see the children in action inventing their own instant-video city of the future - but theatre has a special role to play.

    At the NMA, a team led by Lyn Beasley, manages theatre performances, like Strike It Rich (by Susanne Ellis, as the wife of a goldminer) and Alien Invasion (by Alexis Beebe, Special Agent Scruffy, and Stephen Barker, Special Agent Mouldy from the Bureau for Feral Invasions) specifically for school groups during term time.  Another team, led by Daina Harvey, focusses on young people up to age 24 outside the school context, including next July a Federation show by justly famous Canberra satirists Moya Simpson and John Shortis.

    A quieter theatre scene at the NMA is inside the Boab Tree, where storytelling takes place, especially but not only for the very young children.  With manager Denise Fowler, I watched Marina Knight from the Storytellers Guild enacting her story of the rainbow serpent who sloughed her skin, leaving a beautiful magical light show for all the insects to explore, except the grasshopper - until the mantis wisely suggested weighing the grasshopper down with bullants and beetles so he couldn't suddenly jump and damage the delicate membrane.  Her description reminded me of Chihuly's glass exhibition at the National Gallery, except that he didn't have a choir of ants to complete the visitor's experience.

    It was Fowler who articulated the special role of theatre: no matter that machines and computers can do wonders, visitors to the NMA respond to the humanity of performance by people.  In the end it is the human touch which transforms a green-and-cream wooden, glass and linoleum museum, or even a whirring, buzzing multimedia museum, into a contemporary museum of stories and dramas which touch people's real lives.  This is what museum theatre can do.
   
    So what's the connection between the National Museum of Australia, the International Museum Theatre Alliance and The Jigsaw Company?  The answer: The Australia Council for the Arts, which offers grants in its Emerging Artists Fund to artistic directors in their first 4 years.  Greg Lissaman has been at Jigsaw for 3 years, with a remarkable achievement in expanding Jigsaw's program. 

    When Jigsaw began, as you may imagine from its name, it was an offshoot of the long-gone Canberra Children's Theatre, providing essentially theatre-in-education for the school system.  Now Lissaman has built on the work of 25 years' worth of professional artistic directors to make The Jigsaw Company a theatre for young people, which not only can serve the needs of schools through its contract with the ACT Department of Education, but has as its core the presentation of quality theatre.  In effect Jigsaw is operating in parallel to Daina Harvey's team at the NMA.

    Jigsaw's base is the Tuggeranong Arts Centre, but the company has never been restricted to a theatre venue, as Peter Wilkins' recent review in The Canberra Times of Kings Hall 9 demonstrates: the Chambers of Old Parliament House make the perfect setting for this Federation drama. 

In fact it was this work which led to Lissaman receiving a grant from the Australia Council for an 8 week study tour of zoos and museums in USA and England in May 2002.  In Dallas he and Michael Richards of Old Parliament House will co-present a paper to the Annual Meeting of the prestigious American Association of Museums, while Lissaman goes on to the Smithsonian in Washington, the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Region History Centre, Philadelphia Zoo, Boston Museum of Science and the London Museum of the Moving Image, where he will make a more lengthy study of the training of actors for scripted and improvised museum theatre work, and the model of consultancy which makes this Museum a successful provider of museum theatre across Europe.

This is where not "banging a visitor over the head" comes in.  Catherine Hughes founded the International Museum Theatre Alliance, writing in 1998 "As the museum theatre field grows, criticism of it may as well.  In fact, when engaging the full power of theatre, it should spark healthy debate.  The aspect that should not be up for debate is quality.  It is imperative to produce well-acted, well-written, well-researched, and well-supported museum theatre.  A lone actor in period costume with no structure or support from an institution will appear foolish.  A simplistic, badly written play will not keep anyone's attention.  Bad or overzealous acting will ruin more than just one experience."

Daina Harvey from NMA will be at the IMTA conference for four days in September.  Greg Lissaman will meet with Catherine Hughes next May.  The NMA Performance Advisory Group has been established to build on the high-level enthusiasm of the internal staff, chaired by Children's Programs General Manager Dr Darryl McIntyre, by bringing in the expertise of not only Greg Lissaman, but Canberra Youth Theatre's Linda McHugh, Elbow Theatre's Iain Sinclair, College drama teachers Lorena Param and Peter Wilkins, Melbourne Theatre Company dramaturg Peter Matheson, and Robert Swieca from Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, who is also a Board Member of IMTA.

The object of the exercise is to ensure that Hughes' injunction about not compromising on quality is followed through.  This is Jigsaw's main point: quality theatre is the core - only then can quality experience and learning take place.  I guess parents and teachers around Canberra will back Jigsaw's reputation on this point.

Of course, the other issue raised by Hughes will be the one to watch.  Will the funding for the NMA support the current enthusiasm?  Will museum theatre become entirely dependent on box office (already partly the case for some performances at NMA)?  Professionals need to be paid at professional rates, so will budgetting in the long term recognise the continuing need for quality?

ANM Director, Dawn Casey, expresses no doubts however, explaining that museum theatre is directly related to the Museum's central concern: making Australia's national stories accessible.  As exhibitions change and develop, so will the museum's theatre be embedded in the process not only of presenting our stories but creating stories, where, for example, a school or community may bring their own theatre to the museum.  Already, she says, museums overseas are keen to learn from the way we do things here where we aim to integrate visitors' experiences around themes and national narratives.

So museum theatre has jumped out of its old theatrical pigeonhole and wombatted its way into the Mr Squiggle design of the National Museum of Australia where it will create ever diverting tunnels for the unwary - and will be impossible to remove without the whole structure falling down about our ears like a dunny kicked by an emu.  Museum theatre has certainly turned topsy-turvy, to become the theatre of the future instead of the theatre of the past.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Cosi by Louis Nowra

Cosi by Louis Nowra.  Three Dice UCU Theatre Co, directed by Michele Lee and Jenni Sainsbury.  University of Canberra Theatre 8 pm May 18, 19, 25, 26, June 1, 2.  Bookings 6201 5350.

    One might compare Cosi with the other famous asylum play, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but what Nowra could do - and Ken Kesey couldn't - is write delicate light characters, edging on satire but leaving no doubt about the reality of their psychoses.  Funny, but sad. 

And sad it was at the end as each of the ill people parted from Lewis, who had succeeded in directing their play not by the rules of theatrical convention but by responding to their feelings, encouraging their sense of self-worth.  At the same time the "well" people - Lewis' girlfriend and his best mate - were fighting ideological battles in the anti-Vietnam moratorium marches and betraying him, while the social worker maintained a spurious concern for the patients' welfare, always setting "them" well away from "us".

It took most of the first half on opening night for the actors to relax but by the end they had the feel of the roles and the rhythm of the play - ending the curtain call with an exuberant, superficially silly conga-line exit - yet just what this edgy satire needed.  It seemed to me that the co-directors had probably been a bit too earnest about developing characterisation in the early scenes, but you can't keep a good play down, and Nowra is such a good writer that the script does the work.

Costume and props were excellent.  I loved Henry's toy soldiers and model ship, Zac's Wagnerian anti-Mozart Viking helmet and all the women's specific elements of self-expression, from Julie's just-enough bare skin above her jeans to Cherry's short red number.  Released from the wards for rehearsals, these were the marks of freedom.  Doug, of course, had to escape D ward to reappear, with Cherry's knife wounds bloodily bandaged.  And then came Roy's pipe at the end!  In this little theatre every detail could be seen and made its theatrical point.

While not a professional quality production, Cosi is a good play done with energy and intelligence.  Worth a visit.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, trans. Paul Roches

 Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, trans. Paul Roches.  The Acting Company directed by Estelle Muspratt.  Hawk Theatre, Narrabundah College 8 pm May 15-19.

    "You see here young and old clustered round the shrine. Fledglings some, essaying flight ... and striplings some - ambassadors of youth."  Like a modern Oedipus, Muspratt represents the creation of good order among these largely youthful actors.  Her search for the truth, which she describes as "taking the simplest tack I can - telling a story" is as effective as Oedipus' insistence on discovering the truth about himself - how he murdered his father and married his mother, just as the gods had ordained.  Fortunately the results for Muspratt are anything but dire.

    Several colleges over the years have sought to establish post-college theatre groups for their drama graduates, but The Acting Company has been the most long-standing (since 1989) and successful, with Barbra Barnett the current Artistic Director.  This cast includes students at Narrabundah, ANU, Canberra School of Music and UC, while Muspratt is herself a product of Narrabundah and ANU, with a swag of successful work and a Canberra Critics' Circle Award as an emerging force in local theatre.

    This production edges a little too close to the drama "workshop" style, and some actors' technical skills in language articulation require more training, but the simplicity of design, the use of group movement and chorused voices, and especially the timing of silences, makes for a sincerity and clarity in telling the story which allows the horror of Oedipus' terrible dilemma to stand out boldly in relief.  Though nothing can stand up to the last great production I saw of Oedipus Rex - by Sir John Gielgud - at least this is moving in the right direction, and left the audience on opening night quite silent at the end, as it should.

    Muspratt, 10 years on from College, has set herself the objective of demonstrating by her own example to those following her, a belief in theatre work in and for Canberra.  This production, of a classic mythic play of such large universal implications for how we should live in society - elucidating and facing up to truth - is a worthy project for The Acting Company.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet

Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet.  Free Rain Theatre Company directed by George Huitker.  Courtyard Studio 8 pm until May 26.

    All those politicians who extoll the virtues of competition need to see this horrible little play about real estate salesmen.  Maybe a stint in Mitch & Murray's office would be more effective than a few days in the army.  On the other hand, they might learn to be even more underhand in their dealings from Mamet's all too accurate representation of men who must make a sale or lose their livelihood.  Feels like an election coming on.

    And they are are all men, so language flies at its worst, to such a point of exaggeration that it's hard not to laugh at times - until we realise that the loser really is a loser.  Do not sell the Harbour Bridge: go to jail.  No Monopoly money here - just the reality of capitalist competition.

    David Mamet has written a USA Incorporated version of something like Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, but without the British "pause".  These Americans talk flat out like Woody Allen, and it's not long (about 1 hour 20 minutes) before they self-destruct.  A terrible existence, but an instructive drama.

    Huitker is a master of movement, visual image and timing and has passed on to all his actors a consistent and precise style which this play requires: always just beyond the bounds of reality, yet therefore able to reflect the character types which inhabit this office from hell. 

In fact, the ensemble quality of these actors, despite their such varied background experiences, means it's time to stop writing silly amateur biogs on the back of the program.  Mamet and Huitker demand that the actors take themselves seriously, off stage as well as on stage where they are doing so well.
   
    Technical production, set and costumes are all excellent.  High energy and speed on the preview night might slow a little as the run settles.  But this should only improve the play's bite.  It might shake you out of complacency if you think competition trickle-down is the economic answer.  Don't be at the bottom of the sales graph, because you'll just get pissed on.  See this play for the experience.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams.  Canberra Repertory Theatre directed by Walter Learning.  Theatre 3 April 27-May 19.

    "This is my soft birthday.  Not my gold birthday, nor my silver birthday, but my soft birthday..." says Big Daddy, knowing, but not knowing, that cancer is undermining his 65 year old body. Phil Mackenzie created a softer more empathetic character than is usual in this now classic 1955 play.  The theme, against mendacity and for facing the difficult truth - the only way human understanding and tolerance can grow - became clear in this production.

    Learning's direction was tight, in an excellent set by Russell Brown, including Big Mama's crass iconographic purchases from her trip to Europe.  Lighting was unobtrusive and therefore effective.  So all the makings of a good production were there.

    However this was not gold or silver, not as hot as the Memphis cat that Tennessee Williams wrote: a workmanlike production, finally, because the cast, though a good selection, could not involve us in the full complexity of these characters' illusions.  Mackenzie and Duncan Ley (the drunkard son Brick) showed their strength, lifting Act 2 through their long duet; Janie Lawson as the Cat (Maggie) got the story through, but never the depth of desperation driving her character's sexuality - and so the first Act took too long to get moving - but there were effective moments of reflection, when we could really wonder if Maggie understood how self-destructive was her need to reclaim Brick's attention.

    Other characters were neatly cut out, and therefore a bit cardboardy, though Ian Croker (Brick's lawyer brother Gooper) and Jenny Ongley-Houston (his avaricious wife Mae) showed some spark in vicious lines from the side of the mouth in Act 3.  Big Mama (Anne Joyce) I found disappointing - the right elements of feeling were there, but not elemental enough.  And the "no-neck" children were awful, exactly as they should have been.  "Happy Birthday Big Daddy - we love you" was excellent.
   
    Rep is aiming high this season.  Though we can't expect the standards of fully professional trained actors, it is good to revisit classic Tennessee Williams even in a softer focus. Mendacity and avarice, after all, are still with us.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Australian National Playwrights' Conference - Drama Teachers Studio

 Drama Teachers Studio, directed by Timothy Daly.  Australian National Playwrights' Conference (ANPC), Burgmann College ANU April 18-21.

    "He's brilliant" whispered Robert Schneider, as I sat next to him on Day 2 of the Drama Teachers Studio.  After an hour, it was an accolade for Timothy Daly I could not deny.  If only I had had this detailed professional play-writing training available when I was teaching drama.

    At last I was hearing not the old purely literary analysis of plays, which according to the 9 drama teachers from NSW, Tasmania and South Australia is still too common, but how "exposition" means "you make clear the status quo" as the play opens - in words, or in mime; and then you create a "disturbance!", and so you begin the "major action/problem/dilemma".  And then you "complicate" the action with a "new action/new decisions/new reactions" and create a change of direction, until a "turning point" (for good or ill) is reached, and there are three climaxes: for the narrative, for the characters internally, and for the meaning.

    So the denouement, which I always thought was the slack bit after the climax to get to the end as quick as possible, becomes the key to dramatic meaning: how it ends makes all the difference.  And how my short experience with Daly ended made the point, as teachers performed the short scripts they had written on Day 1.  I saw all comedies, but no tragedies here: cleverly crafted pieces already, and 2 more days to go.

    Daly's teaching was itself a model for these teachers.  By experiencing the role of students in such a creative, intensive class, Schneider (St Aloysius' College, Sydney), Elizabeth Surbey (Sydney Girls' High), Stephen Goldrick (St Andrews Cathedral School, Sydney), James Fischer (St Paul's College, Walla Walla NSW), Victoria Lewis (Killara High, Sydney), Melinda Boston (Norwood Moriatta High, Adelaide), Kris Plummer (Bankstown Grammar, Sydney), Julie Waddington (Kingston High, Tasmania) and Lesley Christen (Santa Sabina College, Strathfield, Sydney) were sure that they could take back, and put into practice, the writing skills Daly had to offer.

    These 9, some with partial support and some entirely self-funded, are surely the vanguard, flying the flag for the generation of drama teachers who can no longer be seen as self-indulgently playing games.  Their creativity in the classroom is now being recognised and professionally developed at the ANPC, the theatre industry's fermentation plant. 

Now that the opportunity is there, it's time for education, especially government departments (look at the schools represented this year), to take the ANPC on board.  And may I say, especially in Canberra. 

It was Julie Waddington who voiced on behalf of everyone in the Drama Teachers Studio how important it is, rather than being a teacher who is an artist on the side, "to be valued as an artist who teaches". 
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Lord of the Rocks, a musical by John O'Neil

Lord of the Rocks, a musical by John O'Neil.  Tempo Theatre directed by Michael Weston.  Belconnen Community Centre April 4-7.

    I feared that some Federation celebrations would be embarrassing - and so it was. 

    I have not previously heard of John O'Neil. This spurious story of The Rocks in Sydney Town when Macquarie arrives to save the colony from injustice is so childish that I wouldn't let a child near it. John Howard would be proud: not one black armband among the happy band of Britishers.  The final puke came when Macquarie announced that in future people would all be mates in the commercial centre of the world surrounded by a wide brown land and the whole cast sang Advance Australia Fair.  Seriously!

    After the worst choice of script came the worst performance.  I can only praise the band Jeff Burns (bass), Ben Tyrell (drums) and especially Lachlan Cotter on keyboard.  Without their stirling effort, keeping strict time and tuning, the show would have fallen completely apart, since the only actors who could sing in tune were Jon Elphick and Leah Wheelhouse - and only Leah could act as well.  The description of one actor in the program as "quite good at voice contortion which is more a personality trait than a skill" says it all.  If only it had been ironic!

    From a deadly static opening, with leads who had almost no stage presence, the brightest spot in the show - though dim by any other amateur standards - was the knockabout Rum Corps. At last O'Neil broke just a smidgin out of gawky sentimentality with an almost G&S-esque song and dance.  But the slapstick didn't last long, and goo covered the stage, getting thicker, and thicker until I felt thick.

    I'm sorry to be so critical of an amateur group presumably enjoying themselves, but Holt Primary School did Joseph's Dreamcoat streets better than this 20 years ago.  Tempo itself has done far better in the past; and we had a couple of very presentable musicals from Phoenix Players recently as well classy stuff from Supa Productions. 

If we are going to celebrate Federation, let's at least do it in style (and maybe even mention an indigine or three).

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: How Big's Yours - Group Devised by Canberra Youth Theatre

How Big's Yours.  Group devised theatre of spectacle, directed by Scott Wright for Canberra Youth Theatre. Riggers and performance consultants: Karen Yaldren and Russell Wright, courtesy of Spinifex Circus.  Civic Youth Centre and surrounds, April 5-7.

Self-expression for young men - outside the traditional framework of sport - is problematic.  For many, options like theatre and dance are "effeminate", despite the physical nature of stage performance.  Scott Wright, from erth in Sydney, offers a blend of real physical risk with performing in roles, devised by the 14 young men of CYT to make statements about their experiences of "What makes a man a man?"

I'm going to trust the riggers and performance consultants about the safety of the acts, though I had my doubts about the belaying used for the most spectacular piece, a race up a 9-storey wall, using rope work similar to that at the Sydney Opera House at New Year 2000.  It was also reported to me that the racing go-karts were close to being run down by the rapidly reversing 4 wheel drive in the first scene at the skate park on opening night.

I would not normally take a critical stance towards a young people's workshop theatre piece, but the very large-scale public nature of How Big's Yours gives it exposure.  I found the emphasis on young men in battle and simple physical competition, which provided the opportunity for much firestick twirling, fire breathing and acrobatic rope-and-harness activity, left me wondering about the rest of young men's experiences.  Is there really no sensitivity in a youth's life apart from the skill of physical dominance? 

Apart from the opening songs, only Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" backed by fire breathing, touched, though obliquely, on deeper issues like youth suicide.  But, by merely representing young men's behaviour, too many scenes ended up apparently condoning the excitement of violence and risk taking rather than commenting critically on what has been a problem for most societies.

So despite the spectacular bits, How Big's Yours needed focus and a clearer message before I could say it was big enough.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayam

  The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayam.  National Multicultural Festival, March 14-15.  Directed by Domenic Mico.  Performed by Phil Mackenzie, with dancers, Veils of Baghdad and the Occidental Tourists, and musicians Jim Sharrock and Graeme Adler.

    I guess the important thing about a "festival" is its inclusiveness.

The attempt to melt down the silver and gold of the old Multicultural Festival and the Canberra Festival, and remould them to fit a rectangular tent in Civic Square as a package to raise the tourist dollar, should mean the exclusion of Phil Mackenzie's dream of pretending to be a Persian 11th Century poet speaking the often execrable verse written by his 19th Century utterly Romantic neo-Gothic English translator, accompanied by excellent 21st Century Canberran belly dancers.

Probably the serious tourists wondered if their $8 was worth it, especially when the radio microphone echoed and whistled and the lighting left faces in the dark, and the one and one only dress rehearsal was obvious.

Yet, for our Festival, here was an oddity for which one can have some affection.  The dancing was used to give the long set of verses some dramatic structure, some merely illustrating scenes but some, such as the scimitar dance and the dance of the black shadows, successfully illuminating the poet's philosophy.  From a purely performance point of view, the professional quality of the dancers and musicians strengthened Mackenzies' mixed underplaying and overplaying of Omar al-Khayyami.

In Persian tradition, Omar was outshone 200 years later by the "Prince" of lyric poets, Mohammed Schems-Eddin Hafiz, who also praised wine and love.  But Omar was a mathematician who lived at the time when Arabic philosophy invented the number zero, and in his verses one senses a kind of despair.  The infinite universe seems reduced to nought and he will "Divorce old barren reason from my bed" and life becomes "nothing but a magic shadow show". 

In the face of this, "fill me with that old familiar juice" he says, sadly, and - there being no higher force to save us from ourselves - he begs that "For all the sins that blacken Man, Man's forgiveness give and take."  Sounds like a very modern message from the 11th Century for a modern multicultural society.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Steaming by Nell Dunn

Steaming by Nell Dunn.  Canberra Rep directed by Liz Bradley at Theatre 3, February 23 - March 17, 8pm.

    Steaming is a celebration of women, by women, for all of us.  It's a great beginning to Rep's 2001 season.

    No-one surely could fail to respond in kind to Lesley Smith's joyous Dawn, to worry for the sanity of Jennie Vaskess' Mrs Meadows, to feel the loneliness underneath Margaret Magner's sensible Jane, the strength of Judi Crane's Violet, the relief discovered by Naone Carrel's Nancy, and the glory of Bronwyn Grannall's Josie.  This is a remarkably balanced cast, at ease with themselves and their director.

    Superficially a small-scale modern classic about the local politics of closing some delapidated Turkish baths, in a 1970's London of the working poor and pensioners, Nell Dunn's characters continually create shifting planes of light as they reveal their stories, their physicalities and their emotional bonds with each other. 

It's true, yet it becomes a minor point, that the issues in the play are just as relevant in today's "liberal" we-must-be-more-competitive regime as under Thatcherism.  It certainly warns us how far backwards our government marches on.  But the universal in the play - and brought out very well in this production - which enlarges our understanding, is about how we are all vulnerable and can find strength in sharing our experiences.  How we are all different, and by coming to appreciate our differences we find how we are all the same.

The value of this production is the sincerity of the commitment of the women performers to the theme of women's freedom.  Every man, woman and child needs to experience the warmth of feeling coming off the stage and enveloping the audience - just like the steam of the Turkish bath, which relaxes body and mind in a space separated for a short while from the frozen world outside.  We all need theatre like this, just as the women will fight on to keep their baths.

First night was good, but the performance will without doubt become more energised and connected through the season.  If the rest of this year from Rep is this good, you may as well take out a subscription now.  Ring 6257 1950.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Shaking Up Shakespeare Festival at Thredbo. Feature article.

   Shaking Up Shakespeare Festival at Thredbo, February 16-18.  Coordinated by Robyn Klobusiak, Thredbo Tourism.  Information and reservations: 1800 801 982 or www.thredbo.com.au.

    There are two aspects to this Festival: being at Thredbo, and the performance of Shakespeare.

    Thredbo itself has two contrasting angles.  The bush, the mountains, the sun, wind and snow - all the natural forces of which Shakespeare wrote, here in their native Australian form.  And then all the sophistication of the citified middle-class with credit cards hot-to-trot.  No Antonios lending money at no interest here: after 4 centuries Shylock has won the day.  Even Pauline Hanson's 2% bank has no show here.

    So Shakespeare, the European master of drama, is relevant here, but how has he been treated?

    Well, the packaged people ($139 per person, 4 share which includes 2 nights accommodation, a weekend festival pass and scenic chairlift rides) have been served a small treat, not to mention a Shakespearian Feast with music and dance for a mere $20.  Not all nouveau cuisine, mind you, but some highly original presentations.

    There was Australian au natural from The Actor's Forum (Sydney); the Oz bizarre flavour of tae kwon shakespeare II (Sydney); Euroexpressionisme from Thag-Theatre Fellbach (Stuttgart); Canberra ordinaire by the National Shakespeare Festival Company; Shrew in a dark prune sauce from the Gartre Troupe (Sydney); cappucino from Lieder Theatre (Goulburn); and 3 veg from the Thredbo Players, the amateur group who have inspired the Festival.

    The highlight has to be the Thag-Theatre's Moonlight Fever, about how Puck stuffs up the lovers, a tightly disciplined production strong in symbolism and acting skills.  The performers, representing high schools and universities in southern Germany, were as good as the best local professionals, and will perform in Canberra at Gorman House on Wednesday February 21, and in Goulburn and Sydney.

    The professional Actor's Forum's Shakespeare on Love was a little like a Shakespeare tour for schools, but was expertly performed in naturalistic style, covering bits from 10 plays, 3 sonnets and the narrative poem Venus and Adonis.  Young actor Ana Maria Belo closely matched Thag-Theatre's Mona Schrodel for stage presence and skill in switching mood.  Buster Skeggs' Kate from Taming of the Shrew exposed the contrast between the Actor's Forum sophistication of interpretation and the too easy acceptance by the other Sydney professionals, Gartre, of Kate's apparent kowtowing to Petruchio.  Gartre, recently graduated from acting schools, have the skills but not the depth to bring out Shakespeare's irony.

    I have to report, too, that though Nicholas Bolonkin, Miranda Rose and Simon Kearney of Canberra's National Shakespeare Theatre perhaps have depth of understanding, they haven't the skills to match Buster Skeggs in Venus and Adonis.  Goulburn's amateur Lieder Theatre were certainly very funny in Tom Stoppard's 15 Minute Hamlet, but less so in Sonnets 18 and 141 (though Ann Elbourne is a good comedian) and less so again in Bridget Elbourne's A Little Elizabethan Tomfoolery.

    The most original idea of the Festival was professional Ben Seton's story, directed by Melvyn Morrow, of how he defeated his Union-playing schoolmate Julian Beaumont for the love of leading lady Kate by incorporating championship Tae Kwon Do into all his Shakespeare roles.  The script needs tightening but the bits that worked were quite stunning: martial arts becomes the language of movement through which the emotions of Shakespeare's words are expressed.  He even did Kate, the Shrew's, final speech: in the kitchen chopping up vegetables - and he did not miss the irony.

    Thredbo's own Players, conventionally amateur in their low energy, lack of movement and slow cues were saved by Steve Lyster's language control as Sir Toby Belch, with solid support from Lizzy Withers (Viola) and Mel Perrin (Olivia), and lifted the audience in the final scene.  Unfortunately the modern setting (café society in Italian fishing village) was ignored, apart from the drunkards hiding behind the bar, instead the bush in the original.  It was a potentially good idea wasted.

    One strength of the Festival was John Garden's practical classes in Renaissance Dance, focussing on dances mentioned by Shakespeare and giving  historical insights, for example about Queen Elizabeth's fascination with the new risque dance La Volta.  Earthly Delights provided their usual high standard of Renaissance music and late evening entertainment was well provided for with Theatresports by Gartre and the excellent Irish band The Fifth Element.

    My feeling is that after several years, Thredbo's Shakespeare Festival needs an upgrade.  It seems to have fallen between stools, promising the sophistication which the credit card trotters expect while wanting to keep a village festival inclusiveness.  Audiences have not grown. It's time for investment in a professional artistic director, or the Festival may fall on its sword: not a good result for Shakespeare or Thredbo.

    Frank and Meg McKone were guests of Tourism Thredbo and stayed at Thredbo Alpine Hotel.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Shaking Up Shakespeare Festival at Thredbo: Education Day. Feature article.

Shaking Up Shakespeare Festival at Thredbo: Education Day on the Village Green.  Friday February 16 10am - 3pm.

    As a social day for students on excursion to a beautiful sunny Thredbo, the day was a clear success.  However I found myself agreeing with teachers Gai Britt and Mariette Daniels from Telopea Park School that educationally the experience was a little thin.

    Also represented were Corryong Secondary College, Bombala High School and Snowy Mountains Grammar School whose teacher, Josh Levy, explained that his students studied Shakespeare in their English classes and were looking for learning about the production process to complement their literary study.  As I discovered, indeed, few of the 90 students were taking Drama classes: many of those would have found the day fairly ordinary.

    This was the first year "Education Day" has been part of the Thredbo Shakespeare Festival and several points need to be made if next year is to be better.  Only one group was available to provide the professional input for the day, but - certainly if numbers attending are to build - a quality Festival needs to offer more variety.  The Gartre Troupe is a company of recently graduated actors which has accreditation with the NSW Department of Education, basically providing work and exposure for actors at the beginning of their careers. 

Their energy level, ensemble work and skills are high indeed, providing an excellent model for the students to aspire to, but their program (a brief introductory exercise in small groups about acting truthfully, a demonstration of rehearsing the opening scene of Taming of the Shrew, a performance of a shortened version of the same play, and a demonstration of Theatresports games with student input of ideas and some participation), which at first blush seems engaging, was not clearly structured to take the students from their normal conventional understanding of acting towards at least a beginning of experiencing the originality and creativity of professional theatre.

Probably the unexpected group of 5 - 9 year olds, brought along by brave parent Rowena Evans from Cooma Public School, gained the most by presenting their own drawings of the characters from the play as their way of thanking the performers.

The day also suffered from bad timing.  A 10 am start for students arriving by bus from Canberra, Corryong and Bombala was never likely to work, and Gartre had to hold off for 30 minutes, had to shorten planned exercises and could not fit in a feedback session after the performance of a rather dark, perhaps even politically questionable version of Taming of the Shrew. 

In fact fitting the trip into one day must have been very demanding of willing teachers.  By expanding and developing the educational program, the Festival can gain a reputation to build on.  As I saw the day this year, I would not deny the social value of the students' excursion, but I couldn't yet recommend it as quality education.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: Jigsaw and Free Rain 2001 Season launches. Feature article.

Two very different Canberra theatre companies launched their 2001 seasons on Valentine's Day: Jigsaw and Free Rain.  Yet there are strong connections between the two, not the least being David Whitney.

    But first, their programs. 

    Jigsaw's was launched by Director of Public Prosecutions Richard Refshauge, the company's first president way back in the mid 70's, ACT Cultural Council Chair and currently serving on the Australian National University Committee of Review of the ANU Theatre Studies program.  (Indications are positive and expect the Report, planned for last December, to appear about the end of this month.)

    In true Jigsaw tradition, Mr Refshauge and David Whitney - representing the Australia Council - arrived on stage by ute and were critically examined by puppetry dogs, all part of Jigsaw's main production for Federation called Post & Rail.  Asked to explain Federation in a fun way, writer Manuel Aston makes time rather slippery for Tom and Joanne when their ute breaks down and they seek help from a fencer who tells them they'll have to pay two bob customs duty to cross his state border fence and they can't catch one train to Melbourne because of the different gauges - and has a major fit when Joanne's mobile phone rings.

    Jigsaw is bursting out all over with Post & Rail in schools and at Parliament House (March/April); Dyna'write at Big Byte Virtual Theatre (www.jigsaw.asn.au/bigbyte); Kings Hall Nine at Old Parliament House (March - April and September - November); Smoke Free Burning Boards Youth Drama Festival moving this year to The Street Theatre in June; The Long Time 'til Tea for 4-8 year olds at Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Gorman House and Belconnen Community Centre (November/December); Kera Putih going this year to Melbourne and Geelong Arts Centres; while The Man Whose Mother Was A Pirate, in its third year, goes to the Sydney Opera House, Western NSW, Adelaide, Melbourne and Geelong.

    In addition is a new play by Mary Morris, The Blue Roof, with special funding from the Australia Council, treating a teenage boy's coming to terms with the tragic death of his girlfriend - a sophisticated production for young people at The Street in March/April.  And New Direktions expands this year into employing (i.e. paying) Jonathan Lees (writer), Catherine Wright (technical production and set design), Matthew Aberline (costume) and Mike Smith (musical theatre and puppetry).

    Free Rain Theatre Company, a risky business venture of its passionate director Anne Somes, has begun to keep its head just above water in this - its sixth - financial year.  Focussed on providing for young actors and directors, Somes and George Huitker give particular credit to Jigsaw for major support two years ago as part of New Direktions at Currong Theatre and to Canberra Theatre Centre for administration, marketing and technical support for 2001 in the Courtyard Studio.  A future direction will be to set up the now more experienced members into a separate team, while continuing to nurture a younger group.

    Productions will be Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, David Williamson's Brilliant Lies, and Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.  Phillip O'Brien in his launch speech commented on the challenge Free Rain sets itself, and compared the youth energy factor in this company with Richard Tognetti's Australian Chamber Orchestra: a high standard to match indeed.

    And David Whitney?  Now General Manager of the Canberra Theatre Centre as well as being on the Australia Council for the Arts, Whitney emphasises cooperation and support for the continually bubbling theatre scene in Canberra.  People sit around their lounge rooms and form new companies every year, he says.  Some collapse, but some prove themselves - like Free Rain - and he sees an obligation under the Canberra Theatre Centre charter to use his established administrative and technical structure to provide as much support as he can.

    Whitney sees the Canberra Theatre Centre, Currong Theatre and The Street Theatre as a cooperative central network rather than competitive entities. His aim is to help raise professional standards of theatre in this city through the good offices of the Canberra Theatre Centre, and we can only hope his vision can break down insularity in the Canberra theatre scene. 

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2001: The Ball's Up by Marya Glyn-Daniel

 The Ball's Up by Marya Glyn-Daniel.  The Players Company directed by Jasan Savage.  UCU Theatre, The Hub, University of Canberra Feb 7, 8, 14, 15 12.40pm and 5.40pm; matinee Sat Feb 10 2pm.

    "We're never going to be an experimental theatre," says Marya Glyn-Daniel.  Her slightly zany one-acter proves the point, being highly reminiscent of Alan Ayckbourn's style, but it's a neat script which caricatures the management of book publishing. 

Alex Aspillera of Echidna Books, for which read Little Antarctic Birds Books with its office in Ringwood, Melbourne, plans the launch of "Football in the Seventies" while her immediate boss J.T. is having a spiritual experience somewhere in the hills behind Ubud (in Bali in case you didn't know...)  He assumes the game between the ageing 70's stars (Jazza, Gazza etc.) and football journalists, especially with a Scotch (rather than champagne) breakfast will be a balls up - and even Alex is prepared to clear her desk the morning after ten legless players are carted off to hospital.

In fact, of course, any publicity on three TV channels is good publicity.  The book takes off and Alex's job is saved, while J.T. is suitably humiliated.  Quite a lot to pack into 40 minutes on stage - and the Players do it with considerable panache.

Kim-Hurst-Meyers' Alex has a quick knowing wit which is the core of a successful character.  Danielle McGettrick plays a wonderful brainless Suzy the Temp - but it's her brother who saves the day.  Simon Troeth as J.T. needs more light and shade in his character: it's hard to imagine how he ever got his job otherwise - but maybe that's the key to his caricature.  Chris Clarke's brief appearance as Gazza was a gem - a part that might have been developed in a longer play. 

Designer and director Jasan Savage had a clear vision of the right style for this play on this tiny stage, so it will be interesting to see his next production: a very different Diary of Anne Frank in April/May.

A gaggle of ex-70's ex-Melbourne female footy fans in the foyer were very excited by memories of Jazza etc., and extracted from Marya news of a full-length play, still at the storyboard stage, for 2002.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Deviations by Allen O'Leary

 Deviations by Allen O'Leary.  Directed by Iain Sinclair.  Elbow Theatre Company at Currong Theatre November 23 - 25, 8pm.  Transferring to La Mama, Melbourne, November 29 - December 17.

    Four characters, Richard, Susan, Matt and Karen begin in pairs which become crossed and double-crossed; in Act 2 they appear in a foursome, which breaks again into pairs, and ends with Karen alone.  In this nicely structured black comedy of Melbourne manners, Michael Butcher, Lenore McGregor, Pip Branson and Lucie O'Brien form an equally balanced ensemble performing highly unbalanced characters.  From laughter of recognition, through laughter in sympathy, to silence of horror, opening night of this preview season proved both the play and the performance a very worthwhile night of theatre.

    If you've missed it here, then you may pick it up in its 3 week season in Melbourne, where La Mama is fully sponsoring the run.  However, since artsACT funded the final development of the script, we can only hope that local funding may also be found to present a longer return season here in the future.

    Playwright Allen O'Leary, originally from New Zealand, has picked up the tone of North Fitzroy and Collingwood, producing an almost olde worlde inner city charm in a drama of mixed sexuality, in which independent company-owning architect Susan hopes that her new relationship with Brunswick Street waitress Karen may develop from desire to lust, to sex, and to love - in that order.  But we find that loving someone is not the same as liking them, let alone desiring, lusting or having sex with them.  The problem, as Karen says, is that it's not easy to stop loving someone.  When, in the final tragic twist, she no longer has Matt, Karen moves to the busy city of sharp sunlight, Sydney, to be herself, alone; while Susan has no choice but to support Richard in his new bout of insanity, just as she has had to in the past.

    Challenging theatre is Elbow's metier, and early next year expect more new work from local writers as well as imports; while later, founding members Kenneth Spiteri and Iain Sinclair will turn to Europe for further training, at the Atelier Ecole du Mime Corporel in Paris and the Theatre Institute in Amsterdam respectively.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Australian National Playwrights' Conference. Feature article.

 The Australian National Playwrights' Conference will live once again in its natural home at ANU's Burgmann College in 2001, despite occasional dalliances elsewhere such as at the Adelaide Festival.  The all important diary dates are April 17 to 28, and there will be opportunities this time around for many more people to be involved in addition to the focus group of playwrights.

    Traditionally the ANPC concentrated on a small group whose plays were professionally workshopped over 2 weeks, with top class actors and directors coming together at peak energy levels with a sense of dedication to the growth of new Australian theatre.  Over the last 20 years, and especially since top flight dramaturg May-Brit Akerholt became director, ANPC has become far more inclusive. 

Nowadays indigenous writers are represented every year, no longer with any sense of a need for affirmative action but as a natural part of the mainstream.  The New Dramatists Exchange with New York continues with an Australian writer there and an American writer here.  The Young Playwrights' Studio runs around the nation separately from the main Conference, with successful young ACT writers Tom Hodgson (Hannibal and Co.), Sarah Kaur (Girl) and Christopher Curwood (Brain Drain) among others being awarded a year's membership of ANPC and observer status at the Conference.  And, as always, any interested person can buy a ticket for a day or for the whole 2 weeks as an observer, including taking part in the often highly energetic discussions in the daily forums and seminars.

For some years now there has also been The Studio running throughout the fortnight in parallel with the main Conference.  This is for anyone who has "a script, a scene or even just a great idea".  It's a course for budding writers with daily classes taught by professional writing tutors and specialist theatrecraft people, and often sets the seeds of a script which in a later year appears in the main Conference.  One writer, Jen Nield, described The Studio as "like being given a brand new box of tools", the image emphasising that writing for theatre is a practical craft.

And now comes a new initiative which I suspect will grow bigger than Ben Hur: the Drama Teachers' Studio.  For the first time, ladies and gentlemen, drama teachers across the nation can spend their Easter holidays (and up to $950 for registration, accommodation and meals from April 18 to 21) on an annual professional development binge.

The Drama Teachers' Studio, directed in 2001 by the experienced playwright, dramaturg and theatre writing teacher Timothy Daly, already well known for his ANPC work in Canberra as well as interstate, will concentrate on texts being taught by the teachers especially for Year 11 and 12 and in tertiary education courses.  In the Conference milieu, teachers at last will have a regular opportunity to mix with the top professionals in the industry - and relatively early in the academic year, ready to feed all their experience back to their students.

I believe that this special relationship between the ANPC and the teaching profession will help establish the status of drama teachers, who are still too often regarded as people playing games rather than as the highly trained and disciplined professionals that they need to be nowadays.  Despite the cost (becoming a member of ANPC and Earlybird registration by February 23 saves $110), the Drama Teachers' Studio will be invaluable, and is already being strongly supported by the NSW Educational Drama Association and the ACT Drama Association - and ANPC's phones are running hot from teachers in other states within days of sending out their fax.

Write to ANPC, PO Box 1566, Rozelle NSW 2039, email anpc@kbdnet.net.au , phone 02 9555 9377, or fax 02 9555 9370.  The 2001 Australian National Playwrights' Conference is waiting in the wings.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia - National Student Festival. Short feature article.

 Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia's annual national Student Festival will culminate this year at Theatre 3 in Canberra with 2 public performances of Bard-O! on December 16 and 17.

    The students will be celebrating along with the Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, who told SGCA's Director Hugh O'Keefe "It is a great personal joy to me that students still find inspiration and pleasure in the works of Shakespeare almost four hundred years after his death."  But O'Keefe and his Board, led by Diana Denley, founder and Director of the International Program which sends each year's winner to The Globe Theatre in London for 2 weeks' intensive theatre experience, are hoping that Bob Carr's sentiment can be turned into cash.

    The problem is that their major sponsor since 1990, Mr Edward Gilly, who provided at least 80% of the $120,000 per year that SCGA costs to run, is no longer able to continue his support.  Schools, of course, pay a fee to take part in the Festival, but this generates no more than $20,000 per year, each State basically only covering its immediate costs.  So where will the money come from?  Save Our Shakespeare is the real theme behind Bard-O!.

    Putting a Pistol to the head of potential corporate sponsors has not yet produced results, but there is a proposal for a joint arrangement with Bell Shakespeare Company, Sydney Theatre Company and the Performing Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education and Training.  The dominance of Sydney on the national stage is unfortunate, and ACT Education and Arts Minister Bill Stefaniak and Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation can expect calls shortly.  After all the Shakespeare Globe Festival brings the professional team and 38 students and their entourages to Canberra for 2 weeks' rehearsal leading to the December 16 - 17 performances, and schools across Canberra are heavily involved.

    Teachers, of course, do most of the work - and one is chosen each year for an overseas professional development trip.  Victorian coordinators organised a fundraiser this year, showing the movie Titus, but when this work is in addition to the already extra-curricular teaching for the Festival, teacher overload goes past the point of effective returns.

    Contact Shakespeare Globe Centre Australia at sgca@mail.usyd.edu.au or phone (02) 9351 5231 - especially if you have $100,000 to offer!
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Australian National Playwrights' Centre - Young Playwrights' Studio. Short feature article.

"They're out there now, making up an end", Jigsaw director Greg Lissaman told me 2 minutes before the show-and-tell for the Young Playwrights' Studio 2000 last Sunday.  3 young playwrights were seeing their work presented after 2 days of workshopping, funded by the Australian National Playwrights Centre.

    As you may guess, Tom Hodgson (Hannibal and Co.), Sarah Kaur (Girl) and Christopher Curwood (Brain Drain) were not in competition with each other.  The ANPC employed The Jigsaw Company and Canberra Youth Theatre to choose 3 scripts for development, each young playwright receiving a year's honorary membership of ANPC.  This gives them the right to participate in the 2001 Australian National Playwrights' Conference and free professional assessment of their scriptwriting efforts.

    The plays on offer represented typical work in one sense: a young teenage boy's humorous take on how Hannibal really got his elephants over the Alps; a self examination of what an older teenage girl expects of herself and what she really wants; an older boy's comic vision of sex and death in a game show format.  All three showed elements of theatrical structure and consistency of style which explain why they were chosen for workshopping.

    Maybe none of these scripts will make it through to full production - the ANPC process is designed to weed out as much as to encourage script development - but interestingly I thought the younger Tom Hodgson had the edge on his older colleagues.  His work - bringing together Hannibal, his domineering mother, the example of his dead famous General father, his baby-face business-oriented brother, and the Tibetan lamas who train the elephants in the proper Buddhist tradition - showed not only a comic originality but a quite sophisticated level of character development, as well as a clever twist in the plot where it is actually Hannibal's brother who wins the battle for which Hannibal takes the credit.  And it was based on research into the real (or at least recorded) history.

    Some 19 Youth Theatre actors, with Tristan Flynn on lights, gave their time and a considerable degree of expertise to the workshops, with Roland Manderson, Greg Lissaman and Noonee Dorononila, and Catherine Langman as professional directors/dramaturgs.  A mini-model of the Australian National Playwrights' Conference: what better way to learn?
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Canberra Repertory Theatre - preview of 2001 Program. Promo article.

Which Old Time Musical reaches its "Olympiad" in 2001?  The answer is, of course, Canberra Rep's well regarded romp which raises its writhing hoary Hydra head for the 27th time next year - surely an Olympic feat of gold (sponsored by Oasis for Hair at Rydges).

    Rod Quinn of ABC Local Radio fame asked much more obtuse quizz questions of Rep members at their 2001 Launch last Friday at Happy Hour, and it was Sue Richards, daughter of Joan and with her own daughter Katherine by her side, who put the clues together for the first production: the Turkish bath play Steaming by Nell Dunn, to be directed by Liz Bradley and sponsored by Coralie Wood Publicity.

    Through the generations Rep has survived where professional companies have been short-lived, and will present theatre of quality and interest to Canberra audiences with a series designed in 2001 to attract a new range of people to audition, as well as appreciate from the audience perspective.

    Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Tennessee Williams, directed by Walter Learning, sponsored by Rocksalt Restaurant), Wait Until Dark (Frederick Knott, directed by Geoffrey Borny, sponsored by Mazet's Restaurant at Hotel Heritage) and Black Comedy (Peter Shaffer, directed by Aarne Neeme, sponsored by Class-Inn Restaurant at CIT) complete a program that should give everybody, new and old, a great chance of a part on stage or backstage which will both challenge and satisfy.

    A new arrangement for subscribers is that the sponsors offer discount deals on presentation of the ticket stub, so the variety of the shows is not all that people will remember.  If you want 2 meals for the price of 1, or scintillating scissor work and sensational setting for your next hair-do, then you can choose your play accordingly.

    But seriously, Canberra Repertory Theatre Society at Theatre 3 offers a suitable and even exciting array of plays, from farce to tragedy and all in between, for the coming year - the kind of program which should be just right for Rep and will maintain its place in the Canberra community through to at least the next Olympiad. 

    It's been a concern for some time that the membership of Rep is growing older on the average each year, while the younger keen actors around town have set themselves up in small companies rather than join Rep.  This may well be a sign of the times a'changing - young people in general are more inclined to do their own thing rather than join established clubs.  This program for next year, however, ought to encourage auditions from actors who want to work in plays of established writers and often with directors of good standing, including people like Aarne Neeme.

    Theatre 3 also has an excellent performing space and technical possibilities for new people to take up and consolidate their backstage experience.  Rep should not be left to the old guard: it's time now for a new generation to work the repertoire of established plays.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Return to the Forbidden Planet by Bob Carlton

 Return to the Forbidden Planet by Bob Carlton.  Phoenix Players directed by Janine O'Dwyer.  Musical director, Steve Herczeg.  Belconnen Community Centre October 20 - November 4, 8pm.

    Great Balls of Fire is the theme of this blend of The Tempest and the 1950's sci fi movie The Forbidden Planet, with a set designed by Kelda McManus drawing on Metropolis, Star Trek, Lost in Space, Dr Who and Alien.  Could anyone ask for more?  Not much, if the applause and clapping in time with Great Balls at the end on opening night was anything to go by.

    It's a complex show technically, with live rock and roll, acoustic trumpets, wired and radio mikes, video of strange planets, creatures from Dr Prospero's subconscious id, and George Huitker as a Puckish Newsreader who closed the show asking that the critics be kind.  Well, I'm certainly inclined that way, though it was unfortunate that Science Officer/Gloria had to sing her romantic farewell without amplification. Kelda McManus, in Gloria's role, will get that fixed pronto.

    The cast was an effective ensemble: no weak points, but some special strengths in Matt Kelly as Cookie, Luke Barron as the robot Ariel, with some nice work from Melissa Franks as Miranda.  The band was strong and together, and the audio mixing good most of the time, except occasionally when mikes came up a bit late.  Lighting was both well designed and well executed.  The technical side of this kind of show in a Community Centre is always a nightmare, but Chris Neal and Paul Cortese put it together well.

    It was particularly pleasing to hear all the actors handle Shakespeare's lines clearly and meaningfully.  Of course, the show wouldn't work without lines like "To beep or not to beep, that's the question", but there are many speeches which I've heard mangled in their original contexts, let alone when they are dragged out and deliberately dumped into the weird situations in this space odyssey.  Phoenix rose to the occasion, and got the laughs they deserved.

    Timing is all in comedy, and the first night pacing was a little slow.  I'm sure this will pick up, so drop in to Belconnen for a fun night out.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Gnat's Nightmare by George Huitker

Gnat's Nightmare written and directed by George Huitker.  Free Rain Theatre Company at Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, 8pm. Until October 28.  Bookings 6257 1077.

    And book you should, especially considering how small the Courtyard Theatre is.  It's an intimate space for a nightmare, and you ought not to miss Huitker's work.  It's original, whimsical and telling - at times a light, humorous drama movement workshop, and then something else again as a young boy's image of himself is shattered with twists and turns of incomprehensible flashes of reality from the world of older children and adults.

    Fortunately, as the real little boy on the video tells us, you can end the nightmare: "You just open your eyes."  And indeed  that's what Huitker does for us all - opens our eyes to the way the news and the fictions of adult society become mixed, refracted and reflected in the minds of our children.  Huitker's young Gnat (pronounce the G, if you please) even has to face the nightmare of his own parents - in a house of carpets which eat you, taps which deliberately spray you with hot water and other unpleasantries - fail him when he calls for help.

    Though we are relieved when Gnat at last finds peace in slumber, and Huitker allows us a happy ending, his surreal pictures of computer games, war games, aliens from somewhere else in the universe, the classroom "blah, blah", playground hate and rejection, a shadow which turns against us, mysterious physical sensations and the mother of all red-back spiders, leave us knowing that it is not just little Gnat who faces terror every night.  Too often we humans create worse terrors in such real places as the Middle East, and replay them nightly on TV.

    For a small scale theatre company in a tiny performing space, I was amazed by the high quality production values in a piece which welds sound scapes and videos with complex lighting, colours and lots of movement by a cast of 18.  Everything fitted together, everything worked, every detail was right.  Even if you feel dubious about nightmares, just go for the theatricality.  It's worth it.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Ship of Fools by Andrew Bovell

 Ship of Fools by Andrew Bovell.  Directed by David Atfield for Season at The Street, September 20-30 8pm. Professional. Book at The Street Theatre 6247 1223.

    With a strong team of well-known local actors - Mary Rachel Brown, Tim Wood, Lenore McGregor, Iain Sinclair, Clara Witheridge and Stephen Barker - some will like this production while others will feel less enthusiastic.  I began on the less-than side, felt positive at interval, and found myself swinging quite violently through the second half. I've ended up ambivalent.

    The play is an intriguing parallel between two stories: how the medieval city of Basle removed its "problem" misfits by launching them in a rudderless leaky boat on the River Rhine; and how Centrelink sends our modern problematicals to Work for the Dole, with equally indefinite expectations, especially for the participants.

    The result is daunting for the actors, each playing some quite strongly developed characters interspersed with brief cameos, in both modern and medieval periods.  There was a tentative feel about the opening night, as if the production needed to build self-confidence, like many of the characters.  Hopefully, a smoother flow will come through the season, especially because the stage design by Phil Rolfe works very well.

    Alongside the plots is a philosophical examination - a fool is a person who is a fool but doesn't know it, while a wise person is a fool who knows it.  The Pope's inquisitor into the Basle debacle faces his own hypocrisy and ends up in the image of Christ crucified.  But the Fool, who knows he is a fool, ends up confused like the rest of us. 

    I think this degree of complexity needs a Shakespeare to make it work on stage. Bovell makes a brave attempt, but Shakespeare he is not, and it would be difficult to succeed in the modern abbreviated style.  Bits work - like McGregor's Mother Superior, Brown's old woman Margery Clermont, and where the modern women discover the rapist on the bus - but the parts remain less than the dramatic whole we know we need.

    Maybe the problem is simply that we really have no solution for the misfits and misbegottens of society, and the play provides no answer for us.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh

 The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh.  Sydney Theatre Company at The Playhouse, August 16 - 24.

    This play, McDonagh's first, for which he received the English Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award in 1996, comes to us with a very long pedigree going back to J.M.Synge's Playboy of the Western World (1907).  Unfortunately, despite excellent design and an interesting use of slow motion in re-enacting moments of dramatic tension, and an especially compelling performance by Tracy Mann as Maureen, the play fails at its core where it is sentimental and predictable.

    The story of a mother (Mag, played with horrible guile by Maggie Kirkpatrick) who does everything possible to prevent her only unmarried 40 year old daughter, Maureen, from escaping an obligation to provide her with full-time nursing care is potentially tragic.  Maureen has one chance of getting out not only of the domestic situation but of Ireland entirely, if she can marry Pato Dooley (played without guile by Greg Saunders) and go to Boston; her failure leaves her insane, a mirror-image of her mother.  Yet the play is too contrived, too neat, to match the horror of Synge and later Irish playwrights like Sean O'Casey and Brendan Behan.  It has an old-fashioned feel compared with these writers' works - which belong to the first half of last century.

    Too much is made of the traditional comic Irish loquaciousness - the very stereotyping of the Irish that Bernard Shaw complained of a century ago.  It is only in the very last scene - where the comedy of Pato's younger brother Ray (almost a caricature by Ryan Johnson) rabbiting on about inconsequential inanities, is set against the tragic turning inwards towards mental breakdown which Maureen endures silently sitting in her mother's rocking chair - that a real strength of feeling is created.  So much so, indeed, that Tracy Mann was still visibly affected during curtain call on Wednesday, where applause was enthusiastic for the performers, even if uncertain for the play.

    Through most of the production, laughs were too shallow for the depths the play should have plumbed, while stylised devices - used to point the significant moments - were too obvious, leaving us floating on the surface instead of being drawn down into the undercurrents of emotion where we would have fully shared Maureen's sense of horror at the end, and would have felt more satisfied with our theatre experience.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Elbow Room by Elbow Theatre

 Elbow Room - wild variety and kooky stuff.  Elbow Theatre at The Currong Theatre, Gorman House July 25-29.  Bookings 6249 7377. Professional.

    Elbow's program offers " live music, stand up comedy, sock puppetry, serious dwama, new writing, skits, faux rudeness, talent, 'art' etc", and the only thing I missed were the socks.  That's OK, though: if you go on another night you might see them.  Or maybe they got lost in the washing machine - which in the imaginary and imaginative theatrical space of the Elbow Room would certainly be a metaphor for Life.  Life, unadorned, was a strong poignant moment on opening night.

    Iain Sinclair, gently holding Timothy Wood's elbow, guiding him (eyes closed) through the blue door into all that Iain ever knew, seemed to me like a Clark Kent turned the S-man, holding the universe together.  Though probably Lenore McGregor, who "produced and curated" the evening, was Elbow's S-woman extraordinaire.

    If you are young and sexually active (or old...), you can't afford to miss this show's diversity of advice on the subject of love, from the neat, dry, even wistful songs of Jordan Best,  through Jonothan Gavin's Shmaltz [sic], Clara Witheridge's Blanche from Tennessee Williams' Streetcar Named Desire, Alexis Beebe's giving of gifts to Mr Spielberg, Peter Robinson's description of John and Janet Howard past the point of epiphany, to Timothy Wood's sort-of love for his dog (in "Dog" by Steven Berkoff).

    There is a Marvellous Melbourne feel about an Elbow Room evening, like a satire of a comedy festival, and indeed I discovered that the Elbows will be performing Deviations by Allen O'Leary at The Store Room in Melbourne this December, in some kind of relationship with La Mama.  We will get to see Deviations here at The Currong in November.

    On the other hand Mary Rachel Brown (A Streetcar Named Datsun 120Y, Pig Biting Mad), nowadays a Sydney connection, has a new play, Lounge-room Culture, which Elbow will present next February.

    In the looming space of theatre in Canberra, Elbow is a point source of light beaming out to the edges of the universe.  You might need your sunnies on to filter the brilliance of the language, mime and black humour - this is a warning you should take very seriously.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Winnie the Pooh by A.A.Milne

 Winnie the Pooh by A.A.Milne, a Garry Ginivan Attraction at Canberra Theatre April 27-28.   

For me, this Pooh was a slick lick at the money honey pot, not the whimsical hums of Pooh that I remember from my tiny days.  If there is anything we should keep from our erstwhile colonial masters, it should be not just the words of A.A.Milne but the sense of gentle humour, irony and comradeship which are exemplified in the Rescue of Piglet from a Wetting.  What we got was a tightly timed performance which seemed to be controlled by a pre-recorded tape.

    The effect was exemplified when I heard a parent explain to her 3-year-old after the show, "A movie's on a big screen.  This was a play."  It was hard to tell the difference. Of course, when Pooh says to Owl, "Eeyore's lost his tail, hasn't he children?", all the children yelled "Yes!" but the show had a mechanical feel instead of the warmth of real contact between the actors and the children that performers like Monica Trapaga achieve.

    It is disappointing indeed to find myself so critical, because the costumes and set were excellent (based on the original E.H.Shepherd illustrations, not the Disney abominations), the singing was harmonious and the basics of the characters were strong, especially Tom Blair's Eeyore.  The attraction of the Bear with Very Little Brain is so powerful that Canberra Theatre was full at the opening performance.  Michael Lindner gave a generally sympathetic portrayal of Pooh, except that he fell occasionally into the trap of getting a laugh by making Pooh just a little too stupid.

    The English pantomime tradition, perhaps, led to Christopher Robin being played by a woman, Laura Hamilton, who was a clear and precise actor - yet I felt that Christopher Robin being a boy is a strong point in favour of helping males appreciate sensitivity to emotions.  Little boys in this audience probably missed the point.

    The program reveals that three prominent songs have both words and music by Julian Slade, rather than being originals by Milne and H.Fraser-Simson.  These were what Pooh might call bumptious songs - not his style at all.  And one small girl near me wanted to go home when Tigger appeared in unimpressive pin stripes.  Tigger has to be orange with big stripes, she informed her mother.  So there!  And, in Australia indeed, where were Kanga and Roo?

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Within the Walls Exhibition - The Garden by Estelle Muspratt. Short feature article.

 King's Hall in Old Parliament House has echoed to many a political intrigue in the past, but rarely to such an affecting moment as when students from Narrabundah College sang In This Heart by Sinead O'Connor to conclude The Garden, a 50 minute play about the children taken to the Theresienstadt Ghetto 1941 - 1945.

    Some 140,000 Jews were transported to this holding camp near Prague which the German SS falsely represented as a 'model Jewish settlement': most inmates were sent on to their deaths in places like Auschwitz, while 33,500 died in Theresienstadt.  Of 10,500 children under 15, only a few hundred survived.

    In A Glance and a Kiss, one inmate, Jiri Pribramsky, wrote:
        Kiss me...
        So I might forget
        The meadows between woods
        and the purple heather
        And everything else that
        used to move me.

It's an awful irony that Within the Walls, the exhibition of the history of the Theresienstadt Ghetto, brought to Old Parliament House from the Sydney Jewish Museum, is so moving to us looking back after nearly 60 years.

    Estelle Muspratt, a young Canberra actor, director and writer, created The Garden - a brief image of life in the ghetto of death - through workshops with the Narrabundah drama students, whose ownership is measured by the final script being directed by a student: Anna Nekvapil.  Muspratt had considered a range of possible themes, and was struck by the parallels between the false picture of the Jewish ghetto presented by the German government and the placement of Aboriginal people in missions during the same period of history in this country.  However, though she writes "I am not Jewish and I cannot even begin to tell this story with a whole element of truth", she felt even less that she had any right, being non-indigenous, to attempt to tell the Australian story. 

In the end her play represents an indictment of all oppression, especially in the story of the special performance in the ghetto for the International Red Cross, to deceive the world about conditions there: all the performers, including the children in the choir, were killed.  One of Muspratt's characters, realising it was "all a lie" cries out "Forgive us God, for we know not what we do!"  Yet as Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel wrote to the President of the Sydney Jewish Museum from Prague on December 10, 1998 - the 50th Anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights - "[The Theresienstadt story]is not merely a history of suffering and oppression, but a testimony of human strength."

Within the Walls continues until July 30, including The Garden and painting workshops for children till Wednesday this week; a series of public lectures through May and June; Brundibar in late May, a children's opera originally performed in Theresienstadt in 1943; the Sydney Jewish Choral Society in mid-June; and the Emanuel Quintet in mid-July.  Ring 6270 8222 for details and bookings.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Troy's House by Tommy Murphy. Preview feature article.

Queanbeyan playwright Tommy Murphy gave himself seven years to become a "theatre professional" when he spoke philosophically to The Canberra Times over chips and gravy in the Central Café back in 1998.

    Already the Cultural Centre Queanbeyan (CCQ) protégé had had a successful production of his first play For God, Queen and Country, directed by Garry Fry, after winning the Sydney Theatre Company 1997 Young Playwright award, which also took him to the Australian National Playwrights Conference as a youth observer.  With introductions from CCQ Director Gunnar Isaacson, Murphy had met with enthusiastic responses from film and theatre people in Scandinavia and New York.  As Young Shakespearean Actor of the Year 1997, he mixed with other young award winners from around the world in an intensive two-week training session at the Globe Theatre, London, in the northern summer of 1998.

    Murphy's second play, Troy's House, has progressed from a fascinating 1998 draft with gravy stains into a wild sort of satire of modern teenage angst, set in Canberra, "a suburban town that as far as I can see is an ideal setting for a romantic sexy story."  "I am never entirely happy with the show," says Murphy, now a mature 20-year-old.  "It's an encouraging discontent that excites me about the next night's run and the next project."  It's his drive to keep working and re-working the play that has taken him through a production last year at Sydney University which was picked up by the Australian Theatre for Young People for a season at The Wharf Studio 1, followed by an offer from Tamarama Rock Surfers artistic director Jeremy Cumpston to include Troy's House in this year's Theatre Hydra Season at the Old Fitzroy Hotel.

    But discontent rules. Faced with moving into the real world of Sydney pub theatre, though "I had made close friendships [and] had a cast with whom I was very happy ... I decided that I should open auditions for all the roles, to reconsider my direction and interpretation as well as providing fresh ideas from a new cast and to test myself and the script."

    The new production, currently (till April 8)in Sydney and coming to the Queanbeyan Bicentennial Centre April 13-15, has been compared with the Australian icon film Muriel's Wedding for its zany picture of suburban dysfunction.  The connection with the film is close, perhaps, because Gabby Millgate - who played Muriel's sister - fell in love with the role of Troy's mother Diane and now has the part.  Lucy Wirth, the original Diane, now plays Felicity, the main character in the play whose experiences become much more surreal than anything in Muriel's Wedding.  Her alter ego, Teree (Anna Barry) takes her on what Murphy calls "a tour from a point of view accelerated 1000 years.  She reminds Felicity that human history can remember a lot of unremarkable people."

    His character Felicity's anxiety about whether she will be remembered shouldn't be a worry for her author, judging by Murphy's progress so far.  His next project is under way, a script being developed with his film-maker elder brother Marty, which remains a mystery at this early stage. It's unlikely that the return of Queanbeyan's ex-patriot will be forgotten, though how the transition will work from the tiny claustrophobic stage and close-encounter audience of the Old Fitzroy Hotel to the clean cool aircraft hangar of the Bicentennial Centre will be a wonder to behold. 

Maybe the School of Arts Café should consider a shift from cabaret to what one Sydney reviewer, Colin Rose, delightedly described as "an obscene, trash-talking send-up of dead-end youth and their blighted existence in the nation's capital."  Changing the menu to suit might be a problem, however.

    Murphy's 1998 seven-year program seems a mite pessimistic now, after only two years running with Troy's House and his theatre group Your Mum already with money in the bank.  The Queanbeyan season is a credit to the CCQ and Gunnar Isaacson's work in encouraging young people to make their own way in theatre and media.  We will keep watching Murphy's progress.

    Your Mum presents Troy's House by Tommy Murphy.  Bicentennial Centre, Queanbeyan, Thurs April 13 - Sat April 15, 8pm.  Thursday Matinee 12 noon.  Bookings: 6298 0298.

   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Face to Face by David Williamson

Face to Face by David Williamson.  Ensemble Theatre directed by Sandra Bates at The Playhouse, March 21-23 8pm, March 24-25 6pm and 9pm.  Professional.

    "Sorry to interrupt," said the Year 11 Drama student while I was asking Sandra Bates about how she achieved such realism from her actors, "but I have to do an assignment on the importance of David Williamson in Australian theatre."  "Absolutely important," said Bates, "because he writes for the audience right now without caring about how important he is."

    Diversionary conferencing is a right-now issue not just because it's having an extensive trial here and elsewhere but because it is the opposite end of the line which leads to mandatory sentencing.  Should Glen go to jail for deliberately ramming his boss's Mercedes, when he's just been dismissed for his uncontrollable temper?  Fortunately you can watch an expert convenor deal with an explosive situation - and you'll find yourself laughing, and maybe weeping - from the safety of your theatre seat.

    Did Bates make the play work so well, or has Williamson at last really stopped caring about his importance?  Actor Amos Szeps told me Bates gave the cast freedom to develop their characters but Bates explained that she rehearsed the play as if it were a real conference.  Geoff Cartwright, playing the convenor as it really happens, separately interviewed each actor in role before full rehearsals began to get their agreement to attend the conference.  So he knows things about each character that the other actors don't know he knows.  This gives him the power to challenge each character/actor differently in each performance to create the spark of reality which this issue needs.

    It certainly worked in the 104th performance which opened the Canberra season on Tuesday, so I can be confident of its ongoing success.  But it wouldn't work without Williamson's tight writing, the best he has done since The Removalists 30 years ago.  In 90 minutes 10 characters reveal themselves, their personal relationships, their class and cultural conflicts - a concentrated three-dimensional model of Australians at work.

    Face to Face raises David Williamson's level of importance as a playwright.  The Ensemble team is excellent.  Justice is done.  With discretion.  It's mandatory to attend.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Canberra Dreaming

 Canberra Dreaming.  Images by Tim Brook, original music by Arne Hanna, choreography by Nicole Nerveu.  Canberra National Multicultural Festival, Old Bus Depot, Kingston. March 16-18, 8pm.

    My daughter won't come to dinner if I'm going to show slides.  Now I know how she feels.  At the bare, unadulterated Old Bus Depot you stand around on grey concrete under rigid girders waiting before the Dreaming, but you don't even get dinner.  You are inexplicably escorted by young people on roller blades through a dark expanse to hard plastic chairs for an hour and a half watching slides of Canberra.

    The slides are impeccably composed, each one aching to be used in a tourist promotion. They glide imperceptibly in slow cross-fades which sometimes produce unexpected overlaid images.  You wake from your dream at dawn over Lake B-G, notice all sorts of long-shots, medium shots and occasionally quirky close-ups of a year around the city, returning at sunset to the dark once again.  I had a nap about lunchtime and awoke to some odd underwater scenes: maybe someone was drowning?

    The surround sound-scape was a mighty effort but became like the ultimate Phillip Glass repetition with shifts and variations which sometimes seemed to make sense but often didn't.

    In front of the screen, with the images projected on them, a male and female did balletic/gymnastic exercises during the "Extended Overture" and the "Extended Coda".  Each repeated a cycle of movements many times before walking, at the beginning forwards off stage, at the end backwards on stage.  What their movements were supposed to mean I have no idea.  Later during the "day" a group of small girls walked across, presumably to school, and teenagers mimed skateboarding and kick-boxing when the Civic Youth Centre appeared.

    Despite my aching plastic behind, one photo really did wake me up: a close-up of autumn leaves, still on the tree, which had an amazing resemblance to Blue Poles.  At last something of dramatic resonance, a bit of Canberra Dreaming - but alas this is the only meaningful experience I can offer.  Or you can take it as an opportunity for a long meditation.  Oh, and make sure you sit in the centre of the front row to avoid heads.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra

2000: Pink Triangles by David Atfield

 Pink Triangles written and directed by David Atfield.  BITS Theatre Company at The Street Theatre Studio, March 9 - 18, 8pm.

    Three years ago I reviewed the early workshop version of this play, which presents us with an unimpeachable moral theme.  The story of the treatment of homosexuals during, and horrifyingly long after, the Nazi regime in Germany was only able to be published in 1972 (The Men with the Pink Triangles by Heinz Heger) when anti-gay laws were changed.  It took rather longer in Tasmania, and one of the sources of stories in this play, who survived the holocaust and lives in Perth, still cannot come out for fear of violence or, at the least, social ostracism.

    The play has been fleshed out since its first showing, but I found it disappointing that the first half is not more successful theatrically.  It remains a set of brief vignettes, now linked with devices which belong to the theatre-in-education school (spurious TV interviews, advertisements, fashion shows) which create some humour but are out of place stylistically for dealing with such serious subject matter.  The problem is the famous German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who escaped Germany the day after the Reichstag burned in 1933, set the standard (in Mother Courage and The Caucasian Chalk Circle) for epic theatre which Atfield cannot match.

The second half largely drops theatrical pretence, becoming a simple story-telling session with slides, a documentary rather than a play.  The result is strongly focussed dramatic journalism, moving us out of apparent fiction into inescapable reality.

Probably if you read Heger's book or saw the documentary on ABC television recently, you don't need to see the play to learn more about this awful abuse of human rights.  On the other hand it is a joy to watch four excellent actors - Jonathan Gavin, Peter Robinson, Iain Sinclair and Clara Witheridge - working together in a strong ensemble as they switch from role to role, backed by precision technical work backstage.

I suspect if this play goes further than this brief season it will be because of the importance of the message, supported by the relative strength of the second half, rather than the more desirable total theatre experience.
   
© Frank McKone, Canberra