A Girl in a Car with a Man by Rob Evans. Directed by Lenore McGregor at The Street Theatre Studio, April 21 - May 7, 7.30 pm.
This is an engrossing play which forces us to pay attention when we would rather constantly seek diversion. Its form exactly suits its theme, while the direction, the acting style, costumes, set, lighting, sound and the use of multiple video screens faithfully match the form.
Its impact is personal, rather like watching television, so its presentation in the Studio rather than on a larger stage was the right decision. This production will transfer to the Old Fitzroy Theatre in Sydney May 19 to June 11 and was first presented by the English Stage Company in the studio style Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London, in November 2004. Young Scottish writer, Rob Evans, began work on the play at the Interplay Young Writer's Festival in Townsville, 2003, and Lenore McGregor directed the first stage of its development at the Australian National Playwrights' Conference in February 2004.
These credentials mean you should not miss the chance to see A Girl in a Car with a Man. All five actors - Mary Rachel Brown (Paula), Peter Damien Hayes (David), John Leary (Policeman) and especially Henry Nixon (Alex) and Amanda Bishop (Stella) - create intense, surprising characters, each fascinating to watch in their own right. And their performance skills are equalled in the writing and directing.
The concept of the play could have become a disjointed confusion. All that holds the characters together is that they have all seen on television a security camera sequence of a young girl taking the hand of a man who takes her to a car and drives away. Paula and the Policeman meet near where this event took place. Stella and David meet accidentally in David's house in the north of the country. Alex tells us the story of a night at a gay club near Arthur's Seat. All fear for the girl in the car, and we, like them, must either divert our attention elsewhere or become obsessed with the horror of what may have happened to her.
The implication is that the more we seek personal security, the more we isolate ourselves, the less we trust each other and the more insecure we feel. This is the vicious circle of modern civilisation, displayed here with many a light touch to divert us, but with no easy resolution. The truth is not easy to bear.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 22 April 2005
Thursday, 14 April 2005
2005: Requiem In Sanity by Peter Butz
Requiem In Sanity by Peter Butz. Maenad Theatre at Murranji Theatre, Hawker College. From April 13, 8pm.
This new "co-operative company dedicated to artists expressing themselves" has serious intentions, serious local actors, several with serious skills, and a serious though not original theme: that the world outside is mad enough for one escapee from the asylum on the hill to shoot herself, while her twin brother would prefer to return to the safety of the madhouse.
Unfortunately the quality of theatrical imagination in the writing is patchy, the staging is pedestrian (literally as shadowy figures carry props on and off in clunky half-blackouts between scenes), and the sound track eclectic rather than clearly thematic. Costumes were interesting.
Despite these flaws, Maenad deserves encouragement. Butz's script needs professional development to turn it from a concept into a properly focussed drama. In its current form it tries to do too much, with a murderous devil and his fantasy mother which reminded me somehow of the Rocky Horror Show at one end, a clearly normal young secretary seduced by a cad and coming to a realistic understanding of her situation at the other, while the insane twins speak sanely about how the freedom they sought places them in jeopardy. To tie all this together, Butz's plot becomes inevitably predictable, even melodramatic.
I find it surprising that, though many of the Maenad company have stage experience and tertiary training, this production shows little understanding of theatrical style or form. It is episodic without knowing how to be epic. Bits seem naturalistic incomprehensibly mixed into expressionistic fantasy. I apologise if this terminology is not your thing, but this company's serious intentions lead me to expect that they (after a century of development in Western theatre) should be more in control of dramatic style - which means that in the audience we wouldn't become conscious of this issue. We would simply become engaged in the drama experience.
So, messy but interesting, and hopefully the beginning of better work next time.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This new "co-operative company dedicated to artists expressing themselves" has serious intentions, serious local actors, several with serious skills, and a serious though not original theme: that the world outside is mad enough for one escapee from the asylum on the hill to shoot herself, while her twin brother would prefer to return to the safety of the madhouse.
Unfortunately the quality of theatrical imagination in the writing is patchy, the staging is pedestrian (literally as shadowy figures carry props on and off in clunky half-blackouts between scenes), and the sound track eclectic rather than clearly thematic. Costumes were interesting.
Despite these flaws, Maenad deserves encouragement. Butz's script needs professional development to turn it from a concept into a properly focussed drama. In its current form it tries to do too much, with a murderous devil and his fantasy mother which reminded me somehow of the Rocky Horror Show at one end, a clearly normal young secretary seduced by a cad and coming to a realistic understanding of her situation at the other, while the insane twins speak sanely about how the freedom they sought places them in jeopardy. To tie all this together, Butz's plot becomes inevitably predictable, even melodramatic.
I find it surprising that, though many of the Maenad company have stage experience and tertiary training, this production shows little understanding of theatrical style or form. It is episodic without knowing how to be epic. Bits seem naturalistic incomprehensibly mixed into expressionistic fantasy. I apologise if this terminology is not your thing, but this company's serious intentions lead me to expect that they (after a century of development in Western theatre) should be more in control of dramatic style - which means that in the audience we wouldn't become conscious of this issue. We would simply become engaged in the drama experience.
So, messy but interesting, and hopefully the beginning of better work next time.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 12 March 2005
2005: The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. Moonlight Theatre at ANU Arts Centre Drama Studio, directed by Justin Davidson. March 10-19, 8pm. Tickets $15 at the door, or dinner and show package at Teatro Vivaldi, 6257 2718.
Moonlight opens its second year with a very satisfying production of Chekhov's arguably most difficult play. After its failure in St Petersburg in 1896, Konstantin Stanislavski made it a lasting success at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavski's method has clearly inspired Davidson and his cast, who have succeeded in making the play work on all its three levels - the intense personal interrelationships, the wider social context, and the changing nature of European theatre from simplistic melodrama to complex naturalism.
Each of ten characters are significant in the web of emotions, and each actor made their part clear and memorable. The only weakness - which may be to some extent excused in a university-based company whose theatre studies were not designed to train professional actors - was the lack of clarity of diction in some men, particularly Stuart Roberts in the major role of the suicidal writer Treplyov. Perhaps as an aspect of this uptight character, Roberts adopted a tight-jawed form of speech which too often failed to make individual words precise and comprehensible, even though there was no doubt about the character and his intentions.
David Clapham made the successful writer and seducer Trigorin properly, though sweetly, insufferable. Sam Hanna-Morrow's doctor Dorn weaved his way skilfully through the relationship quagmire. The teacher Medvedenko (Ben Drysdale) was as dry as chalkdust, and no wonder Stephanie Brewster's excellently played Masha took to snuff and vodka at the realisation she would have to marry him. The decrepit lawyer Sorin (Glenn Brown), estate manager Shamrayev (Brendan Hawke)and his wife Paulina (Martha Ibrahim) neatly filled the spaces in the peripatetic lives of the old always-acting actress Irina Arkadina (Emma Lawrence), Trigorin and the young "seagull" Nina Zarietchnaya. Rachael Teding van Berkhout in this role was notable for so successfully moving in and out of the roles that Nina tries to play. Her being on the edge of emotional collapse in the famous seagull speech was a high point.
After showing solid development last year through three Brecht plays, Moonlight can be proud of The Seagull, and we can look justifiably forward to two more Chekhov plays in 2005.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Moonlight opens its second year with a very satisfying production of Chekhov's arguably most difficult play. After its failure in St Petersburg in 1896, Konstantin Stanislavski made it a lasting success at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavski's method has clearly inspired Davidson and his cast, who have succeeded in making the play work on all its three levels - the intense personal interrelationships, the wider social context, and the changing nature of European theatre from simplistic melodrama to complex naturalism.
Each of ten characters are significant in the web of emotions, and each actor made their part clear and memorable. The only weakness - which may be to some extent excused in a university-based company whose theatre studies were not designed to train professional actors - was the lack of clarity of diction in some men, particularly Stuart Roberts in the major role of the suicidal writer Treplyov. Perhaps as an aspect of this uptight character, Roberts adopted a tight-jawed form of speech which too often failed to make individual words precise and comprehensible, even though there was no doubt about the character and his intentions.
David Clapham made the successful writer and seducer Trigorin properly, though sweetly, insufferable. Sam Hanna-Morrow's doctor Dorn weaved his way skilfully through the relationship quagmire. The teacher Medvedenko (Ben Drysdale) was as dry as chalkdust, and no wonder Stephanie Brewster's excellently played Masha took to snuff and vodka at the realisation she would have to marry him. The decrepit lawyer Sorin (Glenn Brown), estate manager Shamrayev (Brendan Hawke)and his wife Paulina (Martha Ibrahim) neatly filled the spaces in the peripatetic lives of the old always-acting actress Irina Arkadina (Emma Lawrence), Trigorin and the young "seagull" Nina Zarietchnaya. Rachael Teding van Berkhout in this role was notable for so successfully moving in and out of the roles that Nina tries to play. Her being on the edge of emotional collapse in the famous seagull speech was a high point.
After showing solid development last year through three Brecht plays, Moonlight can be proud of The Seagull, and we can look justifiably forward to two more Chekhov plays in 2005.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 11 March 2005
2005: Georgia by Jill Shearer
Georgia by Jill Shearer. Directed by Carol Woodrow at The Street Theatre, March 10-19, 8pm.
This play is about an intense, original artist, the American Georgia O'Keeffe. Her minder in her old age, Juan Hamilton, puts her in a ground floor room while his family lives upstairs. "Why can't I be upstairs?" Georgia demands. "Because you might fall," he replies. "Yes," she retorts, "but I might fly."
Unfortunately, this production fails to get off the ground. Definitely pedestrian. No winging our imaginations to the heights of O'Keeffe's paintings, some of which are displayed in the foyer. And so disappointing when the actors, particularly Jennifer Hagan as Georgia and Ken Spiteri as Juan, are so good.
The fault lies, I think, partly in a script which uses repetitive flashbacks which tell us a little more information each time but do not reveal dramatic new perspectives on Georgia's part about her personal progress as an artist.
Woodrow describes the play as "merging constantly from 'the real' to memory, dream, myth or fantasy, and back to 'the real', but I found the many short scenes broken by blackouts in the first act did not create a sense of merging. In the second act, centred around a bed in an unadorned space, characters from the present and past could come and go, more successfully creating an uninterrupted flow in and out of reality for part of the time, but still with sudden stops and starts, including a final stop which left me wondering if this was the end (which it was).
A major failing, I felt, was an unimaginative use of the projected images. We did not see the "color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" that O'Keeffe wrote about. The Art Gallery posters in the foyer and the 1921 photos of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and reproduced in the program, could have been projected to pinpoint her feelings at significant points in her life. The recorded sound track also needed adjusting to support the action rather than interrupt or dominate the speakers.
Finally, this production does not set us up emotionally to hope that Georgia can die satisfied with her life, and to discover if she does. It's quite interesting to know her story but, as I overheard someone say, "I don't really care."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This play is about an intense, original artist, the American Georgia O'Keeffe. Her minder in her old age, Juan Hamilton, puts her in a ground floor room while his family lives upstairs. "Why can't I be upstairs?" Georgia demands. "Because you might fall," he replies. "Yes," she retorts, "but I might fly."
Unfortunately, this production fails to get off the ground. Definitely pedestrian. No winging our imaginations to the heights of O'Keeffe's paintings, some of which are displayed in the foyer. And so disappointing when the actors, particularly Jennifer Hagan as Georgia and Ken Spiteri as Juan, are so good.
The fault lies, I think, partly in a script which uses repetitive flashbacks which tell us a little more information each time but do not reveal dramatic new perspectives on Georgia's part about her personal progress as an artist.
Woodrow describes the play as "merging constantly from 'the real' to memory, dream, myth or fantasy, and back to 'the real', but I found the many short scenes broken by blackouts in the first act did not create a sense of merging. In the second act, centred around a bed in an unadorned space, characters from the present and past could come and go, more successfully creating an uninterrupted flow in and out of reality for part of the time, but still with sudden stops and starts, including a final stop which left me wondering if this was the end (which it was).
A major failing, I felt, was an unimaginative use of the projected images. We did not see the "color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for" that O'Keeffe wrote about. The Art Gallery posters in the foyer and the 1921 photos of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and reproduced in the program, could have been projected to pinpoint her feelings at significant points in her life. The recorded sound track also needed adjusting to support the action rather than interrupt or dominate the speakers.
Finally, this production does not set us up emotionally to hope that Georgia can die satisfied with her life, and to discover if she does. It's quite interesting to know her story but, as I overheard someone say, "I don't really care."
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 3 March 2005
2005: The Miser by Moliere. Review.
The Miser by Moliere directed by Jordan Best. The Street Theatre Members in association with Centrepiece Theatre at The Street Theatre Studio, Thursdays to Saturdays March 3-19, 7.30pm. Twilight March 13, 5pm. Matinee March 19, 2.30pm. Bookings: 6247 1223. Tickets: $19/$15.
This is a competent and highly enjoyable production of a classic comedy. The modern translation catches all the twists and turns of the original, and the actors work well as a team and individually. Moliere's theme, about how obsession with money results in gross abuse of common humanity, is clearly presented in a lively physical style of acting in a bright colourful setting with costumes to match.
Among the actors, two stood out in my view.
Ian Croker, in the lead role of the miser Harpagon, played a devilish character which required great energy to maintain. His intensity gave us an interesting perspective which, at the right moments, revealed the psychological insecurity which underlies such a determinedly autocratic figure. There was something of Saddam Hussein in Croker's Harpagon when, having discovered his 10,000 crowns were stolen, he accused the whole town, including us in the audience, demanding that we all be tortured.
In a strong and intelligent performance of Frosine, Margie Sainsbury showed us the kind of torture imposed by the miser, hiding her real self in the hope of gaining enough to survive, but being forced to grovel before the dictator who takes all the flattery and advantage he can get without ever giving anything in return. Sainsbury found both the funny clown and the tragic clown in the role, and allowed us the satisfaction of seeing the real Frosine in the final scene, as Moliere surely intended.
Technically, Matt Balmford (Cleante) and Jeremy Just (Jacques) needed clearer articulation and volume control, but otherwise in characterisation and comedic style were the equals of Carly Jacobs (Marianne), and Matt Borneman (La Merluche) and Tania Stangret (Brindavine) who also played a range of slapstick roles. In the more sane roles of Valere (Jim Adamik) and Elise (Liz Cotton), Adamik's acting was the stronger, while Cotton's stage presence faded at times - though her stoush with her father over who she would not marry showed her capability.
Newly established Centrepiece Theatre has begun very well.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a competent and highly enjoyable production of a classic comedy. The modern translation catches all the twists and turns of the original, and the actors work well as a team and individually. Moliere's theme, about how obsession with money results in gross abuse of common humanity, is clearly presented in a lively physical style of acting in a bright colourful setting with costumes to match.
Among the actors, two stood out in my view.
Ian Croker, in the lead role of the miser Harpagon, played a devilish character which required great energy to maintain. His intensity gave us an interesting perspective which, at the right moments, revealed the psychological insecurity which underlies such a determinedly autocratic figure. There was something of Saddam Hussein in Croker's Harpagon when, having discovered his 10,000 crowns were stolen, he accused the whole town, including us in the audience, demanding that we all be tortured.
In a strong and intelligent performance of Frosine, Margie Sainsbury showed us the kind of torture imposed by the miser, hiding her real self in the hope of gaining enough to survive, but being forced to grovel before the dictator who takes all the flattery and advantage he can get without ever giving anything in return. Sainsbury found both the funny clown and the tragic clown in the role, and allowed us the satisfaction of seeing the real Frosine in the final scene, as Moliere surely intended.
Technically, Matt Balmford (Cleante) and Jeremy Just (Jacques) needed clearer articulation and volume control, but otherwise in characterisation and comedic style were the equals of Carly Jacobs (Marianne), and Matt Borneman (La Merluche) and Tania Stangret (Brindavine) who also played a range of slapstick roles. In the more sane roles of Valere (Jim Adamik) and Elise (Liz Cotton), Adamik's acting was the stronger, while Cotton's stage presence faded at times - though her stoush with her father over who she would not marry showed her capability.
Newly established Centrepiece Theatre has begun very well.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Sunday, 20 February 2005
2005: The Miser by Moliere and Men by Brendan Cowell. Preview feature article.
Centrepiece Theatre is new. Its first production is The Miser by Moliere. The second will be Men by Brendan Cowell. From a French commedia masterpiece of 1658 to the first play by a 2001 Patrick White Award winner.
Moliere is a good choice theatrically and symbolically. In his early twenties Jean-Baptiste Poquelin took the plunge, renamed himself Moliere and, with actress Madeleine Bejart and no money, started l'Illustre Theatre (The Illustrious Theatre) against all odds.
Centrepiece is a properly constituted company established by Jim Adamik, Jordan Best and the illustrious Matthew Thomas, ACT Young Australian of the Year (Arts). I'm sure they are more socially acceptable than actors in Moliere's day, who were generally excommunicated by the Church, but we may hope their enterprise in our capital city does not lead them into debtor's prison, as it did for Moliere who had to abandon his troupe of ten actors and escape to the provinces.
For The Miser, Centrepiece also needs ten actors. Ian Croker, in the lead role of Harpagon, has a solid reputation to back this role including recently performing Feste the Clown in Papermoon's Twelfth Night and King George in Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III at Canberra Rep.
Jordan Best is directing and says she has found the whole cast - Jim Adamik, Jeremy Just, Richard Anderson, Margie Sainsbury, Carly Jacobs, Matt Borneman, Liz Cotton, Tain Stangret and Matthew Balmford, as well as Croker - a delight to work with. Her approach has been to make all the costumes early, so that each actor starts finding their character from the costume. This suits commedia-style characters, saves actors from nasty surprises which they might have if later costumes were to conflict with their idea of character, has led to exciting and playful rehearsals where actors feel at home, and sets up the production visually as Best wants to see it.
Best herself comes to this, her first stint at directing, not only from a successful performing arts family which includes AFI award winner Peter Best and well-known Sydney actress Blazey Best, but with a background studying cello at the Canberra School of Music and acting at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has become well-known locally for her performances with Elbow Theatre, the National Summer Shakespeare and Free Rain Theatre, where she excelled last year in The Crucible and Amadeus. Further afield her original songs featured in the recent Chris Kennedy film A Mans Gotta Do, coinciding with the release of a full-length album.
The Miser was chosen also because it was the play which turned Best on to theatre when a new drama teacher, at a "posh" girls' school, directed her in the role of Harpagon and "pushed me like a real actor." When she thinks Moliere, she thinks "fun", but it's obvious she is disciplined and dedicated. Talking about the rehearsal process, Best explained that she is aware, from her acting experience, of what she has come to dislike about some directors, particularly those who say "This is how I want you to do it" and then demonstrate what they require. Her basic philosophy is about respecting the actor, working with the actor from what the actor offers, adjusting as they go along. In this way she seeks to arrive at an ensemble performance as an end product of the process, rather than expecting an imposed formula to work.
Best is very pleased to have be given the rights to Men for the next Centrepiece production this year. Sydneysider Brendan Cowell, like Moliere all those centuries ago, is a young and prolific playwright. Among half a dozen plays, Men began life at the Old Fitzroy in 2000, going on to a season at Belvoir St, Bed won the Patrick White Award in 2001, ATM was commissioned for the 2002 Sydney Festival and Rabbit won the 2003 Griffin Award for production at Griffin Theatre at The Stables.
Though Centrepiece expects the earnings, to be distributed equally to all involved, will not be large, the 2005 program, which will also include something light and celebratory late in the year, looks an interesting beginning for a theatre company which hopes to grow in stature and prove its worth before seeking grant money. Enjoyment for the audience is their first concern, in productions of a mix of classic and modern quality plays.
The young Jordan Best, like the young Moliere, still receives support from her non-miserly parents, but I would hope that Canberra's non-miserly theatregoers will keep her here in the nation's capital, rather than force her to escape to the provinces of Sydney or Melbourne.
The Miser by Moliere
The Street Theatre in association with Centrepiece Theatre
At The Street Theatre Studio
Thursdays to Saturdays March 3-19, 7.30pm
Twilight March 13, 5pm
Matinee March 19, 2.30pm
Bookings: 6247 1223
Tickets: $19/$15
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Moliere is a good choice theatrically and symbolically. In his early twenties Jean-Baptiste Poquelin took the plunge, renamed himself Moliere and, with actress Madeleine Bejart and no money, started l'Illustre Theatre (The Illustrious Theatre) against all odds.
Centrepiece is a properly constituted company established by Jim Adamik, Jordan Best and the illustrious Matthew Thomas, ACT Young Australian of the Year (Arts). I'm sure they are more socially acceptable than actors in Moliere's day, who were generally excommunicated by the Church, but we may hope their enterprise in our capital city does not lead them into debtor's prison, as it did for Moliere who had to abandon his troupe of ten actors and escape to the provinces.
For The Miser, Centrepiece also needs ten actors. Ian Croker, in the lead role of Harpagon, has a solid reputation to back this role including recently performing Feste the Clown in Papermoon's Twelfth Night and King George in Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III at Canberra Rep.
Jordan Best is directing and says she has found the whole cast - Jim Adamik, Jeremy Just, Richard Anderson, Margie Sainsbury, Carly Jacobs, Matt Borneman, Liz Cotton, Tain Stangret and Matthew Balmford, as well as Croker - a delight to work with. Her approach has been to make all the costumes early, so that each actor starts finding their character from the costume. This suits commedia-style characters, saves actors from nasty surprises which they might have if later costumes were to conflict with their idea of character, has led to exciting and playful rehearsals where actors feel at home, and sets up the production visually as Best wants to see it.
Best herself comes to this, her first stint at directing, not only from a successful performing arts family which includes AFI award winner Peter Best and well-known Sydney actress Blazey Best, but with a background studying cello at the Canberra School of Music and acting at the Victorian College of the Arts. She has become well-known locally for her performances with Elbow Theatre, the National Summer Shakespeare and Free Rain Theatre, where she excelled last year in The Crucible and Amadeus. Further afield her original songs featured in the recent Chris Kennedy film A Mans Gotta Do, coinciding with the release of a full-length album.
The Miser was chosen also because it was the play which turned Best on to theatre when a new drama teacher, at a "posh" girls' school, directed her in the role of Harpagon and "pushed me like a real actor." When she thinks Moliere, she thinks "fun", but it's obvious she is disciplined and dedicated. Talking about the rehearsal process, Best explained that she is aware, from her acting experience, of what she has come to dislike about some directors, particularly those who say "This is how I want you to do it" and then demonstrate what they require. Her basic philosophy is about respecting the actor, working with the actor from what the actor offers, adjusting as they go along. In this way she seeks to arrive at an ensemble performance as an end product of the process, rather than expecting an imposed formula to work.
Best is very pleased to have be given the rights to Men for the next Centrepiece production this year. Sydneysider Brendan Cowell, like Moliere all those centuries ago, is a young and prolific playwright. Among half a dozen plays, Men began life at the Old Fitzroy in 2000, going on to a season at Belvoir St, Bed won the Patrick White Award in 2001, ATM was commissioned for the 2002 Sydney Festival and Rabbit won the 2003 Griffin Award for production at Griffin Theatre at The Stables.
Though Centrepiece expects the earnings, to be distributed equally to all involved, will not be large, the 2005 program, which will also include something light and celebratory late in the year, looks an interesting beginning for a theatre company which hopes to grow in stature and prove its worth before seeking grant money. Enjoyment for the audience is their first concern, in productions of a mix of classic and modern quality plays.
The young Jordan Best, like the young Moliere, still receives support from her non-miserly parents, but I would hope that Canberra's non-miserly theatregoers will keep her here in the nation's capital, rather than force her to escape to the provinces of Sydney or Melbourne.
The Miser by Moliere
The Street Theatre in association with Centrepiece Theatre
At The Street Theatre Studio
Thursdays to Saturdays March 3-19, 7.30pm
Twilight March 13, 5pm
Matinee March 19, 2.30pm
Bookings: 6247 1223
Tickets: $19/$15
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 19 February 2005
2005: Show Us Your Roots 3
Show Us Your Roots 3 Stand-up comedy presented by A List Entertainment. National Multicultural Festival at Canberra Theatre, Friday February 18.
New Zealander Cal Wilson provided me with a mental image of push down, twist and squelch when she described the object on top of Parliament House as a giant potato masher. No wonder she went on to say that NZ PM Helen Clarke is "more of a man than yours is." Anti-Howard political comment was a common theme from at least half of the comedians, receiving laughter and often applause from a very full Canberra Theatre.
The image provided by part-Russian Steve Abbott, aka Sandman but this night playing host, was anything but mental. Stripping off his luminescent pink suit jacket, he described his paunch as the place where his backside had gone to get a better view. We got a better view too when, demonstrating first the "high-pants" walk, then rolling up his shirt for the "low-pants" walk, his paunch received mixed laughter and horror. Abbott is a great comedian, almost to the point of overshadowing the acts he introduced.
Big Brother Little Brother had us singing We Are Australian in the worst nasal accent. Tania Losanno told what seemed to be a true story of how she won beauty pageant sashes at the Italian Club in Forrest. Fijian-Indian Umit Bali's rapid-fire talk was almost beyond my comprehension, but younger ears picked up the nuances.
Steve Bastoni ("Which TV show are you off?" "All of them!") described McLeod's Daughters ironically as an accurate representation of rural Australia (where are the Italians?) and more viciously as a rural tampon commercial.
Hung Le, from 'Nam (Syd'nam) proposed a pornographic kung fu movie called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Salami. African-American-Australian Daria demonstrated how loud Americans are, which is why they like Steve Irwin and not David Attenborough. Londoner Terry North seemed as non-Aussie ethnic as anyone else, while very-much Aussie but originally American Greg Fleet was brilliant for the last 15 minutes. You will never fly again after his safety equipment run-down. And he actually did borrow cash from audience member Andrew because he'd lost his credit card - I saw them out the back after the show.
A great night out.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
New Zealander Cal Wilson provided me with a mental image of push down, twist and squelch when she described the object on top of Parliament House as a giant potato masher. No wonder she went on to say that NZ PM Helen Clarke is "more of a man than yours is." Anti-Howard political comment was a common theme from at least half of the comedians, receiving laughter and often applause from a very full Canberra Theatre.
The image provided by part-Russian Steve Abbott, aka Sandman but this night playing host, was anything but mental. Stripping off his luminescent pink suit jacket, he described his paunch as the place where his backside had gone to get a better view. We got a better view too when, demonstrating first the "high-pants" walk, then rolling up his shirt for the "low-pants" walk, his paunch received mixed laughter and horror. Abbott is a great comedian, almost to the point of overshadowing the acts he introduced.
Big Brother Little Brother had us singing We Are Australian in the worst nasal accent. Tania Losanno told what seemed to be a true story of how she won beauty pageant sashes at the Italian Club in Forrest. Fijian-Indian Umit Bali's rapid-fire talk was almost beyond my comprehension, but younger ears picked up the nuances.
Steve Bastoni ("Which TV show are you off?" "All of them!") described McLeod's Daughters ironically as an accurate representation of rural Australia (where are the Italians?) and more viciously as a rural tampon commercial.
Hung Le, from 'Nam (Syd'nam) proposed a pornographic kung fu movie called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Salami. African-American-Australian Daria demonstrated how loud Americans are, which is why they like Steve Irwin and not David Attenborough. Londoner Terry North seemed as non-Aussie ethnic as anyone else, while very-much Aussie but originally American Greg Fleet was brilliant for the last 15 minutes. You will never fly again after his safety equipment run-down. And he actually did borrow cash from audience member Andrew because he'd lost his credit card - I saw them out the back after the show.
A great night out.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 16 February 2005
2005: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Essential Theatre at Madew Wines. Preview feature article
If you had to choose between making wine or making theatre, you couldn't do better than David Madew. He's done both separately and together.
Following musical successes like Opera by George! and concerts featuring Jackson Browne and Joan Armatrading, Madew Wines presents its first "straight" play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. To be performed by Essential Theatre from Melbourne, under the shade of two huge willow trees, Shakespeare's magical fairy world will not be exactly straight. I suggest you bring portable seating and wear a shady hat, because anything might happen among the vines.
Why Essential Theatre? Apart from being a professional company whose actors have a wide range of experience in film, television and on stage, Essential has established a touring calendar of "Shakespeare in the Vines". It didn't take too many phone calls to other winemakers for David Madew to be satisfied that this production will be up to his standards.
He could also trust an old mate. Madew and Paul Robertson, who plays the ass-headed Bottom, took drama together at Narrabundah College in the early 1980s. Paul became an actor and puppeteer, while David discovered, after completing the Theatre/Media course at Mitchell Campus of Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, that his talents were more in the production management and technical side of theatre. While Paul has played in everything from Blue Heelers to The Sentimental Bloke, from being Claudius in Hamlet and being funded to study Noh Theatre at the Practice Performing Arts School in Singapore, David stage managed Chess, was technical manager for Cats, production manager for Sydney Carnivale and producer for Grace Bros Christmas Parade.
At Mitchell, Madew played Lysander under a full moon in a production where the fairies took control. The magical influence has stayed with him, so he owns only Great Dane dogs all named after characters in Hamlet, and even his children's names are Shakespearean. But the fantasy is balanced by the technical. This is where winemaking comes in.
"The thing is, it's the rhythm," says Madew. He drew diagrams for me, like oscilloscope pictures of the changing soil profile, the sugar development in the grapes, the relationship between the volume of the grape and the surface area of the skin and the effect this has on flavour. It could just as easily have been a lighting plot for a stage production. But then he talked of the timing. Whatever the technical evidence, it's only when he tastes the grapes he can decide how much longer they should stay on the vine. It's only as the weather changes that he can judge what qualities he can bring to the wine. Only then can he know which oak from which French location should be used, and which French barrel-maker will be right for this wine.
This is the art of wine-making. Just as the actor and stage manager pace the action according to the audience, which is different every night. Just as they have to know how to deal with the unexpected. During one Opera by George!, a passing truck saw the crowd and blasted his horn. Joan Carden, in full song, knew how to hold while the audience regained composure, and draw them back into focus. This is the art of theatre.
Madew plans to build a regular performance program now that he has a successful series of one-offs behind him, and he has the contacts with theatrical people who are outward looking, not "precious" about their work. He wants to make Madew Wines an arts centre where quality can develop through years of production, just as the wine maker develops the quality as he learns the art of growing, making and marketing his wines in his particular environment. At Crossarts Theatre in Sydney, David Madew worked with actors like Richard Roxburgh and David Wenham when they were young. I sense that he has watched such actors mature like good wines and wants, now that the winery is established and provides him a firm base, to play his part in the maturing of theatre in this country.
"A wine can be technically perfect, but still it can be crap ... at the end of the day it's all about flavours." The taste of Shakespeare at Madew will certainly be interesting on March 6, but "if it can bring joy to my life, it will bring joy to other people's lives" and we can surely expect a product at Madew which will improve with age. "Winemaking is agriculture for intellectuals. Theatre is work for intellectuals," says David Madew. "You have to be alive. You give them the platform, so they can fly."
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Essential Theatre, directed by Peter Tulloch
At Madew Wines, Federal Highway, Lake George
Sunday March 6
Performance 2pm. Lunch available before show.
Bookings: (02) 4848 0026 or www.madewwines.com.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Following musical successes like Opera by George! and concerts featuring Jackson Browne and Joan Armatrading, Madew Wines presents its first "straight" play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. To be performed by Essential Theatre from Melbourne, under the shade of two huge willow trees, Shakespeare's magical fairy world will not be exactly straight. I suggest you bring portable seating and wear a shady hat, because anything might happen among the vines.
Why Essential Theatre? Apart from being a professional company whose actors have a wide range of experience in film, television and on stage, Essential has established a touring calendar of "Shakespeare in the Vines". It didn't take too many phone calls to other winemakers for David Madew to be satisfied that this production will be up to his standards.
He could also trust an old mate. Madew and Paul Robertson, who plays the ass-headed Bottom, took drama together at Narrabundah College in the early 1980s. Paul became an actor and puppeteer, while David discovered, after completing the Theatre/Media course at Mitchell Campus of Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, that his talents were more in the production management and technical side of theatre. While Paul has played in everything from Blue Heelers to The Sentimental Bloke, from being Claudius in Hamlet and being funded to study Noh Theatre at the Practice Performing Arts School in Singapore, David stage managed Chess, was technical manager for Cats, production manager for Sydney Carnivale and producer for Grace Bros Christmas Parade.
At Mitchell, Madew played Lysander under a full moon in a production where the fairies took control. The magical influence has stayed with him, so he owns only Great Dane dogs all named after characters in Hamlet, and even his children's names are Shakespearean. But the fantasy is balanced by the technical. This is where winemaking comes in.
"The thing is, it's the rhythm," says Madew. He drew diagrams for me, like oscilloscope pictures of the changing soil profile, the sugar development in the grapes, the relationship between the volume of the grape and the surface area of the skin and the effect this has on flavour. It could just as easily have been a lighting plot for a stage production. But then he talked of the timing. Whatever the technical evidence, it's only when he tastes the grapes he can decide how much longer they should stay on the vine. It's only as the weather changes that he can judge what qualities he can bring to the wine. Only then can he know which oak from which French location should be used, and which French barrel-maker will be right for this wine.
This is the art of wine-making. Just as the actor and stage manager pace the action according to the audience, which is different every night. Just as they have to know how to deal with the unexpected. During one Opera by George!, a passing truck saw the crowd and blasted his horn. Joan Carden, in full song, knew how to hold while the audience regained composure, and draw them back into focus. This is the art of theatre.
Madew plans to build a regular performance program now that he has a successful series of one-offs behind him, and he has the contacts with theatrical people who are outward looking, not "precious" about their work. He wants to make Madew Wines an arts centre where quality can develop through years of production, just as the wine maker develops the quality as he learns the art of growing, making and marketing his wines in his particular environment. At Crossarts Theatre in Sydney, David Madew worked with actors like Richard Roxburgh and David Wenham when they were young. I sense that he has watched such actors mature like good wines and wants, now that the winery is established and provides him a firm base, to play his part in the maturing of theatre in this country.
"A wine can be technically perfect, but still it can be crap ... at the end of the day it's all about flavours." The taste of Shakespeare at Madew will certainly be interesting on March 6, but "if it can bring joy to my life, it will bring joy to other people's lives" and we can surely expect a product at Madew which will improve with age. "Winemaking is agriculture for intellectuals. Theatre is work for intellectuals," says David Madew. "You have to be alive. You give them the platform, so they can fly."
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
Essential Theatre, directed by Peter Tulloch
At Madew Wines, Federal Highway, Lake George
Sunday March 6
Performance 2pm. Lunch available before show.
Bookings: (02) 4848 0026 or www.madewwines.com.au
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 15 February 2005
2005: The Virgin Club by Phyllis Foundis
The Virgin Club, written and performed by Phyllis Foundis. National Multicultural Festival at ANU Arts Centre, February 15 - 19. Bookings: Canberra Ticketing 6275 2700.
"Do you remember your first kiss?", asked Phyllis, of a woman audience member, who obviously had no problem doing so. Of a man inadvertently in the centre of the front row she asked "Do you remember your first ... Cortina?" The audience of 90% women fell about laughing, as they did throughout The Virgin Club.
This was the most innocent joke in the story of Phyllis's journey towards devirgination, which should come with the warning "The following show is stuffed full of sexual references". These include pictures of sex-shop paraphernalia, and some real ones. Be near the front to receive a lipstick vibrator or something larger.
But the show is not pornographic. The laughs are in recognition by the women of their own experiences. For men, there is a sense of camaraderie with the women and probably a realisation of how much more they may need to know. Foundis creates Phyllis not as a naif, nor as a come-on, but as an honest woman reflecting on the frustrations of a traditional Greek upbringing. Perhaps the most hilarious scene is near the end when she attempts to advertise a "second-hand vagina" for sale. But it's a sad irony that so much guilt can be attached to breaking the hymen at the age of 26.
Phyllis's mother is an essential element in her story, fascinating for her conflicting attitudes. On the one hand, Phyllis's virginity must be preserved and orgasms denied their potency. On the other, her answers to young Phyllis's questions are couched in the most earthy terms. We laugh either way, and enjoy with Phyllis her final feelings of cleanliness and satisfaction.
Only afterwards, beyond the theatrical illusion, did I think, Where has this mother been for the last 30 years? Locked, I suppose, in a time-warp where virginity and purity, family honour and ownership of property are inevitably linked. And the young woman is responsible for that "honour", regardless of modern contraception. And guilty, risking dire consequences if she breaks the code.
I have no doubt that you will enjoy the performance, while I think Foundis is more profound than Phyllis seems.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Do you remember your first kiss?", asked Phyllis, of a woman audience member, who obviously had no problem doing so. Of a man inadvertently in the centre of the front row she asked "Do you remember your first ... Cortina?" The audience of 90% women fell about laughing, as they did throughout The Virgin Club.
This was the most innocent joke in the story of Phyllis's journey towards devirgination, which should come with the warning "The following show is stuffed full of sexual references". These include pictures of sex-shop paraphernalia, and some real ones. Be near the front to receive a lipstick vibrator or something larger.
But the show is not pornographic. The laughs are in recognition by the women of their own experiences. For men, there is a sense of camaraderie with the women and probably a realisation of how much more they may need to know. Foundis creates Phyllis not as a naif, nor as a come-on, but as an honest woman reflecting on the frustrations of a traditional Greek upbringing. Perhaps the most hilarious scene is near the end when she attempts to advertise a "second-hand vagina" for sale. But it's a sad irony that so much guilt can be attached to breaking the hymen at the age of 26.
Phyllis's mother is an essential element in her story, fascinating for her conflicting attitudes. On the one hand, Phyllis's virginity must be preserved and orgasms denied their potency. On the other, her answers to young Phyllis's questions are couched in the most earthy terms. We laugh either way, and enjoy with Phyllis her final feelings of cleanliness and satisfaction.
Only afterwards, beyond the theatrical illusion, did I think, Where has this mother been for the last 30 years? Locked, I suppose, in a time-warp where virginity and purity, family honour and ownership of property are inevitably linked. And the young woman is responsible for that "honour", regardless of modern contraception. And guilty, risking dire consequences if she breaks the code.
I have no doubt that you will enjoy the performance, while I think Foundis is more profound than Phyllis seems.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 14 February 2005
2005: The Ramayana - Indonesian Wayang Kulit puppetry by Dalang Sutendri Yusuf
The Ramayana. Dalang (puppeteer) Sutendri Yusuf, accompanied by "Laras Budoyo" gamelan orchestra led by composer Soegito Hardjodikoro. National Multicultural Festival at Albert Hall, February 14 - 18. School performances 10am and 2pm each day. Evening performance Friday February 18, 7pm (Indonesian meals available from 6pm).
The title "Laras Budoyo" has just been coined by Soegito Hardjodikoro for the gamelan performers combining Australians and Indonesians from Canberra and Perth. The locals told me they have been learning the music since last October, but the group had only one rehearsal with Sutendri Yusuf before opening day. Both Sutendri and Soegito were very happy and so "The Beautiful Harmony of Arts and Culture Orchestra" it became.
Wayang Kulit simply means puppets made of leather, but there is nothing simple about the artistry and cultural importance of the dalang. The gamelan and dalang tradition go back to around 600AD, before Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam became in turn incorporated into Javanese life. In telling the adopted Indian stories like The Ramayana and The Mahabarata, the dalang has become both creative artist and wise man, to whom people go for counselling about ethical behaviour, about making good decisions. The stories reveal the nature of good and evil, opening up philosophical issues. So ordinary villagers and also people of high status in government will all seek out the dalang for advice.
One might wish for more Beautiful Harmony of Arts and Culture in Australian politics. Maybe the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition should seek out John Bell, director of Bell Shakespeare.
Watch Sutendri Yusuf from behind the shadow puppet screen and you see the artistry hard at work. He tells the story with the puppets, speaks all their voices (in English for our benefit), sings the traditional operatic songs, cues in the orchestra. A master dalang indeed. The effect on the front of the screen is a wonderful creation of characters and technically fascinating as the figures change from highly focussed to soft shadows, from small detailed actions to amazing somersaults and battle scenes. Yet Sutendri told me that only a month or two ago he saw a video of the front of screen for the first time. Since he began learning as a teenager he has only worked backstage, studying other masters in action.
Friday evening will be a true community performance, though only 2 hours rather than the traditional 8 hours long. Sutendri will shape his performance for the full range of adults and children expected in the audience. Take the opportunity, too, to talk with this genuine educator through the arts - a wise man indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
The title "Laras Budoyo" has just been coined by Soegito Hardjodikoro for the gamelan performers combining Australians and Indonesians from Canberra and Perth. The locals told me they have been learning the music since last October, but the group had only one rehearsal with Sutendri Yusuf before opening day. Both Sutendri and Soegito were very happy and so "The Beautiful Harmony of Arts and Culture Orchestra" it became.
Wayang Kulit simply means puppets made of leather, but there is nothing simple about the artistry and cultural importance of the dalang. The gamelan and dalang tradition go back to around 600AD, before Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam became in turn incorporated into Javanese life. In telling the adopted Indian stories like The Ramayana and The Mahabarata, the dalang has become both creative artist and wise man, to whom people go for counselling about ethical behaviour, about making good decisions. The stories reveal the nature of good and evil, opening up philosophical issues. So ordinary villagers and also people of high status in government will all seek out the dalang for advice.
One might wish for more Beautiful Harmony of Arts and Culture in Australian politics. Maybe the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition should seek out John Bell, director of Bell Shakespeare.
Watch Sutendri Yusuf from behind the shadow puppet screen and you see the artistry hard at work. He tells the story with the puppets, speaks all their voices (in English for our benefit), sings the traditional operatic songs, cues in the orchestra. A master dalang indeed. The effect on the front of the screen is a wonderful creation of characters and technically fascinating as the figures change from highly focussed to soft shadows, from small detailed actions to amazing somersaults and battle scenes. Yet Sutendri told me that only a month or two ago he saw a video of the front of screen for the first time. Since he began learning as a teenager he has only worked backstage, studying other masters in action.
Friday evening will be a true community performance, though only 2 hours rather than the traditional 8 hours long. Sutendri will shape his performance for the full range of adults and children expected in the audience. Take the opportunity, too, to talk with this genuine educator through the arts - a wise man indeed.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 11 February 2005
2005 : Tony Llewellyn-Jones to direct Proof for Canberra Rep. Preview interview feature article
"If you can't prove one's self to oneself, then you'll be a bit lost." Listening to Tony Llewellyn-Jones, exploring his layers of connection with this city, Canberra, and how he comes to be directing his first stage play Proof for Canberra Rep, I found myself drawn into the world of his imagination and memory. This is not a man out to prove himself to the world in a competitive superficial sense. This is not an actor playing the role of "Actor". Here is a man whose art is his life, who has proved his worth in the performing arts over a 30-year career, who still seeks to prove himself to himself.
According to your age and viewing interests you will have seen Tony Llewellyn-Jones on television in (among many others) All Saints, Backberner, Hell Has Harbour Views, GP; in films like Picnic at Hanging Rock, Fatty Finn, and Cosi; and on stage from Melbourne Theatre Company's early 1970s Theatre-in-Education troupe, through every play you can imagine from MTC, the original Nimrod Theatre, the Old Tote (remember Norman in The Norman Conquests?), Sydney Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare. You probably missed the 1996 production at Club Cockroach of Merry Christmas Pauline Hanson!
You may also not have known about his long-standing relationship with key Australian film-maker Paul Cox. Llewellyn-Jones has been producer, as well as sometimes actor, working on Kostas, Man of Flowers, My First Wife, Cactus and Vincent. Being producer with Cox means much more than being a general manager or administrator. Cox's intensity and concentration on the interior life of his characters requires his producer to become absorbed in the imaginative process, working alongside his director more as a facilitator freeing up the possibilities for the expression of feeling and mood, while at the same time being the commercial negotiator on films which have grown in influence and international standing over Cox's career. For Llewellyn-Jones, I felt, there was a special significance in his work on Vincent, Cox's study of Vincent van Gogh, an artist searching for ways of understanding his demons and expressing himself as fully as possible.
After this, why Proof in Canberra for Rep? Though this may be his first job as stage director, Llewellyn-Jones brings a special kind of experience which signals an exciting new wave at Rep at this end of his career. At the other end, as a recent immigrant teenager staying briefly with family friends in Canberra, he saw his first stage production in Australia at the original Riverside Hut - The Tempest, probably, he thinks, directed by the inimitable Ralph Wilson. Later there was NIDA, and also a degree in Fine Arts and Aboriginal Studies at ANU. He says 3 years in Canberra means you are hooked for life - in your mental life, even if you need to live elsewhere.
Special memories are his walks to the top of Capital Hill, pondering on the thought that the legendary King O'Malley had left his thumbprint on that foundation stone - a look back in wonder - and we laughed at the "rampage" of Bob Ellis and Michael Boddy's seminal Australian happening The Legend of King O'Malley. A memory, too, when plans for the new Parliament House were announced, of discovering a small circle of Indigenous people around a fire, sharing a beer, without polemical speeches, sitting in silent witness for weeks through a bitter winter just above O'Malley's thumbprint, waiting "for the top of the hill to be chopped off like the top of an egg". Such a beautiful rounded hilltop, trees outlined against the sunset. Such feeling, in memoriam, in his memory.
I felt, in Lewellyn-Jones' acceptance of Canberra Rep's offer to direct, a sense of commitment, even obligation, to give something back to this city. David Auburn's Proof is about an academic family, riven with trauma from within and without as the university property division plans to resume the house that has been home to two generations. What will the younger family members, and the stranger by the shore, decide as the older people reach their inevitable ends?
By the shore? Lake Michigan, since this play is about Chicago - which should be our sister city, says Llewellyn-Jones. Lake Burley Griffin, of course. Walter and Marion designed their winning plan in Chicago. That city is not all abattoirs and heavy industry. Proof reminds Llewellyn-Jones of ANU, where he still resides when in Canberra - at the professorial University House nowadays, rather than an undergraduate college. He remembers an Australia when performing arts infrastructure like the Opera House were unheard of, but has a vision of our arts precinct - the School of Art, School of Music, Theatre 3, Street Theatre, not forgetting, he says, the Family Law Court (and ANU Arts Centre a little off to the side) - full of drama "as unique as Hickson Road in Sydney".
Rehearsals, with a cast he auditioned - David Bennett, Ellen Caesar, Michael Sparks and Emma Strand - consist of Llewellyn-Jones "quietly weeping" not merely for the characters' struggle to prove themselves to each other and to themselves, but for a group of actors with the capacity for "stillness" and the concentration to bring the "apparent stillness to life". This Proof is not a mathematical exposition in linear logic form, but "the complex formula of love, trust and fear that bind a family together. For better or for worse."
For Tony Llewellyn-Jones, this is your life.
Proof by David Auburn
Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3
Ellery Crescent, Acton
February 18 - March 12
Evening: Wednesday - Saturday 8pm
Matinees: Saturday February 26, 2pm
Saturday March 5, 2pm
Twilight: Sunday March 6, 5pm
Bookings: 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
According to your age and viewing interests you will have seen Tony Llewellyn-Jones on television in (among many others) All Saints, Backberner, Hell Has Harbour Views, GP; in films like Picnic at Hanging Rock, Fatty Finn, and Cosi; and on stage from Melbourne Theatre Company's early 1970s Theatre-in-Education troupe, through every play you can imagine from MTC, the original Nimrod Theatre, the Old Tote (remember Norman in The Norman Conquests?), Sydney Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare. You probably missed the 1996 production at Club Cockroach of Merry Christmas Pauline Hanson!
You may also not have known about his long-standing relationship with key Australian film-maker Paul Cox. Llewellyn-Jones has been producer, as well as sometimes actor, working on Kostas, Man of Flowers, My First Wife, Cactus and Vincent. Being producer with Cox means much more than being a general manager or administrator. Cox's intensity and concentration on the interior life of his characters requires his producer to become absorbed in the imaginative process, working alongside his director more as a facilitator freeing up the possibilities for the expression of feeling and mood, while at the same time being the commercial negotiator on films which have grown in influence and international standing over Cox's career. For Llewellyn-Jones, I felt, there was a special significance in his work on Vincent, Cox's study of Vincent van Gogh, an artist searching for ways of understanding his demons and expressing himself as fully as possible.
After this, why Proof in Canberra for Rep? Though this may be his first job as stage director, Llewellyn-Jones brings a special kind of experience which signals an exciting new wave at Rep at this end of his career. At the other end, as a recent immigrant teenager staying briefly with family friends in Canberra, he saw his first stage production in Australia at the original Riverside Hut - The Tempest, probably, he thinks, directed by the inimitable Ralph Wilson. Later there was NIDA, and also a degree in Fine Arts and Aboriginal Studies at ANU. He says 3 years in Canberra means you are hooked for life - in your mental life, even if you need to live elsewhere.
Special memories are his walks to the top of Capital Hill, pondering on the thought that the legendary King O'Malley had left his thumbprint on that foundation stone - a look back in wonder - and we laughed at the "rampage" of Bob Ellis and Michael Boddy's seminal Australian happening The Legend of King O'Malley. A memory, too, when plans for the new Parliament House were announced, of discovering a small circle of Indigenous people around a fire, sharing a beer, without polemical speeches, sitting in silent witness for weeks through a bitter winter just above O'Malley's thumbprint, waiting "for the top of the hill to be chopped off like the top of an egg". Such a beautiful rounded hilltop, trees outlined against the sunset. Such feeling, in memoriam, in his memory.
I felt, in Lewellyn-Jones' acceptance of Canberra Rep's offer to direct, a sense of commitment, even obligation, to give something back to this city. David Auburn's Proof is about an academic family, riven with trauma from within and without as the university property division plans to resume the house that has been home to two generations. What will the younger family members, and the stranger by the shore, decide as the older people reach their inevitable ends?
By the shore? Lake Michigan, since this play is about Chicago - which should be our sister city, says Llewellyn-Jones. Lake Burley Griffin, of course. Walter and Marion designed their winning plan in Chicago. That city is not all abattoirs and heavy industry. Proof reminds Llewellyn-Jones of ANU, where he still resides when in Canberra - at the professorial University House nowadays, rather than an undergraduate college. He remembers an Australia when performing arts infrastructure like the Opera House were unheard of, but has a vision of our arts precinct - the School of Art, School of Music, Theatre 3, Street Theatre, not forgetting, he says, the Family Law Court (and ANU Arts Centre a little off to the side) - full of drama "as unique as Hickson Road in Sydney".
Rehearsals, with a cast he auditioned - David Bennett, Ellen Caesar, Michael Sparks and Emma Strand - consist of Llewellyn-Jones "quietly weeping" not merely for the characters' struggle to prove themselves to each other and to themselves, but for a group of actors with the capacity for "stillness" and the concentration to bring the "apparent stillness to life". This Proof is not a mathematical exposition in linear logic form, but "the complex formula of love, trust and fear that bind a family together. For better or for worse."
For Tony Llewellyn-Jones, this is your life.
Proof by David Auburn
Canberra Repertory at Theatre 3
Ellery Crescent, Acton
February 18 - March 12
Evening: Wednesday - Saturday 8pm
Matinees: Saturday February 26, 2pm
Saturday March 5, 2pm
Twilight: Sunday March 6, 5pm
Bookings: 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2005: When a Man Loves a Woman by Solomon F Caudle and Kabu Okai Davies
When a Man Loves a Woman by Solomon F Caudle and Kabu Okai Davies. African Globe Theatre Works, Newark N.J., New York USA, directed by Solomon Caudle. National Multicultural Festival at The Street Theatre February 10 - 12, 8pm.
This is a theatre-in-education play for young adults. Its central message is don't let physical attraction put safe sex out of mind. One mistake can give you AIDs.
Second, don't let real love be denied for the sake of one mistake. Third, don't be a manipulating, drug-taking living-a-lie asshole, because you cause disaster for the people you influence and infect. Literally.
The City of Newark's publicity talks of the "Renaissance" since 1980 after the city's decline in the mid-20th Century, but African Globe shows the African-Americans in the bar and music scene needing to learn to deal with the present-day scourge of AIDs, which infects women as much as men in a culture where men too often rely on sexual conquest to establish their status.
From the point of view of serious dramatic art, the storyline and spoken dialogue is too simple and quite predictable. The play opts for a positive, even sentimental, ending for the reunited husband and wife, even in the knowledge that she will die at some point from AIDs. The death of the asshole is almost laughable.
But I found the use of singing quite fascinating. American popular forms of music become deeply felt expressions of despair and love when African-Americans improvise, harmonise and take their voices to extremes in a style that belongs to their culture. This was not imitation or mere entertainment. And so I understood that this play, in its inner city Newark context, is designed to gets its message through directly to the hearts of its young African-American audience.
Don't go to see When a Man Loves a Woman as a commercial entertainment, but see it as an opportunity to experience this culture. Our own AIDs and drug-taking are hidden under Canberra's bush-capital superstructure, just as they are hidden in the "New" Newark. But we don't have the African-American voices to sing out the tragedy and the hope. The Multicultural Festival allows us this experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This is a theatre-in-education play for young adults. Its central message is don't let physical attraction put safe sex out of mind. One mistake can give you AIDs.
Second, don't let real love be denied for the sake of one mistake. Third, don't be a manipulating, drug-taking living-a-lie asshole, because you cause disaster for the people you influence and infect. Literally.
The City of Newark's publicity talks of the "Renaissance" since 1980 after the city's decline in the mid-20th Century, but African Globe shows the African-Americans in the bar and music scene needing to learn to deal with the present-day scourge of AIDs, which infects women as much as men in a culture where men too often rely on sexual conquest to establish their status.
From the point of view of serious dramatic art, the storyline and spoken dialogue is too simple and quite predictable. The play opts for a positive, even sentimental, ending for the reunited husband and wife, even in the knowledge that she will die at some point from AIDs. The death of the asshole is almost laughable.
But I found the use of singing quite fascinating. American popular forms of music become deeply felt expressions of despair and love when African-Americans improvise, harmonise and take their voices to extremes in a style that belongs to their culture. This was not imitation or mere entertainment. And so I understood that this play, in its inner city Newark context, is designed to gets its message through directly to the hearts of its young African-American audience.
Don't go to see When a Man Loves a Woman as a commercial entertainment, but see it as an opportunity to experience this culture. Our own AIDs and drug-taking are hidden under Canberra's bush-capital superstructure, just as they are hidden in the "New" Newark. But we don't have the African-American voices to sing out the tragedy and the hope. The Multicultural Festival allows us this experience.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 4 February 2005
2005: The Two Gentlemen of Verona ["Verona" crossed out] Thredbo
The Two Gentlemen of Verona ["Verona" crossed out] Thredbo mainly by William Shakespeare. Thredbo Players directed by Brett Thomas at Cooma Little Theatre, February 4.
"Thredbo Players is an amateur company," announced the director at the end of this summer's season. "As you can see," he added, almost shyly, while the cast was swamped once more with applause.
I mention "swamped" because there is a long conversation about tides, missing the tide, ebbing and flowing, when Proteus delays his departure, being lovelorn at the time in relation to Julia, when he is required by his father to leave Julia and Thredbo to attend the Mayor of Berridale Council, where his friend Valentine is working, and has fallen in love, mutually, with the Mayor's daughter, Silvia. Proteus switches his affections to Silvia immediately upon sighting her - not mutual - while she is expected by her father to marry the creepy but rich Thurio. Proteus uses subterfuge and dissimulation to cause Valentine's banishment. Julia, for her own safety, travels to Berridale dressed as a man, and is employed by Proteus, unwittingly, as a go-between to Silvia. Valentine becomes a Robin Hood / Ned Kelly gang leader, hiding away on Crackenback ... and all ends happily ever after.
I think this must be the most madcap outfit I can recall. There is a certain quality in their mangling of Shakespeare's poetic language, the incorporation of the prompt (including bring her on stage for the curtain call), the manic servants, a rendition of Who is Silvia to wobble-board accompaniment, all in 1880's costume including Ned's helmet, that just cannot be denied. But it's very hard to describe.
As an audience member said to me afterwards, it's just about being entertaining. And, amazingly, it was - for more than two hours without interval. Someone near me commented that the old language was hard to follow, but the story was no problem. I never worked out the tides in Berridale, but the warmth of connection between the country town cast and audience flowed back and forth wonderfully. I doubt you'll enjoy a show like this in a modern city, because it's really about country and community. Rather like it was in Shakespeare's day, I suspect, for this youthful romantic comedy.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Thredbo Players is an amateur company," announced the director at the end of this summer's season. "As you can see," he added, almost shyly, while the cast was swamped once more with applause.
I mention "swamped" because there is a long conversation about tides, missing the tide, ebbing and flowing, when Proteus delays his departure, being lovelorn at the time in relation to Julia, when he is required by his father to leave Julia and Thredbo to attend the Mayor of Berridale Council, where his friend Valentine is working, and has fallen in love, mutually, with the Mayor's daughter, Silvia. Proteus switches his affections to Silvia immediately upon sighting her - not mutual - while she is expected by her father to marry the creepy but rich Thurio. Proteus uses subterfuge and dissimulation to cause Valentine's banishment. Julia, for her own safety, travels to Berridale dressed as a man, and is employed by Proteus, unwittingly, as a go-between to Silvia. Valentine becomes a Robin Hood / Ned Kelly gang leader, hiding away on Crackenback ... and all ends happily ever after.
I think this must be the most madcap outfit I can recall. There is a certain quality in their mangling of Shakespeare's poetic language, the incorporation of the prompt (including bring her on stage for the curtain call), the manic servants, a rendition of Who is Silvia to wobble-board accompaniment, all in 1880's costume including Ned's helmet, that just cannot be denied. But it's very hard to describe.
As an audience member said to me afterwards, it's just about being entertaining. And, amazingly, it was - for more than two hours without interval. Someone near me commented that the old language was hard to follow, but the story was no problem. I never worked out the tides in Berridale, but the warmth of connection between the country town cast and audience flowed back and forth wonderfully. I doubt you'll enjoy a show like this in a modern city, because it's really about country and community. Rather like it was in Shakespeare's day, I suspect, for this youthful romantic comedy.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 25 January 2005
2005: Australia's Theatre: A Call for a National Strategy. Feature article
Australia's Theatre: A Call for a National Strategy. Launch of Trapped by the Past: Why our Theatre is Facing Paralysis by Julian Meyrick, Currency House, Thursday January 20 at Stables Theatre, 10 Nimrod Street, Kings Cross.
Meyrick is associate director of Melbourne Theatre Company and a theatre historian who claims Australian theatre is stuck in the 1970s. He claims "unless we have a grasp of our root involvement in the art form, then we are taking a living artistic medium and reducing it down to a mentally-inert production line whose purpose is mere self-perpetuation. We are doing more than wasting time, we are actively killing it."
For the launch Currency brought in Rob Brookman, general manager of Sydney Theatre Company, Lyn Wallis, director of Belvoir's B Sharp program, and David Berthold, director of Griffin Theatre Company to challenge Meyrick's position. Berthold's pencilled notes have not come to hand, but Wallis and Brookman - one-time Canberra practitioners at Jigsaw Company and the erstwhile Australian National Theatre Festival respectively - find points of agreement on the "crumbling" since the 1970s of the "middle ground", represented, says Wallis, by regional and community theatres.
"When the death knell sounded for many of them ... a vital training ground for artists at entry level was lost." But, Wallis says, "I find myself working as mentor and facilitator with the Next Wave", listing many new directors working for little remuneration in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, who she claims are as "rambunctious, confident and slightly anarchic" as the New Wave of the 1960s which spawned La Mama and Nimrod.
Brookman sees less chance that they can revitalise our theatre culture. He takes Meyrick to task for blaming the baby boomers, noting that directors like Robyn Nevin at STC and others in major companies do their utmost to give work to new writers. Meyrick, says Brookman, sees historical trends and wants a national strategy of "cooperation". Sounds like Sesame Street, "brought to you by the letters S and C".
The issue, says Brookman, is money. There is plenty of cooperation among the majors, and by the majors with community and independent practitioners. But the balance of the majors' incomes is the problem. At STC in 1980 private sponsorship was 0%. Now government funding is 7%, private funding 9%, and box office 75%. On the face of it this looks like an improvement, but there is not enough money in total. Result one has been that major companies program carefully to avoid losing sponsorship while trying to maintain quality in new and classic play productions. Result two has been to survive by, gradually, bowing to financial pressures which lead new writers to produce string quartets but no symphonies.
The amount the Australia Council gets to distribute is decided by the Federal Government while relatively small amounts come from State and Local Government. It's not the baby boomers' fault, for they do their best to bring on the Next Wave. It's not lack of cooperation. It's more money. And it's government at all levels that need to kick in so the companies can get the cultural balance right.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Meyrick is associate director of Melbourne Theatre Company and a theatre historian who claims Australian theatre is stuck in the 1970s. He claims "unless we have a grasp of our root involvement in the art form, then we are taking a living artistic medium and reducing it down to a mentally-inert production line whose purpose is mere self-perpetuation. We are doing more than wasting time, we are actively killing it."
For the launch Currency brought in Rob Brookman, general manager of Sydney Theatre Company, Lyn Wallis, director of Belvoir's B Sharp program, and David Berthold, director of Griffin Theatre Company to challenge Meyrick's position. Berthold's pencilled notes have not come to hand, but Wallis and Brookman - one-time Canberra practitioners at Jigsaw Company and the erstwhile Australian National Theatre Festival respectively - find points of agreement on the "crumbling" since the 1970s of the "middle ground", represented, says Wallis, by regional and community theatres.
"When the death knell sounded for many of them ... a vital training ground for artists at entry level was lost." But, Wallis says, "I find myself working as mentor and facilitator with the Next Wave", listing many new directors working for little remuneration in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, who she claims are as "rambunctious, confident and slightly anarchic" as the New Wave of the 1960s which spawned La Mama and Nimrod.
Brookman sees less chance that they can revitalise our theatre culture. He takes Meyrick to task for blaming the baby boomers, noting that directors like Robyn Nevin at STC and others in major companies do their utmost to give work to new writers. Meyrick, says Brookman, sees historical trends and wants a national strategy of "cooperation". Sounds like Sesame Street, "brought to you by the letters S and C".
The issue, says Brookman, is money. There is plenty of cooperation among the majors, and by the majors with community and independent practitioners. But the balance of the majors' incomes is the problem. At STC in 1980 private sponsorship was 0%. Now government funding is 7%, private funding 9%, and box office 75%. On the face of it this looks like an improvement, but there is not enough money in total. Result one has been that major companies program carefully to avoid losing sponsorship while trying to maintain quality in new and classic play productions. Result two has been to survive by, gradually, bowing to financial pressures which lead new writers to produce string quartets but no symphonies.
The amount the Australia Council gets to distribute is decided by the Federal Government while relatively small amounts come from State and Local Government. It's not the baby boomers' fault, for they do their best to bring on the Next Wave. It's not lack of cooperation. It's more money. And it's government at all levels that need to kick in so the companies can get the cultural balance right.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Saturday, 22 January 2005
2005: Stepping Out by Richard Harris
Stepping Out by Richard Harris. Queanbeyan Players directed by Fiona Hale, choreography by Deborah Vaughan, music directed by Diana Thomson. Uniting Church Hall, Rutledge Street, Queanbeyan until January 29. Bookings: 6297 4054 or 6231 6073.
Stepping Out is a tap dancing Steaming, without the tasteful towels and occasional nudity, with slabs of sentimentality, more than occasional sexual innuendo, and a predictable ending - very well danced.
Don't go for the psychological depths the play pretends to plumb. Just go to see good tap dancing, and to see how it's OK for all shapes and sizes of people. As in Steaming, women actors are brave enough to be cast according to the shapes required by the script, wearing costumes and comments from other characters which are not entirely flattering in the conventional sense. And this cast, including the token male, carried themselves on opening night with professional dignity, turning the evening into a pleasant enough light entertainment.
Everyone played their roles effectively, within the limits the author imposes on them, as their various personal stories become revealed, but I would give an award for the best combination of acting and dancing to Georgia Pike for her Andy. Perhaps this is because Andy is the nearest to a character who develops through her experience in the dance class. Pike was meticulous in showing this development and revealed her sensitivity as well as style in the final dances.
Top-class production values are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in a bottom-class venue. A rectangular, hot hall with a flat floor and small stage, four spotlights and several garden floodlights and a small, though quite good quality sound system ... need I say more? The light refreshments at interval are necessary rather than an option. Queanbeyan surely deserves a better small theatre than this or its opposite, the barn of the Bicentennial Centre.
Directing and design overcame the venue pretty well, though the dance teacher's solo was too long, and the traditional problem of blackouts and noisy scene changes, sometimes several minutes long, could be solved. Drop the pretence of naturalism and do the changes in the light, so the audience have something to watch instead of waiting, bored, in the dark.
Still, in the end you'll be happily clapping to the tapping rhythm, which is what this show is really about.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Stepping Out is a tap dancing Steaming, without the tasteful towels and occasional nudity, with slabs of sentimentality, more than occasional sexual innuendo, and a predictable ending - very well danced.
Don't go for the psychological depths the play pretends to plumb. Just go to see good tap dancing, and to see how it's OK for all shapes and sizes of people. As in Steaming, women actors are brave enough to be cast according to the shapes required by the script, wearing costumes and comments from other characters which are not entirely flattering in the conventional sense. And this cast, including the token male, carried themselves on opening night with professional dignity, turning the evening into a pleasant enough light entertainment.
Everyone played their roles effectively, within the limits the author imposes on them, as their various personal stories become revealed, but I would give an award for the best combination of acting and dancing to Georgia Pike for her Andy. Perhaps this is because Andy is the nearest to a character who develops through her experience in the dance class. Pike was meticulous in showing this development and revealed her sensitivity as well as style in the final dances.
Top-class production values are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in a bottom-class venue. A rectangular, hot hall with a flat floor and small stage, four spotlights and several garden floodlights and a small, though quite good quality sound system ... need I say more? The light refreshments at interval are necessary rather than an option. Queanbeyan surely deserves a better small theatre than this or its opposite, the barn of the Bicentennial Centre.
Directing and design overcame the venue pretty well, though the dance teacher's solo was too long, and the traditional problem of blackouts and noisy scene changes, sometimes several minutes long, could be solved. Drop the pretence of naturalism and do the changes in the light, so the audience have something to watch instead of waiting, bored, in the dark.
Still, in the end you'll be happily clapping to the tapping rhythm, which is what this show is really about.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 19 January 2005
2005: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis, adapted and directed by Jasan Savage. Young World Theatre at UCU Theatre, The Hub, University of Canberra. January 19-30 (Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays 2.30pm and Saturdays and Sundays 10.30am and 2.30pm). Bookings 6201 2645 or www.ucu.canberra.edu.au/lion .
Jasan Savage has used a simple but very effective device which makes this production better for young children than usual. I saw the evidence at the opening performance.
"Won't the lion be scary?" asks Lucy of the audience. "No!" was the emphatic reply from the 3-5 year-olds. Whoops, I thought. Wasn't this the wrong answer? Is this a proper pantomime, or what?
Then I realised how Savage's adaptation cleverly teaches the children to understand the difference between fiction and reality. He had only two actors available and the intimate space of the UCU Theatre in which to tell Lewis's story of four children and a wardrobe within which is a Tardis-like Narnia with myriad animals and fairy-story characters. Two of the children, now grown up (Danielle McGettrick as Lucy and John Kerr as Peter), tell the children in the audience about their wardrobe experience when they were young. In character, they teach the children about using their imaginations, and, using costumes hung in the wardrobe, they re-enact the transition between the spare room and Narnia, playing not only Lucy and Peter when young, but their treacherous younger brother Edmund, the White Witch, the faun, the badger and even Aslan the Lion, while the presence of their other sister, Susan, is imagined in the dialogue and via mime.
The ending is very well done as the children, grown old in Narnia, rediscover the way back through the wardrobe, find they are young again in (their) real life, realise that they can never visit Narnia again, and revert to their original Lucy and Peter to reflect on the experience, and then to themselves as actors to take their well-deserved bows in our real life. Sophisticated theatre - but the littlies followed every step. Wonderful theatre.
McGettrick and Kerr handle the complexity of their acting task very well indeed. Their warmth and sincerity reach out to the children without unnecessary tricks. On the way out I heard little children telling their parents, very seriously, what they thought about the play. That's a successful production in my terms.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Jasan Savage has used a simple but very effective device which makes this production better for young children than usual. I saw the evidence at the opening performance.
"Won't the lion be scary?" asks Lucy of the audience. "No!" was the emphatic reply from the 3-5 year-olds. Whoops, I thought. Wasn't this the wrong answer? Is this a proper pantomime, or what?
Then I realised how Savage's adaptation cleverly teaches the children to understand the difference between fiction and reality. He had only two actors available and the intimate space of the UCU Theatre in which to tell Lewis's story of four children and a wardrobe within which is a Tardis-like Narnia with myriad animals and fairy-story characters. Two of the children, now grown up (Danielle McGettrick as Lucy and John Kerr as Peter), tell the children in the audience about their wardrobe experience when they were young. In character, they teach the children about using their imaginations, and, using costumes hung in the wardrobe, they re-enact the transition between the spare room and Narnia, playing not only Lucy and Peter when young, but their treacherous younger brother Edmund, the White Witch, the faun, the badger and even Aslan the Lion, while the presence of their other sister, Susan, is imagined in the dialogue and via mime.
The ending is very well done as the children, grown old in Narnia, rediscover the way back through the wardrobe, find they are young again in (their) real life, realise that they can never visit Narnia again, and revert to their original Lucy and Peter to reflect on the experience, and then to themselves as actors to take their well-deserved bows in our real life. Sophisticated theatre - but the littlies followed every step. Wonderful theatre.
McGettrick and Kerr handle the complexity of their acting task very well indeed. Their warmth and sincerity reach out to the children without unnecessary tricks. On the way out I heard little children telling their parents, very seriously, what they thought about the play. That's a successful production in my terms.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 12 January 2005
2005: Canberra Museums. Feature article
"My wife's gone back looking for Eternity."
There's something mythical about this visitor's response to the National Museum of Australia. Is his wife a latter-day Persephone? Did she find Eternity? Did he ever find his wife again, waiting, I suppose, at some earthly boundary? I just hope she didn't become a pillar of salt.
Though this couple may have been bemused by the map of the universe within the NMA, another said "The architecture is great - you can go off on little tangents." Isn't this what museums are for - myth making, exploring the universe within ourselves? Keeping places. Remembering places. Recognising ourselves. Finding where we belong.
Other visitors said, "Identifying with things from our past like Vegemite ads, school milk, bush tucker, the Pelaco ad" and "Fantastic overview of our Australian story, especially the Aboriginal story." The First Australians Gallery is the most popular at the NMA, and the first point of call for international visitors.
Then, as large as life, there's Tetsuya Wakuda at the National Portrait Gallery. Hails originally from Hamamatsu, Japan. "Make simplicity seem like abundance", he says, smiling over the kitchen bench in his Sydney sushi restaurant. I thought that was a line from the New Testament, about loaves and fishes. Or it's pure Japanese Zen. Hasn't Australia become an amazing place!
My interest in museum visitors arose in the recent flurry of worry about falling numbers, giving the impression that Canberra's tourist industry is coming apart at the seams. I thought, is ever-increasing tourist numbers the main purpose of our Federally funded institutions - the War Memorial, National Museum of Australia, National Portrait Gallery and Old Parliament House, new Parliament House, National Film and Sound Archives, the National Archives, and National Gallery of Australia? Are they failing in their duty?
Early New Year is not an easy time to get to everybody involved, but from the War Memorial, NMA, NPG and OPH it's clear the stories of doom and disaster are not the truth. This doesn't mean our big attractions can sit back on their laurels, but...
Linda Ferguson is the collector and analyser of visitor statistics at the War Memorial. Her figures show a 1 per cent increase in 2004 over 2003, but the first half of the year was up and the second half down. Yet OPH numbers show an average increase of about 2% each month from July to December 2004 compared with the same months in 2003. Outside factors like air fares and petrol prices seem to be the main concern. NMA permanent exhibition figures show a drop from the Sydney region late in the year but increases from Melbourne, Brisbane and especially Adelaide where airfare specials were laid on, while they also show 188 per cent increased attendance over 2003 at their travelling exhibitions.
The institutions, as they always have, can expect their different exhibitions to attract different numbers of people. An important or worthwhile exhibition should not be mounted simply on the basis of attracting the largest possible number. The issues I think the tourist industry should focus on are the outside factors which enable or prevent the potential numbers from getting here.
Especially they need to seriously promote Canberra as the national capital to international markets. Here the figures for recent years show a decline in the numbers and proportion of international visitors to Australia choosing to visit Canberra. How does this compare, for example, with Washington DC? Far too many overseas visitors still think Sydney is Australia's capital. The strongest attraction to come here is Aboriginal culture in the First Australians Gallery at NMA and Aboriginal art at the National Gallery. Ironic, isn't it? I haven't got figures on visitors to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
Talking to NMA Director Craddock Morton and his Director of Public Affairs Martin Portus, OPH Programs and Marketing Manager Sandy Clugston, NPG's Marketing Manager Suzie Campbell, War Memorial's Exhibitions Manager Helen Withnell and NMA's equivalent of Linda Ferguson, Susan Tonkin,raised more than tourist housekeeping issues. Each institution, being funded by the Federal Government, has its own raison d'etre, often based in formal legislation. The War Memorial, for example, is essentially a place of living ceremony and ritual. Providing its services is a national duty to all Australians, supported by its research and exhibition work. Old Parliament House is, too, more than a museum - it's a heritage site where people experience democracy as it was, moving on to new Parliament House for the way things are now. The National Portrait Gallery is both an art gallery and a museum of national icons, while both NPG and the National Museum work by being closely involved with people's stories - personal and community - so people come literally to see their own history in the exhibitions.
Making all this happen is a special artform. This is not about pumping up tourist numbers by offering special deals. It's about integrity of purpose, honesty on display, stimulation of understanding, depth of experience - all those elements that make for a good work of art. Our institutions are well up with international standards. This year, for example, the War Memorial collaborates with the Canadian War Museum and the British Imperial War Museum in an exhibition of World War II Art opening in Ottawa in May and here in November, while the International Museum Theatre Association will meet at NMA in October. In addition our institutions' outreach programs, touring across the nation and including such regulars as Talkback Classroom which goes international this year, are world leaders. But, like a good theatrical production, you need to know your audience. And this is where Linda Ferguson has come up with an interesting analysis.
Ferguson's "segmentation" studies have revealed four kinds of visitors. People who personally identify with the experience in the place they visit. People who seek to gain knowledge from their experience when they visit. People who like to be swept up in the experience, for fun, enjoyment, or satisfaction. People who visit as part of a bonding experience with the other people who come with them. In the case of the War Memorial on which she focussed, the tendency was for the first group to be mid-fifties and older, for whom the memories of the past were deeply emotional experiences. The second group tended to be middle-aged (35 to 55), the third group younger adults, while the fourth group were often family groups where the generations overlapped. In other places, like the National Museum, there is obviously a fifth group of the young for whom live story-telling and exploring stimulating experiences is the key.
This kind of understanding of the audience can help directors of these institutions link the expectations expressed in their formal aims with the obvious need to keep people rolling through the doors. An exhibition which entails an extra cost needs first to have integrity of content and then all the variety of presentation to cater for the audience, or to be clearly targeted in format to satisfy the needs of particular audiences (with promotion to match). All the national institutions have for many years been in close cooperative contact, which means Ferguson's work is a strength for the whole system.
The tourist industry must invest much more in promoting Canberra's speciality - the national institutions - just as Washington DC does. But it should be recognised that it is not the job of the institutions to focus their efforts on boosting the tourist industry. It's the tourist industry's job to put the institutions on the tourist map. The quality is there, and is more than competitive internationally. If local businesses want to turn a penny, and local government wants to support them, then they must work to get the quality message out.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
There's something mythical about this visitor's response to the National Museum of Australia. Is his wife a latter-day Persephone? Did she find Eternity? Did he ever find his wife again, waiting, I suppose, at some earthly boundary? I just hope she didn't become a pillar of salt.
Though this couple may have been bemused by the map of the universe within the NMA, another said "The architecture is great - you can go off on little tangents." Isn't this what museums are for - myth making, exploring the universe within ourselves? Keeping places. Remembering places. Recognising ourselves. Finding where we belong.
Other visitors said, "Identifying with things from our past like Vegemite ads, school milk, bush tucker, the Pelaco ad" and "Fantastic overview of our Australian story, especially the Aboriginal story." The First Australians Gallery is the most popular at the NMA, and the first point of call for international visitors.
Then, as large as life, there's Tetsuya Wakuda at the National Portrait Gallery. Hails originally from Hamamatsu, Japan. "Make simplicity seem like abundance", he says, smiling over the kitchen bench in his Sydney sushi restaurant. I thought that was a line from the New Testament, about loaves and fishes. Or it's pure Japanese Zen. Hasn't Australia become an amazing place!
My interest in museum visitors arose in the recent flurry of worry about falling numbers, giving the impression that Canberra's tourist industry is coming apart at the seams. I thought, is ever-increasing tourist numbers the main purpose of our Federally funded institutions - the War Memorial, National Museum of Australia, National Portrait Gallery and Old Parliament House, new Parliament House, National Film and Sound Archives, the National Archives, and National Gallery of Australia? Are they failing in their duty?
Early New Year is not an easy time to get to everybody involved, but from the War Memorial, NMA, NPG and OPH it's clear the stories of doom and disaster are not the truth. This doesn't mean our big attractions can sit back on their laurels, but...
Linda Ferguson is the collector and analyser of visitor statistics at the War Memorial. Her figures show a 1 per cent increase in 2004 over 2003, but the first half of the year was up and the second half down. Yet OPH numbers show an average increase of about 2% each month from July to December 2004 compared with the same months in 2003. Outside factors like air fares and petrol prices seem to be the main concern. NMA permanent exhibition figures show a drop from the Sydney region late in the year but increases from Melbourne, Brisbane and especially Adelaide where airfare specials were laid on, while they also show 188 per cent increased attendance over 2003 at their travelling exhibitions.
The institutions, as they always have, can expect their different exhibitions to attract different numbers of people. An important or worthwhile exhibition should not be mounted simply on the basis of attracting the largest possible number. The issues I think the tourist industry should focus on are the outside factors which enable or prevent the potential numbers from getting here.
Especially they need to seriously promote Canberra as the national capital to international markets. Here the figures for recent years show a decline in the numbers and proportion of international visitors to Australia choosing to visit Canberra. How does this compare, for example, with Washington DC? Far too many overseas visitors still think Sydney is Australia's capital. The strongest attraction to come here is Aboriginal culture in the First Australians Gallery at NMA and Aboriginal art at the National Gallery. Ironic, isn't it? I haven't got figures on visitors to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
Talking to NMA Director Craddock Morton and his Director of Public Affairs Martin Portus, OPH Programs and Marketing Manager Sandy Clugston, NPG's Marketing Manager Suzie Campbell, War Memorial's Exhibitions Manager Helen Withnell and NMA's equivalent of Linda Ferguson, Susan Tonkin,raised more than tourist housekeeping issues. Each institution, being funded by the Federal Government, has its own raison d'etre, often based in formal legislation. The War Memorial, for example, is essentially a place of living ceremony and ritual. Providing its services is a national duty to all Australians, supported by its research and exhibition work. Old Parliament House is, too, more than a museum - it's a heritage site where people experience democracy as it was, moving on to new Parliament House for the way things are now. The National Portrait Gallery is both an art gallery and a museum of national icons, while both NPG and the National Museum work by being closely involved with people's stories - personal and community - so people come literally to see their own history in the exhibitions.
Making all this happen is a special artform. This is not about pumping up tourist numbers by offering special deals. It's about integrity of purpose, honesty on display, stimulation of understanding, depth of experience - all those elements that make for a good work of art. Our institutions are well up with international standards. This year, for example, the War Memorial collaborates with the Canadian War Museum and the British Imperial War Museum in an exhibition of World War II Art opening in Ottawa in May and here in November, while the International Museum Theatre Association will meet at NMA in October. In addition our institutions' outreach programs, touring across the nation and including such regulars as Talkback Classroom which goes international this year, are world leaders. But, like a good theatrical production, you need to know your audience. And this is where Linda Ferguson has come up with an interesting analysis.
Ferguson's "segmentation" studies have revealed four kinds of visitors. People who personally identify with the experience in the place they visit. People who seek to gain knowledge from their experience when they visit. People who like to be swept up in the experience, for fun, enjoyment, or satisfaction. People who visit as part of a bonding experience with the other people who come with them. In the case of the War Memorial on which she focussed, the tendency was for the first group to be mid-fifties and older, for whom the memories of the past were deeply emotional experiences. The second group tended to be middle-aged (35 to 55), the third group younger adults, while the fourth group were often family groups where the generations overlapped. In other places, like the National Museum, there is obviously a fifth group of the young for whom live story-telling and exploring stimulating experiences is the key.
This kind of understanding of the audience can help directors of these institutions link the expectations expressed in their formal aims with the obvious need to keep people rolling through the doors. An exhibition which entails an extra cost needs first to have integrity of content and then all the variety of presentation to cater for the audience, or to be clearly targeted in format to satisfy the needs of particular audiences (with promotion to match). All the national institutions have for many years been in close cooperative contact, which means Ferguson's work is a strength for the whole system.
The tourist industry must invest much more in promoting Canberra's speciality - the national institutions - just as Washington DC does. But it should be recognised that it is not the job of the institutions to focus their efforts on boosting the tourist industry. It's the tourist industry's job to put the institutions on the tourist map. The quality is there, and is more than competitive internationally. If local businesses want to turn a penny, and local government wants to support them, then they must work to get the quality message out.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 7 January 2005
2005: Telling Moments selected and directed by Adam Maher
Telling Moments. Monologues by Robert Reinhart, Adele Lewin, Tessa Bremner, Margaret Fischer, Keith Curran and Neal Bell selected and directed by Adam Maher for A.R.T.S. at The Street Theatre, January 6-22.
This mixed bunch is a pot-pourri of mainly gay and lesbian scents, with a strong smell of death, actual or emotional. Though some pieces are humorous, even occasionally very funny, the lives of these disparate characters are essentially sad and at the extremes, bleak.
The bunch is also of mixed quality. Reinhart, a well-known New York gay writer, communications executive and media producer, wrote Telling Moments as a collection of 15 gay monologues, which sell to actors to use as audition pieces. Though published in 1994, I could find no internet reference to their production on stage in toto. The other pieces performed here are a mix of one-offs and monologues taken out of plays.
Reinhart's writing is clearly the best of the bunch, but with only some of his 15 presented, and the other pieces having a different focus and not so well written, the show is not clearly integrated. Some of Reinhart's characters do make references to each other, but the point of this is lost on the non-Reinhart characters. So, despite short bookend scenes, there isn't any dramatic development for the audience to follow.
Performances also ranged from fair to excellent. Bringing in only one woman asked too much of Adele Lewin, while Oliver Baudert and Ian Croker had real style and I was particularly impressed by the strength of the younger Jeremy Just's acting. On opening night the acting seemed to free up in the second half, and the audience responded in kind, so we can look forward to the show settling in quickly.
The musicians, Helen Way (cello) and Brett Janiec (clarinet) played with verve and great style between the telling moments. The musical links, composed by Helen Way and Tim Hansen, were neat and thematically pointed, successfully helping to hold the evening together.
In summary, an interesting and partially successful show, which is worth seeing to appreciate different lives of horror and humour as each character expresses his or her thoughts and feelings directly to us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This mixed bunch is a pot-pourri of mainly gay and lesbian scents, with a strong smell of death, actual or emotional. Though some pieces are humorous, even occasionally very funny, the lives of these disparate characters are essentially sad and at the extremes, bleak.
The bunch is also of mixed quality. Reinhart, a well-known New York gay writer, communications executive and media producer, wrote Telling Moments as a collection of 15 gay monologues, which sell to actors to use as audition pieces. Though published in 1994, I could find no internet reference to their production on stage in toto. The other pieces performed here are a mix of one-offs and monologues taken out of plays.
Reinhart's writing is clearly the best of the bunch, but with only some of his 15 presented, and the other pieces having a different focus and not so well written, the show is not clearly integrated. Some of Reinhart's characters do make references to each other, but the point of this is lost on the non-Reinhart characters. So, despite short bookend scenes, there isn't any dramatic development for the audience to follow.
Performances also ranged from fair to excellent. Bringing in only one woman asked too much of Adele Lewin, while Oliver Baudert and Ian Croker had real style and I was particularly impressed by the strength of the younger Jeremy Just's acting. On opening night the acting seemed to free up in the second half, and the audience responded in kind, so we can look forward to the show settling in quickly.
The musicians, Helen Way (cello) and Brett Janiec (clarinet) played with verve and great style between the telling moments. The musical links, composed by Helen Way and Tim Hansen, were neat and thematically pointed, successfully helping to hold the evening together.
In summary, an interesting and partially successful show, which is worth seeing to appreciate different lives of horror and humour as each character expresses his or her thoughts and feelings directly to us.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 31 December 2004
2004: Seussical the Musical - preview article
Who was born 100 years ago, wrote a best-selling book with only 223 words in it, and inspired a Broadway musical? And, not incidentally, has encouraged huge numbers of children to learn to read through his whimsical rhymes and quirky characters?
Theodor Seuss Geisel is who. Dr Seuss to you.
The musical? Seussical the Musical (co-conceived by Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty and Eric Idle) opened on Broadway in November 2000, ran there for more than 5 months and has been touring since then. As Graham Bauerle, one-time teacher and long-time President of Phoenix Players explained, Seussical is admirably suited to local communities where the whole family can participate. That's why he and his dedicated committee jumped at the opportunity when the performing rights became available in Australia in 2004.
Two Victorian schools got in first, but this is the first general public performance in Australia, opening January 14 for a 15 show run.
Phoenix Players has grown over its 15 year history into a community theatre group with a sense of purpose. Its first aim is to give young people a place to learn through experience - the only way - about theatre production. Its second purpose is to give families a community to belong to. Since its beginnings in Belconnen Community Centre, Phoenix has moved its performances to The Street Theatre and Theatre 3, finding these theatres give the Players the quality of experience they need, as well as expanding their membership and audience.
And their expenses. Seussical's budget is more than $30,000. But passion for this particular musical carries the day with Bauerle and his director Belinda Anyos, well known as BJ, who doubles - now triples - as the Fairy Who Can't Fly and an Excited Particle at Questacon. In fact she quadruples as a trainee primary teacher at UC, which is where her interest in children's learning to read comes in.
Anyos explains the many layers of Seussical (maybe like a club sandwich of Green Eggs and Ham). All the 47 young cast members have studied all the Dr Seuss books as their essential reading research, learning not only about their characters but also about the importance of learning to read. They also learn a sense of humour while having fun. So Phoenix show their members the bond between reading and acting out.
For the audience, the very young will see Seuss's characters appear from his books which form the set, narrated by the dynamic Arron Grainger as The Cat in the Hat. But at another level, the story takes place in the imagination of a young boy, JoJo, as he reads about the Grinch, the Whos, the Sour Kangaroo, Gertrude Fuzz and many others. The central books are Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg, while for the older audience, for whom Seuss may seem old hat, there is the fun of identifying the references to all 15 books.
The music, singing and dancing carry the show along smartly and smoothly. No dead scene changes, and very little spoken dialogue, makes Seussical into a rollicking light opera drawing on pop, gospel, blues and R&B musical styles.
There is a special excitement because this is a new show, where everyone from the director to the costume sewer has worked without preconceptions. This makes creative juices flow, rather than being limited as amateur groups often are by the expectation to imitate famous stage or film productions. Creating productions from literary sources is now a new theme for Phoenix Players, with a non-audition workshop for children 9-16 in first semester this year leading to a production in July of Roald Dahl's The Witches, which BJ will also direct.
Apart from Spot the Story (I have suggested there should be a prize for the first to find all 15), there is also a raffle, first prize a giant Cat in the Hat with Seuss books, and other book prizes. And for parents with a real concern about the current debate about children learning to read via phonics or whole word methods, go to see Seussical the Musical to see how Theodor Seuss Geisel put the two together. His rhymes give children the phonics, his visuals and use of repetition give the whole words, while his off-beat humour appeals even to the very young as well as the young-at-heart. Just add music and dance, imaginative costumes and all the theatrical effects at Theatre 3 to bring it all to life.
Seussical the Musical
By arrangement: Hal Leonard Australia for Music Theatre International (NY)
Phoenix Players at Theatre 3
January 14 - 29
Matinee, Twilight and Evening performances
Bookings: Theatre 3 on 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Theodor Seuss Geisel is who. Dr Seuss to you.
The musical? Seussical the Musical (co-conceived by Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty and Eric Idle) opened on Broadway in November 2000, ran there for more than 5 months and has been touring since then. As Graham Bauerle, one-time teacher and long-time President of Phoenix Players explained, Seussical is admirably suited to local communities where the whole family can participate. That's why he and his dedicated committee jumped at the opportunity when the performing rights became available in Australia in 2004.
Two Victorian schools got in first, but this is the first general public performance in Australia, opening January 14 for a 15 show run.
Phoenix Players has grown over its 15 year history into a community theatre group with a sense of purpose. Its first aim is to give young people a place to learn through experience - the only way - about theatre production. Its second purpose is to give families a community to belong to. Since its beginnings in Belconnen Community Centre, Phoenix has moved its performances to The Street Theatre and Theatre 3, finding these theatres give the Players the quality of experience they need, as well as expanding their membership and audience.
And their expenses. Seussical's budget is more than $30,000. But passion for this particular musical carries the day with Bauerle and his director Belinda Anyos, well known as BJ, who doubles - now triples - as the Fairy Who Can't Fly and an Excited Particle at Questacon. In fact she quadruples as a trainee primary teacher at UC, which is where her interest in children's learning to read comes in.
Anyos explains the many layers of Seussical (maybe like a club sandwich of Green Eggs and Ham). All the 47 young cast members have studied all the Dr Seuss books as their essential reading research, learning not only about their characters but also about the importance of learning to read. They also learn a sense of humour while having fun. So Phoenix show their members the bond between reading and acting out.
For the audience, the very young will see Seuss's characters appear from his books which form the set, narrated by the dynamic Arron Grainger as The Cat in the Hat. But at another level, the story takes place in the imagination of a young boy, JoJo, as he reads about the Grinch, the Whos, the Sour Kangaroo, Gertrude Fuzz and many others. The central books are Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg, while for the older audience, for whom Seuss may seem old hat, there is the fun of identifying the references to all 15 books.
The music, singing and dancing carry the show along smartly and smoothly. No dead scene changes, and very little spoken dialogue, makes Seussical into a rollicking light opera drawing on pop, gospel, blues and R&B musical styles.
There is a special excitement because this is a new show, where everyone from the director to the costume sewer has worked without preconceptions. This makes creative juices flow, rather than being limited as amateur groups often are by the expectation to imitate famous stage or film productions. Creating productions from literary sources is now a new theme for Phoenix Players, with a non-audition workshop for children 9-16 in first semester this year leading to a production in July of Roald Dahl's The Witches, which BJ will also direct.
Apart from Spot the Story (I have suggested there should be a prize for the first to find all 15), there is also a raffle, first prize a giant Cat in the Hat with Seuss books, and other book prizes. And for parents with a real concern about the current debate about children learning to read via phonics or whole word methods, go to see Seussical the Musical to see how Theodor Seuss Geisel put the two together. His rhymes give children the phonics, his visuals and use of repetition give the whole words, while his off-beat humour appeals even to the very young as well as the young-at-heart. Just add music and dance, imaginative costumes and all the theatrical effects at Theatre 3 to bring it all to life.
Seussical the Musical
By arrangement: Hal Leonard Australia for Music Theatre International (NY)
Phoenix Players at Theatre 3
January 14 - 29
Matinee, Twilight and Evening performances
Bookings: Theatre 3 on 6257 1950
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 23 December 2004
2004: Extremes. Survival in the Great Deserts of the Southern Hemisphere
Extremes. Survival in the Great Deserts of the Southern Hemisphere. National Museum of Australia, December 26 2004 to mid-2005. Adults $8, Concession $6, Child $5, Family $16.
Here is an exhibition which is worth crossing a desert to see - 4 deserts, actually. There is plenty to slake your thirst for knowledge about the Atacama which contains the driest place on earth, the famous Kalahari, the less well-known Namib and our own Red Centre. What links them is, in Afrikaans, the Steenbokskeerkring - the ring of antelopes - aka the Tropic of Capricorn. As the earth spins, our swirling atmosphere creates this band of dry air still linking us to our old partners in Gondwanaland since we split up over 50 million years ago.
A good exhibition should be dramatic in its impact, and this story of people living in the deserts over the last 30,000 years begins with larger than life indigenous people talking quietly and personally to us on film, immersed in marvellous images of their country. Stop as you go in, look and listen, before you explore the ancient and modern artefacts of change which is the history these people have survived. It is not so much lack of water that makes life difficult in these deserts. More often it has been insensitive, greedy and deliberately destructive invasion by people who have failed to learn to live within nature's bounds.
It strikes home, as senior Ikuntji man Douglas Multa speaks, to realise that people started mining red ochre in his country 30,000 years ago, and still do today as part of the life of a man related to cattle bosses, cameleers and famous women artists, and whose own interests include football, heavy metal and country music. How dramatic are these changes indeed? The stories of Namib elder of the ǂAonin people, Rudolf Dausab (ǂis a 'click' sound) and Atacamena Rosa Ramos are no less fascinating.
Between the inflatable sea lion skin raft and the Conquistador helmet, ostrich egg water flasks and Dr Livingstone's actual cap he wore when Stanley greeted him "Dr Livingstone, I presume?", a hair string belt and the Bush Mechanics EJ Holden there is much more than an hour's worth of remarkable human experience for visitors young and old. An extremely good exhibition in the best National Museum tradition.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Here is an exhibition which is worth crossing a desert to see - 4 deserts, actually. There is plenty to slake your thirst for knowledge about the Atacama which contains the driest place on earth, the famous Kalahari, the less well-known Namib and our own Red Centre. What links them is, in Afrikaans, the Steenbokskeerkring - the ring of antelopes - aka the Tropic of Capricorn. As the earth spins, our swirling atmosphere creates this band of dry air still linking us to our old partners in Gondwanaland since we split up over 50 million years ago.
A good exhibition should be dramatic in its impact, and this story of people living in the deserts over the last 30,000 years begins with larger than life indigenous people talking quietly and personally to us on film, immersed in marvellous images of their country. Stop as you go in, look and listen, before you explore the ancient and modern artefacts of change which is the history these people have survived. It is not so much lack of water that makes life difficult in these deserts. More often it has been insensitive, greedy and deliberately destructive invasion by people who have failed to learn to live within nature's bounds.
It strikes home, as senior Ikuntji man Douglas Multa speaks, to realise that people started mining red ochre in his country 30,000 years ago, and still do today as part of the life of a man related to cattle bosses, cameleers and famous women artists, and whose own interests include football, heavy metal and country music. How dramatic are these changes indeed? The stories of Namib elder of the ǂAonin people, Rudolf Dausab (ǂis a 'click' sound) and Atacamena Rosa Ramos are no less fascinating.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 9 December 2004
2004: Nunsense by Dan Goggin
Nunsense. Music, lyrics and most of the dialogue by Dan Goggin. G-String Productions at Teatro Vivaldi Theatre Restaurant, ANU Arts Centre, directed by Rod Beaver. December 8, 10, 14, 16, 17 and 19 at 6.30 for 7pm. Dinner and show $49. Bookings 6257 2718.
2004 is the 20th anniversary of this wacky American off-Broadway musical. Still popular over there, it's a good choice by G-String for a pre-Christmas fun night with a bunch of nuns. Fortunately the food at Vivaldi's is way above the class of the convent cook, Sr Julia. "Out of respect for the recently departed Little Sisters of Hoboken, vichyssoise will not be offered on this evening's menu" since the Sister's soup killed 52. The few survivors, who by chance were at bingo that night, entertain us in the hope of raising enough money to bury the last 4 bodies, currently at rest in the kitchen freezer.
The team of 5 women - Kylie Butler (Reverend Mother), Renay Hart (Sr Mary Hubert), Liz Beaver (Sr Robert Anne), Megan Simpson (Sr Mary Amnesia) and Rebecca Franks (Sr Mary Leo) - are a great ensemble, singing, dancing, telling jokes and stories, and gossipping along with excellent pianist Lachlan Cotter. Though very evenly matched I would give a little extra for Hart's voice, especially in the final swinging gospel number, and for Simpson's very surprising puppet.
You don't need to be Catholic to appreciate the jokes, especially ones like the clock with the 12 apostles. Like any good theatre restaurant, the close relationship between the performers spilling off a tiny stage and a relaxed well-fed audience is a bonus.
But at Vivaldi's the arrangement of the stage and seating made for difficult audio balancing. The piano was too often over the top of the miked performers, making their words hard to pick up clearly, while at the far end some performers' voices were too soft. This requires a more complex sound system than only 2 widely spaced speakers, and occasionally the director might have to sit on the pianist. This could easily be incorporated into the show, which already contains a hilarious multi-media segment not imagined by the author.
Make sure you book for excellent fare, real and theatrical.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2004 is the 20th anniversary of this wacky American off-Broadway musical. Still popular over there, it's a good choice by G-String for a pre-Christmas fun night with a bunch of nuns. Fortunately the food at Vivaldi's is way above the class of the convent cook, Sr Julia. "Out of respect for the recently departed Little Sisters of Hoboken, vichyssoise will not be offered on this evening's menu" since the Sister's soup killed 52. The few survivors, who by chance were at bingo that night, entertain us in the hope of raising enough money to bury the last 4 bodies, currently at rest in the kitchen freezer.
The team of 5 women - Kylie Butler (Reverend Mother), Renay Hart (Sr Mary Hubert), Liz Beaver (Sr Robert Anne), Megan Simpson (Sr Mary Amnesia) and Rebecca Franks (Sr Mary Leo) - are a great ensemble, singing, dancing, telling jokes and stories, and gossipping along with excellent pianist Lachlan Cotter. Though very evenly matched I would give a little extra for Hart's voice, especially in the final swinging gospel number, and for Simpson's very surprising puppet.
You don't need to be Catholic to appreciate the jokes, especially ones like the clock with the 12 apostles. Like any good theatre restaurant, the close relationship between the performers spilling off a tiny stage and a relaxed well-fed audience is a bonus.
But at Vivaldi's the arrangement of the stage and seating made for difficult audio balancing. The piano was too often over the top of the miked performers, making their words hard to pick up clearly, while at the far end some performers' voices were too soft. This requires a more complex sound system than only 2 widely spaced speakers, and occasionally the director might have to sit on the pianist. This could easily be incorporated into the show, which already contains a hilarious multi-media segment not imagined by the author.
Make sure you book for excellent fare, real and theatrical.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Tuesday, 30 November 2004
2004: An Evening with Queen Victoria - review written the character of the Queen.
An Evening with Queen Victoria, a portrait in her own words. Devised and directed by Katrina Hendrey. Prunella Scales with Ian Partridge (Tenor) and Richard Burnett (Piano). The Playhouse, November 29-30.
I wonder if Ms Scales (you see, I still keep up with modern thinking just as I loved Rossini's 'Il Rimprovero' in my youth) will emulate my determination to never give up. She has only some ten years to go to match my longevity, but I must agree that she is much more sprightly than I at her age. I doubt that I could have played myself aged 18 in 1891, though I did very much enjoy the Misters Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers in that year. The song 'The Working Monarch' was so much fun, just such a delight that the common people should come to know how my days were spent signing Bills, dispensing knighthoods and so on.
Of course, though Ms Scales, and indeed Professor Partridge, are Commanders of the British Empire, they can never be the real thing as I was. My insistence on my assuming the title Empress of India was perhaps the highlight of my life, revealing - as I wrote - how "prince and peasant are all the same ... before God". We are amused to observe how well my attitudes have survived, in the words of dear Prince Ernest and my very dear Prince Albert in his song Schmerz der Liebe, 'the ship of love battered by the rocks and tempests of life's journey'. My dear great great great grandson Prince Charles understands so well the duties of a monarch and one's proper relations with those in the lower orders, even when, as in the case of my dear Scotsman J. Brown, a commoner has 'feelings and qualities that the highest Prince might be proud of'.
Though I once wrote 'women are unfit to reign', I am informed Ms Scales filled the Playhouse even after more than 400 performances, so it seems Tory or Liberal (I was never sure which was which) values live on, even in far-flung Australia. Long live the Queen.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
I wonder if Ms Scales (you see, I still keep up with modern thinking just as I loved Rossini's 'Il Rimprovero' in my youth) will emulate my determination to never give up. She has only some ten years to go to match my longevity, but I must agree that she is much more sprightly than I at her age. I doubt that I could have played myself aged 18 in 1891, though I did very much enjoy the Misters Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers in that year. The song 'The Working Monarch' was so much fun, just such a delight that the common people should come to know how my days were spent signing Bills, dispensing knighthoods and so on.
Of course, though Ms Scales, and indeed Professor Partridge, are Commanders of the British Empire, they can never be the real thing as I was. My insistence on my assuming the title Empress of India was perhaps the highlight of my life, revealing - as I wrote - how "prince and peasant are all the same ... before God". We are amused to observe how well my attitudes have survived, in the words of dear Prince Ernest and my very dear Prince Albert in his song Schmerz der Liebe, 'the ship of love battered by the rocks and tempests of life's journey'. My dear great great great grandson Prince Charles understands so well the duties of a monarch and one's proper relations with those in the lower orders, even when, as in the case of my dear Scotsman J. Brown, a commoner has 'feelings and qualities that the highest Prince might be proud of'.
Though I once wrote 'women are unfit to reign', I am informed Ms Scales filled the Playhouse even after more than 400 performances, so it seems Tory or Liberal (I was never sure which was which) values live on, even in far-flung Australia. Long live the Queen.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2004: An Evening with Queen Victoria by Katrina Hendrey
An Evening with Queen Victoria, a portrait in her own words. Devised and directed by Katrina Hendrey. Prunella Scales with Ian Partridge (Tenor) and Richard Burnett (Piano). The Playhouse, November 29-30.
This team has toured Queen Victoria four times to Australia as well as to North America, New Zealand and what the program refers to as the Far East. It's still a worthy study of a Queen from her own point of view but it is showing signs of wear.
Scales has a very long history as a popular actor, with credits of much more artistic value than her famous Sybil in Fawlty Towers, so it was disappointing to find her lines slipping occasionally and her intimacy with the audience quite variable. Perhaps the ravages of time are catching up, though physically she is remarkable for ably capturing Victoria aged 18 as well as aged 82 just before her death in 1901.
The 19th Century family soiree setting was easy on the eye, and appropriate, though Hendry's husband Richard seemed to me not as relaxed at the keyboard as I expected - a little rushed and having to cover some missing notes occasionally. However, I did appreciate the quality of tone and the atmosphere created by tenor Ian Partridge. His singing and gentle playing of just enough of the role of Prince Albert held the show together, I thought.
Though I too, in 1961, found Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam fascinating, as Victoria had 100 years earlier after Albert's unexpected sudden death, I wonder now if it is not time to let Victoria go. To hear her patronising attitudes, even if natural to a monarch, presented as empathetic humour seems rather out of our place and time. It's a worry that her great great great grandson Charles (just search the web for British Royal Family Tree) seems to have very similar ideas about the common people. In Victoria's words, after she assumed the title of Empress of India, "Prince and peasant are all the same ... before God".
Here on earth it's a different story, and Prunella Scales tells it well - though on this occasion not as well as I had expected.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This team has toured Queen Victoria four times to Australia as well as to North America, New Zealand and what the program refers to as the Far East. It's still a worthy study of a Queen from her own point of view but it is showing signs of wear.
Scales has a very long history as a popular actor, with credits of much more artistic value than her famous Sybil in Fawlty Towers, so it was disappointing to find her lines slipping occasionally and her intimacy with the audience quite variable. Perhaps the ravages of time are catching up, though physically she is remarkable for ably capturing Victoria aged 18 as well as aged 82 just before her death in 1901.
The 19th Century family soiree setting was easy on the eye, and appropriate, though Hendry's husband Richard seemed to me not as relaxed at the keyboard as I expected - a little rushed and having to cover some missing notes occasionally. However, I did appreciate the quality of tone and the atmosphere created by tenor Ian Partridge. His singing and gentle playing of just enough of the role of Prince Albert held the show together, I thought.
Though I too, in 1961, found Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam fascinating, as Victoria had 100 years earlier after Albert's unexpected sudden death, I wonder now if it is not time to let Victoria go. To hear her patronising attitudes, even if natural to a monarch, presented as empathetic humour seems rather out of our place and time. It's a worry that her great great great grandson Charles (just search the web for British Royal Family Tree) seems to have very similar ideas about the common people. In Victoria's words, after she assumed the title of Empress of India, "Prince and peasant are all the same ... before God".
Here on earth it's a different story, and Prunella Scales tells it well - though on this occasion not as well as I had expected.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 29 November 2004
2004: Radio Silence by Alana Valentine
Radio Silence by Alana Valentine, performed by Mary Rachel Brown. ANZAC Hall, Australian War Memorial, Fridays to Mondays 11.45am, 12.45pm, 1.45pm.
This 12 minute play is an emotional recreation of the thoughts and feelings of Violet, a WAAF wireless operator stationed at Binbrook in Britain where Australians in Bomber Command were based, as she waits through 8 hours of radio silence. Her English friends say she is "growing a tail". In one of the Lancasters is Marty, who dances clumsily but claims that's the way things are done in Australia and he'll give her more lessons.
Will Marty's plane come on air on schedule? If not, will the crew have been able to parachute out to safety? News comes in of a plane, crashed "with no survivors". Violet has previously been engaged to a pilot who did not survive. She tries to forget him "but I learned to let his face just sit there. To smile at his memory." She tells us how "kissing with a sense of the future cannot be contemplated by either of you."
She picks up the right signal only a short time after radio silence ends, and is ecstatic that she will see Marty again, at least for one more night. Then he will be on ops again, and she will go through radio silence again, and again. "I thought wireless ops would mean I'd be talking to lots of people, but it isn't like that," she says.
Museums are about facts, and plays are fiction. Valentine has imagined a terrible truth about war, and Mary Rachel Brown holds our attention on the imaginary Violet so we come to understand the fear and the seeming futility of a war in which she plays an essential role but over which she has no control.
Performed in the shadow of the huge wing of G for George, the strength of Radio Silence is its simplicity, surrounded as it is by the images, sounds and icons of World War II. It says to all of us: Remember what it was really like. Lest we forget.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
This 12 minute play is an emotional recreation of the thoughts and feelings of Violet, a WAAF wireless operator stationed at Binbrook in Britain where Australians in Bomber Command were based, as she waits through 8 hours of radio silence. Her English friends say she is "growing a tail". In one of the Lancasters is Marty, who dances clumsily but claims that's the way things are done in Australia and he'll give her more lessons.
Will Marty's plane come on air on schedule? If not, will the crew have been able to parachute out to safety? News comes in of a plane, crashed "with no survivors". Violet has previously been engaged to a pilot who did not survive. She tries to forget him "but I learned to let his face just sit there. To smile at his memory." She tells us how "kissing with a sense of the future cannot be contemplated by either of you."
She picks up the right signal only a short time after radio silence ends, and is ecstatic that she will see Marty again, at least for one more night. Then he will be on ops again, and she will go through radio silence again, and again. "I thought wireless ops would mean I'd be talking to lots of people, but it isn't like that," she says.
Museums are about facts, and plays are fiction. Valentine has imagined a terrible truth about war, and Mary Rachel Brown holds our attention on the imaginary Violet so we come to understand the fear and the seeming futility of a war in which she plays an essential role but over which she has no control.
Performed in the shadow of the huge wing of G for George, the strength of Radio Silence is its simplicity, surrounded as it is by the images, sounds and icons of World War II. It says to all of us: Remember what it was really like. Lest we forget.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Friday, 19 November 2004
2004: Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical
Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical, adapted from the film by Erica Schmidt, music by Andrew Sherman. Three Amigos Productions at Canberra Theatre Friday November 19.
"Life can give you more than to go where you thought you need to go." Small-town cheerleader Debbie wants to be a Dallas Cowgirl. To raise the funds to get to Dallas, she discovers that working for minimum wages of $2.90 per hour does not compare with selling her boss a look at her breasts for $10, and a suck for $20. She has only two weeks, with school and cheerleading to fit in as well, so when Mr Greenfelt dresses her in the Dallas Cowgirl costume and himself in the Cowboy football uniform, and offers to pay her way, how can she refuse?
She wonders if she looks different afterwards, but off she goes, leaving the rest of the local boys and girls behind, to discover what more life can give her.
All this happens, including all sorts of simulated sex among the boys and girls on the way, at a terrifyingly cheerful pace, presumably appropriate for American cheerleaders. The all singing, all dancing cast are entirely up to the mark. Visuals, sound and lights are very well designed and just about everything worked, even though for only one performance in Canberra.
If the original, apparently purely pornographic film was made as a simple celebration of the joys of sex, then this musical version must be at least a light hearted semi-satire. It reminded me of the ancient Greek Lysistrata, where the women tease the men but won't let them have sex until they stop the war. Here we saw only one banana, used to represent a blow job and then regurgitated, and one over-long fabricated penis - nothing to compare with old Aristophanes. All good for a laugh, but rather tame pornographically speaking.
But I was surprised that adult women in the audience were cheering Debbie on in her purely commercial enterprise. I thought we lived today in a new world of family values and traditional morality. Maybe there are a lot more Debbies doing Dallas in Canberra today than I have come across. Or maybe they haven't really thought about the exploitation of women by men - an issue completely ignored in this musical representation of life giving you more than you dreamed of.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
"Life can give you more than to go where you thought you need to go." Small-town cheerleader Debbie wants to be a Dallas Cowgirl. To raise the funds to get to Dallas, she discovers that working for minimum wages of $2.90 per hour does not compare with selling her boss a look at her breasts for $10, and a suck for $20. She has only two weeks, with school and cheerleading to fit in as well, so when Mr Greenfelt dresses her in the Dallas Cowgirl costume and himself in the Cowboy football uniform, and offers to pay her way, how can she refuse?
She wonders if she looks different afterwards, but off she goes, leaving the rest of the local boys and girls behind, to discover what more life can give her.
All this happens, including all sorts of simulated sex among the boys and girls on the way, at a terrifyingly cheerful pace, presumably appropriate for American cheerleaders. The all singing, all dancing cast are entirely up to the mark. Visuals, sound and lights are very well designed and just about everything worked, even though for only one performance in Canberra.
If the original, apparently purely pornographic film was made as a simple celebration of the joys of sex, then this musical version must be at least a light hearted semi-satire. It reminded me of the ancient Greek Lysistrata, where the women tease the men but won't let them have sex until they stop the war. Here we saw only one banana, used to represent a blow job and then regurgitated, and one over-long fabricated penis - nothing to compare with old Aristophanes. All good for a laugh, but rather tame pornographically speaking.
But I was surprised that adult women in the audience were cheering Debbie on in her purely commercial enterprise. I thought we lived today in a new world of family values and traditional morality. Maybe there are a lot more Debbies doing Dallas in Canberra today than I have come across. Or maybe they haven't really thought about the exploitation of women by men - an issue completely ignored in this musical representation of life giving you more than you dreamed of.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 13 October 2004
2004: CMI - A Certain Maritime Incident by version 1.0. Feature article.
CMI stands for A Certain Maritime Incident. CMI is thus an acronym for a euphemism, since A Certain Maritime Incident was the official title of the Senate Children Overboard Inquiry. As anyone who has dealings with the public service knows, acronyms are a language all of their own.
CMI is the title of the "smash hit stage version" of the Children Overboard Inquiry, which ran to full houses in Sydney last April. Opening here on Tuesday at The Street Theatre, after a second run in Sydney, will be a newly polished and necessarily updated version, which picks up on today's political situation. Even though Senator John Faulkner, a major character in CMI, has resigned as Opposition Leader in the Senate, he still has a chance to re-open the inquiry before next July.
Though you will laugh often, for example at Jane Halton's detailed use of the analogy of the blind man and the elephant to explain how information may be transmitted or may fail to be transmitted along the appendages of the bureaucratic hierarchy, you will also be surprised and saddened to know that the text of the characters' dialogue has all been quoted verbatim from Hansard's 2200 pages of transcripts.
The theatre company version 1.0 (www.versiononepointzero.com) is a professional collective of some of Sydney's "leading contemporary performance makers", claiming to have seven senses of humour. It must have tested all seven to the limits during the 9 months it took to work through the records of the 15 days' inquiry, many of which went past midnight. This work was led by writer/performer David Williams and dramaturg Paul Dwyer, who distributed books of transcripts to group members, then led workshops during the process, gradually refining the themes and selecting the characters for 6 actors to perform.
The result is political theatre at its best. Though no previous theatrical knowledge is required, this work draws on the strengths of a century-long tradition of making theatre relevant to its time using documentary material. As in the work of the film maker Michael Moore in Farenheit/911, the reality of the situation is revealed directly from the source.
Theatre-buffs will be fascinated by how the actors play in character, but drop out at times as if it is almost too difficult to play the role. In doing so they comment upon the roles these public servants and politicians play in real life, often just by using gestures like raising an eyebrow or holding their head in their hands. As one commentator noted the "language laden with acronym takes on a dark irony. A PII (potential illegal immigrant) saved from drowning is still a SUNC (suspected unauthorised non-citizen)."
One feature of the show is the use of lie detetection software and computerised speech in a pleasant female American voice which we all recognise. Another unexpected speech is made by Peter Reith as a young child. How you will respond to these devices can only be tested by seeing the show.
Among the cast is the Canberra educated Deborah Pollard who went on from performing with Tempo, Rep, Youth Theatre, TAU and her Wollongong University degree to work with The Jigsaw Company under Stephen Champion in the 1980s. She has studied with Tadashi Suzuki in Japan and teaches the Suzuki Actor Training Method, has been Artistic Director of Salamanca Theatre Company, and has created many solo works in Sydney. Her career includes awards of a Churchill Fellowship, a Rex Cramphorn Scholarship and an Australia Council New Media Arts Fellowship.
Pollard explains that CMI is not emotive "refugee theatre". It is an unbiassed examination of the inquiry process, an important night out where theatre is a voice for the community. It is, she says, "not pure entertainment, but entertainment for the mind."
For bureaucrats at all levels, perhaps with special relevance for people in Defence, Prime Minister's and ministerial staffers, the show is almost obligatory. You may be quoted or know the truth behind the dialogue. Already one scene has been altered in the expectation of possible legal action.
For political activists, CMI may be extra support or criticism of your cause.
For theatre-goers it will be good to see intelligent entertainment of this kind in Canberra.
CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident)
The Street Theatre (Cnr Childers Street and University Avenue)
Tuesday October 19 - Saturday October 23, 8pm
Tickets $30 / $20
Bookings 6247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
CMI is the title of the "smash hit stage version" of the Children Overboard Inquiry, which ran to full houses in Sydney last April. Opening here on Tuesday at The Street Theatre, after a second run in Sydney, will be a newly polished and necessarily updated version, which picks up on today's political situation. Even though Senator John Faulkner, a major character in CMI, has resigned as Opposition Leader in the Senate, he still has a chance to re-open the inquiry before next July.
Though you will laugh often, for example at Jane Halton's detailed use of the analogy of the blind man and the elephant to explain how information may be transmitted or may fail to be transmitted along the appendages of the bureaucratic hierarchy, you will also be surprised and saddened to know that the text of the characters' dialogue has all been quoted verbatim from Hansard's 2200 pages of transcripts.
The theatre company version 1.0 (www.versiononepointzero.com) is a professional collective of some of Sydney's "leading contemporary performance makers", claiming to have seven senses of humour. It must have tested all seven to the limits during the 9 months it took to work through the records of the 15 days' inquiry, many of which went past midnight. This work was led by writer/performer David Williams and dramaturg Paul Dwyer, who distributed books of transcripts to group members, then led workshops during the process, gradually refining the themes and selecting the characters for 6 actors to perform.
The result is political theatre at its best. Though no previous theatrical knowledge is required, this work draws on the strengths of a century-long tradition of making theatre relevant to its time using documentary material. As in the work of the film maker Michael Moore in Farenheit/911, the reality of the situation is revealed directly from the source.
Theatre-buffs will be fascinated by how the actors play in character, but drop out at times as if it is almost too difficult to play the role. In doing so they comment upon the roles these public servants and politicians play in real life, often just by using gestures like raising an eyebrow or holding their head in their hands. As one commentator noted the "language laden with acronym takes on a dark irony. A PII (potential illegal immigrant) saved from drowning is still a SUNC (suspected unauthorised non-citizen)."
One feature of the show is the use of lie detetection software and computerised speech in a pleasant female American voice which we all recognise. Another unexpected speech is made by Peter Reith as a young child. How you will respond to these devices can only be tested by seeing the show.
Among the cast is the Canberra educated Deborah Pollard who went on from performing with Tempo, Rep, Youth Theatre, TAU and her Wollongong University degree to work with The Jigsaw Company under Stephen Champion in the 1980s. She has studied with Tadashi Suzuki in Japan and teaches the Suzuki Actor Training Method, has been Artistic Director of Salamanca Theatre Company, and has created many solo works in Sydney. Her career includes awards of a Churchill Fellowship, a Rex Cramphorn Scholarship and an Australia Council New Media Arts Fellowship.
Pollard explains that CMI is not emotive "refugee theatre". It is an unbiassed examination of the inquiry process, an important night out where theatre is a voice for the community. It is, she says, "not pure entertainment, but entertainment for the mind."
For bureaucrats at all levels, perhaps with special relevance for people in Defence, Prime Minister's and ministerial staffers, the show is almost obligatory. You may be quoted or know the truth behind the dialogue. Already one scene has been altered in the expectation of possible legal action.
For political activists, CMI may be extra support or criticism of your cause.
For theatre-goers it will be good to see intelligent entertainment of this kind in Canberra.
CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident)
The Street Theatre (Cnr Childers Street and University Avenue)
Tuesday October 19 - Saturday October 23, 8pm
Tickets $30 / $20
Bookings 6247 1223
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Monday, 11 October 2004
2004: Brecht at the ANU Drama Department. Feature article.
The announcement from the ANU Drama Department says 'papermoon' presents a 'moonlight' production The Good Person of Setzuan, a classic play by Bertolt Brecht. The season will run from Friday October 15 until Saturday October 23 at the Drama Studio, ANU Arts Centre.
All this mooning about has a story behind it from a deathbed bequest to a future professorship, intrigues in between, and the rise of the young turks. How does lecturer Cathy Clelland get to be directing The Good Person in addition to her day-job? How does head of department Tony Turner justify moonlighting? What value has there been in Moonlight putting on three Brecht plays this year?
To find the answer to the last question, go to the ANU Arts Centre at 8pm (or 2pm matinee on Saturday 23rd), but be aware that the Drama Studio has less than 80 seats and was close to full most nights for the previous Brecht productions. Tickets are $10 at the door.
The Edith Torey Bequest to ANU Drama has enabled a Chair to be advertised. More than 20 applicants are being considered from around the world for a professorship in Drama and New Media Arts, expected to be in place from the beginning of 2005. Since Turner has been Head, he has put a greater emphasis on practical work embedded within the drama courses. In the end, he believes, if there ever is to be a proper theatre training course in Canberra - rather than the current arrangement where drama is one course taken alongside maybe law, business management, or whatever - it should be in the Faculty of Arts with the same status, and working closely with, the School of Art and School of Music. Since those schools were brought into the Arts Faculty, there has been more cooperation with drama, as well as some new forms of confusion as the ANU Arts Centre venue is now managed by the School of Music.
To add intrigue, the technical theatre course privately run by AnuTech has no connection to the Drama Department, despite being on campus. May the new professor be the person to hang all this together. The young turks will surely be living in hope.
These are the Moonlighters, graduates of the drama course, who approached Turner with a need for a performance space and a different ethos from other groups such as Canberra Rep which they might have joined to gain performing experience. Clelland came up with Moonlight as an extension of the department's longstanding Papermoon theatre group. Turner came up with a small amount of money from the Torey Bequest, which specified drama education as its purpose.
This explains why, though the graduates are not students enrolled at ANU, their program is closely related to the undergraduate teaching program. Each year a major playwright will be chosen, with productions of up to 3 plays planned. Brecht was an obvious beginning point since his work is seminal to the development of theatre in the 20th Century, giving current undergraduates the chance to see complete works on stage in addition to their academic reading and the small-scale practical work available in the drama courses.
It also has given the graduates the opportunity to extend their previous experience into a more concentrated development program. The first 2 productions were entirely self-managed, though keeping in close contact with Turner and Clelland, while for The Good Person of Setzuan the usual sorts of disruptions to young turks' lives has placed Clelland in the director's role.
Probably this is a good thing, apart from Clelland's delight in working with enthusiasts who have done all the background study. She is putting into focus the issues about performing Brecht which have arisen in the earlier productions, particularly how to establish the style of his form of epic theatre and find the right relationship between the actor and audience. The legacy of Brecht has been to open up the nature of theatre to the audience while at the same time engaging them in the illusion of theatre. It has been very much in Australia that modern acting methods have grown from understanding Brecht, and why we produce so many actors who make it on the world stage.
Of Brecht's plays, The Good Person of Setzuan is one of the best to explore for actors and audience, and remains absolutely relevant in its theme for modern times. As Clelland says, it's still just as difficult for the individual to maintain a moral standard as it was at the time of writing in 1939, as Brecht, the left-wing German, was in Denmark waiting for visas to take his family to America. As it is when money and threats to security come into play. As it is today.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
All this mooning about has a story behind it from a deathbed bequest to a future professorship, intrigues in between, and the rise of the young turks. How does lecturer Cathy Clelland get to be directing The Good Person in addition to her day-job? How does head of department Tony Turner justify moonlighting? What value has there been in Moonlight putting on three Brecht plays this year?
To find the answer to the last question, go to the ANU Arts Centre at 8pm (or 2pm matinee on Saturday 23rd), but be aware that the Drama Studio has less than 80 seats and was close to full most nights for the previous Brecht productions. Tickets are $10 at the door.
The Edith Torey Bequest to ANU Drama has enabled a Chair to be advertised. More than 20 applicants are being considered from around the world for a professorship in Drama and New Media Arts, expected to be in place from the beginning of 2005. Since Turner has been Head, he has put a greater emphasis on practical work embedded within the drama courses. In the end, he believes, if there ever is to be a proper theatre training course in Canberra - rather than the current arrangement where drama is one course taken alongside maybe law, business management, or whatever - it should be in the Faculty of Arts with the same status, and working closely with, the School of Art and School of Music. Since those schools were brought into the Arts Faculty, there has been more cooperation with drama, as well as some new forms of confusion as the ANU Arts Centre venue is now managed by the School of Music.
To add intrigue, the technical theatre course privately run by AnuTech has no connection to the Drama Department, despite being on campus. May the new professor be the person to hang all this together. The young turks will surely be living in hope.
These are the Moonlighters, graduates of the drama course, who approached Turner with a need for a performance space and a different ethos from other groups such as Canberra Rep which they might have joined to gain performing experience. Clelland came up with Moonlight as an extension of the department's longstanding Papermoon theatre group. Turner came up with a small amount of money from the Torey Bequest, which specified drama education as its purpose.
This explains why, though the graduates are not students enrolled at ANU, their program is closely related to the undergraduate teaching program. Each year a major playwright will be chosen, with productions of up to 3 plays planned. Brecht was an obvious beginning point since his work is seminal to the development of theatre in the 20th Century, giving current undergraduates the chance to see complete works on stage in addition to their academic reading and the small-scale practical work available in the drama courses.
It also has given the graduates the opportunity to extend their previous experience into a more concentrated development program. The first 2 productions were entirely self-managed, though keeping in close contact with Turner and Clelland, while for The Good Person of Setzuan the usual sorts of disruptions to young turks' lives has placed Clelland in the director's role.
Probably this is a good thing, apart from Clelland's delight in working with enthusiasts who have done all the background study. She is putting into focus the issues about performing Brecht which have arisen in the earlier productions, particularly how to establish the style of his form of epic theatre and find the right relationship between the actor and audience. The legacy of Brecht has been to open up the nature of theatre to the audience while at the same time engaging them in the illusion of theatre. It has been very much in Australia that modern acting methods have grown from understanding Brecht, and why we produce so many actors who make it on the world stage.
Of Brecht's plays, The Good Person of Setzuan is one of the best to explore for actors and audience, and remains absolutely relevant in its theme for modern times. As Clelland says, it's still just as difficult for the individual to maintain a moral standard as it was at the time of writing in 1939, as Brecht, the left-wing German, was in Denmark waiting for visas to take his family to America. As it is when money and threats to security come into play. As it is today.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 7 October 2004
2004: Defending the Caveman by Rob Becker
Defending the Caveman by Rob Becker. Performed by Mark Mitchell. Directed by Wayne Harrison for the Ross Mollison Group, at the Playhouse, October 7 and 8.
When I read that Rob Becker was born and raised in California, in 1956, wrote Defending the Caveman over a three-year period from 1988 until 1991, during which time he "made an informal study of anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology, along with dramatic structure and playwriting", and is a stand-up comedian, I must say I entered the Playhouse fearful this play might be farcical.
But I was wrong. Mark Mitchell, in this Australianised version, warmly invited us in to enjoy the funny side of male-female sexual relations, dealing quite firmly with the view that though women come from Venus, men don't really come from the third-largest planet in the solar system despite, to use the now politically popular American term, often being called arseholes.
Mind you, I still don't trust this north American view of human prehistory, entirely based as it is in European cave paintings and pregnant Venus statuettes, and the assumption that all people used to live in nuclear families in caves while hunting and gathering. And the idea that only men ever hunted and women did all the gathering. The knowledge we now have from our part of the world shows the script up to be academically challenged.
Comedy, of course, can play with this kind of truth and yet still reveal truths about our foibles. The reactions of both women and men in the audience last Thursday - hooting with laughter, spontaneously applauding - were clearly responses to sensitive buttons being appropriately stimulated.
The strength of the play is the idea that the differences between the sexes, though based somewhere in evolution, are expressed today as cultural differences, which we can all learn to understand and appreciate, though this doesn't mean that either side should be forced to change their ways. Rather than extract the cheap laughs of a farce, this is genuine comedy with humour which helps to bring people together rather than drive them apart. With Mitchell's relaxed and expert performance, this made for a pleasant and worthwhile evening's entertainment.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
When I read that Rob Becker was born and raised in California, in 1956, wrote Defending the Caveman over a three-year period from 1988 until 1991, during which time he "made an informal study of anthropology, prehistory, psychology, sociology and mythology, along with dramatic structure and playwriting", and is a stand-up comedian, I must say I entered the Playhouse fearful this play might be farcical.
But I was wrong. Mark Mitchell, in this Australianised version, warmly invited us in to enjoy the funny side of male-female sexual relations, dealing quite firmly with the view that though women come from Venus, men don't really come from the third-largest planet in the solar system despite, to use the now politically popular American term, often being called arseholes.
Mind you, I still don't trust this north American view of human prehistory, entirely based as it is in European cave paintings and pregnant Venus statuettes, and the assumption that all people used to live in nuclear families in caves while hunting and gathering. And the idea that only men ever hunted and women did all the gathering. The knowledge we now have from our part of the world shows the script up to be academically challenged.
Comedy, of course, can play with this kind of truth and yet still reveal truths about our foibles. The reactions of both women and men in the audience last Thursday - hooting with laughter, spontaneously applauding - were clearly responses to sensitive buttons being appropriately stimulated.
The strength of the play is the idea that the differences between the sexes, though based somewhere in evolution, are expressed today as cultural differences, which we can all learn to understand and appreciate, though this doesn't mean that either side should be forced to change their ways. Rather than extract the cheap laughs of a farce, this is genuine comedy with humour which helps to bring people together rather than drive them apart. With Mitchell's relaxed and expert performance, this made for a pleasant and worthwhile evening's entertainment.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Wednesday, 6 October 2004
2004: The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan
The Lost Thing based on the book by Shaun Tan. Jigsaw Theatre Company directed by Greg Lissaman, designed by Richard Jeziomy. The Small Theatre, National Gallery of Australia. Thursday October 7: 10.30am, 3.45pm. Friday and Saturday October 8-9: 10.30am, 1pm, 3.45pm. Bookings: eventbookings@nga.gov.au or phone 6240 6504.
Whatever age you are you will be entranced by this latest Jigsaw production. Set for 8-13 year-olds, families at the opening performance from toddlers to rather more ancient people like me experienced 50 minutes of fascination.
Go to see it here before it moves on to the Sydney Festival and other places, especially because the architecture and art of the National Gallery are built into the show, and the Small Theatre allows for the complete theatre-in-the-round format which makes this combination of actors, puppets, complex set and electronic media work so well.
After the show, take the children (and yourself) on a journey around the gallery following The Lost Thing Children's Trail. Your Children's Festival map takes you to 12 strange and wonderful works of art, all representing the theme of the play. A young boy is fixated on collecting bottle tops, but on the beach discovers an amazing creature. Cleanliness is next to tidiness, say the beach inspectors, vacuuming the bottle tops, but at the end of the day the Lost Thing has nowhere to go.
For the toddlers the story of searching for the Lost Thing's home is dramatic enough, but for the 12 year-olds the multi-media is exciting, and there is an extra dimension. They can identify with the boy's sense of being just a bit different from everyone else, wondering about the nature of things, searching for where he belongs. For their parents there is a new understanding of how their children need to take off and find their own way. Beyond this level, the play is about the need for art and exploration in everyone's lives.
Very highly recommended. One mystery: see if you can work out where the live security cam is.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Whatever age you are you will be entranced by this latest Jigsaw production. Set for 8-13 year-olds, families at the opening performance from toddlers to rather more ancient people like me experienced 50 minutes of fascination.
Go to see it here before it moves on to the Sydney Festival and other places, especially because the architecture and art of the National Gallery are built into the show, and the Small Theatre allows for the complete theatre-in-the-round format which makes this combination of actors, puppets, complex set and electronic media work so well.
After the show, take the children (and yourself) on a journey around the gallery following The Lost Thing Children's Trail. Your Children's Festival map takes you to 12 strange and wonderful works of art, all representing the theme of the play. A young boy is fixated on collecting bottle tops, but on the beach discovers an amazing creature. Cleanliness is next to tidiness, say the beach inspectors, vacuuming the bottle tops, but at the end of the day the Lost Thing has nowhere to go.
For the toddlers the story of searching for the Lost Thing's home is dramatic enough, but for the 12 year-olds the multi-media is exciting, and there is an extra dimension. They can identify with the boy's sense of being just a bit different from everyone else, wondering about the nature of things, searching for where he belongs. For their parents there is a new understanding of how their children need to take off and find their own way. Beyond this level, the play is about the need for art and exploration in everyone's lives.
Very highly recommended. One mystery: see if you can work out where the live security cam is.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
Thursday, 23 September 2004
2004: Renaissance Bloke - Peter J. Casey
Renaissance Bloke - Peter J. Casey. Co-written and directed by Carissa Campbell. The Street Theatre Studio, September 23 - 25, 7.30 pm. Bookings 6247 1223.
You only have till Saturday. Don't miss Renaissance Bloke.
It's just so good to see a show full of wit, laughs and talent. Peter J. Casey satirises himself, appearing to put himself down as a "bloke", as a "man about the house", even as a performer at his four weirdest gigs, but don't you believe a word of it. His piano, his voice, his body so easily leap to his command. And we, his audience, respond to every nuance of tone, every lift of an eyebrow.
This is stand-up comedy sitting at a piano for nearly two hours, and you won't think about time passing. It's smooth, but knowingly smooth. Disarmingly simple but very clever. Three nights surely are not enough, but I guess, as Casey said, you have to remember that to earn a dollar in the arts you have to spend $1.50.
The show is not all original work by Campbell and Casey. Watch for the Tom Lehrer imports, and if you clap long enough - as everyone did on opening night - you'll get to hear the penis medley for a last laugh.
Casey can do every kind of nightclub / cabaret / musical song, but he offers us so much more than an interesting performance of the expected. He is an acute observer of himself as he performs. It may sound pedantic to say his work is metacognitive, at a level of awareness beyond the immediate. What's fascinating is that this deepens the satire, enlivens the laughter, and makes the evening totally satisfying.
Musically he can take any source - try Jaws, Close Encounter of the Third Kind and Star Wars - and find an original style in the music alone which plays with our expectations. Then the words sparkle with even more humour, acting against the musical setting. Personally, I thought Star Wars as a three-minute musical was perhaps the most brilliant, but every number was exciting and absorbing. Somehow it reminded me of the best of Circus Oz, but all the gymnastics happen in your head. Unforgettable.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
You only have till Saturday. Don't miss Renaissance Bloke.
It's just so good to see a show full of wit, laughs and talent. Peter J. Casey satirises himself, appearing to put himself down as a "bloke", as a "man about the house", even as a performer at his four weirdest gigs, but don't you believe a word of it. His piano, his voice, his body so easily leap to his command. And we, his audience, respond to every nuance of tone, every lift of an eyebrow.
This is stand-up comedy sitting at a piano for nearly two hours, and you won't think about time passing. It's smooth, but knowingly smooth. Disarmingly simple but very clever. Three nights surely are not enough, but I guess, as Casey said, you have to remember that to earn a dollar in the arts you have to spend $1.50.
The show is not all original work by Campbell and Casey. Watch for the Tom Lehrer imports, and if you clap long enough - as everyone did on opening night - you'll get to hear the penis medley for a last laugh.
Casey can do every kind of nightclub / cabaret / musical song, but he offers us so much more than an interesting performance of the expected. He is an acute observer of himself as he performs. It may sound pedantic to say his work is metacognitive, at a level of awareness beyond the immediate. What's fascinating is that this deepens the satire, enlivens the laughter, and makes the evening totally satisfying.
Musically he can take any source - try Jaws, Close Encounter of the Third Kind and Star Wars - and find an original style in the music alone which plays with our expectations. Then the words sparkle with even more humour, acting against the musical setting. Personally, I thought Star Wars as a three-minute musical was perhaps the most brilliant, but every number was exciting and absorbing. Somehow it reminded me of the best of Circus Oz, but all the gymnastics happen in your head. Unforgettable.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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