2021: The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

 

 

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov.  Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney, May 29 – June 27, 2021.

Director and Adaptor EAMON FLACK
Set & Costume Designer ROMANIE HARPER
Lighting Designer NICK SCHLIEPER
Composer & Sound Designer STEFAN GREGORY
Choreographer ELLE EVANGELISTA
Intimacy Coordinator CHLOË DALLIMORE
Movement/Fight Director NIGEL POULTON
Voice Coach DANIELLE ROFFE
Assistant Director CLAUDIA OSBORNE
Stage Manager KHYM SCOTT
Assistant Stage Manager JESSIE BYRNE
Photos by Brett Boardman

Previewed by Frank McKone
May 29


When you see Eamon Flack’s presentation of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, don’t expect a museum exhibit of decaying Russia in 1904.  Remember that, sadly, Chekhov was very disappointed with the first production:

It opened at the Moscow Art Theatre on 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Chekhov described the play as a comedy, with some elements of farce, though Stanislavski treated it as a tragedy. Since its first production, directors have contended with its dual nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cherry_Orchard

This Belvoir production is nothing like the usual approach in what has become one of the most popular plays for amateur companies.  A nice example is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI9x6b8Vdow recorded at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Illinois, on October 17 & 18, 2013.

Flack has “set our production not in Russia but in ‘Rushia’, and not in 1904 but ‘now’, which is a time somewhere between the last and the next hundred years.”  As the cast shows, this means in a multicultural society which could be modern Australia – or the world.

Well before his time, facing dying from tuberculosis, Chekhov saw the absurdity of people who believe that life should and would go on forever ‘as we know it’.  His comedy is black – terribly funny.  In this, surely the most highly energetic production imaginable, you’ll be surprised – and thoroughly engaged – by the wild choreography of movement, the frantic singing and dancing, the extremes of laughter and tears.  After all, this is the end of these characters’ world as they think they know it.

But Flack has also “contended with its dual nature”.  He has not fallen into Stanislavski’s trap.  To drag acting out of 19th Century melodrama, Stanislavski has been essential for showing us how to make acting ‘realistic’, developing his theory and practice from about the time he directed The Cherry Orchard, seeking to express directly the tragedy.

Flack has understood Chekhov’s desire to show the tragedy obliquely by emphasising the absurdity of the character’s behaviour.  So the audience ends up laughing at them – but bit by bit realising we are losing our personal cherry orchards every day.

This is an exciting presentation of The Cherry Orchard to watch, and thoughtful on reflection – and highly recommended.

The Cast in rehearsal for The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Belvoir 2021
L-R: SARAH MEACHAM as Dunyasha; MANDELA MATHIA as Lopahkin;
CHARLES WU as Yasha; NADIE KAMMALLAWEERA as Varya; PAMELA RABE as Ranevskaya; PRISCILLA DOUEIHY as Petya; KEITH ROBINSON as Gaev; PETER CARROLL as Firs;
KIRSTY MARILLIER as Anya
Not in photo: LUCIA MASTRANTONE as Charlotta; JOSH PRICE as Pishchick;
JACK SCOTT as Yepikhodov

Note for Chekhov enthusiasts: The original cast list in The Portable Chekhov (Penguin/Viking 1947)

Lubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya, a landowner [Pamela Rabe]

Anya, her seventeen-year-old daughter [Kirsty Marillier]

Varya, her adopted daughter, twenty-two years old [Nadie Kammallaweera]

Leonid Andreyevich Gayev, Mme. Ranevskaya's brother [Keith Robinson]

Yermolay Alexeyevich Lopahin, a merchant [Mandela Mathia]

Pyotr Sergeyevich Trofimov, a student [Priscilla Doueihy as "Petya"]

Simeonov-Pishchik, a landowner [Josh Price]

Charlotta Ivanovna, a governess [Lucia Mastrantone]

Semyon Yepihodov, a clerk [Jack Scott]

Dunyasha, a maid [Sarah Meacham]

Firs (pronounced fierce), a man-servant aged eighty-seven [Peter Carroll]

Yasha, a young valet [Charles Wu]

A Tramp, Stationmaster, Post Office Clerk, Guests, Servants.

The action takes place on Mme. Ranevskaya's estate.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: The 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman

 

 

Program Cover
Elaine Crombie
 The 7 Stages of Grieving
Sydney Theatre Company 2021

The 7 Stages of Grieving by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman.  Sydney Theatre Company at Wharf 1, May 21 – June 19, and at Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse, June 23-26.

First premiered at Metro Arts, Brisbane, 1 September 1995.  Now with additional material by Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman 2008 and Shari Sebbens and Elaine Crombie 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 29

Performed by Elaine Crombie as The Woman
Director – Shari Sebbens; Designer – Elizabeth Gadsby; Lighting & AV Designer – Verity Hampson; Composer & Sound Designer – Steve Francis; Assistant Director – Ian Michael; Stage Manager – Todd Eichorn

Elaine Crombie as The Woman
The 7 Stages of Grieving
Photo: Joseph Mayers

 

Elaine Crombie’s performance of The Woman in The 7 Stages of Grieving is at once terrifying and glorious.  This is an acting role which does not provide her with the personal distancing an actor can normally use to protect herself emotionally.  She represents her personal reality of survival after 233 years of violent oppression by an inhumane colonial society – our Australia.

“We can’t go back now.  To go back is to deny our humanity.”  

She means reconciliation now, no more WRECK ON SILLY NATION, the joke which flashes on the screen behind her.  Should we laugh?  Of course not.  But in her dignity and strength of character and purpose, the humour central to her Indigeneity, she gives us permission to see the joke.  And we laughed, with her.

The Woman is not a character in a play.  She is Elaine Crombie investing in our education, offering us a new understanding.  Asking us now not merely to act in conventional sympathy, but to take practical action politically to achieve proper recognition of the justice of self-determination for First Nations people in Australia, whose continuing culture is now known to be at least some 65,000 years old – twice as old as the broken history of the European invaders in 1788.

The addition this year of 7 Acts of Reconciliation starts with An Act to Lift the Age of Imprisonment so that 10 and 12 year old children, whose families need help and support, will no longer be jailed – as they are now, for example in one of her stories, for swearing at police who are applying racial profiling and violently arresting them for minor offences as if they are adult criminals.

Then there is her own story of accidentally locking her keys in her car.  Police will not believe it is her car, as she tries the door.  This is no joke.  No-one laughed.

She names a clutch of offending politicians, from Peter Dutton to Pauline Hanson.  For me, the most upsetting is Malcolm Turnbull – the apparently moderate – who instantly dismissed the Uluru Statement from the Heart.  What an absolute insult!

I can only conclude as director Shari Sebbens ends her program note for this, the fourth production by the Sydney Theatre Company since 1995:

“To me this play feels eternal,
which makes me so happy.

But also, this play feels eternal
And that makes me furious.”

Don’t miss Elaine Crombie in The 7 Stages of Grieving, in Sydney and soon in Canberra.  Don’t lose your fury, but please, to keep your balance, also enjoy this picture of the happy team working on the production:

Photo: Joseph Mayers

And consider the story of the play in the Writers’ Note:  “In many ways it is not a play that is to be slavishly reproduced but is an invitation to be remade with every passing year.  We once entered 7 Stages into a playwriting award and were rejected as they said it was not a play but more a ‘blueprint for a production’.

So here, for contrast, are Deborah Mailman in the role in 2002, Ursula Yovich in 2006 and Lisa Flanagan in 2008.

Photos by Tracey Schramm

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: The Twins - Truer than Fiction by Sarah Butler, Ian Darling and Greg Fleet

 

 

The Twins by Sarah Butler, Ian Darling and Greg Fleet.  Shark Island Institute and The ArtsLab Kangaroo Valley at Canberra Theatre Centre, Courtyard Studio, May 3 – 6, 2021

Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 3

Directors: Terry Serio and Sarah Butler
Producer: Mary Macrae

Designer – Sarah Butler; Lighting Designer – Morgan Moroney; Voice & Acting Coach – Terry Serio; Additional Accent Vocal Coach – Jillian O’Dowd; Production Assistant – Alisha Manning

Ian Darling and Greg Fleet
in The Twins - Truer than Fiction

Photo: Lisa Tomasetti

Ian Darling, “an award-winning documentary filmmaker, who returns to the stage for the first time in 40 years”,  and Greg Fleet “an award-winning actor, comedian, playwright and author” are apparently preparing to rehearse the roles they played together at school all those years ago – the twin sons of Ægeon, who is a wealthy merchant from Syracuse,  in Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors; both of whom are known as Antipholus.

In Act I, the racist Duke of Ephesus demands:
“Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause
Why thou departedst from thy native home,
And for what cause thou camest to Ephesus.”

Ægeon, explains the long and complicated story in which he adopts a pair of twins from a poor family (each become known as Dromio) and how by accidents at sea on his “prosperous voyages”, he and his wife, each with one son and his attendant, become separated.  So we end up with Antipholus (and Dromio) of Syracuse, at the age of 18, going off to search for their twins Antipholus (and Dromio).  As we find out much later, they are in Ephesus, where the Duke, though sympathetic, has just jailed their father, after

“Five summers have I spent [searching] in furthest Greece,
Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,
And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus
Hopeless to find, yet loth to leave unsought.”

But, in keeping with the Australian government, that’s the law, says the Duke : “Which princes, would they, may not disannul.” I have to do this to you: “Yet I will favour thee in what I can.”  Refugees still effectively held in Papua New Guinea and Australians trapped by Covid in India will surely understand.

The Twins is an 80 minute journey of discovery about what actually happened to Ian and Greg when they were separated after school.  They never get around to performing more than a few snippets of Shakespeare’s play – mainly bits of their “father’s” speech.  This becomes significant because both of them seem to have been unduly influenced by their real fathers’ expectations and lifestyle.  

Perhaps the most interesting issue that divides them, as they argue about what they think they remember, is that Ian comes from a wealthy family who buys his private education, while Greg from a poor and dysfunctional family seems to have got to Geelong Grammar on a scholarship.  Ian, it seems, was the real Antipholus, while Greg was really a Dromio.

I have in mind that Act II of The Twins might be to work up a piece from the Shakespeare.  Perhaps we could see the two families, based upon Ægeon’s emphasis on his loving wife with a strong sense of responsibility equal or more than his own, compared and contrasted with the Dromios’ mother who, says Ægeon, was

“A meaner woman [who] was delivered
[in the same inn where his wife became
A joyful mother of two goodly sons]
Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.
Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.

In other words the “meaner” woman had no option but to sell her children.

This story is relevant to Ian’s life because he says that he feels guilty for being so wealthy.  Has he, in real life, come to understand and live up to the goodness of his Shakespearean father and mother?  Antipholus of Syracuse is certainly rather like the stockbroker Ian says he became, but Shakespeare gives a different view of family life in Act II Scene I in the house of Antipholus of Ephesus, where Dromio is treated in the worst way as a slave; and bites back magnificently.

So, though the stories of Ian Darling’s and Greg Fleet’s adult lives are interesting, and their playing of themselves raises questions about the nature of being an actor, I felt they could have written a play incorporating what they have learned from playing Shakespeare with such a strength of mutual connection at the age of 16.

They write in the program “We have coined the term ‘theatre verite’ to describe this piece because it is a play, first and foremost, but the characters are real people and are also played by themselves.”  I have several times recently reviewed what I have termed “Personal Theatre”.  John Bell’s One Man In His Time takes up the Shakespeare theme, of course, but I think Stop Girl by Sally Sara has been the most powerful, alongside My Urrwai by Ghenoa Gela and Red by Liz Lea.

The Twins is given a structure, which raises social issues, making the play more significant than two guys nattering about their lives.  They begin and end with stylised statements that “I am a man” and “I am a white man”, implying that they recognise, for example, that they are not women and not diverse.  They also focus often on the question of being truthful and trustworthy, because being an actor can mean hiding the truth, and social prejudice can raise its head.  That raised for me the question that, having written this play and continuing to perform it, have they not changed simply as a result of this experience, especially working together after so many years apart?  Maybe the script will have to keep changing.

John Bell pointed out that you can only trust an actor to the extent that you know they are pretending.

So, though The Twins is not “great theatre”, it certainly can stimulate a lot of ideas.

Greg Fleet and Ian Darling
in The Comedy of Errors
Geelong Grammar 1978

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: The Point by Liz Lea

 

 

The Point.  Liz Lea Dance Company and Belco Arts at Belconnen Arts Centre Theatre, Canberra, April 29 – May 1, 2021

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 30

Director and Choreographer – Liz Lea

Contemporary dance devised and performed by –
David Huggins, Nicholas Jachno, Billy Keohavong, Eliza Sanders, Jareen Wee

Classical Choreographers –
Mavin Khoo, Ira Patkar, Nandana Chellappah, Divyusha Polepalli

Bharata Natyam dancers –
Reshika Sivekumaran, Soumya Sudarshan, Shweta Venkataraman, Dhivya Vignesa

Kathak Dancer – Ira Patkar

Kuchipudi Dancers – Vanaja Dasika, Suhasini Sumithra

Lighting Designer – Karen Norris
Projection Designer – James Josephides

Composers –
Liberty Kerr, DJBC, Taikoz, Malthar Jam, Harish Sivaramakrishna



Excerpt from Burnt Norton (No. 1 of 'Four Quartets') by T.S. Eliot:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

The world, not just of coronavirus but even more of politics here and abroad, has seemed to me in recent years to have become the churning world.  Liz Lea’s remarkable dance work, The Point, took me for a brief hour last night to that still point which Eliot’s poetry first took me to in my youth.

I am reminded again that even in times of pointless churn, we have art to give us strength; to give us comfort in the knowledge that we can still reach that moment of peace and joy in dance – perhaps the most pure artform.

It’s a wonderful surprise, as Lea has written, to find “how lucky are we in Canberra to hold such artistry within our community” in her note of Thanks.  And such a wonderful idea of hers, in our so multicultural city, to work up a dance of modern style with ancient traditional forms from India, reaching a point of togetherness, of unity in diversity.

And what an imagination to take “inspiration from the designs of Walter and Marion Griffin”, the American designers of Canberra who also worked in India (where Walter is buried) to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Marion’s birth.  

Rather than write about the dance, since that, as Eliot pointed out, is really to miss the point, “I can only say, there we have been” and encourage everyone to see The Point for themselves.  I can only hope, too, that Liz Lea will be able to take this production, with its evocative lighting, visuals and stunning soundtrack, further afield or at least extend its too short season here in Canberra.

Contemporary Dance

Traditional Dance
Image: Apsaras Arts Canberra

Publicity Designer: Andrea McCuaig

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: Honour by Joanna Murray-Smith

 

 

 

Lucy Bell as Honor and Huw Higginson as George
in Honour by Joanna Murray-Smith
Ensemble Theatre, Sydney 2021

Photos by Prudence Upton

 Honour by Joanna Murray-Smith.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, April 23 – June 5 2021

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night April 28

Director – Kate Champion
Set & Costume Designer – Simone Romaniuk; Lighting Designer – Damien Cooper;
Composer & Sound Designer – Nate Edmondson

Honor – Lucy Bell
George – Huw Higginson
Claudia – Ayeesha Ash
Sophie – Poppy Lynch

Since I last saw this play ten years ago it is an honour today – no superficial wordplay intended – to see how good a writer Joanna Murray-Smith was and still is.  She has done some re-writing on Honour, thanking Ensemble Theatre for inviting her to attend rehearsals: “Honour 2.0: tinkering with a success” by Kelly Burke
[ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/apr/17/joanna-murray-smith-on-fixing-her-best-known-play-honour-you-have-to-make-a-judgment-call ]

The writing is quite extraordinary, beginning with the opening solo speech by George.  He almost seems to be aware of an audience – really talking to and sometimes at himself – which is funny even while we sense a feeling of his being on the edge, of what neither we nor he can yet understand.  At the end, can we say we enjoyed a romantic comedy?  Yes definitely…but…but.  But are you sure?

Murray-Smith’s words are just so good for acting.  Little words like ‘but’ or phrases like ‘you’re leaving me’ may be said many times over, even in quick succession, always with a new turn of the head, a different glance, a precise change in tone of voice, an unexpected angle of an eyebrow.  Of course all four of these actors are experts, and Kate Champion has always been so skilled at making words dance since the days of  her own dance theatre company, Force Majeure.  Joanna Murray-Smith provides the energy and motivation in the way her words and gaps between words open up her characters’ feelings.

See this play and be prepared to find yourself surprised by your own feelings as you question yourself about yourself.  And laugh at yourself laughing.  Comedy, yes – but not romantic in any conventional sense.  

In the past ten years, of course, sexual politics have galloped apace, so the arguments from the three women about George’s behaviour now have a new piquancy.  George, as a committed journalist, starts from the position that writing the truth wins, over ‘the heart’.  To myself I translated this as ‘Truth Trumps Heart’, and fell into thinking about the mess of deliberately manipulated ‘fake news’ from the recently defeated US president, as well as the mishandling of the men in our so-called egalitarian parliament who take themselves off on leave on full pay for empathy training, or with a doctor’s certificate because of their stress when accused of rape.  

In her play, which I also found myself calling ‘Honour thy Mother’, Murray-Smith, through the ways in which each of the women – Honor, Claudia and Sophie – develop a clear understanding of their positions as wife/mother, as lover and as daughter, ironically shows how truth does ‘win over’ the heart.  Enduring love means supporting while knowing, accepting and respecting your own and your partner’s good and not so good points.  

Honor learns that she does love George, despite everything, as she always had for the 32 years of their marriage; Claudia, as time and her meetings with Honor and Sophie go on, realises that she doesn’t love George after all, and that he doesn’t really love her;  Sophie grows up in her appreciation of her parents and is beginning to understand what her independence means.  

And at the end, I think, George knows he must be truthful with himself and honour Honor – it’s still all mysterious to him, but he knows now in his heart it’s the right way to go.  As a mere male myself, I identified with him.

Honour is fascinating, too, from another angle.  It’s written by a writer writing about being a writer.  Each character is a different kind of writer.  Honor is a poet; George is a journalist; Claudia is a feature writer working on a project about George’s career; and Sophie hopes to become a writer, perhaps like Claudia.  So here I am, a reviewer writing about this playwright.  For me, then, there is a special kind of buzz in this experience.  Joanna Murray-Smith stands out as a creative artist.  

To deliberately misquote that other great playwright, William Shakespeare, Joanna Murray-Smith is an honourable woman, whose writing has integrity.  The actors had the same understanding in their performances.  The audience on opening night responded in kind.  We were honoured to be in her presence.  

 

Huw Higginson (George) and Ayeesha Ash (Claudia)

Ayeesha Ash (Claudia) and Lucy Bell (Honor)

Poppy Lynch (Sophie) and Lucy Bell (Honor)

Huw Higginson (George) and Poppy Lynch (Sophie)


Honour by Joanna Murray-Smith
Ensemble Theatre, Sydney

Photos: Prudence Upton

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: seven methods of killing kylie jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones - preview article

 

 

Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner by Jasmine Lee-Jones.  Darlinghurst Theatre Company and Green Door Theatre Company at Eternity Playhouse, Sydney, until May 2, 2021

Previewed by Frank McKone

Directed by Shari Sebbens
Associate Director – Zindzi Okenyo

Performed by Vivienne Awosoga as “Kara” and Moreblessing Maturure as “Cleo”


Twitter in the morning.  Twitter in the evening. Twitter in your dreams.  Who on earth is this #incognegro?

Surely it’s some racist git (that’s London Cockney for ‘idiot’).  Who is the Kylie Jenner that somebody wants to kill?  Is this meant to be funny?

Well, it’s often very funny, especially for the social media generation who get all the jokes in online language.  KMT (kiss my teeth!). JS (just saying!)

Why Cockney?   That’s because this exciting, irreverent and ultimately emotionally gripping play comes from the best of London theatre:

Jasmine was originally developed as a writer through the Royal Court’s Young Court programme and seven methods of killing kylie jenner was first commissioned as part of The Andrea Project – A day of free events inspired by the life, work and legacy of Andrea Dunbar. This work was part of the Young Court’s mission to expand the Royal Court’s commitment to new voices.
https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/sevenmethods/  

Andrea Dunbar (1961-1990),  wrote her first play at the age of 15, The Arbor, about "a Bradford schoolgirl who falls pregnant to her Pakistani boyfriend on a racist estate”. It received its première in 1980 at London's Royal Court Theatre. At age 18, Dunbar was the youngest playwright to have her work performed there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dunbar

This production of Seven Methods was destined for Belvoir Theatre in November – December 2020, but “Given the unprecedented global health crisis we currently face, Belvoir has made the difficult but necessary decision to cancel all performances of 7 Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner. We are being cautious and following the government’s directive to restrict public gatherings. The health and safety of our audience, staff and actors is always our first priority.”  So it is a coup for the diverse multicultural community which Darlinghurst Theatre Company represents to begin this year’s recovery with this outstanding example of committed theatre.  Masks are now voluntary, not required in NSW.

A remarkable feature of the show is the finely detailed choreography and timing of the action, combined with AV projections on a very unusual set design, which is very often ironically humorous in its own right, reminiscent of the best standup comedians.  Yet this style morphs into genuine and empathetic characterisation.  

The strength of the play and this production in particular is that the audience is taken on a journey to understand from the inside and identify with these people, so affected by the issues of racism and sexual preference, of historical and present-day abuse.

For Canberrans, many of whom may be regulars at Belvoir, now is the time to discover Eternity, the Darlinghurst Theatre Company playhouse in Burton Street, between the well-known Crown and Bourke Streets, just off Oxford Street.  

In addition, to see this play will give strength to Canberrans’ submissions to the discussion paper announced today on the new laws proposed by the ACT government to create a charter “that says the territory will support multiculturalism by promoting active citizenship and mutual respect regardless of background”: in Canberra Times News Page 3 [ https://www.canberratimes.com.au ]
.

And if, like me, you unfortunately missed the musical Once, “the only Broadway show to have music that won the Academy Award ® , Grammy Award ® , Olivier Award and Tony Award ®”, in 2019, Darlinghurst Theatre Company will this year take it on tour – to Canberra in August 26th-29th .


And, BTW, Kylie Jenner is real and apparently thoroughly justifies this play:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylie_Jenner

Kylie Kristen Jenner (born August 10, 1997) is an American media personality, socialite, model, and businesswoman. She has starred in the E! reality television series Keeping Up with the Kardashians since 2007 and is the founder and owner of cosmetic company Kylie Cosmetics.

In 2014 and 2015, Time magazine listed the Jenner sisters on their list of the most influential teens in the world, citing their considerable influence among youth on social media. As of December 2020, with over 206 million followers, she is one of the most followed people on Instagram. In 2017, Jenner was placed on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, making her the youngest person to be featured on the list. Jenner starred on her own spin-off series, Life of Kylie, which premiered on E! on August 6, 2017. In November 2018, New York Post credited her for being the most influential celebrity in the fashion industry.

According to Forbes, in 2019, Jenner's net worth was estimated at US$1 billion, making her, at age 21, the world's youngest self-made billionaire as of March 2019, though the notion of Jenner being self-made is a subject of controversy, owing to her privileged background. In May 2020, however, Forbes released a statement accusing Jenner of forging tax documents so she would appear as a billionaire. The publication also accused her of fabricating revenue figures for Kylie Cosmetics.

How good is the internet, hey?  Tweet, tweet.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: Cosi by Louis Nowra

 

 

Cosi by Louis Nowra.  Canberra Rep at Naoné Carrel Auditorium, April 8-24 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 16

Director – Sophie Benassi

Set Designer – Andrew Kay; Sound Designer – Neville Pye; Lighting Designer – Mike Moloney; Costume Designer – Monique Doubleday

Cast: in order of appearance

Lucy – Emily Pogson            Lewis – Martin Fatmaja Hoggart
Nick – Alex Castello            Roy – Chris Baldock
Justin – John Lombard        Doug – Blue Hyslop
Henry – Max Gambale        Cherry – Steph Roberts
Ruth – Alexandra Pelvin        Julie – Isobel Williams
Zac – Elliot Cleaves

Photos: Helen Drum

_________________________________________________________________________________

The sincerity of Louis Nowra’s art flows off the stage in Rep’s thoroughly engaging presentation of Cosi.  The energy, commitment and sense of both enjoyment and satisfaction is surely the product of quality directing by Sophie Benassi.  I look forward in anticipation to a career firmly based in her BA and DipEd, and NIDA training, following her appointment as Co-Artistic Director of Canberra’s Mockingbird Acting Studio and Theatre Company alongside founder Chris Baldock.

I came away with a sense of a new generation in Canberra theatre and, as the Covid experience grinds on, my faith in humanity was reaffirmed.  

Cosi is fascinating because we find ourselves laughing, often very much out loud, at what characters are doing, at the same time as understanding empathetically their clinical situation.  This production works so well because not only is the acting consistent with Nowra’s intention, but so also is the casting – of actors whose physical features are exactly as I have always imagined for these characters – and the wonderful costumes, make-up and hairdos.  The characters we see look like the real thing, as themselves and in their roles in the final performance of their play, at the same time as symbolically representing the types of people they would have been in the period of the Vietnam War Moratorium Marches, the first of which in Australia was on May 8, 1970.  

Just look at Lewis’s wide-bottomed trousers, and anyone my age remembers – not just the fashion, but the ‘Arts’ university personality which I’m sure Louis must have been.  We can’t help but feel for his discombobulation when faced by the strength of character of people who have been classed and ‘sectioned’ as clinically insane.

Cherry confronts Doug in Rep's Cosi
L to R: Max Gambale (Henry), Isobel Williams (Julie), Blue Hyslop (Doug)
Steph Roberts (Cherry), Chris Baldock (Roy), Martin Fatmaja Hoggart (Lewis)

L to R: Blue Hyslop (Doug), Alexandra Pelvin (Ruth),
Steph Roberts (Cherry), Chris Baldock (Roy)

 

Though some characters are naturally likely to attract our attention more than others, such as the fire-bug Doug, the dominant Roy, the mysteriously silent Henry and the Wagner accordion player Zac, the value of this production is in the care taken to give equal standing to each part.  Julie’s somewhat distanced watching of the action early on and progress towards being discharged, Ruth’s obsessive compulsive disorder, and Cherry’s sexual fixation become the central throughline connecting Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte story – of how women are thought of by men and what women actually think of the inadequacies of men – to the modern situation women are in.  

Interestingly, the only characters with whom we feel little sympathetic connection are the three sane figures: Lewis’ moratorium organiser friend Nick; his girl friend Lucy – who ‘sleeps’ with him but ‘has sex with’ Nick; and Justin, the social worker who represents the authority over the patients.  Though Alex, Emily and John played their roles perfectly well, they were hardly funny and are left somewhat in the shade – except for Alex as Nick when Max’s Henry very nearly throttles him.  That scene was horribly funny.

The set design was equally impressive, having been previously half-burnt down by Doug and so having unexpected holes for entrances and exits apart from the doorway in on our left and the clearly labelled “dunny” on the right.  I’m still laughing at Henry’s several times’ complete circumnavigation of his theatre, which included our auditorium, when he has to work off his energy because of his medication upset.

All round then, literally as well as metaphorically, Rep’s Cosi does justice to Louis Nowra’s ‘Lewis’, ending with Martin Fatmaja Hoggart’s quietly done and emotionally gripping return to reality as he describes what happened in later life to his two girlfriends.  That’s when the laughter stopped.  

The synopsis in the program says “Cosi blurs the lines between sanity and insanity, fidelity and infidelity, and reality and illusion”, but I think Cosi makes the distinctions clearer.

Elliot Cleaves as Zac - pianist and accordion player

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: One Man In His Time by John Bell

 

 

One Man In His Time by John Bell and Shakespeare.  Bell Shakespeare at Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse, Wednesday and Thursday, April 14-15, 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 14

Conceived and performed by John Bell

Lighting Designer: Ben Cisterne
Stage Manager: Eva Tandy

__________________________________________________________________________________
Actors are the only people who can be trusted, because we all know they are pretending.  But, said the actor John Bell, I wouldn’t trust an actor.

I’m not quoting his words exactly – my 80-year-old memory, two months younger than Bell’s, is a disgrace in comparison.  Not only can he give us many of Shakespeare’s most significant speeches, he makes One Man In His Time a masterclass study of that other actor/writer’s universal truths.  

His audience ‘got it’ when it came to issues like political leadership in modern times,  well before the ‘T’ word was spoken.  Manipulative advertising men as Prime Ministers didn’t even need to be mentioned by name.

Trust in Shakespeare is the message, as Bell has done throughout his life in acting roles, as a director and founder of the Bell Shakespeare theatre company, “Thanks to an innate love of theatre and the inspiration provided by two wonderful high school teachers.”  His show was devised to celebrate Bell Shakespeare’s first 30 years as arguably the longest-lasting and only truly national Australian theatre company.

I found myself feeling inspired by John’s elucidation of that other writer/ performer/ director man in his own time (probably b. April 23rd 1564 – definitely d. April 23rd, 1616); but I also felt that I would love to understand more about our own famous theatre man in his time (November 1940 – 2021 ongoing…, or at least since about 1955 when those teachers grabbed his attention).  

His illustrations from the History plays, the Roman plays and especially Hamlet, King Lear and The Tempest – and his demonstrations of how to play the enormous variety of Shakespeare’s characters –  revealed, with the immediacy of an actor we undoubtedly could trust, exactly the attributes Bell has described in his note “From John Bell”:

“In putting together this meditative piece about Shakespeare I avoided structuring it around any one theme in case it got too academic.  Instead I have chosen to focus on just a few of his attributes: his compassion, empathy, shrewd understanding of politics and power structures, his earthy humour and, of course, his peerless poetic language which,” he says, “will go on living only if we go on speaking it and listening to it.”

My interest in knowing more about the real John Bell has been stirred in recent times by reviewing what I have seen as a new genre which  I have named Personal Theatre.

The most recent is Stop Girl, a 90 minute piece at Belvoir, Sydney, written by foreign correspondent journalist Sally Sara.  Her central character, “Suzie”, is a true representation of Sally’s personal reaction, post traumatic stress disorder, following years of war-zone reporting.  Her play is double-edged, showing the horror of war for others as well as for herself, even as a professional objective reporter.

Another extraordinary piece, by Canberra dance artist Liz Lea reveals her lifetime experience, through a solo dance with spoken word, Red, of suffering from endometriosis.

An experience of a quite different kind, but again effecting a change of life, is shown in My Urrwai, in which Ghenoa Gela, again in dance and voice, tells her story of re-engaging with her original culture in the Torres Strait after a childhood in Brisbane.  This is a story of gaining new appreciation and personal strength, in life and as a performer.

I would look forward to, perhaps, something called When the Bell Rings.

I first saw John Bell when “In 1964 he was a sensational Henry V, with Anna Volska as Katherine, in an innovative Adelaide Festival tent presentation. The Sydney Morning Herald called him ‘a possible Olivier of the future’”.  Since then I have maintained an interest in his career before and after establishing Bell Shakespeare, and since my retirement from drama teaching in 1996 I have reviewed his work as performer and/or director of 9 shows, from King Lear to Carmen; from the Bell Shakespeare art exhibition The Art of Shakespeare to Christopher Hampton’s translation of The Father by Florian Zeller.
[https://liveperformance.com.au/hof-profile/john-bell-ao-am-obe/ ]
[https://frankmckone2.blogspot.com/search?q=John+Bell ]

Of The Father, I recorded “Of course, especially for John Bell playing Anne’s father André, the short scenes are not so simple.  As he has said ‘I find this text particularly tricky to learn – and I think I speak for the other actors as well – because it’s very fractured and you need to make your own links between phrases.  It’s just short grabs of text, which are hard to learn.  It’s easy to learn a slab of Shakespeare, for instance, or Chekhov.  They write these long passages that have an internal logic, that might even rhyme’.”  

Watching The Father, I also found myself, already in 2017, beginning to worry about how I might cope with the onset of dementia “when you, if you are unlucky, reach a late stage of dementia where memory becomes completely unreliable but your feelings in reaction to others – who are by now caring for you full-time – are just as strong as ever, even though you are misinterpreting reality.  It’s even worse when you realise that you don’t actually understand things at all.”  I was amazed at Bell’s performance, considering questions like what will John Bell do when his memory gets as bad as mine, and how does an actor know when s/he is acting or not; or knows, as my mentor Ton Witsel put it, when you are only ‘acting acting’?  

(Ton worked at the Old Tote as Mime and Movement Director in the 1970s with John, who had been the original Director, and was then Associate Director for the later tour to the South Pacific Festival of Arts in Suva, Fiji, of the iconic new wave Australian play, The Legend of King O’Malley by Michael Boddy and Bob Ellis).  [https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu ]


So, maybe I was hoping for Two Men In Their Times – William Shakespeare and John Bell, but perhaps that’s an unfair expectation.  One Man In His Time at a time is surely enough.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

 

Program cover for Sydney Theatre Company's
Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Photo: Prudence Upton

LtoR: Mandy McElhinney, Johhny Carr, Sam Worthington, Lucy Bell, Brenna Harding

 Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Sydney Theatre Company at Roslyn Packer Theatre, March 15 – April 10, 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
April 10

Director – Wesley Enoch
Designer – Elizabeth Gadsby; Lighting Designer – Trent Suidgeest; Composer and Sound Designer – Steve Francis; Assistant Director – Shari Sebbens; Fight & Movement Director – Nigel Poulton; Voice & Text Coach – Danielle Roffe

Cast: (as described by the author)
Mandy McElhinney – Antoinette “Toni” Lafayette: the eldest sibling, white, late 40s/early 50s

James Fraser – Rhys Thurston: her son, white, late teens

Sam Worthington – Beauregarde “Bo” Lafayette: the middle sibling, white, late 40s/early 50s

Lucy Bell – Rachael Kramer-Lafayette: his wife, white, late 40s

Ella Jacob – Cassidy “Cassie” Kramer-Lafayette: their older child, white, early teens

Robbi Morgan (alt Joel Bishop) – Ainsley Kramer-Lafayette: their younger child, white, a child

Johnny Carr – François “Franz/Frank” Lafayette: the younger sibling, white, late 30s/early 40s

Brenna Harding – River Rayner: his fiancée, white, early 20s but looks younger

Unacknowledged – Indigenous Australian young woman (final scene)



For me to “critique” this play and this production, as a white man brought by his parents to Australia under the ‘Ten Pound Pom’ immigration scheme, naïve at the time about its colonialist implications, may be inappropriate.  

Though the play is American, written by an avowedly black author, set in “The living room of a former plantation home in southeastern Arkansas”, Noonuccal Nuugi man, director Wesley Enoch, has placed me at risk of appearing to be just another whitey who claims not to be racist.

In Appropriate, the script ends with describing the stage set of the house literally falling to bits after the departure of the absolutely dysfunctional white ‘family’.  The sound of cicadas which began the play starts up again.  Then lights go off, and on again.  “A knocking is heard at the front door.  Someone says, ‘Hello?’  Beat.  Then more knocking.  But no answer.”

There are seven more blackouts, representing years of passing time, with more parts of the stage set breaking away and “starting to disappear”.  Then “One day, lights immediately come up on a stranger in the middle of the living room, taking notes on a clipboard.  He inspects the room with a flashlight, takes a couple of pictures.  Just before he leaves, he takes a look around, thinking.  ‘Look at this place.’ He leaves.”

Enoch chose to make this stranger a young unnamed adult Australian Indigenous woman whom we have not seen previously, shaking her head rather than saying what she thinks out loud, as she leaves through the front door and closes it behind her.  

Without previously having read the script or even very much about the play – including avoiding reading the program until after the performance – I took the meaning of this ending to be possibly more than a mere shaking of the head at this family’s failure to deal reasonably with each other in a settlement of the property bequeathed by their father, known as “Daddy”, after his recent death.

She seemed to be assessing the property.  Was she a tax office agent, since there had been talk of selling pictures on the black market of lynching black people found in Daddy’s stuff?  Was she a criminal investigation officer chasing up the drug/alochol/sex crimes committed by Franz/Frank?  Was she a bank insurance officer or real estate agent assessing the value of the property for sale to recoup the over-valued mortgage Daddy had taken out.

Or was she a black person assessing white inequity?  A black person in paid employment to take on this task?  A black person, in fact a woman, in an important responsible decision-making position?

Does she represent Wesley Enoch himself, a justifiably proud Aboriginal man born on Stradbroke Island in Queensland. “Growing up gay and Aboriginal in a bi-racial family, Wesley Enoch struggled to understand who he was. But theatre helped him break a pattern of violence and find his voice.”  Isn’t he now a highly respected leader in Australian society – and in paid employment to take on this task, as indeed he should be?
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/how-wesley-enoch-broke-a-chain-of-violence-to-become-sydney-festival-director

This brings me to consider whether I agree with a review published in New York Vulture magazine  Mar. 16, 2014 that  says Appropriate Explains Too Much and Says Too Little, by Jesse Green. https://www.vulture.com/2014/03/theater-review-appropriate.html .

The play, she says, “is as overstuffed as the house, but at least the house gets cleaned during the action. The play just gets more cluttered.” Green asks, “Is Appropriate a comic tragedy? A tragic comedy? No, just a mess, undercooked and overexplained, with enough pregnant symbols (dark lake, shrieking cicadas, two graveyards) for an Ibsen festival."  "Granted,” she says, “great plays have been written about some of the same kinds of characters: viragos, pedophiles, wingnuts, dingbats. But in — let’s say — Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or How I Learned to Drive,  the playwright finds ways to seduce us into accepting his creatures as real and even attractive. That doesn’t happen here. The Lafayettes are under no one’s control; all you want is to get away from them. Fortunately, people like that don’t live in real houses.”  

And, importantly, Green concludes “They live only in theaters, and you get to leave them there.”

Although, after my leaving the theatre 24 hours ago, the unforgettable bravura performance of Toni, the sister from hell, by Mandy McElhinney stands out as the driving force keeping the production on track. But I felt, while watching, as Jesse Green had in that original Signature Theatre production.  The characters are cyphers rather than real.  The plot consists of injections of issues contrived by the author but without finding “ways to seduce us into accepting his characters as real”.

When you do read the program, you find an interview with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins published in 2013 by Signature in which BJJ says “I ended up deciding I would steal something from every play that I liked, and put those things in a play and cook the pot to see what happens.  The characters in Appropriate are somewhat inspired by characters from the family plays; for instance Franz and River are cousins to Vince and Shelly in Buried Child, and Toni is a little bit Blanche-y and also like Madame Ranevskaya from Cherry Orchard.  And then Bo and Rachael are kind of like Mae and Gooper from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof…also like the in-laws from Dividing the Estate.  ‘Greedy in-laws’ are pretty much a staple of the genre, I guess…”

And there’s the reason for my concern.  It’s called appropriation, in my view.  Compare this play with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, for example, and you can only wonder how Jacobs-Jenkins could have been awarded the inaugural Tennessee Williams Award.

Of course, the central issue of the old Arkansas family’s history, one-time wealth and modern dysfunction being based in slavery, racism, and sexual depravity needs to be presented in powerful theatre, but despite the best efforts of Wesley Enoch, his actors and designers – and those efforts are top-class – the play is not a comic tragedy; not a tragic comedy. “No, just a mess, undercooked and overexplained” as Jesse Green wrote.  

But, to Enoch’s great credit, that little touch at the very end gives a meaning to the play which the author may have wished for – to make us think more deeply and seriously about how we, personally, relate to people who have grown up in cultures other than our own on a basis of equality and respect.  



© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: Stop Girl by Sally Sara

 

 

 Stop Girl by Sally Sara.  Belvoir Theatre, Sydney, March 20 – April 25, 2021.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 28

Director – Anne-Louise Sarks
Set Designer – Robert Cousins
Costume Designer – Mel Page
Lighting Designer – Paul Jackson
Composer & Sound Designer – Stefan Gregory
Associate Composer – Hamed Sadeghi
Movement Director – Nigel Poulton
Video Deviser & Cinematographer – Jack Saltmiras
Video Content Creator & Systems – Susie Henderson

Cast:
Suzie (Foreign Correspondent Reporter) – Sheridan Harbridge
Bec (Feature Writer) – Amber McMahon
Atal (Afghani Asylum Seeker) – Mansoor Noor
Marg (Suzie’s Mother) – Toni Scanlon
Psychologist – Deborah Galanos
AV Actors – Hilal Tawakal; Aqsa Tawakal; Aisha Tawakal; Najiullah

“Connecting is never a mistake”.  Coming to understand what this means for Suzie, returning home to Australia after a year reporting on the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, is the key that unlocks this important, at times horrifying, drama.

Though the play ends with a kind of resolution for Suzie, I was taken by surprise to find how shaken I was when walking away from the theatre into the normal Sydney evening buzz.  I had, following my usual principle, deliberately not researched the writing of the play or other reviews – and felt a heightened concern for Sally Sara, clearly represented on stage by 'Suzie'.

Two other women, who have created theatre about their own lived experience – in  their cases performed by themselves – came to mind from my previous reviews.  In 2018 I saw Red by Liz Lea, a dancer who suffers from essentially untreatable endometriosis; and My Urrwai by Torres Strait Islander Ghenoa Gela, returning to her home island after growing up in Brisbane.  I wrote of their work “which seems to me to be a new original and significant form, which I’ll call Theatre of the Personal Self.”

Though Sally Sara has made her experience into a play performed by others, Suzie’s response emotionally must surely be as close to Sally’s as theirs was to Liz and Ghenoa.  They took us into their confidence through a combination of words, music and dance.  

Sara’s piece is superficially a more conventional series of short realistic scenes, backed by sound effects, video and sharp lighting jumps from bright light to absolute dark.  Our feelings become those of Suzie / Sally.  We feel with her and for her, and fear that we can so easily make those kinds of mistakes ourselves.  Have we always properly respected other people, in life and in death?

There is an irony here in my being a reviewer of another person’s sense of shame, almost in parallel with her being a reporter filming, asking intrusive questions, and sending back to ABC TV her live reports on people as they are injured and killed.  Keeping her distance emotionally, choosing her shots and her words to fit the expectations and conventions of “objective” reporting is a requirement of success as a professional journalist.  And, indeed, Sally Sara is one of our most respected journalists.

It’s scary, then, as her play shows, that maintaining the proper professional approach can turn into a case of post traumatic stress disorder.  But what can a PTSD counsellor advise when she – despite having seen the Foreign Correspondent reports on TV –  could not possibly imagine the horrors of what Suzie/Sally has actually seen, and done, or not done, in Afghanistan – and in Sierra Leone, and in so many other places fraught with war and poverty?

Suzie has at least her long-term friend Bec, her assistant/translator Atal, and finally her mother to make connection with.  Watching that story play out is what makes the drama work on stage.  I’m left just hoping that Sally is OK – perhaps the writing of the play is proof of that.

But the awful feeling of despair remains in the title, spoken in his language and translated by Atal, by a father walking away from his wife because she has just borne a daughter, who is therefore worthless to him.  “Stop girl!”  

Sheridan Harbridge’s tour de force performance of Sally Sara’s 'Suzie' puts that man and that culture, wherever and in whatever degree, to shame.

Sheridan Harbridge in Stop Girl by Sally Sara
as Suzie, on location in Afghanistan
Photo: Brett Boardman

 

 

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: The Beauty Thief by Rebus Theatre

 

 

The Beauty Thief: Reflections on a fairytale, by thespians with differing abilities. Rebus Theatre, at Belconnen Community Theatre, March 26-28, 2021

Directors – Robin Davidson and Sammy Moynihan
Music Composition and Performance – Marlené Claudine Radice
Lighting Design – Ali Clinch; Costume Design – Victoria “Fi” Hopkins
Stage Management – Dr Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak
Music Operation – Melissa Gryglewski; Photography – Joachim Ellenreider
Projection Operation – Nicole Seifert
Video Documentation – James Matthews

Cast:

Louise Ellery, Lucy Raffaele, Simone Georgia Bartram, Peter Rosini,
Joel Swadling, Grant McLindon, Kimberley Adams

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 26


To make a drama is to make meaning from an “insubstantial pageant” – for those who perform and those who observe.  

In many ways The Beauty Thief reminded me of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, where Prospero speaks of the insubstantial pageant fading, and says

 “…These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air.”

Rebus describes itself as a “mixed ability company using theatre for social change…[looking] at issues surrounding the challenges faced by people with a Disability, Mental Illness or lived experience of any type of marginalisation, inviting the audience to help us find the solutions.”  

By taking elements of several European traditional fairytales – a king, a queen, their baby girl, a jealous wicked witch, a woodsman with his axe, a wolf, a thief who would be king, a crowd of village women – as director Robin Davidson describes of the group “We found characters, tried out scenes and wove together a story.  We never talked much about what the story meant, only asked – what would this character do?  What is an interesting next scene?  And yet we happened upon a story that resonated, that had something to say, about beauty, about power.”

What it said to me was that people of “mixed” abilities have their own beauty – and aren’t we all mixed in our abilities in our different ways?  And about power, it said we all must not let jealousy and cronyism rule our lives; but we must take responsibility for ourselves and towards everyone else, joining together in community – and not take the easy way out of relying totally on a leader, even if they are genuinely empathetic.

That seems a pretty substantial achievement in making this drama, when director Sammy Moynihan says “As directors, Robin and I simply elevated the existing magic of the cast to shape a performance-ready piece of theatre.  This was also a beautiful experience, floating through the chaos of it all and being guided by the cast as much as we guided them…a testament to collaboration, fearless expression and the joys of embracing the beautiful unknown.”

The process is there in the product, so watching is not about following an exciting pre-determined page-turner.  You will need patience, allowing yourself time to absorb the sounds, the colours, the movements, the unexpected laughs, the spoken and the unspoken, while you wait with a sense of mystery.

And in the end, there is a political message for you to interpret in your own way: something about democracy and leadership came to my mind, seeing our Parliament House here in Canberra “floating through the chaos of it all” with its chorus of women standing up for power as the play’s final text slide advises.

I think these Rebus actors’ spirits will never melt away.  

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2021: Platform Paper No 63 - Review

 

 

Katharine Brisbane
by courtesy Currency House

On the Lessons of History by Katharine Brisbane: Platform Paper No 63, Currency House, Sydney, March 2021

Reviewed by Frank McKone


Only once in these 82 pages did I catch a glimpse of the daunting task that Katharine Brisbane has undertaken, having just turned 89 years this January, when she admitted ‘trudging’ through the previous 62 Platform Papers.  You will not ‘trudge’ through No 63, so skilfully written by the eminent theatre critic I well remember from the early 1960s.

Yet it is true that the content of the history of the arts, especially the performing arts, from  PP1 ‘Our ABC’—A Dying Culture? (Martin Harrison 2004) to PP62 Performing Arts Markets and their Conundrums, (Justin Macdonnell 2020), still leaves me to hope as Katharine writes: “My hope is that, as we come out of this dark period in our history, Australia might take the lead in the challenge to make the world a kinder, more inclusive place than it has been. By living too fast we have come too quickly to the end of the road. ‘A Change for the Better’ is the Platform Papers’ motto.  All we need is the courage to make it.”

From the creation of the Australia Council for Arts in the mid-1970s through social, economic, political and even viral changes in all directions, for better and for worse, artists and those of us – that means all of us – who need the arts, still need courage and hope to make that change.  

Brisbane selects from a wide range of the topics covered in Platform Papers (the complete list is in the Endnotes) to reveal thematic developments in the history, beginning with why the Papers were needed.  

“In the 1970s, arts support expanded under the aegis of the Australia Council, and by the 1980s artists and arts organisations were largely dependent on regular government grants, but when funding began to contract in the 1990s, this dependence made  practitioners fearful of speaking out….So in 2001 my colleagues and I began a monthly discussion club in Sydney and called it Currency House. We became a not-for-profit affiliate of Currency Press, which also gave us a home.”  

Currency Press, the major publisher of original Australian plays, of course, had been founded in 1971 by Katharine Brisbane, then national theatre critic for The Australian, and her late husband Philip Parsons, a lecturer in Drama at UNSW who worked passionately to bridge the gap between the university and the profession.  [ www.currency.com.au/about-us/ ]  These quarterly essays, “dedicated to the working life” of artists were a natural development and Brisbane’s analysis makes essential reading – as much for me to understand what was happening when I was teaching and reviewing drama from the mid-1970s, as it does for younger and future practitioners.

Her Introduction provides an effective overview of the whole 50 years, before delving into detail, where Brisbane’s journalist origins show through.  From 1. The Genesis of the Papers, through 2. Coordinating the Voices, to 3. Division and Cultural Unity we read the stories of the many real life characters and their reflections at their times of writing, as well as Brisbane’s headlined commentary to tie the complexity of history together.  Readability is the keyword; incisive observation is the result.  Understanding flows naturally.

Still hoping, as I am too, trudging along some nine years behind Katharine Brisbane as I turned 80 this January, it concerns me that it is true that we still need to push on with such courage; that we still feel that our ways of life, changing as they have and always will, do not yet integrate the arts into our political culture as they should always have been integrated.  

Facing up to that truth is what Platform Papers are all about – including No 63.  Yet this history has another lesson, about the complexity of culture rather than simplistic responses such as mine.  

In our newly electric world wide web, the effects of which Brisbane deals with in considerable depth, it is interesting to note that, in our green-hydrogen fuel cell, the current flows from the positive to the negative – on the way powering the motors of industry, including the Arts.  In history generally, out of the dark periods the arts grow in new directions, in new forms.  

In my youth, from my beginnings in the UK just after the early flurry of shots at the Battle of Britain, I found myself studying at the University of Sydney in 1960, not Australian Literature but the culture of Europe expressed by Eugene Ionesco turning all but one naïve recalcitrant into green rhinoceroses.  How would anyone imagine that Absurdism could become the key to British culture from Ionesco and Beckett, through to The Goon Show and on to Monty Python’s Flying Circus?  Yet it was the right artistic response to surviving World War II.

Today, as Brisbane notes also, since the dark days of colonialism, in a very messy process specific to Australia, since the beginning of the Black Theatre in Redfern in 1973 (I was firmly told not to make suggestions because I was white), First Nations’ artistic expression in literature, film and on stage now has a powerful presence, established and growing, in today’s Australian culture.

I once attended a drama teachers’ inservice class conducted by Wesley Enoch in Canberra (when he and I were much younger), and have not forgotten his spirit of respect which unobtrusively filled the space that day.  It is a great honour that he will launch Platform Paper No 63 in ten days’ time on March 24, 2021 at that very University of Sydney which did not teach Australian Literature 60 years ago.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

Platform Paper No 63 - Media Release

 
MEDIA RELEASE                                        Wednesday, 10 March 2020

Currency House, Sydney.  Media enquiries to Martin Portus on mportus2@tpg.com.au or +61 (0)401 360 806

Posted by Frank McKone

LESSONS OF HISTORY FOR THE ARTS


As artists and companies emerge from the COVID crisis, veteran theatre critic and publisher Katharine Brisbane AM delivers a landmark new Platform Paper defining the major issues and disruptions facing Australian arts and culture this century.  

On the Lessons of History reviews the challenges raised by the leading artists and cultural experts who authored 62 diverse Platform Papers published by Brisbane and Currency House since 2004.  

Her provocative response will be launched by departing Sydney Festival director Wesley Enoch at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney at 5.30pm on Wednesday, 24 March.  

These writers have raised concerns and given insights into work practices, censorship, copyright, public policy, export, finance, environmental sustainability, welfare, indigenous work, diversity and all genres of the performing arts including film, television and ever-expanding digital media. All express the need for change.

“Currency House was conceived out of a conviction that the arts are fundamental to a civil society; that a society that does not value its own arts is a nation alienated from its own culture,” says Brisbane, aged 89.  

“But the survival of our artists – and many of our public institutions – is now more precarious.  This exploration left me with a major question. Why, when the Government set up a system to support the creative arts, was funding directed at the product rather than the creator?”   

Diversity, she says, has been weakened by hyper-division into art forms, major and minor arts organisations and by a new entrepreneurialism which encourages competition over collaboration.  

Brisbane reflects on Papers by Robyn Archer, Andrew Bovell, Alison Croggon, Kim Dalton, Wesley Enoch, Jane Harrison, Lindy Hume, Lee Lewis, Lex Marinos, Chris Mead, Leigh Tabrett, Lyndon Terracini, David Throsby and others.  

The March 24 launch will introduce the new Director of Currency House, Dr Harriet Parsons, who succeeds her mother, Katharine, who has retired as its founding Chair. Julian Meyrick, theatre director and Professor of Creative Arts at Griffith University, will also speak as its new general editor.

Following On the Lessons of History, a two-day convention in July is inviting all authors to debate how to create a paradigm shift in Australia’s view of the arts. It will be hosted by the School of Literature, Arts and Media at the University of Sydney, a proud sponsor of Platform Papers.  

The next Paper No.64, Changing Tack, by arts consultant Dr Jo Caust will chart this new direction in November.  


Platform Paper No.63 is for sale on currency.com.au  Enquiries 02 9319 4953