Sunday 17 March 2024

2024: The Great Divide by David Williamson

 

 

The Great Divide by David Williamson.  Currency Press, 2024.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, March 8 – April 27, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 16

Creatives

Playwright: Davide Williamson AO
Director: Mark Kilmurry; Asst Director: Julia Robertson
Set & Costume Designer: James Browne
Lighting Designer: Veronique Benett; Sound Designer: Daryl Wallis
Stage Manager: Erin Shaw; Asst Stage Manager: Alexis Worthing
Costume Supervisor: Renata Beslik

Cast

Penny Poulter – Emma Diaz; Rachel Poulter – Caitlin Burley
Alex Whittle – Georgie Parker; Grace Delahunty – Kate Raison
Brian / Joel – James Lugton; Alan Bridger – John Wood



Among David Williamson’s highly successful earlier plays, The Club (1977) was all about the same ‘great divide’ as now, in 2024.  But The Great Divide is the better play, and hits at the social crux of the issue with greater force.

The Club was all about men maintaining the traditions of Australian Rules Football against the threat of commercial profiteering.  Williamson’s Melbourne origin made this a necessary plea for an Australian cultural icon, saying “My original intention for The Club was that it was a satire of male competitive behaviour and ruthlessness when power and success were dangled before us. So originally it was a satire of bad male behaviour towards each other.”  

This was in an interview – We speak to the playwright about how one of his most revered works has aged over the last forty years – when, in 2019, the State Theatre Company of South Australia presented The Club with an all female cast.
https://medium.com/behind-the-curtain/david-williamson-on-the-club-34606386beaa

Williamson supported the move, saying “one of the things that The Club will underline is how much values have shifted or, at least, should have shifted.

In 2020 –  https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jan/11/david-williamson-on-retirement-politics-and-critics-for-years-i-couldnt-go-to-an-opening-night – as his Family Values and Crunchtime were being staged, he announced his intention to write no more plays.  Yet “In March 2024 the Ensemble stages his new play The Great Divide while in September 2024 the State Theatre Company of South Australia opens with another of his new plays The Puzzle.
https://davidwilliamsonplaywright.com/biography  ]


The Puzzle remains a puzzle as yet, but, because by interval at The Great Divide I found myself already being reminded of The Club, I am guessing that that  female casting stirred a deeper need for a more crucial issue – maintaining Australia’s unique environment: social and natural – as seen from the perspective of how women deal with competitive behaviour and ruthlessness when power and success are in the offing.

In Australia there is the Great Dividing Range, separating the east coast of the continent all the way from Victoria to Cape York – an image representing the issue of essential concern as commercial forces destroy our environment – literally as fossil fuel burning overheats the planet.  In the play, just the title is enough to remind us of the enormity of what Penny Poulter will need to do to save “an almost idyllic life in one of Australia’s best kept secrets, Wallis Heads”.

In the action we see the equal enormity of Alex Whittle (clearly referencing Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest woman with an estimated $36.7 billion fortune), who sees only ‘development’ of the environment as the way to stimulate the economy – meaning profiteering by and for the wealthy, including herself.

And then we see how this massive conflict – still often satirical in form and stirring us to laughter – is played out in the life of Rachel Poulter, Penny’s 16-year-old daughter, facing her sense of responsibility to herself, her family and her future.  And indeed, our future.

It must seem odd to John Wood, after playing in the original The Club, to play now in The Great Divide, where football is certainly not such a big issue as in 1977.  Especially as he so successfully plays the bemused male, mayor of Wallis Heads Council, trying so hard to bridge the gap between the proposed investment opportunity offered (are rather demanded) by Whittle, and the strength of support in the community for Poulter – not only for never allowing the natural beauty of their environment to be lost, but equally for working in real terms for reducing economic inequality.  Penny Poulter is a genuine battler, a mum left to raise her daughter by a recalcitrant ex and determined to change the world for the better.

James Lugton and John Wood
as journalist Brian and mayor Alan Bridger
in The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024

The role of the journalist, played very correctly by James Lugton both as the small-town newspaper man and national tv interviewer, is an element not presented in The Club – and at this point in our struggle to regulate social media platforms, such as Meta, is absolutely relevant to the future, even, of democracy.

Kate Raison as PA Grace Delahunty and Georgie Parker as Alex Whittle
The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024

 

 

 

Emma Diaz as Penny Poulter and Caitlin Burley as Rachel Poulter
The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024

Georgie Parker as Alex Whittle and Emma Diaz as Penny Poulter
The Great Divide, Ensemble 2024


 Photos by Brett Boardman

What makes The Great Divide better than The Club as a drama is Williamson’s perceptive writing of the women’s complex emotions and the intensity that the situation develops.  Each of the four actors Emma Diaz as the mother and social activist; Caitlin Burley as her equally determined daughter on the cusp of adulthood; Georgie Parker with her own story of financial and political power; and Kate Raison as Whittle’s PA with so much more to offer both her employer and her competitor – each create characters we feel about remarkably strongly.  

We begin expecting a social satire – after all, this is David Williamson, isn’t it?  We end knowing so much more clearly what our society does – doesn’t do – for these women.  

And we all need to know.  So don’t miss The Great Divide.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

Saturday 9 March 2024

2024: A Midsummer Night's Dream - Bell Shakespeare

 

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.  Bell Shakespeare at Sydney Opera House Playhouse, March 2 –30, 2024.
(Production Patron: Katie Page, CEO Harvey Norman)
West Australia – April 9; Victoria – April 25-May 11; Canberra – Jun 7-15; Northern Territory Jun 29

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 9

Creatives

Director: Peter Evans; Associate Director: Julia Billington
Set and Costume Designer: Teresa Negroponte
Lighting Designer: Benjamin Cisterne
Composer and Sound Designer: Max Lyandvert
Movement, Intimacy and Fight Director: Nigel Poulton
Voice Director: Jack Starkey-Gill; Dramaturg: James Evans

Cast 2024

Puck: Ella Prince (they); Hermia/Snug: Ahunim Abebe; Helena/Starveling: Isobel Burton
Demetrius/Snout: Mike Howlett; Lysander/Mechanical: Laurence Young
Oberon/Theseus/Flute: Richard Pyros; Titania/Hippolyta/Quince: Imogen Sage
Bottom/Egeus: Tom Matthews (understudy for Matu Ngaropo)

An announcement apologised for Mat Ngaropo, unable to perform because of injury.

______________________________________________________________________________
Despite now well-known actor Steve Bisley giving me the funniest death of Pyramus I could hope for in my Wyong High School production of Pyramus and Thisby from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1967), in the longest possible inch-by-inch collapse before staying dead for the longest time through Thisby’s
        Asleep, my love? / What dead, my dove?
speech, until she at last acts with
       Come, trusty sword; Come, blade, my breast imbue,

I’m going to have to admit that Peter Evans, Julia Billington and especially Nigel Poulton have out-sworded my directing skills.  

Despite Tom Matthews having to come in at short notice as the inimitable Bottom playing Pyramus, with Richard Pyros as Flute playing Thisby, the difficulties of Matthews’ stabbing himself with a full length sword, Pyros’ extracting the sword, and then stabbing him/herself in an entirely different way, made the most extraordinary laugh-out-loud scene.  

Bell Shakespeare in this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream have achieved William Shakespeare’s satiric intention – all set, literally, in Athens, and a Wood near it.  And what a surprising all wooden backdrop and properties set it is, thanks to the imagination of Teresa Negroponte.

Laugh as we may, so we should, and indeed we did from the gathering of the characters in Scene I:
Theseus: Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
              Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth…
through to Puck’s exhortation to
    Give me your hands, if we be friends,
    And Robin shall restore amends.


But Theseus also introduces us to issues, as relevant to the youth of today as in Shakespeare’s day, as he speaks to his fiancee Hippolyta – Queen of the Amazons – saying:
    Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword,
    And won thy love doing thee injuries;
    But I will wed thee in another key,
    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

There’s that sword.  How can that pomp and revelling be a triumph, if love is won by doing injuries?  What are the realities of love and life when we look at the news today of family and international violence?  

But at another level, Shakespeare in this fantasy play of fairies and play-acting, is saying to us, come off your high horses, take a look at yourselves through the medium of the arts.  Realise that what we believe to be true is never an excuse for doing injuries to those who believe differently.

On ABC Radio National on the very morning while driving to Sydney to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I heard Anwar Ibrahim tell Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald how essential it is for people to stop automatically taking sides for and against in every politically complex situation:

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/global-roaming/malaysia-prime-minister-anwar-ibrahim/103482398
Sitting down with Geraldine and Hamish on the sidelines of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim revealed his desire for Australia to adopt a more 'mature' approach on China, his frustration at Western 'hypocrisy' concerning Gaza, achieving 'spiritual enlightenment' through Shakespeare and why being Prime Minister is no 'bed of roses'.

This is exactly why seeing Bell Shakespeare’s production is important.  Andy McLean writes in their program:

The overall effect gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “painfully funny”.  Make no mistake, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is more a black comedy than a golden idyll….  It’s all hilarious of course.  But there’s something about the games that the fairies play and the fun they have which points to the potential for danger.  One suspects that Puck would do far worse (and certainly not bother to put things right) were they not bound by the will of Oberon.  Yet it’s precisely because of this danger that we laugh so much.

And there’s the measure of the excellent quality of this production.  The acting – which includes a huge amount of physical theatre as well as wonderfully precise clarity of expression in each actor’s speaking – is exactly in the style needed to take the play just the right amount beyond realism into a kind of Brechtian ‘alienation effect’ which is both funny and illuminating at the same time.

And that makes the extra little push into farce so funny as Pyramus manages to kill himself with such a long sword, and Thisby follows suit – in almost a kind of spoof of Romeo and Juliet (which Shakespeare had recently written).  The curtain call becomes an enormously enjoyable celebration of the actors’ success – in itself a great positive statement about the value of art, on William and Bell Shakespeare’s part.

A terrific show, not to be missed.

 

Bell Shakespeare 2021 cast as the Rude Mechanicals
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

©Frank McKone, Canberra

Friday 23 February 2024

2024: Last of the Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon

 

 

Last of the Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon.  Canberra REP February 22- March 9, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Feb 23 Opening Night

Director: Anne Somes; Associate Director: Cate Clelland
Stage Manager: David Goodbody; Asst Stage Manager: Bede Doherty
Set Design: Cate Clelland; Set Cooridnator: Russell Brown OAM
Lighting Designer: Mike Moloney; Sound Designer: Neville Pye
Set Dressing: Cate Clelland, Anna Senior OAM; Rosemary Gibbons
Costume Designer: Fiona Leach
Production Manager: Anne Gallen


Wikipedia records: The play opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on December 28, 1969, and closed on September 4, 1971, after 706 performances and six previews.

And also under the heading Reception: Clive Barnes, in his review in The New York Times, wrote: "He is as witty as ever...but he is now controlling that special verbal razzle-dazzle that has at times seemed mechanically chill... There is the dimension of humanity to its humor so that you can love it as well as laugh at it."

Eugene O’Neill???  Somehow these characters in the sad comedy of the failure of sexual anything-goes a la 1969 seem somewhat out of place in a theatre dedicated to that great playwright so deeply critical of his own American culture.  

OK, I don’t mean Desire Under the Elms or Long Day’s Journey Into Night.  Just The Hairy Ape.  There’s a dimension of humanity to its humour way beyond Neil Simon.

But hey!  What should we expect in 1969?  The year in which David Williamson set his Don’s Party (which opened in August 1971 – a month before Last of the Red Hot Lovers closed). “To the party come Mal, Don's university mentor, and his bitter wife Jenny, sex-obsessed Cooley and his latest girlfriend, nineteen-year-old Susan, Evan, a dentist, and his beautiful artist wife Kerry.”

In other words don’t expect such inventive satire from Last of the Red Hot Lovers, the plot neatly summarised, again by Wikipedia:

Barney Cashman, a middle-aged, married nebbish wants to join the sexual revolution before it is too late. A gentle soul with no experience in adultery, he fails in each of three seductions:
Elaine Navazio, a sexpot who likes cigarettes, whiskey, and other women's husbands;
Bobbi Michele, an actress friend whom he discovers is madder than a hatter; and
Jeannette Fisher, his wife's best friend, a staunch moralist.

If you don’t know what a ‘nebbish’ is, the word is American Yiddish for “One who is fearful and timid, especially in making decisions and plans, in discussions, debates, arguments, and confrontations, and in taking responsibility.”  David Cannell does an excellent job of making us laugh at his character; but does Neil Simon intend, when Barney’s final phone call to his apparently loyal wife apparently fails to inspire her to join him, for us to laugh along with a sense of ironic comedy?  

Or should we empathise with Barney, with his head in his hands as the lights fade, and feel sorry for this 23-years married, 47 year-old, after he has attempted to explore breaking out of tedium with the sexpot, mad actress and his wife’s best friend, each played brilliantly by Victoria Tyrell Dixon, Stephanie Bailey and Janie Lawson respectively?

I have difficulty agreeing with that first review by Clive Barnes.  Despite the play’s success, and being filmed in 1972, I think Neil Simon’s early plays, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, are much better because they were much more original in concept.  

On the other hand, though to me the character and life of Barney is not interesting enough, even to make decent satire, the deliberately over-the-top characters of the three women make the play – and this production – quite fascinating to watch.

And to think about, when you consider the superficiality of Simon’s picture of the new open sexuality – the Sexual Revolution – as he pictures it in 1969.  Could one write such characters, and see them as laughable, today?  

That’s a question which makes the production of the Last of the Red Hot Lovers as REP has done it – strictly reproducing the American accents, style and settings of 1970 – very worthwhile.


David Cannell as Barnie, with
Victoria Tyrell Dixon as Elaine Navazio
Stephanie Bailey as Bobbi Michele and Janie Lawson as Jeanette Fisher
in Last of the Red Hot Lovers by Neil Simon
Canberra REP, 2024

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

Saturday 17 February 2024

2024: How To Have Sex by Molly Manning Walker

 

 

 

 


 How To Have Sex – movie by Molly Manning Walker.  
Canberra Palace Electric Movie Club previews February 17, 18, 25, 27; Dendy Sunday Session Preview February 25. Release date: 7 March 2024

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 17

Directed by Molly Manning Walker; Written by Molly Manning Walker
Produced by Emily Leo, Ivana MacKinnon, Konstantinos Kontovrakis

Starring    
    Mia McKenna-Bruce
    Lara Peake
    Samuel Bottomley
    Shaun Thomas
    Enva Lewis
    Laura Ambler

Cinematography: Nicolas Canniccioni; Edited by Fin Oates; Music by James Jacob
Production companies:
Film4, BFI, MK2 Films, Head Gear Films, Metrol Technology, Umedia
Wild Swim Films, Heretic
Distributed by    Mubi
Release dates 19 May 2023 (Cannes), 3 November 2023 (United Kingdom)
7 March 2024 (Australia)
Running time 91 minutes
Countries: United Kingdom, Greece, Belgium
Language: English

Plot
Sixteen-year-old best friends Tara, Em, and Skye head to the party resort of Malia on the Greek island of Crete for a rites-of-passage holiday. While Em will be off to college in the autumn, Tara and Skye are less certain of their futures. The girls all look forward to drinking, clubbing, and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. Tara, the only virgin in the trio, feels pressure to match the sexual experiences of her friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Have_Sex#Reception


Mia McKenna-Bruce in How To Have Sex. Photograph: Mubi

This is the movie that needs to be shown at the very beginning of Schoolies Week, Saturday morning November 16, 2024. To every participant, and perhaps again every day.

I suspect the Gold Coast venues may not be quite as over-the-top as in, what Anthony Frajman in The Saturday Paper calls “the holiday hotspot town of Malia, Crete”.  If it is, it’s thumping loud, frantic, and openly about getting laid – equally aimed for by girls as by boys.  I don’t remember it being quite like this when I was their age some 67 years ago.  The Modern Jazz Quartet, which my father called jazz on tiptoes, was more my thing.

The essence of the movie is an awful sense of foreboding as Tara begins to realise that this is not all fun and nervous laughter, when the raucous mcee has two boys up on stage holding drink cans out like their penises, and girls come up to have ‘pee’ poured down their throats.  Gross is just not the word for it.  And it gets worse, which I will not try to describe.

Can Tara escape and not become the centre of attention?  Apprehension and dread are strong synonyms for foreboding.  I felt all of that with her.  And her mental and emotional confusion when she is given no choice, losing so much more than just her naivety.

The flight home to London is not an easy ride.  Molly Manning Walker tells Frajman (The Saturday Paper, February 17-23, 2024) How To Have Sex is ‘partly drawn from [her] holidays in Majorca and Ibiza as a teenager and in her 20s, but it also reflects her experience of being sexually assaulted in London on a night out when she was 16.  Echoing the frankness of How To Have Sex, she speaks about her assault with incredible candour. “No one talks about it,” she tells me.  “And when [an assault] happens, it sucks the air out the room and you can’t talk about it openly, and as a victim, it makes you feel even more shame and even more guilty about it because you’re like, ‘Maybe it’s my fault.  Maybe they don’t want me to talk about it.’”

As Tara begins, just a little, on her way home, to laugh like her friends again, I knew she was covering up, pretending it’s ok enough to not completely lose her social life.

And I knew what the issue of ‘consent’ is really about.  And I thank the writer/director of How To Have Sex, and the actors who make the story so real.

And hope the movie is seen widely, and definitely at the next Schoolies Week, where it might be renamed “How To Have Sex, Not


©Frank McKone, Canberra

Thursday 15 February 2024

2024: The Great Escaper

 

 

 

 


 The Great Escaper – movie. Release date: 7 March 2024 (Australia)
Media Contact: Sue Dayes suedayes@tmpublicity.com

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Directed by Oliver Parker; Written by William Ivory; Produced by Robert Bernstein, Douglas Rae
Starring: Michael Caine, Glenda Jackson
Cinematography: Christopher Ross; Edited by Paul Tothill; Music by Craig Armstrong

Production companies:  Pathé; BBC Film; Ecosse Films; Film i Väst; Filmgate Films
Distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment UK
Original release date: 6 October 2023 (United Kingdom)
Running time: 96 minutes

Cast:
    Michael Caine as Bernard (Bernie) Jordan
        Will Fletcher as young Bernard Jordan
    Glenda Jackson as Irene (Rene) Jordan, Bernard's wife
        Laura Marcus as young Irene Jordan
    John Standing as Arthur; Jackie Clune as Judith, manager of the care home
    Danielle Vitalis as Adele, Brennan Reece as Martin – care home workers
    Wolf Kahler as Heinrich; Ian Conningham as LCT Commander Parker
    Elliott Norman as Douglas Bennett; Donald Sage Mackay as Nathan
    Carlyss Peer as Vicky; Isabella Domville as Susan Everard
    Joe Bone as Tim; Victor Oshin as Scott


I find myself thinking of The Great Escaper, with its quite simple storyline, as if it were a stage play.  The central set would be of the rather well-resourced room in a retirement home where Bernard Jordan, who was born on June 16, 1924, lived with his wife Irene (‘Reenie’).  In real life Bernard died at 90 in hospital on December 30, 2014, and Irene a week later at 88 on January 8, 2015.

The dates are especially significant because the story is about Bernie’s determination –  as a retired sailor who had been on duty that day – to attend the 70th Anniversary in France of the Invasion of Normandy – D-Day – on June 6, 1944.  This was a ceremonial event attended by Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama, with travel and accommodation arranged by the returned soldiers.  Reenie is not well enough to go.  But the real issue is that Bernie forgot to book a place in time.  What will he do?  Make his own way across, of course; especially to visit one of the 5000 graves in the Bayeux War Cemetery.

Approaching 90, needing a walking stick, but otherwise apparently in reasonable health, he leaves for a morning walk on the beach (at Hove, East Sussex, where he was born and died).  

On stage there would be scenes such as when Bernie meets other old soldiers like Arthur and even a German pilot, Heinrich, who may well have shot at Bernie’s landing craft on the day, on the forestage, while Reenie remains in their room dealing with the retirement home staff and her own health scares.  Then there would be projected scenes on screen of when they were young, meeting up at a wartime dance and of what happened on the landing craft, until the final scene at that huge war cemetery.

There are 3000 such cemeteries cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorating over 575,000 men and women in France.  “What a waste!” says Bernie.

On stage with the live actors communicating directly with the audience, I can imagine the depth and strength of feeling we would experience.

But there is an awful irony in watching this film.  Michael Caine turned 90 in March, 2023.  Glenda Jackson died aged 87 in June.  Filming had been planned for June 2021; finally got underway in September 2022; and “Parker screened the finished film for Caine and Jackson a few weeks before the latter's death on 15 June 2023.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Escaper

I feel somewhat hesitant to criticise the film in the circumstances, but it doesn’t achieve the dramatic power I imagine as live theatre.  This is not to do with the quality of the acting.  

Perhaps the problem is that the story of Bernard Jordan is real, and appears on film too much like a documentary, a documenting of the events.  But this movie is a fictional recreation based on the true story.  At the same when we watch any film we feel we are seeing reality.

Ivory, as the writer, uses flashbacks to represent actual memories and and their emotional impact, but when filmed, the younger versions of Bernie and Reenie don’t look enough like or their voices don’t have the same accents or manners of speaking as the Bernard and Irene we see in old age.  So the illusion of theatre is broken.  But maybe my reaction was influenced by my being an 83-year-old one-time Cockney.

The flashbacks to the scenes on the landing craft certainly created the horrifying effects of being under fire from the German aircraft, showing what happened to the tank, and the soldier Bernie persuaded to drive it out into danger.  But it was filmed for us as observers, instead of being a memory from within Bernie’s viewpoint.  

Caine and Jackson created their personal relationship very well, so that we (as we would have in a play) easily found ourselves identifying with each of them and feeling the bond between them.  But other scenes, such as Bernie’s meeting up with the Germans, being introduced by a ‘French’ hotel manager who didn’t sound like a real native French speaker, nor like a Frenchman trying to speak German, just didn’t seem real.  On stage it might even have been funny, rather than creating the tension that was likely if it had been real – nor did it create the other sense of recognition between fighters on such opposite sides, and the feelings that made Bernie and Arthur give Heinrich their tickets to the memorial function.

I certainly, though, could recognise the feeling of satisfaction that Bernie achieved when leaving his memento at the grave in Bayeux, after my wife and I had ourselves searched for her grandfather’s grave in Normandy, where he died in 1918, and where we saw the respect with which the local people keep up the maintenance of all those cemeteries.  

So though the film is made with good intentions, and raises important issues about warfare and its glorification, the writing and directing is inconsistent as a 90-minute drama.  

Yet it stands as a recognition of Glenda Jackson and Michael Caine’s acting capabilities, even their determination – like that of both Irene and Bernard Jordan – to go where he knew he must go, despite old age and the expectations of others.  



©Frank McKone, Canberra

Wednesday 7 February 2024

Theatre Network Australia 2024

 

 



 Theatre Network Australia – Pre-Budget Submission 2024-25.
https://tna.org.au/tnas-federal-2024-25-pre-budget-submission

Contact: Joshua Lowe, Co-CEO
Theatre Network Australia (TNA) 

Post by Frank McKone
February 8, 2024.

Last month TNA made a submission to the Federal Government as a part of its regular Pre-Budget Submissions process. This is an opportunity to make recommendations to the government on what should be included in the upcoming budget for the next financial year.

TNA consulted with a number of members, our Board, funding bodies, and other peak bodies and service organisations to determine what was most needed and what might be possible in the current economic and political climate. Our recommendations capitalise on growing calls, commitment to, and capacity for interdepartmental and interjurisdictional collaboration, and propose a number of initiatives to grow sector capacity in cost-effective ways.

     Recommendation 1: A cohesive strategy for arts and culture international touring and              exchange.

    Recommendation 2: Support for national touring, exchange, and regional development:
        Coordinate investment in national touring by federal, state, and local governments.
        Increase investment in Creative Australia’s Playing Australia program.

    Recommendation 3: Support for arts and culture workforce development:
        Facilitate stronger implementation and accountability of the Australian Curriculum by requiring states to publish compliance reports.
        A pilot program for a national Creative Schools program modelled on Sporting Schools.
        Reinstate Creative Australia’s ArtStart program.

    Recommendation 4: Increased capacity of arts and culture to contribute solutions to the mental health crisis:
        A national Social Prescribing Scheme that includes arts and cultural activities and specified pathways for mental health referral.
        Support training and accreditation for artists and arts workers active in mental health settings.


TNA will use this submission and our recommendations in our advocacy for the sector throughout the year.

To read the TNA Submission in full, go to

https://tna.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/TNA-Federal-2024-25-Pre-Budget-Submission-1.pdf

©Frank McKone, Canberra

Saturday 3 February 2024

2024: Alone It Stands by John Breen

 

 

Alone It Stands by John Breen.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, January 25 – March 2, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
February 3

CREATIVES
Playwright: John Breen
Director: Janine Watson
Cultural Consultant: Tiana Tiakiwai
Set And Costume Designer: Emma White
Lighting Designer: Matt Cox; Composer And Sound Designer: Jessica Dunn
Dialect Coach: Linda Nicholls-Gidley; Fight Director: Tim Dashwood
Intimacy Coordinator: Chloë Dallimore; Stage Manager: Lauren Tulloh
Costume Supervisor: Renata Beslik; Art Finishing: Sasha Wisniowski

CAST
Tristan Black: Tony Ward, Munster player; Russ Thomas, All Black Manager;
John Ashworth, All Black player; David, posh Cork supporter; Monica, child;
Jasper, child; Bunratty singer; Brendan Foley, Munster player,
Wayne Graham, All Black player; Dan’s Friend 1; Mark Donaldson, All Black player.

Ray Chong Nee: Spider, child; Fox O’Halloran, President of Shannon Rugby Club; Tom Kiernan, Munster coach; Andy Haden, All Black player; Graham Mourie, All Black player; Relative at funeral; “Locky”, Gerry McLoughlin, Munster player; Dan’s Friend 2; Spectator.

Briallen Clarke:  Mary, Gerry’s wife; Dandy, child; Moss Keane, Munster player; Marjorie, posh Cork supporter; Bunratty singer; Gary Knight, All Black player; Top of big NZ fan; Ball; Brian McKechnie, All Black player.

Skyler Ellis:  Lanky, Munster fan; Donal Canniffe, Munster player; BBC commentator; Rodney, posh Cork supporter; Brad Johnstone, All Black player; Bunratty singer; Bryan Williams, All Black player; Nurse 1; Eddie Dunn, All Black player.

Alex King: Stu Wilson, All Black player; Ferret, child; Sinbad, dog; Bunratty singer; Pat Whelan, Munster player; Jim Bowen, Munster player; All Black fan 1; Taxi Driver; Nurse 2; Bottom of tall NZ fan; Colm Tucker, Munster player; Greg Barrett, Munster player; All Black forward.

Anthony Taufa: Gerry, Munster fan; Seamus Dennison, Munster player; Dan Canniffe, Donal Canniffe’s father; BJ Robertson, All Black player; Bridie Walsh, barmaid; Irene, posh Cork supporter; Bunratty singer; Priest.


Maybe Alone It Stands is not a Great Play, but it’s a very funny celebration human togetherness.  It must also stand alone for the most number of characters per actor.  This makes it a very cleverly written play, and demands absolutely tight timing when each ‘scene’is here and gone again within a couple of minutes.

All praise therefore to all the cast, individually and as a team.  No-one missed a beat, even when someone briefly patted a knee of a mature woman in Row A.  Row A’s were warned as they took their seats to ‘watch your feet’.  It’s such togetherness that keeps the small in-the-round Ensemble cosy.  Some call it ‘intimate theatre’.

Funny as it is to see the amateur Irish Munsters play Rugby (Union, of course) against the best team in the world Maori New Zealand All Blacks – and win! – yet there’s a touch of serious thought being thrown around.  There’s a little symbolism going on.  

On the political level, why historically have the Irish not won great wars against (or even with) Great Powers?  Or does this mean this is how they have won their freedom?  

On the family level, does Gerry do the right thing by Mary?  “It’s only a couple of hours,” he says, deciding not to miss the All Blacks game.  After a wild Irish taxi drive to the hospital, “Did I miss it?”.  “Them” says Mary.  “Two boys.”  

Is it enough, at the post-game celebration with the biggest bonfire ever, for everyone to toast Mary and her twins – while Gerry will bring them up to play the All Blacks and win in their own good time?  Is singing Erin Go Bragh (Ireland Forever) good enough?

You won’t miss the laughs, even if like me you only ever played soccer, or even that Aussie game Rugby League.  But keep a look out not to miss Mary at the end.  She’ll be right, though – won’t she?

And don’t miss the performance of Alone It Stands.  It’s a terrific example of the work of the Dialect Coach Linda Nicholls-Gidley, Fight Director Tim Dashwood and Intimacy Coordinator Chloë Dallimore.  Maori’s with Irish accents are one thing, but rugby player, dog and taxi driver Alex King, and even Briallen Clarke as the oval ball itself is something special to see.

Another Ensemble success.


Alone It Stands by John Breen
Ensemble Theatre, Sydney 2024

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

2024: Jungle Book Reimagined by Akram Khan

 

 

Jungle Book Reimagined.  Akram Khan Company presented by Canberra Theatre Centre, February 2-3, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Feb 2

Director/Choreographer: Akram Khan
Creative Associate/Coach: Mavin Khoo
Dramaturgical Advisor: Sharon Clark
Composer: Jocelyn Pook; Sound Designer: Gareth Fry; Lighting Designer: Michael Hulls;
Visual Stage Designer
: Miriam Buether
Art Direction and Director of Animation: Adam Smith (YeastCulture)
Producer/Director of Video Design: Nick Hillel (YeastCulture)
Rotoscope Artists/Animators: Naaman Azhari, Natasza Cetner, Edson R Bazzarin

Rehearsal Director: Nicky Henshall, Andrew Pan, Angela Towler

Dancers: Maya Balam Meyong, Tom Davis-Dunn, Hector Ferrer, Harry Theadora Foster, Filippo Franzese, Bianca Mikahil, Max Revell, Matthew Sandiford, Elpida Skourou, Holly Vallis, Jan Mikaela Villanueva, and Lani Yamanaka


When theatre is presented as a grandstanding significant work, I must consider if the result achieves a depth of artistic sincerity or is not much more than a self-indulgent display.

The dancers in this production of Jungle Book Reimagined must be praised for their performance of a demanding choreography and presentation of characters, but the show as a whole is a confusing collection of bits and pieces supposedly derived from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

The book publishers write “First published by Macmillan in 1894, The Jungle Book is the classic collection of animal tales that shows Rudyard Kipling's writing for children at its best. The short stories and poems include the tale of Mowgli, a boy raised by a pack of wolves in the Indian jungle. We meet the tiger Shere Khan, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo, the 'sleepy brown bear', and the python, Kaa. Other famous stories include the tale of the fearless mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and that of elephant-handler Toomai of the Elephants.”
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/rudyard-kipling/the-jungle-book/9781509805594
They also note it is “A collection of Rudyard Kipling's animal stories, wonderfully told and interweaving moral lessons with classic tales.”

Kipling’s story is, of course, entire fantasy – a British Empire story probably vaguely influenced by the story of Romulus described on the History Channel: “Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king of nearby Alba Longa and rescued by a she-wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river's banks in 753 B.C. After killing his brother, Romulus became the first king of Rome, which is named for him.”


I’m guessing that’s how the pack of wolves got into the Indian jungle.  As jungleroots.com explains: “Indian Wolf - They are less territorial than other wolf species and rarely howl. Unlike Mowgli's wolf family in The Jungle Book, they usually avoid the jungles and stick to the more open areas like grasslands.”

So what is the purpose of  Akram Khan ‘reimagining’ Kipling’s obviously romanticised picture of their Empire for British children in 1894 – with pictures drawn by Kipling’s father in so-called Indian style.  The Canberra Theatre Centre publicises the show, saying “Following seasons throughout the world including Sadlers Wells (London), The Lincoln Centre (New York), Canadian Stage (Toronto) and Theatre de la Ville (Paris) we are thrilled to present this gripping, exquisitely crafted and timely work to you here in Canberra….  It is exciting that this week, the Akram Khan Company will present a masterclass for local dance practitioners.” (Dan Clarke, Head of Programming).

I can’t, therefore, dismiss this show lightly.  Yet, the first comment I overheard at interval, was ‘rather boring’.  That, I’m sure, was not about the dancers’ technical skills or the clever individual characterisations, some quite humorous; but too often group work in the style seen in the program cover (above) was repeated time and time again for no apparent purpose, and with no development of the story.  In Act 2, the story development gathered some pace – but I never felt properly engaged with the central character – the girl, named by the animals as Mowgli, and given the impossible task of proving her superiority among animals as a human – seemingly perhaps the last one left on earth, after defeating the hunter.

I can’t deny Akram Khan’s genuine intentions about the theme of how “climate change is and will continue to affect all living creatures on this beautiful planet” and how “we are now living in unprecedented and uncertain times, not only for our species but for all species on this planet.  And the root cause of this conumdrum is because we have forgotten our connection to our home, our planet.  We all inhabit it, and we all build on it, but we have forgotten to return our respect for it.”  And about “the lessons of commonality between species, the binding interdependence between humans, animals and nature, and finally, a sense of family and our need to belong.”

But there is a terrible irony in the design of Jungle Book Reimagined.  The most effective aspects, theatrically, are in the sound effects and the original approach to visuals.  Since COVID-19 lockdown, Khan writes, “I have come to appreciate technology [which] allowed me to stay connected with my loved ones, my artistic team and the wider world.  Without the use of technology, I would have felt truly alone.”

The irony is that the living performances of the dancers take place behind screens (though transparent) where remarkable moving images of all sorts from elephants, giraffes, birds and even mice take all our attention, while the choreography, often in stylised representation of the animals, never takes us fully into feeling a sense of human or animal family.

In the end, the final image of the drama is defeatist.  Despite the dancing in unison seen in the first program image above, the program also shows the image below, representing what we saw full size on the backdrop screen ending the performance.


  


The image of Mowgli, at the edge of an endless sea, becomes a video of her climbing back on a raft of human-made metal drums or boxes, like the one that saved her from the climate-change induced floods at the beginning of the show.  As she begins to float to nowhere towards a blank horizon, the show ends.

Mowgli, the superior human, has failed to fulfil the hopes of the animals.  She may have used human technology to kill the hunter, and like Prospero who breaks his magic wand in The Tempest, she destroys the gun.  

But, if human technology saves the theatrical show, it shows us Mowgli left truly alone.  

And it left me feeling the technology had taken precedence over the living dancers.  Yet Akram Khan writes “We must not forget that most often, great storytelling can be told by the simplest of tools.  Our bodies, our voices, and our conviction in that story.”  

I agree – but the show became a display of complex technology without the warmth of humanity that dance is really all about.  What is the moral lesson here?



©Frank McKone, Canberra

Thursday 1 February 2024

2024: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show

 

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, adapted for stage from the book by Eric Carle, incorporating characters from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, 10 Little Rubber Ducks, and  The Very Bust Spider. Produced by Rockefeller Productions (NY).

Canberra Theatre Centre Playhouse, February 1-3, 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Feb 2


The Creatives
Created by Jonathan Rockefeller
Based on the books by Eric Carle
Composer: Nate Edmondson
Set Design: Tyler Schank
Puppets by Rockefeller Studios

Leads:
Jessica Marie Lorence and Peter Brown

With (Australian Tour): Abbie Knoshaug; Atticus Stevenson; Genna Beth Davidson
Janet Castel; Kaden Woodward; Lindsay Cavallo; Maria Medina
Mariette Ostrom; Nate Hernandez; Robyn Coffey; Samantha Martino
Skylar Peak; Toria Sterling; Tyler Quick; William Ward; or William Galameau




Never perform with children or animals is a standard theatrical dictum  Don’t worry, these performers are wonderful with their puppet animals (including Teacher!), and with the children, from babies up to the occasional octogenerian reviewer.

In the past I have often been disappointed by blockbuster children’s shows because they have been too slick and lacking a sense of personal connection with the audience – showing at rather than showing for and with.  Today’s performers were in contact as much with humorous facial expressions and dance-like movement as with words, letting the story reveal itself to us – no pushing or hurrying – in a quiet mood without engineered excitement.

They didn’t need to tell the kids to count to ten, or name the animals (though perhaps ‘flamingo’ was a bit of a surprise – and a terrific puppet), or name the days of the week.  You could hear the kids and their parents just naturally joining in.

Quite fascinating was when a section of the story ended, like famous arias in opera, the kids, without parents needing to take the lead, just felt it was right to applaud.

This production is quality theatre – meaning that the children are learning that live performance is way better than anything on a screen.  And, in addition, the players begin by showing the books, opening the book of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and so the children realise that there are wonderful stories to be read in books.

Then, finally – after the very hungry caterpillar has learned that eating leaves is much better for them than filling up on ice creams and cup cakes – the Teacher takes up the Book, shows it open to all, and neatly ends the show by closing the book.

What a satisfying experience in living theatre for littlies and oldies alike.  Highly recommended.


The Canberra Cast in action

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

Monday 29 January 2024

2024: Shakespeare - The Man who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench with Brendan O'Hea

 


 

ShakespeareThe Man who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench with Brendan O’Hea.  Penguin Michael Joseph, 2023 (imprint of Penguin Random House).

Illustrations by Judi Dench

Reviewed by Frank McKone

Brendan O’Hea begins his Introduction:

This was never meant to be a book.  My plan was to record Judi Dench talking about all the Shakespeare parts she has played and, with her blessing, to offer it to the archive department at Shakespeare’s Globe.  But when a friend of her grandson overheard one of our many discussions at her home in Surrey, and was intrigued to know what all the laughter, passion and arguing was about, it made me wonder if these interviews might have a wider appeal.


They certainly appeal to me in my role as theatre reviewer, one-time amateur actor/director and paid drama teacher.  That’s wide enough, I think, to pass on my enthusiasm to theatre practitioners and theatre-goers of all kinds.  Not just because Judi Dench is justifiably famous for being such a good actor, but because these interviews are funny and passionate – and especially explain acting in personal and practical ways.

Acting in Shakespeare’s plays may have paid Judi Dench’s rent, but we also come to see how the writing, directing and acting of his plays not only paid William’s rent (actually making him quite rich) but gave us a body of theatrical work that continues to be known worldwide for its universal understanding of human relationships – as relevant today as four hundred years ago.

Like me (born in December 1934, she’s barely 6 years older than me), Judi does “worry nowadays about actors being miked as I think it flattens everything out … and also there’s a danger that you hold back because you’re being artificially boosted – it can make you lazy.  Audiences need to see your mouth moving and your body breathing; if they can only hear your voice coming from a speaker twenty feet away, and there’s more than one person on stage, then who they hell do they look at?  How do they know who’s talking?

Hear, hear, I say, as I have to switch my phone back on during a show to readjust my hearing aids.  When I tried the ‘hearing loop’ system, voices came through clearly, but in two dimensions instead of three.  And I couldn’t hear the audience responses.  Getting this old doesn’t make life easy!

And I can’t get away with being a pontificating critic.  Brendan asks Jude, What is your view on critics?

Some I like, some I don’t, and some are friends.  But ultimately, it’s just one person’s opinion.  Caryl Brahms never liked anything I did.  She was vitriolic, and clearly allergic to me.  She’d always refer to me in her reviews as ‘Dench, J’, as if I was in the school play, or ‘little Miss Dench’.  She said I played Juliet ‘like an apple in a Warwickshire orchard’, whatever the hell that means – and that Rosalind Iden was much better in the part.  (Criticism I can deal with, but I loathe comparison.)

That was the 1960 Old Vic production “when the Artistic Director, Michael Benthall, offered me the part of Juliet.  Franco Zeffirelli was to be the director….  He had never directed a Shakespeare play before.  Franco didn’t reckon the poetry of it – he had no interest in the verse, or the rhythm, or the line endings, he worked purely on instinct.  But what he did bring to the production was a Mediterranean sensibility.  He instilled in us the heat and the passion and the sultriness of Verona.

63 years ago, and Judi Dench’s recall is as clear as a bell.  Just imagine being there!  Between my having done a staged Grammar School reading of Prince Hal in Henry IV (I was 12 and Hal was only 16); and seeing John Bell in 1964 when “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’”.  
https://liveperformance.com.au/hof-profile/john-bell-ao-am-obe
I remember my excitement on both occasions – especially when the Bell performers burst through past me in the audience and up on to the stage in the tent like the beginning of a great circus.

I wish I had Judi Dench’s memory for details and names – even just for the parts she’s played, in book order: MacbethLady Macbeth; A Midsummer Night’s DreamTitania, Hermia, First Fairy; Twelfth NightViola, Maria; The Merchant of VenicePortia; HamletOphelia, Gertrude; CoriolanusVolumnia; As You Like ItPhebe; Measure for MeasureIsabella; Much Ado About NothingBeatrice; King LearRegan, Cordelia and Goneril; The Comedy of ErrorsAdriana; Richard II Queen Isabel; Antony and Cleopatra Cleopatra; CymbelineImogen; All’s Well that Ends WellCountess of Roussillon; Henry VKatherine, Hostess; The Merry Wives of WindsorMistress Quickly, Anne Page; Richard IIIDuchess of York; The Winter’s TaleHermione, Perdita, Paulina, Time; Romeo and JulietJuliet.

Phew!  I didn’t even know some of these names.  And what an amazing array of women characters written by Shakespeare – so many of such great individual personal strength, who stand up for their rights and show so much more capability than most of the men in dealing with fraught, even life-threatening situations; and in times of passionate love – for a partner, or for a son or daughter.

Time after time, as you read a character’s lines in context with Dench’s recalling of how what she says fits into that part of the play, and why she says those words, or says nothing, or does some specific movement, or moves in the space – you find yourself seeing and hearing the performance happening; learning from this great actor how to create that role; realising how astute Judi Dench is in her own right; and absorbing the depth and quality of Shakepeare’s writing.

Yes, this book is a collection of Judi Dench’s practical responses to Brendan O’Hea’s questions, comments and sometimes argumentative points, including a stream of stories, both serious and humorous.  

Yet, it is also, as the equally famous Kenneth Branagh says, ‘A magical love letter to Shakespeare’, full of appreciation for what he achieved – with a powerful sense of purpose for theatre in the world today and in the future, even if it be as fractious as it was in Shakespeare’s time.  My copy was a wonderful surprise Christmas gift from my wife – but you don’t need to wait for a special occasion to give yourself or a loved one such stories as:

Taking a curtain call with a live snake in her wig…

Cavorting naked through the Warwickshire countryside painted green…

Acting opposite a child with a pumpkin on his head…

As the book cover says, “These are just a few of the things Dame Judi Dench has done in the name of Shakespeare.”

Enjoy!


©Frank McKone, Canberra

Friday 19 January 2024

2024: Mutiara - Sydney Festival

 

 


Mutiara – Produced by Marrugeku Inc with Bahri and Co (Broome, Western Australia).  Sydney Festival at Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre, January 19-21 2024.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 20

About Mutiara - at https://www.marrugeku.com.au/productions/mutiara  
The cruel, haunting past of the Kimberley’s now famous pearling industry told through intercultural dance and visual art revealing the resilience, love and strength of ancestors.  The work is a celebration of the unsung bond between First Peoples of the Kimberley and seafaring Malay peoples during a time of colonialism exploring the coexistence and the path that often led to love and lifelong companionship.

Mutiara reveals buried truths washed up and left along the shores of time, during an era of colonialism, racism, exploitation, slavery, and stolen children.  Ancestors tell stories, bones speak, ancestral beings feud, seas change and deep beneath the surface the diver yearns for home. Mutiara celebrates, heals and rewrites histories.

Co–choreographers and dancers Dalisa Pigram, Soultari Amin Farid and Zee Zunnur with Broome’s Ahmat Bin Fadal (ex–pearl diver) collaborate with visual artist Abdul–Rahman Abdullah, composer Safuan Johari, dramaturg Rachael Swain, costume designer Zoe Atkinson and lighting designer Kelsey Lee, to reflect on living within multiple shifting frames of identity, culture, faith and belonging.  Drawing on Yawuru and Minangkabau dance forms as well as silat and diasporic connections to land and sea to create a new dance language that disrupts binaries of identity and the borders of the nation state.

Mutiara is collaboratively created by:
Concept: Soultari Amin Farid, Dalisa Pigram, Zee Zunnur and Rachael Swain
Co-Choreographers and Performers: Soultari Amin Farid, Dalisa Pigram and Zee Zunnur with Ahmat Bin Fadal
Cultural Dramaturg: Soultari Amin Farid; Dramaturg: Rachael Swain
Composer, Sound Designer and Performer: Safuan Bin Johari
Set Designer: Abdul-Rahman Abdullah; Costume Designer: 
Zoë Atkinson
Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee
Pearl Diving History and Malay Cultural Advisor, Silat Training: Ahmat Bin Fadal


Mutiara is an important expressive dance work, especially when presented in this kind of Festival.  Though there was a smaller audience than I would have hoped, it was clear that people were there with a positive expectation of the work, as dance and as cultural history.

Because of the different elements of the history of the pearling industry in north-western Australia and the way the European colonists related to the Malay divers; to the Australian Indigenous people; and to relationships between all three communities, it is a good idea to read the above information from the Marrugeku website and spend some time in the foyer exhibition before seeing the show.  

Then you will more easily appreciate the shifts in dance style, the highly original set design, and the combination of music and voice in the soundscape.  This is not a conventional linear story, but works in the ancient Aboriginal tradition that all the past is here now, together in the present.

The effect, as emotions are expressed in response to all those different elements, is to create not just a critical approach to colonialism, but a kind of wonder at the nature of this community, particular to the Broome and surrounding coastal region. Having driven more than once all those thousands of kilometres from my eastern Australia home to Broome and north to Cape Leveque, and seen some of the 130 million-years-old dinosaur footprints, it’s fascinating to gain a new understanding of life there today – in an original local modern dance form.

For me, a special value of this work is that it is cross-cultural.  It is a new way of expressing understanding and feelings of the Aboriginal, the Malay, and the European-based people; and the inter-related people of all three communities.  The establishment of such a company as Marrugeku Inc looks forward to a new and better world.

Though having only a short season here at the Sydney Festival, check the website for future tour opportunities.

Pearl Divers of Broome
Foyer Exhibition, Mutiara 2024

©Frank McKone, Canberra

Wednesday 17 January 2024

2024: Are we not drawn onward to new erA - Sydney Festival

 

 


 Are we not drawn onward to new erA. Ontroerend Goed (Belgium) in Sydney Festival at Roslyn Packer Theatre, January 16-20 2024.

Ontroerend Goed in coproduction with Spectra, Kunstencentrum Vooruit Gent, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Adelaide Festival & Richard Jordan Productions Ltd
The performance features William Basinski’s ‘Disintegration Loops’ by Spectra Ensemble

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 17

Director:     Alexander Devriendt

Cast:
Angelo Tijssens / Giovanni Brand; Charlotte De Bruyne / Leonore Spee
Jonas Vermeulen / Ferre Marnef; Karolien De Bleser / Britt Bakker
Maria Dafneros / Kristien De Proost; & Vincent Dunoyer / Michaël Pas ​
 
Musicians: Spectra Ensemble
Tille Van Gastel/Katrien Gaelens (flute); Pieter Jansen/Wilbert Aerts (violin)
Bram Bossier (tenor violin); Peter Devos (cello); Frank Van Eycken (percussion)
Rik Vercruysse/Simon Haspeslagh (horn)
    ​
Dramaturgy: Jan Martens; Scenography: Philip Aguirre
Light, video & Sound: Jeroen Wuyts & Seppe Brouckaert
Lighting Design: Babette Poncelet; Technical assistance: Brecht, David & Pepijn
Costumes: Charlotte Goethals
Composition: William Basinski; Arrangements: Joris Blanckaert
Finishing off statue: Daan Verzele, Jelmer Delbecque, Jesse Frans
Photography: Mirjam Devriendt; Internships: Morgan Eglin, Tim De Paepe
Many thanks to: Ilona Lodewijckx, Luc De Bruyne, Matthieu Goeury, Simon Stokes, Björn Doumen, Les Ballets C de la B, everybody involved in the pre-study 'koortsmeetsysteemstrook' @ Toneelacademie Maastricht & our fantastic test-audiences.



I’m sorry to be such a philosophical sourpuss, but when a theatre company tries to take a quotation from Kierkegaard literally – “Life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards” – I suspect a kind of intellectual self-indulgence, and theatrical game-playing.  Perhaps I’m not a good member of a fantastic test-audience.

As is my wont, I chose not to pre-research this production, preferring to see it fresh without preconceptions.  Powerful theatre depends on actors having at their disposal a script, directing, sound, lighting, costumes, make-up and set design supporting them to create emotional responses in us – watching – as we find we can identify with characters, even those we would dislike if we met them in real life.

This is how theatre helps us understand our life anew.

For the first 40 minutes of Are we not drawn onward to new erA, we watched apparently disparate characters, who may or may not have known each other before meeting here, sometimes speaking in an apparently incomprehensible language (which I took not to be Flemish or Dutch nor Belgian French, but with occasional sounds that might have come from English) – and who mysteriously destroyed a small tree, floated a small helium balloon away up into the stage lighting, had the whole stage covered with plastic bags that mysteriously fell from where the balloon had gone, while two characters shared eating an apple from that clearly not-an-apple tree – and then even more mysteriously brought on stage a head and large sections of a four-metre plastic statue, and with great effort put it together and raised it to standing position.

Characters behave very much as individuals, with perhaps the apple eaters the only ones developing what could become a personal emotive relationship.

Not exactly exciting to watch beyond some sense of satisfaction in achieving the standing statue of a male figure.  Where might this story go, and what might it mean?

I had been told beforehand that the show lasted 85 minutes.

But at 40 minutes the main stage curtain was closed.  One woman actor came out onto the apron and spoke in English, mentioning something like life having to be lived bit by bit.  Then the curtain opened to reveal an image of her apparently on stage where she had been just before the curtain had closed.

As soon as I realised I was seeing a screen the full size of the stage proscenium and that it was beginning to show the second last position of the characters, I understood that I would be watching a technically quite astounding video which would go backwards for the second 40 minutes.

Would this be more interesting than the first 40 minutes?  Well, there were some moments when an action going backwards was surprisingly realistic-looking, some were quite amusing – but how would our understanding of life develop, when all the show became was a guessing game of trying to remember what we had seen before?

To make this entertaining, would there be an upbeat, light-hearted music accompaniment?  Well, all we heard was a boring constantly repetitive orchestral sound that offered nothing to add to what we were watching.  The unknown gentleman next to me began to fidget and I found my brain switching off, waiting for some new development to wake me up.

It never came until the end, where apparently all that had been on stage had disappeared in reverse.  Then the screen arose to reveal the mess still there from the live performance, and the live actors appeared for a conventional happy curtain call and the audience dutifully applauded.

On the Ontroerend Goed website, a reviewer, Els Van Steenberghe is quoted:

This is one of the most beautiful, most intelligent and committed performances Ontroerend Goed has ever made, on the boundary of visual art and theatre, poetry and politics. The piece looks marvelous [sic] (but sounds brutally inaccessible) during the first twenty minutes. These, however, are necessary to enable the masterful twist. Only then the performance turns into a clear, miraculous statement about how we threaten to destroy ourselves and our world.

Well, I got the idea watching the ruined tree and the plastic bags in the first half, but taking Kierkegaard literally backwards was an even less enlightening experience than reading this meangless quote in the first place.

To keep to the European theatrical culture, I think the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen did a much more threatrically powerful job of making a clear statement about how we threaten to destroy ourselves and our world in his 1882 play An Enemy of the People than the Belgians have done in this pretentiously named Are we not drawn onward to  new erA.  Just read it backwards: it’s just a joke – gameplaying in reverse, when we need action in reality, and powerful theatre to help make it happen.



©Frank McKone, Canberra

Tuesday 16 January 2024

2024: Ode to Joy - Sydney Festival

 


Marc MacKinnon, Lawrence Boothman, Sean Connor
in Ode to Joy 2024

 Ode to Joy (How Gordon got to go to the Nasty Pig Party).  Stories Untold Productions with James Ley (Scotland) at Sydney Festival, Bell Shakespeare Studio, The Neilson Nutshell (The Thirsty Mile), January 16-21 2024.

Created with support from Creative Scotland

Reviewed by Frank McKone
January 16

Creative Team
Writer / Director: James Ley
Dramaturg: Rosie Kellagher; Assistant Director: Matt McBrier
Movement Director: Craig Manson
Sound Designer: Susan Bear & DJ Simon ‘Simonotron’ Eilbeck
Lighting Designer: Emma Jones
Costume Designer: Cleo Rose McCabe; Wardrobe Asst: Hana Eggleston
Production Manager & Show Technician: Chris Gorman
Company Stage Manager: Robyn Jancovich-Brown



Ode to Joy is at its heart about how the UK Referendum on leaving or staying in the European Union, which resulted narrowly in a vote for “Brexit”, has cut Scotland off unfairly from Europe.

Since, as we all understand, the personal is political and the political is personal, James Ley has imagined ‘Gordon’, a sexually active gay male government lawyer – one of some 250 such lawyers, the others presumably straight.  Where will he find love?  Only in exotic Europe.

In a speech naming all the hot-spots, only there will he find freedom, without the conventions of borders – and indeed will find the joy that the German Beethoven expressed in his gloriously symphonic Ode to Joy.

Can he make it happen by drafting Scottish law to hold a second referendum?  Yes, he can.

But starting from this frustrated gay personal position has resulted in a weird kind of absurdist dance drama.  Tom is, or says he is, the narrator of Gordon’s story – which means he can change the story as needs be.  In fact he claims to become God – even though Gordon doesn’t believe in God.

Where Marcus fits in I was never sure.  And both he and Tom become sex drug pushers as Cumpig and Manpussy respectively.  After all, of course, it’s all pure imagination.  Don’t mention reality.

However you will receive a program which includes a “Glossary of Gay”, detailing Chemsex – “a term commonly used to describe the sexualised use of recreational drugs and the involvement of drugs in your sex life.”  Though as a non-gay at 83 I found the list irrelevant, it was interesting to learn that ‘Scat’, for example, means “sexual practices involving faeses”[sic]; and that ‘Pig’ “refers to a man who wants as much sex as he can get with as many different men as possible.”

In other words this manic dance is not for the faint-hearted.  It’s a kind of satire I guess, but my inability to understand much of the thickly Scottish accented dialogue meant I missed many of the specific jokes which many in the mixed-sex audience laughed at appreciatively.  (My 83-year-old hearing aids didn’t help much either.)

So I suggest I’m not really qualified to judge the quality of the show – as (I think) Cumpig remarked at some point, it’s a matter of personal preference.  It was certainly true that men in the audience were engaged in lively conversation as they left after genuinely-felt applause.

For me, on the political front, the play makes a serious point about the move, now in England as well as Scotland, to hold the referendum a second time.  This could mean that Scotland could leave the United Kingdom – and some have even suggested that Northern Ireland may reunite with the South, and Wales might make it difficult for King Charles III, who once was titled Prince of Wales.

An interesting experience, is my conclusion.

Lawrence Boothman, Sean Connor
in Ode to Joy 2024

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra