Theatre Australia 2(10) May 1978

ffiRstralia s magazine of the performing arts

May 1978 $1.50

H iealre Australia - •’r ': ,

Comprehensive Review Section including film, ballet, opera, records, books.

1 National Guide.

Spotlight: Kate Fitzpatrick Twelfth Night Saga Cocteau and Poppy Irishman and Last Wave

THE TOTE at the OPERA HOUSE Drama Theatre

APRIL 26 to JUNE 6 NIGHTLY AT 8 — SATURDAY MATINEES AT 2 A new version of the Molière masterpiece set, not in 1666 in the reign of Louis XIV but in 1966 in the ‘reign’ of Charles de Gaulle.

BOOKINGS: Sydney Opera House Box Office or Parade Theatre (662 6122)

THE MISANTHROPE KATE FITZPATRICK. BARRY OTTO. RAYMOND DUPARC. JON EWING. JUDI FARR. TREVOR KENT. RUSSELL KIEFEL. JUDY NUNN.

MOLIÈRE English version by TONY HARRISON. Directed by TED CRAIG. Designed by ANNE FRASER.

A new play by ALAN AYCKBOURN who gave you “ The Norman Conquests" Directed by PETER COLLINGWOOD. Designed by JAMES RI0EW00D.

PETER WHITFORD. ALAN BECHER. JOAN BRUCE. JENNY McNAE. JUNE THODY.

Just Between Ourselves “ The finest play Ayckbourn has written” — London Daily Mail NIGHTLY AT 8 - SATURDAY MATINEES AT 2 UNTIL MAY 16 — BOOKINGS: Parade Theatre, 662 6122

at the PARADE THEATRE ________

Kensington

T h eatre

Departments

2

3 5 50

A u stralia

Comment Quotes and Queries Whispers, Rumours and Facts Guide: Theatre, Opera, Dance

Ray Stanley talks to Keith Michell Catching Up With Kate — Barry Eaton Portable Lighting Controls fo r the Non-Professional — David Bird Tadeusz Kantor — Roger Pulvers

Spotlight

7

Features

10

International

19

Classics and Contemporary Charisma, Bob Henderson in Greece

Playscript

33

D on’t Piddle Against The Wind, Mate — Act 1, Kenneth Ross.

Introduction, Alan Edwards

Ballet

41

Cocteau: The Man, The Works, The Ballet — William Shoubridge WA Ballet Company's Festival o f Perth Season — Terry Owen

Opera

44

Midsummer Marriage & country tours — David Gyger

Theatre Reviews

21

VIC Richard III — Ray Stanley Perfect Strangers/Brothers — Jack Hibberd Makassar R eef — V I Richards

23

QLD D on’t Piddle Against The Wind, Mate — Richard Fotheringham Brisbane Survey — Don Batchelor

24

NSW The Cassidy Album — Katharine Brisbane East — Rex Cramphorn Sydney Survey — Robert Wagner Kold Komfort Kaffee — Lucy Wagner

28

SA Glass Menagerie/The Right Man — Tony Baker Festival Fringe — Bruce McKendry

29

WA The Seagull — Collin O’Brien Chinchilla — Cliff Gillam

Film

46

Elizabeth Riddell

Records

48

Roger Covell

Books

49

John McCallum

May 1978 Volume 2 No. 10

Only Heroes and Heroines, Twelfth Night Traumas Assessed by Colin Robertson Katharine Brisbane sums up the Adelaide Festival Melbourne’s Lost Theatres, Part 1 — Ross Thorne

rational Theatre Opera Dance Guidep50

Theatre Australia

Editor: Robert Page Executive Editor: Lucy Wagner

Henry Cho

Artist:

Does theatre constantly need revitalising from the bottom up? The Old Tote looks close to being saved, but not without being revamped to some extent in the process. No one can doubt that the crown of artistic pre-eminence long since passed to Nimrod, though Nimrod itself is now at a stage where its policies and ideals must be developed or move to bigger things if others are not to steal a march on it with a more vital form. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”.

The national and international compass of the company in March (playing five states and London) and the increasing rumours that John Bell is to move to the larger kingdoms of the state company, testifies the degree to which such thinking has already gone. Nimrod, particularly since Paul lies became “chancellor" has ambitiously broadened its base, but seems to be tending more to commercialism than the artistic vanguard.

The APG has followed a comparable path, going over, to some extent, to a clever but facile theatricalism, and moving into film and records to such an extent that it will soon have to be called the APG Group of Companies. The more outer plays are being mounted by Hoopla, supposedly in the middle ground between the APG's (denied) radical image and the MTC's (unconfessed) conservatism. Victoria’s new preiender has by no means yet won the crown — and indeed may lose its head in the attempt — but there is something of a parallel in the way Hoopla and the recently announced Paris Theatre Company of Jim Sharman and Rex Cramphorn, in Sydney, have been launched.

For a start, as with the early beginnings of Nimrod and the APG too, directors and actors are once again taking matters into their own hands and thumbing their noses at unwieldy bureaucratic managements. When, because of the Tote’s financial clamp down the two directors lost the mountain to which they were going to bring the audience Mohammed, they went and built themselves another mountain.

The belief in the need to present vibrant theatre (“To tell the story of our times” is the battle cry of Paris Theatre) is being backed-by a willingness from all concerned to work on a shoestring; faith rather than fortune not only seems more noble, it tends to achieve better results. The formula has been outstandingly successful before and should be again. A bevy of the biggest names in theatre (see Quotes and Queries) and largely the season prepared for the Tote’s Seymour Centre venture, must bring a blaze of publicity as June 15th approaches.

Rarely in the glare of the spotlight is the essential support work on which the theatre industry depends. One of the major stimuli for new writing in Australia is holding its annual 2

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

event this month: the National Playwrights’ Conference, now in its sixth year. It is known mainly through its achievements; those who saw the Nimrod or Hoopla productions of Rock'ola, Hoopla's Yamashita, or Jane Street and later the QTC’s Don't Piddle Against The Wind, Mate (this month’s playtext), three of the 1977 crop of eight, owe an indirect debt to the Conference.

When it did hit the headlines last year it was through the adverse comments of overseas guest John Osborne. Not only did he knock the event before reaching Canberra — transferred agression from an enforced three day sojourn in Bangkok courtesy of the air controllers' strike — but returned to England to publish even bitterer invective against Australia; “1 now know there is a hell on earth” he is reported as saying. Possibly such a splenetic display didn’t do any harm, in at least thrusting the Conference before the public gaze, but it is unlikely that an overseas “name" will be coming this year.

In the past there has been some confusion in the desire of this national meeting ground to be all things to all men. This year the Conference is to be split into two distinct, but not wholly separate sections, the play workshops for the first ten days and a theatre forum for the last four.

For the first two thirds, then, the new plays are the thing, with all seminars and discussion focussed solely upon the new playwrights. The six who are chosen (out of the hundred and fifty applicants) are served by a pool of twenty actors, three directors, three dramaturgs and this year for the first time a resident designer, Kristian Frederikson, to advise on staging the plays.

When indigenous plays take a significant place in theatre repertoires this aspect alone more than justifies the event. But it is not intended to be a play supermarket where producers can buy par cooked fare, though it can’t avoid being that to a degree. The guiding principle is the nurturing of playwrights and the bringing of expert analysis, using practical and theoretical means, to their work.

A unique melting ground for professional and greenhorn alike, participants and observers, in a levelling, informal atmosphere in the national capital deserves more support. Federal money has been increased this year (to SI2,000), but still thinking seems to be blinkered towards the flower and not the seed — though this year’s seeds are next year's crop. A year's preparation leading to a fortnight’s intensive work involving nearly three hundred people — some of whom are sponsored by the Conference itself — makes a bill of roughly $29,000. This is less than the cost of one middling professional production; it deserves more support from state and federal bodies, and hopefully from the private sector too.

Advisory Board:

John Bell, Graeme Blundell, Ellen Braye, Katharine Brisbane, Vivian Chalwyn, Gordon Chater, John Clark, W.A. Enright, Lynda Gray, Jack Hibberd. Ken Horler, Garrie Hutchinson, Robert Jordan, Philip Mason, Stan Marks, Jake Newby, Phil Noyce, Raymond Omodei, Philip Parsons, Diana Sharp, Ken Southgate, Raymond Stanley, Elizabeth Sweeting, John Timlin, Tony Trench, Guthrie Worby, Richard Wherrett.

Publisher: Theatre Publications Manager: Jaki Gothard Advertising: Jaki Gothard/Debbie Cockle Correspon dents: N.S.W.: Vic.: Qid.: W.A.: S.A.:

Editors (049) 67-4470 Raymond Stanley (03) 419-1204 Don Batchelor (07) 269-3018 Joan Ambrose (09) 299-6639 Michael Morley (08) 275-2204

Theatre Australia gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Australia Council, the Literature Board of the Australia Council, the New South Wales Cultural Grants Board, the Arts Grants Advisory Committee of South Australia, the Queensland Cultural Activities Department, the Victorian Ministry of the Arts and the Assistance of the University of Newcastle.

Manuscripts:

Manuscripts and editorial correspondence should be forwarded to the editorial office, 80 Elizabeth Street, Mayfield, NSW 2304. Telephone (049) 67-4470.

Whilst every care is taken of manuscripts and visual material supplied for this magazine, the publishers and their agents accept no liability for loss or damage which may occur. Unsolicited manuscripts and visual material will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope. Opinions expressed in signed articles are not necessarily those of the editors.

Subscriptions and Advertising:

The subscription rate is $18.00 post free within Australia. Cheques should be made payable to Theatre Australia and posted to the publisher’s address.

For advertising information contact Jaki Gothard/ Debbie Cockle — Sydney Office (02) 92-5405, 14th Floor/77 Pacific Highway, Nth Sydney, NSW 2060.

Theatre Australia is published by Theatre Publications Ltd., 80 Elizabeth Street, Mayfield, NSW 2304. Telephone (049) 67-4470. Distributed by subscription and through theatre foyers etc. by Theatre Publications Ltd., and to newsagents throughout Australia by Gordon and Gotch (A’asia) Ltd., Melbourne, Sydney. Wholly Set up

by Tell & Sell Promotions, printed in Australia by Leader Publishing House. (c Theatre Publications Ltd. All rights reserved except where specified. The cover price is maximum recommended retail price only.

Registered for posting as a periodical — category B.

Robyn Archer & John Gaden in Nimrod’s Kold Komfort Kaffee.

Photo by: Robert McFarlane.

DAWN OF AN ERA P E T E R K E N N A : “The presentation of The Cassidy Album at the Adelaide Festival ended a certain period of my life. The last performance took place on my forty eighth birthday.

I wrote A Hard God in the belief that I was looking back over a life which was in the process of ending. During the previous six years 1 had been kept alive only by treatment on a kidney machine. My physical condition was now deteriorating. The death of my mother shortly after 1 completed the play decided me to go to live in Melbourne, where, for various reasons 1 stood a much better chance of getting a kidney transplant. At the hospital there the doctors persuaded me to accept my sister as a kidney donor, something 1 had previously refused to allow. With the arrangement for the operation in hand, 1 wrote Furtive Love. The operation was, in fact, a brilliant success and flooded with new blood I shot back into life and wrote An Eager Hope. Although Jo Cassidy appears in this play as a very sick man indeed, his brother Francis positively pulses with life.

I hope this is an indication of the beginning of a new period of fertile creativity for me. But 1 really do not know in which direction I want to go now. Or even if I will go on writing at all. The prospect is at once frightening and exciting.”

A STORY OF OUR TIMES P A R IS T H E A T R E C O M P A N Y : “Some of A ustralia’s leading actors, directors and designers are contributing their talent to help establish the Paris Theatre Company because they believe in a better deal for artists and audiences.

The new company will open at the Paris Theatre on 15th June with a season of Pandora's Cross, a musical play by Dorothy Flewett. As a mark of their enthusiasm and support for the project the Company will forgo wages during the four week rehearsal period. They will work for a minimum wage during the season and will share the responsibility for running the company as well as any profits from the season.

The Company is totally independent and will rely on donations for initial finance. With $ 12,500 already in hand, the same amount again will be needed to launch the first production.

Seat prices will be kept as low as possible — $5 and $7.50 — as part of a concern to make theatre going more accessible.

The Paris Company plan to make the Paris Theatre a centre for various activities, rock concerts of new wave music will continue on Saturday nights and that will be extended to premieres of new contemporary music work in conjunction with the Australian Music Centre.

Further plans are for the creation of late night cabarets.

Major productions will be Rex Cramphorn’s staging of Louis Nowra’s Visions, a black comedy set in the palaces of Lima, Patrick White’s A Cheery Soul, for which the company will be joined by Ruth Cracknell as Miss Docker, and a Christmas pantomime devised by Norman Gunston writer Bill Flarding.

Foundation members of the company are Jennifer Claire, Arthur Dignam, Robyn Nevin, John Gaden, Kate Fitzpatrick, Neil Redfern and Julie McGregor. Artistic Directors are Rex Cramphorn and Jim Sharman with Brian Thomson designing sets, Luciana Arrighi, costumes and David Reid lighting.

The aims of the Paris Theatre Company are to tell the story of our times; to give the tellers the responsibility for the way it is told; and to make the story worth the price of a ticket.”

NOW IN THE FOREFRONT ANTHONY

STEELE,

ex

A r tis t ic

D ire c to r o f th e A d e la id e F e s tiv a l o f th e A rts : “Now that the Adelaide Festival Centre’s three auditoria work at the rate of around a thousand performances a year, there has been every reason and opportunity to widen the scope of the programme of the Adelaide Festival of the Arts, making it a biennial high peak of activity in the city and taking advantage of the largely captive audience to attempt to broaden the taste and experience of the public by programming unusual repertoire which is relevant to the times in which we live.

The opinion seems to be fairly widely held (ie not just by myself!) that, of the world’s festivals which attempt to cover all aspects of the performing arts, Adelaide’s is now in the forefront. This year’s Festival will probably, like the previous two, break even financially — taking into account of course all subsidies received, both from the public and private sector.

Where the Festival goes from here is not for me to say, but will be the responsibility for the new artistic director. I hope profoundly that the Board of Governors will allow him the free rein which I have insisted upon and will not try to dilute or emasculate the content of the programme.”

SPONSOR NEEDED JO AN

B L A IR ,

M oom bs

F e s tiv a l:

“Without the help of a sponsor there’s not much hope for us. This year the State Bank has sponsored us, and it has indicated that it might help us in the future, but it’s not something we can be certain of at this stage. We certainly don’t break even on sales of tickets, but provided we can get a backer we wili certainly be continuing.

It’s more than likely that we will be able to use St Martin's Theatre on a regular basis. It has just been taken over by the State Government and is being operated by an interim committee; they have to make a report to Mr Flamer in three months time on whether it is viable. They would like to make it into a complete arts complex and have already opened St Martins Youth Arts Centre.

This year the Festival of Theatre had nine amateur groups taking part from all round Victoria. They compete for the best production, runner up, actor, actress, director and a twelve month scholarship. We opened with the Mess Hall Players’ production at Pentridge jail and they tried for runner up. The President was allowed to come and collect the prize. We don’t get a huge audience, but we’re probably about at our limit now. We keep on advertising, and being in St Martin’s is definitely a help. The Festival was great this year, with production standards very high and the organisation going very smoothly. It can only get better.

Moomba is often criticised for the low cultural level it has, but it is a festival for the people, and I think it supplies the level of culture that is demanded.”

DRAMA THE PROBLEM AREA JO A N A M B R O S E , P e rth F e s tiv a l: “It is generally agreed that the 1978 Perth Festival THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

3

was a good one. It had an excellent and highly acclaimed music programme, the response to the films, the street theatre and the art exhibitions were gratifying.

It was a marathon. There were 370 events in a month, but despite the very hot summer Western Australia has suffered this year, the public supported the Festival with enthusiasm.

David Blenkinsop, the Director, has reason to be well pleased. It is the second Festival he has organised and his programme has proved itself.

But, the problem area this year, again proved to be Drama. Last year the Festival suffered a fiasco in the Old Tote Theatre’s presentation of O’Casey's The Plough and the Stars. The opinion was then that local productions were good, and the public might be wary of paying high prices for imported theatre.

However, the pre-bookings for the Chichester Company’s Othello were excellent. But the end result was a dissatisfied and disgruntled audience. There were two difficulties. The venue chosen was the Concert Hall, because its seating capacity is 1,200 patrons. This number of seats were needed to cover costs, but without ampli­ fication much of the audience couldn't hear. In addition the production of the play was smallscale, and the fine gesture and nuance was lost beyond about the sixth row. So once again, an imported company drew the press and public’s fire.

Until Perth has a suitable theatre, importing the classics with big casts and backstage crew will be a problem. But David Blenkinsop is quite determined that Perth shall continue to have the chance to see International Drama companies.

It is too soon to say what will be done in 1979.

However plans and some decisions have already been made. A focus will be the 150th centenary celebrations in Western Australia. And the Festival will most certainly be participating in that.

To make it a really good year, let us hope that the problems David Blenkinsop has had with Drama will be solved and theatre will be a successful as the rest of his Festival programme.

A GROWING INFLUENCE_______ D A V ID BURW OOD: For an event approaching its third year, the Festival of Sydney is shaping up to be a significant stimulus to the theatre arts. With two festivals behind that hosted a range of attractions that included hundreds of free performances to the Sydney International Theatre Arts Forum, festival planners are poised to outline year three’s month long programme of opera, dance, mime, puppetry, street theatre and drama. Drawing on 1978’s successful formula that emphasised variety and accessability, the programme promises to expose even more Sydneysiders and visitors to what the city has to offer theatrically, be they regular theatre goers or that large section of the population whose contact with the theatre is minimal or non-existant.

Thus on the drawing board are plans to 4

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

encourage quality special productions in established venues by well known local and interstate companies, exploratory discussions with the other major festivals in the country to share overseas companies visiting Australia and a programme of free or assisted theatre in places that range from city parks and squares to pub courtyards and established theatres.

Building on the base laid firmly in year two will be those companies aiming productions specifically at young and family audiences seeking good entertainment in the long summer holiday. Nimrod’s outstandingly successful presentation of Treasure Island mounted on an island in Sydney Harbour is the most innovative and imaginative example. The production was seen by 11,000 people, 70% of whom were children, in a season that had a 98% attendance.

Other family attractions included pantomimes of the traditional variety, such as Peter Williams's production of Cinderella and the less traditional approach of the Producers Actors Composers Talent Co-operative with their Do It Yourself Pantomime.

At a more adult level, Nimrod premiered Rock-ola; Hilton Bonner's Godspell ran at the recently re-opened Mayfair Theatre Workshop under the direction of Geoffrey Brown presented Satyricon; the old Tote mounted The Tempest as their special festival attraction and the Australian Opera participated with their summer festival season that featured Joan Sutherland as the Merry Widow. Increasingly it is the intention of Stephen Hall, the Executive Director of the Festival, that future programmes will consist of new and interesting work produced specifically for the festival season.

But its not only the established theatre that's getting more exposure and rising to the challenge of January productions, a score of lesser known, but often talented and innovative groups were featured at the core of festivities in Festival Village, Hyde Park, where a month long programme of Community Arts hosted theatre as diverse as American puppeteer Steve Hansen, mime artist Jean Paul Bell, the NSW Theatre of the Deaf, community theatre from the suburbs like the Shopfront Theatre and Drama On Wheels and radical street theatre from the Fizzgig Clown Troupe and the New Theatre Street Theatre. In all a total of three hundred and fifty free performances were presented either in the open or in a specially erected tent theatre that could hold up to six hundred people.

The success of the village concept points to its continuance and development in year three. The Festival is working to co-operate with the Inter­ national Puppetry Festival in Tasmania next January to bring to Sydney the best in interstate acts and overseas guest artists. Also featured will be those theatrical groups from around the country that are the leaders in their field be it theatre in education, street theatre or youth drama. Dance too will once again feature as a highlight; year two saw an addition to the programme with the inclusion of a Dance Week featuring five different companies whose styles

ranged from the New Dance influence of the Melbourne based Dance Exchange to Sydney’s One Extra Dance Group and The Dance Company (NSW).

The second Festival also saw the second Sydney International Theatre Arts Forum, this year featuring overseas guests Tim Rice, Wendy Toye, Norman Newell, Richard Toeman and Stephen Oliver. The theme of the forum was Creativity in the Musical, Opera and Operetta.

All participants, from interstate, the country and Sydney itself, commented on the need to keep this internationally unique event ongoing, though attendances need to be built for future forums.

The Festival of Sydney is still young. But the progress to date is encouraging; more and more theatre companies are gearing themselves to January’s festival month and festival planners themselves are seeking the best from Australia’s theatre for the programme.

It will not be long before the month long festival is recognised as a major stimulus to the local theatre scene and increasingly a catalyst with longer term implications for productions from interstate and overseas: and that's good news for everyone involved in theatre.

GLORIA WAS A LADY B ILL O R R , D ir e c to r , M a n ly M u s ic L oft:

“Over the years one has heard many actresses referred to as the first lady of the theatre and one has thought to oneself, of the theatre, yea, lady — never. Not so with Gloria Dawn; she was first and foremost a lady. During the last seventeen years I produced her in six shows and never once in that time did I hear her lose her temper or use foul language. Not that these things alone make a lady, it was Gloria’s whole style of life that set her apart. Considerate always to her fellow performers she was a joy to work with, but while she was in the theatre her first consideration was her audience; they had paid to see her and she never let them down.

In the future, wherever there are people of the theatre, it will be argued just what was she best in? Annie Get Your Gun, A Cup o f Tea, A Bex and a Good Lie Down, Gypsy, A Hard God... you take your choice.

I think the role she was most proud of was that of a mother of four wonderful children.

They and we will miss her. She was a lady.”

Ray Stanley’s

WHISPERS RUMOURS &n PACTS

(fr-V Q In all the publicity for Mike Walsh’s Hayden Price Productions, it seems to have gone unnoticed that associated with the new company’s presentations will be Malcolm C Cooke and Associates. Malcolm, who worked for Kenn Brodziak’s Aztec Services for many years, is highly knowledgeable about show business, and undoubtedly it will be he negotiating the theatrical attractions ...

Noticing a more aggressive approach by the Trust lately? Well, it could be because Robin Lovejoy and Leonard Teale are now members of the board.

Speaking of the Trust, only recently did I learn that companies and private individuals giving it donations get a tax rebate on these.

And they can specify that such monies go into a particular company or venture. Seems like a good scheme to me, especially if the donors get publicity out of it ... After his success with the Chichester Festival Theatre Company, Robert Sturgess intends bringing Yehudi Menuhin back for another tour ... The success of Shaw’s The Apple Cart, makes me recall that some years

back John Tasker was toying with the idea of staging the play and had worked out what seemed like perfect casting at the time. Can’t remember all the names, but I do know Robert Helpmann was to be Magnus, Bettina Welch O rinthia and Don Lane the American ambassador.

For about the first time, boos were heard at, the first night of a Melbourne Theatre Company production — Massakar Reef. And obviously those boos weren’t for the first rate cast and direction. But at least one person in the audience enjoyed all the Casablanca send-up mumbojumbo up on stage; as usual playwright Buzo was in the audience laughing heartily at his own work ... John Diedrich indicates everything is fitting nicely into place for he, Caroline Gilmour and John O’May to go to London with The Twenties and All That Jazz ... Gordon Chater, enjoying the success he so richly deserves in London with The Elocution o f Benjamin Franklin, writes me that he has “had a fan letter from a twenty six year old Chinese boy, saying how much he would like to take elocution lessons on my knee!”

So it seems that American Carole Cook will be returning here to tour in the play Father’s Day. She will be remembered for appearing (and sometimes not appearing when in Sydney!) in the title role of Hello Dolly. Wonder who her understudy will be ... When that wonderful Kabuki troupe was in Melbourne, I understand representatives of it went along to inspect the Palais Theatre. Seems they might be returning around 1980-81 and already are looking for venues ... Could be Sandy Gore will be seen in Adelaide and Sydney this year now that she’s free-lancing.

Susan Penhaligon, who was so outstanding in

the TV serial Bouquet o f Barbed Wire, and has been starring in the yet-to-be seen Australian picture Patrick, couldn’t wait to get back here to promote her film Leopard in the Snow. Susan told me she loves Australia so much she would really like to tour in a play sometime. In England she is going to play Vivie in a production of Shaw’s Mrs Warren's Profession, in which Dora Bryan will be playing Mrs Warren ... English director Frank Hauser, out here to direct The Beaux Stratagem and Electro for the MTC, confesses to being a canasta freak.

He’s urgently trying to contact people with like interests.

Were there any productions or celebrations anywhere in Australia to mark the birth 150 years ago on March 20 of Henrik Ibsen? If so, I didn’t hear of them!

So that rich musical voice of the multi­ talented Micheál MacLiammoir is silent. Who can forget the impact he made on audiences here in 1964 when he toured with his one-man show, The Importance o f Being Oscar. I was associated with him when he played in Melbourne, and have never ceased to remember the wonderful theatre anecdotes he used to relate at the least provocation. Many are unprintable — even today — but he was full of tales of how he had acted as a boy with the eccentric Herbert Beerbohm Tree, playing Oliver to Tree’s Fagin, and of meeting Mrs Patrick Campbell in the wings as she was about to go on stage as Lady Macbeth, and how she had whipped a banana from her bosom, bidding him to give it to his ‘poor starved little sister’. F ortunately MacLiammoir has left us a heritage of his entertaining books and his hypnotic voice on a number of recordings, not least of all his Oscar Wilde show.

MUSICALS FOR AMATEUR SOCIETIES AND SCHOOLS J.C. Williamson Theatres Limited holds the amateur rights for many popular musicals, including great shows of the past with music by Lehar, Friml, Romberg, Jerome Kern, Victor Herbert and Lionel Monckton. Every one of these shows has been a success on the professional stage. Why not have your school or Amateur Musical Society do their own production of one of them? You can choose from many wonderful shows including the following:—

BRIGADOON THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE MAID OF THE MOUNTAINS

THE ARCADIANS THE DUCHESS OF DANZIG SALLY THE RED MILL HIGH JINKS

PAINT YOUR WAGON THE DESERT SONG THE MERRY WIDOW

MAN OF LA MANCHA THE NEW MOON OUR MISS GIBBS

THE CHOCOLATE SOLDER A COUNTRY GIRL THE FIREFLY THE GAIETY GIRL VIKTORIA AND HER HUSSAR THELILAC DOMINO VERONIQUE A WALTZ DREAM THE GEISHA FLORADORA

KATINKA GOING UP THE QUAKER GIRL WILDFLOWER VERY GOOD EDDIE

For further information contact (Mrs.) V. Burke, A. Mus. A., Amateur Rights Department, Her Majesty’s Theatre, P.O. Box K360, HAYMARKET, N.S.W. 2000. ’Phone: 212-3411.

Costumes for the above shows and many others are available from J.C. Williamson Hire Department, Cohen Place, Melbourne, 3000.

Bookings accepted 12 months in advance. For free quote ring Melbourne (03) 663 2406.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

5

Colin George

Wayne Maddern

This is a great world-class Australian Company The Advertiser

Roger Chapman 111: ¿¡Mfc

Ron Blair &

Hugh Colman

Ruth Crackneil

Leslie Dayman

Ronald Falk

(Feb—Festival) O ED IPU S (Festival) U N C LE H E C TO R AND T H E BOHEM IANS (World premiere) (April) T H E G LA SS M EN A G ER IE (May) 1 + 2 H ENRY IV (June) MARX (World premiere) (July) T H E LES D AR CY SHOW/ CED O O N A (World premiere) (August) PEER G Y N T (September) M ANUAL O F TR E N C H W A R FA R E (World premiere) (October) T H E S E R V A N T O F TW O M A S TE R S (November) CYM BELINE

T H E COM PANY Daphne Grey

Edwin Hodgeman

Brian James

Patricia Kennedy

Kevin Miles

Derek Mills

Dennis Olsen

Kevin Palmer

Marilyn Allen Paul Bertram Robin Bowering Jane Campbell Leslie Dayman Judy Davis Ronald Falk Peter Farago Neil Fitzpatrick John Francis

Michael Freundt Colin Friels Patrick Frost Michael Fuller John Gaden Mel Gibson Daphne Grey Edwin Hodgeman Brian James Des James Wayne Jarratt

Patricia Kennedy Valerie Levkowicz Chris Mahoney Kevin Miles Patrick Mitchell Dennis Moore Dennis Olsen Jacqy Phillips Tony Prehn Colin Robinson Peter Schwarz Michael Siberry Paul Sonkilla Michele Stayner Tony Strachan Linden Wilkinson

Management and Associates David Williamson

Oedipus. . . a quality rarely achieved by the other more generously funded state companies.’

A Melbourne Age

, {

pany South Australia’s State Company

Keith Micheli Interviewed by Ray Stanley

Few people, surely, would dispute my assertion that Keith Michel! is Australia’s most internationally distinguished and versatile actor today, probably of all time. With what seems like remarkable ease (but is in fact plain hard work), he has achieved the very pinnacle of success: returning in great triumph to his homeland, leading a fine English company like the Chichester Festival Theatre’s, which he himself has helped to reach new heights in the last four years as its artistic director.

At the back of it all though he still feels Australian, as he told me in his dressing room at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre one very hot afternoon just after a matinee of The Apple Cart. But could he ever return on a permanent basis?

“I would love to work here, I really would.

But, it’s a question of what one is offered”.

One had heard he had turned down the job of administrator to the Adelaide Festival Trust.

“We never exactly came to any terms. I explained my situation, which is that 1 want to keep on working in the theatre for a few more years and acting, and 1 would like to do some more directing. I hadn’t directed till I took over Chichester, and then 1 had to, and found 1 loved it. And 1 enjoyed designing — costumes and scenery — designing the whole production. This is something I find very often lacking in productions: a sort of uniformity, a concept.

And 1 would like to develop that.”

I suggested perhaps one of the national companies might work out some scheme for Michell to be a co-administrator, to be in Australia half the year, directing and acting, rather in the way Robert Helpmann did with the Australian Ballet.

Michell smiled: “That’s what I’ve always

thought to myself to be a hypothetical question... Well, nothing is impossible I suppose — and that’s what’s exciting about life.”

I queried him as to why he had chosen to play the role of Othello on the current tour when it was lago he had played in the original 1975 Chichester production. Earlier I had heard it was undecided which role he would play, that he might even alternate them.

“They wanted me to play Othello. I wanted to play Othello. It was a mutual thing. I was quite interested in doing both, but the management wanted me to play Othello only. I’m glad now that we didn’t, because our director wasn’t very well, and we just didn’t have all that much time.

We were playing The Apple Cart at night, and rehearsing during the day. I don't honestly think it would have worked out; it would have meant twice as much work for whoever was playing lago, and for me a hell of a lot of work, although I know the role of lago”.

When I suggested that, because of the way it is written, a reasonably good lago will always steal the play, unless it is turned inside out as with Olivier, Michell disagreed.

“I found lago much lighter work. 1 think people are always very surprised that lago is such a good part. They are both such good parts, but I do prefer playing Othello. I think lago is fine, it’s great fun to play — but Othello is the man who’s closest to my heart. I fi J it a wonderful part, much more rewarding to me; it might not be to someone else.

“1 think it has to do with the complete submersion you have to get; it’s not just into another character, but into a black skin as well.

And it has all that strangeness... you discover more about it every time you play it. That doesn’t always happen with a part. Also the poetry — 1 think it’s the most wonderful poetry that Shakespeare wrote for any part.”

Was he intimating Othello is his favourite Shakespearean role?

Michell laughed. “Well, the character I’m playing at the moment always is. So yes, I would say yes.

“Magnus is a great relief after playing Othello, because there are eight performances of the play a week, which is pretty gruelling. I knew it would be. It may get easier as the season goes on. Magnus used to be very tiring for me. I used to have to sleep a lot of the time when I was doing that because the brain cells.... it’s longer than Hamlet actually. It is very very very long, and very agile, mentally agile. Shaw requires cerebral energy. Othello is animal energy, you’re physically tired. But with Shaw — and certainly with Magnus — it’s mental energy.”

The Apple Cart has proved to be one of the most successful plays staged by Chichester; it played fifty performances in its own theatre, then another hundred in the West End. It did

incredibly good business and the London management was absolutely furious that it could only play a limited season because of the Australian commitment.

What classical roles would Michell still like to portray?

“I’d love to have a go at Lear, and wouldn’t mind having a go at the Scottish play, and Coriclanus is something I’ve been asked to do several times, and would like to.”

He was also asked on several occasions to play Hamlet, but only did so at the Bankside Globe in 1972, in modern dress. Strangely he has never appeared in Chekhov. And Ibsen?

“I’ve done Peer Gynt — well. I’ve sort of lived Peer Gynt. I always wanted to do Peer Gynt and never quite got down to it, but I did a radio version of it and feel I know it very well. 1 wouldn’t mind directing Peer Gynt. At times though I find some of Ibsen a bit burdensome.

Asked about appearing in contemporary plays, without any hesitation Michell replied: “I would love to do one of the Australian plays. I’d love to appear in a David Williamson play”.

Surprisingly he has not had an Australian play submitted to him, and would welcome one specially written with him in mind.

And musicals?

“I like doing musicals providing they’ve got a good story. La Mancha was a marvellous part and so, in a kind of way, was Robert Browning.

Most leading actors would give their right eye to play Browning — and then to sing him as well!”

It was probably his role in the musical Irma La Douce which Michell has played more than any other.

Impressed with the new wave of Australian films, Michell would certainly like to appear in one and says he has been approached as to whether he would, but maintains it would have to be the right subject and role. “I only hope they don’t think of me only as an English type Australian actor with my crunched up old face!”

After the Australian season he is going to take a couple of months off “just to be with the family and do some art work. It’s the sort of solitary side of me which I need, to just sit down by myself. In the theatre you’re dealing with people all the time. It’s very important, I think, for an actor to get right away and be by himself and nourish... and of course coming back here, coming back to one’s roots... I was talking to June Jago about this the other day. It’s very nourishing, it’s very good for one to be out here, because you sort of smell it, there’s a smell in the air which you miss”.

Whatever the future holds for Keith Michell, one hopes that for Australia’s sake it brings him back to this country on a more permanent basis, or at least for longer periods. He is our leading actor internationally, and has much to contribute to the performing arts in this country.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

7

Catching Up with Kate

Kate. She hopes that they will be able to generate the same kind of excitement she experienced at the Comedie Française. “My character is supposed to be very sophisticated.

It’s rather difficult with all the rhyming couplets, even though it’s been translated into a modern idiom” Kate says. To do the role to her complete satisfaction she would like a lot of time to devote to its development. “I don’t particularly like big roles really. I prefer smaller, showy ones”.

Is this because of the enormity of a lead part or the lines to be learned?

“Nô, I'm just lazy. Also I’m afraid of boring the audience when I play big parts. I’m not awfully brave. I prefer those ones where you come on, do a couple of dazzling things and look terrific most of the time. All except for one scene where you cry, wear somthing dreadful and then go home. You’re never on long enough to bore anyone”.

Kate also has an injury to her ankle which may make rehearsals and playing rather tiring.

She is hoping that an operation will not be necessary as she has a very busy time ahead. An involvement with the newly formed Paris Theatre Company in Sydney will next see her in Visions; written by Louis Nowra it will be directed by Rex Cramphorn.

Kate is also a regular on the daytime television show / / am. Other appearances on film and TV make for a busy life. Just in case you are one of those interested in actresses’ hobbies, Kate loves reading, crosswords and going to movies and restaurants. In between I guess she sleeps — if she ever has the time!

Barry Eaton Kate Fitzpatrick returns to the Old Tote Theatre Company for the first time since Patrick White’s Big Toys last year. She is playing the lead in Ted C raig’s production of The Misanthrope; a role she is looking forward to with some trepidation.

Kate saw a classical version of the play at Christmas time in Paris and was rather overwhelmed at the production by the Comedie Française. The Sydney production, though, will not be the original. “Ours is Tony Harrison’s translation, set in about 1965 at the time of Charles de Gaulle’’, Kate explained.

She also caught the London production about four years ago. (Gets around doesn’t she?) That was the successful run that starred Diana Rigg and Alec McCowen.

But it was the French production that stuck in her mind, because of the male lead. “He was dark and not traditionally handsome — but incredibly angry. He was just like a volcano and every now and then would erupt. He was just fantastic; really dangerous to watch.” These memories brought a lovely, far-away look to her face.

Barry Otto has been cast to play opposite THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Portable Lighting Controls for the Non-Professional David Bird Interest in live theatre in Australia has undergone a tremendous boom in the last ten years. During this time more than fifty major theatres have been constructed or totally renovated. In addition, a large number of

smaller theatres have sprung up in every capital city and many small towns.

One inevitable result of this growing interest in the theatre has been that more and more schools are including drama instruction in their curriculum, and new amateur dramatic societies are being formed every day. In some cases the facilities available for these non-professional activities are modern and well equipped. More usually they are quite rudimentary, due to lack of funds or space, or both. In no area is this more apparent than in stage lighting.

Lighting equipment has been a speciality of Rank Australia’s Strand Electric Division for many years. The company has supplied lighting and controls for most of the professional theatres in Australia, as well as for many amateur organisations.

Recognising the special needs of the non­ professionals, Rank is now developing and distributing low price, portable equipment, specifically intended for use by schools and small amateur groups.

The Model 3 Portable Dimmer is a compact, lightweight unit made of sheet steel and housing three independent sliding dimmers. A standard 3-in socket outlet is associated with each dimmer, so that three separate lights can be individually varied between zero and full voltage. The unit has a 10-amp fuse and a ‘power-on’ indicator light.

The power cord for the unit is also fitted with an ordinary three-pin plug; thus it can be plugged in to any standard 240 volt, 10 amp wall outlet. Each dimmer can handle up to 1000 watts, which may be one large light or several smaller ones connected via a multiple adaptor.

However, the total loading must not exceed 2500 watts, so the 1000 watt limit can only be used on two dimmers at any time, with a smaller load on the third.

Model 3 units may be purchased individually or as the Double 3, with two units fitted into a custom-made attache case. In its case, the Double 3 measures 420mm x 300mm x 105mm, and weighs 9 kg. The two units can be operated in the case by one person — the dimmer slides of each unit are conveniently arranged for single­ hand operation — or removed for use in different parts of the working area.

The Model 3, which comforms to Australian standards and is approved by the State Electricity Commission, is backed by the reputation and wide expertise of Rank Australia and its Strand Electric Division. A prototype of this equipment was exhibited and attracted considerable interest at the M elbourne conference of the National Association for Drama in Education, earlier this year.

The price for the Double 3 in its custom case is $467, exclusive of tax.

Further information maybe obtained from: Professional Services Group, Rank Australia Pty Ltd., 19Trent St., Burwood, Vic. 3125.

David Bird is National Product Manager, Lighting & Controls of Rank Australia.

Insatiability is what Kantor is really personifying.

Roger Pulvers Tadeusz Kantor, Direct­ or of Cricotz, has stunned audiences with his pro­ duction of The Dead Class, brought over for the Adelaide Festival.

In the majority of the plays of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz — the playwright that is Kantor’s primal inspiration — a certain variety of stage ghost makes an appearance. This ghost is not merely a moving white sheet, but an ordinary character who visits from the metaphysical dimension.

This is precisely, I feel, what Tadeusz Kantor himself is doing inside The Dead Class (recently seen in Adelaide and Sydney). This is what he means, when he said during a two and a half hour interview (for Broadband), ‘We do not play Witkiewicz. We play with Witkiewicz!’

Most critics called him a conductor, a director-on-stage who calls the shots as they come to him every night. But this is Kantor’s theatrical prank. (Witkiewicz was, after all, a gloating prankster.) He is actually one of the actors, the super-teacher in the classroom. He is acting out his conception of Gordon Craig’s Uber-marionette. His ‘directing’ of the play as it unfolds is an act. He convinces us that he is removed from the locus of action and, by doing so, appears to be a dimension removed.

Kantor has produced only two plays not directly inspired by Witkiewicz. His first, an underground presentation of Slowacki’s Balladyna during the war years, was staged in a flat across from German Occupation offices. ‘At any moment’, he said, ‘our bodies could have been soaking in blood'.

It was at that time that Kantor the artist and sculptor decided — and he did decide these things — to shift the focus of influence on himself from Malevich and the Constructivists to the native Polish artistic tradition, especially to Wyspianski the Krakow artist, playwright and intellectual of the turn of the century. This is not only the ‘Polish tradition; it is the Krakow tradition, a kind of romantic catastrophism, that at any moment the world may disappear or be beseiged: Krakow, the great cultural and academical centre, surrounded on all sides by the darkest forces and the myths of the peasantry of Galicia.

The line leading to Kantor, then, starts essentially at Wyspianski. Then to Witkiewicz, whose ‘purified nonsense’ and acute senseless violence is always present. Next, Bruno Szulc,

writer of genius of the thirties who was shot in the face by a Nazi policeman on the street for no reason at all. Mira Rychlicka, who plays the old man in the wc in The Dead Class, is Szulc’s comic father-figure. Imagine a zany Jewish dad with hair-brain schemes, a character who would be likely, say, to emerge were Kafka translating Babel.

The final influence, and one that Kantor talks little about, is Witold Gombrowicz. In fact, The Dead Class may well have been the classroom in Gombrowicz’s magnificent novel of the thirties, Ferdydurke. In Ferdydurke, some thirty-yearolds return to their childhood classroom to re­ enact the practical jokes and selfish horesplay of adolescence. The bare bum, exhibited by the man who stands on his desk in The Dead Class, is the very symbol of Gombrowicz’s novel: that the bum has replaced the face as the symbol of humankind’s expression.

‘Literature is the world in the beginning’, said

Kantor, the super-puppet.

Kantor, ‘but the scenic action of the play is always absolutely separate. It is like two parallel roads. One is the text; the other is the action itself. In my productions these are always kept separate. Often the scenic action runs ahead of the text. When I did Witkiewicz’s The Water Hen in 1967, I didn’t introduce any part of the text until well into the piece. ‘What is it, then, that keeps the two on track, so to speak? It is Tension. The tension that flows between the two as a charged current’.

What does Kantor mean by Tension? I believe that he means the use of visual symbols and audial clues — sometimes an object like a strange bicycle, sometimes an enigmatic wordimage, a nonsense-word repeated as an incantation, or an everyday phrase from our childhood which is used as a whip on the conscience. These all act as signposts on the road of the scenic action, tying it to similar markings in the text. If the audience is familiar with the text, as a Polish audience would be, all the

deeper will be their grasp. If not, the scenic action stands alone at all times as a visual and verbal presentation, the play itself. This is what makes Polish theatricality unique, the independence of the scenic action as an entity in itself. In most other countries, drama leans heavily on the written text; the play is an interpretation of a script. The good Polish production is not an interpretation of a text, but a text’s total scenic equivalent. It may be brash, but not far-fetched, to divide all theatre into Polish and non-Polish!

‘My theatre is not “professional”’, says Kantor, smirkiijg. ‘After all, I’ve only had six premieres in my life. By the definition given out by the Ministry that dispenses the funds, that disqualifies me as a professional!’

Kantor’s work-method is unusual, even for Poland. His troupe comes together rarely, only when he has a new workable idea. Rehearsals go on for months. The show is put on in a converted 14th century dungeon in Krakow. It is the peculiar atmosphere of his city that nourishes his drama, not tolerant Polish subsidisers. Had Kantor been born in Cracow Queensland (pop.- 11), he would hardly have been able to survive the trip to Sydney. Our sibsidy schemes allow only for what Kantor calls ‘professional’ theatre.

During a long speech in The Space in Adelaide, Kantor spoke of his ideas of the early sixties. ‘And I say that the theatres are no place to present plays; and the museums and galleries no place to hang pictures!’

Everybody applauded. So did I. Then he added, ‘Of course, I don’t believe this now. I am just trying to be chronological for you’. My face turned very red. That is Kantor. The total commitment to an idea, taken by him to the limit, then dropped when he has explored it, in favor of a new dramatic concept.

His new concept is what he calls the theatre of death. He acts it out himself in The Dead Class as Witkiewicz’s ghost. Here is where he combines his own idea with Gordon Craig’s Uber-marionette. Craig saw the super-puppet as the original inspiration for theatre: that actors are people who try to dress, live, and act like the puppet. Kantor sees the Original Actor as an individual who left the first commune. When everybody was part of the group there was no distinction between spectator and actor. When the single individual left the group the others watched him. He took the responsibility for his own death onto himself rather than see it ritualised by the group. ‘Not only was this the first actor’, said Kantor. ‘He was the first intellectual!’

At one moment in The Dead Class, a character screams out, i feel Insatiability!’

Insatiability — W itkiewicz’s word Nienasycenie — is what Kantor is really personifying. For both Witkiewicz and Kantor, it means the human inability to understand the real question of existence; and the excruciating attempts to demonstrate this to others using the stage as a representation of the brain, inside-out.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

9

10

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

“it had a dying fall... ’tis not so sweet now as it was before”

The Twelfth Night Traumas assessed by Colin Robertson

AND HEROINES Colin R obertson looks at the history of B r is b a n e ’s T w e lfth N ig h t T h e a tr e C om pany.

Colin R obertson is a freelance w riter and Q u e e n s la n d th e a tr e c ritic fo r T h e A ustralian O n the m orning of C hristm as Eve 1977 the com m ittee of B risbane’s Tw elfth Night T h eatre w alked on stage an d (in a scene which would have been sub-titled “ C on­ fro n tatio n ” h ad it been an old silent movie) fired the rem aining m em bers of the production team .

A rtistic D irector Joan W halley had already resigned although h er resignation officially did not take effect until 31st D ecem ber.

The B risbane press quoted one of the five, Jerem y M uir-Sm ith, as saying the whole thing was bloody stupid, an d th at given the money, he could m ake the th eatre a going concern. A view which apparently was not shared by the com m ittee because M uir-S m ith was one of the applicants for the position of artistic d ir e c to r . T h e c o m m itte e e v e n tu a lly decided to replace this post with a freelance artistic consultan t Bill R edm ond from the O ld Tote T heatre in Sydney.

A lthough the ap pointm en t of a freeland artistic consultant was u nconstitutional; there was no suggestion th a t M uir-Sm ith was in com petant in his work. He had directed one of the few successes for Tw elfth N ight in 1977 (The W inslow Boy) and in fact everyone acknow ledged the great am o u n t of work an d devotion to Tw elfth N ight displayed by all the sacked production team .

T he fact was there was simply no money left to pay a p erm an en t staff an d given the insane an d chaotic m ethods of funding the arts in Q ueensland where the State G overnm ent g ran t is on a fiscal year and the A ustralia Council money is calculated on a calendar year—som ething h ad to be done and quickly.

Rightly or wrongly the com m ittee’s actions were not appreciated by Joan W halley or by Tw elfth N ight founder and p atro n R hoda Felgate who felt th a t the m em bers were not kept in the picture and th a t scant regard was p aid to the forty year

old trad itio n s of Twelfth N ight by such p recip itate action. Looking a t th e situation from the outside however it is difficult to see w hat else the com m ittee could have done, especially at C hristm as; the season when A u stralia closes down for a m onth or so an d people are h ard to contact.

At the tim e of w riting the rift betw een Joan W halley an d com m ittee president M arie W atson Blake is sadly wide a n d the auditions conducted by Bill R edm ond after which local actors were told th a t the com pany would be using southern talen t h as b ro u g h t sharp reaction from well know n th e a tre people like N .I.D .A . g ra d ­ u ate Ron Finnery. Finney was quoted as saying th a t the original concept of Twelfth N ight was th a t of a com pany which provided speech an d d ram a training, recognised young talent, saw th a t talen t th ro u g h w orkshop on to the stage an d prom oted local acting ability. B ut the com m ittee says the m ain aim m ust now be to m o u n t some professional productions which will bring back the audiences and the subscribers and th u s a ttra c t more subsidies. T hen they can move back to the encouragem ent of local talen t an d more tow ards Tw elfth N ight’s original aim s.

A gain from the outside looking in —it is easy to sym pathise with b o th points of view, b u t finally it seems th a t young talen t w on’t have m uch use for a d arkened th eatre n o r one which houses an o th er G overnm ent D epartm ent.

As things stand, Bill R edm ond has tak en over as freelance artistic co nsultant a n d will p resent R a ttig a n ’s In Praise o f Love on 3rd May. M ark Johnson has tak en over as G eneral M anager. Johnson is a forty year old E nglishm an who has plenty of experience in th eatre and has recently been assistant a d m in istrato r at the O ld Tote. Nobody has yet pointed out th a t the O ld T ote has not exactly been a b lu ep rin t for success, b u t in case they do let it be said th a t the O ld Tote is an o th er story and th a t m ost people feel the two good things in the new deal are the quality of the appointees.

T he Tw elfth N ight T h eatre com plex is situ ated ab o u t a mile from the h ea rt of B risbane in Bowen Hills. It is a pic­ tu resque little building in d ark brick containing a four h u n d red seat th eatre, a

re sta u ra n t an d a dow nstairs club. T he original intention was th a t the club and the re sta u ra n t would help provide incom e to service the m ortgage on the half million dollar b u ild in g —one of the first of its kind in A ustralia.

Tw elfth N ight T h eatre C om pany began in 1936 an d its nam e is not a Shakes­ p earian allusion b u t a reference to the fact th a t th e ir plays began on the tw elfth day of the m onth. R hoda Felgate ran a school of speech an d d ra m a on W ickham T errace an d with fifty m em bers, p u t on plays at the old E m pire C ham bers then the Princess T h eatre in South B risbane. L ater they rented w hat h ad been an old church and Gowrie H all becam e their hom e. Twelfth N ight has always been som ething of an innovator an d B risbane peqple will rem em ber th eir being throw n out of the A lbert H all by the M ethodist elders for th eir p roduction of W h ite’s H am F uneral which contained a sim ulated rape scene.

Strangely enough the C hurch eventually sold the lan d on condition a th eatre was in corporated into the new insurance building. T h u s the State G overnm ent Insurance Office acquired a th eatre and it was Joan W halley’s suggestion th a t the Q ueensland T heatre C om pany be form ed to occupy it. Tw elfth N ight also did the fam ous N orm a n d A h m e d by Buzo which caused actor Norm Staines to be arrested by those well known arb iters of the public ta ste — the Q ueensland Vice Squad. T his was in 1967 and when the case was throw n out of the Suprem e C ourt a new era for freedom of speech began in th eatre, not only in Q ueensland b u t all over A ustralia.

O ne of Tw elfth N ight’s strong supporters over the issue was opposition leader Bill H ayden.

But th a t’s ju m p in g the years, because it was back in 1959 th a t R hoda Felgate asked Joan W halley to take over as artistic director. Joan felt th a t she w asn’t ready and instead went to Sydney to lecture at N .I.D .A . T he speech and d ram a school continued to tu rn out young hopefuls.

Barry Creyton, Rowena W allace, Carol Burns, Judy M cG rath were some of the subsequent lum inaries who em erged.

Eventually Joan W halley cam e b ack to the fold. (She still refers to the Twelfth N ight founder as Miss Felgate.) Tow ards the end THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY I97S

II

Twelfth Night Stage and Auditorium. Photo: Richard Stringer. of the sixties B rian Sweeney en tered the Tw elfth N ight story in earnest.

B rian Sweeney is now ch airm an of the A ustralia Council T h eatre B oard a n d is a m an of vast enthusiasm s. You can tak e Sweeney lots of ways, you can like him or hate him b u t you c an ’t ignore him . Ask any re sta u ra te u r who ru n s out of D om Perignon while Sweeney is thirsty a n d find out th a t he is a m an who is n o t easily discouraged. Joan W halley tells of the day he sat at her desk and picked up a photo of her in profile which em phasised a ra th e r large nose. “ Jo an ” he said “ th a t nose has g otta go.” Give me the phone. It was ten o ’clock at night b u t no worry to Sweeney who dialled the hom e n u m b er of a leading B risbane plastic surgeon. T he surgeon’s wife answ ered an d was told ab ru p tly by Sweeney th a t Joan W halley’s nose h ad gotta go. Sweeney h ad no tim e for involved explanations. A nd go the W halley nose did, to be replaced by a snappy shorter version w ith w hich Joan is delighted.

Sweeney decided th a t w hat the Tw elfth N ight T h eatre C om pany needed was its own com plex an d with his vast business contacts, his incredible generosity and goodwill he set about m aking the dream come true. T he then L iberal Party T reasu rer G ordon C halk played fairy godfather w ith a loan of $250,000 a n d with a strong ground swell of public goodwill and private generosity the th eatre opened in F ebruary, 1971. They were heady days for Tw elfth N ight. T he Q ueensland T h eatre C om pany was still in its infancy an d everyone was delighted w ith architect Vitaly G zell’s design. B ut if there were no cracks in the building there were plenty in the relationships betw een those resp o n ­ sible. From the outset Sweeney claim ed th a t once the building was there the people would su p p o rt the th eatre. Joan W halley took the opposite view th a t the people would say “ O kay the building is up so you don’t need help any m ore” ; it seems am azing b u t in dear old adolescent 12

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

B risbane th a t’s exactly w hat happened.

T he com pany h ad to service a h alf million d o lla r o v e r d r a f t a n d w ith fin a n c ia l pressures m ounting, Joan W halley alien­ ated m any of h er stau n ch est supporters.

B rian Sweeney resigned from Twelfth N ight T h eatre com m ittee along with several others in 1975 an d although his relationship w ith Joan W halley has d eter­ iorated som ew hat, he is still one of h er g ratest ad m irers an d vice versa. “ T here ought to be a statu e of Joan in every th eatre in A u stralia” he says, “ She is one of th e a tre ’s great m a rty rs.”

In 1976 after n o t m uch joy with either the club or the re sta u ra n t the G overnm ent stepped in, bo u g h t b ack the b uilding for a mere $180,000 an d ap p o in ted the Twelfth N ight T h eatre Building T ru st to ru n it. In D allas T exas w here a sim ilar thing h ap p en ed , th e th eatre was given back to the com pany at a n om inal ren t. The N im rod T h eatre pays no ren t although no one would deny the w onderfully talen ted people they have a t the helm or quibble at th eir success.

Tw elfth N ight was still paying large rents to the G overnm ent an d Joan W halley was dealing with dry as d u st accountants who she felt did not u n d erstan d . T hen she h ad a cerebral haem m h o rrh ag e. In 1977 pro d u ctio n sta n d ard s slipped to a low ebb with program m es p rin ted on roneoed sheets a n d the stage som etim es unsw ept.

D efeat lu rk ed ro u n d Tw elfth N ight like H a m le t’s ghost.

W hich brings us to the present. Joan W halley has recovered, b u t is b itte r about the way things have gone in the last few m onths. T he Building T ru st is trying to in terest th e Q ueensland G overnm ent and particu larly new M inister for C ulture Tom Newberry in having the W orks D e p a rt­ m e n t m a in ta in th e b u ild in g . M a rk Johnson is trying to get him self a reasonable office and co-ordinate the totally inefficient telephone system, am ong three th o u san d oth er things. Bill R edm ond

is trying to m o u n t some professional prod u ctio n s. T he com m ittee are trying to get new subscribers an d keep th e old ones happy a n d inform ed. T here are no villains in the Tw elfth N ight Story. Only heroes an d heroines a n d some tragic m is­ u n d erstan d in g s.

W h a t should h ap p en ideally is th a t the G overnm ent should eith er give Tw elfth N ight b ack th eir b uilding or at least charge a reasonable rent; Joan W halley should realise th a t the com m ittee and especially p resid en t M arie W atson Blake wish h er well. She should herself get back on th e com m ittee w here she should be m ade welcome. M ark Johnson should talk often w ith Q TC artistic d irector Alan E dw ards an d find o u t w hat ticks in Q ueensland th eatre politics. E dw ards has been a g reat su p p o rter of Tw elfth N ight T h eatre a n d realises th a t B risbane m ust have an alternative professional com pany.

Newly ap p o in ted artistic d irector of the Speech a n d D ra m a School Jane A tkins m ust continue h er great w ork w ith the children an d the n am e should not be changed to the Twelfth N ight Y outh T h eatre, w hich has been suggested.

T he com m ittee should redouble their efforts to raise money th ro u g h su b ­ scriptions o r any oth er m eans. T alented people like Ron Finney an d others who hold opposite views should be positively encouraged to help tow ards th e ultim ate goal of a second profession il th eatre com pany which can com pete w ith the highly successful Q ueensland T heatre C om pany. T here is an ab u n d ance of a m a te u r th eatre com panies here already.

A nd w hen all th a t h ap p en s we can get b ack to seeing some w onderful th eatre at T w elfth N ight. B rian Sweeney should be placed at the b a r to personally supervise a few bottles of D om Perignon an d in the early h o u rs we’ll sit b ack an d not fall asleep w hen he recites T S Elliot.

Katharine Brisbane looks at the 1978 Adelaide Festival of the Arts

THE BEST FESTIVAL YET The general comment around Adelaide has been that it was the best Festival yet.

It is easy to forget, of course. I have been to every Festival since 1968, and certainly I remember such excitements of other years like the Royal Shakespeare Company’s breathtaking A Winter's Tale and Twelfth Night in 1970; the amazing promotion of the Jesus Christ Superstar concert perform ance in 1972; local performances by the South Australian Theatre Company and New Opera in 1974 of Esson's The Bride o f Gospel Place and Janacek’s The Excursions o f Mr Broucek — and so on. But for a Festival of surprises, in the small things as well as the great, I do not remember a better Festival.

Nor a calmer one.

It is having the Festival Centre as a focus that makes the difference, of course. The organisers have now spent a couple of festivals settled into the building and audiences and visitors have become accustomed to the buzzing box office,

the crowded bistro and bar areas, the open air performances in the grounds and the complex of marquees in the gardens across King William Road which marked Writers’ Week. Even before the programme entered its third and final week the director, Anthony Steele, had announced that box office receipts had reached the sixty per cent break-even point and that the only loss the Festival Trust had taken had been on a couple of pop concerts included against his better judgement.

Certainly all the major events had been solidly booked, some in advance of opening. It was a personal triumph for Steele, whose last Festival as director it is. Like those before him, he has had no easy time.

Big names this year included Sir Michael Tippett, whose The Midsummer Marriage was the grand opening event; Tanya Moseiwitsch, who designed the Oedipus costumes; and the stars of the Kabuki Theatre of Japan. But for me

Cricot 1Ts The Dead Class.

the excitement of surprise was in the smaller theatres where one really felt the straining to capacity.

The undoubted coup of the Festival was Tadeusz Kantor’s Cricot 2 company from Cracow. Kantor is one of those elusive and uncompromising geniuses which Poland seems to produce, who, regardless of the conventions and pressures of life, pursue an aesthetic with a single-mindedness any capitalist society would regard as simply eccentric.

Kantor is an artist who in the ’30s and '40s was a radical surrealist. His life has been devoted to the concept of matter and movement and the objects we use to defend ourselves from the terror and vulgarity of the material world. He was wrapping up objects in the name of art long before Christo.

His The Dead Class, performed by what he calls the Theatre of Death, is a natural progression in his painter’s study of the body as

Photo: Dalman and Smith THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

13

matter in movement. The scene is a schoolroom, with ancient benches and fusty broken books.

The students are for the most part equally old and fusty, with grey chalky faces and moving rustily, like puppets. “The first time you see a dead man is the first time you see a man”, Kantor has said. The incidents of group activity which make up the play miraculously awaken us to those mundane functions by which we sustain life. The sprightly figure of Kantor himself, his brown face and black velvet jacket gleaming amid the dust, moves among the figures, co­ ordinating and directing them, a vivid reminder of what it is to be alive.

Philippe Genty in his black velvet suit gave the same vivid impression when in view of the audience he conducted a pas de deux with a tragic Pierrot marionette. As the knowledge that he is being manipulated dawns upon the doll, he breaks the strings one by one until he is left a motionless heap, gathered up at the finish with infinite tenderness by Genty. This remarkable French puppet company has sophistication and dry wit as well as an original skill to which audiences responded in ovations. They metamorphose inanimate objects with masterly

manipulation. Invention reached surreal levels at times; for example a feather boa becomes a woman being photographed, the photographs break up into a corps de ballet which by degrees lose their knickers, then their legs ... and so on.

Philippe Genty was followed at the Arts Theatre by Steve Berkoff's East, intended to be the focus of the Festival’s last week and the cause of the biggest of Anthony Steel’s headaches. News of the 'punk' play, aimed at frontally assaulting us with the true depths of depravity in the East End of London these days, was enough to have the Opposition spokesman on the Arts, Mr Hill, call for Steele’s resignation.

Instead (of course) the season was booked out.

It is an oddly unfinished play — and indeed it is hard for a critic to justify it as art when its entrepreneur is flashing its private parts across the press by way of promotion. In fact, the play reminded me of nothing more than C J Dennis dirtied up, with its comic-naive Shakespearean doggerel and its stoushing and obsession with women. It has many joyful surprises in the episodic way it moves from scene to scene, depicting incidents in the sex and money absorbed lives of Mike and Les; and there is

Kris McQuade and Jaki Weaver in Nimrod’s R ock’ola.

14

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Photo: Peter Holderness.

poignancy in the hopeless desire for better things expressed by the mother and the girl in the play.

The whole does, 1 suppose, reach new heights of crudity, but these and the rest of the play are finally forgettable because Berkoff himself appears to have no point of view. The characters remain archetypes without the individuality to arouse pity or horror; it is the style of the actors — casual, muscular and bold — that gives the evening its quality.

The style has something in common with Tim Gooding's Rock-ola taken to Adelaide by the Nimrod Theatre. Under the energies of the actors the show has pulled together into a pretty impressive piece of fantasy. Rock-ola's central theme is an inspired one — the idea of the refuse of the rock and roll generation taking a kamikaze Bight to bomb out in Rushcutters Bay where once stood the Sydney Stadium.

And the debris of that disaffected decade is abundantly littered through the language and the music. The play’s strength is its exuberance and nostalgia, its weakness is that it takes itself too seriously. Despite the marvellously comic energies of Kris McQuade as a rocker who has hit the other side of the hill, the script exhausts the audience too early with its barrage of words.

It was only this, it seemed to me, that stopped the show being a winner.

By coincidence on the fringe the Stage Company at the Sheridan Theatre had another piece of nostalgia for the 60s, Let's Twist Again,

by Rob George. This play has had a chequered history, having been scheduled for performance by the SATC some years back, and the script certainly shows commercial potential. The setting is a country dance hall where a group of former tearaways have gathered for a picnic to go over old times. It turns out that for the leader the search for his lost youth is more than a game and the play ends in sudden violence. Brian Debnam and the cast make a good fist of the work with resources available; more luxurious design could have made more of the movement in and out of reality, and a batty woman caretaker who gives a lift to the middle of the play disappointingly disappears without notice.

But it still looks a promising piece.

Adelaide, in fact, looks as though it has taken over from the eastern States as a centre for alternative theatre. Troupe, who presented at their Red Shed a sketch about the founding of Adelaide, D on’t Listen to Gouger, by David Allen, was original in its approach to an old subject and offered some splendid acting. Icon Theatre's production of Steve Spears' There Were Giants in Those Days had some good acting going for it too, though I doubt that the revival of this piece of Spears juvenilia has done much for his present reputation.

Altogether Focus, the alternative festival, had some 112 events on which my token visits could make hardly a mark.

The South Australian Theatre Comany’s contribution to the festival was a serious and satisfying production by Colin George of Sophocles’ two plays, Oedipus the King and

Oedipus at Colonus. The Moseiwitsch style, especially in connection with the Greeks, one must place in the category of museum theatre these days; but that is not to dismiss her genius.

The opening scene against Richard Roberts’ starkly modernist set, in which the blackened bodies of dead children serve to heighten the despair of the famished people of Thebes, has an expressionist impact. Oedipus the King is familiar to most theatregoers but it was a rare treat to see the second play. Oedipus the King’s theme is physical and temporal pride and power: in Oediups at Colonus the writing is spiritual to an almost ethereal degree. As the King fights the will of the gods in the first play, so he submits, body and soul, in the second and in reward is received, body and soul, by them. The play is trium phantly interpreted by the cast, particularly Dennis Olsen as Oedipus.

Of a different nature entirely, though also on the theme of suffering and the gods, is the black American show, For Colored Girls... Who Have Considered Suicide.../When the Rainbow is Enuf. This collection of poems and prose for seven rainbow-coloured women by Ntozake Shange is a touching and exquisitely presented piece which I think deserves deeper attention than it generally received here.

The cast was recruited for the Australian tour and on opening night in Adelaide were nervous of their first audience. They spoke too fast and too softly in a too-large theatre; and their unfamiliar rhythms were for a while a problem to the audience. For me, anyway, it was difficult to come to grips with Shange’s very personal message of desperation, awareness and hope for the black women of America. The whole is deeply felt by the cast, who speak with the author in dance, song and monologue, telling a painful story of misplaced love and sacrifice in a man's world. They end on a determined but ambivalent note with the chorus: “1 found God in myself.”

The Kabuki, on the other hand, was more a diplomatic exchange of views and postcards than of mutual understanding. The company presented two pieces, the first a short dramatic sequence from the five-act epic Yoshitsume Senbon Sakura, in which a fox — a magic creature in Japanese mythology — disguises himself as a servant of Prince Yoshitsume in order to retrieve his wife’s hand drum, made from the skin of the fox’s parents. The story gives occasion for one actor (in this case Jitsukawa Enjaku III) to play the true and false servant and the fox in a series of lightning changes. Tokyo is accustomed to more colourful and athletic performances from younger casts and other incidents containing disguises, murders, battles and suicides might have appeared less mysterious — and indeed less effete — to an Australian audience than this one. One suspects that such overseas tours are retirement bonuses for those at the top of the Kabuki heirarchy.

Sumidagawa was a better choice in that it is a whole work, and satisfying both musically and

in the refinement of its staging and emotional expression. It is a dance drama based on an old Noh play about a woman’s grief-stricken search for her kidnapped son, was performed equisitely in that mewing manner by Nakamura d aem on VI — and yet again there was a self-conscious awareness of the perfection.

A good part of the trouble in bringing to Australia the classical drama of any country is that one leaves behind the environment from which it springs. The presence of an audience familiar with the art is the best guide for the stranger to an understanding. An unfamiliar theatre in an unfamiliar country with an eager but uncomprehending audience, is not the best atmosphere for any artist. But it is better than nothing and the answer is not to have less of experiences like the Kabuki, but more. On the whole, however, I think I enjoyed the short open air rough, indeed primitive, performance by the Chhau masked dancers of Bengal. They performed their versions of incidents from the Ramayana with a sense of spontaneous fun that might have been a dress-up party while the audience squatted on the amphitheatre steps.

The SATC broke new ground by presenting a children’s play as a major event in their Playhouse — Uncle Hector and the Bohemians,

commissioned for the occasion from Anne Harvey. It is a very traditional style of play about a comical family on a journey to meet magical animals, which made the most of the staging opportunities provided by the theatre — I think my main criticism was that the two children in the cast have almost no influence upon the action of the play. There were many shows I did not see in my time there — some because bookings were too heavy, like Robyn Archer’s After Dark Club show, which became spontaneously a tour de force of the festival; and the English comedian Chris Langham’s zany late night performance. Peter Kenna’s The Cassidy Album gave the weight of real drama and narrative to the third week of a programme overall noted for its choice of out-of the mainstream work. (I discuss this elsewhere in this issue.) Some shows came and went too quickly, like The Bread and Puppet Theatre presented by a group of Australians under the tuition of Peter Schumann, founder of the American Group. One or two, as always happens did not come at all.

But on the whole for sheer quality and abundance I do not remember a better festival — and that is an achievement in a show that has been going eighteen years.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

15

ROSS THORNE

JiMbcuiwës S&s t ÇJkmtm (PART!)

Olympic Theatre 1855. A scene from Macbeth with G V Brooke (right) as Macbeth, and R Younge.

In 1834/5 M elbourne was unofficially settled by H enty an d B atm an; in 1842 the tow n saw its first official th eatrical perform ance in a tim b er shed which possessed the ubiquitous title, T h eatre Royal.

M elbourne was fo rtu n ate to have possessed an Irish im m ig ran t who, after arriving in 1841 and becom ing a leading jo u rn alist, developed by the m id-sixties an increasing concern with the preservation of the then vanishing history of th e early s e ttle m e n t.

U n d e r th e nam e of “ G arryow en” , E d m u n d F in n chronicled an historical, anecdotal an d personal account of the town an d its people from 1835 to 1852. He describes the two earliest theatres, the actor-m anagers who ra n them an d finally dwells at some length on G eorge C oppin, the first of the big to u ring actor-m anagers to organise th eatre in A ustralia.

nig h t w hen G eorge B uckingham began b ra n d ish in g a dagger at the audience a “ burly loon in the front of the p it declared he would p u n ch B u ckingham ’s head, an d th e en rag ed acto r solemnly vowed ‘he would leap dagger and all down the oth er fellow’s th ro a t” . T here were missiles throw n at actors from th e audience and, in co u n ter a ttack , th re a ts were m ade of

storm ing the dress circle by the com pany, w ith occasionally the en tertain m en t in the a u d ito riu m rivalling th a t on the stage. In 1844, w hen the Pavilion was virtually b a n k ru p t, C harles W entw orth treated a w om an, said to be his wife, to an outing; b o th were in a forw ard state of in ebriation when a q u arrel broke o u t betw een them in the gallery. “ W entw orth set to th rash in g

Finn gave the dim ensions of th e Royal, Pavilion, V ictoria, as it was variously know n in its short life, as 65 by 35 feet. It contained a p it an d a su rro u n d in g dress circle of boxes which was con stru cted so low (probably in the style of an E nglish provincial G eorgian theatre) th a t th e m ore affluent classes could lean over and “ b o n n et” p atro n s in the pit, th a t is, p ush their h ats down over their eyes. A k ind m annered pitite, upon rem oving his h at and showing a b ald pate, would frequently have his denuded dom e m ade th e targ et of ca ta rrh a l expectorations. T here was also in the accom m odation of the th e a tre a gallery m ade up of a circular row of sm all pens arrived a t by a ladder-like stair.

This Pavilion T heatre, rocking in the wind, leaking in the rain, was a sm all house ru n by a consortium of am ateu rs (the only system of m anag em en t by which it could o btain a licence). Its perform ances were the scene of regular u p ro a r a n d ruffianism with actors having to w alk out of role to abuse an unruly audience. O ne 16

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Queen’s Theatre (1845). The theatre building was much improved upon the original Melbourne theatre, but the audience behaviour remained much the same.

the fair one, an d she nailed him , like a wild cat, ab o u t the th ro at. He was h alf choked, an d to w ard off death by asphyxia h a d her up on the p a ra p e t in the act of pitching her over into the pit, when he was pounced upon by Chief C onstable S ugden...”

T he Pavilion was not relicensed after A pril 1845. O n the 21st of th a t m o n th a new th eatre was opened—T he Q u een ’s T h eatre Royal. It was a “ plain, su b ­ stantial, brick, shingle-roofed building, w ith not attem p t at external arch itectu ral o rn am en tatio n ” , situated a t th e so u th ­ west corner of Q ueen an d Little Bourke Streets. It was slightly larger th a n the Pavilion, being 75 by 40 feet, holding during a capacity benefit perform ance 943 persons. T he stage would have cu t off betw een 30 to 35 feet from the long dim ension; a contem porary new spaper gave the p it as only 37 by 25 feet, yet at th a t benefit it held 453 bodies. T he interior design by architects C harles Laing and G eorge W h arto n , was criticised by being vulgar, “outre in design a n d crude in execution. T he proscenium was an ellip­ tical arch, supported on pilasters, and surm oun ted by the Royal A rm s, whilst there was a grotesque attem p t to construct niches, o u t of which leered figures said to represent Aeschylus, E uripides, an d a couple of unrecognisable m agnates of rep u ted m ythological anteced en ts.”

T he com pany at the Q u een ’s was fair b u t the w eather was so exceedingly poor as to deter the m ost ard en t playgoers; when the w eather brightened so too did the box office takings. T hen there arrived a more illum inated th eatrical in the form of

G eorge C oppin. C oppin h a d form ed a com pany in L aunceston after having played in Sydney an d H o b art. T he T asm a n ia n com pany lan d ed in M elbourne on June 14th, 1845 an d first p erform ed at the Q u een ’s on the 21st. They, particularly M r an d M rs Coppin, were a trem endous success: on 3rd July in the farce W inning a H u sb a n d M rs C oppin su stain ed eight different ch aracters “ in very superior style” . T he C oppins rem ained at the Q u een ’s in M elbourne u ntil A ugust, 1846 w hen they moved to A delaide. A fter losing his wife a n d a fortune in A delaide, George C oppin retu rn e d to the stage, for th e m ost p a rt a t Geelong, then went to E ngland, only to re tu rn to M elbourne in 1855 to settle. A nd to b ring w ith him his own p re fab ricated theatre!

Before this event there were two oth er houses built: there was the predecessor of th e Princess, Astley’s A m ph ith eatre (to be detailed in an o th er article), an d an o th er T h eatre Royal which opened betw een Sw anston an d Russell Streets in Bourke Street on July 16th, 1855, only fourteen days before C oppin’s p refab ricated iron O lym pic T h eatre p resented its first d ram atic season.

T he Royal was b u ilt by John B lack to the plan s of J R Burns. T he fronting hotel an d th e a tre h a d a depth of over 300 feet to Little B ourke Street; th e au d ito riu m and stage, in th e ir dim ensions, were equal to the equivalent at L ondon’s Convent G ard en or D rury Lane T h eatres of the tim e. Its four levels seated 3,000 persons in typically cram p ed 19th century conditions.

A lthough the populatio n h a d grown

considerably due to the V ictorian gold rush, M elbourne could not find 8,000 pairs of b u tto ck s every evening to sit in its now four theatres.

In O ctober 1855 John Black went insolvent a n d the b u ild er of Astley’s auctioned off his new am p h ith eatre. The lights of th e Q u een ’s flickered and sp u ttered to p e rm an en t d arkness in 1856 b u t C oppin took over Astley’s for vaude­ ville in 1855 an d form ed a p artn ersh ip with th e trag ed ian G ustavus Brooke to buy the lease on the Royal, re-opening it in June 1856 with She Stoops to Conquer.

T h e a m p h i th e a t r e w as r e n a m e d P rincess’s in 1859 a n d th e sm aller capacity Olympic was found re d u n d a n t so C oppin h ad it converted to T u rk ish b ath s which were m ore financially successful th a n his th eatres in the depression of 1860. (D uring m id 1850’s there was also a strange circus tent-like structure, the Sale de V alentino, which was only licensed for m usical entertain m en t.)

T he b uilding of the Olym pic, p erhaps m ore th a n any oth er act d em onstrated C oppin’s flare for adventurous entrep reneurialship an d his own confidence in his ability as m anager. Being a well respected actor-m anager in E ng land he could b eat his A u stralian opposition in o b taining quality perform ers, however not everyone walks down th e street to buy a th eatre off the shelf a n d ship it across the w orld (as well as signing up a leading actor for 10,000 P ounds for 200 perform ances)!

The m an u factu rers of th e th eatre, E. & T. Bellhouse of M anchester, did have some experience, th a t of b uilding Prince

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A lb ert’s iron th eatre an d ballroom at B alm oral Castle. T he Olympic h a d castiron stanchions, being clad mostly in glass, where it showed a public front, a n d in galvanised corrugated iron elsewhere. It

was 88 feet long, 40 feet wide with, it seems, from a description in The A ustralian B uilder, no gallery. T he layout was very m odern for th e tim e w ith six boxes b u ilt into the proscenium in lieu of

th e earlier Regency style doors; and com fortable stalls took over th e front p ortion of th e pit. T he proscenium for a house holding 1150 persons was a relatively wide 33 feet.

Olympic Theatre, Exhibition and Lonsdale Streets (1855). This cast and corrugated iron theatre had a relatively low auditorium roof; the slightly higher stage is seen at the right.

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THE PERFORMING ARTS BOOKSHOP 232 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. 2000.

Telephone: Patrick Carr [02] 2331658

International Greek Theatre Bob Henderson Risks are regularly overcome by the simple charisma of the known Star.

Greek Theatre? What, you mean Sophocles, the classics and that? The festivals, balmy summer evenings spent in ancient ampitheatres, coach tours to Epidauros between island­ hopping?

Well, yes, all that. But let’s go back to Athens, where everything begins, and winter.

Is there such a thing as a contemporary Greek theatre? — an up-to-date, living thing, which the people support? Can you find anything resembling the scene in thoroughly European cities such as Paris and London?

It might be more interesting to compare Athens with Sydney, a city of roughly the same size. My newspaper today lists fifty-three commercial theatres offering winter shows. In addition, there are about a dozen semi-pro companies on the fringe. Seems promising. But is this misleading? What’s playing, actually?

A handful of classics from various countries; three well-known, modern European plays; one full-scale musical; many satirical revues; a fair dose of vaudeville; plenty of light comedy; a few children’s shows; and about a dozen contemporary Greek works that you’ve never heard of.

Is all this in Greek? All in Greek, yes. But accessible to the foreigner? Up to a point.

Tourists patronize the festivals, for a start. And familiarity with the works is enough to tempt many to a further look. What’s more, they’re making it easier for you right now, with four English plays on show: Titus Andronicus, Pinter’s The Homecoming, Coward’s Blithe Spirit and Bond’s Bingo. Not that it’s really for our benefit, plays in English tend to translate easily into demotic Greek; the general approach is eclectic and obviously Britain and America have a lot to offer; then, there's enough Anglomania amongst the upper middle classes to ensure that there’s always at least one Noel Coward show in town.

And who goes? Of course, the audience varies according to the show. But, at the legitimate theatre it looks familiar: the middle-class, the students. Television, introduced during the last unpleasantness, seems not to have hurt the theatres, as it has the cinemas. And there are few short runs: anything which is any good at all is likely to play for a long time. (Things are different at the National, with its planned repertoire.) Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet both enjoyed recent twelve-month seasons. The long runs have a lot to do with the star system, more of which in a moment.

The average price of a ticket is about A $4, more than twice the price of a movie, with big concessions for students and soldiers doing nasho. Everyone says it’s too expensive, concessions or not. The critics flourish, in-depth reviews appear daily in all the newspapers.

Sounds like big business. Is it?

While the two national companies, centred in Athens and Salonica respectively, rely on heavy government subsidy, basically, theatre in Athens is mounted by small private firms. Actormanagers, and manager-directors are common.

Not to mention actor-manager-directors. It’s not always so. The main point, I think, is that companies tend to stick together. Even the wellknown risks of doubling as director and leadactor are regularly overcome by the simple charisma of the known Star.

For instance, there is the presentation of four Platonic dialogues at the Athens Theatre — an unlikely choice of material, you would think, but it makes surprisingly good theatre. Largely responsible is the presence of Dimitris Murat in the central role of Socrates. It’s quite a performance. Murat also directs and did the translation and adaptation. The show just passed its 150th performance.

A more stunning example of a star in action is waiting at the Superstar, with the beautiful Jennie Karessi playing the lead in Rousses’ Pope Joan. Not even the sumptuous costumes and

EPIDAUROS (The Ancient Theatre)

immaculate staging can hide the silliness of the play — but Karessi is irresistably funny from the opening lines and makes the character unquestionably human, sailing effortlessly through the melodrama of the later scenes. Her co-star Costas Kazakos directs. This is the hit show at present.

On the other hand, you sometimes see both a good play and a good actor sacrificed: The Picture o f Dorian Grey (John Osborne, from Wilde) seen recently at the Research, had the excellent young C ypriot actor Dimitris Potamites hopelessly out of control at the centre of his own very effective production.

There are two auditoriums within the National Theatre Company’s rather stolidlooking premises at town centre: The Central Stage, and the New Stage. The latter offers flexibility in production and theoretically, a more adventurous repetoire — though we’ve seen Camus’ Caligula and Albee’s A Delicate Balance there recently, so you don’t expect radical experiments all the time. At present, the larger theatre is offering Roma’s Casanova in Cercyra (I think it can be ignored) while at the New Stage we have two new plays by local playwrights: The Match by Giorgos Maniotes, and The Game and a Twinge o f Remorse by (Ms) Costoula Mitropoulou. An interesting evening, with shades of David Storey and Edward Bond.

At the least, the National promises you a regular change of programme, with plays from all over, and a reasonably stylish production — as well as all the other joys and sorrows of a comfortable subsidized company. You tend to hear the same complaints about the National as you used to hear in Oz about similar companies: sameness; lack of excitem ent; stuffy management; dead wood at the top; failure to exploit young talent; etc., etc.

Sadly, dissatisfaction with the National becomes most intense during the festivals, when the amphitheatres open, foreign tourists join the enormous, — and enormously enthusiastic — Greek audiences, and time and again, having been inspired by Barishnikov, Bernstein, Bolshoi et al, we are let down by yet another competent and uninspired production of (say) Euripides, courtesy of the National. By contrast, in the same festivals, the independent companies come up with some sensational productions. Such as Amphitheatre’s Frogs — impossible to get a ticket for this one, despite the vast capacity of the Herod Atticus Amphitheatre. And Arts Theatre’s production of Peace, a minor work of Aristophanes, to say the least, which ought to have bombed, but, transformed by a brilliant production and cast, was an hilarious celebration, wild, witty and wise.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

19

You don’t have to wait for the Athens Festival for these goodies: saving the mass audience, the moonlight and the jasmine, it’s all happening at Arts Theatre (two stages) and A m phitheatre, all year round, in their downtown premises. Not just the classics, though most of the festival productions do transfer there.

At the centre of each of these companies is one of Greece’s star directors — and they are stars in every sense, as celebrated as the star performers.

Amphitheatre boasts Spyres Evangelatos. At present he’s offering Titus Andronicus — a bold and energetic m ounting, and som ewhat flattering to the Bard. It’s in its fourth month.

Behind Arts Theatre is Karolos Koun, probably the giant of the contemporary Greek theatre. He started way back with a group of

schoolboy amateurs, and dreamed large dreams.

Supported along the way by friends and the Ford Foundation, he has his own theatre now, hasn’t stopped experimenting, packs them in annually with tours of London, Paris and Moscow. Recently honoured by the French, he’s one of the world’s best. You can forget the language problem; it’s fascinating, with such a variety of material, how unerringly Koun holds up the mirror.

And talking of mirrors, who’s the biggest Star of them all? Many would sneer and stomachs may turn, but it’s back to the musical stage.

Leaving aside Thanassis Vengos, an immensely popular stand-up comedian whose vaudeville revue is the one show in town where you must book well in advance, the prize must go to Miss Aliki Vouyouklaki — our Aliki, as they call her, those who like her, and thousands love her. One

For information on the forthcoming festival events throughout Greece, notably the Athens and Epidauros Festivals, plus all other cultural activities, please contact the Greece National Tourist Organisation, 51 Pitt Street, Sydney, 2000.

Tel: (02) 241-1663.

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wouldn’t thinkof going to Athens to see M y Fair Lady, would one, but that’s her current vehicle.

Before that, she did Sweet Charity. One a year, run a year. Like many companies, Aliki’s moves outdoors for the summer, to a delightful garden venue, set in sprawling Green Park. Pleasant way to take your Lerner and Loewe, ouzo in hand. And surprisingly M y Fair Lady, in demotic Greek, make for a good night’s entertainment.

It’s not a lavish production, by world standards, but attractive enough, and full of zest. The set creaks and shakes, the chorus is bored to death, half the songs are recorded and mimed (an accepted convention here) and there’s some frightful miscasting, but none of it matters.

Because Aliki is in the spotlight. Gorgeously costumed, needless to say, getting the last ounce out of every entrance, sw itching her performance on and off like a strobe, delivering punch-lines like a prize-fighter, and playing shamelessly to friends in the front box, she’s not quite the Eliza you remember. But she’s all Star, exuding animal vitality and making it impossible to ignore her for a moment.

You score a few surprises when you see a Greek production of Pinter or Shakespeare — as you do when you look into the recent local product. But that’s another story.

E ngl ,,a s t nuttier have t th e

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THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Theatre/Victoria

y Rodger — our most imaginative and exciting director.

R IC H A R D III RAYMOND STANLEY Richard III by William Shakespeare. Melbourne Theatre Company, A thenaeum Theatre, Melbourne, Victoria. Opened 16 March, 1978.

Director, M ic k R o d g e r; designer, K im C a r p e n te r; music, M a rtin F rie d l; lighting, J a m ie L e w is .

Richard, B ru c e M y le s ; Clarence, D a v id Chorus of guards, murderers, messengers, citizens, soldiers, etc., B ru c e D o w n e r;

Spence,

P e te r

C u rtin ,

Don

B rid g e s ,

Brackenbury, L io y d C u n n in g to n ; Hastings, B a rr y P ie r c e ; Anne, L y n e tte C u rra n ; Elizabeth, J e n n ife r W e s t; Rivers, S y d n e y C o n a b e re ; Grey, M ic h a e l E d g a r; Buckingham, J o n a th a n H a r d y ; Stanley, D o n B a r k e r ; Queen Margaret, J e n n ife r H a g a n ; Edward IV, N o rm a n K a y e ; Ratcliffe, G a r y D a y ; Duchess of York, M a ry W a rd ; Archbishop, S te p h e n B is le y ; Edward, Prince of Wales, J o h a n n a h S o n e n b e rg ; Richard, Duke of York, P a u l J o n a s /G u m p y P h i l l ip s ; Catesby, Ia n S u d d a rd s ; Tyrrel, L lo y d C u n n in g to n ; Richmond, Jo h n S ta n to n .

Lex

M a r in o s ;

R ichard I I I has always been my favourite am ongst S hakespeare’s histories.

T he fact th a t possibly the ch aracter bears little resem blance to the real life R ichard, has never seem ed to m atter; it is the play itself, hanging together p erh ap s b etter with its less confused ch aracter relatio n ­ ships th a n some of the oth er histories.

R ichard him self can be in terp reted in m ore varied ways th an m ost S hakes­ pearean characters, and I have always adm ired the several portrayals I have seen.

If really pressed though, it was probably M arius G oring—red-headed —who caught my im agination m ost when he perform ed the role at S tratford back in 1953.

I did not see Olivier play the role on stage, b u t have never really forgiven him for om itting th a t w onderful ch aracter of Q ueen M argaret from the film version.

W ith such m ajor re-construction, the changes M ick Rodger brings to text and c o n c e p tio n in h is v e rs io n fo r th e M elbourne T heatre Com pany, really do not irritate and frequently im prove. For instance, having R ichard open with some lines from H enry V I seems perfectly valid.

R odger probably is our m ost im agin­ ative an d exciting director. Not all of his effects come off b ut, as with his production of The R eveng er’s Tragedy, it is always good th e a tre and constantly presents th a t elem ent of surprise so often lacking in A ustralian productions.

O ne feels th a t R odger has conceived his prod u ctio n specifically for today’s a u d ­ iences and, with the gigantic over­ shadow ing b ack g ro u n d ’s wheel of fortune frequently revolving, and R ichard as a p a rtial jester, it is easy to read things into the prod u ctio n R odger may or may not have intended.

Not always has he been fo rtu n ate with his cast, at least in some of the sm aller roles. It highlights either the scarcity of actors aro u n d M elbourne—or at least deficiencies in those whom the M TC is willing to employ. Too often one has the im pression of people being engaged simply because they are actors, not because they have a love or ap titu d e for Shakespeare.

T here is for instance M ary W ard as the D uchess of Y ork, a good actress doubtless in a straig h t com m ercial play, b u t badly m iscast in Shakespeare. D itto G ary Day (Ratcliffe) an d Don B arker (Stanley), both obviously m ore at hom e in TV police dram as. A nd Bruce Spence, as one of the death-like chorus, with his cutom ary irritatin g nasal whine.

As R ichard, Bruce Myles really comes into his own at la st— a highly satisfying a ll- r o u n d p e rf o rm a n c e , b e a u tifu lly spoken. Belatedly Myles seems on the verge of being recognised as one of our m ajo r— a n d certainly m ost versatile— actors. T here is no trace in his p erfo rm ­ ance of some of the ch aracters he has played in oth er recent plays, such as A shes, R ing R o u n d the M oon or O f M ice a n d M en , although at tim es one does detect fleeting glimpses of his Tony H ancock in H a n c o c k ’s L ast H a lf Hour.

P a r tic u la r ly im p re ss iv e is J e n n ife r W est’s Q ueen E lizab eth — a new nam e to M elbourne, an d hopefully one which will becom e m ore fam iliar. A nother newcomer to the V ictorian capital, Barry Pierce, provides a well spoken H astings in his big scene. A lthough Lynette C u rra n ’s shrill­ voiced A nne seems out of place in her earlier scenes, she later brings m uch stren g th an d credibility to the role. T hen there is John S tanton, suitably heroic as R ichm ond.

Two of the M T C ’s stalw arts yet again do worthy work in this production. Firstly David Downer, who probably can spead S h akespearean verse b etter th an any other actor in the country; he seem ed a n a tu ra l for C larence, and even m anages to excel expectations. T hen Jennifer H agan, whose w orth I have never ceased to laud, here achieves new dim ensions to her talen t by being utterly convincing as the elderly

Bruce Myles (R ichard) in the M T C ’s R ichard III. Photo: D avid P arker.

Q ueen M arg aret. How clever of R odger to pull o u t such a perform ance.

Not all of Kim C a rp en te r’s costum es can bring forth ad m iration. Some, bright, outrageous an d grotesque seem to w ork— b u t others look very m uch out of place and on the first night caused a few laughs on appearance.

All things considered this is quite a satisfactory production of R ichard III, for w hich m ost of the credit m ust go to Rodger. O ne wishes the film industry here would take him u p —the m ind boggles at w hat he would do in p ictu res—b u t I cannot th in k of any movie director in A ustralia who has g rad u ated from the stage. M aybe this is one of the things wrong with our c u rren t film industry.

A serious handsome production.

P ER FEC T STR A N G ERS C H R IS T IA N BROTHERS JACK H1BBERD Perfect Strangers and The Christian Brothers by Ron B la ir. Nimrod production, presented by Hoopla Theatre Foundation at the Playbox Theatre, Melbourne, Vic. Opened 22 March 1978. Director, Joh n B e ll; Designer, L a rry E a s tw o o d ; Stage Manager. N e il S im p s o n .

Ruth, B e v e r le y P h illip s ; Mike, N e il F it z p a t r ic k ; The Brother, P e te r C a rr o ll.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

21

Ostrov, L id d y C la r k ; Karim, S a v io u r S a m m u t; Weeks Brown, G e ra r d M a q u ire ; Perry Glasson, Rod W illia m s ; Silver, M ax C u lle n ; Beth Fleetwood, S a n d y G o re ; Abidin, M o n ro e R e im e rs .

T his evening of Ron B lair is m ade m em orable by a top p erfo rm a n c e :th a t of P eter C arroll in The Christian Brothers. In a th eatrescape where we often accept the slipshod, trick-laden an d o u trig h t fra u d u ­ lent, it is refreshing every now a n d th en to see an im personation th a t is authentically felt, im m acualtely detailed an d technically accom plished.

H ere is an actor w orking on his nervetips an d taking risks. T he c h a racter an d perform ance P eter C arroll has w rought is a possessed one. It has a strong whiff of dem entia an d hysteria, the p ro d u ct of a freely associating im agination a n d in ­ tellect, som ething th a t pu ts him in the select com pany, am ong m ales of Peter C um m ins, John G aden, a n d M ax Gillies.

These qualities ensnare a n d heighten the tu rb u len t contradictory fru stratio n s of the b ro th er, his anguish a n d sheer isolation, all in a com pressed series of fragm ents, th eatrical shard s, assem bled from his personal and teaching life, all cleverly contained u n d e r the quasin atu ralistic u m brella of an afternoon in a classroom .

T he m etap h o r of the audience as class, however, works uneasily at T he Playbox because of the near-catacom b n a tu re of the stalls. The incessant craning up from the front led to a w eird k in d of detachm ent, especially w eird for me as I’d personally experienced, at a M arist B rothers School, the whole schem ozzle.

P erhaps beyond the call of critical duty, I felt the need for some m om ents of em otional savagery—the h ate, the terrible sadistic power, the u tte r violence th a t som etim es leaks from such beleaguered m en. A nd u n d ern eath the rich detail, the theatricality, the comedy (at tim es too facile), the large com posite ch aracter, I w anted the play to do m ore dram atically, to tak e me on some k ind of expedition, which even the m ost static non-narrative B eckett does in a grim futile way.

B lair effectively dram atises a state of m ind, yet sq u attin g there in my secular pit, I h ad a nagging carping desire for m ore inner action, for a dram atically shifting aw areness. A dm ittedly the play does this 22

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

to a certain extent when C arroll, crushed an d h au n te d , brilliantly p resents the b ro th e r painfully yearning for an o th er vision of O u r Lady, a Second C om ing (not w ithout sexual undertones), a palp ab le reaffirm atio n for him self a n d a beseiged religion.

In a m ore ignoble world, the text could have been given a c aricatu red treatm en t.

H appily, m ere facetiousness a n d satire are generally avoided—except in m om ents where a cam p ch a ra c te r-tra it intrudes.

T his is a serious, handsom e p roduction from acto r an d director, b o th alum ni of M arist B rother schools, where the straps, th e fin e d e d ic a tio n , a n d s o m e w h a t p a r a n o i d re lig io s ity , w ere c o m ic a lly , tragically th e sam e.

T he second play, Perfect S tra n g ers’, is im perfectly developed a t this stage. The corrosive arg u m en ts of a separating couple do not dram atically, expressively interdigitate w ith the carving up of th eir jo in t library. A library is of course a repository of civilization, as is a richly fulfilling relationship; the ironic link an d contrast in h eren t in the b a rb aric fission of b o th is not fully forged.

Beverley Phillips an d Neil F itzp atrick gnaw a t each others vitals in the req u ired u n ap p etizin g fashion, which the p ro ­ duction fails to tran scen d the stereotypes of the hum ourless T erm a g an t an d the nagged-out M r. Cool. Larry E astw ood’s design nattily evokes b rittle Sydney chic a la F ra n k Stella.

M A K A SSA R REEF V.I. R IC H A R D S M akassar R e e f by A l e x a n d e r B u z o .

Melbourne Theatre Company at the Russell Street Theatre, Melbourne, Vic. Opened 21 March 1978. Director, A a r n e N e e m e ; Designer, T o n y T r ip p .

Wendy Ostrov, M o n ic a M a u g h a n ; Camilla

M a ka ssa r R e e f was received unkindly by the M elbourne critics, w hich aside from fanning B uzo’s sm ouldering con tem pt for the critical genus, also misses the point: slightly. T h e p o in t of M akassar R e e f is the sam e p o in t as was m ade by M artello Towers. Buzo is interested, even m ore th an W illiam son, in staking ou t his own area of th e e n te rta in m e n t business. He m akes points in th e play, a b o u t rom ance, im perialism , m enopause, indeed life itself: b u t n o t in th e passionate seriocomic fashion of W illiam son. B uzo’s plays now adays do n o t have a purpose outside of th e passing of a reasonably ok nig ht away from th e television. T h a t is not a dish o n o u rab le aim , a n d M akassar R e e f is n o t a d ishonourable play, although it is stylistically confused, a n d hydralike in its search for ch a ra c te r a n d effect.

M a ka ssa r R e e f is Som erset M au gham in C asab lan ca, a collection of tourists and locals stu ck tog eth er (they find it a b o u t as difficult to leave as anyone in a B uñuel movie), who, largely for w ant of anything b e tte r to do, relate, a n d em ote.

T h e re ’s an econom ist who in figuring o u t w hat to do w ith his life alm ost falls for the old er w om an (en route from G eneva to A ustralia, sixteen year old d a u g h ter in tow) u n til set straig h t by th e previously insipid fiancee. She in a fit of earth m otherism drags him b ack to the womb.

F iancee has been set on th e p a th of c h a ra c te r renew al by being d u m p ed after an u n re q u ite d affair w ith a sm uggler, who, on leaving h er rips off his wig!

O th e r denizens include an actual Ind o n esian who seems to be after the sixteen year old an d as a jo u rn alist, c a n ’t say anything a b o u t anything. T h ere’s a co rru p t custom s m an, a n d an interm ediary who sets up th e sm uggler for a bu st, and bails him o u t w hen he needs to get out of the place.

As you can see th e re ’s a lot going on, plenty of o p p o rtu n ity for gags, p u t downs, rom ances, thrills, sex, violence, crim e, co rru p tio n , drinking, eating, ennui, sight­ seeing, cu ltu re, an d lots m ore. A nd there is a lot of th is po t po u rri in M akassar R eef, set by directo r A arne Neeme as if it were C asab lan ca, w ith th a t bittersw eet ro m an ­ tic sourness supposedly perm eatin g every­ thing.

U nfo rtu n ately Buzo h a sn ’t w ritten the right play for th a t M onica M a u g h an ’s ch a ra c te r isn ’t In g rid B ergm an, nor is G e r a r d M a g u ire H u m p h re y B o g a rt.

Saviour S am m u t does a fair job as Sydney G reen street (it’s the M altese F alcon, now folks) a n d M ax Cullen an excellent P eter Lorre. B ut in the end M akassar R e e f isn’t funny enough, consistent enough, stylish enough to do oth er th a n stagger along. By trying to do too m any things it does very little, w ithout being funny, an d w ithout confronting the E ast, T ourism , Racism , A nything.

Theatre / Queensland

D O N ’T PID D LE A G A IN S T TH E W IN D , M A TE. RICHARD FOTHERINGHAM

D on’t Piddle Against The Wind, Mate by K enneth Ross. Queensland Theatre Company.

SGIO Theatre, Brisbane, Qld. Opened 5 April 1978. Director, B ry a n N a s o n ; Designer, F io n a R e illy ; Stage M anager, E lle n Kennedy.

Bob, B e n G a b r i e l; Frank, G o rd o n G le n w r ig h t ; Thelma, P a t T h o m s o n ; Noreen, In g rid M as o n ; Phillip, G e o ffre y C a r tw r ig h t; Normie, D o u g la s H e d g e .

I’m puzzled by Piddle; for starters I’ve never m et anyone who likes the play. T h at includes perh ap s a dozen acquaintances w ho’ve seen different productions (the Q T C ’s is the third) not to m ention several who were at the C anberra Playw rights’ C onference w here it was w orkshopped.

A nd I can only agree — it’s a dull script.

T he Q TC production has a dull hospital green set, and the acting kindles few sparks. T he first scene is one of the gauchest pieces of exposition w riting th a t I can rem em ber, and the layout of characters — m an, frum py wife, dru n k en friend, child, and child’s fiancee from the other side of the tracks — is the absolute stereotype of A ustralian su b u rb an life from The One Day o f the Year to The N a ked Vicar Show. In order to relieve the m onotony of this, the central ch aracter Bob Davies occasionally jerks into poetic outflow ings about flowers. T he director of the cu rren t production m akes a plea in his program m e note for resonance of d ia­ logue; mostly it’s as resonant as concrete.

T he actors do their best, b u t the life isn’t in it.

T h ere’s been however a ra th e r nasty spinnoff from the present Q TC p ro ­ duction. T he Courier M a il’s critic D avid R ow botham dism issed it in his shortest review ever: “ It is no good” . I’m told th at at the next perform ance after publication of th a t com m ent the audience was encouraged to boo the critic. Suddenly th ere’s a whole SG IO full of people who like the play a lot. B ut as a publicity m an p u t it crudely to me once, m aking people like shit is a difficult advertising an d PR job, b u t th a t’s all it is. A nd attacking anyone who dares to call it shit is not a bad way to start.

Personally, I d id n ’t thin k the play shit; ju st boring, trivial, and naive. R ather stupidly naive on the p a rt of the Q TC to p u t it on furtherm ore. Since it can all too easily be seen as a union-bashing play,

p r e s e n tin g it b e fo re Q u e e n s la n d s politicians weeks before they move to introduce “ right to w ork” legislation could have been a conscious p lan (I’m sure it w asn’t). “ R ight to w ork” incidentally is an idea borrow ed from some states of the USA w here it has destroyed trad e u n io n ­ ism to th e ex tent th a t the average wage in those states is 36% lower th a n in the rest of the US. M ajor a n d cutting plays need to be w ritten a b o u t the trad e unions; how ab o u t for starters a play ab o u t how when C om alco sacked four h u n d re d of its th o u san d w orkers at W eipa, they success­ fully b o u g h t off the opposition of the rem aining m en (and th eir union delegates) by offering those rem aining a 35% wage increase?

I use an exam ple like th a t to show why P iddle really is a piddling play. It concerns a w orker (W harfie I presum e) who refuses to pay a $2 social levy applied by his union.

T he ensuing repercussions lead to h u n ­ dreds of m en being forced to go on strike; an d for the w orker it m eans social

ostracism , the b reak u p of his family, and finally a vigilante a ttack on his flower bed.

I’m sure it h appens, an d it could have been a good play.

Renewed respect for the old larrikin.

T his m o n th ’s A u stralian prem iere from La Boite (yes— ano th er one) was Snoo W ilson’s The B east — a biographical fantasy of th e life of A leister Crowley” . I t’s a w arlock’s brew of ultra-th eatricality which sets the unsavoury doings of Crowley an d his goulish m istress L aria against th e satanic events of E u ropean history betw een the wars.

D avid Bell gives fu rth er evidence th a t when it comes to visual treatm en t he is a director w ith flair. Everything an d every­ one looked fantastic — and I don’t m ean “ b e a u t” . A ttention to detail was careful.

But in hand lin g the actors all constraint

BRISBANE SURVEY_______ DON BATCHELOR The Beast — La Boite The Apple Cart — Chichester Theatre Company Mary Stewart — Arts Theatre

W h a t’s wrong fundam entally is th a t we see the frightening consequences of a trivial act totally th ro u g h the eyes of the w orker a n d his family, an d the actions of h u n d red s of o th er people are treated as the behaviour of bigoted an d thuggish fools.

W e are invited to consider a trivial act as a m ajor blow for h u m an liberation, an d to see o th er ordinary hu m an s who disagree with th a t act as a m indless an d evil m ob.

This effect is exacerbated in the Q TC p roduction by the in terp re tatio n of the m inor role of the U nion organiser. H e’s the only representative of th a t ‘m ob’ who ap p ears on stage, and his lines could be played quite straight; b u t h e ’s played here as a sm arm y an d insincere young b astard .

In short w hat the play represents is a grotesque indulgence in a p aran o id vision of the world.

It really isn’t any good.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

23

Theatre/N SW was rem oved. W h at h ap p en ed was a splurge; ugly, b u t not faintly diabolical.

The pow ers of darkness are m ore p e r­ vading at an average staff m eeting.

G reg Silverm an seem ed m ore dem ented th an dem onic. The script suggests th a t Crowley should “ exclude pow er” an d “ in tim idating energy” . In stead he was frenetic an d sad — a cross betw een G roucho M arx and M ussolini.

T he only truly diabolical thing all night was the spoken French.

W here The B east lays it on w ith a trowel, B ernard Shaw ’s The A p p le Cart (C hichester T heatre P roduction) ap p ears to deal w ith the issue by avoiding it altogether; and yet the abiding presence and pow er of B reakages L im ited b eh in d the transitory and im p o ten t political gam es of King M agnus an d his cabinet, laid a far greater chill on my blood.

T his fairly ordinary production renew ed one’s respect for the old larrikin.

In addition I h ad a prejudice shaken.

K eith M ichell is usually too self-conscious as an actor for my taste; b u t on this occasion he was b oth stylish an d con­ trolled. Nyree D aw n P orter gave us a busy O rin ith ia, ruffling an d preening her feathers a lot, b u t rem aining, for all th a t, a ground bird.

For the rest, there seem ed to be a general agreem ent to play it b ro ad (possibly for our provincial benefit) which in Nigel Stock’s otherwise d our Prim e M inister looked silly — th e in cident with the nude statue for exam ple — a n d in Roy D otrice’s B oanerges was tasteless— m uch, about nonsense.

Visually the productio n h ad the sam e econom y-pak feeling as did the C om pany’s O thello a few nights before.

M eanw hile, up at the A rts T h eatre, they’ve gone lavish with the S tephen S p e n d e r v e rs io n of S c h ille r ’s M a ry Stewart.

T he accolades here go to the superb costum es of the principals, to som e strong fem ale perform ances, an d to efficient if u n inspired direction by Bill Hill.

T he m ain costum es were beautifully m ade. So well m ade, in fact, th a t they threw into unflatterin g relief b o th the fancy-dress-ball, throw -m e-dow n g ear of the rest of the cast, an d the stolidly unim aginative setting. To recall ju s t one feature, the awful m ixture of reds, is to relive a sense of nausea.

T he play itself gives an in terp re ta tio n of M ary w hich is highly sym pathetic an d totally opposed to th a t so recently seen in the television version of E lizabeth R — and it is the historical interest which is the m ain po in t of the play. T his being so, o n e’s scepticism is som ew hat aroused by a case which depends so m uch on a confro n tatio n betw een M ary and E lizabeth (which never happened) and on statem ents M ary is p u rp o rte d to have m ade to her confessor (which nobody could know about).

T he lead roles of M ary (Jennifer R adbourne) an d E lizabeth (Jenepher D ebenham ) were played with fire an d strength, though the E lizabeth was ra th e r too derivative of G lenda Ja ck so n .It was good to see so m any of the A rts T heatre big guns on stage tog eth er an d Bill Hill thoroughly in com m and.

24

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

A human’s defiance of God. TH E C A S S ID Y ALBUM KATHARINE BRISBANE

The Cassidy Album; A Hard God, Furtive Love, A n Eager Hope by P e te r K e n n a . Seymour Centre, Sydney, NSW. An Adelaide Festival Production. D irector, J o h n T a s k e r ; Designer, Ia n R o b in s o n .

Dan Cassidy, Tom Nathan, Paul Carver. V ic R o o n e y; Aggie Cassidy, Doris Dare, M a g g ie K ir k p a tr ic k ; Joe Cassidy, T o n y S h e ld o n ; Jack Shannon, George Cooper, Jonathon White, D anny Cassidy, A la n W ils o n ; M artin Cassidy, Ned Thomas, P h illip R oss; Monica Cassidy, Sophie Cassidy, Marie Tate-Smith, Beryl Cassidy, Lotte Brasch, J a n ic e F in n ; Paddy Cassidy, Tom Parkinson, Francis Cassidy, R ay M e a g h e r.

The editors have insisted I do this review— I suppose in the hope th a t I shall blow my m ind as I did with The D oll Trilogy. A rare opportunity, they are thinking, for a significant statem ent.

W ell, it is inevitable th a t The Cassidy A lb u m be com pared to The D oll Trilogy, since by some curious coincidence our two senior playw rights have come up with sim ilar projects. (Has P atrick W hite th o u g h t of a u tu m n and w inter in S arsa­ p arilla?) B ut in fact the one trilogy experience bears no relation to the other, except in the fact th a t they challenge us to tre a t two playw rights as d ram atists.

T he p a ir do have one oth er im p o rtan t sim ilarity: an d th a t is th a t the authors have found in the task a m eans of w orking th eir way b ack into their A ustralian psyche after long absence.

Both works are reassessm ents of the p ast from the perspective of m iddle age.

But while Law ler’s task has been to travel backw ards to the beginning, the end p red estin ed from the start, The Cassidy A lb u m is a journey forw ard into darkness: an unsu re, experim ental, brave and personal voyage of discovery in which the a u th o r him self exam ines, like O edipuslike, the causes of his own self-destruction.

S u m m e r o f the Seventeenth D oll re ­ m ains the m asterpiece of The D oll Trilogy; K id S ta kes an d O ther Tim es, while handsom e plays in th eir own right, serve to expand a fam iliar story an d enlarge the em otional force b ehind the dem olition of th a t doll’s house of seventeen years by the cold d ra u g h t of m iddle age. A H ard G od

will rem ain the m ajor work of The Cassidy A lb u m ; b u t in this case lays down not the direction of the journey b u t the ground roots to the oth er two plays— the rich soil of neurosis and sterility w hich creates Joe C assidy— a hero who, again like O edipus, is not b a d b u t—in Joe’s own word, “ triv ial” .

I suppose it is im p ertin en t to com pare K enna w ith Sophocles, especially since we th in k of the G reek as the m ost perfect in te rp re te r of universal tru th and The Cassidy A lb u m is a not altogether satis­ factory account of a half-successful w riter whose life a n d po ten tial d eath hardly touch those aro u n d him — certainly not in the way O ed ip u s’ life is b o u n d to the life of the people of T hebes. I suppose the parallel has occurred to me because a season of Sophocles was playing con­ currently at the A delaide Festival.

A nd yet the au th o rs do have a com m on th em e— a h u m a n ’s defiance of G od; and K enna sees his h e ro ’s life not as affecting b u t as reflecting his environm ent. Joe C assidy’s journey, if one cares to see it th a t way, is a challenge to self-determ ination in the teeth of a h a rd an d apparently unco m p reh en d in g deity; a w orking out of the conflict betw een the flesh and the m oral beliefs which guide our lives and which ends in acceptance an d a hard-w on patience. B ut not, as in Sophocles’ case, u n d erstan d in g .

T he three plays were conceived from the beginning as a trilogy an d were w ritten, in fact, before Law ler’s, th ough not p e r­ form ed in their entirety till now. At the tim e K en n a was suffering chronic kidney disease an d his life prognosis was lim ited.

He was living, as he describes it, a kind of h a lf -life ; a n d th e b a c k w a rd -lo o k in g sources of his w ork can be traced to the rem em b ran ce of learning how to live.

A nd yet the w eakness of the trilogy as a totality is th a t Joe C assidy’s life, which form s the backbone, is never firmly at the centre. In A H ard G od Joe’s brief love affair w ith Jack S hannon hovers in the d arkness like the guilty thing it is; and yet it im plicitly parallels Aggie C assidy’s defiance of G od at the end of the play, as th ough his action h ad dictated hers. The whole field of generations of Irish Catholic A ustralian s is ploughed for us in this play; an d the b arren n ess of the stories th a t follow it are the harvest of em pty husks. A H ard G od is rich in comedy an d tragedy.

John T a sk e r’s fine prod u ctio n w ith M aggie K irk p a tric k as an earthy a n d uncom ­ p reh en d in g Aggie h ad her audience sobbing audibly in the gallery at the end of the play.

K enna is m uch concerned in the pu rsu it of form as a m eans of expression; and the second play is daring and to his audience puzzling. It is a decade later an d Joe, now an acto r an d the a u th o r of a touring play,

A bit like making the Black and White Minstrel Show, a plea for racial equality.

EAST REXCRAMPHORN East by Steven Berkoff. London Theatre Group at the Arts Theatre Glebe, presented by Eric Dare. Director, S te v e n B e rk o ff; Designer, S y lv ia J a n s e n s ; Music, J o h n P r io r ; Lighting, J o h n G o r r in g e ; Production Manager, D a v id H a rv e y .

Dad, M a t t h e w S c u r f le ld ; Mum, Roy M c A rth u r; Sylv, S a ra M as o n ; Les, B a rry P h ilip s ; Mike, S te v e n B e rk o ff.

is one of a com pany on the point of disbanding. Here we have a new set of characters and a new style of play altogether.

The them e of Furtive Love is identity. A group of vacant-m inded actors, diverting them selves with various sexual aspirations, transform into real flesh as they act out the roles Joe has given them . These roles, in tu rn , represent the lives of the Cassidy sisters as Joe rem em bers them . Deprived of these identities by the last perform ance the group falls ap art, with only a p h o tograph and a shabby a u to g rap h book to rem ind them of som ething soon forgotten. Doris, whose itin eran t life was im posed by her parents, goes from play to play, resenting a condition which has deprived her of life. N ed’s mem ory is going and he keeps his biography in breast pocket in fear of losing him self; Tom , a closet bisexual, has, by conspiring against him self, becom e a pom pous bore. A nd Joe, the observer, torn between his hom osexual nature an d the m oral order in which he believes, in the end opts for his sexuality out of fear of never com ing to term s with life.

Furtive Love is a startling co n trast to A H ard G od, b oth in its episodic form, the m irror im ages of life it im poses one upon another, and the com plex clues to the Cassidy fam ily album which are sprinkled through it. T he play within a play has, I think, some of the best w riting K enna has done. B ut there are still bugs in the stru ctu re which left me fru strated . I would like, for exam ple, some discussion of the Cassidy sisters by Joe and the cast to elucidate the facts; more im portantly Joe is over-pom pous and the point th a t his sisters’ affairs were a crucial cause of his own uptightness is not m ade clear in the text. N evertheless the fact th a t these inconsequential people held my attention

for two hours m akes me feel th a t in time this play will prove b etter th a n I th in k it is now.

A n E ager H ope, the last play, retu rn s to safe g ro u n d in the Cassidy living room with Aggie. Joe is now in his 30’s, m ature an d self-determ ined b u t now doggedly b u t unsuccessfully fighting off kidney failure.

W hile Joe’s wheel of fortune is relentlessly on the dow nturn, th a t of his charm ing b u t irresponsible b ro th er F rancis reaches new heights. Francis, having deserted b o th wife and m istress, is now being happily p am p ered by his aging m other. He steals money from his boss, his two women and his son invade the house. F rancis is a hollow m an, irresistible b u t hollow. His charm lies in his lack of love and com m itm ent, in con trast to Joe, whose com m itm ents to love and to art bring only pain. T his is F ran cis’s m om ent, not Joe’s.

My tim e is not now, Joe says at the end of the play, b u t it will come.

It is a personal triu m p h for John T asker an d P eter K enna to have succeeded in m ounting such a project for a week at the A delaide Festival; and th eir faith has been rew arded in a tran sfer to Sydney. As Joe, T ony S h e ld o n a lso c o n tr ib u te s im m easurably, as he creates with con­ viction an d assurance a personality at three stages of developm ent an d in three environm ents. It is a splendid p erfo rm ­ ance.

Not all the cast m anage three roles so well. A n Eager H ope is F ran cis’s play and Ray M eagher is not a big enough actor for such a role, though his cowardly Paddy in A H ard G od was delightful. It was a huge u n d ertak in g for a cast not all th a t well p r e p a r e d by e x p e rie n c e . T h a t th e y succeeded as well as they did is due to the director an d the deeply felt perform ances of Sheldon and th a t fine actress M aggie K irkpatrick.

E ast is a collection of loosely-articulated sketches (the program m e divides them into nineteen scenes) of life and ch aracter in the E ast E n d of London. T he text has been w orked into rough iam bic p entam eters (in effect the clash of m eter with slang rem inded me not a little of The S e n ti­ m en ta l Bloke). T he work is perform ed by five actors w ith an accom panying pianist.

O ne of th e m ain roles is played by the a u th o r a n d director, Steven Berkoff. The oth er actors represent a friend, a m um and a dad, an d a girlfriend. M inim al props are used, w ith some careful, th eatrical (in the ra th e r pejorative sense) lighting, some good physical work (like the s k e t c h n u m b er 12: ‘O h, for adventure’—in which Les (Barry Philips) plays a m otor cycle ridden by Steven Berkoff), an d some tentative bows in the direction of tr a d ­ itional m im e (like the section of M ike’s p u d e n d a s p e e c h — n u m b e r 17 — w h ich parodies M arceau ’s cage mime as a struggle to en ter and escape from giant fem ale p u d en d a.

The scabrous is a large elem ent in E ast s im pact. W ords, situations an d jokes related to sex an d body functions are dwelt on with a k in d of challenging bravado and glee. T he general audience reaction is a groan of delighted acceptance of this assault on taste and decorum , although the New A rts’ wooden floors m ade p rotesting d ep artu res quite a feature of the first half. T his elem ent of the p roduction seem ed to me well justified on the level of docum entary realism an d also on the level of social protest, the aggressive and ‘vengeful’ level which is the stim ulus for the energetic a tta c k of the production.

E ast was first perform ed at the E d inburgh Festival in 1975 an d I guess the w ord for it is p ro to -p u n k .

Along w ith the good energy of the p roduction, however, there is a sense of overkill, or repetitive slogging at points th a t have been m ade an d ideas th a t have been conveyed. But then p erh ap s assaults are always repetitive, and victims always th in k ‘I w ouldn’t have m inded th e first hit, b u t he w ould keep doing it’. I certainly th o u g h t the first half awfully long an d it THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

25

Melodramas and misfits S Y D N E Y S U R VEY ROBERT PAGE

Crushed By Desire — Music Hall The Ran Dan Club — Seymour Centre Downstairs.

The Curse o f the Starving Class — Nimrod Vanities — Ensemble

d id n ’t m ake me feel th a t the second half would be b o u n d to ad d m uch to the experience. I was wrong in the sense th a t some of the best m aterial is co n cen trated in the shorter second half. In fact if you saw only the second half you m ight well feel sorry th a t you’d m issed the first. I found myself thinking th a t the problem m ight be a sort of over-refinem ent of the m aterial—w hat was once, no doubt, still being invented and explored, particularly in a w ork which was partly derived from im provisation, has becom e u n n atu rally detailed an d developed as the piece settles down to life as an established artw ork. I t’s h a rd to resist the tem p tatio n to tidy everything up and polish all th e knobs.

Two aspects troubled me: the ra th e r dull and conventionally derivative physical p resentation of some of the m aterial, a n d a dimly discerned clash betw een the stated aim of the work and the m eans chosen. In an interview w ith Jill Sykes {Herald, 1-4-78) M r B erkoff says ‘...I w anted to write a k ind of expressive, scabrous, lovely, erotic play. It becam e a b it filthy, so th en I slung in a few thees an d thous an d it sounded like Shakespeare. A fter th a t I wrote a few lines in iam bic p en tam eter and it really took off. Shakespeare was very shrew d w hen he wrote in verse. His plays m ight have been very dull if he h ad w ritten them in p ro se’. For an E nglish-speaking audience who live outside a trad itio n of theatre and theatre-going, the idea th a t 26

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

thees an d thous and a verse form could m ake a play less ‘filthy’, the proposition th a t verse can save a play from being dull, an d the in h eren t notion th a t anything th a t resem bles S hakespeare is autom atically m ore accep tab le— all seem ra th e r alien.

F or me, this form al relic, like the inherited m im e a n d the ra th e r conventionally clever lighting, sat in an uncom fortable m an n er beside the revue, busking, TV comedy, an d im provisational elem ents th a t were also c o n trib u tin g to the presentation.

T he o th er worry was th a t the little in tro d u ctio n a n d resolution sections at beginning an d e n d —the p ro test fram e­ work of ‘we d o n ’t like you’ (the audience), ‘we sh o u ld n ’t have to live like th is’, ‘be w arn ed ’ (‘now you know o u r n am es’)—h ad a quality of ideological ju stification for w hat was really only one step from Till D eath Do Us Part an d Steptoe and Son in the direction of social docum entary. Some of the sketches are so cute and am using, some of th e jokes are so funny th a t it seems m ean to give us a good tim e at the expense of the ch aracters (like M um and D ad) and then kick us in the teeth for not taking th eir problem s seriously. It’s a bit like m aking the B lack a n d W hite M instrel Show into a plea for racial equality.

B ut the theory is finally less im p o rtan t th a n the practical event and E ast is a vivid enough display of th eatrical energy to overcome doubts of th a t sort.

Two hom e grown plays were p rem iered in Sydney this m onth, thankfully not too u n u su al an event these days, b u t e x tra ­ o rdinary in these cases when b oth owe m ore to th e n in eteen th century th a n our own. Both are neo-m elodram as, in th a t M ichael Boddy’s latest c o n u n d rum of heroes an d villains, C rushed By Desire is alm ost m ore of a m usical th an a m elo d ram a, an d the m ajor piece in A n E vening at the Royal Victoria T h eatre...’ u n d er the direction of Rex C ram p horn, is a b u rle tta , The Ran D an Club.

A m ajo r them e of b o th is the corruption of big business aided an d ab etted by the police d ep artm en t. E ach exalts the in ­ dividual who in cavalier fashion triu m p h s over co rp o rate hostile forces. The Ran D an Club because of its exposure of corruption from th e life was b a n n ed “ as it contains m a tte r of a libellous n a tu re ” by the C olonial Secretary in 1843, th en forgotten u n til now.

S e n s a tio n a lis m , b la c k a n d w h ite m orality, ex aggerated acting an d sim ple, if cliff-hanging, plots are the stock in trade of m elo d ram a, m aking it an abiding p o p u la r form . T he M usic H all cares little for any elitist scorn, w ith its success resting on its ability to a ttra c t the k ind of audience who w ouldn’t cross the threshold of any o th er k ind of th eatre build ing and its aim s of the very highest sta n d ard s of p erfo rm an ce a n d settings. W ith C rushed

By D esire, also directed by the author, it has excelled itself.

W ith Boddy proving to be such a m aster of the form , the M usic H all can continue to call on the very ablest actors an d set designers. Bruce Barry, using his volup­ tuous b a rito n e as the dastardly ravisher Sir G arfield Squeeze an d A leda Johnson, as th e g u n - to tin g , ta r g e t- m is s in g B id d y C arroll, give the lie to the adage th a t actors c a n ’t sing an d vice versa. Set in the goldfields th e play has a double p lot of two beauties, alm ost subdued an d ravished by Squeeze. T om Lingw ood’s genius for design provides sets which, m ore th a n a visual b ac k d ro p for the actors, are an in tegral p a rt of the show. T he “ cru sh er” of the title, sym bolising the m ethods of and finally consum ing the dread ed villain, is a m asterp iece— a n d a h allm ark of the M usic H all’s increasingly inventive theatricality.

Staging a previously unseen play, as the stu d en t group C artw heel has, deserves all credit, b u t it is u n fo rtu n ate th a t th eir skills an d sta n d a rd s are so fa r below those of the

M usic H all. The R an D an Club would originally have been p a rt of an evening’s program m e, so a suitable m elange has been concocted supposedly w ith George C oppin an d his actors, in which to set it.

The rest of the bill is m ade up of am using short sketches an d a badly m is-pitched m elodram a Fazio; or the Italian Wife, which failed to realize its “ g reat m erit (as an) opportunity for ro b u st an d fullblooded acting” .

The Ran D an Club itself is a b o u t an eponym ous Sydney club of the era whose m em bers (male) found sport in drinking, fisticuffs, foxing law officers an d exposing ch arlatan s; their women p u rsu e th em to m arry an d reform their high spirits. Sadly, w ithout a first rate production the play in the end seems unw orthy of all the research which has gone into the staging, styles and m usic of the period (superbly arran g ed by P eta W illiam s). An attractive set, in w hat is otherw ise a b a rn of a studio, did n o t go far enough to fulfil the in tention of recreating the atm osphere of the fam ous Royal V ictoria T heatre of 1843.

From two indigenous m elodram as to two m odern A m erican plays. The Curse o f the Starving Class is a play of m isfits; a description of th a t socio-economic group who supposedly dream ab o u t belonging to a world of achievers. Because of som ething in their m akeup they never have, never do and never will realise th eir felt potential.

M isfits are not only in the play b u t of it — the m ost striking one being th e m agnifi­ cent final im age, “ the story D ad used to tell” of an eagle and cat fighting in mid air; the soarer dragged down by the terrified earth -b o u n d creatu re tearing at its th ro at. Is the m ajestic eagle m ean t to symbolise these crippled individuals? Is the cat wicked, predatory society or som ething, slinking aro u n d th eir p erson­ alities? T h eir curse, the m enstrual life blood dripping away, not in fertility b u t sterility of purpose, never becam e clear.

T rue, the play therefore avoided d id acti­ cism, b u t ended up in a stalem ate of fru stratio n for characters and audience alike.

T he nucleus of the w retched family, father, m other, son and d aughter, were given by an d large sound m ethod tre a t­ m ent by the actors, H ugh Keays Byrne, C arole Skinner, M alcolm K eith and Suzanne Roylance respectively. E m otional intensity generated a certain com pulsive­ ness to begin with, b u t it soon lost its grip.

Ken H o rler’s direction ap p eared adq u ate though lacking im agination in blocking and atten tio n to voice; b u t the real problem here is the play (and th e choice of it) — a m isfit in the general sta n d a rd of N im rod repertoire.

Vanities at the Ensem ble ends in cynicism rath e r th an m aw kishness, bu t with considerably m ore interest along the way. T he situation can hardly be said to be th eatrical per se, though following three girls from school to college to the w orkaday w orld through conversations at each of these junctures is potentially fascinating m aterial. T he three acresses, on stage throughout, m aking up and changing during intervals at their identical vanity tables, are strong and as convincing as they can be u nder the painstaking

direction of B rian Young, b u t d issatis­ faction creeps in with the realisation th a t the c h a racters are ju s t p redictable stereo­ types a n d any surprises are ju st th a t, lacking m otivation from w ithin.

T he girls progress from being cheer­ leaders a t a sm all town A m erican school to the eq uivalent a t college, b u t from there Joanne will m arry an d have kids, K athy teach P E , only for w ant of a positive purpose a n d M ary will off to E urope to seek h er freedom . T h eir final m eeting, their changing accents chartin g th eir progress to New York, reveals Joanne to be

as invincibly provincial as ever, b u t not as h appy w ith m onogam y an d dom esticity as she professes; M ary rich an d affected as a dealer in erotic a rt an d veteran of m usical beds; a n d K athy w ith a new found philosopy living as a wealthy k ept wom an.

The m oral has som ething to do with a b lin k ered existence as big fish in the tiny pool of in stitu tio n al life b ringing people too late to freedom , initiative an d stim u­ lation to ever find personal fulfilm ent: “ All is vanity an d vexation of sp irit” . (more NSW Review on Page 31)

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

27

Theatre/SA

TH E GLASS M EN A G ER IE TH E R IG H T MAN TONY BAKER The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

South Australian Theatre Company at the Playhouse, Festival Centre, Adelaide, SA. Director, Ron B la ir; Designer, R ic h a rd R o b e rts .

Amanda Wingfield. P a tric ia K e n n e d y ; Tom Wingfield. P a tric k F ro s t; Laura Wingfield, L in d e n W ilk in s o n ; Gentleman Caller. P au l B e rtra m .

Ron B lair’s production of The Glass M enagerie for the South A ustralian T h eatre C om pany retu rn ed to its p e rm ­ anent hom e in the Festival C entre Play­ house ra th e r th an was presented at it. T he first perform ance was at P o rt A ugusta alm ost three weeks earlier at the sta rt of a successful to u r sponsored by the A rts Council.

T his is relevant as well as being interesting an d worthy since designer R ichard R oberts’ set and the p roduction itself h ad to be crafted with the p ecu liar­ ities of provincial halls in m ind. But if it lacked some of the elaboration laid down in Tennessee W illiam s’ directions, it was effective an d suited to the m ood of the play.

Also relevant was an interview M r B lair gave in the local press while the com pany was exploring the backblocks. “ It’s a play with h u m o u r” , he said. “ I t’s got a great deal of feeling and in the h an d s of an actress like P atricia K ennedy...she can find those d ep th s...an d th a t h u m o u r” .

M iss K ennedy in the exacting role of A m anda W ingfield does ju s t th a t. She is proud, dom ineering, path etic an d vul­ nerable. In his program m e notes M r Blair whose second production for the SATC this was, refers adm iringly to h er “ p la n ­ gent, p ro tean voice” . She used it well here and com bined it w ith a capacity for stillness at the right m om ent th a t ad d ed im pact and insight.

M ore of the h u m o u r is b ro u g h t o u t by P atrick F rost as Tom . He has the lines an d he an d M r B lair m ake the m ost of them .

M r Frost, who is apparently moving east after expiry of his cu rren t co n tract w ith the SATC, has played W illiam s w ith the com pany before; he was Lot in K ingdom o f E arth. E xperience then benefited here.

It was a m ost attractive perform ance, cool, professional and never losing sight of the ch aracter b o th as p articip an t an d as m ore detached com m entator.

But it would be grotesque to see The Glass M enagerie as comedy an d ab su rd to 28

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

suggest th a t M r Blair underestim ates its pathos an d em bracing sense of clau stro ­ phobia. In this he is most ably helped by Linden W ilkinson as L aura. H er in te r­ p retation as the girl crippled in m ore th an body is excellent. She is gawky, trap p ed , vulnerable, a wistfully beautiful victim.

Her scene with P aul B ertram as the gentlem an caller brings out this poignancy to the full.

In the end it is the clau stro p h o b ia which leaves the m ost pow erful im pression with these seedy, so-hum an people an d an era in which, in T o m ’s words, “ the huge m iddle class of A m erica was m atricu latin g in a school for the blind. T heir eyes failed them , or they h ad failed their eyes, an d so they were having th eir fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery braille alp h ab e t of a dissolving econom y” .

Early W illiam s, intelligent Blair and shining W ilkinson.

A reading of Ken Ross’ The R ig h t M an was a feature of the series of evenings presenting the work of A ustralian play­ wrights th a t was one of the innovations of Colin G eorge’s first year with the SATC. It has been represented at the Sheridan T h e a tr e by T h e S ta g e C o m p a n y , A delaide’s second professional group.

The R ig h t M an is ab o u t a young idealistic politician with the so-symbolic nam e of H arold Hope, the m achinations of power in sm oke-filled room s a n d idealism versus com prom ise. It’s the stuff of politics b u t the trouble is, to reap a criticism I made on first hearing it, I find M r R oss’ acquaintance with w hat actually h appens as only slight and his overall view of the business of governm ent an d p a rt as naive.

P erhaps it is the uneasy com prom ise between the symbolic and the n aturalistic.

I also th o u g h t th a t, given the som ew hat different style of presen tatio n , the two productions shared equal honours. In this second one, the work of director John Dick, I especially liked John Noble as Hope, D avid H ursthouse as the archetypal local m em ber and Jenufa Scott-R oberts as the p o litician ’s wife.

People telling people just who they are...

BRUCE McKENDRY Let's Twist Again — Stage Company There H ere Giants In Those Days — Icon Theatre Just Throw Money — Adelaide Theatre Group

Don't Listen to Gouger — Troupe Caucasian Chalk Circle — University Theatre Guild.

Every Festival has a fringe and A delaide has its Focus. A central body assisting groups onto the stage, Focus is to be th a n k e d for providing a huge array of perform ances, exhibitions, en tertain m ents call them w hat you will. From the dancing girl to the political com edian to the busker on the street Focus was th eir um brella.

To go by the sheer n u m b er of attractions you would have th o u g h t A delaide to be a town solely of Festival goers whose entire three weeks were tak en up with one spectacle, one concert, one after an o ther in a total b o m b ard m en t. Too m uch they cried. As it tu rn ed out some houses were em pty, m any seats unfilled (Oh well, say the connoisseurs; tu t tu t, reto rt the m anagem ents) b u t for all th a t A delaide was alive w ith a native energy of its own.

T h e d r a m a g ro u p s fa v o u re d th e A u stralian play. O u t of the closets cam e the scripts of the past, on to the stage went the reh earsed play. T he quality of p e r­ form ance, th a t relationship betw een actor an d w hat was once on a page seem ed strain ed at tim es. T he confidence in assum ing a role is som ething an actor m ust be sure of. For its believability and presence T he Stage C om pany stood out as being on top of th eir trad e. T heir p ro d u ctio n of L et 's Twist A gain by Rob G eorge held some excellent m om ents su p p o rted by a cast skilled in their art. To read the play one w onders at its m erit, b u t directed by B rian D ebnam it comes alive with a ferocious d eterm ination. O ne p erform ance in p articu lar, th a t of Peter Crossley as the flabbergasted John, b ro u g h t hom e the need for experienced, sensitive gutsy actors an d acresses if a play is going to succeed on any level.

The Steve Spears play There were G iants in those Days w orked on an ideas level b u t in the flesh seem ed to lack the presence of the actual characters who played S uperm an, R obin an d W onder W om an. A ctualities aside it’s h a rd to get into a respectably b alding S uperm an.

G ood acting on the p a rt of G raham D uckett, Rob G eroge an d Jo T alikis co u ld n ’t overcome the problem s of a script b u ilt on a m yth th a t everybody’s seen and heard.

T h e d ir e c to r of G ia n ts M a lc o lm Blaylock also directed a m usical play titled Just Throw M oney by M alcolm Purcell with the A delaide T h eatre G roup at the ro u n d the clock Sheridan. G ood e n te rta in ­ m ent based on a singer of moving talents (Susie O ’Connor) the play with its w onder­ ful collection of th eatrical eccentrics seem ed alm ost secondary to her h eartfelt

Theatre/WA

W I would like to have enjoyed it more.

TH E SEAGULL COLLIN O'BRIEN The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. Hole in the Wall, Perth, WA. Opened 17 March 1978. Director, designer, M ik e M o rris ; Lighting, S te p h e n A m os; Costumes, S te v e R ic h e s .

Masha, M a ry H a ire ; Medviedenko, A lan F le t c h e r ; Yakov, D a m ie n J a m e s o n ; Kostia, Ig o r S as; Sorin, Ray B lu e tt; Nina, W a n d a D a v id s o n ; Dorn, G e o ff G ib b s ; Polena, M a r g a r ie F le t c h e r ; Arkadina, J oan S y d n e y ; Trigorin, B ill D u n s to n e ; Shamrayev, Joh n A d am ; Maid, M a r g a r e t S a n d e rc o c k ; Cook. M a rtin C h ris te n s o n .

Peter

Crossley

(John)

in

the

in t e r p r e ta ti o n s of su c h so n g s as ‘D esperado’ and ‘The Singer’. Late night an d easy to enjoy.

O ne truly new play to be a p a rt of the Focus activities was D avid A llen’s Don t Listen to G ouger by his T roupe group at the R ed Shed; an insight into early South A ustralia presented in an episodic, chain of events fashion, political in inten t yet p alatable and easy to swallow. The greatest problem the audience faced was to actually see the players, quite a p a rt from the hot tin heat.

T he University T heatre G uild u n d e r­ took The Caucasion C halk Circle for its Festival program m e. W ith a cast of over twenty, B recht heaved onto the stage. A difficult play with the best of actors b u t a m onum ent for students and devotees. Jime Vile, who directed, m ade excellent use of a stage designed beautifully by Jonathon Sm ithies. A m id flowing b an n ers of Asian inspiration, the players told the story of the child with two m others. T hough w ar and upheaval are only next door an d our earth is disfigured while still ruled by the greedy, B recht’s cool story telling comes very close to being d istan t from today’s audience. By way of a m yth a parallel is draw n between the adopted m other of an abandoned princely child to a group of com m une w orkers who wish to harness the earth to m ake things grow. M eaningful in its

Stage

C om pany’s L et's Twist Again.

philosophy the m echanics of language m ake it ungainly in perform ance. An earlier p roduction by the G uild, of the B rechtian inspired play F anshen, proved m ore satisfying because of its historical relevance helped also by being perform ed in the language it was w ritten in. D ance featu red , tried at least, in a sm all festival of its own. F rom Sydney cam e the O n e-E x tra D ance C om pany, the Kinetic Energy group and the D ance Exchange; from M elbourne the M odern D ance E nsem ble. I t’s odd how su p p o rt for dance is heavy at the top, the full-on, heavily subsidised gang, yet light at the bottom , the hom e-grow n innovative bunch. As dance moves into d ram a an d d ram a into dance a developm ent tow ards a con­ glom erate th eatre is tak in g place. The many languages merge.

Focus is som ething every com m unity should have. Of people telling people ju st who they are and why they’re there at all.

Apologies to M ichael B eaucham p. It was he who directed H appy E n d not M alcolm Blaylock.

It is no coincidence th a t Stanislavski, the first great Chekhov director, should also be the first and still m ost profound en q u irer into the n atu re an d fu n dam ental techniques of realistic acting. Before realism was invented the problem s of acting were at least clear in th a t dram atic action, however effective, was u n ash am ed ­ ly an artifice. As such it could draw atten tio n to its own artificiality w ithout losing credibility by breaking its own in tern al conventions, as in all those fam ous Shakesperean allusions to the th eatre as a m etaphor of life. The problem s of acting were those of decorum , of finding ap p ro p riate rhetoric and gesture.

Stanislavski grasped the nettle of the inheren t problem s an d paradoxes of realism . He knew th a t the actor could depend neither on conventions of em otion­ al expression nor pow erful poetic language to help him convey the play’s m eaning to the audience. To be credible he m ust reproduce observable reality, which m eans the in articulateness, evasiveness (conscious and otherwise) and lack of know ledge of the reality underlying our own actions.

A nd to pile O ssia on Pelion he m ust reproduce this reality an d the em otions underlying it, (which are necessarily ‘false’) in spite of the way he m ight h ap pen to feel at the tim e—the in herent paradox of realism . His answers were in term s of a concentration on the clear un d erstanding of subtext {in rehearsal, let me hasten to add), on the finding through the acto r’s em otional mem ory and creative im agin­ ation of the wellsprings of em otion and through them the a p p ro p riate action, and finally the precise form ulation of this THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

29

action into techniques of perform ance which will work in spite of the p a rticu lar feelings of the actor ‘on the n ig h t’.

This m ean t th a t the rhythm of p er­ form ance, the buildup to clim axes, the tones an d change of pace, took on a special an d unprecedented m eaning. I am afraid th a t for all the sincerity w hich inform s M ike M o rris’s production of The Seagull it sins against such notions of playing, which are essential to Chekhov.

T hese faults are partly the result of having a cast of uneven experience a n d technical skill, not aided by a very brief rehearsal period. B ut the problem seems to me to go deeper th an th at, to a directorial loss of nerve. To illustrate: A rk ad in a in begging T rigorin to stay with h e r flings him ab o u t on the sofa like a rag doll, turning w hat should be a touching an d e m b a r r a s s in g scen e in to C o m m e d ia dell’A rte; T rigorin says goodbye to N ina, talking about how he does not wish to leave the beauty of the place, gazing into her face hands on her shoulders the while, thereby m aking explicit th a t which I am sure works best as w ritten, as subtext; gracenotes such as the sharing of the rouble betw een the servants are too often snatched or elided. In short the rhythm s of the play seem to me to be wrong, an d too often it is conveyed by playing the subtext, an unforgiveable error of unsubtlety.

M ike M orris (designer) used an effective device given the cram ped space at his disposal: silver poles with speckled p ers­ pex at their tops. It effectively suggested the forest setting, and being ab stract should not have w orried anyone in Act Four. T rue the furniture before it was realistic, b u t I think as Svoboda proved in th a t fam ous N ational T h eatre Three Sisters, symbolic and realistic elem ents can be com bined as long as the distinction is clear and precise. In the last Act Nina em erges through these poles, an d I for one found it a subtle and effective m om entary im age of th a t cage of provincial life which so obsessed Chekhov.

The design fell down badly in the area of costum e, which in the first three acts looked too m uch like D avid Jones’ S um m er Sale. T he m aid in Act T hree wore sandals, b u t then she h ad to slip straight out into the foyer to serve interval coffee.

W hen in the last Act the cast ap p eared in clothes m ore accurately suggesting period, things picked up no end.

I would not willingly review any play on the first night, especially Chekhov, b u t on this occasion it was necessary. But even allowing for this I am sure th a t m any of my criticism s are inherent in the direction and will not be rem oved by continued p e r­ form ance. All the players w orked sin­ cerely, with each there was at least the germ of a good perform ance, an d some actually got there. W an d a D avidson’s N ina was very good indeed: she is the only acress besides V anessa R edgrave I have seen m ake K ostia’s playlet work, an d her abjuration of histrionics in her references to herself as a seagull saved me the em barrassm ent so many before her have induced. Also fire was M ary H aire’s M asha, which sheer inexperience m ade it im possible for Alan Fletcher to m atch as M edvienko. Ray B luett blew it by playing 30

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Sorin too m uch as Senex the C ripple. Igor Sas’s K ostia was m arred by an u n fo rtu n ate h ab it he has of com pressing vocally tow ard the en d of a sentence which dim inishes the em otional range; also b oth changes of tem po a n d direction are as yet unclearly focussed an d badly paced, b u t I’m sure things will im prove in perform ance. So too will Bill D u n sto n e’s T rigorin, which at the m om ent lacks sufficient weight, partly because of directorial u nsubtleties such as the one m entioned, an d because at the m om ent enough tim e is not being allowed for sad, wry self-exam ination to develop. I have saved for the last Joan Sydney’s A rk ad in a, I th in k the best overall I’ve ever seen. W ith clarity of focus, certainty of tim ing an d everpresent courage to follow where th e text leads she m anages to convey th a t odd m ixture of ch arm , slight vul­ garity, m eanness, vanity an d w arm th which the role dem ands. She does not m ake you feel th a t you are in the presence of an actress playing an actress, the inviting tra p of this role.

The m ore I th in k ab o u t it the more I see this prod u ctio n as having far more p otential th an it can possibly realise. I would like to have enjoyed it m ore, b u t as Stanislavski w arns us, the tru th of our experience should not be avoided.

Singing the tedium.

C H IN C H ILLA CLIFF GILLAM Chinchilla by Robert David Macdonald. Hole in the Wall Theatre Co, Octagon Theatre. Perth, WA. Opened 22 February 1978. Australian premiere. Director, Joh n M ils o n ; Designer, G ra h a m M a c le a n .

Chinchilla. R o b e rt va n M a c k e le n b e rg ; Minn. J o a n S y d n e y ; Levka. G e o ff G ib b s ; Maxim. B a rry S c re a ig h ; Ilya, Iv a n K in g ; Vatza, D a v id H o lm e s ; Fedya. D a m ie n J a m e s o n ; Gabriel. N e v ille T e e d e ; Tamara, M a r g a r e t A n k e te ll; Nina, M a ry H a ire ; Konstantin, K e ith R o b s in s o n ; Tancredi, N ik G o lo w y n ; Clorino, A la n F le tc h e r .

The A ustralian prem iere of a very new, an d from all reports very challenging play, to be perform ed in w hat rem ains the most flexible an d exciting of P e rth ’s theatres and directed by P e rth ’s m ost consistent director, with the cream of P e rth ’s acting talent at his disposal. Given such a set of conditions, is is any w onder th an one’s expectations concerning a season of R obert D avid M acD o n ald ’s Chinchilla at the O ctagon, were high? Sadly, however, though in keeping p erh ap s with the play’s own insistence on ennui as the necessary consequence of success, the opening night

consum m ation bitterly disap p o in ted ex­ p ectation. To p u t it bluntly, it was all a bit of a bore.

T he reasons lie chiefly, I th in k , w ith the script. Chinchilla bears the som ew hat p reten tio u s sub-title “ figures in a classical landscape with ru in s” an d playw right M acD onald has chosen to p resent his central subject, D ictato r D iaghilev of the Ballets Russes as inhabiting, along with his in n er circle of associates, th a t waste- land of the passe which is the inevitable inheritan ce of the form erly avant-garde.

T h ro u g h o u t the play then the changes are rung, largely by C hinchilla him self, (and alm ost ad nauseum ) on this lam entable d im in u en d o — Revolution becom es Scan­ dal becom es Fashion. In M acD o n ald ’s view, D iaghilev’s b itte r consciousness of having been overtaken by tim e in this sum m arily reductionist fashion was com ­ p o u n d ed by his aw areness of the vital and absolute distinction betw een G enius and T alen t an d his recognition th a t his own right to the form er term was equivocal.

Voila, space to m ake a play!

Now, M acD onald is less interested in proving the case in the m a tte r of T alent or G enius eith er way th an he is in depicting the p ecu liar m ixture of intelligence and obtuseness with which C hinchilla con­ fronts the role in which he has been cast by H istory, as a co -ordinator a n d in itiator of a cu ltu ral revolution who will yet leave n o thing m ore tangible b eh in d th a n a rep u tatio n . O n this level, in term s of the s u b tle ty a n d e c o n o m y w ith w h ich M acD onald sketches b o th the volatility an d th e stren g th of relationships governed by eq u al portions of dependence and fru stratio n , the play succeeds. M acD onald obviously has talents, exhibited in the ease with w hich the m ultiple tim e shifts of the play are accom m odated w ithin the lim bo of one June day on the Lido, only a fo rtn ig h t before the nineteenth century was shot dead a t Sarajevo.

B ut he is him self no genius, to flaw his acuity w ith so m uch th a t is excessive. It may be th a t, as C hinchilla is m ade to say at one point, “ Lust is only am bition in a m ore socially acceptable fo rm ” ; and it may also be th a t where am bitions have been realized to the extent th a t the im pulse to fu rth er action is blunted, such a m an as D iaghilev should have indulged his lusts to help speed the passage of increasingly tedious days. But it does not speed the passage of the play to load it to the po in t of creaking with scenes of D iaghilev’s avid p u rsu it of Italian beach boys in o rd er to insist on the point. Finally, M acD onald no dou b t intends th a t the m ultiple echoes of M a n n ’s D eath in Venice used th ro u g h o u t C hinchilla should ad d su p p o rt an d significance to his own them es. In fact these “ echoes” are both clumsily obvious an d obviously red u n d an t.

If there were a point to them at all it should have been to cast some fu rth er light on D iaghilev’s vexed relationships with his proteges Nijinsky an d M assine. But it is precisely in his treatm en t of these relatio n ­ ships in the play th a t M acD onald is least assured, least convincing, resorting fre­ quently to cliches of language and situation.

M acD onald obviously intended th a t his

play should be a view of the personality of C hinchilla, ra th e r th a n an a tte m p t to place Diaghilev w ithin the trad itio n of m o d ern ­ ism, b u t this does not w arran t m aking D iaghilev’s hom osexuality the m ost im ­ p o rta n t single fact about h im — a n d this, despite m uch m uddled, if high falutin , talk ab o u t art, egotism , vulnerability an d the enorm ous personal cost of m aking cu ltu ral revolutions, is w hat em erges from M acD o n ald ’s treatm en t of his subject.

T his finally unprom ising m aterial m ight perh ap s have been salvaged h a d director M ilson n ot spread him self quite so thin over the Festival period. The co ncurrent direction of three m ajor plays is a load large enough to tax even the greatly gifted, an d in M ilson’s case it was evident th a t his C hinchilla suffered from some lack of attention to detail, and from a w ant of the concentration necessary to unify the production.

As D iaghilev/C hinchilla, R obert Van M ackelenberg seem ed im m ersed in the problem s of m aintaining the physical im age of his character; in the m echanics of posture, accent and m ovem ent. T here was a lack of “ felt” life in his perform ance u n u su al in an actor whose w ork th ro u g h ­ out 1977 was uniform ly good. Only once, during a brief exchange with Joan Sydney in the first act, a moving dialogue on the n atu re of love, did this quality of “ felt” life , th e e x c e lle n c e of w h ic h V an M ackelenberg is capable, fully emerge.

P erhaps this was because the dialogue involved Joan Sydney, whose perform ance as M im i, a k ind of den-m other to the coterie surrounding Diaghilev, was easily the finest of the production.

It was perhaps, an unkindness to David Holm es, a relative newcomer, to cast him in the crucial role of Nijinsky in a cast featuring not only V an M ackelenberg bu t also Neville Teede, Geoff G ibbs and M arg aret A nketell. Even when not at their best (and none seem ed to me to be at their best) these perform ers each possess a w ealth of experience an d technique to draw upon which guarantees com petence and w hich in the context of Chinchilla m ade H olm es’s lim itations in range, his stiffness b o th of body and voice, all the m o re e v id e n t. As C h in c h illa ’s n e x t protege, M assine, Barry Screaigh was of course the physical em bodim ent of a dan cer—b u t dancing is not the sam e thing as acting and Screaigh’s talents are, to my m ind, b etter exercised in th e form er sphere.

O ne m ust m ention, am ong the other players, D am ien Jam eson in th e role of Fedya, a k ind of secretary cum general factotum to the D iaghilev clique. O ne of the m ost com plex and interesting of the characters draw n by M acD onald, Jam eson played the role with assurance and understan d in g , and while the first quality was general th roughout the perform ance (the fruit of the experience of m ost of the perform ers), the second was not.

It’s h a rd to be at all com plim entary about C hinchilla—the play is too thin, and the production was somehow flaccid, b u t neither is it easy to be vitriolic when, after all, a general k ind of com petence has been exhibited. In such a case, w hat is a critic to do, b u t sing the tedium ?

Continued from Page 27

NSW Theatre Review

Production misplaced second to product.

KOLD KOMFORT K A FFE E LUCY WAGNER Kold Komfort Kaffe, a cabaret. Nimrod Down­ stairs, Sydney, NSW. Opened 8 April 1978.

Director, designer, K e n H o rle r; Stage Manager, J u d i P e m e ll.

With R o b y n

A rc h e r,

John

G aden,

S h a ro n R a s c h k e and J e r r y W e s le y .

Like its namesake Cold Comfort Farm, Nimrod’s K old Komfort Kaffee (German for coffee, not cafe), is a spoof of a popular form of entertainment of the 1930’s. The former satirises the romantic novel of that era in its own idiom so successfully that one can enjoy both the style of the original and the spoof simultaneously. In content Robyn Archer and John Gaden also achieve this success; by lulling the middle class audience into enjoying their chosen form of entertainment, they get them to sing along to the rousing chorus of “The Middle Class are Pigs”, and even to be aware of what they are doing. Un­ fortunately the execution of the form, that of cabaret, provoked a regret for the

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passing of the original, rather than admiration for the accuracy of the satire.

In cabaret the style precedes the content. A brilliant performer can feed the audience anything; for the sugar of style they will swallow any pill of propagandashould it be given to them. At Nimrod D ow nstairs production is m isplaced second to product. Archer, Gaden and their excellent musicians are unquestion­ ably talented, but in a medium that appears to be new to them they are inadequately presented.

It is distinctly to a performer’s dis­ advantage not to be seen, and the cramped, low corner stage makes it an evening of craning for the audience seated at tables on the flat, whereas a higher, if smaller, back-wall stage with a cat-walk through the tables would have enabled actors to move, more of the audience to see and the lighting to aid. Martin Sharp’s cartoon background is fascinating, but potentially distracting (and why is Ken Horler the magic pudding?).

Robyn Archer’s reputation precedes her as a lady who gives it hard and straight.

Her choice of material for the evening is broad and complementary, and much well-delivered (though I would quibble with the suitability of poetry recitations, even of Brecht, in such an evening), but for some reason she limits her vocal range entirely to volume, and the vital lyrical side of, particularly Brecht’s, songs never surfaces to contrast with its hard hitting counterpart. “Ah” said a veteran of the original Berlin cabarets, “but Marlene Deitrich could also make you cry.”

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THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

ACT 1

DON’T PIDELE AGAINST THE W IND MATE

Maggie Kirkpatrick and Ron Graham with the Bomb.

Don't Piddle Against The Wind, Mate was first performed at the NIDA 1977 Jane Street Theatre season on 20 July 1977.

The original cast was Frank Bourke Bob Davies Norreen Davies Phillip Sutton Thelma Davies Normie Pitcher

After hours: HILARY LINSTEAD 698 3529 HILARY FURLONG 519 5668 VICCY HARPER 713-7306.

J o h n C la y to n

KENNETH ROSS

Ron G ra h a m

Four years ago Ken Ross made a commitment to leave Victoria to establish himself as a writer in South Australia. “It seemed the ideal place to stimulate such things.”

After one early expectation of a production of his first play Wally Woodbee’s Bucks Night the company involved folded and nothing happened for him until this play got him a ticket to the Canberra Playwrights Conference in 1976 as an observer playwright.

It was here in coming in contact with such writers as John Powers, Ray Lawler and Dorothy Hewitt he found the impetus to carry on writing. “There were so many good writers

Non! H a z le h u rs t J o h n P a ra m o r M a g g ie K ir k p a tr ic k M ic h a e l F e rg u s o n

The play was directed by J o h n T a s k e r and designed by B ill P r itc h a rd . © Kenneth Ross 1977 For any further information please contact: HILARY LINSTEAD, HILARY FURLONG or V1CCY HARPER at M & L Pty Limited, 49 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross NSW. 358-3111.

around I realised then I would have to push myself harder.”

The following year he was back again with his play D on’t Piddle Against The Wind, Mate being workshopped but still w ithout a production to his credit.

However that has all changed; with a span of nine months since the Playwrights Conference his work will have been produced in four States; Queensland, NSW, V ictoria and South A ustralia adding up to seven different productions in all. These plays are: Don’t Piddle Against The Wind. Mate (Space Theatre — Adelaide, Jane St. — Sydney and now the Queensland T heatre Company); Breaker' Morant (MTC Melbourne); You're Mine. Alice (Little Theatre — Adelaide, two productions); and The Right Man (Stage Co. — Adelaide).

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

33

AUTHOR’S NOTE It is several years now since I watched the real ‘Don’t Piddle Against The Wind’ saga. A man refusing to pay his social levy to his union threatened, abused and sent into Coventry by those that had been life long friends —• all over a social levy!

A past Union Branch Secretary, an old-time Union member to end his final working days in such intense bitterness. (The real story is, as yet, not concluded). As an onlooker to what was happening to the real Bob Davies and his workmates, it seemed things had gone mad; great ideals were being wasted.

Bob Davies is a victim of our age rather than of a dogma. Such a victim could as easily be a business executive, for today it can be anyone ‘out there’ calling to be heard above the machinery of anonymous tribal power.

All characters are fictional etc.

The set is so constructed that the kitchen, with its bar style servery can be partly viewed by the audience. Upstage right, a passage leads offstage. Left o f kitchen (or behind kitchen) there is a back door entrance, right o f which is a window. On the window sill sit several small pot plants. Left o f stage there is also a door.

The furniture is all post war, beginning with the couch and armchairs o f the forties advancing piece by piece into the stereogram belonging to NO RREEN DA VIES. The other furniture consists o f a perhaps laminex table and chrome chairs and, dating from the mid-fifties, a coffee table positioned near the couch. A bookcase stands near centre stage. On this there is placed a brass gun-shell, and several fam ily photos. On the wall left o f stage, hangs a wedding photo. Above fireplace sits perhaps two sporting trophies o f Norreen s and an old photo o f Bob in A IF uniform (or something). Centre stage above bookcase there hangs a lone wooden head carving o f Papua New Guinea origin: the lighting is such that its presence can be fe lt at given periods throughout the play.

CHARACTERS As the play opens a large man in his late fifties Perhaps small in stature. sits at the table covered by a grey rug which he, Would, except for his Frank Burke, is examining closely. On the rug working man appearance, are placed empty beer glasses, two large ashtrays seem at home in an fu ll o f cigarette butts, and two packs o f cards academic world. roughly stacked. Offstage is heard the muffled THELMA DAVIES Outgoing, domineering, voices o f departing guests. rather vain, but not Bob: Goodbye George, see yer Foxy, drive dislikeable. carefully Fitzy. Don’t forget it's here again next FRANK BURKE Physically strong appear­ Friday night. Bye. ance, but long out of The front door is heard to shut, followed by a condition. Although at silence. Finally Bob appears hesitantly left o f times he is unsympathetic stage, in passage doorway. Sheepishly he returns toward Bob his mate- to his friend who is still examining the rug over ship is genuine. He is at the table. Bob Davies in contrast to his larger times shown to be friend is a short man. even frail looking, aggressive but his although he could be described as 'wiry'. There is Irish sentiment should an appearance o f sadness that hangs about him, be equally apparent not although this should not be confused with only to make the defeatism. He is wearing a cardigan with a character work, but to a casual check coloured shirt, done up at the great degree, make the collar. His pants hang loosely on him. He is play 'work'. In short he smoking heavily on his pipe which is (until last should be seen as act o f play) either in his hand or mouth, except essentially likeable. fo r the regular periods throughout the play NORREEN A young vivacious when he loses it and finds himself searching DAVIES school teacher. absent-mindedly fo r its return. Frank raises a hand from the table several times about to speak NORMIE Young Union Repre­ to his friend.

PITCHER sentative. Should be Bob: Go on, say it! played with sympathy.

F ra n k : (angry) Christ! What is wrong with you these days?

SETTING Bob shrugs his shoulders.

F ra n k : If you want a bloody audience go down The play is set in an urbanised provincial the bloody Yarra bank and get on a soap box — town, somewhere on the coast outside the city o f but don’t, don’t ruin our card nights.

Melbourne. It has seen much growth in the post Bob: I’m — I’m sorry. war years and, with it, the changes and problems F ra n k : Look mate, I’ve got used to you, I can o f urban living. take you, I have had to take you, through the There is one set throughout the play, the arse end of a depression and through a bloody lounge room o f the Davies. long war. Not to mention one case of malaria BOB DAVIES

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THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

and one case of diarrhoea, which I might add now defies the law of gravity and now comes out of that big mouth of yours.

B ob: 1 said I’m sorry.

F ra n k : You're sorry, not half as much as me mate, look not a razoo left. I was winnin’. 1 was, until you started upsettin’ the game with that book bull of yours. Even that I’ve learnt to take, I’ve accepted, but you and Fitzy goin' on about this, this mug motion you’re goin to bring up at the general meetin’ was just too much.

Bob: What’s so wrong with it?

F r a n k : You would argue with your own shadow, so you’re not goin’ to get me discussing it, I’ve got to watch my blood pressure I have.

Bob: OK — just quietly tell me what’s wrong with the motion?

F ra n k : It just cost me sixty bucks in con­ centration, that’s what’s wrong with it. You and Fitzy all night blar — blar-blar, we were tryin’ to play a game of poker just in case you didn’t know it. Why don’t you play Bob instead of just starin’at us.

Bob: I like watching, I enjoy it.

F ra n k : Yes, I know, workin’ out all the percentages in yer head, but, that’s why you should play Bob. (points to his temple) because you’ve got it here. (Less aggressive) Hey, how about next Friday night seein’ you offered your house again. You play just for me, hey?

Bob: I enjoy watchin’.

F r a n k : Oh Christ why do I have to have you as my mate when everyone else has humans. Don’t you understand that (points at bookcase) with readin’ all those books about the wogs in their heyday, it ain’t goin’ to get you no-where, it’s no use to a workin’ man — except maybe for earbashin’ your mates.

Bob: That’s just me — that’s all.

F r a n k : You never used to be like this, you used to come down to the pub, you used to come to the footy. Why, shit I remember that racin' system you had, hey we were doin’ alright out of that — why did you stop?

B ob; I just got tired of it.

F r a n k : You've got tired of everything except books and carnations that’s your problem. Not that I’m knocking your carnations, 1 respect you for that — havin’ the best carnations in the district, maybe the whole state, I do. But Bob your the oddest bod around, — stevedore, that’s for sure.

Bob: What are you trying to say?

F r a n k : Just I can’t figure you out anymore. I don’t know what happened to the Bob 1 know.

Look I love (embarrassed by his remark) — I think of you as a brother — that’s why I’m sayin’ this.

Bob: Sure, I understand.

F ra n k : Well (he laughs nervously) maybe it’s enough that one of us does, hey. Come on, have a beer and a laugh you bastard, laugh — like you used to.

Bob: Sure (he sits down in armchair).

F r a n k : There was a time when we saw eye to eye about everything. (Frank goes to kitchen and returns with two cans o f beer — he gives

one can to Bob. Bob: (pointingat his chest) I to you, you mean.

F ra n k : (affectionately) You bastard. (There is a silence, Frank sits down on couch. He raises his can in the air) Well here’s looking up your phone number. (Drinks from can, short pause) Norreen’s pretty late home!

B ob: She’s a big girl now.

F ra n k : You know I don’t know how to take her fiance — what's his name again?

B ob: Phillip.

F ra n k : Bein’ a boss at the harbour trust makes me uncomfortable — thinks he’s so smart, he does, I’ve seen the way he walks around.

Bob: Give him a fair go.

F r a n k : Does the mixed marriage idea worry you?

Bob: What? — oh, you mean the difference of

their religions.

F r a n k : Yer! B ob: Christ no.

F ra n k : It worries Thelma. Tell me, how's Geoff and Joan?

Bob: Well we don’t see much of them, you know how busy Geoff is, but we got some photos in the mail of the kids the other day.

Now where are they? (Looks on mantle piece) Ah, here we are.

F ra n k : Gee, you a grandfather — time does move on.

Bob: Yes, — well they grow up, your kids, and I guess they have got to go their own way like — like we did, it is their life now.

F ra n k : Yeah, but, ah, but ah, it went.

Bob: What went?

F ra n k : The time went — our time.

Bob: You're not usually so introspective.

F ra n k : What?

Bob: Tell me Frank do you remember how we felt when we came back from the war, like being born again — the wattles they were in full bloom and the camellias. Do you remember our first day back in Sydney?

F r a n k : Yeah, I do.

Bob: It was as if we were seeing our first spring.

Everything new and fresh not like those dried-up yesterday countries we left behind. But a tomorrow bursting to flower. And me, saying to you Frank, don’t they look lovely th e ...

F ra n k : (enthusiastically) The wattles, yeah the wattles, I do remember the bright yellow wattles, you were even cranky on plants then.

Bob: You do remember.

F ra n k : I had forgotten.

Bob: But you do remember now!

F ra n k : Yeah I remember that day.

Bob: And the hope we had, do you remember that too?

F r a n k : Ah hell Bob things have changed, we were young then.

Bob: Yes, we were young then.

F ra n k : Come on drink your beer.

Bob: Is that where it went?

F ra n k : What went?

Bob: Ah nothin’.

F ra n k : Knock it off will yer! (There is a short silence) Did yer know who called in on me the

other day? Captain Morris, he was passin’ through the town he was.

Bob: Frogy Morris?

F ra n k : Yer, when he remembered l lived here, can you imagine that. Captain Morris looking me up, rememberin’ 1 lived here, he even took the trouble to go the the RSL to find out where I lived, can you imagine? I always thought of him as such a prick, poor bastard. But you know what he said, he said ‘Corporal’, yeah, ‘Corporal Burke’ he said, we both laughed at that — ‘You had guts’, that’s what he said,.‘you had guts’.

You know I’d even forgotten but he reckons I saved his life at El Alamein that night we were on patrol and he got it — I never told him I nearly left the of bastard — not that 1 was scared, you know that, it was just that it seemed a good place to leave him . . . Do yer know, that night, the bastard had the hide to keep givin’ orders while I had him on my back, that’s why he remembered me, as his bloody packhorse, he got a medal out of that night, remember? — on my back he got a medal! Well, that’s their class ain’t it, — gettin’ rewards on the workin’ mans back. But I gotta admit he remembered me, the ol’ bastard — God he did look old too, he really did.

Bob: We all do.

F ra n k : Hey, remember that night we went into that ‘Iti’shelter. You, you bastard picked up that bottle of plonk that was booby trapped, if it had gone off like it was supposed we would be history now. Remember?

Bob: (draws on his pipe heavily) I’ve got some­ thing I’ll show you. (He stands up and goes over to his bookcase) F ra n k : Don’t give me any more of your ‘book bull’ tonight, spare me that tonight mate — you know I wonder if you would have got through the war without me, I do.

(Bob removes two books from his bookshelf slowly, then removes an object which is out o f sight from the audience and replaces the books with his free hand) What are yer hidin’ — come on what have you got?

Bob: Hold your horses. Bob walks back slowly, both hands clasping something in his palms, which he opens on reaching Frank.

F ra n k : A bloody grenade, an ‘Iti’ grenade, Christ, where did you get it — here give me a look. (He takes it and looks at it, then tosses it carefree in the air) Why it brings back that old feelin’ don’t it? It really does.

Bob: It’s the same grenade you were talkin’ about. It was in the rafters, I spotted it the other day while I was re-wiring, I'd forgotten I'd planted it there years ago.

F ra n k : To think this was the little bugger which was supposed to get us — fancy, fancy that, what a souvenir. (He imitates throwing it, suddenly pulling the pin out).

Bob: God! Hang onto it, it’s still detonated — come on slowly get that pin back in, slowly.

F r a n k : You’re — you’re kiddin' me aren’t you?

Bob: Frank, get that pin back in for Christ sake.

F ra n k : (frightened) Ah shit, you’re determined to kill us both. I should have guessed, 1 should

have, I should have. (He slowly replaces the pin) You bastard, oh you bastard — to think that thing could have got us after all these years — oh yer bastard, here take it — gently for Christ sake — where’s my beer I gotta have a drink. (He is obviously shaken and takes several hefty mouthfuls o f beer) You, you little twerp, me Frank Burke, nearly gettin’ it thirty years after the bloody war’s over — a casualty of the second world war — shit can you imagine that, how would they explain that, my name being up on the honour board of the Town Hall — a casualty of the second world war 1977, shit — they’d have to put my name up wouldn’t they?

Shit how would that go over — it bloody well wouldn’t would it, I’d be the laughing stock of the town all because of you, — what are you doin’ with the thing anyway, yer got no right havin' it, yer ought to know that, why I've got half a mind to dob yer in myself — you take it down to the cop shop tomorrow, yer understand — say you found it, say anything but get rid of that thing.

Bob: I intend to. (He grins slightly) F ra n k : (goes to the kitchen — offstage) You get rid of that thing you hear, I’m not cornin' in until you’ve put it back. Bob returns it to the bookcase.

Bob: It’s away now.

F R A N K : Good, (returns to the room and paces up and down) Not that l was frightened of it, yer know that — but, it don’t make sense to get it with an ‘Iti’ grenade, — not after all these years, shit if I’d just been injured just imagine the fight I’d have gettin’ a TPI pension.

Bob: Come on admit it — you were scared.

F ra n k : Listen yer know what I said before was right, yer know everybody reckons I had guts.

Bob: Sure. Will you second my motion on Monday night?

F ra n k : You’re not going to bring that up again — no, the bet's off remember, the answer is no, — I'm not a mug, and don’t you be either.

Bob: You won’t then?

F ra n k : No bloody fear — get Fitzy to do it if you want, he reckons he’s with yer — he said he’d do it, — he’s nearly as cracked as you.

Bob: Look — it’s the annual meeting, it’s the only real chance to make an issue of it.

F ra n k : So you get a seconder, so what? Go on, so what, don’t think you’re going to get any votes — it’s crazy — stupid and by tomorrow you’ll think so too.

Bob: The average bloke will give yer a go, they’ll listen...

F ra n k : Shut-up. I don’t want to hear any more of your bull. (Bob shrugs his shoulders, they drink their beer in silence) You know it is mad ain’t it?

Bob: What’s mad?

F ra n k : This world.

Bob: Absolutely.

F ra n k : Do yer really think so?

Bob: In most ways.

F ra n k : Where’s it goin’ to end?

Bob: What?

F ra n k : The madness.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

35

Bob: Boom.

F ra n k : You don’t talk to your Godfather like

F ra n k : You really think so?

that!

Bob: Where else is there to go.

N o rre e n : (teasing Frank) My dear oddfather.

F ra n k : We always find a way out — we always

F ra n k : Godfather — can’t you control her any more Bob, she unnerves me.

Bob: Sure — but in the end people are goin’ to Bob: She's old enough to control herself. want it.

F ra n k : (looking at Phillip) Thai I would worry F r a n k : Want what? about.

Bob: The Boom.

Bob: Sit down Phillip. Phillip looks awkwardly F ra n k : Ah! at the couch and sits down next to Frank.

Bob: They'll crave for it.

Frank, looking just as awkward, moves up the F ra n k : You need treatment you do. couch to put more room between Phillip and Bob: They'll crave for the peace that will come himself. with it.

Bob: Have a good night, too?

F ra n k : With the boom?

P h illip : Yes, yes a good night thanks — how Bob: (looking towards the audience) Yeah the did the card game go? boom, the silence after the boom, can you B o b : Good, I think everybody enjoyed imagine the calm, the beautiful silent calm, soft, themselves. peaceful calm silence. (There is a silence) EX) you P h illip : Did you win? ever think what it's all about, now and after F ra n k : Win! He doesn’t win or lose, he don’t now. What purpose do we serve Frank, can you — how can yer if you don’t play? EX) you play? tell me that?

P h illip : Not poker.

F ra n k : Fancy Fitzy buyin' two bullets to give F ra n k : That's the trouble these days. I suppose him four of a kind! there wouldn’t be a young buck in a hundred Bob: The odds to that are one thousand to one who knows how to paly poker — bet you ain’t against him doin' it. even played swy either?

F r a n k : Bugger me, with your knowledge why P h illip : Swy? don't you play Bob? Just to be sociable, why F ra n k : (to Bob) See what did I tell yer, swy — don't yer? two up!

Bob: As I said, I like watching.

P h illip : No, I haven’t even played two — swy F r a n k : But you know the game, yer got all the either. odds worked out.

F r a n k : Two-swy? What hope have yer got — Bob: Drop it will yer. two-up mate — you should try it.

F r a n k : OK, OK, if that’s how yer want it.

P h illip : Yes, I’ll keep it in mind.

Bob: That’s how 1 want it!

F ra n k : Well, on second thoughts your idea of F ra n k : You’re a stubborn bastard. two-up and mine might be different, quite Bob: That was my old man’s fault. different!

F ra n k : Bein’ stubborn or bein' a bastard?

N o rre e n : (from kitchen) Is Uncle Frank ear­ Bob: Both I suppose, my God I wish my old bashing you Phillip? man was alive to see some of the blokes runnin’ P h illip : No. our Union here.

N o rre e n : His vocabulary might be small but F r a n k : Tell me something new. his turnover is phenomenal.

Bob: I’m tryin'.

F ra n k : Well, I like that!

F ra n k : Very Tryin’. (The front door is heard to N o rre e n : Good, I think you better have some open) Who’s that? coffee.

Bob: Perhaps someone is opening the door for F ra n k : You think l need it or somethin’ — I you. ain’t drunk yer know. You don’t think that, now F r a n k : What’s that? do yer?

Bob: Nothin'. It’s sure to be Norreen.

N o rre e n : Oh no — but you look like you F ra n k : With — him. might be suffering from bottle fatigue.

Bob: ILeave it.

F ra n k : (to Norreen) Well, I like that. The Norreen enters followed by Phillip Sutton — trouble is you young-uns are all too serious. both are in their early twenties. They have been N o rre e n : Oh? out to the drive-in and are dressed accordingly.

F ra n k : Why when things are really serious Bob: Hello love, how was the drive-in? you'd go off your nut if you took it that way. I N o rre e n : Well, ah — fought a war and I don’t mind telling you I P h illip : Good, it was good. Hello Mr Davies, didn’t take it serious.

Mr Burke.

P h illip : But you must admit it was a serious F ra n k : Frank. business, all those millions of people being killed.

P h illip : Sure Frank.

F ra n k : Serious! Well maybe for all those that N o rre e n : Hello Uncle Frank. were home in their beds, it was serious, but for F ra n k : Hey what ever happened to your little us that were amongst it, us who survived, we girl figure? Admiring her somewhat revealing didn’t think of it as serious — even if it was. top.

Why, do yer think we could have done what we N o rre e n : I doubled it — coffee for everyone? did if we had! You can do anything to anyone as F ra n k : Not for me. long as you don’t have to look them in the eye N o rre e n : You need it most. you know. And the further you are away the

do.

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THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

easier it gets.

The boys in the bombers learnt that. No fear mate, the ones that took it serious are either dead or in the loony bin. It’s only the likes of me who were playin' a game, as real as it was, that survived. And that, that is how yer survive in this world today, yer don’t take all this madness too serious, if you do, ‘click’ (he points to his temple with his finger). Take your father with this crazy motion he has for Monday night’s meetin’.

N o rre e n : What motion?

Entering with tray o f coffee etc. and passing cups around duringfollowing conversation.

Bob: Where's my tobacco pouch?

Bob gives Frank a n o ' look.

P h illip : Would you like to try some of my tobacco — actually it’s a special blend, my fathers’.

N o rre e n : What motion?

Bob: (looking under chair) I’d rather mine if you don't mind.

F ra n k : I think you left it in the glasshouse.

Bob: (stands up) Did I? F ra n k : (looking at the tobacco that Phillip produces from his coat pocket) Well it looks interesting.

P h illip : It is.

N o r r e e n : Dad, for goodness sake, what motion?

F r a n k : Your father’s blend yer say.

Bob looks at his daughter apprehensively, then turns and walks towards the back door.

P h illip : Yes. F r a n k : What's he do?

P h illip : He s in the drapery business.

F r a n k : (to Norreen) Hey, have you set a weddin' date yet?

N o rre e n : Seven months and three days — dad how’s that carnation coming along?

Bob: (looking at his daughter) I think it is beautiful. Come and have a look.

Frank and Phillip look at each other awkwardly.

F r a n k : Well it won’t be long now.

P h illip : No it won’t, — what won’t?

F ra n k : You and Norreen getting hitched.

P h illip : That’s right, not long.

F r a n k : I remember when she pissed on my pants.

P h illip : Who — Norreen?

F ra n k : Yeah, she pissed on my pants! Mind you it’s more than twenty years ago now.

P h illip : (more put out than amused) I must say she has never been that intimate with me.

F ra n k : Intimate! What are you sayin'.

P h illip : 1 said F r a n k : I know what yer said and I’ll tell yer, hands off, understand!

P h illip : (taken aback) Alright, don’t get excited.

F ra n k : That’s what I’m tellin’ you to do, not to get excited! I’m a wake up to you young blokes, I am, my God in my tim e...

P h illip : Yes I 'm sure.

F ra n k : Well as long as yer understand, she’s like a daughter to me, she is.

P h illip : I wonder what Sigmund Freud would

have to say about that.

F ra n k : I don’t know him — so I reckon it wouldn't be any of his bloody business.

P h illip : You don’t know who Freud is?

F ra n k : Well if he lives in this town he can’t be a drinker — otherwise I’d know him.

P h illip : Yes, I’m sure you would.

F r a n k : Hey, hey fella you tryin' to be smart with me.

P h illip : No, I don’t — have to try.

F ra n k : (sta n d in g u p ) Who in the fuckin’ hell do you think you are? Don’t you come in here, gettin’ smart with me boy. (H e raises a f i s t ) You with your fancy plum-in-the-mouth accent.

Christ, I’m a real Aussie mate, I was fightin’ for five bob a go in Jimmy Sharman’s tents when I was fifteen and, I used to win! So don’t push me, because nobody pushes or gets smart with Frank Burke, right!

(T h ere is a silen ce) I said right! (H e is sta n d in g rig h t a b o v e P h illip now ).

P h illip : Are you — are you real?

F r a n k : Oh boy, you’re just looking for trouble

ain’t yer.

T h elm a D a v ie s en te rs w ea rin g d re ssin g g o w n , h air in rollrs a n d p e a r l r im m e d glasses.

T h a lm a : Are you trying to wake the dead! Oh

Phillip how are you? (L o o k s a t F ran k) What's going on?

T here is an a w k w a r d p a u se.

F ra n k : (laugh in g th e m a tte r o f f Ah nothin’,

nothin' love. Gee you look beautiful tonight sweet.

T h a lm a : I’m not sure how I should take that.

F r a n k : With love dear.

H e w alks o v e r a n d sw in g s T helm a a ro u n d in ba llro o m fa sh io n . S h e g ig g les in a y o u n g g irl fash io n .

T h e lm a : Oh Frank (she sees P h illip lo o k in g

Frank, behave yourself, really. (T ry in g to gain h er d ig n ity ) Don’t take any notice of Frank — he’s never grown up, Phillip.

P h illip : (sta rin g c o ld ly a t F ran k) Yes, yes so I notice.

d isa p p ro v in g ly a t th e scen e)

T h e lm a : (feelin g sh e sh o u ld d e fe n d F rank)

Well, he is fun, good fun.

E n te r N o rreen w ith h er f a th e r c a rryin g a d eep re d carnation .

N o rre e n : Look at this (d is p la y in g fo w e r ).

T h e lm a : Oh Phillip look at this — Norreen’s

going to carry these on her wedding day.

N o rre e n : It’s a new breed he’s developed.

T h e lm a : I’ll get a vase.

Bob: Six years work in that Phillip.

F ra n k : I’m off.

P h illip : That's quite an achievement Mr Davies.

N o rre e n : Quite an achievement? 1 think it's fantastic!

Bob: Yeh, well it keeps me out of trouble.

F ra n k : Well I’m off.

N o rre e n ta k es th e f lo w e r to th e k itch en a n d re tu rn s w ith it in a sin g le va se w h ich sh e pla ces on th e m a n tle p iece.

T he fo n d n e s s b e tw e e n

N o rreen a n d B ob can b e se en in th is m o m en t.

I F ra n k : Well I’m off.______________________

F r a n k : The fact is, our Union says you pay, so

H e sw ig s th e la st o f his can.

Bob: You’re not drivin’ are yer?

F ra n k : No, no mate. I’m just steering, the car does the rest.

Bob: Better stay here tonight.

F ra n k : She's right, no worries.

T h e lm a : You can sleep in the spare room, I really think you should Frank.

F ra n k : I’m alright I tell yer, watch this (he d ro p s his ca r k e y s o n th e f lo o r a n d p ro c e e d s to p ic k th e m up. a fte r se v e ra l a tte m p ts a n d n ear m isses h e f in a lly re trie v e s th e k e y s)

See, what did

I tell yer.

P h illip : I’ll drive you home.

F ra n k : (insu lted) No, no-one’s drivin’ me

home, old Frank can look after himself, you look after your future father-in-law, he’s the bloke who needs lookin’ after, believe me.

N o rre e n : 1 think he’s quite capable of looking after himself.

F ra n k : 1 hope so, I really do.

Bob: Don’t worry about me.

F ra n k : I won’t, I won’t, and don’t expect me to back your mug motion.

Bob: Forget I ever asked you.

F ra n k : Why do I have to have a mate like you when everyone else has got normal ones.

T h e lm a : What are you talkin’ about?

F ra n k : I'm talkin’ about this mad idea of your husband’s.

T h e lm a : What mad idea?

N o rre e n : (pause) Come on just what is this motion?

F ra n k : Not payin’ the social levy — Bob wants

it to be voluntary.

N o rre e n : What’s a social levy?

F ra n k : A fund we put into every week for our social nights.

N o rre e n : Well he shouldn’t have to put into that if he doesn’t want to, should he? — he never goes.

F ra n k : The point is our Union tells you you’ve got to put in (he ban gs his f i s t on th e ta b le) and when they tell yer, that’s it!

N o rre e n : Well it doesn’t seem fair.

F ra n k : What’s fair? Listen Nor, I ain’t against your father, he knows that. I’m just tryin’ to get it into that thick skull you don’t buck our Union.

Bob: I'm not tryin’ to buck our Union.

F ra n k : Bugger me, I’d hate to see you try then!

Bob: I’ve paid my Union dues and Monday night I’m going to have my say about the levy, that’s all, my say.

F ra n k : That’s all! Do you really think you’ll get one vote, do yer? Except maybe Fitzy's. Do yer really reckon anyone would back a bloody silly motion sayin’ that the social levy be voluntary and not compulsory?

Bob: They might, they might.

F ra n k : But you won't get it through.

Bob: Probably not.

F ra n k : Then what’s the point!

Bob: I’m entitled to my say, everyone is — that’s my point.

F ra n k : Ha, ha.

Bob: There is nothing in the constitution that says you have to pay a social levy.

that's it, you pay.

T h a lm a : Really!

F ra n k : Thelma you go to your church every Sunday and you hit your kick when they pass the plate around don't you?

T h e lm a : That’s different.

F ra n k : I say it ain’t as different as you think — we are both after a return on our money — no mistake — only difference we don’t pretend otherwise and we want our divy now, in this world.

T h e lm a : Really! Sometimes Frank Burke you sound just like Bob. P h illip : It's a bit mandatory specially for a group that doesn’t believe in conscription.

F ra n k : You stay out of this — no offence — but this is a sort of a family thing.

T h e lm a : He is one of the family now.

F ra n k : I mean the Union — he’s on the other side.

P h illip : That’s a bit much! How would you know.

F ra n k : You’ve got the look of a bloody Lib. T h e lm a : Frank — you apologize for that.

F ra n k : For calling him a Lib? T h e lm a : Well no — for saying he’s on the other side.

F ra n k : He’s a boss, ain’t he? Look, 1 don’t mean no offence, after all if he’s a Lib he shouldn’t be offended, if he ain’t well he could never take the remark to heart, could he? (pause) OK I apologise, I'm sorry. I’m on my way. But I’ll tell you somethin’ he’s flogging a dead horse if he don’t pay that levy. And, he’s lookin’ for trouble, real trouble if he don’t.

T h e lm a : Oh, you men, you take your affairs so serious.

Bob: Frank, there’s no-one who has been more of a Union man than me and my father before me.

F ra n k : I know that, but does anyone else?

Bob: Most do.

F ra n k : Don’t kid yourself mate. Times have moved on, who remembers your old man except you? All the old faces are goin' or have gone.

No-one remembers except for today and maybe yesterday. Anything further back is pre historic.

That’s the way it is now. Well Uncle Frank’s goin’ to hit the track.

T h a lm a : Make sure it doesn’t hit you.

Bob: I’ll see you out.

F ra n k :

( tu r n in g

back

at

th e

doo rw a y)

Goodnight.

T h e lm a & N o rre e n : Goodnight.

Bob:

Don't forget your tomatoes (passes — don't squash

p a p e rb a g o f to m a to e s to F ran k)

’em.

F rank exits.

N o rre e n : Peaceful.

T h e lm a : Frank was just letting off steam — a

man’s got to do that sometimes.

P h illip : Hot air would be more accurate.

T h e lm a : Oh don’t take too much notice of Frank, Phillip, he’s had a little too much to drink tonight.

P h illip : Yes, I guess so, I must be off too.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

37

Goodnight Mrs. Davies.

Bob returns.

N o rre e n : I’ll see you to the door.

T h e lm a : There was no reason to get worked up over that Union business — was there Bob? Bob: No reason.

T h e lm a : Well I wouldn’t want to see any trouble.

Bob: I’m only goin' to put a motion, in the proper way — that’s all. There won’t be any trouble.

T h e lm a : Good.

Darkness exceptfo r light on PNG head carving.

SCENE 2 It is the following Monday — the setting is the same. Phillip is sitting in Bob Davies armchair.

Norreen is on his lap in a long embrace. There are two cups o f coffee on the table, Phillip’s hands begin to wander.

N o rre e n : Phillip!

P h illip ; What? (he continues his advances) N o rre e n : You know — Mum might come in.

P h illip : You’re kidding, she would be well and truly mesmerized by the evil one-eyed box by now.

N o rre e n : She might come out to get one of her sly drinks.

P h illip : While Number 96 is on?

N o rre e n : It keeps her happy, the portable TV that is, that’s why dad got it for her — to keep er happy — I wonder when he will be home.

P h illip : General meetings have a habit of running late.

N o rre e n : After what Uncle Frank said. I’m worried.

P h illip : For Christ sake don’t take any notice of that truculent clot, your father’s old enough to look after himself.

N o rre e n : You don’t have to get cross.

P h illip : Well, you must admit you do go on a lot about your father, your father this, your father that!

N o rre e n : I'm fond of him, if that’s what you mean.

She eyes Phillip, hostility to his remark showing.

P h illip : He’s going to have to look after himself when we get married, isn’t he?

N o r r e e n : Sometimes I feel you are embarrassed by my family.

P h illip : For God’s sake 1 just don’t understand them — that's all. And as for that Frank!

N o rre e n : You should try.

P h illip : I will.

N o rre e n : Good. (She gets up o ff his knee and straightens herself) P h illip : (picking up his coffee and taking a mouthful) Did you put sugar in this?

N o rre e n : Two spoons.

P h illip : I don’t think you stirred it.

N o rre e n : Didn't I? P h illip : It'll do.

N o rre e n : Sure?

P h illip : Sure.

N o rre e n : What’s the time?

P h illip : Quarter to eleven — settle down, 38

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

please.

F r a n k : Those at the meetin’.

N o rre e n : Dad should be home.

Bob: What do yer mean? What happened?

P h illip : Don’t worry.

N o rre e n : I love you.

P h illip : And I love you too.

The front door is heard to open.

N o rre e n : Dad?

Bob enters, he does not seem to notice Norree and Phillip.

How did you go, or need I ask?

Bob: Awful.

N o rre e n : That’s bad.

Bob: All I wanted was to be heard.

N o rre e n : Don’t let it get you down.

Bob: Down (he snaps into a false heartiness which doesn't quite make it) I’m not down — I think I’ll have a beer, would you like a beer Phill?

P h illip : Thanks all the same Mr Davies, but I’m drinking coffee.

Bob: Much better for you too (he goes into the kitchen and returns with a can o f beer) How was the basketball?

N o rre e n : Good.

Bob: Good.

P h illip : How did the meeting go?

Bob: Alright, not bad, good turn up, there was a good turn up. Normie Pitcher is President again for his second year, there weren’t any other nominations.

N o rre e n : The meeting finished late.

Bob: I’ve been at the pub, thought I'd call in tonight, been a long time since I’ve drunk at a pub.

Frank’s special knock is heard at the back door.

N o rre e n : That would have to be Uncle Frank wouldn’t it.

Bob: Yeah, come in.

Frank enters through back door.

F ra n k : (to Norreen and Phillip) Good evenin’.

(To Bob) Ah, don’t be like that.

Bob: I’m not like anything.

F ra n k : You said it!

Bob: No I didn’t — wanted to, but no-one would let me.

F ra n k : I warned yer.

Bob: All I wanted to do was be heard, Fitzy seconded my motion, so I was entitled to be heard.

F ra n k : Forget it mate — pay up and shut up.

Bob: I’m not payin'. I wasn’t heard, I was entitled to be heard, you know that.

F ra n k : Yeah 1 know.

Bob: Then why didn’t you tell them? (Frank shrugs his shoulders) I'll give notice of requesting a general meeting. I can do that if I get enough numbers.

F ra n k : Don't take it like that — it’s not that important.

Bob: Normie Pitcher had no right to stop what I had to say.

F r a n k : Maybe not.

Bob: You know he didn’t.

F ra n k : You go and pay the levy tomorrow.

Bob: No — not until I’m heard.

F ra n k : They say you’ve got to pay.

Bob: Who says I've got to pay?

F r a n k : Lots — you shouldn’t have walked out like that, it didn’t go over well, you should have stayed, it wouldn’t have happened if you and Fitzy had stayed.

Bob: What wouldn’t have happened?

F r a n k : The motion — they moved a motion that they would take action if you don’t pay by the end of the month.

B ob: They can’t do anything.

F ra n k : Oh yes they can, and what's more they will, so you have got to pay.

B ob: There’s nothin' in the constitution that can allow them to make.me pay the social levy, it’s only a booze levy you know.

F ra n k : Look mate they're fair dinkum, they really are, you gotta pay.

B ob: No, that ain’t right, besides I’ve got mates, they’ll stick by me when the crunch comes.

F r a n k : The crunch came tonight — get that through your head. Believe me mate your motion went over like a wet fart at a Sunday dinner.

N o rre e n : Charming.

F r a n k : Sorry love — I did my best Bob, believe me.

Bob: I didn’t hear you slickin’ up for me.

F r a n k : This was after — they were talkin’ of expelling you for not payin’ — I talked them into allowing you time — 1 know you’ll cool off, can't yer get it through your head — they're serious.

Bob: I won’t cool off.

F r a n k : Yes yer will, it’ll be different tomorrow you’ll see. (Frank goes to the kitchen and returns with a can o f beer. Raising his can,) Good luck!

N o rre e n : Uncle Frank, Dad’s not asking a lot, if, it’s as serious as you say, then surely you, of all people, can help him.

F r a n k : It’s not that simple.

N o rre e n : What is?

F r a n k : Alright, alright, I don't like it one bit, but alright, I’ll see if I can round up a few extra heads, maybe they’ll listen, but you’ll have to do your own battlin’, you understand!

Bob: I understand.

F ra n k : Alright, alright. (The lights fade away) If you’re silly enough, alright, god help me, god help you. But I really don't reckon you know what you're doin’, but worse I don’t know why you’re doin’ it.

Bob: To be heard, to be heard Frank. I’m going to have another beer, do you want one?

As the lights fade the PNG head carving remains lit.

SCENE 3 The scene is the same, the following Friday evening. Bob Davies is staring out his back window in thought. Thelma is in her dressing gown just finishing ironing.

T h e lm a : (switching o ff her iron) When are they due?

Bob: Around eight o'clock — should be

arriving any moment I guess, it's a wild night to be cornin' out, I suppose.

T h e lm a : How many cornin’?

Bob: Eight or nine — I don’t know. (Bob starts pacing the floor) T h e lm a : 1thought Frank might have told you.

Bob: Well he didn’t — but he said he was going to round up a few — 1 don't expect more than a few — that’s enough to get the ball rolling.

T h e lm a : Well 1 hope you know what you are doin'.

Bob: I do.

T h e lm a : It doesn't make much sense to me.

Bob: Don’t think about it then.

T h e lm a : Frankly I wouldn’t waste my time.

Bob: One thing I’ve got in this world is some good mates and the name of Davies still means somethin' around these parts, especially in our Union, you’ll see Thelma, you'll see.

T h e lm a : Will you stop pacing the floor.

Silence.

Bob: Would you like a drink?

T h e lm a : You’re drinkin’ too much lately.

Bob: Yeah — have a sherry?

T h e lm a : No thanks.

Silence.

Bob: Well I’m goin’ to have a beer.

T h e lm a : You can't leave it alone lately, can yer. (Bob ignores the remark and goes to the kitchen and return with a beer can) Don’t make so much noise this week.

Bob: (finishes drinking) Yeah.

Silence.

T h e lm a : 1 believe Frank’s gettin’ noisier every year, he should settle down.

Silence.

B ob: Too late for that.

T h e lm a : It’s unhealthy for a man livin’ alone like he does, he’s let himself go since his mother died, he has.

Bob: I suppose so.

T h e lm a : I think I’ll go down to his place one afternoon and give his place a bit of a clean-up.

Bob: You'd need a week.

T h e lm a : An afternoon will have to do.

Bob: 1 don't think he would let you. (Silence) How’s Geoff?

T h e lm a : Alright — the kids both have colds at the moment — Bob: Did he say he was coming up?

T h e lm a : He’s so busy, you know.

Bob: Sure — he’s always busy, sometimes 1 wonder whether I’ve really got a son.

T h e lm a : Don’t be silly.

Silence.

Bob: Joan has never got used to us, has she?

T h e lm a : What do you mean?

Bob: You know what I mean.

Silence.

T h e lm a : Norreen’s told me she's thinking of not getting married in our church.

Bob: That’s their business.

T h e lm a : I think Father Brady should see them.

Bob: Stay out of it, Thelma.

There is the familiar knock o f Frank's at the back door.

T h e lm a : Come in!

F r a n k : G ’day, how are yer? (holds cans under

his arm) T h e lm a : I’m just off to bed.

F ra n k : You don’t have to go — just because

I’ve arrived — besides your husband’s here — ah, no offence Bob. T h e lm a : Oh you’re a shocker Frank Burke.

F ra n k : Got a can in the hand already.

Bob: Didn’t anybody come with you?

F r a n k : No. Bob: It’s getting late.

F r a n k : How about a can?

T h e lm a : Since when have you asked?

Bob: I'll get you one.

He takes the pack o f cans o ff Frank and goes to the kitchen, returning with a can fo r Frank.

F ra n k : Thanks mate.

Bob: What's the time?

F r a n k : Just after eight — it’s early, ay aren't you havin' a drink love?

T h e lm a : No, I’m right.

F r a n k : Come on love — a sherry, it’ll do you good.

T h e lm a : Oh, alright.

F ra n k : That’s the spirit love — get her a sherry

will yer Bob? T h e lm a : Just a small one.

Bob goes to the side board.

F ra n k : You can be a devil when you want Thelma Davies.

T h e lm a : Don’t talk like that.

F ra n k : Like what? You're talkin’ to Frank, remember, the bloke who introduced you’s two to each other.

T h e lm a : I wouldn’t brag about that!

F ra n k : He ain’t so bad — why I can remember it was love at first sight between you's two that night at the oddfellows ball.

T h e lm a : I was too vain to wear my glasses at the time.

Bob returns with the sherry.

F ra n k : Why Bob didn’t come up bad on the dance floor if I remember. Bob, why don’t you get out more these days — do you both good?

T h e lm a : The last time we went out together was to see Gone with the Wind, which is what he did for five years after that.

F ra n k : He’s done you better than that love.

Take her out Bob — take her out next week.

Bob: Would you like to go out Thelma?

T h e lm a : Oh no, I love it at home, what would my ironing do without me — no I'm afraid those days are gone.

F ra n k : You're as young as you feel you know.

T h e lm a : That explains it then!

F ra n k : What?

T h e lm a : Nothing.

Silence.

F ra n k : Have another drink love.

T h e lm a : I’m still drinking this one.

F ra n k : Then drink it up. (He takes a large guzzle o f his can) Hey — come on love, drink it up — come on.

She empties her glass in one mouthful.

T h e lm a : Just one more then.

Frank takes Thelma’s glass.

F ra n k : That’s the girl — here fill them up

again will yer mate.

He hands Thelma's glass to Bob, who goes o ff to fillit.

T h e lm a : No-one’s arrived yet.

F r a n k : It’s early.

T h e lm a : Well someone should have arrived by now.

F ra n k : Don’t worry love.

T h e lm a : I’m not.

F ra n k : How’s the engaged couple?

T h e lm a : I want Norreen to get Phillip to see Father Brady, but she won’t.

F ra n k : Hey, leave me out of that.

T h e lm a : I don’t care that he’s not one of our faith, but I do think he should at least talk with Father Brady. Norreen is even talkin' of not being married in the church.

F ra n k : Thelma it ain’t my business.

T h e lm a : I do like Phillip, you understand, he is a nice boy.

F ra n k : Oh yeah, I had him twigged for a poof, but he stood up to me. Yeah, he’s OK. Bob returns to the room with drinks. There is a short silence.

Bob: They are cornin’ aren’t they?

F ra n k : I wish you’d get rid of that bloody head carving, always starin’ down at a bloke — boo! (to head carving).

Bob: Frank, I said, they are cornin’ aren’t they?

F ra n k : Well you know how things are.

Bob: No, how are they?

Pause.

F r a n k : Not good mate.

Bob: What do you mean, not good?

F ra n k : Everyone was workin’ tonight.

Short silence.

Bob: Everyone workin’ night shift!

F ra n k : Yeah, yeah, that’s right.

B ob: Don’t give me that!

F ra n k : They were, rigidy-didge.

Bob: Don’t give me that Frank — no-one’s cornin’ that’s it, ain’t it? (Bob walks to window) Well tell me!

Short silence.

F ra n k : Fitzy’s cornin’.

Bob: Just Fitzy?

F ra n k : Yeah, geez mate who’d want to come out in crook weather like this?

Bob: You didn’t tell them right, you couldn't have.

F ra n k : They just couldn’t make it that’s all.

Bob: What was stoppin' them, what was?

F ra n k : Normie Pitcher of course.

Bob: Normie Pitcher!

F ra n k : Yeah.

Bob: Why? F ra n k : They had a meetin’ the other night, the executive. You’re bad news mate, until you pay yer levy.

Bob: What do you mean I'm bad news?

F ra n k : They’ve black-balled you — until you pay the levy — I’m sorry, I am.

Bob: Blackballed me! (Frank nods confirmation. Bob is stunned into silence.

Finally), They couldn’t have, not me, not me Frank.

T h e lm a : Does that mean Bob can't work?

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

39

F r a n k : Yeah, yeah, I’m afraid so, and even worse if he don’t pay they're goin' to expel him.

Bob: Who was at the meetin’?

F r a n k : What meetin’?

Bob: The meetin', the meetin’ where they decided all this.

F ra n k : So 1gathered.

Bob: He’s he’s got a wog — he can’t help that,

just one of those things, he’s still with me.-I can rely on Fitzy, no worries there, no worries he said he’s still with me.

T h o lm a : Forget who’s with you, forget the F r a n k : Who knows — I don't know, I wasn’t whole business you go down and pay tomorrow there.

— did you hear me — Bob Davies — will you Bob: Was there a vote? answer me?

F ra n k : I suppose so.

Bob: Yeah — yeah I'll think about it.

B ob: I want to know — find out for me.

He wanders dazed-like to the back door.

He begins pacing around.

T h e lm a : We-ll make sure you do — where are F r a n k : It was all above board, the meetin', the you going now? meetin' was all proper like.

There is a pause as Bob turns andfaces his wife.

Bob: An executive meeting you say?

Bob: I — I must water the carnations — yes I F ra n k : Yeah, it was an executive decision. must water my carnations.

Bob: They, they can’t do this, you said they’d T h e lm a : On a night like tonight! give me a month.

B ob: It’s calm inside the glass-house.

F r a n k : Bloody oath they can, and they have.

F ra n k : Look, I’ll come with you.

There is another silence. Bob goes over to the Bob: No don’t you do that! 1 want to do it, window and stares out into the dark. alone.

T h e lm a : You go down and pay whatever it is, He exits out o f back door — leaves it open. you hear, you hear Bob Davies.

T h e lm a : He’s left the back door open again.

F r a n k : It’s the best move now mate.

Shut it will you Frank, before we are both blown T h e lm a : It's the only move. away.

B ob: (turning to face them both) No, it ain’t.

F ra n k : 1don’t think he's takin’ it so good.

F ra n k : Don’t you start gettin’ any of your T h e lm a : Don’t worry about him, tomorrow cranky ideas. he’ll be over it.

Bob: They can't do this — it’s unconstitutional.

F ra n k : He can be stubborn at times.

F ra n k : Yer don't know what you’re talkin’ T h e lm a : And so can I — it’s so ridiculous, just about. ridiculous, you've got to admit Frank, Bob: I ought to know, 1 was secretary of the ridiculous!

Branch for seven years, remember? And I know F ra n k : Yeah, yeah that’s what I’ve been it’s unconstitutional. thinkin’ — but you know Bob, you know him.

F r a n k : OK OK Maybe you’re right, so what?

T h e lm a : Yes 1 know Bob. (The phone rings, Bob: I'm not payin' get that straight. I’m goin’ Thelma goes over and answers it.) Hello, hello. . down to that wharf when my number’s called w h at... who is this. .. w h at.. . n o .. . who is it! and I’m walking right onto that wharf and I’m She replaces the receiver hard. workin'. I’m workin" Frank and nobody's goin to F ra n k : What was that all about? stop me, do you understand, nobody!

T h e lm a : I don't know, a man. he was awful, he F ra n k : Don't you understand, they won’t work really was. The things he said. with you, they won’t. Until you pay your levy She sits down. you’re a nothin'!

F ra n k : Ah, just a mad prankster love.

Bob: Well 1 hope they don’t see it that way, I’ve T h e lm a : 1 won’t take much more of this paid by Union fees and 1 know the constitution Frank, 1 really won't — here get me another and I know they can’t stop me, they can't! drink would you?

F r a n k : (shrugs his shoulders) Don’t say I didn’t She sits on the sofa. warn you.

F r a n k : (returning) Are you sure, are you sure The phone rings. you’re alright?

Bob: Fitzy. (There is a pause) Runnin’ late ain’t T h e lm a : Of course I’m not (taking glass) yer? (Long pause) Well if you’ve got a wog you Thanks. can’t help these things mate. (Pause) Sure I F ra n k : What did he say, what did he say? understand. (Pause) Yeah, Frank’s here. (Pause) T h e lm a : Never mind, I just couldn’t talk about Don’t worry about it, no use cornin' out on a it. wild night like this, I’ll come around your place F ra n k : I tell yer if Bob's not careful this thing tomorrow night. (Pause) Well when you're will get out of hand. better then. (Pause) Alright, Fitzy, maybe next T h e lm a : Do you think so? week. (Pause) No, no these things can’t be F ra n k : It's growin' worse everyday. Look, I helped, I understand (pause) I understand, sure don’t want to frighten you, but the blokes at mate, goodnight. (Bob puts down the receiver. work are really gettin’ steamed up over this. You There is a long pause while he struggles to know Bob's got to come to his senses. The blokes compose himself) Fitzy’s not cornin'. they’re talkin’ loose about this thing, somehow it

seems to have riled them, they’re really fired up — funny as if (pause) . . . he walked into the amenities block yesterday and all the blokes, all of them, and there must have been more than a hundred of them, turned the other way, it was as if he was a ghost. That he just didn't exist anymore. And yer know, he stood there, lookin’ at us, and one by one we turned away from him, and then he caught my eye and I couldn’t look at him either, do you know that Thelma, me, his oldest mate couldn't look him in the eye. And then he came and sat next to me. He didn’t say nothin’ for a while then suddenly he turned to me and said, no it was more of a whisper; ‘Where are we goin’ Frank, where are we goin', tell me?' Of course I didn’t answer. The whole thing's crazy if you ask me.

T h e lm a : Then you’ve got to do something.

F ra n k : It’s not me that’s got to do something, it's Bob, while there’s still time to undo what’s been done.

T h e lm a : You can help Frank — you can see Normie Pitcher, tell him the truth, that Bob’s sick, well tell him that, it’s near enough to the truth, and arrange a meetin’ between him and Bob and fix it all up.

F r a n k : Thelma I can't d o ...

T h e lm a : Why not? You're the one person in the position to end this.

F ra n k : No I ain’t.

T h e lm a : Then you won’t help?!

F r a n k : Look I'm a mate of Bob’s and that’s gettin’ me into trouble enough at the moment.

T h e lm a : I thought you were a friend of mine too.

F r a n k : I am.

T h e lm a : Are you?

F r a n k : Look, let’s wait and see, I’ll work on Bob, get him to come around a bit OK . . .

T h e lm a : If you won’t see Normie Pitcher 1 will, he’s a nice lad, I remember when he used to come knockin’ on my door for empty bottles when he was just a boy of eight or nine, and there was a time when he was seein’ Norreen — I’ll see him — you just arrange the meetin’ Frank.

F ra n k : No Thelma, no wait, just a while, please it will work itself out, you'll see. — Hey, how about we put on a record, one of your favourites, the ones w'e used to play?

He goes to the radiogram and puts an early post war favourite on, eg “Goodnight Irene" then begins to dance on his toes to it, alone. For a time she remains aloof. Frank clowns more until she responds.

T h e lm a : Oh, you're such a clown Frank you really are.

She laughs.

F ra n k : At least I make you laugh.

T h e lm a : (standing up and beginning to dance with him) That you do Frank, that you do.

The lights fade away.

END OF ACT 1 40

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

William Shoubridge THE DANCE COMPANY’S POPPY

Cocteau: the man, the works, the ballet.

Graeme Murphy as Jean Cocteau in his ballet Poppy. Photo: Robert Hartman

I know that poetry is indispensible but to whom?

What others criticise you for, cultivate^ is you.

The life, the work and the mind of Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) are to be the subject of the Dance Company (NSW)’s latest, most ambitious and most expensive essay into the realm of dance theatre. The full-length work, entitled Poppy (the reason for which will become obvious later was performed for three weeks in April at Sydney’s Theatre Royal, from whence it will travel to C anberra, Brisbane and Melbourne.

wm

Jean Cocteau:

Cocteau(Murphy)watches Le Spectre de la Rose; Nijinsky (Ramli Ibrahim) and Karsavina (Sheree da Costa) in Dance Co (NSW)’s Poppy. Photo: Robert Hartman.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

41

Poppy has an entirely knew libretto, especially commissioned score by Carl Vine, lighting design (including laser holography) by George Gittoes, set design by Ross Barnett and of course choreography by the Company’s Artistic Director, Graeme Murphy. In terms of playwrighting, a collaboration like this is a rare enough occurence, but in terms of the dance in Australia, it is a first time ever event. ’i ’ve always wanted to make a full length “ballet" says Graeme Murphy,” and when I discovered Jean Cocteau a few years ago in New York, it all fell together; the subject suggested itself. There was something in him and his life that fired my imagination, a marvellously rich life, full of material.”

C octeau’s works are hard enough to summarise, let alone the man himself, a mixture of baroque fantasy, rigorous clarity, self-doubt and narcisism, an electric conversationalist, a brooder, a genius by collaboration and one of the few men who erected the signposts of

Jean Cocteau. twentieth century art and thought. On a more personal level, a homosexual, an opium addict (hence the title of the ballet), a man who left the First World War “because I started to enjoy it”, a determined artistic revolutionary and a zealous prophet of new talent.

“Creating the ballet, structuring it is more a matter of subtraction really” says Murphy, “One mustn’t get bogged down in the material But it’s a life and a mind ideally suited to dance.

Cocteau used image so well and dance is at its best when conveying image.”

But will it help in conveying an understanding of Cocteau’s vast body of work... his unique place in this century’s artistic thought?

It would be tedentious in an article of this sort to attempt to analyse Cocteau and his works, but I think a sort of understanding of his place in art is a facility towards seeing how eminently suitable a subject like Cocteau is to the dance.

As far as I can see, Cocteau’s prime place of importance is as a “myth maker”. He took examples of ancient myth occasionally and 42

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reinvested them with meaning, unearthing in them powerful resonances that had all too clearly been forgotten. He didn’t merely trivialize them for modern sympathies but revitalized them. Even in his own completely original works one senses the place of myth and ritual in them; from the books of poetry Opera and Plainchant, the novel Le Grand Ecart, scenarios for the ballets Parade and The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower and the films The Blood o f the Poet and Beauty and the Beast.

Ritual has always been a strong element in dance especially modern dance — Martha Graeme proved that once and for all — so in theory the rites of passage of Jean Cocteau could be admirably treated and if so, following Murphy’s premise, the art and the man’s mind are part and parcel.

But Cocteau is not all ritual and mystery. For all his obsessions with bleeding bards, double headed eagles and leather jacketed angels of death, he remained a realist. He himself said that the closer one approached to a mystery, the more important it was to remain a realist. What constituted “realism” however was a matter of structure and interpretation, an examination of the terminology.

Cocteau’s early Paris was also the Paris of the Ballets Russes. Its Director, Sergei Diaghilev had a knack of gathering about him all the progressive creators of the time and Cocteau was no exception. In fact it was Diaghilev with his command to Cocteau, “Astound me” that turned Cocteau from the polished, witty but second rate homosexual darling of the Paris salons to a real, definitive creator of impact.

The Ballet Russes was also the company that created Le Sacre du Printemps, one of the signal works of the twentieth century, one of those creations, born fully grown, by which we characterise our own age. Cocteau worshipped Stravinsky and held Le Sacre... as his ideal. The revolution towards a “new” structure had been simmering for a long time. Le Sacre... along with Picasso’s Demoiselles d A v ig n o n and Apollinaire’s graphic poetry burst the banks and swept away the supine, ingrown post impressionism that was then fashionable; they were electric shocks applied without tact to chlorotic organisms.

Cocteau, placing himself in the vanguard, identified with all these impulses and grown alongside them and with them. He didn’t just jump on the band wagon as some critics have suggested, he applied them to his own style. The libretto for Parade could never be said to be derivative.

It is because the Ballet Russes figured so largely in the early life of Cocteau, set him on the road as it were, that it plays a large part in Act 1 of Poppy.

“For the first half of the work” says Murphy, "we deal with biographical material, the childhood erotic fantasies, the days in the salons, those with the Ballets Russes and the love affair with the precocious nineteen year old novelist, Raymond Radiguet”.

“The second part covers the opium years” continues Murphy, “the personal poetry, the search for expression, the interior life and art of Cocteau”.

Did M urphy have any qualms about arranging it all sequentially so as not to be confusing?

“There is so much material, one has to be careful. But the dance will be used for every expression we can get out of it. I'm trying to get right away from the “balletic" image. I’m going to use spoken word in it too which one has to be wary of. Dancers can speak quite well as long as one doesn't expect them to be actors; they will just be dancers who happen to speak as a part of their expression. But everything will have a point and a purpose, the laser holograms will not be just there for decoration, they will be used (sparingly) to express something, just like the music, the costumes and the set.

“I’m especially lucky with people like Carl Vine, George Gittoes and Ross Barnett. With

them I have people I can trust, whose inspiration and ideas are complimentary, it’s a giving, creative collabortion. The reaction from the dancers is unbelievable too. This production is stretching them all to the limit, the males especially, something that ordinary full length ballets rarely do. They are all discovering new potentials in themselves, potentials that dancers seldom discover”.

If all of this pulls together, if it all works, it will place the Dance Company in the forefront of all the dance companies in Australia. It already enjoys a unique position, an exploratory company always game to tackle something different. Graeme Murphy is at present our great hope as a native born choreographer, always analysing dance and the things it can express.

It behoves one to hope that audiences too will be a little more game than usual and admit that dance is as expressive, within the parameters of its own terminology, as any other performing art.

Ballet

Terry Owen

Ballet Company’s Festival of Perth Season.

The West Australian Ballet Company offered five new works in their fortnight season for the 1978 Festival of Perth. T hat’s ambitious programming for a small chamber group whose repertoire since re-establishment just one year ago has already gained nine ballets, including a number of commissioned pieces. The eight resident dancers have grown in strength and stagecraft from this forced feeding, and the most successful pieces in this Festival programme show the company’s women dancers to very considerable advantage. To do him justice, the strong, sympathetic partnering of visiting dancer Paul Tyers also contributed a great deal to the fine showing of the women.

The two works which came off best in the season were Jack Carter’s Cage o f God and Peter Darrell’s O Caritas. The leading role in O Caritas was danced by the company’s director, Robin Haig, returning to the stage one year after the birth of her daughter. She danced the work often when she was with Darrell’s Scottish National Ballet and her speed, razor-sharp profiling and powerful expressiveness made it hard to imagine this ballet without her.

Cage o f God, under the personal direction of English choreographer Jack Carter, reproduced

well on the regional company. The six dancers, including visitors Raymond Lewis and Paul Tyers, mingled and matched and paired off on a bare white stage in this allegory about Adam and Eve and the serpent. Carter’s sinewy, uncluttered choreography didn’t falter once in its structuring of mood, emotions and shapes in space. It’s an arresting work and an important addition to the repertoire.

The other ballets didn’t fare so well on the cramped, boxy stage of the New Dolphin Theatre. Rex Reid’s Tancredi and Clorinda, with its fine original score by Verdon Williams, was commissioned by the company a few years back. It’s a high style romantic piece, needing all the resources of large scale professional theatre to achieve its high finish. With one notable exception, the com pany’s dancers and technicians didn’t entirely get to grips with the work. Vanessa McIntosh, the company’s star dancer, is an elegant and powerfully sure performer, and her Clorinda gave Perth audiences a taste of the romantic, classically strong dancing they love.

Gerard Sibbritt’s Don Juan suffered from under-production and the absence of the choreographer during the final stages of

presentation. And the fifth work, Sara Sugihara's Bokhara, was the real disappointment of the programme. The banality of the writing was an insult to the Mozart string quartet score, and the dancers were never at ease with Sugihara’s totally individual vocabulary of movement which sat uneasily on their classically trained bodies.

The Western Australian company has a handful of strong and expressive women dancers who, in the year since Robin Haig reformed the group, have helped establish its identity. But like dance companies everywhere these days, this one is hard put to find equally strong men. To mount this season they had to rely on visitors, and it’s a dangerous thing to build a repertoire around non-residents.

The company also lacks a performance home of its own, and it doesn’t look like getting one for a year or so yet while the State Government potters around deciding on the final shape of renovations to Her Majesty's Theatre, now the property of the state. The company is forced to perform in totally unsuitable venues while it builds a repertoire which must be assembled with a view to eventual residence in Her Majesty’s.

WA Ballet Co’s Bokhara; Ronald Vanden Bergh, Christine Parrott and Jenny Phillipson.

Photo: Bill Angove.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

43

David Gyger

Opera

Midsummer Marriage and country tours

Raimund Herincx (King Fisher) and Marilyn’Richardson (Jenifer) in the State Opera’s Midsummer Marriage.

Both of the productions I have for review this than reality. Cervenka’s costumes further month are off the beaten track, though in quite spelled out the dichotomy of the piece: one set of different ways: one is off the beaten repertory characters was dressed very much as of today’s track, the other an exciting co-safari into the Australia, while the other was robed and loinwilds of northern New South Wales by the clothed in a vaguely classical, almost Australian Opera and the Queensland Theatre aggressively non-specific, way.

Orchestra.

By and large, Adrian Slack's direction for The The high profile event of the month would Midsummer Marriage was as sure-footed and have to be deemed State Opera of South efficient as it had seemed imprecise and Australia’s Adelaide Festival production of Sir sometimes almost non-existent in his Don Michael Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage, Giovanni late last year. the long overdue Australian premiere season of Jonathan Taylor’s choreography was pleasant a twenty six year old work that once again put without being exciting: that it failed to convey the nation's opera lovers in the debt of very fully the complexities of the ritual dances, Adelaide’s well-publicised aspiration to prove it is and the differences between them which are in fact the Athens of the South and not just a detailed so fully by Tippett in his libretto, should presumptuous State capital in the backwaters of perhaps not be made too much of. Joseph Ockerland.

Scoglio, in the non-speaking dance lead of The exhilarating thing about the Adelaide Strephon, moved with a lithe eloquence that did Midsummer Marriage was that it rang so true in much to atone for any inherent deficiencies in its overall atmosphere. The whole point about the choreography itself. the piece, it seems to me, is that it is a mystical Marilyn Richardson and Gregory Dempsey, experience, a miracle if you like; at any rate, a as the noble lovers Jenifer and Mark, both sang highly intellectualised parable involving surreal very well and acted as convincingly as the rather shifts of time and place from the here and now too noble and featureless personalities drawn by the libretto permitted. to some vaguely located time and place.

For such a piece, the multiple staggered discs The part of King Fisher offers a good deal of designer John Cervenka were a magnificent more scope; he is a thoroughly real and set: basically the imprecisely located forest glade recognisable character, a big-time small town called for by Tippett, but sufficiently surreal to businessman full of bluster and threat which in indicate visually that we were at least in part the opera is neatly frustrated at every turn. dealing in philosophy and metaphysics rather Raimund Flerincx made the most of a very good 44

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part, both in vocal and dramatic terms.

Thomas Edmonds was credible enough as Jack, the rather dull mechanic at heart who nevertheless has the guts to dig in his toes when pushed to the limits of his own simple code of ethics. Carolyn Vaughan was a thorough success as Bella, the pert, ultra-businesslike secretary who gets most of the few comic chances in the piece — particularly when playing intermediary between King Fisher and the Ancients at the door to the temple.

Ruth Gurner sang Sosostris well, though banished a little too far into the bowels of the stage to be adequately heard during her big vocal chance. The whole lotus blossom effect of her appearance was uncannily like the descent of Don Giovanni into hell last year, only in reverse: perhaps the guts of the same disused barber’s chair was used for the one as the other. They’re big on the subterranean stage machinery in Adelaide these days.

Finally, though, the greatest factor in the triumph of this Midsummer Marriage was its ensemble excellence, both orchestral and choral.

Conductor Myer Fredman was of course a crucial factor, and he obviously was completely attuned to Tippett’s music; but he could not have achieved such a resounding success without in-depth support.

A hefty percentage of opera buffs — ensconced as a class as they are within the confines of enormous cities — simply couldn’t care less if the art form ever reached anyone at all in the bush. Some of the more narrow-minded and self-centred undoubtedly think that opera in Australia begins and ends on Bennelong Point, Sydney; and there is no denying that such thinking has been given de facto encouragement by the performance schedules of the Australian Opera in recent years.

It is to the great credit of Peter Hemmings, the new general manager of the national company, that so much has been accomplished to break down that idea in the few months since he took over control. Joint seasons have already been announced for this year involving the AO and two of the most established State companies, those in South Australia and Queensland; and the bull of fully professional country touring — with orchestra — has also been taken by the horns.

Admittedly, the first AO safari was short in duration and limited in geographical terms: eleven performances of one opera in nine centres in northern New South Wales over a period of one month. But if the performance of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale I saw in Glen Innes Town Hall on February 21 was in any way typical of the tour,

the whole exercise was eminently worthwhile.

It was of course a performance lacking in many of the finer refinements of city opera­ going: the sets were simple, sturdy and utilitarian, the air-conditioning non-existent, the sight lines and acoustics in a pitless hall less than ideal. If you wanted a drink at interval, you had to sprint to the nearest pub.

No matter: Grant Dickson, who is singing particularly well these days, was a thoroughly satisfying Pasquale; Rhonda Bruce was a very good Norina; Robin Donald a successful Ernesto; Gregory Yurisich a fair enough Malatesta. All those four singers being who they are, that was only to be expected: the real surprises, of course, lay elsewhere.

Specifically, in two quarters: the quality of the orchestral backing and the ingenuity of the fully self-supporting, quickly demountable stage conversion kit contrived by the Australian Opera’s living national treasure of a resident designer, Tom Lingwood.

In this instance, Lingwood acted as producer as well as designer, repeating his previous schizophrenic stint for the AO’s Carmen in 1976, if on a considerably smaller scale. The

production itself was thoroughly sensible and straightforward, if predictably lacking in the sort of spectacular and expensive touches that can sometimes be indulged in when one is staging opera in a metropolitan context.

In its own way, the Pasquale set was every bit as brilliant a practical concept as Lingwood’s 1975 Aida set which converted the performing area of the concert hall at the Sydney Opera House into a viable venue for staging grand opera: it solved in one brilliant master stroke most of the chronic problems involved in staging opera in a variety of country venues in quick succession.

Completely free-standing, it can be bolted together and taken apart with despatch and a minimum of labor; and it is sturdy enough to withstand the rigors of rough country travel. It also incorporates its own proscenium arch, draw curtains and lighting grid which — though of course limited in potential — is capable of providing light of a surprisingly effective and varied nature.

The other welcome innovation in this particular country tour was the use of the recently formed Queensland Theatre Orchestra

together with its musical director, Georg T intner, who conducted most of the performances of Don Pasquale. Of course, using an orchestra inevitably creates sound balance problems in the country touring situation, where practically all the venues available are of the church town hall variety with flat floors and no pits. But the overall gain in sound quality is immense, when compared with the thoroughly unsatisfactory alternative of performing to piano accompaniment — particularly when an orchestra of the thoroughly acceptable standard of the QTO is available.

It is to be hoped that other country opera tours along similar lines will become an increasingly regular feature of Australia s operatic landscape in the next few years.

Though of course, in deference to the rigors and deprivations inevitably imposed on the performers involved, they should be firmly kept within the proportions of the brief foray rather than the extensive grand tour of many weeks' duration which has sometimes characterised such activities in the past.

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45

Elizabeth Riddell

Film

Something old, something new.

Paddy Doolan s team of Clydesdales in T he Irishm an.

Of the three Australian films that ushered in 1978, one had something original to say and the other two repeated, in different ways and with varying success, a selection of well-worn statements. The three are T he L a st W ave, T he M a n g o T ree and T he Irish m an . Each film offers good-to-splendid camera-work and colour, careful design with reasonably authentic costumes and sets, and that technical expertness which is the result of the hard school of experience in making commercials. This training never hurt anyone, and it’s interesting to note that a man who never previously made anything but commercials has produced one of the genuine masterpieces of recent film-making, T he D u ellists.

T he L a st W a v e is the most interesting of the three for various reasons. It is set in the present and its theme is a contemporary one — an exploration of modern man’s vulnerability, or at least susceptability, to those forces at work just beyond the reach of physcial perception. The theme of T he L a st W a v e is the “accident” of black impact on a white man and how event progress inevitably from one point to another, partly because nobody knows how to put the thing into reverse. The very eerie quality of the film comes from the mental distance separating the protagonists and the impossibility of the space ever being closed, because, for one thing, they share the same language but the words have different meanings.

T he L a st W ave, which was produced by the McElroy brothers and directed by Peter Weir, won prizes at the Teheran and Paris festivals in 1977 and was admired at the Berlin Film Festival. It has sold well in Europe but the US is, 46

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

as usual, showing little interest.

The stars of T he L a st W a v e are Richard Chamberlain, as Adam, a Sydney lawyer with a practice in equity, or something equally stuffy, and David Gulpilil as Chris, a city black. With others, Chris is arrested when another black is found dead in a puddle of water after he has been threatened and chased. Chamberlain (treefringed surburban house, swimming pool, wife, two small children) becomes involved in the blacks’ defence through one of those old-mate relationships. While three of his clients are dumb in both senses it is clear that Chris is intelligent, devious, both sly and shy and up to his ears in tribal secrecy although, as everybody knows and keeps saying, city blacks have no tribe.

The blacks finally get into court and Chris blows the gaff, spilling tribal truths while absent from the pervading, perhaps' malignant, influence of his tribal elder, old Charlie, played to the hilt by Nandjiwarra Amagula.

Which leads to the climatic scenes, too long drawn out — there is a limit to your average cinemagoer’s ability to sustain interest in the monotonous windings of a sewer — and to the climax itself, which is positively wonderful.

Several people were responsible for the script, including Petru Popescu, imported from America, who has written a book of the film paperbacked by Angus & Robertson. The South Australian Film Corporation and the Australian Film Commission put up a share of the $780,000 cost.

I think T he L a st W a v e is, despite a number of faults — the boringly-written role of the wife suffered by Olivia Hammett, the overlong sewer sequence, the unmotivated intrusion of the

stepfather character, legal solecisms in the court scene — probably the most interesting film, and likely to command the most attention from critics and audiences everywhere, since The D e v i l ’s P layg ro u n d . It has a good idea to start with, a competent script and two excellent central performances from Chamberlain and Gulpilil.

With T he M a n g o T ree we are offf on a trot down Nostalgia Lane. The equivocations and subtleties of Ronald McKie’s book, which raised it above the standard of 1-was-a-boy-in-Bendigo reminiscence, are replaced by stereotypes in Michael Pate’s filmscript and in this capacity given their due by the director, Kevin Dobson.

A lot of T he M a n g o T ree looks very good (design by Leslie Binns, cinematography directed

by Brian Probyn and carried out by Peter Moss) and it has a cast of well-knowns including Robert Helpmann, Gerard Kennedy, Gloria Dawn, Carol Burns, Diane Craig, Ben Gabriel, Tony Bonner (making a curiously anachronistic appearance as Bert Hinkler) and Gerry Duggan.

The youth who is both participator and observer, Jamie, is played by Christopher Pate (son of the producer-writer) and the role of his granny, a kind of combined female squire, dowager duchess and lady bountiful, is taken by the distinguished American actress Geraldine Fitzgerald.

The film cost $650,000 contributed principally by Greater Union, The Australian Film Commission and (bravo) the Bundaberg Sugar Company. Locations included Gayndah, a Queensland citrus township and the Walla Brahmin Stud.

T he M a n g o T ree glows with conventional

good feeling that is not quite warmth, and it reeks of “packaging”. It is like a television serial crammed into a hundred and five minutes, but the artificial compactness fails to give it depth and the director clearly has no control over his performers. Perhaps he did not wish to exercise it. Robert Helpmann and Gerard Kennedy appear to be using a different acting language from Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gloria Dawn and Gerry Duggan. As for Christopher Pate, he brings nothing much more to the role than a cocky smile. The notion that a young woman such as the French mistress Miss Pringle (Diane Craig) could take him to bed is simply ludicrous.

Soggy as it is, The Mango Tree does offer one fresh and striking talent. This belongs to Carol Burns, who plays Maudie Plover, a girl with a chip on her shoulder, not to mention a demented mother and a homicidal Uncle Gerard Kennedy.

She is a real find.

The Irishman, appropriately released (except for Townsville, which got its own gala world premiere) on St Patrick’s Day, is a combined Anthony Buckley and Donald Crombie effort and certainly one of the most dramatically and beautifully photographed films to be made in Australia. The opening in which Paddy Doolan’s team of heavy horses plunge into the shallow river as birds whirl above and great fountains of water fly up from their great stamping hooves, sets the tone of the film’s lush appreciation of figures, human and animal, in a landscape. The film is a real celebration of life, however often it lapses into a cliche of living.

Peter James directed the photography with John Seale as camera operator. They make a formidable team. And so of course do Buckley and Crombie, creators of Caddie. It may be presumptuous to imagine, as a critic suggested to me, that an essential part of the integrity of their films is their own philosophy. They can be

experience.

The Irishman is taken from a novel by Elizabeth O’Connor which in 1961 won the Miles Franklin Award (Ronald McKie won it more than ten years later for The Mango Tree) which I have never read. So 1am unable to say whether Crombie, credited with the screenplay, has stuck to the original text. The story is that of an illiterate Irish teamster named Paddy Doolan who has pridefully got together twenty horses to haul his dray with supplies from the railhead to the township, in the film represented by Charters Towers. But the time is just after World War 1 (as in The Mango Tree) and motor lorries are on the horizon. Paddy sees bad days ahead, although he won’t admit it, and his prospects are further moderated by the closure of The Galaxie mine after an accident. His

mine, and so out of work. His elder son Will won’t join him in the business.

Michael Craig, who has had variable film and television luck since settling in Australia, is a most persuasive Paddy Doolan, awe-inspiringly handsome and picturesque but still credible in his teamster’s gear; seemingly quite at home with the no less awe-inspiring and handsome horses, short-tempered, long-winded when he gets an audience, ducking the problems of his future, eventually taking up the soft option of the bottle. A lesser enterprise would have had the script reclaim Paddy from the booze, which would have made a happy ending thaj nobody would have believed.

The Irishman suffers from that endemic disease of Australian films; too many sub-plots and too many clues not followed up. And really ludicrous miscasting, or mis reading of the character, also turns up, as in Caddie. In Caddie it was the role of the Greek. In The Irishman it is the less important part of Mrs Clark, wife of Bailey Clark the local toff, or grazier. The conception and the performance, by Roberta Grant, are quite freakish. And is it too pedantic to wish that somebody would catch such solecisms (for 1920) as “room service” said jokingly, and “stroppy”?

But on the whole the perform ances supporting those of Michael Craig and Simon Burke, who plays the younger son and is to be taken as the survivor who will move into the modern world without fear, are extremely satisfying. Lou Brown stands out as Will, Tui Lorraine Bow as the dreadful old granny, Tony Barry as Robert Dalgleish. Gerard Kennedy, with the right direction, establishes an enigmatic and commanding presence in all his scenes, as if he had never heard of The Mango Tree.

The Irishman is beguiling as well as beautiful, a bit like an early innocent western with special fringe benefits of a rowdy Picnic Race meeting and timbergetting scenes on the. slopes of the rain forest, where Paddy takes his horses.

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47

Roger Coveil

Records

A Massenet revival and an early English Festival.

People with tidy minds may be able to satisfy themselves that Jules Massenet is a composer of cloying sweetness and rather tawdry theatricalism and leave it at that. Massenet may deserve such epithets for occasional passages in his operas. Nevertheless, a Massenet revival is well under way in Western Europe and North America. It is not really surprising. Even Massenet’s most intemperate critics concede that he was a master of a certain kind of theatrical effect. The num ber of opera composers who have a mastery of this kind is small in any period. On this ground alone Massenet might be considered worth getting to know better. Opera lovers know that theatrical artifice, while absolutely necessary to an opera composer of professional stature, cannot redeem by itself scores which lack musical invention and personal character. Massenet's musical skill and the economy and originality of his workmanship have been the revelations of the revival now gathering momentum. Recently I sat in on an flowing tunefulness, however; there are orchestral rehearsal of Massenet's Werther in dramatic and muscular songs among this the Teatro Comunale in Florence which was selection. Le petit Jesus is deeply felt, regarding merely one of the most recent of a series of the manger with an eye that also is aware of the Massenet productions in progress in Italy. It is crucifixion to come. There is a truly haunting true that the conductor on this occasion, bell motive in the piano part for a song about the Georges Prêtre, was a Frenchman; but his message of the bells. Three of the songs have direction found a ready and sympathetic enhancing cello parts added to them. The response among the Italian or Italiante singers recording allows the sound to reach us in an of the cast. It is no wonder at all that Italian unfettered way. 1 have never heard Tourangeau opera fanciers take to Massenet. They cannot in better voice and Bonynge provides piano help hearing how much Puccini learnt from him playing which is wholly sympathetic and is in orchestration, melody types, organisation of strongly characteristic or discreet, as the scenes and subject matter. No conductor of the occasion demands. In its combination of present day has played a bigger part in the performance and recording and in its collection revival and enlarged appreciation of Massenet of many beautiful songs not widely known at now being established than Richard Bonynge. present this record is one of the most successful His recording of Esclarmonde for Decca (Set and desirable recital discs to come my way for a 612; 3 discs) helped to revise facile long time. generalisations on the size and scope of The title, Festival o f Early Music, on a box of M assenet’s dram atic gifts and musical three discs from Argo (D40D) is a rather routine apparatus. Bonynge has also turned his label for a reissue of three records of exceptional attention to Massenet's songs on a Decca single individual interest. Instead of offering, as the disc (SXL 6765) on which he supplies title might seem to suggest, a representative collaboration at the piano with the singing of the sampling of medieval and early renaissance French-Canadian mezzo soprano, Huguette music, the set concentrates on three periods. The Tourangeau. Between them they perform earliest of these is the era of the crusades. The twenty of Massenet's songs, covering a range of majority of the songs and dances on it belong to style representative of M assenet’s very the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The late considerable gifts as a songwriter.

David Munrow, who is the musical director of Some of the songs have that French kind of the three discs, leads his Early Music Consort of silky melodiousness which inevitably causes Fondon in imaginative but not extreme them to be dubbed salon music. As the French realisations of the various political, amorous and invented the salon it is not surprising that some sporting songs performed in this anthology. The of their music fits its milieu rather better than songs as preserved in the chansonniers of this the music of composers from other cultures. and slightly later periods provide only a single Massenet’s style is not restricted to urbane and line of melody to go with the words. It is no 48

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

longer satisfactory, as it was in the early days of the medieval music revival, to perform these as invariably unaccompanied. A great deal more is known now about instrumentation of the period and some very good guesses have been acted on in using melody instruments and percussion to help construct a shapely musical entity. The playing of the dance tunes is splendid and the solo singing is mostly highly accomplished. No less interesting for its general historical reference is the disc originally entitled Ecco la primavera (Florentine music of the fourteenth century).

Here the music is simple and unaffected on occasions, but most of it is the highly wrought product of the period of Florentine civilisation in which Boccaccio flourished. Fandini, one of the many blind composers and instrumentalists of musical history, was the great figure in music of the stature of the leading Florentine writers. He is well represented, but there is also room for music by masters such as Jacopo da Bologna and Giovanni da Firenze. The third disc collects together some delightful music, much of it an elaboration of very homely German song and dance material, from the period of the Emperor Maximilian 1 in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Maximilian was the cultural heir of the miraculous flowering of musical talent at the court of the great Dukes of Burgundy and he, as much as any ruler in history, appreciated that his best chance of being remembered was to encourage the leading composers and other artists of his day to work for him. The fact that this disc can be entitled The Triumphs o f Maximilian I is, as David Munrow notes in the text booklet, one of the best proofs that he was right.

Books

John McCallum

Down Under by Bob Ellis and Anne Brooksbank.

Angus and Robertson, $2.95.

Tourist to the Antipodes edited by Raymond Stanley. University of Queensland Press, $9.95.

Life Pieces by Allan Mackay. Hodder and Stoughton.

The Jazz Book by Joachim Berendt. Landsdowne Press.

Michio Ito, The Dancer and his Dances by Helen Caldwell. Caldwell, $19.95. _____

It has been pointed out often that the new morality is no morality at all but a dogma of selfishness. It’s all right to do anything as long as you are personally satisfied and fulfilled. This sort of attitude has been around for a long time, but with the establishment pursuing a doctrine of material self-interest and the counter-culture a doctrine of spiritual self-interest things may be taking a worrying turn.

Anne Brooksbank and Bob Ellis’ play, Down Under (Angus and Robertson), which has been acknowledged by David Williamson as the best play since Oedipus Rex, documents the little worries and traumas of some very selfish people.

The main thing which unites this frighteningly familiar group of characters is their total absorbtion in themselves and their own interests.

In a group of people who all have artistic pretensions (they all work for, or have some past connection with the ABC) it is surprising that all the conversation resolves around success and personal satisfaction.

Down Under is surely the last word on what the Whitlam years meant for artistic people in

Australia. According to the play it seems that Whitlam said, here is some money, go forth and think great thoughts — but no-one did. Whether this is a just view of Australian artists' failure to live up to Whitlam’s dreams for them is open for discussion but as far as the ABC goes Brooksbank and Ellis seem to be being proven right. At least Esson and Yeats used to talk about Art and Truth.

The characters in Down Under mostly suffer under an illusion typical during the Whitlam years. This is that they had great things in them, and vast potential as artists or producers or whatever. Like Don and Mai in Don’s Party, with which this play has been compared, this gives them the chance to be disillusioned, at length, when the great hopes for their future are unrealized. If anything the disillusion is more tedious than the illusion. There is only one character in this play without illusions, and that is the young girl Rosalie, who restricts herself to the simple, and in her case quite accurate statement that she is a genius.

The message of this play is that Australia gives you miscarriages. A gloomy message, but sensitively set forth. It really is a very good play.

Whitlam’s Babies are portrayed sadly and rather pathetically but with great understanding. The play made me feel 1 didn’t want to be one of them, but it’s good to have them there, reassuring, portraits on the wall.

Tourist To The Antipodes (University of Queensland Press) documents, rather sketchily, a different Australia, and is a charming addition to the growing number of accounts in print of early visitors' impressions of the Colonies. It has nothing to do with theatre but is reviewed here because its author went on, after his Antipodean tour, to become a well-known drama critic, playwright and translator and champion of Ibsen. William Archer was only nineteen when he travelled to Australia, and it shows. He lacks the Hungry Questing Intelligence (a critic’s term, read, perhaps, “intense curiosity”) that makes a great travel writer. Too often he writes “Why this should be so I could not discover” or something of the sort. It is also obvious that he is not writing out of a particular interest in the colonies, but because he likes writing and 19th century Australia provides an interesting and exotic subject. His point of view is furthermore definitely that of a member of the squattocracy.

This account of Australian bush life through the eyes of a cultivated and intelligent new chum will be of interest to students of 19th century Australian melodrama if to non-one else.

It is wittily written, and it rehearses most of the by now familiar cliches of Colonial life. In the towns, you will not be surprised to hear, Australian “society” aped the English; in the bush (read “country”) Australians drank a lot, unless they were squatters, in which case they grew all their own food. Blacks are cannibals and “cannot grasp the higher numbers”. Archer dutifully records many of the bush-yarns he heard, and some of them are good ones. His book will appeal to the well-known Australian taste for reading what people from Overseas think of their country.

Still on Australia, we come to a collection of short plays for schools, Life Pieces, by Allan Mackay, misleadingly subtitled Ten Australian Plays. These are all for and about teenagers. Even if teenagers now really do behave in the way they are presented in these plays, it seems unfair to subject them to this tired series of theatrical cliches. Mackay uses the cliches fairly, and there is sensitivity lurking there somewhere, but it would be nice to think that students in school had something more adventurous to deal with.

An odd little publication is In Collaboration, a trilogy of television plays by Maurice Hurst and Ian Cameron. If the Preface and Introduction (by Prances Kelly and Hilary Mitchell respectively) are to be believed the only reason for publication was for the insight into the process of collaboration in writing. The plays themselves are workmanlike cops-and-robbers dramas. Quoted in the front is the startling claim, by a Melbourne critic, that these two writers “manage to succeed in Australian comedy, an area in which most of our big name writers fail.” The book is apparently published in Panama, printed in Sussex and is an “ICOL Playscript Classic” distributed in London, New York and Los Angeles, but available in Australia from Tom Whitton at the Second Back Row Press in Sydney. You must get it, it’s so cosmopolitan.

Two more books may be mentioned. Helen Caldwell’s Michio Ito: The Dancer and His Dancers chronicles the work of a JapaneseAmerican dancer in a tone and style for which I cannot work up any enthusiasm at all. It is apparently intended as a companion to a series of films of her performing his work, and may be useful as such. Joachim Berendt’s The Jazz Book, in an extensively revised fourth edition, is a forbidding volume to someone such as myself who is no expert on jazz music, but 1 note its publication, by Melbourne’s Lansdowne Press, for those who might be interested.

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

49

THEATRE OPERA DANCE

A .C .T .

THE BARD’S THEATRE RESTAURANT (47-6244!

Blue Hat Productions: Command Performance in honour of the visit of H M Edward VII on the occasion of the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Devised and directed by Gordon Todd, with Monsieur Frederick. Thursdays to Saturdays (continuing).

CANBERRA OPERA (47-0249) Opera in the Schools Series The Puppet Master by Tchaikovsky. Producer, Nina Cooke; Design, Ron Butters. Touring schools till July.

CANBERRA THEATRE (49-7600) Canberra Opera A Masked Ball by Verdi. Conductor, John Curro; Director, Keith Richards; Design, Mark Wagner. May 3, 5, 6.

London Theatre Group: East by Steve Berkoff. 29 May to 2 June.

CANBERRA YOUTH THEATRE (47-0781) Canberra Youth Theatre Camp. 6 to 10 May. JIGSAW COMPANY (47-0781) In repertory: A ct Now, a documentary play for adults, on self-government in the ACT; Crumpet and Co., a participation play for children; The Empty House, a participation play for pre­ schools, Prometheus, a participation play for primary schools; in schools and various other locations.

PLAYHOUSE (49-7600) Won Kyung Cho, dance-mime performer.

May 6.

Fortune Theatre Company (sponsored by Arts Council and Canberra Theatre Centre), season of lunch-time theatre.

Hancock’s Last H alf Hour, by Heathcote Williams; Fumed Oak by Noel Coward; The Hard Word, by Mike Giles (written for Fortune Theatre). Playhouse Foyer, weekdays May 1 to 26.

Dale Woodward’s Theatres of Puppetry Cinderella May 8 - 12and 15, 16.

Dale Woodward Rod Puppet Workshop May 17, 18, 19.

Vaudeville Capers, devised by Tikki Taylor and John Newman; Director, Jim Hutchins. Fridays and Saturdays (continuing).

NEW S O U TH W ALES ACTOR’S COMPANY (660-2503) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Director, Steve Agnew; with Kate Ferguson, Dallas Lewis, Narelle Johnson, Brian Barrie, John Paramor. (to June 10th).

ARTS COUNCIL OF NEW SOUTH WALES (31-6611) Wayne Roland Brown, multi-instrumentalist.

Schools tour of NSW western areas and Sydney metropolitan. May 1 - 7.

Bob Fillman and Friends, ventriloquist, magician and puppeteer. Schools tour of Sydney, South Coast and Riverina areas. May 1 - 7.

ENSEMBLE (929-8877) Vanities by Jack Heifner. Director, Brian Young (continuing).

GENESIAN (827-3023) The Royal Hunt o f the Sun by Peter Shaffer.

Director, Tony Hayes. From May 6.

HER MAJESTY'S (212-3411) The Apple Cart by the Chichester Festival Theatre Company starring Keith Michell, Ny.ree Dawn Porter and Roy Dotrice. May 1 - 6.

Isn't it Pathetic at His Age. Barry Humphries introduces new characters. From end May. MARIAN STREET THEATRE (498-3166) Journey’s End by R C Sherriff. Director, Alastair Duncan. To June 3.

MARIONETTE THEATRE OF AUSTRALIA (357-1638) Whacko the Diddle O! (A Funny Kind o f Puppet Show), deviser, director, Richard Bradshaw and Steve Hansen. Tour of Sydney Metropolitan community centres. From May 1.

MUSIC HALL THEATRE RESTAURANT (909-8222) Crushed by Desire, written and directed by Michael Boddy. With Anne Semler, Bruce Barry, Reg Gillam, David Gilchrist.

MUSIC LOFT THEATRE RESTAURANT (977-6585) Encore, written and produced by Peggy Mortimer, starring the Topanno Family.

THEATRE 3 (47-4222) Tempo Guess What Happened on the Way to the Forum, Director, Ian Howard. May 5 and 6, then Thursday to Saturday till May 20.

NEW ARTS THEATRE, Glebe (660-3922) East by Steve Berkoff, with the London Theatre Company. To May 27.

TIVOLI THEATRE RESTAURANT (49-1411) Canberra Professional Group

NEW THEATRE (519-3403) The Radio-Active Horror Show by John

50

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Romeril. Director, Paul Quinn. Throughout May. NIMROD (699-5003) Upstairs: Comedy o f Errors, by William Shakespeare. Director, John Bell; with Henry Szeps, Robert Levis, Robert Davis, Malcolm Keith, John McTernan, Tony Sheldon, Drew Forsyth, Rob Hewitt, Maggie Dence, Elizabeth Lancaster, Anna Volska, Maggie Blinco. To June 18.

Downstairs: A Kabaret Evening with Robyn Archer and John Gaden. To May 20.

No. 86 THEA TRE RESTAURANT, ST Leonards (439-8533) A l Capone's Birthday Party, by Pat Garvey.

Director, producer, Pat Garvey; choreography, Keith Little; sets, Doug Anderson; costumes, Ray Wilson. Continuing.

OLD TOTE (663-6122) Drama Theatre, Opera House: The Misanthrope

by Moliere, translated by Tony Harrison.

Director, Ted Craig; with Barry Otto and Kate Fitzpatrick. To June 6.

Parade Theatre, Kensington: Just' Between Ourselves by Alan Ayckbourn. Director, Peter Collingwood; with Peter Whitford, June Thody, Alan Becher, Joan Bruce, Jenni McNae. To May 16.

OSCARS HOLLYW OOD PALACE THEATRE RESTAURANT, Sans Souci.

(529-4455) Fasten Your Seat Belts, written by Don Battye and Peter Pinne. Director, Jon Ewing; with Liz Harris, Beth McDonald, Anne Grigg, John H annan, and Greg Radford (also choreographer). Continuing.

Q THEATRE, Penrith (047 21 -5735) Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn.

Director, Doreen Warburton. Penrith, to May 14; Bankstown, May 17 - 21; Parramatta, May 24-28.

RIVERINA TRUCKING COMPANY (wagga) (069 25-2052) Diamond Studs by Bland Simpson and Jim Wann. Wagga to May 14; touring May 15 -21.

A Day In The Death O f Joe Egg. Opening date not yet fixed.

Q U E E N S LA N D ARTS THEATRE (36-2344) The Waltz o f the Torreadors by Jean Anouilh.

Director, Yve Morrison; designer, Max Hurley.

To 20 May. Wait Until Dark by Frederick Knott. Director,

Margaret Brown. 25 May - 24 June.

Children’s Theatre: The Witch The Wizard and the Giant Cook by Eugene Hickey. Director, Barbara Webber. 20 May - 10 June.

CAMERATA (36-6651) Plans not definite as yet.

THE REALTO (Hardgrave St, West End) Bookings Festival Hall (229-4250) G & M Promotions by arrangement with Harry M Miller.

The Rocky Horror Show by Richard O’Brien.

Director, Bryan Nason.

HER MAJESTY'S (221-2777) The Gang Show 5-13 May. Queensland Light Opera Co: The Yeoman o f the Guard, HMS Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan. Qld Theatre Orchestra conducted by David Macfarlane (also director).

Designer, Max Hurley.

LA BOITE (36-1622) Young Mo by Steve J Spears. Director, Rick Billinghurst; designer, David Bell; with Rod Wissler.

School fo r Clowns by S K Waechter, translated

by Ken Campbell. Director, Sean Mee; designer, Luigi Forzin. 1-12 May. City Sugar by Stephen Poliakoff. Director, Jennifer Blocksidge; technical director, Leigh Wayper. From 19 May. QUEENSLAND ARTS COUNCIL (221 5900) Carribean Extravaganza on tour.

The Bushwackers on tour from 21 May. QUEENSLAND THEATRE COMPANY (21-5177) King Lear by William Shakespeare. Director, Alan Edwards; designer, Peter Cooke; with Warren Mitchell. 17 May - 10 June.

TWELFTH NIGHT (52-5889) In Praise o f Love by Terence Rattigan. Director, Bill Redmond; designer Stephen Gow; with Ann Haddy, Ric Hutton, Greg Parke. 3 - 27 May.

Magic Shadow Show Greater Hobart area Schools’ Tour. To May 5.

The Golden Nugget Show by Peter Wilson and John Paterson. Touring Victoria May 15 -26.

Then at Theatre Royal May 31 - June 9.

TASMANIAN THEATRE COMPANY (34-6266) Theatre Royal Showboat Tasmanian Light Opera Company.

To May 6.

University Revue Old Nick Company May 12 27.

The Golden Nugget Show See Tasmanian Puppet Company.

V IC T O R IA ARENA CHILDRENS THEATRE (24-9667) The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.

Director, Peter Tulloch.

Adapt or Die written and directed by Peter Tulloch.

Also May holiday play and Drama Workshop.

AUSTRALIAN PERFORMING GROUP (347-7153) Back Theatre: Season of political play-readings. May 2 - 7.

Louisa (The See-Saw Players). May 8 - 27.

Late show — George Dreyfus. May 11 - June 3.

Front Theatre: The Radio Show. April 24 - May 7.

FOIBLES THEATRE RESTAURANT (247-2397) Original comedy entertainment Wednesday to Saturday. New Acts Monday nights.

FLYING TRAPEZE CAFE (41-3727) Captain Rock and Co.

ADELAIDE THEATRE GROUP 50 McKinnon Parade.

Next To Nothing. May 4 - 7.

SOUTH AUSTRALIAN THEATRE COMPANY (51-5151) Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 by William Shakespeare.

Directed by Colin George. May 5 - 27.

LAST LAUGH THEATRE RESTAURANT (419-6226) True Romances — an edible affair starring Busby Berkely’s and Peaches La Creme.

STATE OPERA (352-3738/3366) The Opera Theatre The Marriage o f Figaro.

3,5,6, 10, 12, 13 May.

LA MAMA (380-4593) The Horror o f Nature Strips. May 4 - 1 4 and The Bloody Terror o f Dentistry both by Barry Dickens.

Gents. Troupe from Adelaide. May 18-28.

TROUPE at the Red Shed Cnr Angas and Cardwell Streets.

Gents written and directed by Keith Gallasch.

May 4 -14, Thurs to Suns.

T A S M A N IA TASMANIAN PUPPET THEATRE (23-7996)

With

The Busby Berkleys Peaches La Creme & Th e Stuffed Puppets

HOOPLA PRODUCTIONS (63-7643) Let M ein by Ted Neilsen. May 12-June 3.

(Premiere) J C WILLIAMSONS Her Majesty’s Theatre: A Chorus Line.

Comedy Theatre: M y Fat Friend starring Paula Wilcox and Bill Farley. To May 13.

Love Thy Neighbour starring Jack Smethurst and Nina Baden-Semper. From May 15.

S O U TH A U S T R A L IA

‘The elusive good night out can be found here!’ ... says Peter Smark’s Eating Out In Melbourne 1978

MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY (654-4000) Russell Street Theatre: Makassar Reef by Alex Buzo. March 23 - May 13.

Departmental by Mervyn Rutherford. May 25 July 8.

Last 4 w e ek s MUST CLOSE JUNE 3RD

BOOK NOW 419.6226,419.6225 Fully Licenced 64 Smith St., Collingwood

We are always interested in new acts and scripts... contact fo r circus to cabaret!!

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

51

Workshop productions, May 15-20.

Atheneum Theatre: The Beaux’ Stratagem by George Farquhar.

May 4 - June 10.

PILGRIM PUPPET THEATRE (818-6650) Alice In Wonderland.

Australia^ magazine of the perfoiming arts

Theatre Australia

—

Q theatre

ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR

by ALAN AYCKBOURN

PRINCESS THEATRE (662-2911) The Australian Opera Company Macbeth, Don Giovanni, The Gondoliers, The Flying Dutchman in repertory, from May 3.

April 26 - May 14 — Penrith May 1 7 - 21 — Bankstown Town Hall May 2 4 - 2 8 — Marsden Auditorium, Parramatta.

TIKKI AND JOHN’S THEATRE LOUNGE (663-1754) Old Time Music Hall John and Tikki Newman, Myrtle Roberts, Vic Gordon. Tuesday - Saturday.

GHOST

by HENRIK IBSEN June 7 - 2 5 — Penrith June 28 - July 1 — Bankstown Town Hall July 5 - 9 — Marsden Auditorium, Parramatta.

VICTORIAN STATE OPERA (41-5061) Schools program on tour.

The Barber o f Seville. From May 12 on tour, Albury region.

THEQTHEATRE P.O. BOX 10, PENRITH 2750. Tel: (047) 21-5735

MAJOR AMATEUR COMPANIES Please phone these theatres in the evenings for details of current productions.

HEIDELBERG REPERTORY (49-2262) MALVERN THEATRE COMPANY (

a n n M cD o n a l d COLLEGE OF DANCIN G (E st. 1926)

211- 0020)

PUMPKIN THEATRE, Richmond (42-8237) 1812 THEATRE, Ferntree Gully (796-8624)

Next Month W E S TE R N A U S T R A L IA HOLE IN THE WALL (381 -2403) Sporting Double; The Les Darcy Show by Jack Hibberd.

The Roy Murphy Show by Alex Buzo. Director, John Milson. From April 26.

PLAYHOUSE (325-3500) The Club by David Williamson. MTC production April 27 - May 20.

A Streetcar N am ed Desire by Tennessee Williams. Director, Stephen Barry. May 24 June 17.

Greenroom: Miss Julie by August Strindberg. Director, Mike Morris. May 2 - 27.

THE REGAL (381-1557) In Praise o f Love by Terence Rattigan. Director, Anthony Sharpe. From May 4.

WA BALLET COMPANY (380-2440) The Octagon Theatre: Selected programme: Dances from William Tell, In A Clear Place, Just A Moment, Flower Festival, Jeux, Chairs, Suite o f Dances. May 4 on.

WA OPERA COMPANY (322-4766) Perth Entertainment Centre: The Gondoliers by Gilbert and Sullivan with June Bronhill and Peter Pratt. Conductor, Alan Abbot; Producer. Betty Pounder. May 3 -12.

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THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1978

Alex Buzo’s Anniversary Alternative Adelaide Melbourne’s Lost Theatres Pt.2 Reviews, Opera, Theatre, Ballet, Dance, and lots more.

Ballet (R.A.D.) Examinations in all grades, pre-prelim inary to solo seal.

Full-tim e day classes also Classes and Private Tuition Ballroom , L atin A m erican, O ld Tim e, Social, T heatrical, M odern, Jazz and C lassical.

The G reenw ood H all C om plex 196 L iverpool R oad, Burwood. N .S.W '. 2134 Phone 74 6362 (A .H . 428 1694)

S U B S C R IP TIO N RATES A u s tra lia : $18.00 Post Free for twelve issues.

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498-3166 The Greatest British War Play!

JOURNEYS END

by R .G. Sherriff Featuring Tim Hughes, Joe James, Damien Parker Directed by Alastair Duncan Tues. to Sat. 8.15 — Dinner from 6.30 Sunday at 4.30 Bookings 498-3166 and Agencies 2 Marian Street, Killara 2071