Author: Kate Foy

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December 20-26, 2010: It’s that time of year again … ho, ho, ho!

It’s a week when most of the state is powering down to relax with friends and family. As I write, the sun is out, the birds and the cicadas are singing, and it’s stopped raining.

There’s not a great deal happening in the theatre world. Shake and Stir continue their December workshops, this week for Primary schoolers. Fractal’s promenade production of Under Milk Wood continues at the Old Museum Building, but only until Christmas Eve. Most other companies have closed their doors for a break, or will do so on Friday.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of Greenroom’s readers and contributors for their interest and support during 2010, the first full year of operations of this site. For my part, it’s been a labour of love, and I’ve very much enjoyed my interaction with Queensland’s wonderful theatre community during a year of change, growth and great expectations for the future.

Thanks to all those who submitted themselves to interviews, and to Dave Burton and Nick Backstrom (in exile) and Lucas Stibbard who cheerfully responded – and wonderfully well – to my requests for guest reviews and commentary from time to time. Zane Trow and Paul Osuch also posted about their own labours of love here, and it was good to hear other voices at work.

Greenroom attempts to provide a curatorial service for professional theatre in the state, and a forum for any and all who have something to say. Because there should be more public commentary on theatre and the arts in general in Australia, we plan on continuing our approach into 2011 by canvassing informed opinions and shouting them out here. Thanks also to those who take the time to comment so thoughtfully on posts. Most bloggers love getting feedback; we’re no exception.

Our big project right now is the inaugural Groundling Awards. If you haven’t already nominated your favourites for the 2010 season, please do so before they close at midnight on February 1.

In the meantime, Greenroom is taking a seasonal break until Monday January 10. If things work out right, your favourite posts for 2010 should start appearing here auto-magically during the break, and with notice in Twitter.

Have a marvellously merry and safe Christmas and New Year’s.

Warmest wishes

Kate

PS. Forgive the gently falling snowflakes on the page – a theatrical and seasonal geeky conceit that has absolutely nothing to do with Queensland, I know. I just couldn’t resist. If there’d been a falling rain plug-in, I’d have used that instead – or maybe not!

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‘Co-‘ a somewhat misunderstood prefix?

One of the categories in the 2010 (and inaugural) Groundling Awards here on Greenroom, and which is currently open for nominations, is one for Best Co-Production. Out of the dozens of nominations so far received, this category has drawn only a few. I got to wondering why, as there have been some terrific co-pros on Queensland stages this year.

Perhaps the nature of co-productions is not really well understood by those nominating. Perhaps the general theatre-going public – even members of the theatre sector itself – is unsure of which plays were co-productions in the 2010 season here in Queensland. Maybe the reaction is just the old defensive stance at work.

I’ve heard for decades from artists and creatives about non-residents taking jobs in the home state – Queensland, in this case. I’ve wondered whether colleagues in other states feel the same way. Co-pros are seen by some as the latest villains, i.e., that they are responsible for reducing job opportunities. What is less often highlighted is that it provides a greater audience for the work of those creating the production: directors, actors, designers, as well as a wider profile for the partnered companies. A co-production brings together a more diverse pool of creative talent and provides its members the chance to work together in ways that would not ordinarily be available to them. Short of relocation, Queensland artists (as well as those from other states) are, more than likely, not going to get a chance to play with their colleagues and companies elsewhere – in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth or any of the other places on the national touring circuit. Co-productions provide this opportunity. They also build our common-wealth of national theatre.

And from the other side of the table, the fact is that partnerships are what keep participating companies’ budget bottom lines looking healthier than they might if either were to go the production route alone; this probably explains why, in these financially testing times, the bigger subsidised companies have chosen to include co-pros in their seasons. However, co-productions don’t ensure that the cash just rolls in. A co-production does not guarantee a profit or even that the show will ‘make budget’ i.e., reach its targeted deficit. It does mean, however, that the risk is shared by the participating companies, a strategy seen as part of a fiscally responsible approach to arts production. Companies that crash can’t employ anyone.

Co-presentations or presenting partnerships are different beasts altogether. Typically these are productions which are bought in or hired by a company to provide balance and variety to their season. We see this in most of the largely non-production houses, typically at QPAC in Brisbane as well as in the other regional member theatres on the NARPACA touring circuit. In these productions the artists and creatives come with the production; essentially, they’re ‘on tour’ guests in the host company or theatre. We’ve also seen co-presentations or presenting partnerships at work this year in the seasons of both subsidised theatres in Brisbane: Queensland Theatre Company and La Boite. The co-presentation/presenting partnership approach is a perfectly legitimate one; it is designed to benefit the host and the visiting company and the host’s audiences. The benefit to local professional artists and creatives is, perhaps, harder to argue.

Certainly, the issue of balance between self-production, co-production and presenting partnerships should be a critical part of the thinking on season programming within Australian subsidised theatres.  In the meantime, when it comes to palavering the pros and cons of all the ‘co-‘s, knowing the difference between them is really useful.

Can you name three co-productions you saw and liked this year in Queensland? If so, why not consider nominating them for the Groundlings?

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Steven Tandy (Interview 12)

Steven Tandy and I haven’t sat down to talk, really talk about theatre and acting and all of that stuff since we were young actors together. I imagine we did a lot of it back then, at the parties we all went to. You know, the kind of ‘finding yourself in the kitchen in the wee hours’ kind of actor talk.  Since those days – what – nearly 40 years ago, there hasn’t been time or space to do it. We worked several productions together for the QTC in the early 1970s, and our last professional meet-up was in a production of Who Was Harry Larsen? by Frank Hardy for NETC in the mid-1980s. We haven’t really seen much of each other since. We’d be ships passing at opening nights, trading a few snippets of news, and conversation, but it wasn’t a good, old-fashioned talk. Our lives had meandered in different directions, and we’d rather lost touch as one does in this busy age, something I’ve often regretted. It’s been great to see this fine actor on stage again in Queensland over the last few years.

I first met Steven Tandy in his and my first foray as professional actors for Queensland Theatre Company and the Queensland Arts Council. In 1972, along with Grant Dodwell, we were cast in a huge, schools’ tour throughout Queensland. It featured Michael Boddy and Janet Dawson’s plays, The Badly Behaved Bunyip and The Man, the Spirit Fish and the Great Rainbow Serpent. We toured thousands of miles together and spent many hours talking about where our futures might take us. ‘I remember there was a lot of yoghurt,’ Steven notes drily. Our director, Margaret Bornhorst took very seriously what must have been a self-imposed objective to get her small acting company fit. Yogurt figured strongly as did Vogel bread, as I recall. We were all very new to health food and to the theatre business: Steven and Grant were fresh out of NIDA, and I’d just come back from nearly 4 years in London. Grant was in town recently with Gwen in Purgatory – a good excuse for a catchup, but again, it was a quick ‘How the hell are you?’ chat in the Roundhouse foyer between shows on the final Saturday.

A few weeks’ ago, Queensland Theatre Company had a barbecue to welcome the When the Rain Stops Falling company – Aussie themed. Steven and I were invited along, and so the Badly Behaved Bunyip team got together, albeit without Grant.  It seemed that now was the time for that sit down and talk, so we did. It began under Bessie the bottle tree in the courtyard at 78 Montague Road and continued in the Company library when the rain started falling on the party and the cricket match. When we came up for air, it was nearly 5 o’clock. The rain had stopped, we hadn’t noticed, and we’d been talking for over 2 hours. What I did manage to write down and what I do recall of our conversation appears below; it’s just a flavour of that long afternoon, and it’s taken me this long to wrangle my notes and memories. ‘It’s been quite a journey,’ as Steven told me that afternoon. Continue reading “Steven Tandy (Interview 12)”

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Furious Angels (Review) !Metro Arts Independents 2010

A long time ago now, it seems, when vinyl records were the thing, you could get regular Singles (one song to a side) as well as LPs (long play and lots of tracks). There were also EPs – extended play recordings, which usually had two or three singles to a side.

Well, of course, times and technology have changed as I was reminded a few years ago when I referred to someone’s being like ‘a cracked record’ and drawing blank stares from the largely sub-20 year olds in the group. These days the new ‘single’ is an iTunes download or a file-share on one of the other less-legal networks. From Tuesday this week, you could download single tracks of the Beatles from iTunes – showing my age, right?

What’s all this about? Well, I’m reminded by the variations and changes in recorded music presentations of a current fad in theatre right now – for single or EP performances of monologues. They’re not quite a one-act (though most of them are) and certainly not an LP – a ‘full-length’ play, though goodness knows, since the death of the three act play, it’s hard to know what a ‘full-length’ play is anymore. Time perhaps to dump that outworn phrase along with the ‘well-made play’ dodo that continues to lurk and squark somewhere in the room like Poe’s Raven.

2010 is the year of the monologue and the ‘EP’ in Brisbane. When is the last play you went to that had an interval?

Furious Angels by David Burton, directed by Travis Dowling, and currently playing at !Metro Arts Sue Benner theatre, is an EP but almost a Single – this one comes in at 60 minutes and not the more usual ’90 minutes without an interval’ type show we’re getting used to. Sighs of relief often accompany the news that there won’t be an interval – though the downside is no interval buzz, no chat about the show and, for management, no bar sales and fewer employment opportunities for casual staff – but I digress. Furious Angels has all the feeling to me of a sketch for a larger play out there, a short story, a chapter in a book or, perhaps, one part of a collage of one-person works – for Furious Angels provides the opportunity, as do all good monologues, for bravura acting. In this production, the play’s first, it’s for Daniel Mulvilhill who moves with ease from one character to another in Mr Burton’s piece set in a decaying mental institution somewhere in the 1930s.

The narrative structure of Furious Angels whilst overt – the narrator prefixes each episode as a ‘Chapter’ – is rather flimsy, though the theme is compelling. There are more than a few historical and literary hat-tips to, among other personages, Edgar Allan Poe and William Shakespeare, and they work well. Mr Burton is one of our more promising writers: Lazarus Won’t Get Out of Bed and April’s Fool are two of his better known and more recent works. This one, an eerie fable about the bleakness and blackness of authoritarianism feels more like a dream or a mood piece than that ‘well-made play’ which, I am sure, it has no intentions of being, but it does signal a development in the direction of the writer’s style from the more structured form of his earlier works. It’s a big subject to tackle across 60 minutes, and Mr Burton has done well to encapsulate it in fragments via a teller of tales, a narrator (Dan) who brings the subject matter to life through a handful of the asylum’s characters (Dizzy, Dr Aintel, nurse Lenore and Will).

The delight in this kind of stage work is the marriage of text and actor’s body with all its transformative power in what is a largely empty space. Travis Dowling’s direction understands this, though I found some of the sound effects repetitious in their usage – grim moments are signalled again and again in the soundtrack. And speaking of current fads, do we always need soundscapes backing action? Just wondering …

The fine performance by Mr Mulvihill is what lingers in your mind after the show is down. I love watching actors at work, which is why I swatted aside my initial thought that Furious Angels could work just as well as a radio play. It’s up close and personal – direct audience address, though some of the narrator’s asides are a little self-conscious for my taste – and the running C-bomb gag is not so much undergrad as overdone. The built-in humour of Furious Angels text doesn’t need such obviousness, and Mulvihill’s charm and stage presence fill it out admirably.

Kudos to the entire production and design team which includes collaboration on set and costume from David Burton, co-producer Carley Commens and Travis Dowling. Kylie Morris is on form as always with her sound design, and Ben Hughes‘ top-knotch lighting design provides a brilliantly-lit platform in which characters are born and die, emerge and retreat in this fragmented fairy-tale.

It’s being a good year for independent theatre in Brisbane and the regions.

Furious Angels plays till Saturday 20th this week at !Metro Arts and at Empire Theatres (Toowoomba) on November 25-26.

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It only hurts when you laugh (Review) ‘Synecdoche 3 Sisters’ at !Metro Arts

Nicole Bilson (Irina): Matthew Williamson Photography

Bringing a Chekhov play to the stage is not an enterprise for the faint-hearted. Deciding to adapt The Three Sisters (1900-01), one of the undisputed masterpieces of modern realist drama, takes bold vision and the wherewithal to manifest it. I’ve been mulling why this production titled Synecdoche 3 Sisters (‘synecdoche’ meaning ‘shared understanding’) by Side Effect Theatre as part of !Metro Arts 2010 Indie program, didn’t work for me as it might have. Continue reading “It only hurts when you laugh (Review) ‘Synecdoche 3 Sisters’ at !Metro Arts”