Month: July 2010

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Theatre here there and … anywhere: Paul Osuch (Interview 8)

The ways of social networking can mean that you get to ‘know’ a lot about someone … or at least what is posted about that someone online … long before you meet them.  And that meeting can be face to face or via the old-fashioned telephone call.

So it was that I got to know Paul Osuch before we ‘met’ via a video Skype call a week or so ago.  What I knew about Paul was that he was the founder of Jam and Bread Theatre Company, which, for lack of a venue went dark before it had even lit up.  You know the old saying about a door closing and a window opening?  Well, the Jam and Bread door slam has opened a window into a rather cool idea – the Anywhere Theatre Festival (ATF) planned for Brisbane in May 5-14, 2011.

I also wanted to talk with someone who’s tried and been unsuccessful in acquiring a performance space in Brisbane – what led eventually to Jam and Bread’s early demise.  Then there was the ATS and planning for another new festival in town, but I especially wanted to meet Paul to find out more about this online presence – someone who clearly has some big ideas, but whose name wasn’t especially familiar to me in theatre circles. We ended up having a wonderfully rambling conversation for about an hour. At the end of it (and I still haven’t met Paul face to face) I feel I do know him a whole lot better.  Those big ideas are taking root, and what he had to say about his experiences in Brisbane made for a fascinating conversation.

Apart from his producing and directing credentials, Paul is a playwright and script-writer. In company with other writer and actor friends including Stephen Vagg and Guy Edmonds, he began creating sketch comedy and then short plays in Brisbane at the Cement Box Theatre. It was at this time (1998-2002) that Vagg wrote what became a trilogy of works (All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane, Friday Night Drinks and Dirty Caff) with Paul’s own Borderline Defamation Productions. ‘They all had a distinctly local flavour,’ he tells me. ‘For a start, no one had ever written about an infamous night club in Brisbane before this.’ With the introduction to directing, he also came to learn the importance of production and marketing.  ‘It was good to see that for the 20-somethings at the time, Brisbane stories were really successful in picking up a particular audience.’ I’m keen to find out more abut how and why that happened. Continue reading “Theatre here there and … anywhere: Paul Osuch (Interview 8)”

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Ready for some tweet-reviews?

Talk about leading the pack! Greenroom wrote about this last November. We thought we’d strut our stuff and republish our comments from back then as La Boite Theatre encourages its audiences to tweet their reviews of I Love You Bro’ opening this week at the Roundhouse. No tweeting during the show now, unless of course you sit in the back row and get permission first, as @h_suarez did for King Lear at QPAC recently. Hannah Suarez, incidentally, is the social networking savvy marketing director for The Brisbane Festival.
There’s been some swift (rather than considered) responses from the social networking crowd in the last 24 hours or so about whether or not tweeting during a show should be ‘allowed.’  This was sparked by queries from La Boite and Bell Shakespeare in Twitter and on Facebook. We smell marketing departments at work! 
In response, the FB crowd have said ‘No way,’ and, hardly surprisingly, the Twitter crew were more open-minded.  Always good to challenge received practice and the status quo in the arts though, isn’t it?
We can’t wait to see which theatre here will be the first either to allocate back rows or declare an ‘open-twitter’ performance for those who wish to tweet and carry on the conversation during a show – without disturbing the performers or rest of the audience of course. A passing phase maybe? Who would dare to predict …

29 November, 2009
Eurobeat: almost Eurovision opens at QPAC’s Lyric Theatre this week for a season through December 5.  QPAC is hosting a gathering before the opening performance on Wednesday.  They’re calling it Eurotweet and have invited a flock of ‘Twitterati’ who will get to tweet their thoughts before, during, and after what we hear is a very funny show – ‘don’t wear mascara to Eurobeat’ says their website.   The audience will also be using their mobile phones to vote the winners.  Could this be a first for Brisbane theatre?  Might it be a last?  Somehow, we think not … a monster has been unleased. Continue reading “Ready for some tweet-reviews?”

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This Week in Queensland Theatre: 12-18 July

For more details check company websites

Opening:
Advanced Screening by Markwell Presents at Visy Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse, Wednesday.
I Love You Bro’ by  Adam J Cass Dir David Berthold for La Boite Theatre at the Roundhouse, Friday.  PS They are calling for tweet reviews of the show. You’ll need to follow them @LaBoiteTheatre first!

Continuing:
Tender by Nikki Bloom Dir Andrea Moor for !Metro Arts Independents 2010 at !Metro Arts
The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl Dir Kate Cherry Queensland Theatre Company, Cremorne Theatre, QPAC

Other:
Circa’s Term 3 Circus Training for adults and children commences on Monday 12.  Details on their Facebook page

Leon Cain’s daily videocasts of his rehearsals for the upcoming I Love You Bro’ are worth a look. Check them out on La Boite’s You Tube channel

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Soul food: a fourth letter from a voluntary exile

Hello Greenroomers

Last night I watched Ratatouille, the excellent Pixar film featuring a rat (who is an excellent chef) and his adventures in a Paris restaurant. It also features Anton Ego, a critic of devastating reputation. Although Ego is used by the writers to satirize the role and cult of critics (as if his name wasn’t a clue) he actually has two moments that redeem him and critics generally.

When he sits down to write his review of the restaurant, that could destroy or make a career, he pauses for thought, then pens a review of unmitigated praise, that starts with these words:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.

This is salve to anyone who has ever felt the brunt of the critics’ scorn (and felt the nagging fear they may be onto something). But for me, an equally magical moment occurs some minutes before this scene, when he is served the titular dish. One mouthful and his mind shoots back to his childhood and memories of his mother cooking him dinner in a beautiful bucolic and fleeting scene. We discover Ego’s drive – he wants food that feeds his soul. He is bitter because he finds it so rarely.

I think all the great critics – of food, of theatre, of art, of literature, hell, even sport – are trying to find their equivalent of that mouthful of food that goes straight to their soul. And I believe audience members too want that, though perhaps they are not so mindful. But when they receive it, they know. I believe that because that is my experience when I go to the theatre, a film, pick up a book, or watch TV. Yes, much of that may be purely entertainment, fluff or time-filler, and excellent as examples of such. But I also need those shots to my soul. They may be irregular, but they must keep coming. Continue reading “Soul food: a fourth letter from a voluntary exile”