Napier Street 1995, Article, 13 Feb 1995

Article about the evolving programme at Napier Street Theatre, South Melbourne in 1995.

 By Kate Herbert

 This article published in The Melbourne Times in Feb 1995.

 

"You can't just make a theatre. it's something that grows. It's organic," says Roderick Poole, Venue Manager for Napier Street Theatre. The South Melbourne venue has shed skins like a chameleon and its several lives echo through its present incarnation.

 

Lavish and grungy productions of European plays by Anthill Theatre resonate in every corner and colour our experience when we enter the space now. "There is a certain continuity," says Poole.

 

Each season is programmed by a committee comprising people from independent theatre organisations such as La Mama, $5 Theatre Company and the Fringe Network. There is definitely a style / taste factor governing selection.

 

Poole says, "There is a bias toward Australian work - not necessarily Australian-written but interpretations of European or other works".  Marriage Blanc is a Polish play in English with a lapsed-Anthill style.

 

In the upcoming program is, amongst other shows, new local scripts by Chameleon Theatre and Julie-Anne O'Brian and, in March, the long-awaited return of Crying in Public Places.

 

"Napier Street is a sacred space" he says", " like La Mama. Purpose-built theatres never have that feeling." These spaces have evolved after years of experimentation, countless layers of paint on walls, makeshift dressing rooms and innovative use of a non-traditional venue.

 

It is this very evolutionary process, the time-space continuum of theatres if you like,

which has brought Napier Street to where it is in 1995. This is its sixth six-month season since Anthill left to hasten its demise at The Gasworks two and a half years ago.

 

Poole describes the aims of the venue as essentially being "about giving a home to independent groups around Melbourne. There are a huge number of them, and the vast majority are not funded."

 

It is doing something which Fringe Network, with its open-door policy, does not do; it provides both quality control through its selection procedures and a well-equipped venue to artists.

 

"The number of people practising in the field has gone up," says Poole " and the level of funding in real terms has gone down. People have either been left high and dry or driven underground."

 

Poole describes Napier Street as "cheap, high profile, with a unique funding arrangement."

Unfunded independent groups pay $500 a week rental. for a 90-seat theatre, flexible seating, equipment and a couple of personnel.

 

"It means they can virtually do a show which costs them no money. Funded groups, which are in the minority, pay a larger amount." Poole calls it "a sort of cross-subsidy."

 

Of course, the venue also houses Arena Theatre which performs mostly in schools but programs 12 weeks in the theatre per year.  Arena had been managing the venue through its own Administrator but in 1994 the roles of company and venue were split.

 

"It has been a pattern," says Poole, " for theatre companies to separate themselves from their venues", as did Anthill and as Theatreworks has now done. "The venue can take energy from the work".

 

Certainly the quality of the Napier Street product has lifted since its inception. The program looks interesting, the public profile of the venue is excellent and nobody else is doing it. Vive l'Independence!

 

By Kate Herbert