Unsettled –ARTICLE – One-Act plays by $5 Theatre Feb 3, 1994

A season of One-Act plays by $5 Theatre Company

At Napier Street Theatre from February 1, 194

Writer: Kate Herbert on Feb 1, 1994

This article was published in The Melbourne Times after Feb 1 1994. KH

 

Good one act plays are rare. God one act plays written by women in the thirties in Australia are like hens' teeth. $5 Theatre Company has included two such scripts in its 1994 program, Unsettled at Napier Street Theatre from February 15.

 

Miles Franklin's comedy, No Family, is set in Australia after World War I and portrays a family in mourning over their son's death. At Dusk written by Millicent Armstrong in the thirties, coins the style "Bush Gothic" and is set in 1880.

 

The most extraordinary thing about these plays is that they were found at all. Tom Considine, actor, director and founding member of $5 Theatre, was browsing in a second-hand bookstore and came across a book entitled Best One Act Plays of 1937.

Considine was surprised that one third of the plays in the book were written by women and half a dozen were really interesting.  The inception of ABC radio drama seemed to have propagated them.

 

After selecting At Dusk and No Family, the company commissioned Pamela Leversha to write a response to the two plays. "It could have no relationship at all to them, but we asked her to keep them in the back of her mind as she wrote." They were expecting a modern play, but Seeing Violet is set in 1961 in the Dandenongs before the 62 bushfires.

 

There was an underlying political agenda in the company's selection of a program spanning one hundred years of women in Australia. Their previous work had been not male-dominated but somewhat "Male-heavy" says Considine. "There are very good roles for women in all three of these plays..... At the end of the night the audience should be subliminally aware of having seen a lot of female roles." He emphasises that it is not an evening of Women's Theatre, but it provides great roles for women.

 

In programming three short plays, $5's are returning to a program from previous years. Suitcases in a Thousand Rooms comprised four commissioned shorts. In 1993 they performed a full-length adaptation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margerita. They had sought a full-length play for '94 but found nothing to suit in casting, content or style.

 

"The short play form is obviously still an interest, " says Considine. "It's a bit like a short story. Writers who can do it are very special. Full length plays often have an interesting beginning and then become an ordinary play." A short play, he thinks, can be idiosyncratic. "Without being linear it states its themes very clearly, develops them and then finishes. It is very satisfying artistically."

 

By Kate Herbert Feb 3, 1994