"State of Play" Victorian Playwrights' Conference, March 28-29, 1998

"State of Play" Victorian Playwrights' Conference

Malthouse March 28-29, 1998

 Article by Kate Herbert

The thud of 30 feet pounding the floor of the Hoopla Room above, interrupted the forum: "A variety of writing approaches" downstairs at the Malthouse.

Why would 15 writers wag this animated discussion? Simple. They wanted to do Jenny Kemp's "Generative Writing" workshop. Why were they jumping? To free the mind and body for inspiration after a morning of analysis.

Playwrights live a schizophrenic existence. The split between the creative act and producing and selling one's work is mind-bending; no wonder that Glen Perry's 7 point plan for playwrights includes "Give up writing" - twice.

We've all given up before - and twice on Sundays. Almost every discussion involved despair at the government's elimination of the middle-sized theatre companies and venues that provided a balance between the cheap and cheesy fringe and the ritzy mainstage. A healthy industry, and a government truly committed to culture in the community, supports all three layers.

"How many times a day are you touched by an artist?" quotes Graham Pitts. "Hundreds," replies John Romeril. Writers weave the fabric of our culture, tell our stories, create images and resonances that enrich our lives. They struggle to survive in an economic and social environment that cares more for profit than cultural enrichment.

This insidious decline in support places artists in competition instead of collaboration. A country relies on its culture for its identity. If we stifle their creativity, promote spectacle over creativity, buildings over art, uniformity over diversity, what are we showing the world? - American musicals and a failing Casino?

Says Andrew Bovell, ' Stop telling us we can't afford it and start counting the cultural cost." The government insists that the private sector will take up the slack, which is not viable. Said Bovell, "It is the government's responsibility to sustain the organisations and institutions which nurture our culture."

Even the language which theatre workers are now forced to use is derived from commerce. "Purchaser-provider models", "tendering", "pro-active", and the unnerving, "Outsourcing". The last takes creative control and responsibility from theatre companies and plumps it into one central body that decides who to support, what is a good play, and what an audience sees. So much for autonomy and creativity.

Writers are jaded. We are accustomed to having no 'career path", says Liz Jones, which makes us better prepared for new government work practices "But", quipped one delegate, "were turning into desiccated dried-up old work nodules."

Opportunities are shrinking with the disappearance of companies such as Anthill and Whistling in the Theatre, venues such as The Church and Napier Street, and funding cuts to innovative middle-sized companies: Theatreworks, Kickhouse, IRAA.

The great joy of the conference is feeling part of a peer group in a job which is chronically solitary. The importance of positive working relationships between artists, particularly writers and directors, was exemplified by Nick Enright and Neil Armfield in the creation of their hugely successful  stage production of Tim Winton's Cloudstreet.

Script development attracted much discussion. Aubrey Mellor (Playbox) dreams of an ensemble of actors to develop scripts yearround. Chris Corbett proposed 'active' models from the US that purposefully cultivate writers for the future rather than our 'passive' models which wait for scripts to arrive.

Roger Hodgman and Janis Balodis suggest schmoozing a director with a company that can mount your work. Unsolicited scripts, we heard, never get produced, even though Playbox  and MTC receive 300 scripts each a year.

At least Geoffrey Milne's statistics demonstrated a marked increase in Australian plays produced nationwide since 1968. Plays by women leapt from 15% in 1973 to 25% in 1993. Melbourne's achievements top other states with 36% of plays being by women in 1996, which was over 40% of the Australian content.

However, these are often smaller productions at La Mama or in the Fringe or Comedy festivals. It’s funny that the conference was about 50% women but the writing workshop had only one man present.

Are the men more interested in product than process?

Two of the final conference motions call for "State and Federal governments and both parties to accept and actively pursue their responsibilities for the development of a diverse, vital and economically viable Australian theatre" Here's hoping.

Janis Balodis suggested, "Hugging a critic". as a way to disarm them, eliminate their sense of power and make them give up. Perhaps "hug a politician” would be more effective. As a critic, I'd quite like to be hugged by writers..

KATE HERBERT

MOTIONS FROM THE CONFERNECE PLENARY SESSION:

Motions (passed unanimously)

1 That this conference call on state and federal governments and both parties to accept and actively pursue their responsibilities for the development of a diverse, vital and economically viable Australian theatre.

2 That this conference call on institutions which represent us : companies, guilds, unions, membership organisations and training institutions to take a pro-active position and collaborate in the development of policy and a theatre industry plan.

3. That this conference recommend peer assessment of writing grants, diversity of opportunities for funding development and the production of new Australian works of theatre be established on primary principles in government theatre and arts policy.

SINGSING BY KURT GEYER, March 26, 1998

SINGSING BY KURT GEYER

 AT LA MAMA UNTIL MARCH 29, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around March 25, 1998

La Mama is an organisation that provides for artists the freedom to experiment in a safe environment, the luxury of testing the water with untried ideas, and attempting a new skill in the theatre arena.

In the case of Kurt Geyer in his monodrama, Singsing, an actor has written and performed his own work which has some resonance of his own life's journey towards ' the golden place" he dreamed of as a child.

Geyer, directed by David Latham and with musical accompaniment and occasional interjections by pianist Tuck Leong, is alone on stage but creates a series of characters living in different time periods and locations, but linked by a common thread

Maria Karl Schnee is a cook in Dubbo in 1942. He has a shadowy past as a rent boy in Sydney and an unfortunate first name for a gay man who wants to be a drag queen chanteuse. His father, Gustav, is a disturbed bigot living in New Guinea. His aunt, Theodora, was an aviatrix who flew to PNG and was not eaten by the locals. Clarence Moon is revealed to be Karl's long-suffering secret admirer.

Geyer peppers the hour with snatches of popular songs, with particular emphasis on Maria in the Sound of Music. Some other odd choices appear. Two numbers from Dave Mason (The Reels) seem to be included simply because Mason came from Dubbo.

To quote Carl, "I'll never make a chanteuse.". Geyer is certainly no musical star and he would fare better staying in his lower vocal register.

The piece takes off dramatically when we meet Gustav. The tone darkens, tension heightens and the lighting better defines the space and focuses our attention squarely on the neurotic behaviour of the character

Even more successful was the final scene with Clarence. The text comes alive, emotional intention is clear, the journey of the play is completed. It is a pity that this touching fragment of story was not more fully explored at the expense of others.

Geyer is committed to his material which seems to draw on some personal experience  First plays are inevitably imbued with a fresh, nervous energy but are often fraught with difficulties and riddled with problems. Singsing is no exception.

It is cheerful and charming but suffers from some major script flaws and awkward moments in its performing. It feels uncomfortable and needs a stronger physicality and a rigorously re-worked script.

KATE HERBERT

White Neda by Bagryana Popov, March 19, 1998

White Neda by Bagryana Popov

at La Mama until March 29, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around March 18, 1998

Folk and fairy tales inevitably deal with the dark side. The Grimms recorded gruesome German folklore and these stories were not uncommon in other parts of the continent.

Bagryana Popov, founding member of Hildegard Theatre and Petrunka Bulgarian choir, interprets for the stage the Bulgarian folk tale of White Neda confronting the human fear of one's unknown destiny.

Popov, with stylish and simple direction by Nancy Black, integrates diverse vocal and movement skills with fine live percussion by Elissa Goodrich.

Neda, who lives alone, is rapturous about the visit of her nine brothers and their eight wives and eight nephews for a three day feast. She is enthralled by her brother's folk-tale of the Yuda at the well who threatens to disfigure a man unless he lies with her. He bargains for his life and saves himself by marrying her.

When, in deep night, Neda herself is compelled to fetch water to soothe her thirsty nephew, she is confronted with a 'real' Yuda at the well who wills her to go with her. Neda bargains by vowing to return on St. George's Day. Her brothers suggest she fool the Yuda by dressing in nun's black robe on her return. But death cannot be duped.

Popov's physicality and self-narration is effective and affecting. Her vocalising is particularly compelling in conjunction with Goodrich's extraordinarily evocative xylophone which reverberates with wind in the forest, darkest night and the drip of water. The persistent water imagery is a potent reminder of our deeper, emotional lives. The singing sound of one finger round the rim of a wine glass was inspired.

Ilka White's design and Paul Jackson's subtle lighting provide a fittingly spare environment for this rustic parable about death. One cannot hide from one's fate. The allegory could be interpreted more broadly as being about transformation, passing from one phase into another, about growing up and leaving behind childish things, almost as a hero's journey to acceptance of oneself.

The ending is a poignant, lyrical image of Neda, naively dressed in her nun's habit, choosing to leave with the Yuda. The early, joyful, skittering steps of the earlier, more innocent Neda are replaced by a more mature, ritualistic pace. We are left with a sense of a life incomplete, without children and husband, cut off before its time.

KATE HERBERT

Misalliance, G B Shaw, MTC, March 10, 1998

Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw

Melbourne Theatre Company

At Playhouse until April 4, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on or around March 9, 1998

It's no wonder George Bernard Shaw so accurately depicted both the middle and the upper classes. He married money and was able to indulge his socialist philosophies, modern opinions and his dilettante-ish dramatic writing.

Evidently the irony of this alliance eluded him; not so the 'misalliances' in his play of the same name. G.B.S. (Grievous Bodily Satire?) wrote Misalliance in 1910, when the flying machine was relatively new and women were yet to have the vote in England  It was a period of rapid social change. Shaw was provocative and his characters speak with an almost contemporary voice at times about the role of women, parents, justice, class system work and social ethics.

The play takes place in the blatantly 'new money' Surrey home of underwear manufacturer, John Tarleton, (Max Gillies) His bored daughter, Hypatia (Marta Dusseldorp) is to marry the hilariously foppish and academic Bunny (David Tredinnick) but fantasises about adventures. They materialise in the guise of a runaway airplane that crashes into the garden carrying Joey (Jolyon James) and Lena, an exotic and shamefully independent Polish acrobat (Pamela Rabe).

Shaw's dialogue is scathingly witty, wicked, irreverent and presumably shocking at the time.  The comic characters are painted with broad brushstrokes and most of the cast have a field day with the gags which come thick and fast. They romp about in Tony Tripp's sumptuous design of a wealthy country estate conservatory.

Tredinnick plays Bunny with an outrageously lip-quivering wimpishness. It is a delight to behold him skipping and prancing tossing barbed jibes at his victims before dissolving into unmanly fits of weeping to avoid a beating. Gillies is masterly and demonstrates his impeccable comic timing as the avuncular Mr. Tarleton who has never had an original idea in his life.

As his earthy wife, Maggie King is superbly underplayed and perfectly paced. Peter Houghton is the consummate buffoon as a pompous young socialist clerk who has come to seek revenge. Pamela Rabe, yet again, is radiant as the sensual, robust unwilling seductress, Lena Szczepanowska.

No social group or ideology escapes Shavian cynicism. The rich, the poor, the educated, the ill-read, the 'glorious young beasts', the ageing, the brawny: all get a jolly good tongue-lashing.

Some of the cast seem a little uncomfortable in their characters and the final thirty minutes dragged but the show is light, frothy and funny - if you like Shaw.

KATE HERBERT

Sisterella, March 7, 1998

Sisterella, book, lyrics, music by Larry Hart

 At the Regent Theatre from March 1998

Review by Kate Herbret around 5 March 1998

Imagine Cinderella as the unassuming daughter of a recently deceased billionaire. Her secretly wicked stepmother has at least two previous rich, dead husbands, a couple of lovers and two appalling daughters.

When poor Cinders inherits the fortune, step-mummy has her certified. It's hard to get to the ball to marry the prince when you're locked up and dosed up on lithium, so her fairy godfather invests her with 'attitude' or "Fump'. (Yes, fump?)

Such is the narrative of American, Larry Hart's funky new musical, Sisterella. Hart is responsible for virtually everything: book, lyrics, music, direction and even an onstage role that showcases a fine voice.

Hart has written some great tunes - thirty-two in fact, ranging from gospel to romantic ballads and raunchy chorus numbers with lots of bump and grind.

Sisterella is built around its tunes, which are more successful than the rather banal lyrics, thin story and cheap, adolescent jokes. It could benefit from cutting five or ten extraneous, often sentimental numbers that slow down the pace.

The audience rose to its feet and clapped like seals at the final curtain in spite of a half hour delay. The show is a hoot because of its funky music, great voices, energetic ensemble, well-drilled choreography (Raymond G. del Barrio), monumental design (Michael Scott-Mitchell), garish costumes (Cordula Albrecht) and spectacular lighting (Trudy Dalgliesh).

The onstage star of the show is New Zealander, Tina Cross, playing step-mum, Dahlia. She has a rich voice, wicked presence, the best songs and her villain is much more interesting than Ella who bleats throughout.

The engaging and talented Della Miles as Ella is never given a chance to belt out a song. Wanda Houston and Billie Stapleton as the sisters give bold, gutsy performances as the foodie who wants be a Country and Western singer, and the tacky rough-neck.

Sisterella is shamelessly riddled with stage musical references and High Camp. It looked as if we'd stumbled into Mardi Gras with guest spots from the Village People and a drag queen fairy godfather (Keith Wright). All the women are tarts, harradins or victims

If you can tolerate some Amercian schmaltz and you check your brain and your politics at the door, you'll have a good time at Sisterella.

KATE HERBERT

Adelaide Festival 1998: Theatre -

Adelaide Festival 1998: Theatre Program  Week One

Reviewed by Kate Herbert in early March, 1998

Published in Herald Sun.

Robert LePage, Seven Streams of the River Ota

La Tristeza Complice by Belgian Ballet C de la B

Snakesong: Le Pouvoir by Needcompany Belgium

Masterkey 

The Architect's Walk's

TS Eliot's Wasteland by Fiona Shaw / Debra Warner

It's inevitable. After every Adelaide Festival, I return exhausted but inspired. The sheer vitality of the place, teeming with artists both international and local, creates an environment of creative energy that cannot be reproduced in any other time or place.

Robin Archer's theatre program promised much and gave even more. There was a thread of urban decadence and sadness throughout many shows, a darkness relieved by hysterical, inexplicable laughter or deeply spiritual moments.

It is impossible to adequately translate into language the experience of the most compelling pieces. The hypnotic effect of seven and a half hours in the theatre watching Robert LePage's Seven Streams of the River Ota, is indescribable.

The final poignant moments of La Tristeza Complice (Belgian Ballet C de la B) are profoundly moving. I leapt to my feet. It was an overwhelming assault on the senses, slamming into the solar plexus with its chaotic characters and nervy cacophony of movement.

The best shows are unpredictable. During Snakesong: Le Pouvoir (Needcompany Belgium) it is impossible to anticipate what they might do next. Writer/director Jan Lauwers' exploration of sex and violence through variations on the myth of Leda and the Swan is brutal, sexual and bizarre. It breaks form, adheres to no theatrical conventions and yet the actors are exceptional and the experience unforgettable -particularly my panic attack during the ten minute total black out.

Most shows concentrate on the visual. In addition to its panoply of characters, River Ota has a superbly designed traditional Japanese house which transforms into a cramped New York tenement,  bleak concentration camp, lavish Amsterdam library or backstage at a Feydeau farce.

Director Mary Moore's set for Masterkey is a series of movable wardrobes stuffed with the personal memorabilia of six alienated old Japanese women in a Tokyo boarding house. The Architect's Walk's spare birch tree design is simple but evocative and Snakesong's minimalist design dots the space with marbled pedestals and a dead swan. Designers are now becoming directors.

Video technology is omnipresent. In Ota, it fills the rice paper screens, recalls past or evokes new worlds. In Masterkey, it spills over wardrobes, creating new dimensions and surprisingly emotional responses. Natural Life transformed a 19th century landscape with footage of Australiana.

Natural Life has live piano accompaniment like a Victorian melodrama. Snakesong, filled the space with provocatively loud, recorded original music while La Tristeza, used ten onstage accordions playing Purcell. Japanese dancer, Juku Wada, works with a surround-soundscape ambushing us from hidden speakers.

Shattered language echoes the disconnected images we witness. The demented fringe-dwellers in La Tristeza, yell at us. The epic, River Ota, alternately gushes with language or subsides into silence. One scene, called "Words", is a barrage of multi-lingual translation that demonstrates the torrent of language to which we are subjected daily. Snakesong's dialogue is simultaneously translated to and from Italian and English.

Combine the visually rich and layered words of TS Eliot's Wasteland with the fragile and magnetic presence and resonant voice of Fiona Shaw, and the deceptively simple direction of wizard Debra Warner, and you have a riveting and swift (37 minute) piece of passionate verse theatre.

We are witness to devastation and tragedy. In River Ota grips the heart with its lyrical study of victims of Hiroshima, Nazism and AIDS, drawing together damaged lives on several continents. In Architect's Walk we see the Nazis bearing their post-war punishment, while in Natural Life white men abuse women and Aboriginals. Masterkey watches the decline if six women into despair and the violations in Snakesong are distressing.

Almost all maintain a sense of humour in the face of such despair. We need hope and laughter and the flip side of tragedy is humour. La Tristeza is hilarious, Snakesong weirdly funny and Ota has scenes of witty naturalism and even a Feydeau farce on stage..

The Asian influence is enormous in many works. Masterkey incorporates Japanese actors and performance styles while Ota is set partly in Japan and Uttapriyadarshi is by a North Indian company performing a Buddhist myth.

The festival theme, "the sacred and the profane", permeates the entire program and the audience is transformed and transported by most. This is why we go to theatre.

KATE HERBERT

The House of Bernarda Alba , Feb 24, 1998

The House of Bernarda Alba by Ferdinand Lorca

Malthouse until March 1,1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around 23 March 1998

The Spanish produced the first Revenge Tragedies in the 17th century and its inherent vengeance was invariably related to defence of a woman's honour. This theatrical tradition of blood and passion continues in Ferdinand Lorca's play, The House of Bernarda Alba, written in 1936, the year of his death.

Flamenco choreographer, Charito Saldana, with aid of a Women Artists' Grant, has recreated Lorca's tragedy about an autocratic mother and her five unmarried daughters, less focussing more on flamenco than text.

Her collaboration with director, Simon Palomares and musical director, Richard Tedesco, heightens the dramatic intensity of particular moments although, as a whole, the text remains unintegrated with the dance and music.

It is a play about women: their social and sexual repression, which continued in Spain until quite recently. When father dies, Bernarda (Veronica Gillmer) controls their lives. A beautiful young man wants to marry the 40 year-old Angustia (Elena Maya) for money but has a clandestine tryst with the youngest, Adela (Saldana). The sisters' frustration, passion and anger is palpable in the Lorca version.

Two actors (Susie Dee & Sergio Tell) play comic serving women and comment on the action which is so subtly depicted in dance. The two are charming characters, but their scenes become repetitive and, by Act Three, interrupt the momentum of the escalating tragedy.

The inexorable surge toward Adela's suicide is imperative in the narrative, but it is anti-climactic in this version. Perhaps the series of passionate climaxes experienced in each flamenco piece has made it impossible to reach another with the final subdued image of Adela's hanged body.

Images of the women are seen in silhouette against huge bedsheets pegged on washing lines and some dramatic backlighting at the opening highlights the funereal quality.

The six musicians and singer (Titi De Algeciras) capture the essence of pain and anguish in the wailing vocal vibrato combined with sensual saxophone and guitar with pulsing percussion.

Each of the talented women has a distinctive dance style although the details of Lorca's characters and their fraught relationships and rivalries remain shadowy. The suitor, Pepe, (Johnny Tedesco) brings a forgotten maleness to the stage with his vibrating youthful energy.

This is an exciting and entertaining project that could have better integrated text. It could benefit from swifter scene changes and better sightlines.

KATE HERBERT

Dialogue Between a Priest and A Dying Man, de Sade, Feb 19, 1998

Dialogue Between a Priest and A Dying Man, by Marquis de Sade 

at  La Mama until March 1, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Feb 17 1998

The work of the Marquis de Sade is generally read rather than performed, although, perhaps in privacy of some homes - who knows?

His "Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man", directed by David Meadows who also plays the dying man, is a Socratic dialogue between a hedonistic, disease-riddled man and an insubstantial priest (Kiran D'Costa) who wishes to save him from hell-fire.

The design is simply white cloth decking wall and table, piles of neatly folded clothing and a symbolically cruciform pile of white shoeboxes and the transferring of clothing to boxes is the sum of the physical action.

The text is thick with theological concepts, philosophical argument and moral dilemmas. It is a fascinating diatribe. The Man questions the after-life. He calls the priest's god "superfluous' wonders why one would choose a Christian god as opposed to any other. He suggests that Jesus was killed because he was a troublemaker and that humans should shun crime through reason not through fear of divine retribution.

The problems arise not in the wonderful density of de Sade's material but in the performances. As the dying man, Meadows is a large and powerful presence and there are a couple of distinctive moments when we see his potential, but he rushes through the text like a juggernaut. It is philosophy on speed. This relentless pace makes it almost impossible to grasp all the subtleties of the argument because it leaves no space for reflection.

Having an outside director might have solved this glitch. The directorial eye may have dealt with Meadows being in profile for most of the 35 minutes, which diminishes his strength. The metaphorical filling of the boxes and shrinking of the crucifix becomes repetitive

The final image of the naked, dying man was too swift and it would have been riveting to witness the confused, nearly corrupted priest, lingering over his downfall as he peeled off his clothing to follow the Man to the six waiting women. The finish is performed in an unsatisfying rush.

The role of the listener is a difficult one requiring both intensity and detail but D'Costa's performance lacks weight and he is swamped by Meadows' gravitas. 

Some rapid changes of staging and slower paced delivery of such a complex text would lift this show 100 percent. It has potential.

KATE HERBERT

AGATHA BY MARGUERITE DURAS, Feb 12 1998

AGATHA BY MARGUERITE DURAS

At LA MAMA UNTIL MARCH 1, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Feb 10, 1998

There are many varieties of a "love which dare not speak its name”.  In Oscar Wilde's terms it was homosexuality that is no longer illegal in most places. In Marguerite Duras' play, Agatha, it is sibling love; the kind that is still illegal and taboo almost everywhere.

This production is the fourth in a series of Duras plays directed by obsessive Durasophile, Laurence Strangio, in the intimate confines on La Mama. The intensity of Duras' imagistic, poetic words is compounded by Strangio's close focus, low-key minimalist direction in conjunction with our proximity to the two actors, Caroline Lee and Anthony Morton.

Duras writes in languorous, honey-drenched language which is exactly how Lee plays Agatha as she shifts in space like an alabaster figurine draped in her clothing. There is a seductive quality in her last farewell to her lover. We are made uncomfortable by the palpable agony of the man who leans against the white wall, his head turned away in private grief at his impending loss.

The woman has telegrammed him with news that she is in love with another leaving him for ever to go far away. They float, almost disembodied, through the space avoiding each other, moving with the slow ache of grief, loss and guilt.

The eyes have great power- because eye contact is so restricted both between the protagonists and with the audience. They are like blind mice. The eyes reflect anguish and revisit past ecstasy too immediately. It is frustrating to witness, but Strangio has captured the maddening destructive disconnection of parting.

Duras always dives headlong into a sea of grief and happily splashes about in it. "Agatha" is a Jungian landscape spattered with watery emotional references. For their farewell, they revisit their seaside childhood holiday location, Villa Agatha, after which she named herself.

Time is elastic for Duras. The two 'speak of the past as though it were an event to come". They recount stories and fabricate memories about "that summer", how their love was hushed up , she was "married off" and he was jealous. Duras peels away layers to reveal the dark secrets at the core of their story.

This production is exquisitely but excruciatingly slow-paced. It lacks the narrative drama of L'Amante Anglaise and the layering in the production of La Maladie De la Mort but this script has a complex emotional texture that makes it compelling.

KATE HERBERT

Confidentially Yours, by Deirdre Rubenstein, Feb 11, 1998

Confidentially Yours, by Deirdre Rubenstein

Playbox Beckett Theatre until Feb 28, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert round Feb 10, 1998

The dramatic monologue is a perfect vehicle for both playwright and actor. Deirdre Rubenstein had the luxury of selecting from texts commissioned by some of our finest Australian writers including Nick Enright, Andrew Bovell and Daniel Keene.

 Being given carte blanche to create their own quirky characters, they must have thought all their Christmases had come at once.

Deirdre Rubenstein, in her solo show Confidentially Yours opens the 1998 Playbox season. She scampers skilfully and breezily from New Yorker, Mrs. Sonenberg to the unknown Fleur who lives in the shadow of her famous sister, (Nick Enright), from Lorna, the blind dipsomaniac tart (Daniel Keene) to Ronnie the tastefully ageing ballerina (Joanna Murray-Smith).

Ten characters are interspersed with eight original songs composed by Alan John (The Eighth Wonder) with lyrics by poet, Alison Croggon.

Rubenstein, almost without exception, creates, with minimal costume change, a distinct and discreet persona for each by shifting tone, accent and body. Lorna is heavy, working-class, angry, jammed blindly behind her kitchen chair as she faces police interrogation.

Carol (Debra Oswald) is in perpetual motion as she flutters over her singles' 'date at 'Dinner for Six  while Jane and Paula (Andrew Bovell) reek of anguish.

It is the monologues that are the highlight of this production. Enright's delicate, evanescent New York tale of the heavily sun-glassed 'Mrs. Miller' is a feast of subtle inflection, fine language and impeccable craftsmanship.

The problems in this show arise from some unimaginative direction. Rubenstein is left pacing up and down a corridor of light from stage apron to chair. The pieces are begging for more evocative design and lighting and some physicality. The songs need some choreography; not to create a razzamatazz musical confection, but to give dramatic colour and visual interest to a very long series of mostly unconnected pieces.

It is a tall order to create eight new and inspired songs. Waiting Room, a witty Brechtian cabaret number with a distinctive style and wry humour, is the most memorable. The predictability of monologue followed by song by monologue unfortunately it gives an otherwise fine show a washing line effect.

Cutting four or five songs, and perhaps one or two more monologues, would make this an even stronger show.

By Kate Herbert

The Shed by Jason Cross, Feb 4, 1998

The Shed by Jason Cross

 La Mama at the Courthouse until Feb 14, 1998

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around Feb 1, 1998

A man needs a shed! It provides the great back yard escape from family, responsibilities, workplace and domesticity. "The Shed", by Jason Cross, constructs a 4 X 4 metre garden shed on stage after 80 minutes.

Cross describes his 'new theatre' as arising from 'a single physical image rather than a character-driven narrative.' This concentration on object', rather than narrative is not a new process but can inspire innovative conceptual art.

Unfortunately, 'The Shed' suffers from an overload of ideas and a lack of coherence or cohesion. It is billed as "a performance exhibition" which barely excuses its lack of form, structure and limited content. It is, finally, a poor version of a dated idea

This is not to say it has no merit. The opening augured well with its wry eye on the supercilious language and pedantic directions of an artist's exhibition contract. Tom Consadine's laconic and lateral commentary provided some much needed humour as the piece became self-indulgent, taking itself too seriously.

The sound design (Roger Alsop) was interesting but the dynamic imbalance made voices inaudible or incomprehensible. Adrian Martin's projections provided some striking visual imagery.

The piece highlights the mechanics of process. We hear instructions from the exhibition contract. We observe the completion of the paving of the space as a suburban patio, the placement of spinifex grass and scattering of red sand according to plans.

The 'performer' is also an 'object', a prop in the space Tom Consadine is dressed, by Dario Vacirca, as a handyman with his overalls stapled to his shirt and tools propped in his limp hands.

Finally, the text meets the shed. Four backyard Village People 'play' power tools to 'Land of Hope and Glory': 'The opening of the Proms in the Outback' said an audient.

This was too late, too unclear, too limited in its exploration of the sound and the notion of tools. and didn't explore the machismo of men with tools. The shed is erected sloppily. If it is the main object, why not get it right?

The aimless dialogue and irrelevant rapping and political interpolations were messy. Abstraction can make magical or diabolical theatre.

My problem is not a lack of understanding of the style and intention of this piece but that it is so poorly executed. It is an exercise in tedium and pedantry. Much 70's-80's theatre experimented with boredom and real time elapsing. Some succeeded. The Shed does not.

KATE HERBERT

Where Have All The Comics Gone? Feb 3, 1998

Where Have All The Comics Gone?

Article by KATE HERBERT for Herald Sun, early Feb 1998

Since The Last Laugh laughed its last in 1996, the joker and their jokes seem to have wandered off stage and onto the airwaves. Its closure marked the end of the boom era of live comedy in Melbourne, indeed in Australia.

Initally, it was television which had the royal flush. Now it seems that radio has killed the live comedy star. Breakfast and Drive Time radio comedy gangs are the rage. Several of the D Generation worked on radio before the success on ABC TV of the satirical masterpiece, Frontline.  Now we have not only funny DJs but also radio comedy commando teams

Grant Tothill, Programming Manager of Triple M, says that Richard Stubbs and the D-Gen started the new radio comedy era. Mick Molloy and Tony Martin have a top-rating drive-time program on FOX. Wendy Harmer escaped the comedy capital to be Queen of the airwaves on Sydney's 2DAY FM, although she is on comedy maternity leave at present. Judith Lucy, with Helen Raser, did The Ladies' Lounge on Triple J but recently began a Sunday brekky show with Kaz Cook on FOX.

Triple M, says Tothill, wanted to 'combine rock, sport and comedy' so they have 'exceptionally quick-witted' comics, Tim Smith and Steve Bidwell, doing breakfast. They are negotiating a further series of The Schnitzel Brothers, with Eric Bana and Dave O'Neill.

Most of our top live comics have given up the smelly, boozy barroom environs of comedy clubs. Comics, says Tothill, "like radio as a medium and radio has adopted them." Clubs folded over the years and we are left with the Comedy Club in Carlton and a number of one night a week pub venues which have a few old hands and myriad wannabees.

Angus Bell from Token Productions describes Comedy try-outs as people getting up relatively new. Some of them break through and some continue. Some have been there for years and never change. Some die and go on to live their lives elsewhere.'

Some of the good old boys and gals, Bell says, are still treading the boards at live venues. Greg Fleet and Matt King feature regularly at The Espy in St. Kilda and do shows for the Adelaide, Comedy and Fringe Festivals. Christine Basil, Pommie Johnston, Chris Bennett, Dave Grant, Kim Hope, Will Anderson, Dave Hughes, Brad Oakes and Adam Richards are a few of the other die-hards awaiting their radio gig.

The crowds stopped coming to venues such as The Last Laugh and Comedy Cafe, audience expectations were rising and the cost of top comics was escalating. TV snatched the golden boys and girls and offered them big dough. Now there are whispers of certain comedy radio celebs getting $900,000. Better than braving the hecklers in a blokey bar, eh?

In the 80's, television comedy took risks. Rod Quantock did Australia: You're Standing In It, Max Gillies The Gillies Report and Dingo Principle. Vizard and McFadyen produced The Eleventh Hour but struck oil with Comedy Company. Sketch and variety shows followed thick and fast: Larger than Life, Big Gig, Kitson and Fahey and, in the 90's, Fast Forward and Full Frontal. Television syphoned off all the funny buggers.

Where are the stars not heard on radio? Jimeon is huge in the UK. Jean Kitson is somewhere in Sydney. Rod Quantock, Glynn Nicholas and Max Gillies are in theatres. Vizard produces, Mark Mitchell does Con and Marika, Mary-Anne Fahey made a TV satire. Many do corporate gigs. Why do pubs for $200 when you can get $3,000?

Live comedy is now left for dead. There is no money in it for artists or producers. Commercial venues such as The Comedy Cafe produce US. acts who pull audiences. The one saviour of live comedy in Melbourne is The Comedy Festival in April that has a huge program of local and overseas artists.

What happened? Did we get bored eating bad food and watching questionable shows at exorbitant prices when we could watch Vizard? Were the 80's the era of going out, being rowdy and spending cash?

Perhaps we are too busy in our '90's scramble for comfort, to go out, or maybe it is just cheaper and more convenient to listen to gags in the car, the shower or from under the doona.

Comedy on radio

·       Fox FM

·       Tracey & Matt in the Morning with Russell Gilbert 6-9am Mon-Fri

·       Martin & Molloy  4-6pm Mon -Fri

·       Best of Martin & Molloy 9-12am Sat

·       Foxy Ladies: Judith Lucy with Kaz Cook Sundays 9-11am

·       (Sydney 2DAY FM) Wendy Harmer with Peter Moon 6-9am Mon-Fri

·       Triple J

·       Adam Spencer with Helen Raser Departure Lounge 4-6pm Mon -Fri

·       Mikey Robbins with Stephen Abbott 6-9am Mon-Fri

·       Roy and HG Sunday 2-5pm

·       Triple M

·       Tim Smith and Steve Bidwell 6-10 am Mon -Fri

·       (Sydney)Andrew Denton with Amanda Keller 6-9am Mon-Fri

·       Crud Julian Schiller and Tony Moclair 7-10 pm Mon -Fri

·       GRILL team 4-7pm Mon-Fri

·       Dougie and Dunstall 10-12am Mon-Fri

·       TTFM

·       Early Openers 6-9am Mon-Fri

Live Comedy venues still running

·       Comedy Cafe Lygon Plaza Carlton

·       The Espy, St. Kilda Tuesday Nights Sunday Arvo The Waiting Room

·       The Armadale Hotel: Mondays

·       Elbow Grease: The Other Room Nicholson Hotel N Fitzroy Sundays

·       Star and Garter: Sth Melbourne Thursdays

·       Construction Site: Ringwood weekly

Live venues gone to God

·       Last Laugh and Le Joke

·       The Comedy Cafe

·       Hilton Comedy Room

·       The Banana Lounge

·       The Flying Tapeze

·       The Prince Patrick

·       Dick Whittington

·       Albion Charles

·       Botanical

KATE HERBERT