Okay, so it’s been a while since I was on a QANTAS jet, but right now I feel like I have overshot the runway and landed in some feverish primordial soup. It’s twelve days since my last obsession (Japanese food) - but I won’t be going back to that particular shop. The last few days have been the worst - but today a tiny bit better - so just saying hi. Letting you know I am alive. And will be back to writing as soon as I can.

What Possessed Me?

I am told by an expert statistician that there is more than one of you out there. Personally I am not convinced.  Nonetheless, I thought I would drop the bravura and say a simple ‘howdy bonjour’. Actually the bravura was dropped for me just over week ago after downing what turned out to be a dodgy sushi roll. I have been struggling for composure ever since. Having come up for air, I thought I would write the little ‘hi there’ note I have been meaning to put up for a while.

Is This Really You?

This site has been going for a few months now and I have no idea what I am doing. Enjoying myself - but is it art? So I am looking for some feedback, if you have a spare couple of minutes. I am going to attempt some re-engineering of aspects of the site soon. Top priority will be to make it easier for you (singular/plural) to engage - add comments, respond, agree, disagree, etc. Right now I know the site is not at all encouraging in this department. That’s because this is a simple ‘free-to-air’ blog model which has been fiddled with a bit - thanks to the help of a few talented friends - but it is still rather basic. Obviously, we put some work into designing the banner, for example - my trendy little Bill Henson homage! Though it may have to come down soon, what with the new censorship rules - we never asked the parents of those little kids permission to photograph their end-of-year show.

Or Is This More You?

This particular off-the-shelf model is very weak in the ‘feedback/comments’ department. I have heard that posting comments is not always successful. And I have come up with the same problem myself when I’ve tried to reply. The Post has refused to stick. So, what I am asking, is if any of you feel so inclined - is to simply write to me directly at:

jameswaites@bigpond.com

and let loose with your indignation and fury there! This way it’s between just you and me - coz I know a lot of you are shy puppies and coy pussy cats. Besides what you have to say is probably quite unflammable - and we don’t wish to start an entire conflagration. Do we?

Maybe This Is More You?

Among all the crazy sorts of posts I am putting up, I am curious to know if anyone out there is wondering why I am not dong more ’straight up-and-down’ reviews. I have been meaning to get to that, and I have been stretching my relationship with publicists in not responding in print more often after they have been so kind to give me freebie tix to shows. Much of this has had to do with simply ‘catching up’ since returning from the bush. There has been a tsunami of shows. I have simply not been getting through as much work on the site as I hoped to, or promised certain people I would do. Then again, at the spur of a moment, I am drawn to another kind of story. And several days go by.

You Might Look More Like This?

Even now I have an official backlog. The story on the Maralinga artists, a piece on the fantastic work of writer/performance artist Fiona McGregor, a look at what’s happening oer at the Ensemble Theatre (where there is currently a quite engaging production of Mary Stuart with Greta Scacchi); and a few other stories in the pipe-line. I should have written about The Importance of Being Earnest at Belvoir Street by Ridiculusmus - which is fabulous. And Gurumul - who was awesome. And Little Women - which unfortunately did not work for me. I even promised more on Pig Iron People at the STC and never got back to it. If it’s any comfort I am only treating you, my reader,  the same way I treat all my friends: indeed I am flippant and unreliable.

This Is Me!

After watching the first episode last night of The Howard Years - which goes rather too well with my Sushi Roll condition - I am seeking your help in a little industrial reform. As I lie here hovering somewhere between life and death maybe you could take advantage of the hiatus in deliberations from my end (?) to send me a little ‘how-to’ note. How to keep you engaged and happy with my scribblings - and my mad google searches for pretty pictures. Of course most of you are shy in demeanour, which is why I am offering you the discretion of my private email address. Of course submit a comment to the site, if you can work out how!! And if it holds??? I really would welcome any clue as to who is out there - hello Martian - if anybody? And any advice you might have regarding how I might improve upon my weblog service delivery….

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Celebrating Obama's Win the Aussie Way: Photo by Jeff Busby

Me and my mate Roger celebrated the Obama win by going to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert. What a party it was: all singing, all dancing, witty dialogue - and a radical story-line, like Obama’s, where old prejudices are tossed, at last, into the rubbish bin of history.

Armpits to the World: the Gumbies are Happy Chappies: Photo Jeff Busby

Roger is a dab hand with a pair of scissors and the Gumby costumes you see in the photo above were made by him! I had seen the show before and Roger had worked on it, so it was not unfamiliar territory. What surprised us was the work that has gone into the show in advance of this return Sydney season. What was initially a well-meaning homage to an idiosyncratic and fun movie, is now a perfectly shaped musical - Australian born & bred - ready to take on the world. A London production is in prep.

Village Person Moment: Tony Sheldon IS Bernadette

Soaking up Priscilla amidst a hugely enthusiastic audience of all sizes and shapes of Australians was a great way to get high on the historic events of the day! And appropriate. I know many global citizens these days like to head into the streets and bang off a few rounds from their rusty Kalashnikovs. We all have our own way of celebrating - and celebrating the great tradition of Aussie drag just happens to be OURS! By the way, did you notice Obama slip ‘gay and straight’ into his long list of those who, from now on, are ‘to be included’!

From Here to Paternity - Brian Thomson's Celestial Omnibus: Photo Jeff Busby

Priscilla is more than just a slick musical at the top of its form. This is an entertainment, in my view, of deep cultural resonance: for ‘what is says’, as much as ‘the way it is said’. It may well be defiantly superficial in manner and mood: but, as any drag queen knows, looks can be deceptive. The show’s roots reach deep and wide into our popular culture traditions. As a consequence, the performers gorge on its onstage opportunities, as do its audiences from the stalls. If this is what we are good at then let us be proud. There’s nothing more foolish than recent attempts to recreate Kath & Kim in the USA or for SBS here to try and concoct its own crap version of Top Gear.

Since the earliest days of the NSW colony (you only have to read the novel Ralph Rashleigh) we have been good at drag. Given the gender imbalance, numbers-wise, ‘men V women’, perhaps we ‘needed’ to be good at it! Anyway, we have been very good at it in Sydney in particular since the Bum Rebellion (oops typo).

Gale Robbins played Adelaide Adams in the Calamity Jane movie (with Doris Day in the title role): You can see why my classmates picked me to fill her 'shoes'!

I can claim to have dressed in full drag only once in my life: when cast as Adelaide Adams - the Broadway star - in the school production of Calamity Jane. Clearly my footballer class-mates knew me better than I knew myself back then; but I thank them now for their hooligan-like enthusiasm in nominating me to the role with the best wig!

The drag scene in Sydney before my time was considerable, if underground, coming to the surface once a year big-time for what was cheekily known as the Alternate Black& White Ball (a ‘camp’ take on the city’s charity fundraiser ‘night of nights’) where outfits could so voluminous and head-dresses so high-rise more than one ‘lassy’ was known to have arrived in the back of a removalist’s van. One year there were no less than three Marie Antoinette’s, and other year there were said to be nine Carmen Miranda’s. That’s a lot of fruit. Another year an enthusiastic aviariast is said to have arrived donning a bird cage crammed with live doves. Not that they were all still coo-ing by the end of the night: if I remember correctly there was ‘an unfortunate accident’ at some point during the evening, an unhinging of some sort, and the birds got lose.

Carmen at the Funeral of Kings Cross 'Identity' Mr Abe Saffron

More on this is in can be found in an article I wrote, Gay Crossover (Independent Monthly, December 1991/January 1992) - if you can find it; and for a more thorough account go to Garry Wotherspoon’s City of the Plain - History of a Gay Subculture (Hale & Iremonger). Look also to Clive Faro’s book (with Wotherspoon) Street Scene: A History of Oxford Street (MUP). Legally, you could get away with drag so long as you were wearing men’s underwear. But apparently coppers did not stick to the rules. One of the first venues to open to the public was The Purple Onion on Anzac Parade, Kensington. Hosted by David ‘Beatrice’ Williams, these shows entertained an ‘in crowd’ of gays and gay-friendly folk including local intellectuals and bohemians and visiting celebnties: Sammie Davis Jnr, Debbie Reynolds, Rudolf Nureyev, to name a few.

My neighbour, the Old Testament hooker and drag diva, Carmen, whom legend has it has fucked a New Zealand Prime Minister more then once - and is, these days, a one-scooter Surry Hills Mardi Gras Parade in flowing purple with a magnolia in her hair -  has spoken to media in the past of being bashed by cops outside The Purple Onion - for wearing the wrong underwear - despite crates of grog being carefully placed in the back lane with a view to to keeping the law ‘onside’.

The law could often be found ‘inside’ the Purple Onion too; there being a tradition back then of cops officially ‘knocking off’ at midnight. Some say that cops and crims could be found at adjacent tables - only after knock off time - enjoying the same show: A Streetcar Named Beatrice among the best remembered. A costume designer/maker for the Old Tote Theatre Company, Barry Jackson, was one of the stars. She went on to even greater fame in my time (the 1970s), as Rose Jackson, headlining the show at Capriccio’s - the first gay bar to open in Oxford Street. If you are one with a taste for cultural history nothing beats Rose Jackson’s Purple Onion story of a crim committing a murder in Kings Cross, turning up at the Purple Onion and hiding the murder weapon (a pistol) in one of the ‘on-stage artiste’s’ frocks. Then taking his place at a table casually among pals.

In the Kings Cross precinct closer to town, which was thriving off the many financially flush American servicemen on R&R (Rest & Recreation), Les Girls pulled in more of a mainstream crowd. It’s here where Priscilla starts to quote directly from history. Bernadette, the not-so-young transexual - brilliantly played by Terence Stamp in the movie and more brilliantly by Tony Sheldon in the stage musical - is an ex-Les Girls star. These shows were hugely costumed, and the lip-synching (you get a training lesson in the show) was elevated to a ‘high art’.

Designer Brian Thomson Aims For Historical Correctness In His Les Girls Recreation: Photo Jeff Busby

Bernadette’s unlikely romance with Bob, the bush mechanic, who turns up out of nowhere to fix the broken down bus, admits to having been a Les Girls stalwart in his younger days. He we have one of the two truly culturally provocative lines in the narrative: rough and tumble true-blue Aussie bloke falls in love with sex-change (not just the other way round). And its so marvelously credible, indeed authoritative, with an actor as such iconically ‘masculine’ stature as Bill Hunter in the role of Bob. I’m not convinced any other pairing of actors will ever capture the depth of feeling created between Sheldon and Hunter. And it’s one of the main reason why I have decided to bring so much attention to the version of Priscilla we have in Sydney right now. Everyone is talking about Sheldon’s Bernadette, and rightly so. But Hunter’s cool and genuine embrace of his character’s unorthodox eye for ‘the ladies’ is beautiful to watch. And absolutely radical.

Dad (Todd McKenney) Meets Up At Last With Son, Benjamin (Blake Thorn): Photo by Jeff Busby

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At the heart of the Priscilla story is an unconventional reunion between a gay man who earns a living as a drag queen, and his wife and young child. This requires a rather hazardous bus trip from Sydney to Alice Springs, in the company of a couple other gels from Sydney Gay Entertainment Strip. This is the musical’s other great theme - of ‘family’ love, once again however unlikely the combination. One of the other highlights of the production right now is the presence of Todd McKenney in the ‘Hugo Weaving’ role  (from the movie) of Tick (Mitzi). McKenney is fantastic. Yes, with Tony Shelden glorious as Bernadette, and Daniel Scott as fresh as a slap in the face as Adam, the three representative drag ‘types’ are superbly presented. But McKenney is new to the show, and he brings enormous cred to the character of Mitzi, through the sheer quality of his performance. Not to forget, this is the guy who blew Sydney out of the water with his opening-night performance as Peter Allen in the premiere production of The Boy from Oz.

Cindy with Attitude: painting by John Douglas

Too few people know that the character of Tick is modelled on Richie Finger - aka Cindy Pastel - who had a child with his best friend Karen. Their son, Adam, is now 24 years old. Cindy/Ritchie was one of the great stars of Sydney drag in the early 1980s. She spurned frills and feathers for a bold punk attitude and led the Sydney gay community by the cockring into the Age of AIDS with some of the fiercest tragi-comedy in the history of drag. Do you get my meaning: why Priscilla comes across so confident and strong. Because it’s all true! It was Richie’s life story, more than anything else, that inspired the story for Stefan Elliot’s hit film. McKenney is also a real Dad these days as well.

Richie has retired from the profession several times, as every great diva should. In the end, the life-style that went with the life he led did knock him around. Talking to Richie on the phone the day after I saw Priscilla, there was a touch of bitter-sweet (okay mostly bitter) about so many people making a more-than-healthy living out of his life story. And Ritchie, these days, is close to destitute. I’m not going to make a major speech about this: it happens a lot in show business. Though you do wish it could be otherwise. Especially Richie being ‘clean’ these days: he hasn’t had a drink in years.

Cindy Pastel with Bill Hunter: the 2008 Helpmann Awards: Photo by Noel Kessel

Richie did make one rare public appearance as Cindy earlier this year when he was invited to partner Bill Hunter (Bob the bush mechanic), to the Helpmann Awards earlier in the year. In Richie’s own words, classic Richie: “There’s just not that much room these days for a dicky little old drag queen who’s been around since Xanadu.” I know the feeling luv - same goes for old drama queens. But chin up. That’s what we do, mate. We make come-backs. And a lot of em.

Just another "Dicky Old Drag Queen Who's Been Around Since Xanadu?" The "I've Never Been To Me!" sequence: Photo by Jeff Busby

What else can I say? Anyone who has had anything to do with this show has a right to feel proud. In particular director Simon Phillips, who has nuanced this show to an inch of this life. I’ve mentioned Ross Coleman’s ‘to-die-for’ choreography. There is Stephen ‘Spud’ Murphy’s superb musical direction and musical arrangements. Oh and that’s right - Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner’s costumes aren’t half bad either! Of the great volley of producers whose names are attached to the show, I understand the active partners have been Garry McQuinn and Liz Koops. An incredible labour of love and commitment from these money folks. Mention should also be made of those in supporting roles, excellent work from Colette Mann in this version as the scrag from outback hell. Danielle Barnes as Marion, Tick’s wife and Benjamin’s mother. And Lena Cruz, a total ‘Pop Music’ showstopper as Cynthia, Bob’s mail-order bride.  I could run through the cast: mentioning more names, and the names of others who have done well in some of these roles before. But the list would never end.

I wish it were possible for London to see this cast. Sheldon is going  - without him there is no show. Can Jason Donovan deliver at Tick/Mitzi - we will just have to see. But at last one of our musicals is going ‘over there’. And deservingly so. I hope this post puts to rest the crazy idea that I hate musicals. What I’ve been waiting all those years for is a f…ing good one! Okay, we’ve had a few. But this one really kicks arse! All we need now is for President-Elect Obama to put up on Facebook those dusty photos of his own schoolday’s rendition of Adelaide Adams, in that legendary ‘all-black’ Chicago (Steppenwolf 4 Skoolkidz) youth production of Calamity Jane, circa 1978. From my reading of the paper, I think ‘Calamity Jane’ Bush is just about ready to exit the White House. Bring on Adelaide ‘Obama ‘ Adams, I say: the Broadway star with skinny legs and a funny name!

'Singing and Dancing' the Sets and Costumes - All The Way to London: Photo Jeff Busby

This Sunday - 2pm - Belvoir Street Theatre, Kristy Edmunds is delivering the 2008 Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture. Edmunds has made a name for herself as Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival over the past four years (2005-8).  She has since been recruited to replace Andrea Hull as Head of Performing Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts. It’s a great school and the appointment has been very well received. Edmunds has always been a great supporter of innovation, and from what I am reading this lecture may look, in part, to her concern that something is missing from the ‘middle’ of Australian Theatre Practice. What could that be?

A Nice Picture of Ms Edmunds

Of course, to Sydneysiders, Edmunds is virtually unknown: so here we have a great opportunity to get some insights into the way her highly regarded mind works.

For more information on this event go to my old friends at Australianstage Online via this link.

Philip Parsons Young Playwrights Award 2008

This award for a playwright under 35 will be announced after Edmunds lecture. This years shortlist is: C. The winner receives a writer’s commission supported by Company B.

The Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture

Sunday 16 November @2pm

Belvoir Street Theatre, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills

Entry by donation

Bookings: 02 9699 3444 or www.belvoir.com.au

The New Mantra: Make Luv Not War

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Patrick White always maintained a committed interest not only in the day-to-day life of ‘ordinary’ Australians, but to their well-being also. We know he preferred chance encounters on a park bench to dinner parties with the rich and famous. But he noticed without prompting the needs of those in strife. For a reputedly mean and curmudgeonly man, White was extraordinary generous, compassionate and kind to many people whose names are unknown to the rest of us.

Here’s a small but telling example. White had a standing order at Clays Bookshop in Kings Cross, especially its heyday under the beady-eyed management of Miss Chapman, for a new (usually hardcover book) to go to out out once a month to about 20 elderly locals - often ex-showbiz types long past their hoofing days - for whom reading the ‘best and latest’ had become a life-long pleasure they could no longer afford.

Playwright John Romeril

The Patrick White Award is, in similar spirit, aimed to bring attention to under-recognised writers, many of  whom have had been burrowing away at their work for decades, often without a lot of acclaim and sometimes with barely an income. Perhaps more importantly is the long overdue recognition this award brings, and sometimes even a fresh spike in book sales. This year the award goes to playwright John Romeril. Previous winners have included Bruce Dawe, Thea Astley, Janette Turner Hospital, Gerald Murnane, Elizabeth Riddell, Randolf Stowe, and many others. To most of these writers the money ($30,000)  means something. Interestingly, the source of the fund is the prize money attached to White winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973.

The first recipient, and to this day probably its most deserving, was Christina Stead.  Stead is one of our greatest writers, The Man Who Loved Children a masterpiece; yet she spent her last years living close to penury, largely forgotten, tucked away in a nondescript southern Sydney suburb.

Stead was one of the lucky people to be invited to the occasional dinner at Patrick and Manoly’s in Martin Road. I was told once she would often arrive with bags of empty liquor bottles she felt she could not dispose of discreetly enough in her own rubbish bin. Apparently this was a not uncommon feature of a visit to your home by Stead in her later years. That White himself knocked off the odd bottle or three of vodka himself in his later years meant a few extra of Stead’s would hardly have raised an eyebrow from the garbo.

I am happy to declare myself a die-hard John Romeril fan - the writer and the man. He is a great bloke and, to this day, one of our best writers for the stage. Yes indeed, where are the big company commissions? His politics still cook and he is an expert craftsman, which explains why he is so often brought in as a mentor. Romeril is best known for his play The Floating World, and more generally as a part of that lively group to coelesce around La Mama and The Pram Factory from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. What many, even in the Australian theatre profession do not appreciate, is that Romeril has never stopped writing, producing at least a play a year (if not two), often in collaboration with a diverse range of small arts and other community groups. This suits his artistic raison d’etre,  no  doubt a lot of creative satisfaction in this, but little financial reward. For more on his current  project, I quote from a news item in The Age, 8 November:

“[Romeril] is now working with descendants of Torres Strait Islander workers who came to the mainland about 50 years ago and became experts in railway track maintenance. In one shift of 11 hours and 40 minutes, they set a world record for track laying to the Mount Newman iron ore mine in Western Australia of 6.8 kilometres, nearly double the previous record set in the US.

“It’s a singing culture and the plan is that a nucleus of professional performers will travel to towns where there are islander musical groups who will take part in performances.”

Romeril believes the 60,000 years of Aboriginal culture underpins Australian society. “The much earlier polity of Aboriginal Australia is a ghostly thing. Many council boundaries show a strange alignment with tribal groupings,” he said. This is why he stresses the importance of local and regional communities. “The view from Canberra is a very strange one, with this technocratic dream of controlling the whole country.

“Central planning can’t work in country as big and diverse as this one. I’ve always sought bottom-up stories that any centralised system wouldn’t be aware of. You need a mix of big and little that you ignore at your peril.”

I interviewed John Romeril in 2004 for the National Library of Australia’s Oral History archives. It was a hurried interiew as I was not in Melbourne for very long - my fault. There should be more there. But for those wth an interest in this wonderful man’s life and work, there is some excellent content nonetheless. Romeril speaks well on tape and has a very agile mind. He is very well read, an amazingly clear thinker, and his answers to questions are almost never what you would normally expect. Here is a link to the NLA file reference number for that interview. So congratulations Mr Romeril! Well earned - and greatly deserved, By way of a gift parcel, I am wondering if you drink vodka? A bottle - or in the ’spirit’ of Stead and White, does it need to be a crate?

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Obama Wins in a Landslide!

A pundit on tele was claiming it to be one of those moments we will be able to look back on and say exactly we where we when Fergus Linehan was mapping out his vision for the 2009 Sydney Festival. This is because something nearly as important was happening across the USA at the same time. I know where I was: the Abraham Mott Hall. Get used to that name: as from yesterday it is historic. Unfortunately, no amount of Googling by me can reveal who Abraham is - or was.

Sir Neville Mott

General Gearshom Mott

For some reason, lost to the annals of history, Mr Abraham Mott has had very lovely community hall - in Argyle Street, the Rocks, Sydney - named after him. From my research, I can confirm that the hall is not named after renowned physicist, Sir Neville Mott; nor one of Lincoln’s greatest generals, Gearshom Mott. Though the ‘Abraham’ connection did, initially, bring a rush of blood to the head of an excitable Googler like myself.

Bad Seed - Mr Nick Cave: Photo by Bleddyn Butcher (collection of James Waites - lol)

If you like ‘a little bit of history baby’, go to the SydFest2009 website and look up what is happening on Cockatoo Island where Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is/are curating and headlining a maga-gig called ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, a title taken from a song by Nico (no relation to Nick Cave that I know of) who droned on rather beautifully though much of 1970s, often with the Velvet Underground.  Which was never officially connected to the so-called Velvet Revolution - despite both Velvets being both Underground and Revolutionary. Interestingly, Prague’s Velvet Revolution is, however, connected to contemporary theatre history thanks to Tom Stoppard’s play, Rock and Roll. Which, in a manner not unlike the ocean’s currents, brings us back to Nick Cave and Nico. Both rock’n'rollers! Don’t you just love the symmetry? Thanks to the planning genius of outgoing (as opposed to ’shy’) Festival Director, Fergus Linehan, and his team.

If you were engaged by Stoppard’s interest in Rock and Roll with ‘art and dissent, especially references to an underground dissident Czech rock band called the Plastic People of the Universe, then you are likely to be very interested in Being Harold Pinter from the Belarus Free Theatre (BFT), playing through January at Belvoir Street Theatre. Being Harold Pinter splices ‘transcripts from Belarusian political prisoners with scenes from Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize speech. Just as The Plastic People Band performed secretly, for fear of being arrested or their audiences being bashed, so too does the BFT perform in apartments and unadvertised venues, away from the gaze of that country’s authorities. “Established in 2005, Belarus Free Theatre is an underground theatre project set up specifically to produce uncensored works in response to Europe’s last dictatorship.” A good quiz-show question in there. “In 2007, a performance by BFT was stormed by state police and 50 people were arrested.” In a program rich in quality events, Being Harold Pinter is just one of the highlights.

Martin Niedermair in The Tell-Tale Heart: Photo by Jeff Busby

From the home team at the Sydney Theatre Company we get Benedict Andrews’ production of The War of the Roses. The text is an edited union of the history plays Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3, and Richard III and the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor, which shares characters but not plot with the history cycle (thanx Google for helping me get that right). Playing at the dully named (and confusing to punters) Sydney Theatre, this is a huge event in both ambition and promise. It is the final production of the STC’s Actors Company, and it will feature Robert Menzies and Cate Blanchett. Also sort of from Australia is The Tell-Tale Heart, adapted and directed by Herr Kosky (as opposed to Himm Kosky?) ‘after Edgar Allen Poe ‘- which means. I think, it was ‘adopted and directed’ by Bazza only after Edgar first wrote the murderous thing.

Among other highlights of the theatre program is ‘a celebration of the work of Brian Friel’, Ireland’s great ‘living’ dramatist, with three plays - Faith Healer, The Yalta Game, and Afterplay - at the Parade Theatre. For some strange reason, Irish-born Linehan has a soft spot for theatre and music from the island with nought snakes. The important news is that the season is being presented by Gate Theatre Dublin. However multicultural Australia is these days, the Irish connection remains strong. And the craft skills of both this writer and this company will no doubt help answer some of the questions currently about. Including: what is a well-written and acted play?

Fools - The Wheeldon Company

A very hot ticket will be for Metaphoses,  three works from Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet company - The Wheeldon Company. Wheeldon’s gifts have sky-rocketed him to fame. So much so he has been able to attract some of the world’s best dancers to his company, including  no less than five Australians - Lucinda Dunn, Robert Curran, Damian Smith, Matt Trent and Stephanie Williams. We are likely to make a speech after seeing the company as to why so many good Australian dancers took the opportunity to flee conditions here. Playing sadly at the Theatre Royal.

Of course, what you are waiting to hear is what is playing at Abraham Mott Hall. No Dice from Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. This work is as mysterious and compelling as the true to life story of Abraham Mott. In ‘an abbreviated four-hour version’ of their ‘legendary eleven-hour melodramatic spectacle’, No Dice takes more than 100 hours of recorded telephone conversations with friends, family and colleagues - and  ‘f’ilters them through the conventions of amateur dinner theatre’ - transforming this content into ‘a mighty, sweaty,  and exhilarating celebration of the struggle of daily life’. Mostly the PR depts words - lol!

The really good bit come next. And I quote: ‘On a makeshift stage (the venue is a community hall)…the trappings of amateur theatre include capes, wigs, false moustaches and absurd accents, the actors talk about nothing at all - temp jobs, diet drinks, performing cats, office suppplies.’ I suspect regular visitors to this website will be particularly interested in this event! You may even find it ‘autobiographical’. But there’s more! Originally conceived as an exercise in ‘non-literary; theatre, No Dice has been 100 percent orally generated in the tradition of epic story-telling. No written script for the piece exists’. Do I need to say any more!

No Dice- Nature Theatre of Oklahoma

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I still have mixed feelings over writing what I did about the Bell Titus. Not that it wasn’t exactly how I felt about the show; but whether it was appropriate; or whether I should be so frank and earnest. Feedback from a friend, not in the business, thought it was a bit rough where careers were at stake; a long-term colleague who has followed my writing since the beginning not only reacted the same way as I did to the show, but was delighted to discover I had not lost any of my ‘punch’. Or pout.

If I feel squeamish about it, one can only imagine how it is for those on the receiving end. Emotions ranging anywhere from anger to disgust, humiliation, hurt. Or, if they believe enough in their own work, perhaps mere contempt.

This is in my mind because I recently read Kevin Jackson’s review of Sydney Theatre Company’s The Pig Iron People at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House: he gave it a thrashing not unlike to the one I gave Titus. I don’t disagree with him on a single point - but I would certainly not have put it the  way.  Just as Titus did not upset him the way it upset me, The Pig Iron People did not upside me, the way it upset him.

I’m not sure how many of you are following Jackson’s writings online. An accomplished actor and director, and on the teaching staff at NIDA, my understanding is that Jackson believes ‘enough is enough’, he has nothing to lose, and so he has to decided to start putting his views on Sydney theatre into print. In doing so, he will not be ‘backwards in coming forwards’. His reviews are methodical, thorough and informed; and he brings a strong sense of the inner-workings of theatre-making to his critiques. Clearly Jackson likes some shows greatly, and he dislikes others equally so. He is one for respecting the text (if it is a good one); and he appears to be quite over the situation in Sydney where, in his view, too many new scripts are getting up before thy are ready. This is, I think the main issue he brings to the table in his argument against the John Doyle play.

The issue at hand, I think, is this. It is not logical or appropriate to expect criticism (’art commentary’) of any form to be ‘objective’. I’ve thought about this a lot over many years. Rather than aim for the delusion of objectivity, it is for reviewers to study their own prejudices, or ‘values’; and declare them when and where they can. One can get into huge theoretical knots here - but we need to keep one eye on the fact that reviews will appear in print - so how do we negotiate that? In a sense we can neer truly know our own prejudices or values (otherwise we wouldn’t have any). So all I mean here is, try and give readers a sense of where, as a reviewer, one coming from. It is certainly not enough to work form the equation: I like it there for it is good. That is way to impertinent. A critic is never necessarily ‘right’: Their gift is essentially an ability to ‘describe’ what they see. Gaining familiarity with a reviewer’s work over time certainly helps. Comparing apples with apples as were.

Is it not interesting that Jackson - whose reviews  I greatly admire - likes the Titus as much as I disliked it?  And he disliked the Kosky Women of Troy, as much as I thought it ‘good’. In this instance, there appears to be an appropriate symmetry in our diverging views. In a small town like Sydney, there is not a lot of critical feedback; and not a lot of range to it. So a singularly strong response is quite exposed.

If you go to this site, you will find two of Jackson’s most recent reviews (of Titus and Pig Iron; and it won’t take much for you to find his reviews of The Narcissist and The Women of Troy). Meanwhile, I have gone back over my experience of Titus: and I come down to this main point. The actors failed to establish a relationship with me: they never attracted my commitment, it was never secured. The intially bonding needs to happen quite quicly in a show. And it comes in two forms. I know where we are going - and am happy to tag along. Or  I have no idea where we are going, but I believe I am in good hands - so I’ll tighten my safety belt and off we go. It is, in efect, a contract, which every member of the audience is asked to sign. Sometimes signals captured by our antennae cause us to baulk. An experienced theatre-goer has to trust that. Consequently, instead of being taken in by the drama, we sit outside it. Sometimes, more or less permanently. Left to do so, a critic is abandoned to a single question: ‘Why?’ Why is this not working for me?

The critic, may not be able to answer that question to the satisfaction of all, perhaps not even to themselves. But this does not invalidate the primal impulse. If a reviewer likes most things, or is happy enough to let the bulk of them past, then they must trust their instincts when their brain and heart seizes up inside them - and starts shouting: ‘No’.

I certainly did not enter the Bell Titus planning not to get involved.  For better to worse, one cannot predict a Bell Shakespeare Company show. Their track record is simply too unreliable: from fabulous to downright awful. When you read Jackson, you will discover that he was drawn in very early - and he stayed with the cast. He believed in the universe they were creating on stage, and Gow’s overarching production worked for him. Stephen Dunne, an old hand at the reviewing game, reckons the show also had cred.

Any critic can find themselves at odds with their peers. As I mentioned earlier on the week, Kippax and I almost always disagreed. Now we have Jackson disliking intensley the The Pig Iron People. I do agree with Jackson that the writing lacks craft. I also agree that it is high time plays presented in this price band were more securely prepared. And I also agree that there is something wrong at the Sydney Theatre Company in this final year of Robyn Nevin’s programing: why indeed were so many new scripts booked into seasons before they were ready? it has been an embarrresing burden for the new artistic directors - and possibly unfairly tarnishes them? Could they or should they have intervened? The frightful production of The Narcissist - the transfer of a full worked-through show - was probably unsalvageable. But was it really too late to help the author of Pig Iron People, a script with some promise, through to another draft?

Interestingly this time, where Jackson found The Pig Iron People essentially untenable, I saw a work that was less than perfect, but with a pulsing heart. I did not find it repellent: it certainly did not gross me out. So where does this leave us  - we the reviewers? In the eye of the beholder?

This is a complex debate I am trying to carry here. And it is as much about the ‘nature’ of theatre reviewing, as it is about shows themselves. For this reason, I am playing it out over days. I cannot put this project together in one big gush. Those of you who want to keep up with me, may like to take a look at some of Jackson’s reviews. Before we pick up again. By way of clarification,  I should point out that I posted my article about Titus - put it up on the site, as it were - and then reworked it several times over during the next few days. If you looked at it early on, what is up online now is probably quite different. I realise  this is not the ideal publishing strategy. It must cause confusion. Equally, it is difficult not to want to improve on work when one sees fault in it, and when one can.

I will return as soon as i can with more - specifically on The Pig Iron People, John Doyle’s first play.

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Rape victim, 13, stoned to death in stadium

AN ISLAMIST rebel administration in Somalia ordered that a girl, 13, be stoned to death for adultery after the child’s father reported that she was raped by three men.

Amnesty International said the al-Shabab militia, which controls the city of Kismayo, arranged for 50 men to stone Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow in front of about 1000 spectators. A truck laden with stones was brought to the stadium for the killing. Amnesty said the girl struggled with her captors and had to be forcibly carried into the stadium. Amnesty said: “Inside the stadium, militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander.”

The girl’s father told Amnesty that when he tried to report her rape to the militia the child was accused by the administration of adultery and detained.

None of the men accused of the rape was arrested. The girl was earlier reported by witnesses as being 23 years old.

Guardian News & Media

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Last Chance 2 Enjoy Be4 the Day of Wreckening!!

Palin and Fey both working from the same script; great mimicry from Fey

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