Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (2025)

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Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (1)[...]0 HMS PINAFO 0 YEOMAN OF THE GUARD
THE ZOO o COX AND BOX 0 T L BY JURY

Marketed in Australasia[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (2)[...]ywrights which includes
THE BEST AUSTRALIAN
PLAYS and SEWELL, NOWRA
DICKINS

INTERNATIONAL/ UK/[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (3)[...](02) 357 1200
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WA: Margaret Schwan[...]for the Arts,
the Western Australian Arts Council and the
assistance of the University of Newcastle.

MANUSCRIPTS

Manuscripts and editorial correspondence
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Whilst every care is taken of manuscripts and
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posted to Theatre Publications Ltd. 1st Floor,
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institutional and overseas subscription rates see
back page.

Theat[...]otts Point NSW 20] 1. Distributed by
subscription and through theatre foyersetc by Theatre Publications
Ltd. and to newsagents throughout Australia by Allan Rodne[...]Whitlam largesse, was to develop
fledgling talent and provide each year a new
crop of writers that the[...]e Boom has suffered an
insidious seeping away — and the Con-
ference become a place for known writers[...]Blunde1l’s
1981 fortnight was flakked for this and
George Whaley’s present one, with names
like Sandy McCutcheon, Michael Freundt,
Craige Cronin, Bob Herbert and Len
Radic, will not escape similar criticism.

Wh[...]mply because they cannot get a
hearing elsewhere. And it pays off. Alma de
Groen’s (and she’s no greenhorn talent)
Vacations from last year’s Conference was
taken up by the MTC and is to be made into
a film.

The theatre companies[...]y it is
the stalwart few whose works are produced
and increasingly the local segment of the
season is b[...]ed to second venues.

History proves that funding and 11'1-
digenous growth go hand in hand; The Doll
w[...]n 1954; the last
new wave of iconoclastic writers and
directors coincided with the establishment
of the then named Australian Council for
the Arts in 1968 and had its heyday in the
Whitlam years 1972-5.

“I[...]y it is that genuine creative talent will
prosper and works of true value emerge.”
Gough Whitlam.

Even with the phyrric victory after the
Stage Crisis Day and accolades to the new
Council supremo Tim Pascoe,[...]asy to lose faith in times of
financial stricture and return to “overseas is
best” — or at least[...]ness we’re over that with regard to our

actors and directors). Many directors
believe they “prove[...]C has a policy of presenting
the best of national and international
writing for theatre of every period. Its
current percentage of Australian plays is
between 20 and 30% in the major house
seasons and 100% in the alternative wing —
QTC Tangent Productions. As our
audiences grow and more good Australian
plays become available this[...]uld be seen here;
it’s a question of proportion and of
indigenous development. Of course it is
diffic[...]he hands of artistic
directors. If they evade it, and the decline
continues, they do a great disservice to our
heritage, our cultural identity and our
future.

In the meantime many of our t[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (4)[...]that positive, optimistic note
that makes public and business alike feel
they’re onto a good thing, backing a winner
and all that. New Moon Theatre in North
Queensland claim to be dragging in the
crowds in Townsville, Rockhampton and
Cairns by selling themselves as the hottest
shows[...]of particular interest. Anderson created
the mime and mask show after training at
the le Coq School and first presented it in[...]QTC’s 1981 Tangent season. In a highly
personal andand indeed where most
theatres’ programs are increa[...]rvey’s Buena Vista, Gordon Dryland’s
Seadrzft and writer-in-residence Barry
Dickins’ A Couple of[...]the more experimental Peter
Handke, David Mammet and Jilly Fraser.
And in St Martins is a small classics season
— Brittanicus and Long Day ’s journey. . .

WOMEN AND ARTS
FESTIVAL

The Women and Arts Festival to take
place in October this year,[...]ers
Week, music concerts community perfor-
mances and other theatre, mural painting,
pageants, day-long entertainments in Hyde
Park and at the Opera House, lunch hour
performances, songs and dance, exhibi-
tions, playwrights festival. . . the list goes
on and on. And not everything will be
happening in Sydney - the[...]AP funding in
1976, Theatre Board funding in 1980 and
two months ago Shopfront CYSS was axed

by the Fe[...]ubsidies went to
Theatre ACT’s On Our Selection and the
Marionette Theatre to bring in General
MacArthur and Smiles Away. A great
innovation was the import of street theatre
troupes for the Patriotic Show and the Wine
and Food Frolic — outdoor, day-long,
conglomerate events with performers
appearing at add times and in odd places.

METCALFE AT THE
NATIONAL

Edgar M[...]ar M etcalf

cation along with those of top actor and fine
director, for the head of WA’s state
comp[...]ing things running
smoothly with guest directors, and negotia-
tions for the right Artistic Director
co[...]re — the new home for the
Drama Studio, Sydney, and a new full—time
classical dance school, Attitud[...]e building is owned by the Electricity
Commission and has been promised to the
SCTC group as soo[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (5)[...]orcing the two schools into a
desperate situation and the closure of the
interim Dance Course. Elcom’[...]ile the space remains empty
collecting more water and no rent.

SUCCESSFUL
CELEBRITY NIGHT

Lilian and Ken Horler shone on the dance
floor of Paddo Town Hall; Katharine
Brisbane and Dibbs Mather managed a
nifty foxtrot; others were[...]porarily from speech-
making (see his column p 8) and even
Geraldine Turner and John 0’May had
difficulty making their songs heard.
Amidst the candlelight, flowers, cham-
pagne and balloons, people were too intent
on enjoying them[...]yesteryear
— ex-ANPC Director, Richard Wherret
and Aubrey Mellor, to name but two. Those
that did at[...]n, to Judith Cobb,
who turned 21 only in February and has

come to the company straight from
finishi[...]be at MTC were so impressed
with ]udith’s work and her potential, the
recently formed MTC Society’[...]least with them.

PERFORMANCE SPACE

Mike Mullins and his committee of the

Performance Space, having b[...]ning for
professional theatre including
5,. radio and television -

En trance by A udition.

ENQUIRIES:[...]83

Sydney City Theatre Centre

Courses in Acting and Dance.
Casual classes and workshops.
Rehearsal space available.

The Drama[...]des Dance
3 Year full time training for
Classical Ballet.

Childrens classes from
Beginners to Intermediate.

Adult classes from Beginners on.

For information and Prospectus on all activities of the S.C.T.[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (6)[...]b for the
theatre profession with cheap good food and
wine will eventually be a goer.

LIGHTS UP AT
LIG[...]ut one that naturally grew out of his other
plays and his fascination with how

important love is to us all and the fear of
loneliness.

“Spellbound is a play[...]ach other, of how unconsciously cruel they
can be and of how desperate they can be for

SPECIALISTS IN[...]involvement in show production
anyone between 12 and 25 can take the
opportunity to learn the craft in[...]wick — The Musical, directed by
Helmut Bakaitis and Slive of the Service by
young writer Bill Marshal[...]. This original
play with music tells of the life and
times of Evelyn Owen, inventor of
the Owen[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (7)[...]l funding from $268,000 to
$134,000 (February TA) and affecting
to be cockahoop about an extra $80,000[...]more or less exactly what the Council’s
Theatre and Music Boards them-
selves are doing.

Projects cu[...]include financial involvement in the
Queensland Ballet’s tour of Can-
berra, Albury, Melbourne and
Geelong; Sydney seasons for Circus
Oz and the revue, Squirts; the
Marionette Theatre’s pr[...]st money on the visits
by Piccolo Teatro di Milan and
Pina Bausch’s Wuppertal Dance
Theatre, as it qu[...]er 1982
activities — the Sadler’s Wells Royal
Ballet, Barnum and Sesame Street
Live.

It is striving, so far witho[...]orporate sponsors or
through social activities by and for its
members. To me, this seems both
humiliating and shameful.

To more positive matters, I hear
entre[...]early next year
American actress Estelle Parsons and
the one-woman show she staged at this
year’s Pe[...]a recent product-buying flying
visit to New York and London, Artistic
Director Peter Williams and Execut-
ive Producer Garry Penny secured
the auth[...]for 1982, even
giving the opening date as July 31 and

Barnum — the Trust ’s hopefor
recoupi[...]ing
dissatisfaction with the second act.
Williams and Penny had to do some
very persuasive talking to g[...]Australian musicals — St.
Ma1y’s Kid in 1977 and Paradise
Regained in 1980 —- is launching
another this month, Safety In
Numbers, by Phillip Scott and Luke
Hardy.

The cast of four is Mariette Rups,
t[...]phy in Evita; Robyn Arthur,
who was also in Evita and recently in
Busking With Brel at the Nimro[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (8)[...]This the speech I spent three days writing
and finally didn’t give for reasons of
cowardice and acoustics and the scarlet face of
Grame Blundell whose ten good[...]I am brought before you gormless and
futile by wills stronger than my own, in my
very first unrented tuxedo (waste, all
criminal waste) and tastefully clashing
brown suede shoes, as befits a tame
eccentric in the company of the rich, and
Amosan on my shrivelled gums, and
Grecian 2000 on my pubic hairs and hope in
my heart, in this last gasp of my fortiet[...]. . limbo, that some young
person, lithe of limb and sweet of glance,
from Brisbane perhaps, or furthe[...]righted by the great Guy Doleman
V since 1949: “And you must play the Maori
princess” and still believe I yet have
influence in a cocaine-fuelled and
accountant-fardled film industry that has
passed[...]uloid Masada, giving blissfully in to the
Romans, and coming down off the Rock
alive, ashamed and rich, saying Rome is the
future, a wave we cannot resist, its values
must be our values and its gods our gods,
there is no Israel. . . and the temple is down.

Playwrights ’ Conference.[...]rns, slouch hat Butch
Cassidys, vegemite Samurai, and Kirk
Douglas’ joggling dimple twice over and the
seven mutant bikies of the Saltbush
Apocalypse drum through my nightmares
in Dolby sound. Robert and Rupert, Adams
and Packer, Gyngell and Stratton, Gulf and
Western, Engulf and Devour. . . nose jobs
and nork jobs and hand jobs and blow jobs
and talk jobs and tax jobs. . . beyond all
human imagining, cocktai[...]ree — which is known as creative
accounting — and the still unending world-
straddling miracle of Murdoch and Stig-
wood hype: see Gallipoli and die; you’ll be
so glad you did.

Robert and Rupert broke up, I hear.

8 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY[...]made
last year, had he been, like most of England
and Australia, in the employ of his son. The
wind bloweth where it listeth however, and
my wet finger as always is up, and I am
writing a GallipoIi—style road movie mysel[...]th a marihuana
smoking draft-dodger via Byron Bay and
Surfers Paradise to Canungra. They arrive
in Vietnam and find to their amazement
that killing is going on. Music is by Sherbert
and Mozart. It should make a lot of money.

So too, I[...]Miller II,
as Evan Williams has come to know him,
and to co-star once more the great Jack
Thomps[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (9)has come to know him, called Clancy of the
Overdraft, and based on the life of Michael
Edgely, in which fi[...]s with a
glorious crimson sunset over Los Angeles
and the mogul hero’s silhouetted profile
looking out, and in Burt Lancaster’s moving
voice-over, the vale[...]In my twilit helicopter with a starlet
going down
And the tickertape a-chatter of the
bums on seats tha[...]boisterous,
conscienceless Pommy migrant producer
and agent with telltale flaws in her Sussex
accent and far too much to lose. The fatal
words in the controversial review, “the best
Australian film since Picnic at Hang[...]r
interfering with his plans for world
domination and yesterday blockaded him-
self on an island besieg[...]llipines could only
stand one dictator at a time, and has busted
himself by rewriting the role of the c[...]st Australian film to
get total American backing andand night, as anyone
who can within half an hour, and without
prompting, point out the relevant contine[...]t version of the
same story, called Carry On D H, and is
hoping to interest Frankie Howerd in the
role[...]which I understand he
contributed the A flat — and on receiving
the award called out to the vast television
world audience “Hello Australia” and
nearly got the pronunciation right. Aust-
ralian[...]alian
film goes into profit at Village Roadshow.
And Nancy Reagan has shyly confessed that
her very fa[...]ely
obsequious is he to the moneyed powers
around and beneath him, when he didn’t
have to be.

But Australian content is more than that,
and the country’s one true living auteur,
John Lamo[...]f the
Australian film industry, set in the plush
and kinky, black-silken and lute-strumming
interiors of the AFC, starring Mark Lee as
Peter Weir, and Mike Preston as Tim

Burstall, and Sir Les Patterson as Michael
Thornhill, called Willie Wanker and the
Chocolate Factory. In the great man’s
messa[...]rene, more rational, less prone
to ruling cliques and only a trifle more
expensive, but it has its little dramas too.

The death of Plays and Player: has been a
dreadful loss to the heads of[...]another’s
productions instead of Peter Hall’s and
their standards are consequently slipping
and desperate measures are called for, like
even revisiting London, and therefore their
Cockney relatives. One solution has been
the wholesale importation and installing in
the Sydney Hilton with crates of
champagne and caviar of starving left-wing
British playwrights, and hurling buxom
actresses through the milk hatch on the hour.
One small joking reference to Barry and
Bruce in the text will then suffice as
Australian[...]rk
of genius, populated by actors of every
colour and creed flown in first class from
every latitude, and the smiling Australian
taxpayer, flattered by th[...]ight,
near to the grave of our national identity,
and the Cenotaph designed by those great
Australians Skrizinsky and Riomfalvy,
Bloch and Murdoch, of all that we were and
could have been, the message, long repeated
ofthe[...]oon the lightning will come that breeds
confusion and the tower will be down.
Jerusalem is not reached,[...]his august company, by acts of
greed, as a Reagan and Thatcher and Fraser
are daily finding out, or acts of grasping
dictatorship as John Sumner and Leonie
Kramer and Peter Weir may never know,
but by the reasonable[...]the Playwrights’ Conference
where, in poverty, and promiscuity, and
comradeship, and undernourishment, and
lust, and kindred help, the sum of man’s
thought, and scope, and compassion is
added to, ever so slightly, year af[...]though I
am open to offers beginning at that sum,
and from those that will not go this year or
next I u[...]are so minded, for they
keep worse hours than you and do get
lonely, and to you I also commend their
example of excellence under pressure in a
blind and dying world.

I thank you.
Bob Ellis

THEA[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (10)[...]MPHORN has been
whizzing from Melbourne to
Sydney and back again winding up
business in both states. Al[...]p with this city — its
playwrights, performers, and its pace.

Things don’t change overnight, but
a[...]mposer’s centenary.

Since rehearsals began Rex and his
cast of five have been cashing in on the
excitement and activity centred around
the Percy Grainger Museum[...]ll leave audiences with an impression
of the man, and not just an en-
cyclopaedic picture of his life.[...]from Sydney where he
worked with Kate Fitzpatrick and
Malcolm Robertson on a Restoration
comedy[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (11)[...]. “It has the unique
advantage of being younger and fresher
and more energetic than the larger
organisations in t[...]ak I’ve gone back. But this time I
want to stay and really get to know this
place.”

FLOATING

WORL[...]ds of the day.

It was directed by Lindzee Smith,
and had memorable performances from
Bruce Spence as Les, on the Cherry
Blossom nightmare to Japan and his

own head, and from Peter Cummins as
the deranged comic.

Peter[...]of that time, managing to
contain both the actors and the
audience inside an environment which
was the cruise ship, a concentration
camp and Les’s concentration-mind all
at the same[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (12)[...]y APG/Hoopla/Playbox .‘
person Graeme Blundell, and designed
for the proscenium this time, by Peter
C[...]slow as Les, Marion
Edward as Irene, Syd Conabere and
Brian James, distinguished performers
all, and in a nice expression of the new
deal, former APG great Evelyn Krape,
rocker and theatre musician Red
Symons and magician Doug Tremlett
from the burgeoning theatr[...]recursor was in The
One Day of the Year.

Romeril and Blundell view the play as
a “clash between Japanese culture at its
highest and Australian culture at its
lowest”, for possession of Les. Romeril
like Shepard, Hare and other living
writers, says that tragedy is possib[...]thing, objectively, to a contempor-
ary audience, and that it does not require
the slavish acceptance o[...]in the performances of
actors who can sing, dance and do
magic as well as act.

It’s to be hop[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (13)...continued from page 7

Theatre and more recently in straight
roles in The Dresser and Chinchilla
and, making his musical debut, Simon
Burke, of TV’s Restless Years, the
Nimrod’s controversial The Choir
and three movies, including The
Devil’s Playground.[...]company’s highly successful
Privates on Parade, and musical
direction by composer Philip Scott who
was musical director of The Rocky

lflorror Show and a long list of
| musical shows at Marian St and

elsewhere. ‘
During john Mi1son’s brief spel[...]as wide a range of

tastes as possible.
The board and Theatre Manager,

John Frost are persevering with[...]a
late night show from May 7 at 11 pm on
Fridays and Saturdays with Myra de

“...(ontemporari,

Groot and her Musical Director,
Garey Campbell, in Noel and Cole,
a one—hour pot-pourrie of the words
and music of Noel Coward and Cole
Porter.

As I write, the theatre is still se[...]une 11, it has
Patricia Kennedy as Lady Bracknell
and Barbara Wyndon as Miss Prism.

A new hazard seems[...]Pamela
Stephenson joining Tim Curry,
George Cole and Annie Ross in
leading roles and Wilford Leach

repeating his New York staging. A[...]rs

Important,
Alive,
Australian
and lun...”

l’llll|l0X.

or Suppliers of goods/[...]ooking to provide a broader range of performances and
activities in all areas of the arts, theatre and music.
Applications are invited — preferably in[...]rmation, promotional material etc.
BY 30 MAY 1982 and should be directed to:-
Ellen Blunden, Pro[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (14)[...]well

established writers, such as Patrick
White and Ray Lawler, returning with
new plays; and we have a wide group of

new, younger writers exp[...]l
dramatic culture which was “sudden,
brilliant and permanent” and we listed
over 30 good playwrights to prove it. S[...]difficult new forms —
exciting for enthusiasts and cognos-
centi but bewildering for even the
theatr[...]community memory. With the old
feeling of social and community
importance lost, audiences are
fracturing into in-groups and claques
of supporters — but without the
general[...]d in Adelaide that the
difference between English and
Australian audiences’ reactions to plays
was that the English are poor and
unhappy and they turn to their

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

p[...]why, whereas
Australians are relatively contented
and they turn to their playwrights, if at
all, for an[...]ice really one
between sentimental box-office pap
and obscure in-group experimen-
tation?

We don’t k[...]uggest where an enduring
repertoire may be begun. And we look
at some recent writing in an attem[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (15)[...]al order.

ON OUR SELECTION
(1912) by Steele Rudd
and Bert Bailey

The apotheosis of Australian melo-
d[...]e
play the conventionality of melo-
dramatic plot and characters, the rough
sentimentality of the Australian bush
legend, and the homely, small-family
wisdom and comic gentleness of the
original Steele Rudd stor[...]he leading influence of Bert
Bailey, part author and creator of the
role of Dad, it played on and off for 17
years, before being taken up in a string
of movies, radio serials and TV series.
A new adaptation has been done by
George Whaley.

DAD: For years I’ve faced and fought
the fires, the floods and the droughts of

this country, I came here and cut a hole in
the bush, when I hadn’t enough mo[...]without a shirt to put on
my back, I worked hard and honestly,

living on dry bread, harrowing me bit[...]art for one single moment, Me cattle
would perish and die before me very eyes
and me roof go from over me head with the
wind. But my spirit was never broken,

and do you think you can break it now, by

the Lord n[...]ake me bits of
things, take me few head of cattle and get
out. (Turns up C.)

CAREY: You talk about spi[...]at the men ofthis
country, with health, strength, and
determination are always doing. I can
start again[...]TRALIA MAY 1982

. *> . " \ .
er, Nonillazlehurst and Geoffrey Rush in thejane Street/Nimrod

to be seen as an alien enemy force, andandand set its scene in the middle
of the dry open plains. Briglow Bill is
injured in a stampede, and must be left
by his mates to die — the cattle h[...]sooner or later. I ’ve lived my life,
careless and free, looking after my work
when I was at it, and splashing my cheque
up like a good one when I struck
civilisation. I ’ve lived hard, droving and
horse-breaking, station work, and over-
landing, the hard life of the bush, but
there ’s nothing better, and death ’s come
quick, before I ’m playe[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (16)[...]miss me a
bit. . . the tracks I ’ve travelled, and a

star or two, and the old mulga.
BOSS: And I’ll miss you. I’ve never
travelled with a be[...]end: exploiting its
sentimental power to the full and then
sadly, but affectionately, revealing its
hollowness. The cane-cutters, R00 and
Barney, come south to Melbourne for
the off-season, and discover that, by
1955, the new urban Australia h[...]le who had never seen
a play swam flooded rivers and drove
hundreds of miles to see it. Its
emotional[...]a of the
inarticulate.

ROO: (grabbing her wrists andand she
falls to the floor, grief-stricken, almost an[...](from L) Kenneth
Warren, J une J ago, Madge Ryan and Ethel Gabriel.

the same time) Kill me, then. But[...]o
more eagles. (Going down on one knee
beside her and striking the floor with his
hand) This is the dust we ’re in and we ’re
gunna walk through it like everyone else[...]SOUL
(1963)
by Patrick White

The awful goodness and terrifying
cheerfulness of Miss Docker in this
pl[...]ist, the

whisperings of the chorus of old ladies
and townspeople more insistent and the
heightened language stronger.

THE LEGEND OF

KING O’MALLEY
(1970)

by Michael Boddy and
Bob Ellis

Included more for what it represents
t[...]he crude
larrikinism of the Australian music hall
and apply it to a serious contemporary
political issu[...]lf-interested, bible-
bashing, American loudmouth and, by
making him the hero, implied much
abou[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (17)Sandra Lee Paterson,_]eam'e Drynan and Sean Scullyiin
Makassar Reef. Photo: Robert McFar[...], romantic,
melodramatic, comic trick in the book
and wins through, like the traditional
Aussie battler[...]emotionally fore-

shadowed the failure of spirit and nerve
which led them to vote him out three
years[...]ished David
Williamson as a master of observation
and of the theatrical craftsmanship

needed to get it down and get it right.

MAL: They were great days.

DON: G[...]pe with your job
or anything else for that matter and why
did I have to cook all your meals and wash
all your clothes? Eh? Because your little
mu[...]xuriant in
its mixture of the vulgar, the erudite
and the poetic. The play is not so much
Australian as[...]e indomitable optimism of many
plays about death, and the defiant
irreverence so essential to the basic[...]n psyche.

MONK: Reminds me of the time Les
Darcy and I scaled Mount Kosciusko. Les
was in training at[...]. .

Australia. . . attired only in boxing
trunks and slouch hats. . . our bare feet
comingling with th[...]ustralia, that
great nation out there of soldiers and
sports and athletes, cereals and wool, will
one day rule the Pacific. I believe th[...]merica will extend to us an
equal hand. The Indon and Kanaka we

17

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (18)[...]ise

germ. . . the germ of the future. With
water and work it will breed and grow and
spread into an empire of fair play and
health and wealth and power, and wealth
and literature.

He had tears in his eyes.

I took hi[...]en has sapped your intellect. Put up
those dooks, and we ’ll go a round or two
for a pound or two. .[...]sh. It is about the transience
of human closeness and about loss. The
portrait of Dan and Aggie Cassidy has
more love in it than there is in any other
Australian play, and that is what makes
the loss so moving, when Aggie[...]llection of carefully observed
authentic material and mixing it with
funny, savage theatricality. It te[...]region which
surrounds his country, but which he
and most Australians have only known
in war. The expe[...]g is

18 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

___j_ .m__

and disappointment,
rather than cancer and death. It is the
most stylish Australian play, dr[...]TRAVELLING NORTH
(1979)

by David Williamson
This and M akassar Reef reveal the new
maturity of concern, mastery of craft
and subtlety of effect which the “old
guard” of t[...]n flees north to
the sun, sexual passion, old age and
death; the younger stays south with the
cold, bitterness, fecundity and a new
generation. The play charts comically
and movingly the ties that bind them
and the forces that drive them apart.

THE MAN FROM
M[...]elebration of a community in the
wheatbelt of WA, and it manages to
bring in both the nostalgic detail of the
day to day lives of the characters and
the grand issues of life and love and war
and death which rule over them. It uses
songs, verses, poetry and comic turns in
a bewildering but entertaining pro[...]ance on a rope amongst the stars.
ZEEK: Sun, moon and stars, all sweet
things.

CLEMMY: But Ifell, Ifel[...]ars are above, wherever we
are. We walk the earth and gaze into

eternity, we ride with/lndromeda, see[...]ty Bugles,
Reedy River, The Chapel Perilous, Norm
and Ahmed, Traitors, or others. Also
the list above s[...]t The Precious Woman or
Welcome the Bright World, and
certainly Patrick White’s new master-
pi[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (19)AND DICKINS

]ohn McCallum

analyses the
newest wave[...]rviews with
four important Australian playwrights
and an editorial entitled “A National
Drama?”. If[...]then it has come at a
time when their articulacy and
seriousness of purpose have never been
greater. I[...]three in particular: Stephen Sewell,
Louis Nowra and Barry Dickins.

The problem is summed up by the
c[...]alian writing of the
’70s was droll, caricature and satire. It
strikes me that the theatre, the write[...]kinds of contradictions
operative in our society (and the
individuals who are part of it) in the
process of transforming it”.

And yet the response to Welcome the
Bright World, his[...]the credibility gap between
the world of the play and that of the
audience is enormous”. It seems
imp[...]to buzz of foyer—talk — all
about chardonnay and home renova-
tions and meaningful relationships —to
be aware of the cr[...]eving
that you can involve yourself in your
work, and work for compartmentalised
causes, without considering the total
social and political context of your
actions. The play reveals the personal
and moral catastrophe such an attitude

can cause.
And yet the play is set in Germany

not Australia —[...]nterests in-
dependently of their social context.
And perhaps that is why Nimrod
audiences do not feel[...]ut as a propaganda piece, a
bit more complicated, and longer, than
usual. To me this is a naive respons[...]s Nowra is a writer of such fine
theatrical sense and ability to excite,
that it is astonishing that it[...]hown, in Visions, a love of
intriguing ambiguity, and in Inside the
Island a refusal to pursue any meta[...]ral
violent action — an action of dis-
location and social breakdown which in
other hands might be us[...]Nowra
has a great reticence about being
specific, and yet his plays are full of
grand, violent concrete[...]clear note. This is, of course,
quite deliberate, and a product of his
concern with the ambiguities and
contradictions of people attempting to
exe[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (20)[...]Woman is different. The
characters’ statements and actions are
still all confusingly relative to eac[...]r path to consider ‘ the relation
between power and compassion. The
play argues that it is easy to fe[...]he events of the
play makes compassion inevitable and a
virtue. Su-Ling’s final act of com-
passion,[...], her
son, is therefore very confronting.

Sewell and Nowra have been ac-
claimed as our two great new serious
dramatists, and yet in each there
remains an austere distance fro[...]a (a fact in which each seems to
take some pride) and so what specific
personal or social relevance ea[...]880-» rrp $35.95

0 The Currency Press

- Sydney and Melbourne

Currency Press
New Titles

THE GOLD[...]STRALIAN OPERA

Harold Love gives an
entertaining and scholarly
account of the musical world
and its personalities during
the important time of
Au[...]may
be precisely the huge difference
between him and writers like Sewell
and Nowra. Where they are intellectual
and distant he is aggressively personal
and emotional. Where they are
theatrically disciplined and craftsman-
like, he is wild and a larrikin. Where
they write about distant places, times
and events, he writes about the grubby
streets and bush huts around him.
Where they write complex, e[...]ge. He presents
talkative, articulate characters, and
then uses their drinking to dislocate

THIS 0VERC[...]their articulacy and reveal the sad,
desperate, lonely outcasts underneath.
As they reveal themselves they talk
about their past and present
experiences and try to make sense of it.
In the attempt to make s[...]by the suffering of the world. She takes
cyanide, and suddenly all the blacked-
out electrical applianc[...]e to say. In the present
theatrical malaise Nowra and Sewell
are in a politically privileged position,[...]individual humanity in an in-
creasingly chaotic and difficult political
and social world. Perhaps, as David
Hare, and Donald Horne before him,
suggest, Australia is st[...]oming.

INSIDE THE ISLAND and
THE PRECIOUS WOMAN
rrp $9. 95 paper

Louis Nowra’s plays,
published with music by
Sarah de Jong and notes by
directors Neil Armfield and
Richard Wherrett.

The first play is set in a rur[...]orld War I, the
second in pre-revolutionary
China and both dramatically
analyse the ways in which
power is manipulated.

THE OVERCOAT and SIN
rrp $7.95

Jack Hibberd’s two pieces of
music theatre are published
with Martin Friedel’s music
and introductions by Paul
McGillick and Paul
Hampton. The first play is a
black cartoon based on
Gogol’s famous story and
Sin, commissioned by the
Victoria State Op[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (21)Playscripts and

publishers

by John McCallum

When Currency Pres[...]ialising
in drama, but with a more general market
and a more varied list. There are now many
good excit[...], such as Angela
Fewster’s Black Chrysanthemums and Harry
Reade’s The Naked Gun, both of which
arou[...]shed long ago, such as Jack Hibberd’s
Peggy Sue andand Goodbye Ted; Barry Dickins’ Lonely
Lenny Lower; Jack Hibberd’s Captain
Midnight VC and Phil Motherwell’s
Dreamers of the Absolute. I w[...]themselves next month
but for now let us welcome and wish well a
publisher who has done what theatre-l[...]keep saying are such a
central part of our drama (and particularly
many of the Carlton plays) and get them out
to people. It is absurd to have a su[...]n plodding away producing scripts for
the amateur and schools market for several
years. The latest is P[...]the all—male
closed community drama of violence and
lust. The blurb rather enthsiastically
proclaims[...]sexuality, authority, religion, acts of
violence and distorted love” — which
unlike the play itlse[...]lay publishing, Louis
Nowra’s Inside the Island and The Precious
Woman in one volume (rrp $9.95) and Jack
Hibberd’s The Overcoat and Sin in another
(rrp $6.95). The Nowra is commented on
elsewhere in this issue. The Overcoat and
Sin are music theatre pieces, published in
large[...]icities of middle Australia” which the
Composer and Librettist in the play meant
to write. I h[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (22)[...]ese militant times all professional
stage, screen and TV writers should
belong. Writers who have never[...]ssional production may join as
Associate Members, and receive many
of the benefits. Write to: Angela Wa[...]ralian National Playwrights
Conference. Helps new and established

reading new scripts at an annual
con[...]127 York Street.
ph 29 7799
ONLY AUSTRALIAN BOOKS and Books on the Pacific.

LANGUAGE BOOK CENTRE
127 Y[...]Books in other languages, Dictionaries. Grammars
and Reference, English as a Second Language.[...]EFIY TITLE AVAILABLE FROM Oxlord University
Press and Cambridge University Press.

Lwriters, mainly by workshopping and North Sydney, 2060.

ABBEV'S PENGUIN BOOKSHOP
66[...]ded Hours: Open till 8 pm. daily, 9 p m. Thursday
and till 5 pm. SATURDAY 5. SUNDAY

PLAYWRIGHTS and scriptwriters. . .

Do you feel capable of protecting your own interests
with managements and producers without support?
Did you know that the[...]r non-
commissioned original work in the theatre; and is
working on agreements for commissioned work for
adaptations and translations?
Do you have much Contact or involve[...]ne?
Do you know where to go for professional help and
advice?
Do you know where you can obtain such perks as
discount typing paper and photocopying’. writer
handbooks, theatre and cinema concessions?
Did you know that the Guild p[...]Guild. Most of the
country’s major playwrights and scriptwriters are already
members. Associate memb[...]vailable.
Write or phone for information brochure and application
form.

AFTE YOU LOOKIN[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (23)Theatre International

/

Triumphs of
casting and

comedy
by Irving Wardle

As superannuated spies[...]irely of boys, exuding
sophisticated inexperience and
representing every shade of response from
militar[...]This generates a plot that explores the
desires and hatreds of a miscellaneous
Collection of people w[...]hic.

The boys in question are Bennett, a
serious and unashamed homosexual, and
Judd, an inflammable Marxist, maddened

by the i[...]h ‘may be a joke. But
homosexuality is no joke; and when he
escapes a thrashing by threatening to rev[...]lready equipped him with the
techniques ofsecrecy and betrayal. Result: a
spy is born.

Stuart Burge’[...]s lead performances from Rupert
Everett (Bennett) and Kenneth Branagh

~ (Judd) who has leapt from drama school to
‘ instant stardom; and the show as a whole

marks a triumph in juvenile[...]nts a meticulously

Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett and Kenneth Branagh as Tommy Judd in Another C[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (24)[...]l fable, it is
set in three joke provincial towns and
features a touring company seething with
alcoholism and sexual intrigue who are
rehearsing a sub-Ben Trav[...]ing after the house
while the master is in Spain, and is showing
some doubt over which of the set’s s[...]long
with a bunch of flowers, a woodman’s axe,
and other props that become increasingly
accident—p[...]appearance.

Meanwhile, it is one in the morning and
the company are floundering through a
combined dress and technical rehearsal; and
as two couples rampage through the
premises, miss[...]hright leading
man can never complete a sentence; and the
demure leading lady likes nothing better
than[...]ships have much
deteriorated since the rehearsal, and there is
some question of whether the pensioners[...]having barricaded
herself into her dressing room, and the

leading man having sworn vengeance on his
rival to her affections. Amidst this crisis and
the secret return of the director (a sublimely
de[...]visible drama round the back. It is a
calamitous ballet of entrances through
wrong doors, mixed-up props,[...]g entrance with his
shoe-laces knotted together), and
altogether, Michael Blakemore’s
production rais[...]ood

invasion
by Karl Levett

Though East is East and West is West, the
twain seems definitely to be meeting these
days on the stages of Broadway and off-
Broadway. Film makers, movie stars and
household names from Televisionland have
all suddenly decided to come East and go
“legitimate”. Broadway has become the
latest Hollywood discovery.

Already come and gone:

Film director William Friedkin (The French
Connection, The Exorcist ) and his version of
the London hit, Tom Kempinski’s Duet For
One with Anne Bancroft and Max von
Sydow; Suzanne Pleshette and Richard
Mulligan in Bernard Slade’s comedy[...]Cher and Sandy Dennis in Come
Back. . . Photo: Jean Pagliu[...]Special Occasions — it opened and closed
the same evening; Fay Dunaway in a
virtuos[...]r by playwright William
Alfred. Both Ms Pleshette and Ms
Dunaway received favourable comment
and were encouraged to return in more
substantial pag[...]th Cher, Karen Black

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

and Sandy Dennis. Off-Broadway film I behind it. The[...]stage debut. Two other John
Guare plays Gardenia and Women and
Water (a double-bill that with Lydie Breeze
is pa[...]nother movie
man making his theatrical entrance.

And as if this were not enough,
Paramount Pictures is[...]’s drama Agnes of God starring
Elizabeth Ashley and Geraldine Page.

Robert Altman, hailed as one of[...]by South. On Broadway, with Come
Back to the Five and Dime, jimmy Dean,
jimmy Dean, handling a cast of[...]rior
play, he has allowed it to be badly designed
and to let each actor go her own direction —
not hi[...]s in 1955 when James Dean was
making Giant nearby and the reunion
twenty years on. Although there’s s[...]eye. Each fan member
has come back with A Secret and the
evening is a series of melodramatic
revelations self—delusion, paternity,
sterility, mastectomy and transexual trans-
formation. This dime sto[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (25)Joseph Sommer and Ben Cross in LydieBreeze.Photo.-GerrjvGoodstein.[...]rt. Sandy Dennis has
the pivotal role in the play and her non-
performance robs the soap opera of any
j[...]is’
mannerisms have by now rendered her
vocally and physically inept — she really
has to be seen and heard, not to be believed.

Off-Broadway, Louis M[...]when there is
a coming together of director, cast and play
— but it is the play that is the star. Joh[...]g a new age. The plot is hopelessly
melodramatic, and if I gave you details it
would totally misinform[...]is. It includes murder, revenge, a
double suicide and hereditary syphillis. But
the play is puritanical[...]that consistently
contradicts itself. It is spare and plain
spoken, but brimming with themes,
symbols and metaphors; it is small, but
ambitious; it is abou[...]incing optimistic ending. It is also a
ghost play and along with the characters the

shades of Ibsen and O’Neill are lurking
everywhere.

Guare is reach[...]all evening.

All the performances are effective and
some more than that. Joseph Sommer is
splendid as[...]father (he walks a
tightrope of comedy, cynicism and pathos);
Ben Cross, as avenging angel of an actor[...]seems sensitive to John Guare’s hundred
nuances and just as in the film Atlantic City
it’s clear th[...]k of the poster write:
country, town, proper name and surname of
the artist, year of birth, title and author of
production, as well as date of printing[...]n, 6
Shipka Street 1040 Sofia, Bulgaria.

A MUSIC AND DANCE
THEATRE SEMINAR

will be held in Dresden and Leipzig in the
German Democratic Republic from Ju[...]tenary
of the world premiere of Parszfal. Tristan
and Isolde, The Mastersirzgers of Nuremberg
and The FlyingDutchman will also be on this
year’s[...]ina will
visit Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney
and Brisbane on a 5 week Australian tour
between February and April 1983.

25

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (26)26

Theatre Reviews

A.C. II

Words and
images

EINSTEIN
ORIGINAL SIN

by Marguerite Well[...]having
fought all the necessary battles in youth and
middle-age. And those battles will have
been fought against my ow[...]ho, with any
luck, will be free of the infection, and will
raise a quizzical eyebrow at history and
wonder what all the fuss was about.

Either of th[...]atomic energy be developed for warlike
purposes, and his divorce from his first
wife, a physicist, to[...]ties. Two of the characters, the
younger Einstein and the middle-aged one,
never communicate directly with each
other, but only through the old Einstein, a
large and demanding role. None of the three
was what you would call a man of action and
the action of the play is indoors, behind
desks and the most exciting things that you
saw happen were the young Einstein rocking
a cradle and the middle-aged one emptying
a suitcase of nice g[...]tion never flagged. It was

carefully moved and carefully lit, with good
accent work and fine make up, and perhaps
the greatest triumph, a unity of style th[...]ion together. It was warming to
watch a brilliant and sensitive man settling
accounts with himself in p[...]life were
in fact pretty much out of his control, and
that he need feel no guilt.

Images from the Back[...]es looking at the cultural
myths that define men and women.
Standard Operating Procedure treated
viole[...]examined attitudes per-
petuated by tairy stories and the morality of
Christianity.

The play is what i[...]words that remain), but firstly the visual
images and secondly the sounds. Within the
prison of the fes[...]carousel of socialised sex, the dreams of
romance and prettiness, of the warmth and
fulfilment of womanhood; the night club,
the dan[...]serve the search for sexual
partners; the brothel and the pomshop.
Outside the carousel, and often encroaching
but always encircling it are the forces of
religion; the church itseif; the frustrated
and neurotic celibacy of the priest and the
nun; the flagellant mortifying the flesh; the
projection onto woman of the guilt of the
fall of man, and the poison it brings into
relationships between men and women.
Words are not the strength of the play,
no[...]ower of the physical. It
puts a highly individual and contestible
view of the relationship between religion
and social psychology, treating a problem
that we all hope is in its dying agony. But it
puts it brilliantly and beautifully, weaving
images of light and shadow, tinkling
prettiness and raucous ugliness, crystallis-
ing an aspect of our society that has
certainly existed and does exist, although it
may not be as pervasive a[...]Clerk, Peter Murphy.

{Professional}

john Derum and George Whaley in Theatre ACT’s Einstein.[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (27)Social and sexual
miustice

THE SUICIDE

PEOPLE ARE LIVING
T[...]companies seem fascin-
ated by stories of suicide and self-
destruction. Three of the plays reviewed
th[...]s who are, respect-
ively, Russian, South African and
Scottish/Australian. There is some
common ground,[...]ssian work that
was banned in rehearsal by Stalin and has
still never been performed in the USSR.
This[...]e more widely seen.
Aubrey Mellor’s translation and arrange-
ment ofthe text and his sensitive pacing and
direction add much to enchant and absorb
the audience.

There is an initial resista[...]iends I have found a strong distrust of the
title and a reluctance to risk being depressed
by an unknow[...]The Suicide is not depressing: it goes a
comical and roundabout way to affirm the
value of life. It re—discovers a reason and a
potential to go on living and it strikes a
common, contemporary chord.

Tragedy[...]ragic element
in drama is a very fundamental one, and it
has a curious way of welling up in plays,
whet[...]omising in its attack
on dehumanising bureaucracy and hypo-
crisy, but idealistic in the hope it holds[...]imself. At least, he goes as

Robert Alexander and Peter Carroll in Nimrod’s The Suicide.

far as announcing his intention to do so —
and is immediately besieged by represent-
atives of various factions, interests and
cliques, all wanting him to gain publicity to
the[...]’s new
Resident Designer, provided an ingenious
and highly adaptable set, rather reminiscent
ofa draw[...], in which the doors
of opportunity opened on air and the
corridors of possibility were endless and led

nowhere.
Like The Sizicide, Athol Fugard’s People

The flattery and kind treatment to which

he is subjected re-kindle in Seinyon
Semyonovich his sense of self-love, and
therefore his love of life, andand wit: one can see Stalin’s
point. It chronicles[...]Bolshevik Revolution to meet the
legitimate needs and aspirations of the
Russian proletariat. But apart[...]interest, Erdman’s play is deeply
humanitarian and involving on an
emotional as well as an intellect[...]rdman gave up writing for
the theatre after this, and succeeded in
living to a ripe old age. His contribution is
nevertheless a lasting one, and Aubrey
Mellor deserves our gratitude for this
spe[...]ealthily,
gradually taking us into his confidence and
showing us the predicament from his point
of view. By the final act, he has become in a
sense Everyman, and he has the audience
totally on his side.

The compan_v worked with great fluency
and precision to achieve some dazzling
visual effects and brilliantly executed scene

Are Li7'ing There, pr[...]. It is Milly the landlady’s
fiftieth birthday, and her lover (whom we
never see) has just left her,[...]woman. Her
birthday party. with crisps, slab cake and
lemonade, is a ghastly parody of attempted
gaiety[...]her social ambitions run
little higher than beer and sausages on a
Saturday night, but even in this sh[...]an; Sissy (Daina Austin) married
Shorty to escape and now wants to marry
someone else to escape from Shorty; Don
(Robert Dallas; is unemployed and pro-
bably unemployable, a cynic who sees[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (28)[...]oup title for three
bizarre one-act plays written and directed
by Mil Perrin for the Griffin Theatre
Co[...]a View of their characters that is at once
black and whimsical: they explore the
territory between reality and fantasy. In
particular, they poke fun at the way[...]er
starts by hearing her own obituary on the
news and is gradually persuaded that she
should not correc[...]es through the
drama, applying it to her own life and
interleaving her own memories and ex-
periene with the fiction until they are
inseparable. The third play is an absurd
portrait of a husband and wife who clearly
hate each other, but are scrupul[...]iosyncratic scripts
were a source of both delight and irritation.
There were undeniably brilliant flas[...]e benefitted
from a more disciplined construction and all
three endings were more or less unsatis-
fact[...]. Anthony In-
gersent showed considerable courage and
concentration, as the hapless husband, and
Janet Foye gave a couple of well-observed
portraits of the TV suicide and the
predatory wife. The most polished per-
forman[...]heatre work this year shows increasing
confidence and control. She has evidently a
highly original tale[...]tely,
The Prot'ol2’d Wife is very funny indeed,
and a highly experienced cast, under the
skilful guid[...]theme of Vanbrugh’s play is marital
infidelity, and to judge by the audience’s
enthusiastic recepti[...]andard: he likes to take his
pleasures in taverns and whore-houses, but
he does not like his wife, Lady[...]ally from
himself. He would like to have his cake and

28 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

eat it; she would like a slice of the action.

Kate Fitzpatrick and Malcolm Robertson
were splendid Brutes, she all wayward looks
and wicked eyes, and he crusty and cranky
but not unlovable. They were essentially
Beauty and the Beast. In the foppish,
affected Lady Fancyful[...]ts. On the opening night
she was quite restrained and well-behaved,
but I suspect by the end of the run she may
be stealing the show. Barbara Stephens and
George Spartels also brought a special
warmth and humanity to Bellinda and
Heartfree, two fairly stock romantic
characters.[...]sense of some very
difficult, stylised speeches, and the cut and
thrust of debate was fascinating to follow.
Melody Cooper’s set was admirably un-
cluttered and helped to focus close attention
on the dialogue.[...]re, Sydney, NSW. Opened March 26,
1982.

Director and Designer, Mil Perrin; Lighting Designer,
G[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (29)[...]Performance of a
lifetime

A_1\4ADEUs
NIGHT AND DAY

by Michael Le Moignan

Sydney’s theatre tr[...]they deserve. It is
impossible to see everything, and this
month three productions of which I had
heard[...]ion,
The Anniversary at the Philip Street
Theatre and Leftovers by Cacophony at the
Stables (late night[...]Theatre Company’s A madeus at the Theatre
Royal and Night and Day by Tom Stoppard
at the Marian Street Theatre,[...]y operatic
style, to suit both the subject matter and the
play’s prevailing mood of gothic fantasy.[...]e. a character

pitched somewhere between Faustus and
l_____M_M

' Iago, who ruthlessly lays bare his own heart
- and soul and finds them black. On stage and
5 in the spotlight for most of the play,
j Gaden’s control of the audience and sheer
; craftsmanship are hypnotic.

It is the la[...]wizened old man, wrapped in
| warm dressing-gown and a wooly hat

against the cold. He wishes to confe[...]replaced by an eighteenth century

_powdered wig and he is instantly the
sprightly young court compose[...]eighteenth century. His gifts were con-
siderable and his success enormous (he
became the best known mu[...]urope)
but his work is now considered second rate
and is rarely performed. His tragedy was
that in the[...]is time fully to appreciate Mozart’s
greatness, and he did everything possible to
thwart the composer’s hopes and drive him
to penury, drink and despair.

In short, Shafer’s Salieri is as blac[...]selfishness of his youth.
This is masterly acting and the result is a
subtle, complex and penetrating portrayal
that will live long in the imagination.

Like Richard Wherrett’s earlier Cyrano
and Chicago for the STC, Amadeus is a
production whic[...]ments. Nigel Levings’ lighting
was quite superb and Contributed signific-
antly to the enjoyment of t[...].
Drew Forsythe as the juvenile, whinnying
Mozart and Linda Cropper as his wife both
gave excellent per[...]shows a bust of Mozart
knocked from its pedestal, and from what
one can judge, this is an accurate appr[...]is a
curiously cruel play, for all its qualities, and
I think the venom mars it. Shaffer offers us
no p[...]lay, but a
very good one.

Tom Stoppard’s Night and Day, directed
by Terence Clarke, is the best prod[...]to delight — good
performances from Tom Oliver and John
Frawley and from two relative newcomers,
Paul Williams and Monroe Reimers, a
generous helping of Stoppard’s witty and
elegant verbal gymnastics, an intriguing
and adaptable revolving set by David Spode
and one clever stage illusion, which
completely trick[...]interesting device, but in practice a bit
tricksy and intrusive: Stoppard over-uses it
without having p[...]risation, as the cynical, hard-bitten
journalist, and not allowing himself enough
room andand peopled
with almost any characters. He employs
plot, comedy and characterisation as
diversionary tactics, to soft[...]on the floor with its paws.

up asking for more, and then he tells it to sit
up and think about something.
It is a Zen belief[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (30)[...]is his theatrical
forefather: their shock tactics and under-
lying intellectualism are identical.

The subjects under debate in Night and
Day are two of Stoppard’s old favourites,
the morality of journalism and the freedom
of the press. Each of the characters[...]hotographer who
does a necessary job with courage and
common sense, a mine-owning capitalist
who is, ec[...]unded by
the gutter press through a divorce case, and
a President educated at the London School
of Econ[...]e debate is strictly controlled by
the playwright and we hear only what is
pertinent to the play of ide[...]of circumstances in
which our pre-conceived ideas and de-
fmitions are no longer adequate. The
Presiden[...]thout fear or favour. Guess who gets shot.

Night and Day is rich in ideas, which are
presented with insight and humour in
Terence Clarke’s production.

Amad[...]James Porter, David Price.
(Profemorzal).

Night And Day by Tom Stoppard, Marian Street
Theatre, Killa[...]ney into Night.
It is gone midnight: James Tyrone and his
two sons sit in varying stages of drunken
stu[...]ponsible for their
mother’s morphine addiction, and the
dawning realisation that that addiction still[...]Mary
makes her final appearance, ethereal, frail
and high on morphine, a somnambulist in
another world, to recall her “sad dream” of
lost innocence and brief happiness with
James.

If this is O’Neill[...]his pretensions to classical
grandeur of purpose and poetic respectab-
ility are here subsumed by the[...]remarked,
“We go expecting to hear a playwright and
we meet a man.”

The QTC’s rigorous productio[...]ass’s superb handling of Jamie’s con-
fession and an aggressive physicalisation of
the last spasms[...]at leaves him prone at the feet of his '

brother and father. All four performances
meet the titanic ch[...]gh the noble brogue to
the broken spirit beneath, and Elaine
Cusick captures the right quality of almos[...]blematic role of Edmund (partly O’Neill
himself and therefore without motivating
guilt) with assuranc[...]this and a production as incisive, the play
was cut back t[...]ne.
(Profesriortal).

Refreshing
commitment

HELL AND HAY _

WE CAN’T PAY? WE
WON’T PAY!

by Veronica Kelly

A group of victims and outcasts, for political
reasons rejected by the B[...]. For some
the shock of displacement is too great and
they return at the first opportunity to
Europe, o[...]even as they endeavour to
make their mark on it, and find eventually
that they too have become Australians;
migrants and exiles being in fact no
exception but the basic r[...]it Of 3
displaced person, convict or exile.

Hell and Hay is a tough—minded and
thoughtful new play about archetypal
patterns of[...]is the
“Dunera” internees. These were German
and Austrian political and racial refugees
from the Nazi regime who were at[...]ar rounded up by the British
as potential enemies and brutally dis-
patched in l940 to Australia and there
interned again, this time at Hay on the
Mur[...]major
paradoxical theme in the clash of the high
and popular cultures; the bourgeois and the

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (31)[...]Australians, it seems, move to a different
music, and which sounds suspiciously like
Chad Morgan’s. F[...]o be used as
the ultimate focus of self—respect and self-

definition. It never occurs to the wearil[...]inent civilising
factor standing between a people and
political and metaphysical terror — Dad
and Dave will do for them. And indeed,
Beethoven certainly didn’t civilise the[...]as befits the land
where some nightmares end — and
celebratory of the courage of those who
survived[...]ice for presenting the paradoxes
of tlie material and of suggesting resolutions
not overtly spelt out in the text. The
apparent cultural opposition of high and
vernacular are resolved when the full cast
swing[...]u
meet the nicest people in your dreams.”

Past and present merge in the ironic ‘
consciousness of[...]ho projects the interwoven patterns
of experience and fantasy; of the past and of
what the mind makes of it to call its

‘history”. Art and history make mutual
comment in the song numbers, comedy
routines andand of tortured memories.

From its beginnings two ye[...]asically one-act play scripted for students,
Hell and Hay has grown into an ambitious
piece of consider[...]match the
fascination of its documentary material and
the complexity of its themes. La Boite‘s
produc[...]l while leaving others yet un-
explored. The song and dance style, which
the theatre has made a house s[...]dealing in the dramatic language of mythic
types and ideas. The reverse assumption, of
naturalistic ve[...]o
good use in the ambitious programe of
repertory and community touring it has

—r

planned for this[...]cops, institut-
ionalisation of reformist parties and unions
— how could it not? And what splendid
female roles. Individual passages o[...]vels; the
giving “birth” to nicked groceries, and the
earnest cod-explanations of multiple baby
transplants and pope-infested dreams.

As the man of many parts,[...]ry, it
should bring to new audiences a vernacular
and sharply politicised piece of theatre with
performance values in abundance and a
refreshing commitment to challenging
stock responses to the last days of
capitalism.

Hell and Hay by Richard Fotheringham. La Boite
Theatre, Brisbane Qld. Opened March 18, 1982.
Director, Robert Kingham.[...]We Won’t Pay! by Dario Fo. TN
Company, Brisbane Qld. Opened March, 1982.
Director, Rod Wissler; Stage[...]al).

Jewish internees boundfor Australia in Hell and Hay at La Bone. Photo: Laura McKew.

THEAT[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (32)[...]eatre critics:
Michael Billington of The
Guardian and Michael
Coveney of the Financial
Times. These are[...]mething that reflected both his own
predilections and recurrent human
dilemmas. If I had to characteris[...]ination with sexual angst,
solitude, rootlessness and a raucous celebr-
ation of popular performing ski[...]ling) in Circus 02.

For me this mixture of angst and joy was
seen at its best in the work of Pina Baus[...]s about the torment of male-
female relationships and had the skull-
battering impact of eight Strindberg plays
in one evening. And 1980, the most
stunning of the three, was a Prous[...]what made
1980 the quintessential Festival show (and
the one that I can imagine Jim Sharman
theatre te[...]use it showed the
antithesis of ironic detachment and political
commitment achieving a kind of emotiona[...]onal
conflict between a Wildean gift for language
and a political Utopianism. Hare increas-
ingly remin[...]internal
dilemmas in drama rather than criticism;
and what made his Festival play so moving
was that yo[...]e impressive
than what it must have cost Adelaide and
Sydney to stage it.

Not all the theatrical event[...]ignal Driver, though very well acted by
John Wood and Melissa Jaffer as a warring
married couple clingi[...]Australian moral decay over a 60-year
time-span. And Melbourne Playbox
Theatre’s productions of Sam Shepard’s
Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Clasx,
though again well acted by Gary Files and
Michelle Stayner, were somewhat handi-
capped by[...]Faust given by

'the Australian Youth Orchestra) and that

also reached out to embrace the Adelaide
pu[...]ith a remorseless fascination
with the
copulation and death.

MICHAEL
COVENEY

Like all first time visi[...]wn at me with pitying, watery—eyed
indifference and fixed his gaze on nothing in
paticular just above[...]eclares she wants to rub the red dust on her
face and find out what she’s been living for
in this cou[...]was a theme of Jim Sharman’s
exciting festival and, as he admitted in the
final Forum of a series I[...]erfully elsewhere in
the Edward Hopper exhibition and the Sam
Shepard plays presented by the Playbox
Th[...]which
another man said he had seen the same play
and decided to leave his wife.

I leave with a myriad memories of this
exceptionally stimulating and brilliantly
run festival. The blank, insouciant g[...]f Elisabeth
Soderstrom in The M akropaulos Affair and

32

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

El[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (33)[...]ritish theatre he is unsorry to
have left behind; and a frantic, hilarious day
with jazz singer George Melly as we zoomed
round the Hopper, and Brian Thomson’s
Tee-Vee Show where old televisi[...]in a double historical
context of interior decor and a photographic
slide-show of world events.

At th[...]Wingfield Dump only to
visit the Festival Centre and find it painted
up and sitting in the middle of an open air
exhibition.[...]en each event, ready
with five minutes for anyone and skidding
effectively around the periphery of parties,
discussions and official functions. He has
brought one of the wor[...]a challenging yet generally
accessible programme; and perhaps most
importantly of all, he now begins hi[...]little even when the circus has left
town.

Being and
becoming

SIGNAL DRIVER

by Gus Worby

Signal Dri[...]heo, the doubter, his mother’s
offering to God; and Ivy, the believer,
fashioned to hold hard, burnin[...]only to drop
a beat, lose time, miss a connexion, and
squat without shelter for the rest of our
lives,[...]vy
commitment to story, or laboured cause,
effect and consequence. It involves the
playing out, for a k[...]escape.

The issues are at once acutely personal
and of vast import. White accommodates
both in this piece for four players and a
public. First he creates two “super deros”
and gives them the status of “Beings”. They
are t[...]know

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

everything, in and out of time — especially

what will be. They ar[...]ermitted to tell. They hint. They have
compassion and wisdom, and, in their
knowledge of certain and perpetual judge-
ment they are whole.

Then come Theo and Ivy. They are
“characters” — less real than the Beings,
though drawn from life as we see it. Theo
and Ivy are in the process of becoming.
Theo is a carpenter, and a thwarted artist.
One who slowly settles for a d[...]ep out the cold. Ivy, in early life, is
practical and businesslike. Fooled by
religion, lapsed, manacle[...]ugh the dangerous
menopause to an old age of fire and anger,
straining to move beyond a life which will[...]hey walk to their on-stage
shelter from among us, and reach for us, the
penultimate stage of development.
Through them we are exposed to chance
and humanity. But we are different from
Ivy and Theo in that we can see and hear the
Beings. We are in the theatre not of it,[...]n a road to nowhere severs us
from shelter, Being and Becoming.

The production makes~this statement. A[...]the Aurora
Australis, the set animates. Amid fog and
light the great swathe of gauze with which
Stephen Curtis has formed the surrounding
and encroaching landscape, lifts and is
drawn up and over the audience. It covers,
engulfs, swallows,[...]solution.

In this first production Neil Armfield
and cast have genuinely tested the weight
and substance of the work. At its first
matinee it ro[...]s a consequence there
was a sacrifice of surprise and the sharpness
of those flaws and fragments of quicksilver
vision was somehow dulle[...]There were magnificent moments
between John Wood and Melissa Jaffer, in
the first and particularly in the third act.
Their conce[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (34)S.A.

gontitzue .

ness of tone, the blend of innocence and
experience are exceptional. There is,
however, in[...]atment of the Beings there is
some loss of energy and potential. They are
scored to come in under the Vokes, to stay
aside and play apart. One craves more of the
satirical snap[...]of media sociology in Act One. Both
Peter Cummins and Kerry Walker, armed
with the quirks and moods of Carl Vine’s
music, have power to spare. Their Mo and
po-faced creations deserve the licence to
rip into the underbelly of seriousness and
challenge the Vokes and the audience to
reach for greater heights of awar[...]fort. We are long past the point
of “waiting” and there never was much joy
in Lucky’s dance.

Sig[...]bjects,
wrong plays

A MAP OF THE
WORLD

PERCY AND ROSE

by Michael Morley

Although David Hare’s[...]rd world poverty, the
appropriateness of personal and political
convictions, the roles of the intellectual and
the artist in society — it is essentially a due[...]ses his own
particular brand of languid tolerance and
disillusionment in the cultured and some-
what patronising tones of one who has seen
it all and expects not so much to make the

best of a bad jo[...]crity.

Of course, there is the stuff of dialogue
and debate here, and David Hare’s sharp,
balanced writing often rise[...]his women characters: the
women in Licking Hitler and Dreams of
Leaving seem initially to be dramatic
v[...]n closer examination, to be much
more complicated and ambiguous. The
women in Map of the World seem to[...]vail.
Well before the end they have lost both our
and the author’s interest

By now it must be fairly[...]not

34 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

Robert Grubb and Roshan Seth in STC’s Adelaide Festival producti[...]rive from
Hare’s own views of himself as writer and
social commentator, actually allows the
characters identity, room to breathe in, and,
yes, reality. But the play looks like nothing
so[...]attempt to update the
old expressionist mono — and station —
drama, where the figures are simply[...]nce’s
readiness to take the questions seriously and
not fob them off with a tired piece of
the[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (35)[...]to be a
real hotel to reveal suddenly the camera and
lights of a film studio, is lame, and too
obvious a correlative for the play’s talk of
relative values and modified attitudes.
Irony and ambivalence are one thing: but
“you think I say what I mean and then find
I am only artistically suggesting I mea[...]mitment, the role of
ideology, scepticism, action and reflection,
political art or detached writing th[...]central performances which are
honest, thoughtful and intelligent. Robert
Grubb, rather more low-keyed[...]ther notable performances 1

over the last years. And Roshan Seth’s
controlled yet open characterisat[...]resses.
Nor would I wish to deny the play’s wit and
intelligence or to query Hare’s seriousness
of purpose. And no critic should expect a
writer to go on pursuin[...]longer finds interesting. That
there is a serious and important play to be
written about the concerns o[...]e
persuaded.

My response to Rob George’s Percy and
Rose is much the same. Mercifully the play’s
title at least avoids the trite and cheap
double-entendres of Therese Radic’s A
Whi[...]ising Grainger for the
important composer he was, and shifts him
out of the comfortable “Country Gardens”
and “Shepherd’s Hey” drawers, someone
with a sl[...]ands to be written on
the subject. Not that Percy and Rose seems
to be quite as bad as some have made i[...]riter, of course the dialogue is banal
in places, and the last twenty minutes are a
complete miscalcula[...]blish Grainger’s imaginative world
where sadism and fantasy hold hands, some
of Grainger’s monologues and the scenes
between him and his fiancee, Margot. For

continued on page 64

7

Terrific
performances
and clear ideas

- CURSE OF THE-

STARVING CLASS
BURI[...]him
is received, his publicity, he’s annoying.
And it gets in the way of his work.
Consider his lege[...]person, Patti
Smith, hung around with Bob Dylan, and
won the Pulitzer Prize for his play Buried
Child.[...]uthern California. He’s
forgotten some of them, and so has everyone
else, though they do leave some s[...]e more
overtly political stance of John Romeril.
(And the best of both are in a similarly
ambiguous relationship with their culture,
critical and celebratory.)

Shepard’s neither one of the boy[...]bits of
action, extraordinarily extravagant props
and settings, arcane dialects and languages,
hermetic imagery, and a private mythology
of rock, science fiction, the[...]plays, Curse of the Starving
Class, Buried Child and True West, he has
confused the matter, seemingly[...]n stage,
a fascination with toasters, artichokes, and
the artefacts of American Life? Maybe they

would nowadays.

Certainly these new plays have created
interest and controversy. What we want to
know is, are they an[...]machine, texts that have fooled American
critics and publicists, because they have
wanted, need[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (36)[...]ashioned
about the subject matter of Buried Child and
Curse of the Starving Class. The idea of there
be[...]an, him an American,
his obsession now with roots and rootless-
ness, obligations and walking out, place and
homelessness, in a paradise of plenty. That
is, t[...]but
the plays are set in poverty, both of spirit
and food.

Whatever the form Shepard chooses to
work[...]his characters talk in their
frequent monologues. And there's also the
extravagant imagery present, exc[...]heep on
stage in Starving Class, dead at the end, and
the field of plenty out back of the house in
Bur[...]here Tilden obtains an
abundance of corn, carrots and where the
dead child is buried, is a Field of Ple[...]at is this field, which only Tilden can
“see” and “work”? What does it represent?
The fecund la[...]of concerns, a knowledge of Electra of the
Greeks and O’Neill, a probe from on the
surface of the sto[...]rchie Bunker, marginal
Americans between New York and Cali-
fornia — again not a thoroughly worked ou[...]ays operate on the edge between
complete banality and something really
resonant, enriching.

Where you[...]are a
Gothic Americana, owing as much to
rhythms and concerns of American cultural
discoveries like jazz and rock, TV and
movies, plenty and poverty as God or
psychopathology.

Roger Pulvers’ productions are marked
by terrific performances and a clear idea of
how to present the texts. Pulvers[...]e mono-
logues, plays the comedy where it exists,
and doesn’t shrink from making the most of
the extr[...]accent
troubles, each character has a single face
and stays with it for the whole production.

I especially admired the work of Gary
Files, Maggie Millar and Peter Hosking.

A word on the design. These plays offer
the designer a choice between Norman
Rockwell and Edward Hopper. You can fill
the stage with a prop[...]am of
appropriate tat, or you can allow the words
and actors to operate as real, yet emble-
matic, evoc[...]ges Shepard has
put in there, like the sheep live and dead,
corn, shaven heads and the like. Corrigan
and Pulvers have rightly put these big ideas
in a thr[...]ne in the featureless
America between the Rockies and the
Mississipi.

Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child by

Sam Shepard. Playbox Theatre, Adelaide Festival and
Melbourne, Vic. Opened March, 1982.

Director, Ro[...]n, Howard Stanley.

(Professional).

After Bausch
and Berkoff

AS WE ARE
AS YOU LIKE IT
RAMONA

DEATH IN THE
FAMILY

TRAM SHOW

by Suzanne Spunner

Audiences and some theatre companies in
Melbourne still seem to be reeling from the

combined assault of Steven Berkoff and Pina
Bausch.

First the frenetic Londoner arrived and
told us all that he was terribly put out to find[...]rnt
anything since his last visit five years ago,
and then in The Fall of the House Of Usher
showed us[...]unlike other English
playwrights he could mention and did. . .
Then Pina Bausch hit us, and she had the gall
to call it 1980 and we thought it was 1982, and
maybe Berkoff was right and in Australia it’s
still 1977, and anyway, wasn’t she obsessive
and boring?

And in between the papers were fullof the
Adelaide Festival and how David Hare
would show us what political theatre was all
about, and even if it wasn’t very theatrical it
was socially “engaged” and it had cost a
fortune so we’d better take it seriously. . .
and Pinder was telling us that the Comic
Strip had revoutionised comedy, so we’d
better laugh. . . and Patrick White had
written a new play and nobody seemed sure
whether it was significant or[...]hile we all forgot what we knew,
that it was 1982 and that the Mill Theatre
Company, the Dance Exchange[...]Oz, Stephen Sewell,
John Romeril et al had been, and were still,

e around even if we cant quite claim their

work yet, afterall they’re only local and god
forbid might be parochial, never mind Soho
and Wuppertal.
Back on the farm things are looking a[...]lyonly
three companies operating — MTC,
Playbox and Anthill and a plethora of one-
offs, the competition is hardl[...]ith a re—run of
Beverley Dunne’s affectionate and un-
pretentious one-woman show drawn from
documents from Australian history and
literature, pleasant and solid, full of heart but
lacking theatrical imagination let alone
invention; and Bruce Myles’ production of
As You Like It is gu[...]pening at the
Athenaeum. Never have so many minds and
hands worked so hard to realise so few ideas
— the sheer ugliness of the set and the
vulgarity of the music make the Simon
Gallagher Show look artistic and sensitive.
Amidst such twittery tiredness Anne
Scott-Pendlebury’s Celia and Edwin
Hodgeman’s Jaques shone with intelligence
and life, but the fact that they seemed to
know what[...]e fact that those
characters expressly comment on and
debunk the main text of the play, which was
sorel[...]dly in the way

L you stand in regard to America, and things

36 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (37)[...]on an

exploration of Wagnerian Euro-
communism, and the words or the acting
aren’t really the issue[...]atives could be
expected to understand — colour and
movement; the way is all too clear for the
Playbo[...]ntact on a combined ticket of new
Australian work and intelligent readings of
overseas work.

La Mama i[...]nt that invariably there is a sense of

discovery and exploration on some front.
Lisa Dombroski’s production of Ramona
and the White Slaves by Canadian writer,
George F Walker showcased a young
director and a writer unknown in Australia.

The production was characterised by a clear ‘
and sharply realised directorial vision, and ,

excellent performances from that increas-
ingl[...]atres. It was exciting to see
actors as inventive and polished as Jillian
Murray and Ian Scott being challenged by a

play that demanded the complete fusion of

visual and performance style, and which
Dombroski achieved.

By contrast Edwin Batt[...]ly — a
naturalistic, modern melodrama of mother
and daughter murderesses — failed to shade
and inflect the acerbic wit of Ryan’s writing
despite good performances by Jillian
Murray and Simon Hughes. Batt’s direction
lacked style and asense of particular purpose
and relied on easily achieved moments of
tension and humour. The tackiness of the
design looked even worse compared to
Dombroski’s meticulous aesthetic and gave
the lie to the excuse of poor, low budget
th[...]e No 42
tram running from Mont Albert to the city
and back. Both shows not only take theatre
out to peo[...]t of the
everyday environment. Writer Paul Davies
and director Mark Shirrefs have created a
complete ev[...]ated, like real-life,
has a multiplicity of focus and the script is
only a part of it; what really is at issue and of
interest is the subversion of the boundaries
between theatre and life. Was that a “real" /
commuter who got on a[...]thes policeman really trying to stop the
show — and do I really have to show my
ticket to that maniac who says he’s the
inspector? The Bus and Tram shows have
done more for the public transport lobby

f than Travelcard ever could, and en route

created original, genuinely popular the[...]unn in MTC’s As We Are-
Edwin

odgeman (Iaques) and Gary

As You Like It by Shakespeare. Melbourne[...]Cressey,
Genevieve Picot.
(Professional)

Ramona and the White moves by GeorgeF Walker.
La Mama Theatr[...]s, each with a visiting celebrity from
tellyland. And there the similarity ended.
Francis Durbridge’s[...]or
kidnapping or both. There is much
telephoning, and off-stage there is always a
cottage in the country where something
vital and mysterious is happening. People
invariably masque[...]t, at least one character is bumped off on
stage, and there are lots of totally
unmotivated surprises.[...]hese privileged victims
has to be ultra—glossy, and here Gene
Banducci’s set of bland colours and
restrained status symbols hits the nail right
on the head. The women wear elegant and
expensive-looking clothes.

With the kind of one-[...]enuine warmth into the scenes of maternal
concern and grief, whilst both Polly Low
and Sher Guhl valiantly struggle with the
task of bei[...]ings, albeit very
decorative ones. Raymond Duparc and
Harry Davidson do a nice doub1e—act as an

37

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (38)f

38

Inspector and his over-educated Sergeant,
who turn into a couple of altogether
different characters, and Margaret Ford is a
visiting cousin, joyfully bumb[...]arguments that this
sort of thing is done better and more
forcefully on television — and yet, the large
audience was clearly enjoying thin[...]“what — again?” How
often has one seen it? And of course there
was that film. . . So, more than[...]er bitchiness glitters, her vulgarities are
funny and pardonable, and her maudlin
alcoholic scenes suggest vulnerabilit[...]l plays muted
cello to her violin. It is a subtle and
restrained underplaying of the part, full of
ener[...]rface. His caustic
irony is all the more cutting, and in his great
scenes — the anecdote of the boy w[...]marital war-games between the two
have the vigour and precision of Wim-
bledon tennis. It’s a master[...]ing
younger man with a future, to drunken
giggles and truculence with all the stages in
between. As the[...]unacceptable. The play
remains surprisingly fresh and vigorous,
even though it has now moved from the
o[...]offered by the Hole-in-the-
Wall with the Gilbert and Sullivan Special,
devised by John Milson and directed by
Barry Screaigh. Loosely strung togeth[...]delivered by the singers,
it tells the story ofG and S partnership with
an emphasis on the songs rather than on the
personalities.

The production has verve and charm.
There is no attempt to present the songs i[...]Savoy
Operas have a repertoire of Victorian songs
and madrigals.

Leading lady of the show is Terry
Johnson, whose range encompasses opera
and musicals, but who has achieved a
special place in the G and S scene. She sings
with passion (“A Simple Sailor”) and with
flirtatious charm in the love duets with
Ja[...]is most
moving in “I have a song to sing O”, and

In the twenty years since the play first
appeared we hve become familiar with “the
games people play”, and it is now almost

Terryjohnson and Voyces in the G & S Special at the Hole.

very funny in the patter songs from Trial by
jury and Pirates of Penzance.

The idea of backing two leading singers
with a versatile and tuneful group who are
equally at ease in well-choreographed
clowning seems quite inspired, and the total
effect is that of a much “larger” s[...]erson, Peter Caminack.

(Prafessimial.

A Gilbert and Sullivan Special, Hole-in-the-Wall
Theatre. Opened March 11, 1982.

Terry Johnson and James Malcolm, accompanied by
“Voyces”[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (39)[...]e
Whaley. Annual workshop of new
Australian plays and only national
Theatre Forum. May 2-16.

FOOLS GAL[...]Background. To May 1. Original show
by Jo Fleming and Tony Cox. May 5-
15.

JIGSAW THEATRE COMPANY
(470[...]ordon; designer,
Yoshi Tosa; with Diana Greentree and
Don Reid. To May 15.

GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY
(33[...]eare; director, Aarne Neeme;
with Ralph Cotterill and Natalie Bate.
To May 8. Forget-Me-Not Lane by
Pet[...]EATRE (921415)
The Buccaneer Show by Ken
Matthews and Steve Johnson; music
by Adrian Morgan; producer,[...]; with Zoe Bertram, Allan

Chapple, Margie McCrae and Tony
Martin. Throughout May.

HER MAJESTY'S THEAT[...]mon; director, Phil Cusack; with
‘ Jacki Weaver and John Waters.

Throughout May.

MARIAN STREET THEATRE
(4983166)

Night and Day by Tom Stoppard;
director, Terence Clarke; wi[...]OFT THEATRE (9776585)
Loftomania devised, written and

; directed by Peggy Mortimer; with
A Enzo Toppano and Peggy Mortimer.

Throughout May.

NIDA (6633815)[...]erts; with Peter
Carroll, Angela Punch—McGregor and
Carole Skinner. To May 9. The
Struggle of the Nag[...]tor, Anna
Volska, with Harold Hopkins. Rob
Steele and John Stone. To May 16.
New Sky devised and performed by
Judith Anderson with original music
by Carl Vine. Starts May 21. York

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen
Sondheim; director, John Bell;
designer, Roger Kirk; with Philip
Quast, Jon Ewing and Deidre
Rubenstein. Throughout May.
NSW THEATRE OF THE DEAF
(3571200)

Theodora and The Communication
Show for primary schools and
Signposts In History for secondary
schools; direc[...]lson, Zoe Bertram,
John Hamblin, Malcolm Thompson
and Belinda Giblin. lnto May. God's
Favourite by Neil[...]E (047/265253)

Safety in Numbers by Philip Scott and
Luke Hardy; director and designer,

. / 1‘ A
- .~ « “(FHEATREAUSTRALIAMAY1982
. , . . / V) .
l . 4 9 4

amino

Downes and Barry Otto. Starts May 19.

Theatre, Se[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (40)[...]E (2647988)
Barnum by Cy Coleman, Michael
Stewart and Mark Bramble; director
and choreographer, Baayork Lee,
musical director. Noe[...]e
playbuilding, mime, dance, puppetry,

Showcase: Romeo and Juliet adapted
by Errol Bray; director, Kingston
Anderson. May 1 , 7, and 8.

STUDIO SYDNEY (7713333)

People Are Living Th[...]Albee; director, Graham
Correy; with Leila Blake and Ann Roy.
Starts May 27.

SYDNEY THEATRE COMPANY
([...]; director, David
Hare; designers, Eamon D’Arcy and
Hayden Griffin; with Roshan Seth,
Robert Grubb, Sheila Scott-Wilkinson,
Pennie Downie, Peter Whitford and
Tim Robertson. To May 8.

Theatre Royal: Amadeus[...]ector, Richard Wherrett;
designers, John Stoddart and Anne
Fraser; with John Gaden, Drew
Forsythe, Lind[...]Hughes, Terry Bader, Ric Hutton,
Rhys McConnichie and Ron Hackett.
to May 29.

THEATRE SOUTH (042/28292[...]ntries contact Carole Long on
909 3010/35? 1200.

QLD

ARTS THEATRE (362344)

The Tower by Hal Porter;[...]Durbridge;
director, Val May; with Patrick McNee
and Rosemary Barr. To May 22.

LA BOITE THEATRE (361622)

The Venetian Twins by Nick Enright
and Terry Clarke; director, Malcolm
Blaylock. To May 15.

design, radio and video. Youth Theatre:
D
( .

THE

AND
ONLY

VEt_lETlAN
Wit

Running Late For Nothing by David
Pyle and Tony Longland; director, Des
James. To May 27.

*[...]ings; composer, Sarah de
Jong; with Geoffrey Rush and Gillian
Jones. A magical celebration of the
power[...]Jones,
Don Barker, David Hursthouse, John
Heywood and Rob George. A bodgie
gang of the 50's gets togeth[...]Old Unley Town Hall:
Death Orange by Ron Hoening and
Jon Firman; director, Richard Collins.
The Vietna[...]ed by
Richard Davey, Jude McHenry, Mary
McMenamin and Fiona Stewart;
director, Richard Davey. Woodsong
devised and directed by Les Winspear.
Forests by David Allen;[...]nglish.
April 29, — May1.

Schadenfreud written and directed by
Paul Adkin. An apocalyptic musical.
May 12-June 12.

Ahead of Time-Eternity. An hour's
animated and juxtaposed fantasy
devised and directed by Nigel Triffit.
Handspan’s children's show Jandy
Malone and the 9 O'clock Tiger. May
8-21. 7-12 year olds.

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (41)Wilson; directed Murray Copland; with
Carrillo Gantner and Katherine
Ferrand. April 22-May 30.

For entries[...]gner, Jake Newby; with Sally
Sander, Maurie Ogden and Pippa
Williamson. Starts April 28.
OCTAGON THEATRE (3802440)
Mason Miller present As You Like It
and King Lear by William
Shakespeare; designed and directed
by Ray Omodei; lighting, Jake Newby;[...]ondary schools.
Blackwater devised by the company
and directed by Andy Lemon. Suitable
for Year 3.

Wolfboy devised and directed by Peter
Charlton, touring schools all o[...]d night on the
town with Robyn Giles, Mike Bishop
and Rob Meadows. All through May.
BANANA LOUNGE (upst[...]COMEDY THEATRE (6623233) ,
One Mo’ Time written and directed by l
Vernel Bagneris. Great New Orleans[...]AMA I i Blundell de5'9ne‘_j by Peter ROG Hall and Glen HltChCOCk. TO may
Includes works by Samuel B[...]r'Ck Parslow 15-

T935 1-Yi°5tY5v Stem‘ Tarram and Athenaeum 2: Narrow Feint by David PLAYHOUSE (3753500)

Maude Clarke ! Knight directed by William Gluth and N"““°”a' T“e"’”'° C°"‘pa”V "'e[...],\/‘|‘af,2' Mill Club, Sats. 9.30-11am. Drama and

25_JU|y 21 - craft for children 8-15 run by Pam[...]rming Arts Centre
during school holidays. 10.30am and

PRINCESS MAY THEATRE,
Fremantle (3355125)

Winte[...]Ross Coli. To
May 12.

REGAL (3811557)

Interstar and Paul Elliott present
Py/ama Tops by Mawby Green and Ed
Feibert; director, Bill Robertson; with
John lnman and Reg Gillam. To May
22.

NATIONAL THEATRE COMPANY[...]8) secondary schools in metropolitan.

Kalgoorlie and Esperance districts.
Throughout May.

For[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (42)[...]ahd harbour.
Live combo plays nightly for dinner
and dancing. Free night parking in
Basement. Pre-thea[...]erved in an informally elegant
atmosphere. By day and sun pours
through the tinted domed roof; at
night the stars and city lights are
above. You can dine here before t[...]Wentworth Avenue, Sydney.
Lunch Mon—Fri, dinner and supper
Mon—Sat. Licensed. Average $17.
Credit c[...]undings. Ideally located for pre-
theatre dinners and for late suppers.

Dancing. From $5.
Free Nigh[...]urets, pates etc.

BEPPI'S (3574558)

Cnr Stanley and Yurong Sts, East
Sydney. Lunch Mon—Fri, dinner and
supper Mon—Sat. Licensed. Credit
cards accepted[...](432991)

418 Pacific Highway, Crows Nest.
Dinner and supper Tues-Sat 8pm —
1am. Unlicensed. Credit cards
accepted. Average $12. Dutch chef,
Ron, serves seafood and international
cuisine. Suppers are their speciality
and a large choice of light dishes are
avaiIabletill1[...]tures 2 bars, dance
floor, disco music, courtyard and open
fires in winter. 7.30 to 3am Mon-Sat;
7.30-1[...]Stylish
surroundings, elegant food well
executed and served and stuning
theatre in a one-stop entertainment all
under one roof. That's the menu at
Ken and Lilian Horler‘s brand new
Upstage Theatre Resta[...]nner drinks
in the sumptuous piano bar (open
6pm) and dinner from 7-8.30pm;

delicious frequently changing menu of

seafood and international cuisine from
chefs Dany Chouet and Ken Michael.
Dinner is followed by superb cabaret
entertainment starring Geraldine
Turner and John O’May with
delectable deserts, coffee and liqueurs
in the interval. Piano bar open afterthe[...]TAURANT (4193311)
Hilton Hotel, cnrwellington Pde and
Clarendon St, East Melbourne. ‘
Licensed. O[...]t from the house specialities they
offer both hot and cold suppers for
those seeking an after—show venue

and even have a weight—watchers
section on the menu[...]gs. Let them
know if you're on your way to a show
and the service will be quick and
efficient.

FANNY’S 96633017)

243 Lonsdale St,[...]y high quality
French food. If you love good food and
mixing with Melbourne's social set this
re[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (43)[...]t some of our senior composers
might do the same) and actually goes to
concerts of new music.

CHOREOGR[...]new production of Stravinsky’s
Renard, produced and directed by Barry
Moreland, and a new work, The Serpent
Rainbow, choreographed by Barry More-
land with Kelvin Coe, and other key

Contributing Editor:
James Murdoch[...]me Murphy is prepar-
ing a new work to two recent and major
scores: Barry Conyngham’s Mirage and
Graeme K0ehne’: The Rainbow Forest, his
award w[...]. The work, as yet
untitled, is based on the life and works of
Daisy Bates. For this work, Moreland has[...]h collaborations could herald
a new era of energy and achievement in
Australian theatre.

FILM MUSIC
WORKSHOPS

Storry Walton’s Film and Television

School is planning to introduce the first of a
rolling series of seminars and workshops on
Film Music later this year. He feels that
with the growth in the numbers and stature
of Australian composers, and the develop-
ing film and television industry, a realistic
workshop continu[...]onference (which lapsed
into the inevitable gripe and bitch session)
occured in the late ‘sixties. Co[...]collaboration of top choreo-
grapher Jiri Kylian and three major
composers Arne Nordheim, Toru Takemit-
su and Luciano Berio has been postponed.

It is of some[...]ept Berio (who was here
in 1975 for Music Rostrum and collared my
second best didjeridu) had quietly sl[...]as usual, over-

~INFO

committed himself and has not finished his
section, although he says no[...]AUSTRALIAN FOR
GREEK FILM

Gail Holst (ex-Nation Review music writer)
is in Greece to make the film of h[...]ad To Rembetika, now published in
English, German andand political implications of his popular

music.
The[...]offers of
European engagements later in the year,
and its fame is spreading rapidly. Its 1980
Adelaide[...]y is presenting a major survey of
performance art and sound, devised by
William Furlong. Spread over mu[...]includes Anti-
Music a cassette sampler of music and
performance groups who work and live in
I Australia.[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (44)[...]hat
Information is the new currency. It is
bought and sold. It is coveted and
feared.

In the ’seventies, Australia exper-
ie[...]ng about displaced jobs.
Computerisation was chic and neat.

The arts were hardly touched by
Computeris[...]accounting purposes. Then
along came Computicket and Bass and
everyone became familiar with the new
computer type-face. Research and
documentation were sporadic and un-
co-ordinated activities, and a data base
of basic information always seemed
very low on the list of priorities.

Lots of organisations and persons
have wads ofinformation. For instance,
th[...]lso our history), but little of it is
accessible. And that is a very important
and crucial word, accessible. If it is not
accessible, it is of no use to you and to
me. In many instances it is of no use to
the h[...]s
in a form retrievable, it is jealously

guarded and not available. Tr askin I demand for information[...]g 9 -
the ABC for information. Even its poor grew and goes on to detail various

archive department has[...]has.

It is time to take stock of our
activities, and of our needs, in order to
sustain and develop them. As the
Music Board itself says: “[...]tivities of a nation grow, accurate
documentation and recording become
essential.”

The newly release[...]g on
its own Council Programs to Arts
Information and Research. Co-
incidentally, the Council has relea[...]6,000 recipients) related to Council
grants alone and with special
supplements.
* OZAR TS a guide to ar[...]umn
* Photographic Archive
* Films about the arts and artists
It also notes two useful research
reports[...]bstantiate the Council’s
expenditure on opera), andand dissemination of arts
information throughout Aust[...]an international centre for studies on

the arts, and of an international arts

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (45)[...]ne who is vitally concerned with
arts information and its transfer (as
World President ofthe Music Info[...]hem omnipotent.

Without the access of the artist and
his audience to a diverse information
resource, the whole scene becomes
stultified, incestuous andand artistic
life of other countries, are suspicious of,
and resist, “the new”, and the arts
become duller and duller.

Let’s take a look at some of the arts[...]c is better provided

with accessible information and indeed
Australia leads the world in some

aspects[...]Directory of Music Research was
a trai1—b1azer and is now computerised
in New York. The famous three[...]conograpliie Musicale

RILM is the best organised and is
available through its publications or
more directly and up—to-date, through
MIDAS, the service provided[...]tralia in 1979, in time
to astonish the delegates and the
President of the International Music
Council[...]e of the
distinguished scholars was nominated

and instantly details of his life’s work rlnstitute (ITI) branch in Australia and

appeared on the screen. He was visibly
shaken. H[...]a Music Centre (now going
again after a year off) and include what
one would expect: Catalogues of
Aust[...]ganisations, bibliography of
Australian materials and recordings. In
addition the Centre has files on[...]sic Direc-

tory appeared. Edited by Peter Beilby
and Michael Roberts, it is hoped to be
an annual publication, and so will
expand and fill in some gaps. It has
brought together a mass of useful
information and is clearly aimed at the
industry and commercial music.

The Music Board of the Austral[...]national music magazine for
some fourteen years, and it is patently
time to offer a central organ and
platform for the dispersal of informa-
tion which reaches none of the media,
and for the serious discussion of major
issues, not d[...]ABC, Musica Viva, the AETT,
the Australian Opera and the state
opera companies, the Australian Ballet,
and the members of the 3500 organisa-
tions listed in[...]heatre period-
icals, a collection of Australian (and
non-Australian) plays without being
comprehensive[...]ity of
Queensland plans to precis all publ-
ished and unpublished Australian plays
and to computerise the result. Let’s
hope the plays aren’t thrown away
afterwards, and that a Readers Digest
mentality prevails once again.

And finally, Theatre Australia itself,
since August 1976, is a most accessible
and well-documented source of per-
forming arts information, and more
detailed than the Performing Arts Year
Book of Australia (b 1976) which has
steadily grown in stature and now
includes 25 categories of documen-
tation.[...]sed its documentation
greatly over the last year, and much of it
may still be generally unknown. There
are five basic areas:

1. The two books by Edward Pask on
Ballet in Australia, which are mostly a
recital of events interspersed with
hagiography and fatuousness, but
include most useful Chronology,
Bibliography, Index of Stage Works
and General Index. To this add Frank
Salter’s super[...]as a
different index. ]ohn Cargher’s book
Opera and Ballet in Australia also has a

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (46)[...]y-
where. The AMC established dance
files in 1975 and these include
comprehensive press cuttings. The
Dennis Wolanski Library and Archives
of the Performing Arts has substantial
documentation, and probably today is
the major documentation centre[...]ary
at the Sydney Opera House has a ten
year lead and munificent patronage.
The Performing Arts Collect[...]ives of the
Dance, which belong to the Australian
Ballet, and which were created by
Edward Pask.

LITERATURE

T[...]Australian literature
currently (1979) available, and was
intended mainly for overseas use. It
also has[...]Fellowship of
Australian Authors, with 3—4,000, and
the most exclusive and professional
Australian Writers’ Guild, with so[...]as been accom— =

panied by supportive resource and
documentation centres.

The Film Library at the A[...]ustralia. Film Australia has a
catalogue as well, and the Australia

\

Sydney Philharmonia Society[...]rom Sydney Opera
House Box Oflice (phone 2 0588) and agencies, or from Sydney
Philharmonia Society, cnr. York and Jamison Sts., City (phone 29 4470).

‘ court[...](run by Peter
Campbell) keeps track of arts films and
operates an archival program.

Each of the states has a resource
centre (and a catalogue) which usually
includes a State Film[...]all these are to be brought together in
Victoria and will be called Film
Victoria — surely all the o[...]rce centre. Other
basic publications are the Film and TV
Year Book, Cinema Papers, AFI’s Film
News, and the AMC’s Catalogue of
Australian Film Music.[...]nal Library,
State Film Libraries, AFC, AFI, Film
and TV School should have the game
sown up for inform[...]ies that 576
collections were surveyed, 133 major
and 343 general collections. Finally, the
report was[...]ch is not available, or
not available for sharing and the next
crucial step is for the Australia Counci[...]ne
considers the arts in terms of practi-
tioners and consumers, and in terms of
money invested in the arts industry,[...]proceed with so little research, docu-
mentation and information.

Where is the initiative to come fro[...]ETT

* CAPPA

* A consortium of existing national
and international organisations.

If those working in[...], then they must demand it,
collect it, share it, and budget for it.

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (47)[...]Y

Not everything went terribly well for the
cast and crew of The Year of Living
Dangerously in the Philippines and their
stay was curtailed. James McElroy is the
pr[...]the director, Russell
Boyd the cinemaphotographer and Mel
Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Michael
Murphy the stars of Christopher Koch’s
story, which is fully financed, and will be
marketed worldwide, by MGM. The
Philippin[...]ir James Cruthers, whose
interests are newspapers and television in
Western Australia, is a new part-ti[...]r
Ray Beattie whose interests are in tech-
nology and marketing.

AFC CREATIVITY

The Australian Film C[...]velopment Branch by stating
that it loved the CDB andand it has asked for

Contributing Editor:
Elizabeth[...]The Chant ofjimmy Blacksmith, ThePzcture
Show Man and Caddie (two nights each)
Mouth to Mouth and Mad Max in a double
bill because, says the Institute’s Director,
these are “cu1t movies”, and The Winter of
Our Dreams which is expected to be[...]DEVELOPMENT
DOLLARS

Anne Brooksbank‘s Archer and William
Nagle’s Leonski got $6000 and 810,000
respectively for third draft funding from the
AFC, and Adams Packer Pty Ltd the sum of
$123,000 to devel[...]Field plays a singularly
inept, though attractive and ambitious,
reporter who fits a man into her story
to suit her theories, and damages him.
No Australian editor would let her
s[...]garding this, the film is well-
made, interesting and has Paul
Newman as the victim.

REDS does not hav[...]ting to watch Warren Beatty
producing, directing, and playing
Reed. Diane Keaton should go back to
Wood[...]E IS IT ANYWAY? is the
film of the controversial, and very
moving, play about the sculptor
paralysed fr[...]n he could just slip off the
life support machine and go wherever
it is people go. The film is not a pl[...]ctor-boss of the
hospital. Packed with good lines and a
remarkable small performance from
Kenneth McMil[...]st five years, with a brilliant script,
direction and acting not only from
Robert de Niro and Robert Duvall but
from the entire cast. A[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (48)[...]ID THORNTON talks to Elizabeth Riddell

Every now and again a reviewer likes to
publicly pick a winner, and this is just
what I feel like doing in the case o[...]It is her first real
break in ten years of small and middle
roles in television and films in which
she was hardly noticed. The Man g[...]s of the High Country,
to show childish sweetness and un-
certainty, flashes of sunny humour and
brooding fear of rejection, all of which
she gave[...]met Sigrid she was
wearing a bright blue jumpsuit andand we were living in London —— my
father and mother are university
lecturers — I joined the[...]ice,
Homicide, Dim'sz'0n Four, Father Dear
Father and in three films where I don’t
think I was noticed — The Getting of
Wisdom, Ff Holden, and Snapshot, a
thriller Simon Wincer made.

“I spe[...]wford when I had time from school.
I matriculated and was going to do arts.
I think it’s important fo[...]besides acting. In the
end I did a year of German and of
drama at Queensland University until I

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

decided to go for broke, and just act.
I’ve just finished playing Frances, o[...]ies. It was a great
experience, lots of rehearsal and great
care and enthusiasm from everyone at
the ABC.”

Frances[...]rincipal
characters. The others are Walter, Billy
and Diana played respectively by Scott
McGregor, Scott Burgess and Jackie
Woodbourne.

“Making a film is hard, but also
tremendous fun,” Sigrid says, “and the
atmosphere is very good and friendly. I
hope it stays that way, with cast and
crew getting on together. And wasn’t I
lucky to get Tom Burlinson to work
with? And Kirk Douglas? He was
generous with his time and knowledge
and experience. He didn’t give advice.
It wasn’t an authoritarian atmosphere
at all, just very free and friendly.”

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (49)[...]apt title
for this exuberant, fast, fresh, funny and
unselfconscious film using a formidable
aggregati[...]g came together — idea,
producers David Elfick and Richard V
Brennan, the director Gillian Armstrong[...]direction, half a ‘
dozen good songs, beautiful and lively
cinematography under the direction of
Russell Boyd, costume and production
design by Luciana Arrighi, Terry Ryan and 5
Brian Thomson, choreography by David _
Atkins, editing by Nicholas Beauman.

And two new young starstruck people — *
Jo Kennedy as Jackie and Ross O’Donovan
as Angus — and several mature ones,

especially Margo Lee as Pea[...]Nana, Max Cullen as Reg, Dennis Miller as i
Lou and Melissa Jaffer as Mrs Booth. 7

All these people[...]is leased. They are also more or less 5

related, and stand in loco parentis to a
Cockatoo named Wally and several con-
fident cats. The pub and the people are
models of how corny elements may b[...]While the elders go about their business
Jackie and Angus, cousins, one an in-
efficient barmaid and the other a schoolboy,
live in a fantasy world of[...]ed by logistics — where does Jackie
find a band and a place to sing, how does
Angus break through the[...]two city buildings, wearing a nude
body-stocking and massive artificial breasts
and falls into a safety met while Angus, using
severa[...]or so different voices,
alerts the media; a water ballet of beach
lifesavers (actually water polo players[...]on their noses swims in a
hotel pool with Jackie and a troop of plastic
sharks; Jackie, wearing the tu[...]acefully, to the
plaudits of the crowd.

Interior and exterior crowd scenes are
wonderfully manipulated, and David
Atkins’ choreography using non-dancers in[...]rit of S tarstruck is
that it has no dull patches and no over-
burdened scenes, though it does have some
quiet ones, and some quiet songs for Jo
Kennedy as well as the firecracker numbers
like “Temper, Temper”, “Tough” and
“Monkey In Me”.

Starstruck is a triumph for all concerned
in it, and should do as well overseas, with
the right kind o[...]a. As well as
presenting the newcomers Jo Kennedy and
Ross O’Donovan, Gillian Armstrong has
brilliant[...]ften con-
demned to be stereotypes — Pat Evison and
Margo Lee. Pat Evison has died tragically
too oft[...]his time, as
Nana, she gambols about the pub, fat and
feckless, a believable gran. Margo Lee gives
an e[...]e,
financed from the Australian Film Com-
mission and private sources.

_]o Kennedy flackie) and the Harbour View Hotel in Starstruck.

THE[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (50)[...]River is the third
western, after Mad Dog Morgan and The
Irishman, in the local industry’s born-agai[...]ert Evans who later
became a Paramount executive) and the
guilt western, such as The Wild Bunch, have
moved into science fiction blockbusters,
and this in fact may be the right time for
Michael Ed[...]er does not have the advantage of the
giant press and television complex which
Rupert Murdoch, a partne[...]advertising canvasser, to be dismissed
lightly.

And you can see where the money has
been spent. And, conversely, where it has
been saved, or misspent[...]is
marvellous action, marvellously
photographed. And I daresay Kirk Douglas
cost a bundle, especially[...]oles; the cantankerous old stony-hearted
Harrison and the cantankerous old golden-
hearted Spur, estranged brothers, cattle-
man and gold fossicker. The rest of the cast
and most of the crew are Australian and
come cheaper, although salaries and wages
at all levels in Australian film making are
rising, and some would say not before time.

As everybody who[...]he
pedigree colt that broke from the home
paddock and went off with the wild horses
led by the photogenic stallion and was
recovered by a mountain man when
everybody el[...]ve been fitted up
with a story by Fred Cul Cullen and John
Dixon which is predictable and stuffed with
cliches in scenes and dialogue; and the
direction of George Miller (not the Miller of
Mad Max 1 and II, and it would lessen
confusion if one of them would ch[...]n which
nothing happens beyond meaningful
glances and there are lapses of judgement —
scenes early on[...]r

Tom Burlinson — The Man. Grows
into his role and has real style.

50 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

early scene when Jim the hero and his father
cut down a tree while gazing sentiment[...]e perched on
a rock while a storm rages over her; andand is
not seen effectively again until he turns up
a[...]k Douglas, who obviously had
troubles with makeup and costume in both
his roles, is of course the star, but if
anything except the horses and the glorious
landscape is going for the film it is the
romantic twosome of Tom Burlinson as Jim
and Sigrid Thornton as Harrison’s
daughter Jessica,[...]hot first, because Burlinson
grows into his role, and he has real style.
Sigrid Thornton is an unorthodox beauty,
and when she learns to use stillness to go
with gamin[...]f the cast has to slip in a
phrase from the poem, and hesitates, and
you wonder if they are going to make it.

I was accompanied to the cinema by two
boys aged 11 and eight, and their mother.
The younger was preoccupied with worry

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (51)[...]has since taken to
cracking a pretend stockwhip, and the elder
said it was the best film he had seen this
year. His mother and I both felt a bit saddle
sore.

Breakfast in
Pari[...]rated
television soapie Peyton Place 20 years ago
and may also be remembered for her film
role in The V[...]tures pinned on his
walls are of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre
Coeur. The film is so inept and silly it is
impossible to place the blame for its[...], partly due to the establishment of
Channel 0/28 and partly to the enterprise of
a small, loosely conn[...]influential ofthe cinemas
showing foreign films (and some films from
Britain and the US which would not be
screened by the big com[...]up-market
MLC complex at Martin Place. Last year
and in the first months of 1982 the Dendy
has screened films from East and West
Germany, Poland, Spain, Japan, El Sal-
vador and Switzerland.

The latest is Mephzsto, from Hungary,
about events and people in Germany in the
thirties during and after the rise of Adolf
Hitler. It is a film of almost hypnotic
interest, made by Istvan Szabos and
starring the astonishing, exciting Klaus

K[...]o pursued
his own ambition by becoming the spirit
and symbol of the new German (Aryan)
drama under the patronage of the Prime
Minister, who is also a general andand later married the
poet W H Auden to gain British citizenship)
and Paula Wedekind, daughter of the
playwright.

The[...]gues until
discovered, later lapsing into despair and
becoming no more than a servant of the
Prime Mini[...]as well as the
physical atmosphere of the period and is
continuously exciting as the actor goes
about[...]lbourne the Brighton Bay Twin
Cinema has Mephisto and it is also going to
Perth and Brisbane. It opened in London
and New York simultaneously with the
Australian showings.

It won the International Critics Prize for
Best Film and Best Screenplay at Cannes in
1981 and is nominated for Best Foreign
Film in the Academy Awards.

International Critics Award Best Film

and Best Screenplay

Directed by ISTVIIN SZABO[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (52)flfiawf

OPERA CONFERENCE
DISSOLVES

After five-and-a-bit years of, sometimes
turbulent, operation the Opera Conference
of Australia and New Zealand decided at its
meeting in Adelaide on[...]would be
more appropriate for them to join CAPPA
and join forces with other performing arts
bodies than remain an exclusive opera club.
The Conference and CAPPA had from the
very beginning of the latter’s life main-
tained close and friendly relations and their

“amalgamation” was, in fact, only a ma[...]f the Metropolitan Opera,
Covent Garden, La Scala and other major
opera houses will make his Australian[...]on ofthe Australian Opera.
Acclaimed by audiences and critics for both
his musical and dramatic achievements,
Sherrill Milnes is joined[...]r in the challenging
roles of the Thane of Cawdor and his
ambitious wife.

The genius of Verdi is combi[...]STRALIA MAY 1982

~INFO

genius of Shakespeare and the result is a
gripping theatrical explosion of witchcraft,
madness and death.

The production to be conducted by Carlo
Felice Cillario will also star Donald Shanks
as Banquo and Reginald Byers as
Macduff.

VSO NEW FACES

The Ch[...]ck Kennedy OBE is appointed as
Honorary Treasurer and Mr Wilfred
Thornton is appointed as Chairman of t[...]ra.

Mr Kennedy is a partner of Deloitte,
Haskins and Sells. He was the President of
the Victorian Society for Crippled Children
from 1964 to 1973, and President of
Yooralla Society in 1978. He is also[...]ton has been
Managing Director of Associated Pulp and
Paper Mills Limited since 1974. For the
past thre[...]“I am delighted to have men of
such experience and stature working on
behalf of the VSO. Both Mr Kennedy and
Mr Thornton have a keen interest in Opera
and in its development here in Victoria.”

A SMALL TESTIMONIAL

General Managers and other members of
the upper echelons of companies frequently
receive accolades for good work done and
when they move on elsewhere their passing
is note[...], people like production managers
whose hard work and determination are at
least as crucial in getting[...]been created by an extremely small band of
staff and supporters, one of whom has
recently moved on. El[...]This
column wishes her well in her new
endeavours and feels sure the Festival will
soon show the[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (53)[...]Ian Campbell (left) working with Thomas Edmonds and Marilyn

Richardson in La Boheme rehearsal.

Ian[...]with the ‘h° Sydney C°“- H6 Yang “‘€= and I
intention of Completing a Law degree started 1n[...]he Festival. From one of
these he emerged, prompt
and cheerful, for the
following interview.

KH[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (54)[...]Sir George Solti. She
was responsible for casting and reper-
toire there, and had decided to retire
when Solti went off to reju[...]Rolf Liebermann.
They persuaded her to join them, and
they put Paris back on the operatic
map. Just as[...]n, James Levine became
Music Director at the Met, and lured
her to New York. She came for a season
or two, and so far has stayed for five
years. I’ve since le[...]ught that I had
the right blend of administrative and
artistic experience. A lot of people
they’d tal[...]er of renewal. I gave the matter
lots of thought, and realised while I was
in San Diego giving some lec[...]n.
They included Tito Capobianco,
Patrick Veitch, and Michael Bronson,
the Met’s technical man.

KH:[...]of his Boheme, I told him I

thought it was bad, andand
there are 210 performances in 30 weeks,
which is[...]institution.‘

IC: The singers travel by plane and the
sets by truck. There are seven
performances p[...]holidays for the past five
years going to America and England.
At the Opera America Conference in
’78[...]Conference, saw our production
of Die Fledermaus, and spent a week
working on our marketing. The friend-
ship developed from there.

KH: And the Australian Opera?

IC: They took an immediate interest in
him, andand I’ve been involved
professionally in opera sinc[...]ountry.
Just living in New York will be
exciting, and I have yet to prove a great
deal about myself pro[...]er

delegates all artistic matters to Joan
Ingpen and James Levine. But that is
not to say that[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (55)E PERA

Makropoulos
and Elixir —
strong after-

images
by Ken Healey

I[...]ian Opera was
in Brisbane with The Bartered Bride and
Madam Butterfly, the so-called regional
companies[...]tions farther South. State Opera,
South Australia and Canberra Opera share
the name “regional”, but[...]ccasion was that Canberra hired
Adelaide’s sets and costumes for a new
production by John Milson of The Elixir of
Love, and presented it within days of State
Opera's Adelaid[...]f a standard to justify
their respective outlays. And there the
comparisons really should stop.

Elijah[...]x-appeal accumulated by
means of a beautiful body and more than
half a dozen lifetimes of practice.

If[...]s say, Menotti, than to the
man who wrote ]erzufa and Katya
Kobanova. At least Menotti, a highly
compet[...]confronted by a number of lovers, past,
present, and would-be. Unfortunately, in
the face of her own i[...]:.;:i::i::i;i::Z i

Gregory Dempsey, Roger Howell and Elisabeth Soderstrom in Act I of

SOSA ’s The M[...]dignity, handsomeness, a good deal of
fine sound, and the mystery of Soderstrom
who manages to project at once the allure of
a desirable woman and the archness of a
prima donna. She has been at th[...]r this opera. Yet the
orchestral texture in brass and woodwind is
often bold and complex. The Adelaide
Symphony Orchestra under Denis
Vaughan lacked rhythmic tautness at times,
and was guilty of sloppy entries far too
often. But the balance between pit and
stage, unsatisfactory by all accounts at
earlier[...]n audible
cast singing in English, Thomas Edmonds
and Roger Howell, both in minor roles,
deserve special praise for clarity of word and
tone.

Sharing the plaudits with Soderstrom
and with Moshinsky’s intelligent
production was Bri[...]psey, insufficiently
beautiful of voice, feature, and figure to
succeed as Albert Gregor, was not well[...]in the country who
would be ideal both musically and
physically for the role, but Thomas
Edmonds may h[...]obody buying love potion from a quack
named Sweet-and-Sour so that he could
best his rival, Sergeant Be[...], but wisely left
the names (Nemorino, Dulcamara, and
Belcore) in the original Italian. Come to[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (56)[...]o indulge his
knowledge of the beauty of his face and his
voice. In most other respects the production[...]ccompanying
Du1camara’s entry were slack. Stage and pit
were not always at one, which led me to
belie[...]m.

Hugh Co1man’s Edwardian costumes
were fine, and his simple set, making use of
the effects of vary[...]ions from the
leading state companies in Adelaide and

56

I merit represented by T}zeMakropu1osAffa[...]out a comparably high level

of activity month in and month out. And

l that requires government subsidy, both
federal and state.

~GUIDE

Digby. // Trabarro; with Etela P[...]ary achieve-

at this year’s Adelaide Festival, and by
Death In Venice two years earlier could not

0[...]ucer,
John Copley; designers, Henry
Bardon (sets) and Michael Stennett
(costumes); with Rhonda Bruce or[...]i (In Italian);
conductors, Carlo Felice Cillario and
William Reid; producer, Andrew
Sinclair; designer[...]ll, Geoffrey Harris, Merlyn
Quaife, Judith Henley and the WA Arts
Orchestra. To May 15.

THEA[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (57)[...]hen asked about
her son.

But, have him she (lid. And coulthrt look after him.

So. Barnardo"s had to l[...]lly uncontrollable at first,
always running away; and seemingly bent on suicide. More than
once our sta[...]the train arrived.

Barry was one of 650 children and families in need that
Barnardols took Care of last year, through ll different welfare
programmes in N.S.W. and the A.C.T. Z

This year Barnardois despera[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (58)l_
58

ANCE

AB REVIEW

Far-reaching changes to the running of
the Australian Ballet have been recom-
mended in the management’s consultants’
review commissioned by the company’s
board of directors.

Its 51 pages of recommendations and
observations form a blueprint for the
company’s[...]fa
high level of communication between
management and performers can be
achieved and maintained.

The main thrust of the review is the
reinstatement of the artistic management a[...]s prime motivator: “We have
no doubt that, in a ballet company, the
position of artistic director should[...]hich the company’s artistic inspiration,
vision and drive is drawn."

Peter Bahen — Report recom[...]e in more than
theoretical terms, a strengthening and
enlarging of the artistic staff is suggested.
New positions of ballet director, artistic co-
ordinator and resident choreographer, and
three positions of ballet master/mistress,
are seen to be necessary. They w[...]ld another new
appointment, personnel manager — and
provide the opportunity to raise artistic
standards.

The review does not address itself
specifically to the position of Peter Bahen,
the Australian Ballet Administrator, whose
sacking was called for by th[...]e not only divides the
responsibility of artistic and administrative
staff, but indicates separate reporting lines
for the artistic director and the administra-
tor, each of them going direct to[...]is the chief administrative officer
of a company, andand changes are necessary.”
Beyond that, the sheer[...]mmended changes speak for them-
selves.

Patience and commitment from dancers,
management and board are asked for: “We
are convinced that, unless there is an early
renewal of team effort and a return to the
realisation that the Australian Ballet’s
standards are not achievable by one group
alo[...]he need for
clarification of the role ofthe board and the
aims for future membership. These include
the need for people who have “an interest in
and commitment to the industry they are
directing. . . (and) wide experience in the
arts or theatre or busine[...]ding a
spread of age groups, geographic locations
and ethnic backgrounds. Dancer repre-
sentation on th[...]er of

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

performers, and the possibility of com-
mittees being set up within the board
structure.

At the time of writing, the review was
being discussed by the AB board, manage-
ment and staff. But its effects were already
being noticed. Members of the press were
circulated with the review on its release
(more readily than members of the
company, which was unfortunate), and
dance reviewers were flown in by the
company from[...]-
duction, a controversial item for a long
while, and carried pages of information
about the artistic s[...]34,000 Peter
Stuyvesant Scholarship at the Royal Ballet
School in London on the advice of his
teachers, Joan and Monica Halliday, of
Sydney.

Meanwhile in Melbour[...]take up studies in London. . .

Danilo Radojevic and Chrisa Keramidas,
former Australian Ballet members, now
doing outstandingly well with American
Ballet Theatre, made a flying trip home in
March to see their families in Melbourne
and Sydney in the fortnight’s break
following an AB[...]London’s Sadlers Wells Theatre between
June 15 and 26, followed by performances
at festivals in Cologne, Athens and
Dubrovnik. . .

Peter Brinson, dance writer and evan-
gelist, will leave his post as Director of[...]ome principal lecturer in the
sociology of dance, and head of the
Department of Research and Community

Development at the Laban Centre for
Movement and Dance in South London.

~INFO

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (59)[...]e is an old saying
that you can’t be both whore and
madame.”

The allusion was to all the years that
Tetley spent trying to perform and
choreograph, and then, between 1974
and 1976, combining choreography
with directing the Stuttgart Ballet. “It
is all I can handle just to try to be a
go[...]demand around
the world, both to create new works and
revive old ones. He was back in
Australia after n[...]staging of his Rite of S pring for
the Australian Ballet. It was one of the
works which opened the company’s
1982 subscription season in Sydney,
and will be seen later this year in
Brisbane and Melbourne.

Tetley has not long completed a new
Firebird for the Royal Danish Ballet,
which also has his Voluntaries, Greening
and Rite of Spring in its repertoire. His
Dances of Albion for the Royal Ballet
made him the first non-British re-
cipient of the[...]o-
reographed in 1978, will open the
Scandinavian ballet season in New
York next October. When he left
Australia, it was to stage Voluntaries for
for the Paris Opera Ballet.

His Rite of Spring, which he
choreograph[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (60)and the work’s mingling of mystic and
religious symbolism has the sophistic-
ated acade[...]ve always been interested in
comparative religion and archaeology,
and in so many of the primitive
religions — one cou[...]graphers who like to bring more than

h

visual and dramatic content to their
work. Having been lucky[...]dance reviewing in London as he
helped chart the Ballet Rambert
through its new growth phase in the
late[...]possibilities of
meaning behind it. Peter Brinson and
Clement Crisp describe that potential
perfectly in the Pan Book of Ballet and
Dance:

“In many Tetley works we have been
awar[...]bilities.”

The breadth of Tetley’s stylistic and
thematic range may have something to
with the fact that he was 20 and a
medical student before he decided to
train as a dancer. “I came in late and
thought, ‘I am going to get the best of
everything I can grab’ ”, he recalled in
Sydney. And he certainly chose some
outstanding teachers. Antony Tudor
and Margaret Craske instructed him in
classical technique, while Martha
Graham and Hanya Holm inspired him
with the possibilities of[...]also appeared as a
principal dancer for American Ballet
Theatre, partnering such famous
dancers as Maria Tallchief, Lupe
Serrano and Toni Lander.

The confusion about his background[...]in-
dividual selection of movement in-
fluences, and for a long time, he didn’t
devise any point wor[...]their bodies to feel how they are going
to move, and I didn’t want to use the
classical vocabulary u[...]ssical companies, I
grew to feel more experienced and

60 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

confident about w[...]arted
gradually. Then, when I took over
Stuttgart and worked with Marcia
Haydee, whose best line is on[...]Gemini, which Tetley created for the
Australian Ballet in 1973, was one of
the earliest works in which h[...]on point. He has a great
affection for that great ballet, and feels
that it still belongs to Australia and its
national company, despite the per-
formances[...]erseas by such
outstanding companies as Stuttgart
and American Ballet Theatre since
then.

During our conversation, I c[...]after Tetley’s wirehaired
dachshunds, F ratello and Tartufo, who
became almost as well-known in the
d[...]y
altitudes manage to achieve.

Tetley has a rich and affectionate
collection of stories about them and
their commuting lives between his
homes in New York and Italy. He and a

friend would travel separately in
economy and first class, each with the
one dog allowed in tha[...]there was the time an
air hostess approached him and asked if
he knew the gentleman travelling in
econ[...]-
covered the best observation point on
the plane and taken up the same stance
as he would in a car, su[...]g,
wordly—wise Brighella in one of his
earliest and most memorable works,
Pierrot Lunaire. Now[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (61)‘ ANCE

Pina Bausch,
ADT and SDC

by Bill Shoubridge

For my money, the Wupper[...]as the highlight of the 1982 ,
Adelaide Festival, andand repetitiousness,
especially in Kontakthof. Mind y[...]esign. For all its adventurous
enquiry into dance and theatre, it is one of ‘
the most disciplined of groups, with its
works scaled and bevelled into strict 2
formalistic structures.

I[...]out of the
scheme of a “theatre” presentation and she
achieves this in two ways.

Firstly by placing the performance in a
setting conducive and “real” to the terms of
the work. Kontakthof is initially about the
rituals and mannerisms inherent in a public
meeting place, in this case a dance hall, and
that is why the work went on at the
Thebarton Tow[...]down the

K0Dt8kth0f- Photo: Ulli Weiss.

“them and us” barriers inherent in a
production. To start[...]o see things
“big”; theatre intensifying life and all that.

What she wanted to do was scale down
the audience’s field and depth of vision,
hence the slowness andand when that (small) change came
one’s attention w[...]de
field of vision Pina Bausch could continue
and she did — the gestures of love that
turn to gestures of detestation, fear, near
cannibalism, rejection and longing. Things
were repeated sure enough; the me[...]e audience to buy a ride on the
mechanical horse, and so on. The point was,
as much to make the audienc[...]One could see that the
“corps” section of men andAnd so it went on until, with the film
excerpt of duc[...]e that in nature there are
no moral distinctions, and care, love and

THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

~RE VIE W

protection are instinctive, without the rules
and barriers that humanity puts up.

But humanity can[...]primevalism by virtue of its social com-
plexity, and so the rituals go on. The
dancers at the end of t[...]ess has been achieved because

of those longueurs and repetitions, not in
spite of them.

The earlier w[...]of incomprehension between
seeing life as a woman and seeing it as a man.

It is not enough to be jingoistic and claim
“social conditioning” as the reason, fo[...]akthof, at greater length,
identifies.

The drama and brutality of Bluebeard
comes out of personal expectation as much
as anything; that and human frustration.
The line of men slowly draggin[...]oss the leaf strewn floor are as heavily
weighted and pressured as the women. The
tight animalistic huddles and the orgiastic
runs and jumps across the stage are as much
engendered by the women as the men.

As the “ballet” closes and Bluebeard
drags his Judith along the floor with him
and out of the door he repeatedly claps his
hands and the rest of the cast multifariously
freeze into gestures of domination/sub-
servience, rejection and acceptance. It again
has come full circle and the audience feels
that the full circle will always continue.

It has been noted that Pina Bausch and
her company in the years that it has been
perform[...]meland has done more
to develop the face of dance and theatre in
that country than all the other German[...]ntensify the
appreciation of Australian audiences and
critics as the Wuppertal company has done
in its short attenuated visit.

It was a wonderful and exhilarating
experience to see it, but all[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (62)[...]theatre; he creates his impacts, his
dissonances and his discursions for all the
theatrical effect tha[...]overt sense of
drama always pervading it. It is a ballet built
on that great standby of the theatre, tension
and conflict.

Never have I seen the ADT dancers so
powerfully extended and theatrically ex-
posed, but exposed by virtue of the
expressiveness of their dancing and the
'contrasts of what they are given to dance.[...]ping lifts,

edgy partnerings, bounding ensembles and '

soaring solos that pepper this ballet.

However, while it is perfect in its place,
givi[...]io’s Sinfonia,
it wears itself out dramatically and
musically for the same reasons that Taylor’s
ch[...]t in extreme dynamics.
Small, complex pas de deux and solos
nervous or lyrical by turns are repeatedly
swept up and away by great bounding
group pieces that have the sweep and
grandeur of waves from the seas. These
group mome[...]t they would if it
weren’t for the serene, calm and statuary
finish to the ballet, with the dancers in a
circle, peeling off into t[...]an ensemble
company to me, more so than the SDC, and
it was so good to see the occasional spotlight
gi[...]ly the two boys in the
male pas de deux in Part 1 and the couple in
Part 2 in the lovely extended pas d[...]like to see more ofthis underlining in
ADT works and a little less facelessness
from the company as a[...]john Nobbs and Madonna Petersen in

ADT’s While We Watched. Photo:
Grant Hancock.

a lovely neoclassic ballet of craftsmanlike
construction and in Murphy’s Hate a
vibrant, powerful piece of theatre. In
Graham Watson’s I.m514, though, a ballet
"about” a robot rebelling against her
controllers and trying to have good time,
I’m not sure what it[...]r hand, has
remained in his genre country of Bach and
lightly flavoured abstract dance and it is a
welcome tonic after the heavy stuff of th[...]interest through a close-packed weave of
ensemble and pas de deux work and he has,
like Balanchine, illuminated his music by[...]horeography, it is at times too messy,
repetitive and over reminiscent of Murphy
stuff we’ve seen bef[...]to
illuminate it in an allegoric way.

Thus in a ballet about hate we have lots of
frantic running about, sharp jagging angles
in the duet work and a morass of flailing
arms and legs, finishing with paint being
thrown at the au[...]stic curtain). Trouble is it looks a
little empty and arty, reminiscent at times
of the bad days of the[...]lent
(Picasso, Braque, Satie) to create in design
and sound what was lacking in choreo-
graphic inventi[...]is plenty of good
stuff to salvage from this work and when
one considers the masterpiece of New
Additio[...]ds, Graeme Murphy
has served his company, dancers and
audiences extremely well this time around.

The Australian Ballet '5 opening program:
for 1982 at the Sydney Opera House will be
reviewed in the next issue.

WA Ballet at the
Maj

by Miranda Sadka

Skill, stamina and versatility are the
ingredients that made up the WA Ballet
Company's first 1982 season at His
Maiest_v’s T[...]ance
that ranged from the complex moods of

WA Ballet in Images. Photo: Sally McConnell.

THEATR[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (63)[...]ring, Perth
audiences stayed away in droves.

Has ballet in Perth reached the stage
where it is seen only[...]ccess of past productions of the ilk of
Peter Pan and Cinderella would lead one to
this unhappy conclus[...]is a work of great lyric beauty
demanding control and precision dancing
from the performers. Choreograp[...]tage of the
dancers’ powerful blend of vitality and
grace.

A touch of oriental mysticism came with
Walter Bourke’s Paradise
sensuous ballet set to Ravi Shankar’s sitar
music. Joanne Munda[...]ome of her pirouettes needed
greater definition), and Stephen Rowe
supported her strongly as the earthbound
hunter.

Garden, a v

The third ballet, Ray Powell’s One In Fl‘Z'€ ‘

is a whims[...]attention of their coquettish female col-
league and beguile the audience with their
antics. Although the mood is light-hearted
and allows the dancers to indulge in a
certain amount of drollery, the ballet is
technically demanding and the footwork of
the male dancers was at times not[...]fourth curtain opened to a hypnotic
contemporary ballet by the company’s
Artistic Director, Garth Welch[...]ng piece of choreography which
explores the moods and rhythums of the
Rachmaninov music as its strange[...]melt into sinuous movement.
Some outstanding solo and pas de deux
work came from Michele Ryan who
combi[...]que with an
almost boneless fluidity of the torso and
upper limbs. Tony Tamburri was an
excellent foil with the clean lines of his
dancing and fine port de bras.

The evening’s finale came w[...]Raynzorzda. In its original three-act
format, the ballet is an unashamedly

illogical fairytale in the tru[...]the usual padding of processions,
dream sequences and the like, to give a well-
integrated series of solo and ensemble
sequences that move smoothly to the[...]s stage looks bare without
the bands of courtiers and visiting
potentates that normally swell the ranks of
such a ballet. Such defects can only be
overcome by a big company with a strong
corps of dancers on which to call and the
WA company managed to give a refreshing
perfo[...]t at its
command.

Maggie Lorraine was a delicate and sure-
footed Raymonda, the brittle fragility of h[...]sting with the studied
movements of the courtiers and the leashed
passion of the Saracen entourage. She[...]iesty’s during the season, it was a
challenging and satisfying evening ofdance,
but the disastrous attendance figures do not
auger well for the future of ballet in this
state.

Unless Perth audiences realise that dance
is more than tutus and toe-shoes and a fairy-
tale plot, we will be reduced to amateur[...]3 '

RETURN
AUSTRALIAN SEASONS

Adelaide—August and November;
Melbourne—Seplember and November;

Geelong and Canberra—September;

THEATRE AUSTRALIA M[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (64)[...]ith Dennis
Olsen managing to combine manic energy
and sombre reflectiveness in his character-
isation[...]think, playing a character constantly on the
move and full of untiring exuberance, can
often be more en[...]e too resisted the temptation to play
up the part and, espeically in her later
scenes, convincingly cau[...]of her life — for
all her lapses into hysteria and mania.
Debbie Little and Patrick Frost were the
other members of a strong quarter: the
former confident and in particular present-
ing Grainger’s first fia[...]ue attention to her attractiveness, sensitiv-
ity and ultimate confusion over what
Grainger expected of[...]however, seemed over—naturalistic: a few
props and changes in lighting would have
been both more effective and less com-
fortably domestic.

A Map of the World[...]2.
Director, David Hare; Designer, Eamon D’Arcy and
Hayden Griffin; I_.ighting, Rory Dempster; Music[...]Bloch, Nicholas Lidstone.
(Professional).

Percy and Rose by Rob George. Stage Company,
Adelaide Festi[...]onstructing high life
(3.7)

7. Cunningly I lodge and marry Emma, a
lady of letters (447)

14. Eruptions brought on by temperature
and right combustion remains (4,6)

17. Idle t[...]

TXT

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (65)[...]5 f r a

PLAYW RITIN G'8 2 THE ELLIS COLUMN AUS BALLET SHAKE-UF[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (66)[...]Australian National Playrights' Con actors and directors). Many directors
Opera:[...]fledgling talent and provide each year a new successful in the theatr[...]insidious seeping away -- and the Con QTC Director Alan Edwards represents
Mic[...]1981 fortnight was flakked for this and the best of national and international
Jaki Gothard, National Advertising[...]Craige Cronin, Bob Herbert and Len between 20 and 30% in the major house

STATE REPRESENTATIVES:[...]c, will not escape similar criticism. seasons and 100% in the alternative wing --

ACT: Janet He[...]audiences grow and more good Australian

VIC: Suzanne Spunner (03)[...]get a plays become available this is likely to

QLD: Jeremy Ridgman (07) 377 2519 hearing elsewhere. And it pays off. Alma de increase, but I don't adhere[...]1178 Groen's (and she's no greenhorn talent) a fixed percentage jus[...]es the taken up by the MTC and is to be made into to local drama --when somethin[...]or the Arts,
the Western Australian Arts Council and the below the level of 1[...]ons of the time tend to
MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts and editorial correspondence[...]1200.
Whilst every care is taken of manuscripts and and increasingly the local segment of the script must[...]erial supplied for this magazine, the
publishers and their agents accept no liability for[...]damage which may occur. Unsolicited
manuscripts and visual material will not be History proves that funding and in talent in the country -- a responsibility that[...]within
Australia. Cheques should be made payable and of Government subsidy, in[...]new wave of iconoclastic writers and Australian Writers' Guild.
institutional and overseas subscription rates see
back page.[...]the Arts in 1968 and had its heyday in the the best from overseas shou[...]it's a question of proportion and of[...]prosper and works of true value emerge." national theare. In[...]Stage Crisis Day and accolades to the new directors. If they evade it, and the decline[...]enge Grant Scheme heritage, our cultural identity and our
Floor, 153 Dowling Street, Potts Point NSW 2011. Distributed by
subscription and through theatre foyers etc by Theatre Publication[...]companies are sent as mendicants to future.
Ltd, and to newsagents throughout Australia by Alla[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (67)[...](see article page 11), and indeed where most Artistic Director of the Hol[...]the cation along with those of top actor and fine
quite striking that positive, optimi[...]the head of WA's state
that makes public and business alike feel Harvey's Buena Vista, Go[...]e onto a good thing, backing a winner Seadrift and writer-in-residence Barry
and all that. New Moon Theatre in North Dickin[...]UR. . .
crowds in Townsville, Rockhampton and Handke, David Mammet and Jilly Fraser.
Cairns by selling themselves as the hottest And in St Martins is a small classics season Ru[...]Broadway. -- Brittanicus and Long Day's Journey. . . popular success of t[...]KY WOMEN AND ARTS now directo[...]erson's New Sky -- promises to The Women and Arts Festival to take departure, General[...]ems to be keeping things running
the mime and mask show after training at in planning. A[...]including Sue smoothly with guest directors, and negotia
the le Coq School and first presented it in Hill, ex-Nimrod Theatre[...]s 1981 Tangent season. In a highly mances and other theatre, mural painting, RAIN STOPS PLAY
personal and unusual show she looks at the pageants, day-l[...]actions of migrants coming to a new land Park and at the Opera House, lunch hour It appears[...]performances, songs and dance, exhibi surrounding the opening o[...]E ADMIRABLE on and on. And not everything will be Drama Studio, Sydney, and a new full-time
CRAMPHORN[...]Commission and has been promised to the
his stamp on Pla[...]1976, Theatre Board funding in 1980 and[...]Theatre ACT's On Our Selection and the[...]MacArthur and Smiles Away. A great[...]troupes for the Patriotic Show and the Wine
and Food Frolic -- outdoor, day-long,[...]appearing at add times and in odd places.[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (68)[...]Wradio and television -[...]ite 511, 5th Floor,
desperate situation and the closure of the powers that be at MTC wer[...]rse. Elcom's explanation with Judith's work and her potential, the Telephne: 264-8[...]URNS FOR THEATRE,
collecting more water and no rent.[...]HT Mike Mullins and his committee of the[...]Handmade in our own workshop
Lilian and Ken Horler shone on the dance down for fun[...]to go it alone. A fund-raising
Brisbane and Dibbs Mather managed a drive is under[...]ING IN JULY
making (see his column p 8) and even
Geraldine Turner and John O'May had S y d n e y C ity T h[...]Courses in Acting and Dance.
Amidst the candlelight, flowers, cham Casual classes and workshops.
pagne and balloons, people were too intent Rehearsal s[...]3 Year full time training for
and Aubrey Mellor, to name but two. Those 3 year Directors Course Classical Ballet.
that did attend will be delighted to k[...]For information and Prospectus on all activities of the S.C.T.C. cont[...]th Cobb,
who turned 21 only in February and has[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (69)[...]theatre profession with cheap good food and thing is that everyone wants to be loved.'No[...]plays and his fascination with how St Martins i[...]important love is to us all and the fear of there are no formal classes, but t[...]anyone between 12 and 25 can take the[...]can be and of how desperate they can be for Helmut Bakaitis and Slive of the Service by[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (70)[...]sible claimant for a challenge grant. Williams and Penny had to do some[...]through social activities by and for its including Frank Hahn's Opus[...]humiliating and shameful. The Q Theatre, wh[...]ford H ocking plans M a ry 's K id in 1977 and P a ra d ise[...]bold American actress E stelle P arsons and N u m b ers, by P h illip Scott and Luke
face about the halving of its A ustralia[...]r's Perth Festival, M iss
$134,000 (February TA) and affecting M a rg a rid a 's Way.[...]be offered who was also in E v ita and recently in[...]onstrained to spread that visit to New York and London, Artistic
$80,000 thinly around. In effect, doing Director Peter W illiam s and Execut
more or less exactly what the Council's ive Producer G arry Penny secured
T heatre and M usic B oards them the author's own[...]B a llet's tour of Can
berra, Albury, Melbourne and unaware at the time that the Gen[...]giving the opening date as July 31 and

Oz and the revue, S q u irts; the

M arionette T heatr[...]ney on the visits

by Piccolo T eatro di M ilan and

P ina B ausch's W uppertal Dance

Theatre, a[...]the S adler's W ells Royal

B allet, B arn u m and S esa m e S tre et

Live.
It is stri[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (71)[...]and finally didn't give for reasons of
cowardice and acoustics and the scarletface of[...]onference.

I am brought before you gormless and So. . , meat pie westerns, slouch hat Bu[...]an my own, in my Cassidys, vegemite Samurai, and Kirk transitory. Something to do with[...]all Douglas' joggling dimple twice over and the Murdoch's father made his journalistic
criminal waste) and tastefully clashing seven mutant bikies[...]have made
eccentric in the company of the rich, and in Dolby sound. Robert and Rupert, Adams last year, had he been, like most of England
Amosan on my shrivelled gums, and and Packer, Gyngell and Stratton, Gulf and and Australia, in the employ of his son. The
Grecian 2000 on my pubic hairs and hope in Western, Engulf and Devour. . . nose jobs wind bloweth where it listeth however, and
my heart, in this last gasp of my fortieth year and nork jobs and hand jobs and blow jobs my wet finger as always is up, and I am
to heaven or. . . limbo, that some young and talk jobs and tax jobs. . . beyond all writing a Gallipoli-style road movie myself,
person, lithe of limb and sweet of glance, human imagining, cocktails[...]e when he suddenly enlists to go to
since 1949: "And you must play the Maori over till the nex[...]etnam, motoring north with a marihuana
princess" and still believe I yet have[...]smoking draft-dodger via Byron Bay and
influence in a cocaine-fuelled and Listen mate, why have six Americ[...]aying the six American roles in in Vietnam and find to their amazement
passed me by.[...]the precedent of Kirk Douglas, those six and Mozart. It should make a lot of money.
All ar[...]So too, I fear alas, in the wake of his
Romans, and coming down off the Rock accounting -- and the still unending world- triumph with The Man from Snowy River,
alive, ashamed and rich, saying Rome is the straddling miracle of Murdoch and Stig- should Cul Cullen's forthcoming scr[...]resist, its values wood hype: see Gallipoli and die; you'll be play to be directed again by Mad Miller II,
must be our values and its gods our gods, so glad you did.[...]iams has come to know him,
there is no Israel... and the temple is down. and to co-star once more the great Jack
Robert and Rupert broke up, I hear. Thompson[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (72)[...]st movie-going generation but one, Burstall, and Sir Les Patterson as Michael
Overdraft, and based on the life of Michael is himself rewrit[...]tense delight, Thornhill, called Willie Wanker and the
Edgely, in which five hundred battle-[...]os Angeles same story, called Carry On D H, and is It is different I know in theatre, more
and the mogul hero's silhouetted profile hoping[...]e serene, more rational, less prone
looking out, and in Burt Lancaster's moving role of the bawdy, farting, pratfalling to ruling cliques and only a trifle more
voice-over, the valedictory w[...]The death of Plays and Players has been a
like to change with Clanc[...]nd he productions instead of Peter Hall's and
going down contributed the A flat -- and on receiving their standards are consequently slipping
And the tickertape a-chatter of the the award called out to the vast television and desperate measures are called for, like[...]world audience "Hello Australia" and even revisiting London, and therefore their
bums on seats that matter[...]years of search, the wholesale importation and installing in[...]-- the one at which an Australian champagne and caviar of starving left-wing
Another Auss[...]t at Village Roadshow. British playwrights, and hurling buxom
And Nancy Reagan has shyly confessed that actr[...]Bryan One small joking reference to Barry and
Phil Noyce, I am pleased to say, has B[...]nintelligent actor in the world. He has colour and creed flown in first class from
though rumours a[...]the profession a bad name. every latitude, and the smiling Australian
rumours in the film busin[...]murmur like a litany. As we stand, tonight,
and agent with telltale flaws in her Sussex goodwi[...]ar to the grave of our national identity,
accent and far too much to lose. The fatal been part of official US policy to make a and the cenotaph designed by those great
words in the controversial review, "the best first strike against our NATO allies," he Australians Skrizinsky and Riomfalvy,
Australian film since Picnic at Hangi[...]in a Toadthrush-style statement of Bloch and Murdoch, of all that we were and
Rock, " have alerted the usually moribund[...]d the issue further by saying that confusion and the tower will be down.
saucer, float upwards, e[...]se may be." There is some greed, as a Reagan and Thatcher and Fraser
month of the preliminary shoot of The Yea[...]with. One thing dictatorship as John Sumner and Leonie
on his own original novel, has this week[...]tain. The war process must go on. Kramer and Peter Weir may never know,
fired his third conse[...]hing like the Playwrights' Conference
domination and yesterday blockaded him as Australian content, so self-destructively where, in poverty, and promiscuity, and
self on an island besieged by the troops of[...]s he to the moneyed powers comradeship, and undernourishment, and
President Marcos, who in his emergency around and beneath him, when he didn't lust, and kindred help, the sum of man's
broadcast said th[...]thought, and scope, and compassion is
stand one dictator at a time, and has busted have to be.[...]Travolta. This, the first Australian film to and the country's one true living auteur, am o[...]eginning at that sum,
get total American backing and a total John Lamond, who made Pacific Banana, in and from those that will not go this year or
Americ[...]ast an art film, has keep worse hours than you and do get
task force working day and night, as anyone with his title hit the nail, I think, on the lonely, and to you I also commend their
who can within half an hour, and without head. It's a soft porn allegory of[...]and kinky, black-silken and lute-strumming blind and dying world.
on a map of the world.[...]ere Tim Burstall, quickly adapting Peter Weir, and Mike Preston as Tim[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (73)[...]is busy with the centenary," he said,
Sydney and back again winding up of the man, and not just an en "she wants us to play[...]vents." Accord worked with Kate Fitzpatrick and
for him. ing[...]p with this city -- its
playwrights, performers, and its pace.

Things don't change overnight, bu[...]ser's centenary.

Since rehearsals began Rex and his
cast of five have been cashing in on the
excitement and activity centred around
the Percy Grainge[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (74)[...]ry by the Austra contain both the actors and the
being unravelled. It is as if a searchlight[...]the 39 perform ances, hardly any, camp and Les's concentration-mind all
has been bathed in[...]eet
as a five dimensional character, Rex's and had memorable performances from by the Melbou[...]g a pianist to Blossom nightmare to Japan and his Melbourne's theatrical life.
play Graingers' music live. "It would own head, and from Peter Cummins as
be almost impossible to ge[...]d. "It has the unique
advantage of being younger and fresher
and more energetic than the larger
organisations in[...]eak I've gone back. But this time I
want to stay and really get to know this
place."[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (75)[...], by APG/Hoopla/Playbox
person Graeme Blundell, and designed
for the proscenium this time, by Peter[...]ow as Les, Marion
Edward as Irene, Syd Conabere and
Brian James, distinguished performers
all, and in a nice expression of the new
deal, former APG great Evelyn Krape,
rocker and theatre musician Red
Symons and magician Doug Tremlett
from the burgeoning thea[...]was in The
One Day of the Year.

Romeril and Blundell view the play as
a "clash between Japanese culture at its
highest and Australian culture at its
lowest", for possession of Les. Romeril
like Shepard, Hare and other living
writers, says that tragedy is poss[...]hing, objectively, to a contempor
ary audience, and that it does not require
the slavish acceptance[...]the performances of
actors who can sing, dance and do
magic as well as act.

It's t[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (76)...continued from page 7 G root and her Musical Director, repeating his N[...]version with Pamela starring looks a
Theatre and more recently in straight G arey C am pbell,[...]entrepreneurial gamble.
roles in The D r e sse r and C hinchilla a one-hour pot-pourrie of the words One thing it might do is eradicate the
and, making his musical debut, Sim on and music of N oel Coward and Cole bad taste left in the mouth by las[...]Carte Opera. Incidentally, that com
and three movies, including The As I wri[...]BOOKSHOP
P r iv a te s on P a ra d e, and musical decessor as Artistic Director, P eter
d[...]rn est, which Milson was to have
H o rro r Show and a long list of directed. Opening June 11,[...]90-592 George Street.
musical shows at Marian St and P atricia Kennedy as Lady Bracknell[...]Sydney
and B arbara Wyndon as Miss Prism.
elsewhere.[...]n that somewhere.
tastes as possible.
The board and Theatre Manager, Broadway's smash-hit revival oiT[...]te night show from May 7 at 11 pm on G eorge Cole and Annie Ross in

Fridays and Saturdays with M yra de leading roles and W ilford Leach[...]ooking to provide a broader range of performances and[...]activities in all areas of the arts, theatre and music.[...]BY 30 MAY 1982 and should be directed to:-[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (77)[...]f of them are pursuing strange, distant and they turn to their playwrights, if at
said last[...]ced in 1979 has exciting for enthusiasts and cognos the office. (At least, that is mor[...]feeling of social and community and obscure in-group experimen
established writers,[...]e lost, audiences are tation?
White and Ray Lawler, returning with fracturing into in-groups and claques
new plays; and we have a wide group of of supporters -- but w[...]difference between English and attempt to suggest where an enduring[...]s' reactions to plays repertoire may be begun. And we look
comed the establishment of a national was that the English are poor and at some recent writing in an attempt to
dramatic culture which was "sudden, unhappy and they turn to their discover the value in it.

brilliant and permanent" and we listed
over 30 good playwrights to pro[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (78)[...]t to put on to be seen as an alien enemy force, and
(1912) by Steele Rudd my back, I worked hard and honestly, for 30 years people wrote plays set in
and Bert Bailey living o[...]art for one single moment, Me cattle floods and bushfires. The Drovers, in
drama, it manages to combine in one would perish and die before me very eyes spite of some awkwardness in the
play the conventionality of melo and me roofgofrom over me head with the dialogue, is the best of the genre --
dramatic plot and characters, the rough wind. But my spirit wa[...]of
sentimentality of the Australian bush and do you think you can break it now, by the huts and set its scene in the middle
legend, and the homely, small-family the Lord no. (ri[...]of the dry open plains. Briglow Bill is
wisdom and comic gentleness of the things, take mefew head of cattle and get injured in a stampede, and must be left
original Steele Rudd stories. Partl[...]: You talk about spirit, the
Bailey, part author and creator of the drought has got your crops, I 've got your move on.
role of Dad, it played on and off for 17 stock, now what can you do?
years[...]don't matter. It had to
of movies, radio serials and TV series. country, with health, strength, and come sooner or later. I've lived my life[...]rmination are always doing. I can careless and free, looking after my work
George Whaley.[...]when I was at it, and splashing my cheque[...]ood one when I struck
DAD: For years I 've faced and fought THE DROVERS (1920) civilisation. I've lived hard, droving and
the fires, the floods and the droughts of by Louis Esson horse-breaking, station work, and over
this country, I came here and cut a hole in[...]ntury the land came there 's nothing better, and death's come[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (79)[...]l miss me a
bit. . . the tracks I 've travelled, and a
star or two, and the old mulga.
BO SS: And I 'll miss you. I 've never
travelled with a bet[...]Warren, June Jago, Madge Ryan and Ethel Gabriel.
by Ray Lawler[...]no more flyin ' down out of the sun -- no and townspeople more insistent and the
have ever heard of.. It took a bob each[...]the bush legend: exploiting its beside her and striking the floor with his
sentimental power to the full and then hand) This is the dust we're in and we're THE LEGEND OF
sadly, but affectionately[...]KING O'MALLEY
hollowness. The cane-cutters, Roo and for the rest of our lives![...]by Michael Boddy and
the off-season, and discover that, by A CHEERY SOUL[...]ple who had never seen The awful goodness and terrifying popular play to take the crude
a play swam flooded rivers and drove cheerfulness of Miss Docker in thi[...]play make her one of the most imposing and apply it to a serious contemporary
emotional hol[...]ly naturalistically, bashing, American loudmouth and, by
about. It is our classic drama of the[...]n colleagues. It draws
ROO: (grabbing her wrists and holding increasingly expressionist, the[...]ap of it
-- gone!
(He throws her away from him, and she
falls to thefloor, grief-stricken, al[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (80)[...]ie D ryn an an d Sean S cu lly in N im r o d 's and the poetic. The play is not so much
Makassar Ree[...]p, romantic, shadowed the failure of spirit and nerve plays about death, and the defiant
melodramatic, comic trick in the boo[...]ee irreverence so essential to the basic
and wins through, like the traditional years later[...]me Les
and of the theatrical craftsmanship Darcy and I scaled Mount Kosciusko. Les
KING: Good-bye, Billy Hughes. needed to get it down and get it right. was in training at the time fo[...]eat bloody days weren't they. Then trunks and slouch hats. . . our bare feet[...]that ringing in or anything else for that matter and why Monk, he said, one day Australia, that
o[...]the Real did I have to cook allyour meals and wash great nation out there of soldiers and
Australia continued. Don's Party was all your clothes? Eh? Because your little sports and athletes, cereals and wool, will
an alarmingly prophetic play. Hilari[...]boy wonder pre equal hand. The Indon and Kanaka we
power, it also emotionally fore[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (81) will civilize. Out there, O'Neill, lies a compromise and disappointment, one, might include The[...]rm of the future. With rather than cancer and death. It is the Brumby Innes, Ned Kelly, Rusty Bugles,
water and work it will breed andgrow and most stylish Australian play, drawing Re[...]rilous, Norm
spread into an empire of fair play and on the grand romantic conventions of and Ahmed, Traitors, or others. Also
health and wealth and power, and wealth Casablanca et al. It then uses these, the list above stops at 1979. Instinct
and literature. with a[...]y other, to zero in on Welcome the Bright World, and
He had tears in his eyes. t[...]But it was our attempt to be
those dooks, and we 'll go a round or two give up.[...]This and Makassar Reef reveal the new
The only really goo[...].
hanky play. Rich, warm, comic, big- and subtlety of effect which the "old
hearted, Irish[...]of the 70s have found. In the
of human closeness and about loss. The play the older generation flees north to
portrait of Dan and Aggie Cassidy has the sun, sexual passion, old age and
more love in it than there is in any other death; the younger stays south with the
Australian play, and that is what makes cold, bitterness, fecundity and a new
the loss so moving, when Aggie learns[...]ly
of Dan's cancer. and movingly the ties that bind them
and the forces that drive them apart.
THE FLOATING[...]old guard" have perhaps lost,
authentic material and mixing it with but which first endeared[...]the alien region which wheatbelt of WA, and it manages to
surrounds his country, but which he bring in both the nostalgic detail of the
and most Australians have only known day to day lives of the characters and
in war. The experience thoroughly the grand issues of life and love and war
breaks down his typicality, as he relives and death which rule over them. It uses
his time as a POW on the Burma- songs, verses, poetry and comic turns in
Thailand railway, with 18 differe[...]leton. Six stone seven. I can't ZEEK: Sun, moon and stars, all sweet
tell you how good it felt. I wa[...]are. We walk the earth and gaze into
MAKASSAR REEF[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (82)[...]question the small-1 liberal credentials
AND DICKINS[...]Australian writing of the about chardonnay and home renova
analyses the '70s was droll, caricature and satire. It tions and meaningful relationships --to
newest wave[...]ished interviews with operative in our society (and the work, and work for compartmentalised
four important Austra[...]n the causes, without considering the total
and an editorial entitled "A National process of transforming it". social and political context of your
Drama?" . If, as the i[...]nal
claims, dramatists have lost touch with And yet the response to Welcome the and moral catastrophe such an attitude
their audienc[...]most serious work so
time when their articulacy and far, was controversy, not so much abou[...]the issues it raised as about whether it And yet the play is set in Germany
greater. Instead[...]modern political German films. Per
Louis Nowra and Barry Dickins. to care, yet the credibi[...]the world of the play and that of the to pursue your own interests in[...]impossible to get the society to listen to And perhaps that is why Nimrod[...]bit more complicated, and longer, than[...]theatrical sense and ability to excite,[...]intriguing ambiguity, and in Inside the[...]location and social breakdown which in[...]specific, and yet his plays are full of[...]quite deliberate, and a product of his[...]concern with the ambiguities and[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (83)[...]k. Hard work can be very their articulacy and reveal the sad,
on to. Without a framework for[...]local drama. about their past and present
-- like Ivan's tongueless victims in experiences and try to make sense of it.
Inner Voices or the sol[...]s the manic horror of the
characters' statements and actions are be precisely the huge difference[...]all confusingly relative to each between him and writers like Sewell by the suffering of the[...]akes
other, but we are led gradually along a and Nowra. Where they are intellectual cyanide, and suddenly all the blacked-
clear path to consider' the relation and distant he is aggressively personal out electrical appliances in her sad little
between power and compassion. The and emotional. Where they are room spring[...]is easy to feel theatrically disciplined and craftsman provides a social context more specif[...]for helpless victims but like, he is wild and a larrikin. Where than do Sewell or Nowra, but[...]ual.
victims. The horror of the events of the and events, he writes about the grubby
play makes compassion inevitable and a streets and bush huts around him. Whether this is a[...]or one or two actors. theatrical malaise Nowra and Sewell[...]in a politically privileged position,
Sewell and Nowra have been ac what some alienated[...]s concerned with one issue: the role
dramatists, and yet in each there[...]Dickins' plays seem at first creasingly chaotic and difficult political
society for which they write. Neither to be drunken ramblings for his and social world. Perhaps, as David
has written much[...]characters. The structure is precise: Hare, and Donald Horne before him,
Australia (a fact in wh[...]stralia is still too materially
take some pride) and so what specific talkative, articulate characters, and contented to be concerned with the
personal o[...]INSIDETHE ISLAND INSIDE THE ISLAND and[...]Sarah de Jong and notes by
AUSTRALIAN OPERA AUSTRALIAN OPERA[...]directors Neil Armfield and
rrp $35.95[...]s set in a rural
entertaining and scholarly[...]before World War I, the
and its personalities during[...]China and both dramatically
Australia's[...]THE OVERCOAT THE OVERCOAT and SIN[...]ool1,lahra NSW 2025 and introductions by Paul
Distributed by Camb[...]ess McGillick and Paul
Sydney and Melbourne[...]Gogol's famous story and[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (84)[...]Playscripts and The list itself is also very impressive. It[...]Fewster's Black Chrysanthemums and Harry[...]Peggy Sue and John Romeril's Bastardy. In[...]who got tired of seldom being able to find F and Goodbye Ted; Barry Dickins' Lonely
Australian sc[...]et through even their current Midnight VC and Phil Motherwell's
become a large publisher, stil[...]further on the plays themselves next month
and a more varied list. There are now many[...]but for now let us welcome and wish well a[...]sell for $2.00 (or central part of our drama (and particularly
It is exciting, then, to welcome[...], with p&p) which many of the Carlton plays) and get them out
specialist publisher of playscripts[...]the amateur and schools market for several[...]closed community drama of violence and[...]violence and distorted love" -- which[...]Nowra's Inside the Island and The Precious[...]Woman in one volume (rrp S9.95) and Jack[...]Hibberd's The Overcoat and Sin in another[...]elsewhere in this issue. The Overcoat and[...]Composer and Librettist in the play meant[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (85)[...]Boohshops
stage, screen and TV writers should ANPC, 12 William Lane,
b[...](between Pitt & Castlereagh)
Associate Members, and receive many The Australia Council. The[...]127 York Street,
Conference. Helps new and established North Sydney, 2060.[...]ph 29 7799
writers, mainly by workshopping and
ONLY AUSTRALIAN BOOKS and Books on the Pacific.
YACKANDAH PLAYSCRIPTS AND MANY HOPE TO COME! inc.
First re Iease Au[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (86)[...]resents them as if they are merely going
casting and[...]uperannuated spies continue to emerge desires and hatreds of a miscellaneous[...]acks, leaving the way homosexuality is no joke; and when he
searchingly lit up this long-running sca[...]of March 5). Mr techniques of secrecy and betrayal. Result: a
Another Country (Queen's) ex[...]Everett (Bennett) and Kenneth Branagh
life. Apart from a visiting uncl[...]instant stardom; and the show as a whole
consists entirely of boys, exuding serious and unashamed homosexual, and marks a triumph in juvenile casting.[...]rxist, maddened
sophisticated inexperience and by the incessant interruptions that prev[...]ules to

R u p ert E v e re tt as G uy B ennett and Kenneth Branagh as T om m y J u d d in Ano[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (87)[...]Guare plays Gardenia and Women and
set in three joke provincial towns and[...]ieutenant's Woman), yet another movie
alcoholism and sexual intrigue who are[...]And as if this were not enough,[...]conversation Though East is East and West is West, the times of tight money an ang[...]ic outlets. One of
while the master is in Spain, and is showing days on the stages of Broadway and off- the company's first ventures will be J[...]ix doors Broadway. Film makers, movie stars and Pielmeir's drama Agnes of God starring
sh[...]es from Televisionland have Elizabeth Ashley and Geraldine Page.
sardines. Throughout the evening, those all suddenly decided to come East and go[...]he first tried his hand at stage direction off-
and other props that become increasingly Already come and gone: Broadway l[...]William Friedkin (The French Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean,
appearance. Connection, The Exorcist) and his version of Jimmy Dean, handling a cast of 11[...]is sadly
Meanwhile, it is one in the morning and One with Anne Bancroft and Max von obvious. Apart from choosing a[...]and to let each actor go her own direction --
combined dress and technical rehearsal; and Sydow; Suzanne Pleshette and Richard not his. It's all very sl[...]making Giant nearby and the reunion[...]ch fan member
man can never complete a sentence; and the has come back with A Secret and the[...]sterility, mastectomy and transexual trans
than leaking secrets about her[...]ps have much

deteriorated since the rehearsal, and there is

some question of whether the pensione[...]ing barricaded

herself into her dressing room, and the

leading man having sworn vengeance on his C her and S an dy D en nis in Come

rival to her affections. Amidst this crisis and Back. . . P hoto: J ea n P ag liu so

the secre[...]on), to pacify the Special Occasions -- it opened and closed

ingenue unbeknown to the pregnant ASM,[...]eded by the mute Alfred. Both Ms Pleshette and Ms
visible drama round the back. It is a Dunaway received favourable comment
calamitous ballet of entrances through
wrong doors, mixed-up props, attempted and were encouraged to return in more[...]can Buffalo. Movie
shoe-laces knotted together), and director Robert Altman (M *A*S*H[...]e most deliriously with Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy
funny exercise in organised chaos I[...]een for many a day. and Sandy Dennis. Off-Broadway film

24 THEA[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (88)[...]ors -- an oddly truncated view shades of Ibsen and O'Neill are lurking pretensions but the[...]All the performances are effective and
town's curiosity, "The truly momentous[...]tightrope of comedy, cynicism and pathos);
surroundings, but certainly she is a sp[...]ohn Guare's hundred
the pivotal role in the play and her non in Sofia, 20 June -- 6 July. The ITI General nuances and just as in the film Atlantic City
performance ro[...]ers for an outdoor exhibition during the
vocally and physically inept -- she really festival. O[...]nal mention of another West Coast
has to be seen and heard, not to be believed. country, town, proper name and surname of visitor, television's Donny Osm[...]the artist, year of birth, title and author of ever-smiling Mr Osmond will star as a[...]eorge M will
a coming together of director, cast and play[...]it is the play that is the star. John A MUSIC AND DANCE Broadway we[...]t American comedies will be held in Dresden and Leipzig in the Potts Point, NSW, 2011.
of[...]fer" was RICHARD WAGNER
melodramatic, and if I gave you details it opened on Septemb[...]festival in 1982 Wolfgang Wagner,
double suicide and hereditary syphillis. But[...]rk the centenary
contradicts itself. It is spare and plain[...]and Isolde, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg
symbols and metaphors; it is small, but and The Flying Dutchman will also be on this
ambitio[...]THE
ghost play and along with the characters the[...]and Brisbane on a 5 week Australian tour[...]between February and April 1983.[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (89)[...]carefully moved and carefully lit, with good institutions that se[...]accent work and fine make up, and perhaps partners; the brothel and the pomshop.
Words and the greatest triumph, a unity of style that Outside the carousel, and often encroaching[...]amateur. The dialogue is so full if ideas that and neurotic celibacy of the priest and the
EINSTEIN[...]ed back to the play by a chuckle fall of man, and the poison it brings into[...]Whaley gave a relationships between men and women.
by M arguerite Wells[...]ble women as equals, not watch a brilliant and sensitive man settling to diminish the power[...]preparation for a puts a highly individual and comestible
redress centuries of wrongs, but simp[...]perhaps some people who ask more of and social psychology, treating a problem
any other[...]problems of his life were puts it brilliantly and beautifully, weaving
lifetime, but probably not.[...]e, I in fact pretty much out of his control, and images of light and shadow, tinkling
shall certainly be too old to c[...]ed feel no guilt. prettiness and raucous ugliness, crystallis
fought all the necessary battles in youth and ing an aspect of our society that has
middle-age. And those battles will have Images from the Background is a series of certainly existed and does exist, although it
been fought against my o[...]nst the happier gener myths that define men and women.
ation of our grandchildren, who, with any[...](Fortune),
luck, will be free of the infection, and will violence against women; It Bleeds, It Slee[...]arch, 1982.
raise a quizzical eyebrow at history and (reviewed in TA under its original title,[...]would tell them. petuated by lairy stories and the morality of Cluskey; Dramaturg, Michael Bo[...]ised by the company. Third play in the
purposes, and his divorce from his first story. What rem[...]for the rest of her life. His first wife images and secondly the sounds. Within the Director, C[...]igent woman to marry a brilliant man. romance and prettiness, of the warmth and Doyle; The Whore, Josephine Lolicato; The[...]ies. Two of the characters, the
younger Einstein and the middle-aged one,
never communicate directly[...]ther, but only through the old Einstein, a
large and demanding role. None of the three
was what you would call a man of action and
the action of the play is indoors, behind
desks and the most exciting things that you
s,,w happen were the young Einstein rocking
a cradle and the middle-aged one emptying
a suitcase o[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (90)s.w.

Social and sexual
injustice

THE SUICIDE ~[...]r o d 's The Suicide.
ated by stories of suicide and self-
destruction. Three of the plays reviewed[...]this month deal with such themes, through and is immediately besieged by represent Resid[...]ect atives of various factions, interests and and highly adaptable set, rather reminiscent
ively, Russian, South African and cliques, all wanting him to gain p[...]ommitting suicide of opportunity opened on air and the
common ground, in that in each case the[...]se, corridors of possibility were endless and led
fatal choice appears to lie with the[...]The flattery and kind treatment to which
The outstanding play[...]that Semyonovich his sense of self-love, and Sydney at the Wayside Theatre, is a
was banned in rehearsal by Stalin and has therefore his love of life, and he becomes "something is rotten in the state[...]sweeten the pill.
Aubrey Mellor's translation and arrange with great force and wit: one can see Stalin's The setting is a rundown Johannesburg
ment of the text and his sensitive pacing and point. It chronicles the particular failure of
direction add much to enchant and absorb the Bolshevik Revolution to meet t[...]legitimate needs and aspirations of the fiftieth birthday, and her lover (whom we
the audience.[...]hum anitarian and involving on an birthday party, with crisps, slab cake and
overcome: in recommending the play to[...]gaiety. Leila Blake's Milly is a heart
title and a reluctance to risk being depressed Stalin's p[...]laywright. the theatre after this, and succeeded in little higher than beer and sausages on a
Nobody wants to go any closer to t[...]ressing: it goes a nevertheless a lasting one, and Aubrey doomed to frustration. There is a deep
comical and roundabout way to affirm the Mellor deserv[...]hat of a
value of life. It re-discovers a reason and a
potential to go on living and it strikes a spectacular revival.[...]illiterate
in drama is a very fundamental one, and it gains our sympathy almost stealthily,[...]ys, gradually taking us into his confidence and Shorty to escape and now wants to marry
whether or not the writers a[...]e has become in a (Robert Dallas) is unemployed and pro
tragi-comedy, uncompromising in its attack sense Everyman, and he has the audience bably unemployable, a cynic who sees too
on dehumanising bureaucracy and hypo[...]Briefly, an unemployed man, Semyon and precision to achieve some dazzling Th[...]visual effects and brilliantly executed scene
Semyonovich ([...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (91)[...]ess {Hard Knocks) Kate Fitzpatrick and Malcolm Robertson
continued[...]confidence and control. She has evidently a were splendi[...]ghly original talent which would perhaps and wicked eyes, and he crusty and cranky
colour of their skin conveys tangible[...]uch as the Nimrod or the STC. Beauty and the Beast. In the foppish,
scrap heap. The atmos[...]y, The she was quite restrained and well-behaved,
of the play's emotional content, t[...]be stealing the show. Barbara Stephens and
social problem. It is not a pleasant[...]istance, very funny. Fortunately, warmth and humanity to Bellmda and[...]drama. and a highly experienced cast, under the c[...]ligent production:
bizarre one-act plays written and directed[...]y is a very difficult, stylised speeches, and the cut and
Company at the Stables Theatre. They take[...]Melody Cooper's set was admirably un
black and whimsical: they explore the cluttered and helped to focus close attention
territory between reality and fantasy. In L eila B la k e in S tu d io S[...]e Sydney, NSW. Opened March 24, 1982.
news and is gradually persuaded that she because it[...]Angela Punch
drama, applying it to her own life and[...]Skinner; Alexander
interleaving her own memories and ex- The theme of Vanbrugh's play is[...]th the fiction until they are infidelity, and to judge by the audience's Annie Byron;[...]opatra Maximovna, H eather
portrait of a husband and wife who clearly ment of it struck many a sy[...]ivid emasculation scene, pleasures in taverns and whore-houses, but People A re Living The[...]himself. He would like to have his cake and Director, Graham Corry; Designer, Billy N[...]rs; Stage Manager,
were a source of both delight and irritation.[...]fessional).
from a more disciplined construction and all
three endings were more or less unsatis[...]Director and Designer, Mil Perrin; Lighting Designer,
Perrin,[...]man, Marilyn
gersent showed considerable courage and[...]ngersent.
concentration, as the hapless husband, and[...]ple of well-observed
portraits of the TV suicide and the[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (92)[...]and Chicago for the STC, Amadeus is a[...]was quite superb and contributed signific[...]Mozart and Linda Cropper as his wife both[...]knocked from its pedestal, and from what[...]curiously cruel play, for all its qualities, and[...]Tom Stoppard's Night and Day, directed[...]performances from Tom Oliver and John

Performance o f a ' Iago, who ruthlessly[...]art Frawley and from two relative newcomers,
I and soul and finds them black. On stage and Paul Williams and Monroe Reimers, a[...]generous helping of Stoppard's witty and
lifetime ! in[...]; Gaden's control of the audience and sheer and adaptable revolving set by David Spode[...]and one clever stage illusion, which[...]One reservation about the production

NIGHT AND DAY \ warm dressing-gown and a wooly hat concerns the c[...]tricksy and intrusive: Stoppard over-uses it
Sydney's theatr[...]nt of riches at the moment, with the powdered wig and he is instantly the seemed[...]composer of forty journalist, and not allowing himself enough[...]room and time to make the most of such
not getting the au[...]newspaper styles.
impossible to see everything, and this court, his intrigues are distnctly[...]They could be set anywhere and peopled
-- American Dreams at the Bondi Pavilion[...]plot, comedy and characterisation as
The Anniversary at the Phili[...]diversionary tactics, to soften up his
Theatre and Leftovers by Cacophony at the siderable and his success enormous (he a[...]its paws,
Australia goes to press -- the Sydney and is rarely performed. His tragedy was up asking for more, and then he tells it to sit

Theatre Company's A ma[...]ng Mozart, Fate delivered up and think about something.[...]is a Zen belief that laughter can trip the
Royal and Night and Day by Tom Stoppard into his hands the genius he[...]madeus is a rather grand play by Peter greatness, and he did everything possible to

Shaffer, based on the death-bed claim by a thwart the composer's hopes and drive him

rival composer, Salieri, that he was to penury, drink and despair.

instrumental in Mozart's premature de[...]such a

style, to suit both the subject matter and the pitiable humanity in the old man, such a

p[...], he gives us perhaps the This is masterly acting and the result is a

performance of a lifetime, a character subtle, complex and penetrating portrayal

pitched somewhere between Faustus and that will live long in the imagination.[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (93) mind into enlightenment by opening one of QLD.> this and a production as incisive, the play
the doors of[...]th. A spell was
forefather: their shock tactics and under[...]O'Neill.
The subjects under debate in Night and NIGHT[...]March 16, 1982.
the morality of journalism and the freedom by Jeremy Ridgman[...]a cynical It is gone midnight: James Tyrone and his Mark Lee, Karen Crone.
(staff) journ[...]es of drunken
does a necessary job with courage and stupor, numbed by the accusations[...]itment
the gutter press through a divorce case, and pressed hatred towards his brother, whos[...]rth he sees as responsible for their HELL AND HAY
of Economics. mother's morphine addiction, and the[...]but the debate is strictly controlled by and high on morphine, a somnambulist in
the playwright and we hear only what is another world, to recall her "sad dream" of A group of victims and outcasts, for political
pertinent to the play of ideas. lost innocence and brief happiness with reasons rejected by[...]d vastness, where
which our pre-conceived ideas and de grandeur of purpose and poetic respectab the cultural baggage brou[...]l the shock of displacement is too great and
journalists, not millionaires. The idealist[...]ot. "We go expecting to hear a playwright and country. Others remain, are acted upon by[...]environment even as they endeavour to
Night and Day is rich in ideas, which are[...]make their mark on it, and find eventually
presented with insight and humour in The QTC's rigorous p[...]fully towards a committed playing migrants and exiles being in fact no[...]he Theatre Royal, Sydney, NSW. fession and an aggressive physicalisation of sadly include[...]stumes, Anne Fraser; Lighting, Nigel brother and father. All four performances Hell and Hay is a tough-minded and
Levings; Assistant Director, Ralph Kerle; Musica[...]Emperor Joseph the broken spirit beneath, and Elaine play uses as its taking-off poin[...]musical nervous intensity, only occasionally and Austrian political and racial refugees
Baron von Swieten, Ron Hackett;[...]Edmund (partly O'Neill as potential enemies and brutally dis
Sharp; Salieri's Cook, Ray Hadfield; Teresa Salieri, himself and therefore without motivating patched in 1940 to Australia and there
Lyn Collingwood; Katherina Cavalieri, Satu[...]and popular cultures; the bourgeois and the
Director, Terence Clarke; Designer, D[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (94)vernacular, the imported and the native. The the Grimm-like Wicked Queen[...]gee energy is Dario Fo's We Can t Pay? We
music, and which sounds suspiciously like Dwarfs, a[...]ish-localised
the ultimate focus of self-respect and self-[...]ligal -- Dachau ionalisation of reformist parties and unions
regarded as the pre-eminent civili[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (95)[...]1980 the quintessential Festival show (and with the Eliotesque trinity of birth,,[...]that I can imagine Jim Sharman copulation and death.

ADELAIDE[...]al encounter in the hotel lobby:
G u a r d i a n and Michael of all the performing[...]antithesis of ironic detachment and political mumbed that I had just read White's
b[...]e, the play had also become an indifference and fixed his gaze on nothing in[...]MICHAEL and a political Utopianism. Hare increas In[...]deal of low-key poor-mouthing of the event: and what made his Festival play so moving in Dub[...]ement than what it must have cost Adelaide and A line in Signal Driver haunts me. As th[...]ached this exalted level. Patrick White's face and find out what she's been living for
predilections and recurrent human Signal Driver, thoug[...]s. If I had to characterise the 1982 John Wood and Melissa Jaffer as a warring landscape was a t[...]clinging perilously together exciting festival and, as he admitted in the
between a fascination wit[...]series I chaired in Elder
solitude, rootlessness and a raucous celebr structure to support its inte[...]from the cry of the cornered human time-span. And Melbourne Playbox It emerged most p[...]Sam Shepard's the Edward Hopper exhibition and the Sam
exultation of the liberated human body (one Buried Child and Curse of the Starving Class, Shepard plays pres[...]on the though again well acted by Gary Files and Theatre Company of Melbourne
ceiling) in Ci[...]Map of the World
For me this mixture of angst and joy was architectural design: in both plays[...]shortly afterwards in which
female relationships and had the skull Berlioz's The Damnation of[...]indberg plays the Australian Youth Orchestra) and that and decided to leave his wife.
in one evening. And 1980, the most also reached out to em[...]le sausage on the exceptionally stimulating and brilliantly[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (96)[...]you not already everything, in and out of time -- especially[...]ge we hunger for a sign, an compassion and wisdom, and, in their
monolithically scaled high-tech design[...]knowledge of certain and perpetual judge[...]Then come Theo and Ivy. They are
with a rousing chorus of "Don't Cr[...]marriage, in faith, in death we hunger for a and Ivy are in the process of becoming.
into the "Bi[...]means more than the Theo is a carpenter, and a thwarted artist.
recital programs with the rig[...]er of BB), turning green at offering to God; and Ivy, the believer, love into a partnershi[...]old hard, burning in a cold practical and businesslike. Fooled by[...]menopause to an old age of fire and anger,
either Peter Stein or Pina Bausch to work[...]ector of the a beat, lose time, miss a connexion, and audience, whose awareness of re[...]the rest of our shelter from among us, and reach for us, the[...]and humanity. But we are different from
have left behind; and a frantic, hilarious day noticed. Believing that things ought to Ivy and Theo in that we can see and hear the
with jazz singer George Melly as we zoo[...]in the theatre not of it, not
round the Hopper, and Brian Thomson's demned. Together.[...]d to nowhere severs us
context of interior decor and a photographic from shelter, Being and Becoming.

slide-show of world events.[...]Australis, the set animates. Amid fog and[...]and encroaching landscape, lifts and is
visit the Festival Centre and find it painted drawn up and over the audience. It covers,[...]engulfs, swallows, buries, inculpates,
up and sitting in the middle of an open air[...]and cast have genuinely tested the weight
Although i[...]and substance of the work. At its first[...]was a sacrifice of surprise and the sharpness[...]of those flaws and fragments of quicksilver
affair. The style was s[...]re the heart of the
with five minutes for anyone and skidding[...]between John Wood and Melissa Jaffer, in
discussions and official functions. He has the first and particularly in the third act.[...]hallenging yet generally

accessible programme; and perhaps most

importantly of all, he now begins[...]ump a little even when the circus has left effect and consequence. It involves the

town.[...]ages" in a typical married relationship.

Being and The action o[...]iver?

Som eth in control, something which sees and of vast import. White accommodates

or ignores[...]ravellers- both in this piece for four players and a
those who are to be transported.[...]"
and gives them the status of "Beings" . They[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (97)S.A.

ness of tone, the blend "f innocence and
experience are exceptional. There is,
however,[...]tment of the Beings there is
some loss of energy and potential. They are
scored to come in under the Vokes, to stay
aside and play apart. One craves more of the
satirical sna[...]f media sociology in Act One. Both
Peter Cummins and Kerry Walker, armed
with the quirks and moods of Carl Vine's
music, have power to spare. Their Mo and
po-faced creations deserve the licence to
rip into the underbelly of seriousness and
challenge the Vokes and the audience to
reach for greater heights of awa[...]effort. We are long past the point
of "waiting" and there never was much joy
in Lucky's dance.

Si[...]ialogue Hare's own views of himself as writer and
and debate here, and David Hare's sharp, social commentator, actually allows the
PERCY AND ROSE balanc[...]characters identity, room to breathe in, and,[...]ersion of a night old expressionist mono -- and station --
Although David Hare's Map of the Worl[...]lves, rather than us
appropriateness of personal and political dumped limply on stage durin[...]f the
convictions, the roles of the intellectual and of the debate trying to work out where to[...]e, if slightly women in Licking Hitler and Dreams of stands as an embarrassing in[...]you-don't-
particular brand of languid tolerance and out, on closer examination, to be much[...]No-one expects a
disillusionment in the cultured and some more complicated and ambiguous. The writer to provide nea[...]swers to questions he raises in his work.
it all and expects not so much to make the struggl[...]l. readiness to take the questions seriously and[...]and the author's interest[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (98)[...]yhounds
real hotel to reveal suddenly the camera and[...]in England.
lights of a film studio, is lame, and too[...]Point/knocked back by Antonioni,
relative values and modified attitudes.[...]Smith, hung around with Bob Dylan, and
TerrificIrony and ambivalence are one thing: but[...]r his play Buried

"you think I say what I mean and then find[...]play that would win the Pulitzer Prize, I
and clear ideaswhat I say" is not a game I am particu[...]about a family."

ideology, scepticism, action and reflection, CURSE OF THE[...]forgotten some of them, and so has everyone
apt when set against this vaguel[...](And the best of both are in a similarly
honest, thoughtful and intelligent. Robert Writers like Sam Shepa[...]up a lot of people's noses. Maybe it's critical and celebratory.)
stil provides us in his portrayal[...]iter -- he's a maverick who
over the last years. And Roshan Seth's j And it gets in the way of his work, uses[...]Starving
Nor would I wish to deny the play's wit and "Extraordinary handsomeness. . . what Class written 1976, and Angel City produced[...]and settings, arcane dialects and languages,
of purpose. And no critic should expect a hermetic imagery, and a private mythology[...]Class, Buried Child and True West, he has
there is a serious and important play to be[...]a fascination with toasters, artichokes, and[...]fe? Maybe they
My response to Rob George's Percy and[...]ays have created
title at least avoids the trite and cheap interest and controversy. What we want to[...]critics and publicists, because they have[...]ng Grainger for the

important composer he was, and shifts him

out of the comfortable "Country Gardens"

and " Shepherd's Hey" drawers, someone

with a slig[...]__________________

the subject. Not that Percy and Rose seems the camera overlooks in favour of[...]ral flaws that give his face a rugged
in places, and the last twenty minutes are a quality. From on[...]skew. His profile on the other hand
where sadism and fantasy hold hands, some is distinctly patrician." (Esquire 2/80)
of Grainger's monologues and the scenes
between him and his fiancee, Margot. For Is this[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (99)[...]ashioned
about the subject matter ofBuried Child and Gothic Americana, owing as much to First the frenetic Londoner arrived and
Curse of the Starving Class. The idea of there
being such a thing as an obligation in your rhythms and concerns of American cultural told us all that he[...]to the Greeks, -- or discoveries like jazz and rock, TV and that Australian theatre hadn't learnt
to O'Neill who tried to make it American, movies, plenty and poverty as God or anything since his last visit f[...]and then in The Fall of the House O f Usher
Shepa[...]him an American, by terrific performances and a clear idea of he was still angry, unlike other English
his obsession now with roots and rootless
ness, obligations and walking out, place and how to present the texts. Pulvers lets all the playwrights he could mention and did. . .
homelessness, in a paradise of plenty.[...]gives space for the mono Then Pina Bausch hit us, and she had the gall
is, the "real" America is bount[...]plays the comedy where it exists, to call it 1980 and we thought it was 1982, and
the plays are set in poverty, both of spirit and doesn't shrink from making the most of maybe Berkoff was right and in Australian's
and food. the extravagances, the over-the-top still 1977, and anyway, wasn't she obsessive[...]moments with sheep, blood, broken bottles, and boring?
Whatever the form Shepard chooses to[...]And in between the papers were full ofthe
television[...]of all he has obtained from the Adelaide Festival and how David Hare
Strindberg) there's still the ele[...]formances, where despite occasional accent about, and even if it wasn't very theatrical it
in the way his characters talk in their
frequent monologues. And there's also the troubles, each character has a single face was socially "engaged" and it had cost a
extravagant imagery present, except in and stays with it for the whole production. fortune s[...]do with I especially admired the work of Gary and Pinder was telling us that the Comic
the land, soil, blood, death, not with rock, Files, Maggie Millar and Peter Hosking. Strip had revoutionised comedy, so[...]n the design. These plays offer better laugh. . . and Patrick White had[...]signer a choice between Norman written a new play and nobody seemed sure
For example, there's the live sheep on Rockwell and Edward Hopper. You can fill whether it was significant or merely
stage in Starving Class, dead at the end, and the stage with a prop collectors dream of inte[...]Buried Child. and actors to operate as real, yet emble that it was 1982 and that the Mill Theatre
This field, from where[...]s Oz, Stephen Sewell,
abundance of corn, carrots and where the
dead child is buried, is a Field of Plenty, a put in there, like the sheep live and dead, John Romeril et al had been, and were still,
good example of the forceful but not corn, shaven heads and the like. Corrigan i around even if we can't quit[...]entirely clean imagery in these later plays. and Pulvers have rightly put these big ideas work yet, afterall they're only local and god[...]obtrude, yet set the scene in the featureless and Wuppertal.
"see" and "work" ? What does it represent? America between the Rockies and the
The fecund land, hope, a rosy future as[...]y this is not Curse of the S tarvin g Class and B u ried Child by Playbox and Anthill and a plethora of one-
(intentionally no doubt) comp[...]Sam Shepard. Playbox Theatre, Adelaide Festival and offs, the competition is hardly vigorous.
out -[...], Peter Cor Beverley Dunne's affectionate and un
Greeks and O'Neill, a probe from on the rigan; Stag[...]ichele documents from Australian history and
surface of the story.[...]Gary Files, Bevan literature, pleasant and solid, full ofheart but
It's the same with th[...]invention; and Bruce Myles' production of
These Shepardian flashes, from a child of and Berkoff[...]chie Bunker, marginal
Americans between New York and Cali AS WE ARE[...]Athenaeum. Never have so many minds and
The plays operate on the edge between[...]o hard to realise so few ideas
complete banality and something really[...]-- the sheer ugliness of the set and the

resonant, enriching.[...]Gallagher Show look artistic and sensitive.

you stand in regard to America, and things[...]Scott-Pendlebury's Celia and Edwin[...]and life, but the fact that they seemed to[...]characters expressly comment on and

Audiences and some theatre companies in debunk the main[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (100)[...]uro has a multiplicity of focus and the script is
communism, and the words or the acting[...]only a part of it; what really is at issue and of

aren't really the issue because it's all ab[...]ordinary visual images", which is between theatre and life. Was that a "real" /

A m aster class inaf[...]ast stop or wa^
expected to understand -- colour and it an actor? How do you tell? Is that plain

ac[...]Playbox to easily romp home with artistic show -- and do I really have to show my

direction intact o[...]'s the HOUSE GUEST
Australian work and intelligent readings of inspector? The Bus and Tram shows have

overseas work.[...]its value as a than Travelcard ever could, and en route

try-out place for committed theatre a[...]hat invariably there is a sense of j

discovery and exploration on some front, j[...]guests, each with a visiting celebrity from

and the White Slaves by Canadian writer, |[...]tellyland. And there the similarity ended.

George F Walker sh[...]s Durbridge's "smash hit thriller" as

director and a writer unknown in Australia, j[...]Macnee, of the late lamented Avengers

and sharply realised directorial vision, and[...]lf Garnett for some years.

actors as inventive and polished as Jillian[...]House Guest is exactly like every other

Murray and Ian Scott being challenged by a[...]into the lives of a modestly famous or

visual and performance style, and which[...]telephoning, and off-stage there is always a

naturalistic, mode[...]cottage in the country where something

and daughter murderesses -- failed to shade vital and mysterious is happening. People

and inflect the acerbic wit of Ryan's writing[...]at least one character is bumped off on

Murray and Simon Hughes. Batt's direction stage, and there are lots of totally

lacked style and a sense ofparticular purpose B e ve rle y Dunn[...]Edwin H odgem an CJaques) and G ary held together by dialogue that flickers with
and relied on easily achieved moments of[...]musing lines which never quite amount to
tension and humour. The tackiness of the

design looked eve[...]wit.

Dombroski's meticulous aesthetic and gave A s You Like It by Shakespeare. Melbourne Th[...]re. Opened March 31,1982. has to be ultra-glossy, and here Gene

theatre.[...]hard Prins; Banducci's set of bland colours and[...], James on the head. The women wear elegant and
theatre is going ahead, with the Murray[...]ht, is now into its second extended Ram ona and the White Staves by George F Walker. him. He[...]actress wife, managing to inject some
and back. Both shows not only take theatre (Alt[...]concern and grief, whilst both Polly Low
everyday environmen[...]ath in the Fam ily by Colin Ryan, La Mama. and Sher Guhl valiantly struggle with the
and director Mark Shirrefs have created a Open[...]ing, Robert decorative ones. Raymond Duparc and[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (101)[...]with Ralph C otterill and Natalie Bate.[...]Matthews and Steve Johnson; music Carroll, Angela Punch-McGregor and
Conference; Artistic Director, George[...]th e N a g a T rip e by Rendra;
Australian plays and only national Chappie, Margie McCrae and Tony director, Chris Johnson; wi[...]. Throughout May. Downes and Barry Otto. Starts May 19.
FOOLS GALLERY THEATRE[...]director, Phil Cusack; with Steele and John Stone. To May 16.
the series I m a g e s f r o m the Jacki Weaver and John Waters. N e w S k y devised and performed by
B a c k g r o u n d . To May 1. Ori[...]udith Anderson with original music
by Jo Fleming and Tony Cox. May 5- MARIAN STREET TH[...]a y by Tom Stoppard; Leonard Bernstein and Stephen
JIGSAW THEATRE COMPANY[...]Quast, Jon Ewing and Deidre
schools. S la u g h te r by the company.[...]aw. C hildren's show. T h e o d o ra and T he C o m m u n i c a t io n
PLAYHOUSE (496488)[...]a c A r t h u r In S h o w for primary schools and
Blue Folk Community Arts present[...]L o f to m a n ia devised, written and T h e A n n i v e r s a r y by Bril M c[...]n Harvey. Starts May 19. Enzo Toppano and Peggy Mortimer. Salter, Alan Wilso[...]and Belinda Giblin. Into May. G o d 's[...]S a fe ty in N u m b e r s by Philip Scott and[...]Luke Hardy; director and designer,
THE ALMOST MANAGING
COMPANY (307211[...]on; designer,
Yoshi Tosa; with Diana Greentree and
Don Reid. To May 15.
GRIFFIN THEATRE[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (102)[...]AND ^ director, John Noble; with[...]^ Don Barker, David Hursthouse, John
Stewart and Mark Bramble; director
and choreographer, Baayork Lee,[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (103)[...]Carrillo Gantner and Katherine
B o o t s 'n A l l continues to ur of[...]WA
and directed by Andy Lemon. Suitable[...]in P ic t u r e s by Neil
W o l f b o y devised and directed by Peter[...]Sander, Maurie Ogden and Pippa[...]and K i n g L e a r by William[...]Shakespeare; designed and directed
RESTAURANT (4192869)[...]Rod Hall and Glen Hitchcock. To may[...]National Theatre Company present
and Rob Meadows. All through May.[...]RINCESS MAY THEATRE,
O n e M o ' T im e w ritten and directed by[...]Interstar and Paul Elliott present
lyric theatre of New Orleans (1926). Blundell and designed by Peter P y ja m a T o p s by Mawby Green and Ed[...]erick Parslow. John Inman and Reg Gillam. To May[...](3753500)
Tess Lyiostys, Stella Tarrant and Athenaeum 2: N a r r o w F e i n t by[...]Knight, directed by William Gluth and Rosemary Crossley. Year N in[...]Kalgoorlie and Esperance districts.
RESTAURANT (4196225)[...]rn show) May 4-22. making.
Kelso & Curtis and Double Take May Mill Club, Sats. 9.30-11am. Drama and
cra[...]during school holidays. 10.30am and[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (104)[...]Supper specialities include hot or cold seafood and international cuisine from[...]ith a variety of seafood, chefs Dany Chouet and Ken Michael.
SUMMIT (279777)[...]dney. W orld's largest revolving Cnr Stanley and Yurong Sts, East Turner and John O'May with
restaurant. Magnificent 360 degree Sydney. Lunch Mon-Fri, dinner and delectable deserts, coffee and liqueurs
panoramic views of city ahd harbour.[...]cards accepted. Average $22. Long show.
and dancing. Free night parking in established a[...]Hilton Hotel, cnr W ellington Pde and
bottle wine per person. Suppers from NIEUW AM[...]-
charge $5 per person). Credit cards Dinner and supper Tues-Sat 8pm -- 11.30pm for casual[...]d. Average $12. Dutch chef, offer both hot and cold suppers for
(2331094) Ron, serves seafood and international those seeking an after-show ven[...]ney. cuisine. Suppers are their speciality and even have a weight-watchers
Luxurious garden restaurant right in and a large choice of light dishes are section on[...]WALNUT TREE (3284409)
atmosphere. By day and sun pours THE CAULDRON (311523)[...]n-Fri, dinner Mon-Sat. Licensed.
night the stars and city lights are The restaurant features 2 bar[...]here before the floor, disco music, courtyard and open quality international menu served in
sho[...]licensed restaurant offers superb and the service will be quick and
MARIAN STREETTHEATRE (4983166) internat[...]CASSIM'S (2675328) executed and served and stuning French food. If you love good food and
16-22 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney. theatre[...]elbourne's social set this
Lunch Mon-Fri, dinner and supper under one roof. That's the menu at[...]ust.
Mon-Sat. Licensed. Average $17. Ken and Lilian H orler's brand new
Credit cards accepted[...]E, please ring Jaki Gothard with
theatre dinners and for late suppers. 6pm) and dinner from 7-8.30pm; details o[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (105)[...]ney Dance Company. committed himself and has not finished his
O P E R A _______________[...]es in Brisbane Gail Holst (ex-Nation Review music writer)
presented to Patrick White in the[...]ing a new work to two recent and major is in Greece to make the film[...]scores: Barry Conyngham's Mirage and[...]On the same program will English, German and Greek. Since then she[...]untitled, is based on the life and works of[...]and political implications of his popular[...]a new era of energy and achievement in 1983 NATIONAL MUSIC[...]tiative, this time it will Storry Walton's Film and Television successful for the 1981[...]y music scene rolling series of seminars and workshops on Israel Philharmonic, Shalom[...]ted that there will be public
might do the same) and actually goes to with the growth in the numbers and stature concerts in Sydney by the AYO. T[...]of Australian composers, and the develop orchestra is now consideri[...]ing film and television industry, a realistic European e[...]rkshop continuing over a period of 24 and its fame is spreading rapidly. Its 1980
GIVE THE[...]e Seymour Group into the inevitable gripe and bitch session) Last month's article on The[...]balanced view, the Biennale of
Renard, produced and directed by Barry[...]Sydney is presenting a major survey of
Moreland, and a new work, The Serpent EUROPEAN DREAMTIME performance art and sound, devised by
Rainbow, choreographed by Barr[...]g. Spread over much of the
land with Kelvin Coe, and other key The famous collaboration[...]grapher Jiri Kylian and three major performances will be[...]su and Luciano Berio has been postponed. Bien[...]in 1975 for Music Rostrum and collared my cassette catalogue which inc[...]slipped Music a cassette sampler of music and[...]80 to absorb performance groups who work and live in[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (106)[...]It has been touted for years that guarded and not available. Try asking demand for information[...]s
Information is the new currency. It is
bought and sold. It is coveted and the ABC for information. Even its poor grew and goes on to detail various
feared.[...]g about displaced jobs.
Computerisation was chic and neat. activities, and of our needs, in order to * Artforce bi-monthly n[...]The arts were hardly touched by sustain and develop them. As the (6,000 recipients) related t[...]Board itself says: "As the artistic grants alone and with special
usually for accounting purposes. Then
along came Computicket and Bass and activities of a nation grow, accurate sup[...]miliar with the new
computer type-face. Research and documentation and recording become * O Z A R T S a guide to arts organisa
documentation were sporadic and un-
co-ordinated activities, and a data base essential."[...]Ethnic Arts Director

Lots of organisations and persons of the Australia Council (1980-198[...]n Council Programs to Arts * Films about the arts and artists
information about their history (which
is also our history), but little of it is Information and Research. Co It also notes two useful research
accessible. And that is a very important
and crucial word, accessible. If it is not incidenta[...]f Australia's
accessible, it is of no use to you and to
me. In many instances it is of no use to r[...]A ustralia Council. expenditure on opera), and an analysis[...]information it possesses. Each Board collection and dissemination of arts[...]The Annual Report noted that the the arts, and of an international arts

44 THEATRE AUS[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (107)information service. and instantly details of his life's work Institute (ITI) branch in Australia and[...]e Trust (AETT) in Sydney. It is
arts information and its transfer (as shaken. His peers were green wit[...]ccess. icals, a collection of Australian (and
tion Centres of UNESCO), I think this It is now[...]if they have the informa again after a year off) and include what duced a Catalogue of plays sub[...]emble a substan
Without the access of the artist and Australian materials and recordings. In tial performing arts infor[...]for possible performance
stultified, incestuous and debilitating, posters etc etc.[...]epository of all the
nothing of the intellectual and artistic edition of the Australian Music Direc[...]icious of, tory appeared. Edited by Peter Beilby
and resist, "the new", and the arts and Michael Roberts, it is hoped to be
I an annual publication, and so will
become duller and duller.
Let's take a look at some of the arts | expand and fill in some gaps. It has
information outside th[...]| information and is clearly aimed at the Queensland plans to preci[...]! industry and commercial music. ished and unpublished Australian plays

M U SIC ___________________ The Music Board of the Australia and to computerise the result. Let's

Of all the ar[...]s aren't thrown away
with accessible information and indeed application from Theatre Australia to afterwards, and that a Readers Digest
Australia leads the world[...]does not believe there exists a market And finally, Theatre Australia itself,
ralian Direct[...]August 1976, is a most accessible
a trail-blazer and is now computerised existed a national music magazine for and well-documented source of per
in New York. The famous three "R" 's some fourteen years, and it is patently forming arts information, and more
of music are: time to offer a central organ and detailed than the Performing Arts Year[...]steadily grown in stature and now

Litterature Musicale[...]of documen

* RISM Repertoire International des and for the serious discussion of major tation.

So[...]its documentation
RILM is the best organised and is of the ABC, Musica Viva, the AETT, greatly over the last year, and much oi it
the Australian Opera and the state may still be generally unknown.[...]lications or opera companies, the Australian Ballet,
more directly and up-to-date, through[...]reas:
M IDAS, the service provided through and the members of the 3500 organisa 1. The two[...]tions listed in the AMC's Directory, as Ballet in Australia, which are mostly a
tional Data Acq[...]d Record Club, could not support hagiography and fatuousness, but
to astonish the delegates and the a monthly music magazine, then we[...]and General Index. To this add Frank
to a giant scre[...]theatre is the International Theatre Opera and Ballet in A ustralia also has a[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (108)[...]Campbell) keeps track of arts films and
2. The Dramatic Music Catalogue of The A[...]centre (and a catalogue) which usually
3. Company programmes[...]ly deposted any currently (1979) available, and was al[...]Victoria and will be called Film
files in 1975 and these include also has a select list o[...]low suit). Victopia also
Dennis Wolanski Library and Archives Margaret Ingham. Then there are th[...]ous author's associations: Austra
documentation, and probably today is lian Society of Authors,[...]a. The Australian Authors, with 3-4,000, and basic publications are the Film and T V
archival centre at the Victorian Arts the most exclusive and professional[...]e News, and the AMC's Catalogue of
has achieved but the Wola[...]these organisations might be able to
year lead and munificent patronage. supply detailed info[...]and TV School should have the game
has ambitious pla[...]: Support for panied by supportive resource and coll[...]and 343 general collections. Finally, the
Paper by t[...]not available for sharing and the next
Ballet, and which were created by catalogue as well, and the Australia[...]tioners and consumers, and in terms of
SYDNEY PHILHARMONIA MOTET[...]mentation and information.
C o n cert H all, Syd n ey O p e ra[...]ouncil may
H ouse Box Office (phone 2 0588) and agencies, or from Sydney[...]o initiate. The
Philharm onia Society, cnr. York and Jam ison Sts., City (phone 29 4470).[...]and international organisations.[...]collect it, share it, and budget for it.

46 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (109)[...]went terribly well for the came in.
cast and crew of The Year of Living[...]MALICE expresses
Dangerously in the Philippines and their AUS FILM MONTH[...]month in Washing inept, though attractive and ambitious,
Boyd the cinemaphotographer and Mel ton from mid-March to mid-April[...]ts a man into her story
Gibson, Sigourney Weaver and Michael films shown at the American Film Institute to suit her theories, and damages him.
Murphy the stars of Christopher Koc[...]or would let her
story, which is fully financed, and will be films, Don's Party, The Odd Angry Sh[...]nes, as other productions have Show Man and Caddie (two nights each) made, interesting and has Paul
found, are a bit tricky as location sites. Less Mouth to Mouth and Mad Max in a double Newman as the victim.[...]in Macao, where these are "cult movies", and The Winter of REDS does not have a lot to do[...]producing, directing, and playing
government, or bureaucratic sections of[...]who prevails on her not
interests are newspapers and television in[...]new part-time Anne Brooksbank's Archer and William
commissioner. Another part-timer is Mr Nagle's Leonski got $6000 and $10,000 In one of the best scenes in[...]Jack Nicholson acts everybody else off
nology and marketing. AFC, and Adams Packer Pty Ltd the sum of the screen.[...]s. I guess Leonski film of the controversial, and very
The Australian Film Commission responded[...]o does not want to rot in
that it loved the CDB and would do serviceman called Leonski[...]I who killed Melburn life support machine and go wherever
cutting the funding because Governm[...]. The film is not a plea
cash wasn't available, and it has asked for for pouring tomato sauce on[...]hospital. Packed with good lines and a[...]direction and acting not only from[...]Robert de Niro and Robert Duvall but[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (110)[...]THORNTON talks to Elizabeth Riddell

Every now and again a reviewer likes to "I'm so excited. I've been working decided to go for broke, and just act.
publicly pick a winner, and this is just since I was 13. In fact when I w[...]one
what I feel like doing in the case of and we were living in London -- my of the Sydn[...]grid Thornton, who at the age of 23 father and mother are university Macdonald's 1915 w[...]en's group that experience, lots of rehearsal and great
done her duty by the producers for the was supposed to get kids interested in care and enthusiasm from everyone at
premiere, Sigrid too[...]one of the principal
break in ten years of small and middle television series -- Matlock Police,[...]The others are Walter, Billy
roles in television and films in which Homicide, Division Four, Father Dear and Diana played respectively by Scott
she was hardly noticed. The Man gave Father and in three films where I don't McGregor, Scott Burgess and Jackie
her a chance to be seen for the natural[...]in competition with the Wisdom, FJ Holden, and Snapshot, a
changing moods of the High Country,[...]ilm is hard, but also
to show childish sweetness and un tremendous fun," Sigrid says, "and the
certainty, flashes of sunny humour and " I spent six years with the Twelfth atmosphere is very good and friendly. I
brooding fear of rejection, all of w[...]risbane, hope it stays that way, with cast and
she gave to the role. but[...]lso working with crew getting on together. And wasn't I[...]I met Sigrid she was I matriculated and was going to do arts. with? And Kirk Douglas? He was
wearing a bright blue jumpsuit and I think it's important for an actress to generous with his time and knowledge
nervously smoking too much. "It's know something besides acting. In the and experience. He didn't give advice.
because I'm going away," she said. end I did a year of German and of It wasn't an authoritarian atmosphere[...]land University until I at all, just very free and friendly."

48 THEATRE AUSTRALIA MAY 1982

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (111)[...]REVIEW

Starstruck -- a[...]presenting the newcomers Jo Kennedy and[...]all Interior and exterior crowd scenes are brilliantly us[...]wonderfully manipulated, and David demned to be stereotypes -- Pat Evison and[...]Nana, she gambols about the pub, fat and
for this exuberant, fast, fresh, funny and scintillating. The great merit of Starstruck is[...]lm using a formidable that it has no dull patches and no over an exquisite perform[...]back to the beginning to allot the j quiet ones, and some quiet songs for Jo so that her[...]several years, j like "Temper, Temper" , "Tough" and Starstruck is a Palm Bea[...]m the Australian Film Com
producers David Elfick and Richard j Starstruck is a triumph for all concerned mission and private sources.
Brennan, the director Gillian Armstrong, j in it, and should do as well overseas, with
Mark Moffatt's[...]city handling, as it
dozen good songs, beautiful and lively j

cinematography under the direction of |

Russell Boyd, costume and production |

design by Luciana Arrighi, Terry Ryan and |

Brian Thomson, choreography by David |

Atkins, editing by Nicholas Beauman.

And two new young starstruck people -- i

Jo Kennedy as Jackie and Ross O'Donovan

as Angus -- and several mature ones, ;

especially Margo Lee as[...]ana, Max Cullen as Reg, Dennis Miller as j

Lou and Melissa Jaffer as Mrs Booth.

All these people[...]leased. They are also more or less j

related, and stand in loco parentis to a

cockatoo named Wally and several con

fident cats. The pub and the people are

models of how corny elements ma[...]hile the elders go about their business

Jackie and Angus, cousins, one an in

efficient barmaid and the other a schoolboy,

live in a fantasy world[...]by logistics -- where does Jackie

find a band and a place to sing, how does

Angus break through[...]o city buildings, wearing a nude

body-stocking and massive artificial breasts

and falls into a safety net while Angus, using

sev[...]so different voices,

alerts the media; a water ballet of beach

lifesavers (actually water polo playe[...]their noses swims in a

hotel pool with Jackie and a troop of plastic

sharks; Jackie, wear[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (112)[...]REVIEW

Man From
Snowy River --

excitement but
no[...]ver is the third

western, after Mad Dog Morgan and The

Irishman, in the local industry's born-aga[...]Evans who later

became a Paramount executive) and the

guilt western, such as The Wild Bunch, have

moved into science fiction blockbusters,

and this in fact may be the right time for

Michael[...]early scene when Jim the hero and his father[...]a rock while a storm rages over her; and
producer does not have the advantage of the[...]son's climax, when Jim goes over the
giant press and television complex which with a story by Fred Cul Cullen and John mountain wall at the brumbies' heels and is
Dixon which is predictable and stuffed with not seen effectively again unt[...]a partner in R&R cliches in scenes and dialogue; and the at the homestead to say " I told yo[...]tes, was able to marshal behind Mad Max I and II, and it would lessen Along with the bru[...]glances and there are lapses of judgement -- other way)[...]s confronted with Cecil B de into his role and has real style. Kirk Douglas,[...]troubles with makeup and costume in both
Mille's The Ten Commandments. "[...]anything except the horses and the glorious
be good, look what it cost" is not[...]and Sigrid Thornton as Harrison's

an advertising c[...]scenes were shot first, because Burlinson
And you can see where the money has[...]grows into his role, and he has real style.[...]id Thornton is an unorthodox beauty,
been spent. And, conversely, where it has and when she learns to use stillness to go[...]ut not suspense. The only suspense
photographed. And I daresay Kirk Douglas[...]phrase from the poem, and hesitates, and
cost a bundle, especially seeing he plays two[...]boys aged 11 and eight, and their mother.
Harrison and the cantankerous old golden-[...]hearted Spur, estranged brothers, cattle

man and gold fossicker. The rest of the cast

and most of the crew are Australian and

come cheaper, although salaries and wages

at all levels in Australian film making are

rising, and some would say not before time.

As everybody w[...]pedigree colt that broke from the home

paddock and went off with the wild horses

led by the photogenic stallion and was

recovered by a mountain man when[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (113)[...]has since taken to
cracking a pretend stockwhip, and the elder
said it was the best film he had seen this
year. His mother and I both felt a bit saddle
sore.

Breakfast in[...]television soapie Peyton Place 20 years ago \

and may also be remembered for her film j

role in[...]the spirit discovered, later lapsing into despair and
walls are of the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre j and symbol of the new German (Aryan) becoming no more than a servant of the
Coeur. The film is so inept and silly it is j drama under the patronage of the Pr[...]or its failures 1 Minister, who is also a general and bears a to have paid so highly for his collaborat[...]novel published physical atmosphere of the period and is[...]ationship between Klaus Cinema has Mephisto and it is also going to[...]nn, Gustav (called Hofgen in Mephisto) Perth and Brisbane. It opened in London
films, that is, fi[...]Erika Mann (who married Grundgens but and New York simultaneously with the
the English language, has occurred in recent left him to his career and later married the
months, partly due to the esta[...]citizenship) Australian showings.
Channel 0/28 and partly to the enterprise of and Paula Wedekind, daughter of the It w[...]Best Film and Best Screenplay at Cannes in
comes from the Trav[...]The film shows Grundgens-Hofgen 1981 and is nominated for Best Foreign[...]luential of the cinemas

showing foreign films (and some films from

Britain and the US which would not be

screened by the big[...]Last year International Critics Award Best Film
and in the first months of 1982 the Dendy
has screened films from East and West and Best Screenplay

Germany, Poland, Spain, Japan, El Sal

vador and Switzerland. D irected b[...]latest is Mephisto, from Hungary,

about events and people in Germany in the meM sto
thirties during and after the rise ot Adolf
Hitler. It is a film of almost hypnotic
interest, made by Istvan Szabos and
starring the astonishing, exciting Klaus[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (114)[...]ion "appropriate at this genius of Shakespeare and the result is a
DISSOLVES______________[...]erence had done much valuable work, madness and death.
After five-and-a-bit years of, sometimes it was now of mo[...]production to be conducted by Carlo
of Australia and New Zealand decided at its they had in common[...]ising any short-term differences of as Banquo and Reginald Byers as
voluntarily dissolve its assoc[...]era, recently announced two new appointments
and join forces with other performing arts Covent Garden, La Scala and other major to the Victoria State Opera:
b[...]es will make his Australian debut
The Conference and CAPPA had from the in the title role of[...]n of the Australian Opera. Honorary Treasurer and Mr Wilfred
tained close and friendly relations and their Acclaimed by audiences and critics for both Thornton is appointed as Chair[...]ion" was, in fact, only a matter his musical and dramatic achievements, Victoria State Oper[...]roles of the Thane of Cawdor and his[...]Haskins and Sells. He was the President of
Opera Conference,[...]from 1964 to 1973, and President of[...]Managing Director of Associated Pulp and[...]such experience and stature working on[...]behalf of the VSO. Both Mr Kennedy and[...]and in its development here in Victoria."

Sherril[...]General Managers and other members of[...]receive accolades for good work done and[...]whose hard work and determination are at[...]staff and supporters, one of whom has[...]endeavours and feels sure the Festival will[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (115)[...]Ian Cam pbell (left) working with Thomas Edm onds and M arilyn
R ich ardson in La Bohem e rehearsal.[...]when I was 13, the Sydney Con. He rang me, and I
The Makropulos A ffair should and I did a BA at Sydney Uni, with the started in[...]elaide
Opera, South Australia. and was amazed to be offered parts in besides be[...]er roles with IC: Last year I directed Boheme, and in
descended upon Adelaide for the[...]Tales of Hoffman. I arrive in New York
and cheerful, for the IC:[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (116)[...]strator at Covent thought it was bad, and why. He costing. As long as we hire s[...]have time to put his
was responsible for casting and reper "Let's celebrate your joining the Met." stamp on the season.
toire there, and had decided to retire "But Mr. Bliss, we ha[...]inherit a good
They persuaded her to join them, and worry. No one ever rejects the Met."[...]ly all of the subsidy
Music Director at the Met, and lured[...]now will not be possible within five
or two, and so far has stayed for five IC: It's a frigh[...]year for Met is cast with multiple covers, and IC: In South Australia we have a viable
so[...]the job at IC: The singers travel by plane and the leaving at such a time.
the Met?[...]re going to be
the right blend of administrative and There's nothing else like that in the[...]to the Opera years going to America and England. Met?
America Conference, which[...]anagement structure, the way it
lots of thought, and realised while I was money to bring you to Ade[...]erested in moving on. of Die Fledermaus, and spent a week way the heavily subsidised c[...]With a turnover of S60 million a
Patrick Veitch, and Michael Bronson, ship developed from ther[...]the Met's technical man. KH: And the Australian Opera? KH: What are[...]Veitch played. him, and brought him back twice. To IC: I'm 36, and I've been involved
IC: Patrick acted as a broker[...]ral Manager's job at the AO. exciting, and I have yet to prove a great
England, he said "Ho[...]he new man will be invited to play Ingpen and James Levine. But that is
I thought of hi[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (117)[...]REVIEW

Makropoulos
and Elixir --
strong after
images

by Ken Healey[...]Opera was

in Brisbane with The Bartered Bride and

Madam Butterfly, the so-called regional

com[...]ns farther South. State Opera,

South Australia and Canberra Opera share

the name "regional" , but[...]casion was that Canberra hired

Adelaide's sets and costumes for a new

production by John Milson of The Elixir of

Love, and presented it within days of State

Opera[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (118)[...]Makropulos Affair of activity month in and month out. And
Given such strong casting, surely the at this year's Adelaide Festival, and by that requires government subsidy,[...]nice two years earlier could not federal and state.
knowledge of the beauty of his face and his
voice. In most other respects the production[...]STATE OPERA
Dulcamara's entry were slack. Stage and pit[...]een given insufficient Bardon (sets) and Michael Stennett Dawes. Touring[...]conductors, Carlo Felice C illario and WA OPERA COMPANY
wrought sounds he[...]t i c o ; conductor, Carlo Quaife, Judith Henley and the WA Arts
repetitive when Donizetti's comedies[...]Hugh Colman's Edwardian costumes
were fine, and his simple set, making use of
the effects[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (119)[...]Jill Sykes

AB REVIEW company's administrator considerably from performers, and the possibility of com[...]structure.
the Australian Ballet have been recom
mended in the management's consu[...]ded At the time of writing, the review was
review commissioned by the company's[...]responsibility of artistic and administrative ment and staff. But its effects were already[...]he press were
Its 51 pages of recommendations and for the artistic director and the administra circulated with the review on its release
observations form a blueprint for[...]company, which was unfortunate), and
high level of communication between[...]dance reviewers were flown in by the
management and performers can be responsi[...]company from around the country to
achieved and maintained.[...]company's 1982 Sydney
The main thrust of the review is the position of company secret[...]ontroversial item for a long
no doubt that, in a ballet company, the that it was not illegal for the two positions to while, and carried pages of information
position of artisti[...]t dual role, preference was given for the
vision and drive is drawn." two[...]port recom m ends of a company, and reports to the board. He
n a rro w in g th e a d[...]S4,000 Peter
theoretical terms, a strengthening and Stuyvesant Scholarship at the Royal Ballet
enlarging of the artistic staff is suggested.[...]in London on the advice of his
New positions of ballet director, artistic co Criticism of the recent past is made more by teachers, Joan and Monica Halliday, of
ordinator and resident choreographer, and implication than in so many words. The Sydney.
three positions of ballet master/mistress, strongest statement[...]y-to-day pressure off the overdue and changes are necessary." Josephine S[...]ancing scholar
appointment, personnel manager -- and recommended changes speak for t[...]Patience and commitment from dancers, mission to do this was given by the RAD
The review does not address itself management and board are asked for: "We after assessin[...]s of its student scholarship have
the Australian Ballet Administrator, whose renewal of team effort and a return to the had to take up studies in[...]when realisation that the Australian Ballet's
they went on strike last year. But its[...]hievable by one group Danilo Radojevic and Chrisa Keramidas,
recommendations include change[...]rovement is in sight." former Australian Ballet members, now
would narrow the power base of the[...]Members of the board, who have been Ballet Theatre, made a flying trip home in[...]not given harsh judgement by the report. and Sydney in the fortnight's break[...]clarification of the role of the board and the Los Angeles. Let's hope we have them back[...]and commitment to the industry they are[...]directing. . . (and) wide experience in the nine works overseas[...]f age groups, geographic locations June 15 and 26, followed by performances
and ethnic backgrounds. Dancer repre at festivals in Cologne, Athens and[...]Peter Brinson, dance writer and evan[...]h or more between sociology of dance, and head of the[...]artistic staff, con Department of Research and Community[...]Movement and Dance in South London.

58 THEATRE AUSTR[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (120)[...]M ichel, P aul de M asson, M arilyn Row e M over and Zane Wilson
"Well, my dear, there is an old sayi[...]'s Rite o f Spring.
that you can't be both whore and

madame."
The allusion was to all the years that

Tetley spent trying to perform and
choreograph, and then, between 1974
and 1976, combining choreography
with directing the Stuttgart Ballet. "It
is all I can handle just to try to be a
go[...]emand around
the world, both to create new works and
revive old ones. He was back in
Australia after[...]staging of his Rite of Spring for
the Australian Ballet. It was one of the
works which opened the company's
1982 subscription season in Sydney,
and will be seen later this year in
Brisbane and Melbourne.

Tetley has not long completed a new
Firebird for the Royal Danish Ballet,
which also has his Voluntaries, Greening
and Rite of Spring in its repertoire. His
Dances of Albion for the Royal Ballet
made him the first non-British re
cipient of[...]reographed in 1978, will open the
Scandinavian ballet season in New
York next October. When he left[...]as to stage Voluntaries for
for the Paris Opera Ballet.

His Rite of Spring, which he
cho[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (121)and the work's mingling of mystic and Glen Tetley. c[...]to expect. principal dancer for American Ballet it does.[...]rgin dancing herself to death," he Serrano and Toni Lander. to use point if an[...]y have arisen because his early Stuttgart and worked with Marcia
It doesn't specify a female v[...]I have always been interested in fluences, and for a long time, he didn't developing a contemporary classical
comparative religion and archaeology, devise any point work for his dancers. style -- to me it's the one language."
and in so many of the primitive
religions -- one cou[...]ling were in a more contemporary Australian Ballet in 1973, was one of
sacrifice, is male. Sometime[...]eel how they are going affection for that great ballet, and feels
to move, and I didn't want to use the that it still belongs to Australia and its
Another of his inspirations for this[...]ame Christ the grew to feel more experienced and and American Ballet Theatre since
tiger.. . ' I thought Wow! That's[...]dachshunds, Fratello and Tartufo, who
visual and dramatic content to their[...]at a canine old age which only
helped chart the Ballet Rambert[...]Tetley has a rich and affectionate
meaning behind it. Peter Brinson and collection of stories about them and
Clement Crisp describe that potential[...]g lives between his
perfectly in the Pan Book of Ballet and homes in New York and Italy. He and a
Dance:[...]economy and first class, each with the
"In many Tetley wo[...]air hostess approached him and asked if
accept or reject as we choose, but whic[...]the pilot's
The breadth of Tetley's stylistic and lap.[...]bservation point on
with the fact that he was 20 and a the plane and taken up the same stance
medical student before[...]urveying the
train as a dancer. " I came in late and Atl[...]All of this may seem to have nothing
Sydney. And he certainly chose some[...]process of recounting a few anecdotes,
and Margaret Craske instructed him in[...]so much about movement from his
Graham and Hanya Holm inspired him[...]earliest and most memorable works,[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (122)[...]-REVIEW

Pina Bausch, "them and us" barriers inherent in a protection are instinc[...]production. To start with, audiences, over and barriers that humanity puts up.[...]But humanity cannot go back to this
AD T and SDC entertained as[...]"big"; theatre intensifying life and all that.
What she wanted to do was scale down plexity, and so the rituals go on. The
the audience's field and depth of vision, dancers at the end of the work s[...]ubridge hence the slowness and the repetitions. as they did before, pinching the[...]hey do that gesture once more
Adelaide Festival, and for many others too, I 'll scream" . One searched[...]udging by opinion canvassed. Be that as it change and when that (small) change came fingernails[...]e could see of those longueurs and repetitions, not in[...]the task of illuminating social
length, slowness and repetitiousness, -- and she did -- the gestures of love that c[...]thing akin to a combustion cannibalism, rejection and longing. Things seeing life as a woman and seeing it as a man.[...]It is not enough to be jingoistic and claim
But if one could take the time to think ou[...]sign. For all its adventurous i mechanical horse, and so on. The point was, conditioning" is impossible for the reasons
enquiry into dance and theatre, it is one of as much to make the audienc[...]going on around the repetition, as
works scaled and bevelled into strict to make it aware of the form[...]ects of Kontakthof are as The drama and brutality of Bluebeard
formalistic structures.[...]time came when one was as anything; that and human frustration.
intention to take the audienc[...]ng themselves
scheme of a "theatre" presentation and she no longer seeing the company as per[...]but as part of a dance crowd, a very weighted and pressured as the women. The
achieves this in two[...]tight animalistic huddles and the orgiastic
Firstly by placing the performance[...]t part. One could see that the runs and jumps across the stage are as much
setting conducive and "real" to the terms of "corps" section of men and women buffing engendered by the women as t[...]against each other, snapping out "head,
rituals and mannerisms inherent in a public shoulder, knee, leg" was not so much a As the "ballet" closes and Bluebeard
meeting place, in this case a dance hall, and stylised dance step as a domination game. dr[...]h him
And so it went on until, with the film and out of the door he repeatedly claps his
that is[...]hands and the rest of the cast multifariously
Thebarton To[...]servience, rejection and acceptance. It again
Secondly she wants to break down the no moral distinctions, and care, love and has come full circle and the audience feels[...]It has been noted that Pina Bausch and[...]to develop the face of dance and theatre in[...]appreciation of Australian audiences and[...]It was a wonderful and exhilarating[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (123)[...]repetitive and over reminiscent of Murphy
a lovely neoclassic ballet of craftsmanlike stuff we've seen before. He[...]is certain, Taylor is a man of construction and in Murphy's Hate a into the same tra[...]s fall into when trying to create a
dissonances and his discursions for all the Graham Watson's Lm514, though, a ballet strong physical emotion on stage, they[...]We Watched is a work of pure controllers and trying to have good time, illuminate it in[...]Perhaps Mr Watson has been Thus in a ballet about hate we have lots of
drama always pervading it. It is a ballet built choreographing too many commercials,[...]n Barry Moreland's in the duet work and a morass of flailing
and conflict. arms and legs, Finishing with paint being[...]so remained in his genre country of Bach and clear plastic curtain). Trouble is it looks a
powerfully extended and theatrically ex lightly flavoured abstract dance and it is a little empty and arty, reminiscent at times
posed, but exposed b[...]ets Russes when
expressiveness of their dancing and the Adelaide Festival. To call it crafts[...]interest through a close-packed weave of and sound what was lacking in choreo
While We Watched is in some ways an ensemble and pas de deux work and he has, graphic invention.
elaboration o[...]eated stuff to salvage from this work and when
score is a fine backdrop to the sweeping l[...]ece of New
edgy partnerings, bounding ensembles and[...]s, Graeme Murphy
soaring solos that pepper this ballet. I don't think however I could bear too has served his company, dancers and[...]The Australian Ballet's opening programs
does the 3rd movement of Ber[...]House will be
it wears itself out dramatically and[...]W A Ballet at the[...]Skill, stamina and versatility are the
it relies too much at times[...]ingredients that made up the WA Ballet
impact inherent in extreme dynamics.[...]st 1982 season at His
Small, complex pas de deux and solos[...]vous or lyrical by turns are repeatedly
swept up and away by great bounding[...]vening of dance
group pieces that have the sweep and[...]st they would if it
weren't for the serene, calm and statuary
finish to the ballet, with the dancers in a
circle, peeling off into[...]an ensemble
company to me, more so than the SDC, and
it was so good to see the occasional spotlight[...]ly the two boys in the
male pas de deux in Part 1and the couple in
Part 2 in the lovely extended pas[...]ike to see more of this underlining in
ADT works and a little less facelessness
from the compa[...]
Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (124)[...]died.

audiences stayed away in droves. league and beguile the audience with their Despite William Dowd's extravagant

Has ballet in Perth reached the stage antics. Although the m[...]rs, the

where it is seen only as pre-Christmas and allows the dancers to indulge in a wi[...]tertainm ent? The certain amount of drollery, the ballet is the bands of courtiers and visiting

success of past productions of the ilk of technically demanding and the footwork oi potentates that normally swell the ranks ol

Peter Pan and Cinderella would lead one to the male dancers was at times not up to such a ballet. Such defects can only be

this unhappy conclus[...]pnotic corps of dancers on which to call and the

merit, the recent season deserved support. contemporary ballet by the company's WA company managed to[...]Maggie Lorraine was a delicate and sure
Judicial casting made the most of the explores the moods and rhythums of the
differing moods of each of the f[...]and's Spirals, which opened Some outstanding solo and pas de deux movements of the courtiers and the leashed

the program, is a work of great ly[...]e Saracen entourage. She was

demanding control and precision dancing combined a rock hard technique[...]graphed for almost boneless fluidity of the torso and the medieval knight who returns from the[...]lured to His
dancers' powerful blend of vitality and excellent foil with the clean lines of his[...]was a
grace. dancing and fine port de bras.[...]challenging and satisfying evening of dance,
A touch of oriental[...]auger well for the future of ballet in this
sensuous ballet set to Ravi Shankar's sitar classic, Raymonda. In[...]sic. Joanne Munday captured the quick format, the ballet is an unashamedly Unless Perth au[...]Mr Welch has eliminated is more than tutus and toe-shoes and a fairy

greater definition), and Stephen Rowe much of the usual padding of process[...]ed her strongly as the earthbound dream sequences and the like, to give a well- productions that lac[...]integrated series of solo and ensemble the imagination to venture outside the

The third ballet, Ray Powell's One in Five ! sequences that[...]

Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (125)[...]be draw n on M a y 31 w ill win a free
and sombre reflectiveness in his character s[...]ink, playing a character constantly on the
move and full of untiring exuberance, can 9. You[...]too resisted the temptation to play
up the part and, espeically in her later 1 3 . T rick[...]out o f sentim ent
all her lapses into hysteria and mania.
Debbie Little and Patrick Frost were the 15. T ype o f b[...]mbers of a strong quartet: the
former confident and in particular present hom e (7)[...]'t burn w ell! one speechless (4)
ity and ultimate confusion over what
Grainger expected[...]7. C unningly I lodge and m arry E m m a, a
John Noble's direction was[...]E rup tion s brought on by tem p eratu re
props and changes in lighting would have
been both more effective and less com objection (8) and right com bustion rem ains (4,6)
fortably domest[...](4)
Director, David Hare; Designer, Eamon D'Arcy and
Hayden Griffin; Lighting, Rory Dempster; Music,[...], Nicholas Lidstone.

(Professional).

P ercy and R ose by Rob George. Stage Company,
Adela[...]

MD

Reproduced with permission of creator and editor Robert Page

Theatre Publications Ltd., New Lambton Heights, Theatre Australia: Australia's Monthly Magazine of the Performing Arts 6(8) May 1982 (May 1982). University of Wollongong Archives, accessed 17/01/2025, https://archivesonline.uow.edu.au/nodes/view/5208

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