Melbourne Theatre Company

Australian theatre companies are shunning Shakespeare. A much-needed break, or a mistake?

Retrieved on:

Mittwoch, Oktober 18, 2023

In 2024 not one mainstage theatre company in Australia will perform Shakespeare.

Key Points:

In 2024 not one mainstage theatre company in Australia will perform Shakespeare.
The only exception will be Bell Shakespeare.
Theatre makers such as Lachlan Philpott, Nakkiah Lui and Andrew Bovell have been calling for less Shakespeare and more new work since the mid-2010s.

A forum for conversations

He is important because we have, for 400 years, made him important, using his work to have rich conversations about identity, truth, meaning and morality.
These conversations are worth participating in.
The fact that none of these companies will perform Shakespeare next year suggests a decline in engagement with the canon outside of adaptations.
We risk understanding ourselves merely through the lens of now, rather than enriching our present through discussion with our history.

Critical engagement

We are not restricted to either using Shakespeare as a sock puppet to voice our own ideas, or ignoring him altogether.
Like any fruitful conversation, it means listening, sitting with discomfort, learning, recognising what still speaks to us, and responding to what doesn’t.
Conversing with Shakespeare does not mean smoothing over problems or forcing him to agree with us.
The scenes in which Shylock is forced to surrender both his property and his faith were jarringly and uncomfortably melancholy.

Talking back to history

What are we doing differently today, and what should we be doing differently?
Nuanced, two-way conversations with our cultural history are vital to progress.
It means learning from, questioning, and talking back to our history.

My Sister Jill: Patricia Cornelius' new play is a blistering post-war social and cultural commentary

Retrieved on:

Dienstag, Oktober 3, 2023

But instead of the longing for the classic values of an older Australia that valorise war heroism and stoic masculinity, My Sister Jill centres the perspectives of those impacted by this narrative.

Key Points:

But instead of the longing for the classic values of an older Australia that valorise war heroism and stoic masculinity, My Sister Jill centres the perspectives of those impacted by this narrative.
Parents Jack (Ian Bliss), a war veteran and prisoner of war from Changi on the Thai-Burma railway, and Martha (Maude Davey) have five children.
In a blistering post-war social and cultural commentary, My Sister Jill disrupts ideas of colonial glory with a troubling depiction of family violence, PTSD, homophobia and the ruinous intergenerational impacts of patriarchal oppression on everyone.

The volatility of trauma

As the story progresses, the children grow up under the volatility of their father’s trauma.
The harrowing details of this particular scene as Jack recalls this moment of survival to Christine are profound and unsettling.
On stage, Christine is deeply impacted by this story, its retelling taking her into an imagined reality too frightening to contemplate.

Idealism and false promise

We see her refusing to wait inside the freezing cold FX Holden with the others when Jack leaves his family for hours outside the pub.
Christine reunites with Jill as a young adult, about to head to university, the first of the family to attend.
Christine speaks to the audience one of the last lines in the play “She will, won’t she, My Sister Jill?
Will she?” Wrapped up in this moment is the idealism and false promise of the late 1960s Australia.

New Aussie musical Bloom misses an opportunity to interrogate the gaps in aged care – and in our social fabric

Retrieved on:

Donnerstag, August 3, 2023

As both Rose and Finn settle into their new accommodation, we meet the eclectic residents of the home and two dedicated care staff.

Key Points:

As both Rose and Finn settle into their new accommodation, we meet the eclectic residents of the home and two dedicated care staff.
Ruby (Vidya Makan) gave up her communications degree at uni for a job that allowed her to do something more meaningful.
Ruby asks herself in song if “maybe it’s time”, contemplating leaving Pine Grove and commencing a masters degree in aged care.
Resident Sal (Eddie Muliaumaseali’i) silently looks through old photos to connect with his past and the remnants of his past self.

Dismissing the rights of older Australians

The final report of a Royal Commission into Aged Care and Safety exposed the deep chasms in the sector.
It tabled 148 recommendations to parliament in 2021 and has led to significant legislative reform.
The suggestion by Mrs MacIntyre is that she is “having a little turn” during her complaints: a moment of insight into how easily we have dismissed the rights of older Australians to exercise choice and be heard on matters that impact them.

Stark realities and missed opportunities

In the scene, Finn reflects that Ruby seems very comfortable with death.
She responds that both her grandparents lived at her home and she was present when they died.
This scene at Rose’s bedside is a good representation of the missed opportunity in Bloom to starkly represent the realities of our aged care system and our dominant cultural approach to end-of-life care in this country.
Unfortunately, Bloom seems too afraid of its own subject material to truly tackle these issues and reflect their realities back to us.

Remembering Barry Humphries, the man who enriched the culture, reimagined the one man show and upended the cultural cringe

Retrieved on:

Samstag, April 22, 2023

His street performances around Melbourne in the early 1950s foreshadowed performance art in Australia.

Key Points:

His street performances around Melbourne in the early 1950s foreshadowed performance art in Australia.
He was the most daring student prankster Melbourne University had ever known.
Years later, academic Peter Conrad accurately described Humphries’ adolescence as a “one man modern movement”.
It also gave him his first taste of the power of an audience to determine what happens in the theatre.

The birth of Edna

Edna was a composite portrait of various women whose mannerisms had imprinted themselves in his brain as a boy, growing up in staid Camberwell.
Wearing a massive hat sculpted to resemble the Sydney Opera House, Edna stopped the crowds at Royal Ascot that year.
The image of her in that sumptuous creation (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum) launched Edna and Humphries around the world.

Conquering the world

She skewered dozens of politicians, pop stars, singers and actors who graced the program every week.
Her appearance with Jerry Hall singing Stand by your Man remains one of the most hilarious television moments of that time.
Humphries’ success on British television in the 1980s and 1990s were among the major achievements of his career.

The early years

Eric ran a flourishing building business (he might be called a developer nowadays) and Louisa was a homemaker.
He loved dressing up and accompanying his mother on trips to the city or out for lunch with other ladies.
At Melbourne Grammar, Humphries found the boys who excelled in sports rewarded and praised for their achievements.
An interest in art or music was considered by the headmaster to be suspicious, a disappointment for Humphries, passionate about art.

A transformational artist

With his mask off he was as witty as when he wore it.
Manning Clark called him one of the “mythmakers and prophets of Australia […] enriching the culture which had been dominated by the straiteners”.
Read more:
Friday essay: Barry Humphries' humour is now history – that's the fate of topical, satirical comedy