The Ghost of Guthrie

Almost eight months after this story first came to light, the Sydney Morning Herald has finally got some headlines raging along about the recasting controversy around Ruben Guthrie.

"Criticism is mounting against the replacement of four actors in the hit play Ruben Guthrie, with well-known industry figures slamming Company B's decision," writes Louise Schwartzkoff in today's Herald.

"A revised version of the play about Australia's drinking culture has received glowing reviews at the Belvoir St Theatre. But it is running without the actors Christopher Stollery, Tracy Mann, Lex Marinos and Samantha Reed, who worked for two months with no salary to launch the original independent show at Belvoir's downstairs theatre."

"The actors earned a small cut of the box-office takings."

First writing about this in March, I asked the question about what the ethics are around co-op theatre making good? Do producers and directors have any responsibility to actors who have not only sacrificed their time and creativity but also performed to critical acclaim? Or is it all fair in love and war?

It is something that needs to be addressed rather quickly... before the next occurrence of it happens - which could be sooner rather than later.

It's becoming quickly obvious that Belvoir Street's Downstairs Theatre is all but in name (and wages) a professional theatre gig. A quick look at their program this year and you see a couple of stars lining up alongside professional theatre practitioners - not to mention full-time Company B staff also getting in on the act.

Along with much of the 'independent' theatre sector in Sydney, it is now quite out of reach to your average emerging artist (which gives rise to the other issue around emerging artists starting to find their own spaces and avoiding the rigmarole of getting creative approval for your work - but that's for another post).

But the key to unlocking the problem Company B has found themselves in lies in this simple line in today's story; "The actors earned a small cut of the box-office takings."

I think it might be time to start coughing up MEAA wages for any shows that may ascend up the Belvoir Street Theatre stairs. You can get a pretty good idea which shows they will be. Then actors won't feel half as pissed off if they don't go with it and it'll honour the professional nature of the programming.


*** Please be aware that I have taken the anonymous comment function off this blog. If you have something to say, be proud and put your name to it.

Australia Council strikes as @kathyinvenice tweets

As first published today in Crikey.

It’s not an industrial action that will bring the country to its knees, but a dispute at the Sydney headquarters of the Australia Council for the Arts will likely see strike action in the next two weeks.

Yesterday Australia Council staff voted almost unanimously to take protected industrial action. The Australian Electoral Commission is due to release the official voting figures later today. Central to the dispute is a cut to staffing numbers by 20 per cent since the Rudd Labor Government implemented a 2 per cent efficiency dividend on the Council.

Staff at the Council are angry about reduced conditions and wages, claiming that the 28 positions which haven’t been filled in the last year has led to increased work across all departments.

At the time of the efficiency dividend announcement in May last year, Australia Council CEO Kathy Keele stated that the funding agency were “putting in place measures to maintain our funding for artists and arts organisations by streamlining the organisation and making $2 million in administrative savings”.

But staff feel dejected by the CEO and higher management who are driving a hard bargain in wage negotiations and remained stubborn in not re-filling the vacancies.

Inflaming the situation is the fact that Keele is currently at the Venice Biennale (you can see her Twitter updates here) rubbing shoulders with Ambassador to Italy Amanda Vanstone and “organising artists party”.

Here’s the pick of her Biennale tweets:

@kathyinvenice Organising artists party. Opening tomorrow. All is well.

@kathyinvenice Many of our guests attended the haka which went through the streets of Venice this morning.

@Kathyinvenice St the palazio Grimani with Stefano Carboni giving us a tour!

@Kathyinvenice The sugar piece of Ken Yonetani is so peaceful.

@Kathyinvenice The ludoteca’s works are diverse, important, and totally engaging.

@Kathyinvenice Just about to go to the Ludoteca with the ambassadors.

@Kathyinvenice The heat is so real.

@Kathyinvenice the bells of St Mark’s are overpowering the organ recital! They are deafening and beautiful

@Kathyinvenice Ambassadors Vanstone and Fischer have joined us.

@Kathyinvenice UBS reception very special. Now listening to Bach’s tocata and fugue in St Mark’s. Amazing!

@Kathyinvenice At the Bevilaqua at yoko ono’s exhibition and it is amazing.

Crikey understands that the relationship between staff and the CEO has been strained for sometime but was exacerbated when the efficiency dividend was placed on the agency. It has now led to a breakdown in relations over the wage negotiations.

CPSU Deputy Secretary Nadine Flood told Crikey that the Council “is seriously understaffed and people at all levels are regularly working 12 hours days, plus weekends.”

Flood stated that staff feel “undervalued and insulted by management’s pay offer. It is without doubt one of the lowest ever in the public sector. Management have repeatedly failed to fix this mess so no one should be surprised staff are considering strike action.”

Staff claim that management are trying to broker a deal that would effectively make wages go backwards in real terms. They also claim that management are looking at removing key working conditions and redundancy entitlements as well as removing staff travel for agency workers who need to visit arts organisations across the country.

A spokesperson from the Australia Council told Crikey that the agency is “…continuing to negotiate with the CPSU and staff representatives for a new collective agreement. These negotiations are ongoing. We are keen to conclude an agreement that fairly renumerates employees while working within our tight operating budget.”

The Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett is also aware of the dispute but will leave the negotiations in the hands of Keele and her management staff.

Until then, you can expect that a few luv-ins at arts venues across the country might have the added spice of a good old fashioned union dispute. Something which should get their hearts racing.

Werbeloff Ya Arts

I've been inspired by an article in Crikey today to get some interesting Werbeloff takes on our local theatre industry.

According to Crikey;

There are two ways to werbeloff:

Classic werbeloff: Convey a current news story, literary or popular classic using the elements of polar opposites plus a racial epithet (e.g. fat/thin, tall/short, wog skip dago poofter etc) with a brief contrary exchange, followed by onomatopoeic gunfire or mimicry thereof.

Freestyle werbeloff: The same, using a limited palette of racial slurs, "sick" "chick" "totes" "mate" and a few other terms, in such a disdainful way that not even the desperate "politically incorrect" right would want to own it.


For instance, there were a few theatre examples in today's edition.

(Romeo and Juliet). There were these two wogs fighting and the fatter wog said to the skinnier wog, "Oi bro, your brother Romeo slepsht with my cousin Juliet" and the other one said "Nah man, he didn’t for sh-t, eh" and so Romeo took some fully sick poison and Juliet pulled out a gun and went Chk Chk Boom.

(Medea). This full bitch wog chick gets back at her bloke Jase cos he got off with some rich chick when he was on a footy trip by fully shooting her own kids, Chick Chick Boom!

(On The Merchant of Venice). The big nosed wog said to the skinny wog "Oi bro, you ripped me off eh, I'm going to get my fully sick boys to cut a pound of flesh from you", the skinny wog said "no you wont for sh-t eh cos you cant take a drop of blood" then he looked at the big nosed wog and said Rip Rip Jew.


So tonight, like, I'll be going to Ruben Guthrie where this ad guy, who's the total bomb, decides to like give up the booze and shit. But then his skip boss starts to get sick on his arse. But then, like, the ad guy says, "no way, you can stick that shit, I'm goin wiv ma fully sick boyz to AA Bro."

Any more?

Exit the King

The writing has been on the wall for a while now and today Company B announced the departure of Artistic Director, Neil Armfield.

To finish his tenure at the end of 2010, the company will look to appoint a new director by the end of this year. All money is on Wesley Enoch.

In a statement released by the theatre today Armfield said,"Company B has been my world for many, many years and for me this decision is like no other in its magnitude. I am fortunate to have been offered a number of exciting opportunities overseas and, in the wake of the success of Exit the King in New York, I feel it is the appropriate time to pursue them."

"There is also a huge momentum in the industry at the moment, with an abundance of talented directors soaring through the ranks – it’s time to give someone else a go. [General Manager] Brenna Hobson is part of the next generation of Australia’s arts leaders and I feel extremely confident that I’m leaving the company in good hands."

It's been an illustrious and exciting career for the man who did Cloudstreet. I'm only going to mention that one production because to me it represents a pinnacle of the Australian theatre industry which many directors in this country can only aspire to achieve.

(Ok, I'll also mention his 1995 Hamlet which was my introduction to the big wide world of professional theatre and I have been bitten ever since. Roxburgh, Rush, MacKenzie - what more could you want? Gush, gush, gush.)

Just last week, Armfield was named one out of a hundred Creative Catalysts by the Creative Sydney team as "a Sydney icon who continues to draw in new audiences for theatre and performance".

And they are right. It's astonishing that he has continued to do consistently good work over the twenty odd years he has been based at the old tomato sauce factory on Belvoir Street in Surry Hills.

It has been a gradual process whereby Armfield has been pulled away from the country and the theatre more and more over the last few years directing operas and shows across Europe and North America. Staff have often mentioned to me that when he isn't around the place lacks a certain direction.

No doubt, with the appointment of a new director towards the end of the year, they will have a more full-time AD once again.

But until then we have Armfield directing one of his favourite playwrights again David Hare (I still don't know what his fascination with Hare is) in a production of Gethsemane which opens later this year.

No doubt there will be more theatrical delights after that.

Thanks for the experiences Neil, and best of luck for the future.

Serpent's Teeth Honoured

Congratulations to Daniel Keene who scored the NSW Premier's Literary Prize for playwriting.

In a very tough field (Andrew Bovell's When The Rain Stops Falling and Damien Millar's The Modern International Dead were both in the running) it's good to seem Keene, a Melbourne playwright often ignored in Sydney, get the gong.

It must be a good sign of the rising standards of playwriting when such a strong group of writers are in the mix. I share the sentiments about the lack of female voices. However Debra Oswald won it last year.

So congratulations to Daniel.

Review: Ollie and the Minotaur

Ollie and the Minotaur
Downstairs Belvoir
Until 3 May
Tickets $23-29
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Ollie and the Minotaur opens like a fresh sea breeze of familiarity as old school friends Thea, Bec and Carla come together for a coastal weekend reunion.

It’s the type of weekend based on simple pleasures we’ve all had – lie in the sun, get drunk, relive your youth and maybe listen to Gen X anthems like Pump Up The Jam for good measure.

The dominant Thea (Wendy Bos) and the more retiring Bec (Sarah Brokensha) arrive first and from the first moments a pecking order of their status is established. Advertising executive Carla (Adriana Bonaccurso) is not far behind them as she quickly dons her sunnies and starts ordering young Bec to fix her a gin and tonic.

From Shakespeare to Chekhov, the dramatic potential and tension provided by three women on stage has been used by the greats of the stage.

Ollie and the Minotaur is no different. The three talk about boys, dance and yell madly but the innocence of their get-together unravels as a dark secret between the three opens a Pandora’s box.

It’s here that the dramatic tension lifts off and takes what could be a very ordinary plot into a complicated and more sinister world.

Working with three quite wonderful performers, playwright Duncan Graham has grabbed that tradition and developed a story that is engrossing and, when it reaches the end, very disturbing.

Director Sarah John allows the story to be told with a respectful simplicity and allows the gifted actors to deliver what is a sharp, realistic and well-crafted new Australian play.