The Sydney Theatre Company's Wharf headquarters was near to overflowing this afternoon, as the Sydney Writers' Festival hit its stride during its last two days. The bustle of the crowd, hurrying between one event and queueing up to the next was excitable and earnest with a good dose of old-age grump to go with it.
In one quiet corner of the wharf and away from the hordes downstairs, fifty people had gathered to hear the winner of the 2006 Patrick White Playwrights' Award. With prize money worth $20,000, this event is the richest playwriting award in Australia and has some substantial street-cred that goes with it.
Future STC Artistic Director Andrew Upton coughed and spluttered his way through the introduction to the presentation. The winner, from a shortlist of ten finalists including Antonia Baldo, Paul Galloway, Steve Hawke, Simon Luckhurst, Katherine Thomson, Mirra Todd, Christopher Watkins, Anthony Weigh and Matthew Whittet, was Patricia Cornelius with her play Do not go gentle...
Upton explained that as one of the judges, along with Chris Drummond, Lenny Ann Low, Rachel McDonald & Chris Mead, it was a very difficult choice to select one winner from 179 applicants.
Lenny Ann Low, a journalist from the joint sponsor, the Sydney Morning Herald, also made a brief speech bringing praise to the winner, as a play that has 'theatrical foresight'.
Cornelius is a founding member of the Melbourne Workers Theatre and has written more than twenty plays, many of which have won awards across the country.
The judges believed that Do not go gentle... "is a play brilliant in conception and execution... It tells two stories at the same time: one is the expedition of Robert Falcon Scott and his team's gradual envelopment by the Antarctic; the other follows residents in an Australian nursing home on a journey towards bewilderment and death."
A rehearsed reading followed with director Julian Meyrick and performers Helen Noonan, Ralph Cotterill, Victoria Longley, Don Reid, Betty Lucas, Ian Watkin & Russell Kiefel.
It was a very interesting choice of play, and indeed beautifully poised in its dialogue and flow. I found, however, the choice of winner a little conservative and uninspired and am still unsure of the connection between Scott of the Antarctic and the effects of dementia and old-age. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what a cast and crew do with the theatrical elements of the play, of which there are many.
One thing was left unanswered from the whole awards ceremony. What happens with those 179 other plays?
POST SCRIPT 4/6: Does anyone understand why the Sydney Morning Herald, who sponsored this event, has not run any article on the award winner from Saturday. Is that strange, or is it just me?
-------- Apologies to the SMH. They ran a small piece on page 3 today within the article "Scares & Whispers..."
Image: In Imagine
Saturday, 2 June 2007
Patrick White Playwrights' Award Announced
Posted by Nicholas Pickard at 11:22 pm
Labels: Australian Plays, General Comment, Playwrights, Playwriting, Sydney Theatre Company, Theatre
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8 comments:
179 plays?
What to do with them?
Thats about how many local government areas there are in NSW.
1 play promoted in each Local Government Area and Shire.
With Local Councils and consent authorities just busting to show us their cultural credentials, we could have a state wide festival.
Regional arts NSW are just across the road from STC,so there you go.
Imagine the town halls and comunity centres across this State warming up to a fantastic explosion of ideas and participation.
This could be funded by charging HECS fees to all the sportsmen and women that get free training at the various sporting academies, as well as a little surcharge on each of the ubiquitous pokies in every corner casino as a friendly little cultural gesture of comradeship in the entertainment business.
John... I need to get you to run some more campaigns for me!
The Patrick White Playwrights' National Theatre Festival.... celebrating the best in playwrighting across the country???
Imagine.
Instead of the polite ceremony of wine and sandwiches yesterday, we could get a bit of argy bargy with it...
Now that's inspired.
Oh...
And PROUDLY sponsored by the AIS... bringing muscle to the arts...
perhaps?
I saw the award as well. I agree that the Scott/dementia link was hazy, but I wondered what you mean by conservative? Given it has a very abstract narrative at best, I suppose I saw it as fairly adventurous, no?
Just because there were 179 plays submitted - does not mean that they were all good
Perhaps it is valid to ponder what will become of the other 9 shortlisted plays though...
Thanks for your post Melburnian.
I don't really think that the narrative was that abstract at all. The only abstract element I saw I was the entwining of the Scott & Dementia narrative. And I still don't see the reason for that.
Remove that element and the rest was pretty... well... elementary. The monster figure that adds an element of the esoteric has been done since the ghost in Hamlet... The wondering characters that you are unsure of is, I think, a basic element of contemporary drama.
I suppose I use the word 'conservative' as it didn't break any new ground for me. I think it was a marvellously well written play. But that is as far as it went. Well-made in a social drama sense and not much more.
I would be extremely interested in hearing more of what you thought.
You are totally correct Anon about the 179 other plays... It is still interesting to wonder what happens to them, and who was the initial judge of those plays and what criteria was attached to them.
I might email one of the judges and ask what happens to the other 9.... Let's see how we go.
Well, I'm pretty sure the shortlist was selected by Campion Decent, who is STC literary manager according to the letterhead. At least that is who notified the shortlist. As to where they go, given that the STC doesn't offer a production to the winner, I don't suppose that they feel a great obligation to the short list. They may be 'Australia's Premier Theatre Company' but they don't seem to see their role in the same light as the National Theatre in London, who will seek out a suitable theatre company if they think an unsolicited script is good enough. Maybe the new MTC will fill the gap? At least the STC have an open competition, there is no such open process for the Wal Cherry Prize in Melbourne. I defy anyone to figure out how to enter in that if you are not a theatrical insider.
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