The atmosphere at Monday night's Sydney Theatre Company 2009 season launch shows how quickly Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett are changing the energy of the place.
With hordes of young actors, independent theatre artists, professional performers and a smattering of celebrity it was one of the most lively and convivial evenings I have had at the Wharf for ages.
There was a great sense of excitement in the air, with even a sense of relief, that a new administration and a new direction was taking over. The Artistic Directors made the deliberate point that they want to open the place up, making it more the SYDNEY Theatre Company than its previous incarnation.
There was such a great cross section of people there from all across the industry that you got the sense that Upton and Blanchett are really blowing away the cobwebs. They even had Youth Group playing at the end of the night. Everytime someone said to me 'they're a bit loud aren't they?' I was filled with just a little glee.
The evening started with a short speech from the AD's followed by Jonathan Wikipedia Biggins dryly comparing short speeches from the cast and crew of each of the shows lined up for next year.
It's an unusual season and not what I was expecting at all. But it does go hand in hand with a certain approachability and lightness that Upton and Blanchett are trying to introduce into the theatre company.
They have divided up the season into what they have branded 'Main Stage', 'Next Stage' and 'Back Stage'. It sounds almost as good as a flirtatious night out on Oxford Street but the new STC version is all about opening up communication channels and bringing emerging and burgeoning artists together with those that are established.
Kicking off the season is David Williamson's The Removalists. This will definitely give the box office a good old kick along with subscribers who love their dose of Williamson and those HSC students studying it next year. Directed by one of my favourite directors currently around on the local circuit, Wayne Blair, it will appeal to a wide range of punters.
This is then followed by Travesties, a UK import from Tom Stoppard who wrote the play in the early 1970's, reviving it and re-writing it in 1993. I can hear the collective sigh of relief from many of you saying 'Well, thank god it isn't another David Hare piece'. The play, which looks at 'revolutionary artists', has had a solid amount of re-mounts to justify a new STC version which will be directed by Mr Ralph Cotterill.
The Wonderful World of Dissocia by Scottish playwright and director at the National Theatre of Scotland, Anthony Neilson, is another UK import and is the type of programming that wouldn't be far removed from a Fergus Linehan Sydney Festival event. First produced at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004, this is fantasy theatre at its best. And if director Marion Potts can pull of a new version it should be one of the picks of the season.
Andrew Bovells' When The Rain Stops Falling quickly follows and is a work, as the title suggests, that delves into the world of the environment. Loosely based on the fantastic Tim Flannery history The Future Eaters, this is a direct import by Brink Productions that first premiered at the Adelaide Festival earlier this year.
My esteemed colleague at The Guardian Lyn Gardner called the next production as the most "blissfully funny and touching evening I've had in the theatre for ages". Elling which started off as a cult book in Norway to then become a film and then a play seems to have that quality of simple quirky story telling. It will be Pamela Rabe's second occasion as director.
Martin Crimp is featured next and many people I know are big fans of this UK playwright. His latest play The City will have its Australian premiere after a very successful opening earlier this year at the Royal Court. Directed by Benedict Andrews this is the other side of the coin to his earlier work The Country and confronts the ever present angst of urban life.
Poor Boy, a co-production with the Melbourne Theatre Company, follows next and sounds like it could be an interesting night, especially those that are fans of Tim Finn. Aimed at your 30-45 year old demographic (as much of this season is) it features original songs and lyrics by Finn which are framed by playwright Matt Cameron and director Simon Phillips.
Tommy Murphy's Saturn's Return makes a mainstage comeback after a first successful run at Wharf 2 (and playing now). I have heard very mixed reports on the play from a wide variety of people whose judgement I value but obviously Blanchett and Upton think it deserves another crack. It will be directed by everyone's favourite David Berthold.
The next production seems to be the one that many are chattering about as Blanchett opens the company up further and flies Liv Ullmann to direct Tennessee Williams' masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire. There was a very strange comment in an article by Joyce Morgan yesterday that said 'Blanchett is confident Ullmann's production, which will tour North America, will shake off the shackles of the famous film that so often overshadows the original play'. I have no idea why you would bog yourself down in trying to shake off those (rather quite excellent) shackles but here's hoping that Joel Edgerton doesn't try to do a Marlon Brando. This should be a good meaty show.
French playwright Yasmina Reza is then up in what is a big return for Gale Edwards as director. God of Carnnage is Reza's 2006 play which first premiered in Switzerland but wasn't produced in English until last year. Reza is a very popular playwright in Europe and I saw much of her work at the National Theatre of Slovenia while I was living there. Always interesting and always amusing and always with that typical French insight, starring Jeremy Sims I am quietly looking forward to this show.
The Wharf Revue is next. No need to elaborate.
The Mysteries: Genesis is then next and marks the start of the new Actors Company, herein known as The Residents. From the little information provided about what the Residents will be it appears to be a much better and fluid version of the first. Indeed, it will hopefully be more in the spirit of what an 'ensemble' really is - a pool of people you draw from on a project by project basis. Performed at CarriageWorks and directed by Matthew Lutton, Andrew Upton and Tom Wright this look like being quite an epic production. As a big supporter of Lutton and Wright, this appears (on paper) as suitably ambitious.
The final show is literally an unknown and has already provoked an angry response from some grumpy STC subscriber in the Herald today;
Sydney Theatre Company's star-struck obsession with famous names has hit a new low in its season next year.
Subscribers are being asked to put down money sight unseen for an untitled play (sorry, "project", which sounds so much more Hollywood). No cast is announced, not even excellent regulars such as Peter Carroll or Pamela Rabe. There are no clues to what it is about, not even whether it is a comedy, drama or musical.
We are supposed to pay, more than a year in advance, solely on the name of a Hollywood film director, Steven Soderbergh, with no theatre credentials.
Sydney theatre-lovers are entitled to more than a blatant excuse for others to rub shoulders with the rich and famous.
Peter Deegan, Erskineville
Maybe the STC should have asked Peter from Erskineville to come to the launch on Monday, because if that is anything to go by, next year's season appears to be populated by a healthy mix of the new, the established with just a little celeb shenanigans.
And besides we've seen Peter Carroll and Pamela Rabe all year. It's good to have a bit of a break.
18 comments:
Sounds like it was a brilliant move on Robyn Nevin's part to put them forward for the job. Passing of the torch.
Thanks Robyn - i think we all agree with your comment.
Mwoah X
:-0
I'll tell you what they should've done with the torch! Held it underneath the contracts! What a lack-lustre, thrill-less, innane, fuck-up of a myriad of opportunity! You can have all your witty asides, but I'm really annoyed. If I'd suspected it was going to look like this artless collection of familiarity, I wouldn't have wasted so much energy anticipating it! There's more interesting theatre in my doctor's surgery waiting room. Maybe I should subscribe to that?
Does anyone else suspect "The Removalists" might be some kind of programming in joke?
I guess you just had to be there.
Well Anon? Let's have your season? What would have been in it?
Well, I know that if I was going to programme the STC season, it would be full of obscure plays from Eastern Europe and South America with a dose of plays not performed in English with a good bit of colour-blind casting.
The STC would also co-produce shows across Sydney, in independent venues utilising and enhancing the skills of emerging artists.
No doubt the company would go broke within weeks.
Just quietly, with this programme in mind, there's no guarantee that it still won't SAJ. Er, that's if you don't count a deficit as already being as good as broke. In the business sense, anway.
Can't wait. Looks terrific!!!
Having a had the opportunity to examine the season in some detail, I think it is a very interesting ... and dare I say it? brave selection. Even the Williamson, the inclusion of which has to be, as anonymous points out, a statement about the new direction for the company.
What I find fascinating about this programme is that it actually demands something other than a cursory glance at the cast and the dates. There are names that don't immediately leap off the page with recognition, and for that reason alone, I would argue with anonymous #2's point about "familiarity". I don't see anything 'familiar' about the work in this programme ... in fact quite the opposite.
It's an interesting season that inspires a certain amount of curiosity, and I think that's a good thing.
Indeed Geoffrey - that is certainly the impression I developed as well.
At first glance I was admittedly underwhelmed, but at a much closer look, there is an air of freshness and unpredictability.
The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Elling, The Mysteries: Genesis - most particularly interest me as selections.
The rise and rise of Wayne Blair and the collaboration of Wright, Lutton and Upton should also be enough reasons to get down to the Wharf during the year.
To paraphrase Mr. Brookman, "Mr Upton and Ms Blanchett are really quite unqualified to make assertions about...etc etc etc"
No anonymous. I really beg to differ. While I not a card-carrying member of the Blanchett-Upton Fan Club, I am most certainly aware of Ms Blanchett's support, both practical and otherwise, for aspiring thesbians, writers, etc. As I have mentioned in a comment much earlier on this blog when mud was being flung around the place, she has a strong connection to grassroots theatre-making. Can we just get over the fact that she's an actress of international renown and not use this spectacular over-achievement to belittle the potential of her work for the STC? Why not try basing your comments on discussion about the programme to hand, not comments that really, when all is said and done, contribute nothing to the development and value of the cultural scene in Sydney and beyond?
It was meant as a joke, Geoffrey, and a gentle dig at Rob Brookman's high-handed comment on the masthead of this blog, not at them. And yes I fully agree let's wish them well and hope for the best, and there is much in the season that sounds interesting (although I cannot help but feel if exactly the same season had been put forward by the previous regime it would have been received far less generously). By the way, is a "thesbian" an actress who likes other women?
"Thesbian"? That's even better than anything the author of this blog has inadvertently written. I resign.
Embarrasata! Of course it's thespian ... but the irony is that one of the people I was referencing in the back of my mind as I wrote that comment, with particular thespianistic associations with Ms B, is in fact a lesbian.
So ... sorry Anon, but the irony, or perhaps sarcasm, of your comment was lost on me. What I am tired of reading, not only here but also over at Alison's Croggon's theatrenotes, are comments that are really just, well, nasty personal attacks. I am convinced that the authors of (both) these blogs must just hang their heads in frustration when all their hours of hard work in bothering to blog at all is just met with smear, innuendo and pointless drivel.
We should consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have SAJ countering the MSM POV and I am really hungry for interesting, informed comments about the state of the arts in Sydney as opposed to snide, juvenile spite masquerading as wisdom, knowledge and points for continued discussion. From which I believe we could all learn something.
'Thesbians' are what Barrie Kosky uses in all of his Greek inspired theatre - those strange creatures that look like they half came from Thespos and half came from Lesbos...
They can generally be identified by an enormous strap-on.
Yes Geoffrey quite right -- let's keep this at a level of informed comment. And the enthusiasm for this year's launch at STC is a positive thing, but surely quiet and realistic assessment should also be allowed. A season that is comprised mainly of buy-ins of shows that have already achieved their credentials elsewhere and a couple of hoary revivals is not a bad thing, but is hardly the Second Coming. Given that the new ADs of STC have not had a lot of time, and, from what one reads, seem to have been pre-occupied with red carpets around the world a lot of the time, I suppose it is as much as one can expect, but the real proof will be when we see what commissions are realised on their watch. That's what an artistic director is there to do, not simply fill a shopping trolley with other people's achievements. Fingers crossed.
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