Just quietly...

Tucked away on page 10 of Saturday's Spectrum was an interview with set designer Ralph Myers by Bryce Hallett.

When I was reading it, I thought to myself; when was the last time the Herald published an article about a theatre set designer? You'd have to go pretty far back in the archives to find one.

And then it dawned on me - a very well placed article indeed. I smell a Company B succession in the wind. What are the odds now?

Creative roles for women hard to find in Australian theatre

Summary article as published in Crikey

Crikey’s anonymous tipster who last week expressed dismay at the lack of women programmed in Sydney’s Company B theatre season for 2010 was certainly not alone. A wave of dissent in the blogosphere has descended on the theatre, in what one commentator has called a “public relations disaster”.

Yesterday it reached page three of the Sydney Morning Herald with Neil Armfield having to defend his final season launch as artistic director saying, ”When it comes down to planning each season, you just have to go with the best ideas, the best projects that are out there. I had interviews with half a dozen women directors, and we actually offered three women gigs for next year, and only one of them was taken up …”.

But it’s not just Company B that’s on notice — it’s the entire performing arts industry.

In The Age, the Melbourne Theatre Company was also questioned about its gender balance yesterday. The MTC’s response was a little bit more extraordinary saying it was not the MTC’s responsibility to provide gender equality when it was a problem for the whole theatrical industry.

”It is unreasonable to expect one level of the industry to compensate for the shortcomings of another,” MTC chairman Derek Young told The Age’s Robin Usher.

It’s hardly surprising that this issue has blown up in the face of some of the country’s leading arts companies and all it took was a couple of young female bloggers in Sydney to bring it to the attention of the major metropolitan news outlets.

A young director, Joanna Erskine gave her opinion saying “… I struggle to understand how such a prominent and successful and LOVED company such as Company B Belvoir, has openly produced such a female-less season. I don’t mean actors, I mean females in integral creative roles — as playwright and director.”

And then a blog run by seven writers based in Sydney (and mostly women) opined that “… in nearly every instance female students greatly outnumber men. So what happens to them? At what point in the process are they being passed over? Do they give up when the going gets tough? Are they perhaps less committed than their male counterparts? Or do they side-step more readily into admin and support roles?”

And then there was the anonymous rant on Crikey that said: “Even hardened members of the theatre community well used to the boys’ club of the Sydney theatre scene were taken aback at the launch of the much anticipated swansong from outgoing artistic director Neil Armfield at Belvoir on Monday night.”

Another young director in Sydney, August Supple put the issue plainly by pointing that, “If you look at Belvoir as a place of equality —  let’s look a little further,” and pointed readers to the Contact Us section of their website.

As Supple shows, the “creatives” in the company are all men and the women are all in positions of education, promotion and admin.

If you look at theatre company websites throughout the country the story is the same with a few exceptions (most notably in Western Australia where the artistic directors for Black Swan and Perth Theatre Company are both women).

Accusations of a “boys’ club” are extreme, but when you have the MTC saying that it is “unreasonable” for them to employ more women because that’s what everyone else is doing you start to feel like you’re in a time warp. And now heads are turning towards the film, television and music industries.

The arts need to address the problem head on and look at why women aren’t pursuing creative careers within the industry because the new found citizen journalists are starting to notice not much has changed in nearly thirty years. And for an industry that should know better, excuses are starting to run dry.

Review: Gethsemane

Published in the Sun Herald

Gethsemane
Belvoir Street Theatre
Until 18 October
Tickets $34-56
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 6/10


Whether it’s John Della Bosca, Milton Orkopulous or Matt Brown, political affairs in NSW make this British play about power, politics, party donors, sex and drug scandals all a bit polite.

This is a major problem for Gethsemane, a new play from British playwright David Hare that rails against another failing government - Britain’s New Labour.

Even though Hare stated the play was ‘pure fiction’ when it premiered in London last year, it clearly targets Prime Minister Tony Blair and vilifies his government for Iraq, Afghanistan and everything else that’s wrong with the world and British society.

The title refers to the night of the Last Supper when Jesus is tempted to not carry through with the responsibility he has been given by God. It’s a moral quandary as Hare asks: how far have our governments, elected representatives and society strayed from our own responsibilities?

Prime Minister Alec Beasley (Rhys Muldoon) is running a government sliding down the polls. But he seems to be more occupied raising funds for the party with bovver boy Otto Fallon (Hugh Keays- Byrne) and his spooky sidekick (Charlie Garber) than looking after his increasingly dysfunctional country.

Meanwhile, Beasley’s Home Secretary, Meredith Guest (Sarah Peirse), is trying to contain a potentially explosive situation involving her teenage daughter Suzette (Emily Barclay), a tabloid journalist (Dan Wyllie), drugs and a sex scandal.

Seeking the help of her advisor (Paula Arundell) and Suzette’s old teacher-turned busker (Claire Jones), Guest attempts to contain the situation, stay in politics and save her daughter.

This new production directed by Neil Armfield at first appears quite timely, but the depth to Hare’s characters (along with some far-fetched notions around the influence of Suzette’s teacher in a scene with Fallon) makes it fall short of the real-life melodrama we already have going on around us.

On a set by Brian Thomsen that looks strikingly similar to My Zinc Bed - another Hare play he designed for Armfield - the performers are all faultless. Peirse has that British neurotic quality of a minister battling to be a mother and Garber brings a Transylvanian quality that injects some life into a play that is intelligent but not as witty as it first appears.

With a tone that rarely gets above a royal family Christmas message it’s all too genteel and pales in comparison with the bearpit of the NSW parliament.

Review: The Promise

The Promise
Belvoir Street Theatre
Until 23 August
Tickets $34-56
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Famously, the first English language production of The Promise was performed in 1967, starring Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more simmering trio to act out the lives of a love triangle set over twenty years in Soviet Russia.

Luckily, Simon Stone, in his mainstage directorial debut for Company B, has found another beautiful trio to tell the story of three teenage orphans who find themselves together during the 1942 siege of Leningrad.

In an empty apartment above a city surrounded by Nazis, Lika (Alison Bell) and Marat (Ewen Leslie) are with little food and hardly any warmth.

At 16, Lika has learnt life the hard way, waiting for her neighbours to starve to death before she steals their furniture to burn. But she has a love of Tolstoy and Tergenev and an innocent beauty with a smile that always speaks surprise.

Marat, on the other hand, is a little older, chiding her for the brutal way she waits for the death of those around her. But he is a chronic liar with a quick temper behind his dark eyes.

Their isolation together turns into passion and on Lika’s birthday they suddenly find themselves locking lips and falling headlong into love.

The final ingredient for the ménage a trois comes in the form of Leonidik (Chris Ryan), who enters and comes crashing to the floor overcome by fatigue and starvation. Always talking in the third person, he is a writer afraid of being read.

As the three become reliant on one another for companionship, this love story looks at the many ways we all have a need to love and be loved – despite what’s happening outside our own four walls.

Played out over three acts, The Promise takes us from the siege to the end of the war, when Leonidik and Marat return from army service and force Lika to choose between the two lovers. Act three hurls us forward to 1959, when the three are brought back together again and decisions about their future have to be made once more.

Quite simply, the language of this play by Russian writer Alexei Arbuzov, in a new adaptation by Nick Dear, is stunningly beautiful.

The director has delivered, on a bear revolving stage, a even-handed interpretation with some stunning photo-like images at the end of each scene that help find the intimacy and romance of these alluring characters.

However it’s a production that doesn’t quite simmer enough and hasn’t quite got its head around the brooding passion of these three very Russian characters. But give it a couple of weeks and that passion could very well simmer right to the top.

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.

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.

Review: The Man From Mukinupin

The Man from Mukinupin
Company B, Belvoir Street Theatre
Until 17 May
Tickets $34-$56
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 7/10


With its musical numbers and classic country setting, The Man from Mukinupin by Dorothy Hewett is like a timeless travelling caravan show conjuring up a pre-World War I environment with good yarns, romanticism and bush heroism.

Written in 1979 and set in the drought stricken wheat belt of Western Australia, the play takes us back to the Edwardian years as white settlement spreads out across the land.

In the town, where people are "muck’n up", Polly Perkins (Suzannah Bayes-Morton) and shop boy Jack Tuesday (Craig Annis) are teenagers smitten with each other much to the chagrin of her parents, Eek (Max Gillies) and Edie (Kerry Walker).

The old black-clad couple fancy the travelling lingerie salesman Cecil Brunner (David Page) as a far more appropriate (and wealthier) match for the beautiful young Polly. All this is while the nosy Hummer sisters (wonderfully played by Roxanne McDonald and Valentina Levkowicz) look on.

When travelling actors Max (also David Page) and Mercy Montebello (Amanda Muggleton) blow into town with a melodramatic show of Othello, young Jack gets a taste for the wider world - threatening to leave the besotted Polly.

The fun loving game of youthful love and innocence slowly erodes as the war approaches.

Introducing doppelgangers for each of the characters, Hewett shows another world over the rabbit proof fence where Jack’s mad brother Harry, Polly’s half-sister Lily and Eek’s star-gazing brother Zeek reside.

Hewett’s play is seen as one of the great works of Australian theatre along with Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, The Season at Sarsparilla and The Removalists.In some ways, the ex-Communist Hewett purges herself of everything she is unhappy with in her homeland – imperialism, ecological destruction and black-white relations. Director Wesley Enoch uses colour-blind casting mixing indigenous and non-indigenous actors as they double up and portray the two worlds.

With painted white faces the actors cover up their racial differences and give their characters a ghost-like feel in a world which is long forgotten.

Set designer Richard Roberts and lighting designer Rachel Burke have utilised the dreamlike effect with an eerily dim stage which allows actors to appear from the shadows of the space and float in and out of the action.

The ghost tone of this production, though fantastic and theatrical, flattens the emotional highs and lows, particularly the musical numbers. It meanders at times, lacking a tightness and pace for its 2½ hours.

Hopefully these moments will be ironed out because The Man from Mukinupin hasn’t lost its relevance after 30 years, in many ways getting better with age.

Ruben Guthrie Loses a Few Passengers

There's a little unhappiness down at the old tomato sauce factory on Belvoir Street where a few noses are out of joint.

Ruben Guthrie, another play which has made good in the Downstairs theatre, received a promotion and will be enjoying a mainstage season in the upstairs theatre in a couple of months.

But a few actors from the original cast won't be going with it.

The play, written by Brendan Cowell and directed by Wayne Blair, follows the ups and downs of a 29-year-old advertising creative and his battle with the bottle.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the play and found it a bit la di da - but when I discovered a couple of the actors won't be going with it I was very surprised.

Sure, the play has problems - primarily dramaturgical - but the least of its problems were the actors. In fact, you could almost say the acting ensemble was its strongest element.

The cast in the original production included Megan Drury, Tracy Mann, Lex Marinos, Torquil Neilson, Sam Reed, Toby Schmitz and Christopher Stollery. But a few names will magically disappear when it ascends in May.

But there's a bigger problem here as well. All the above-mentioned actors worked on the show last year for free. Well, they may have received a cut of the co-op cake but essentially, this was an unpaid gig which wouldn't have got anywhere near MEAA award rates.

This included four or five weeks of rehearsals, a four week season and the invaluable creative input put into the development and fine-tuning of the show.

So you can only imagine the ... well ... 'something' going down after a few ejections. I certainly wouldn't be very happy.

But what are the ethics 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?

In a world where shows from the independent sector are increasingly noticed by mainstream producers and programmers is there any responsibility at all to the creatives? I suspect there probably isn't but we live in a very small world here in Sydney Theatre Land.

This is the second show in as many years which has gone directly from the downstairs Belvoir space up to the Company B space - the last being Kate Mulvaney's The Seed which managed to keep all three actors during the transfer.

I suppose the moral of the story is that this is just the way show business works and nothing should be taken for granted - especially if you're an actor in an independent theatre production. Unless of course you can find away to put in an additional clause in your contract.

Review: Baghdad Wedding

Baghdad Wedding by Hassan Abdulrazzak
Company B
Belvoir Street Theatre

Herbal Cigarette Warning: This is another production which uses HERBAL CIGARETTES .

Following the lives of three young Iraqi students, Baghdad Wedding is a play straddled between the worlds of London and Baghdad from the period of the first American attack on Iraq in the 1990's to around 2005 when the three young émigrés return to their homelands.

It is one of those new pieces of writing taken from the point of view of an expatriate reflecting on their homeland from afar - a story of an educated middle class. It's becoming a common method of telling personal semi-autobiographical émigré stories which use more creative license than the transcript driven verbatim theatre style.

In one sense, the new wave of autobiographical theatre is the next step in the verbatim style of theatre which is currently so popular in English speaking countries. Both styles share many similarities with a heavy social conscience, a challenge of stereotypes and a didactic intent. In fact, one could almost say that verbatim theatre and autobiographic theatre are two sides of the same coin.

In an interview with the Guardian, stem-cell biologist Hassan Abdulrazzak, explains he wrote Baghdad Wedding "to show authentic Arabs, the kind of people I know and grew up with, who are interested in the arts, who drink and smoke, and whose social relationships are not governed by taboos. I hope in the future we'll hear more of this kind of Arab voice." It’s a shame the UK doesn’t have an SBS TV equivalent.

The play’s protagonist is the charismatic novelist Salim (Benjamin Winspear), a man you quickly learn has already died. We find him in Baghdad on the eve of his wedding, as he goes out on the town celebrating his last night of bachelorhood. With him is his old friend and narrator of the story Marwan (Yalin Ozucelik).

They are nostalgic of the old times, days when they would have big fiestas with women, marijuana, Johnnie Walker and the occasional bit of bisexuality.

In the mix is also the young, beautiful and feisty medical student Luma (Melanie Vallejo) who captures the hearts of both Salim and Marwan.

But it is not just a love story and the three of them are thrown into the real world when their country captures the attention of the international community. For better or worse the three of them and the play moves from the relatively safe confines of student dormitories and London life to a war zone.

What is most beautiful about this play is the intimacy of the language and the close encounters between the main characters. Whether it is the overtures of love in a London park or the hair rasing interrogation scenes with American soldier, this play is all about the dialogue which is quick, clever and moving.

This is one reason why it doesn’t work in the large upstairs Belvoir St theatre space. Coming out of the play I felt the structure of it was lost somehow and the ending came on far too quickly. Reading the notes, I suddenly realised why.

Baghdad Wedding first premiered in a very intimate 140-seat theatre in the Soho part of London. One of the qualities that is clear from its creation in that small space is the way it alludes to, but doesn’t show, the upheaval of a country on the edge of destruction. Moments of violence are explained, not recreated and this is where Geordie Brookman’s production trips up as it tried to fill the space with a play designed to be performed on a small stage.

In many instance, a lot of conversations are stuck up in the back corner of the space unable to reach out and achieve the closeness that would have been experienced at the Soho Theatre. So many of these conversations are about love or the need for love or the regrets of love - whether romantic or platonic. They are small, eaves-dropping pieces of dialogue. But next to a massive wall (what is it with plays set in the Middle East and big walls – Scorched, Serpent’s Teeth and now this???) and in such a large space so much of the action is totally dwarfed.

Despite this, the performances from most actors are excellent, particularly Winspear, Ozucelik and the always brilliant Arky Michael - who is one of the best physical performers on our stages. The lighting and costume design is also inspired moving eloquently between space, mood and time.

Baghdad Wedding is a beautiful journey with a heart and a touching finale. But it’s no Scorched, which was awe-inspiring for its epic scale. In a word, Baghdad Wedding should have been staged in the Downstairs theatre.


Baghdad Wedding
Belvoir St Theatre
Until 22 March
Bookings 02 9699 3444 or belvoir.com

All About Theatre

When was it? How long? It seems a lifetime ago. Lloyd always said that in the Theatre a lifetime was a season, and a season a lifetime.


And so the new year begins. As the final embers of the Sydney Festival slowly burn from our memory our theatres begin their programmes in earnest.

The coming few months has some treats worth looking at. From the alternative to the mainstages - from the underground to the spectacular - there's a little of something for everyone.

One such event which is quickly becoming a highlight in my calendar is the wonderful Imperial Panda Festival. It made such an impression last year that the City of Sydney has honoured its potential and thrown it a few grand. It was also the recipient of two nominations at the inaugural Sydney Music Art and Culture (SMAC) Awards.

It's a festival which is starting to capture an underground urban grit by profiling diverse, erratic and fearless performers. Using alternative spaces and galleries around the inner city, it attracts a young and hip crowd quite happy to plonk themselves on a milk crate with a plastic cup of cheap wine in their hand.

This year they open the festival with the premiere season of Kittenbone Bridge, a new play by Nick Coyle, which was first developed as part of the Wharf2Loud PUSH programme in 07.

There's a host of other new shows from groups including the Brown Council and Suitcase Royale. And of course the ever popular Erotic Fan Fiction evening returns - for those who last year experienced the perverse writing of Brendan Cowell and his account of the Australian Cricket team knocking it about in the sub-tropical heat of India will know what I mean. You can check out the Panda website HERE.

Griffin Theatre launched their 09 season a month ago and it contains some real gems. The highlight would have to be the show which opens this evening - Holiday from Ranters Theatre. I caught the premiere of it in Melbourne last year (thanks to the ever kind Alison Croggon who took me along) and I can't recommend it enough.

Holiday is a theatre experience which creeps up on you with a writing style which rarely graces the stages of Sydney. It is poignant, clever, funny and brutally relevant. And - it isn't verbatim theatre - hooray!

Speaking of which, surely 2009 must mark the end of verbatim theatre. Haven't we had enough already? I already have SBS at home, I don't need it my theatre as well do I?

I loved Damien Miller's The Modern International Dead which opened at the Griffin last year. In fact I loved it so much I think it represents the high note of locally produced verbatim theatre and now there is absolutely no reason to do it anymore. 

The rest of Griffin's programme for the year appears to be a well placed collection of local stories from around the country which I am really looking forward to. Their programme can be found HERE.

Even though Performance Space go into 09 with a new director and a new vision, the first few months of programming are part of the gradual handover from previous Director Fiona Winning. 

P Space kick off the year with a dance solo from the indefatigable Ros Warby and her show Monumental. Just have a quick look at the creative titles of her collaborators (Lighting Projection & Set Design, Music, Cinematography, Film Editor, Costume Designer, Costume Design Consultant, Black Hat, White Cap, Sound Design)  and you start to get a sense of where this show might be going.

Following on from the dance solo is the always brilliant Quick and Dirty extravaganza as part of the Mardi Gras Festival. It hasn't suffered from the move from Cleveland Street to Carriageworks (apart from the ever-restrictive, ever-suffocating, ever-ridiculous enforcement of the outside drinking policy - for the love of God, when are we going to get that sorted???).

Performance, puppetry and installation creators My Patricia Darling, dance force Splintergroup and young performers Team MESS also make a big appearance over the Summer/Autumn.

The mainstages also have a diverse array of productions premiering over the coming few months. Of particular interest is Baghdad Wedding which opens next week at Company B coming after a relatively modest opening at the wonderful SOHO Theatre in London, the new Marion Potts production of Venus and Adonis from Bell Shakespeare and STC, Travesties also at the STC and the new co-production between Griffin and the STC of Concussion. 

The independent sector is also getting into the swing of things. The Old Fitz kicks off its year with Cherry Smoke, a show from the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe and which is coincidentally also premiering in New York at the same time.  

Downstairs at Belvoir Street Theatre is their anti-Putin Russian play Ladybird which I profiled in depth last week. B Sharp will be launching the rest of their season in a few weeks. The New Theatre (who have finally, finally, finally got a new website) have also begun their year with a heavy Mardi Gras theme as usual. Last night they opened with the Tony Award winning play Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg. This is then followed by a production of the Herbal Bed and then the infamously funny Cosi by Louis Nowra. 

Amazingly, the TAP Gallery is still pumping away as one of the quieter and more alternative spaces. They have a pretty outrageous Mardi Gras show on at the moment called Vixen Noir in Sweet Deliverance: the perverted sunshine tour which follows the life of a sex goddess. There's even a warning to go with it - 18+, Sexual Content, Coarse Language and Nudity (thank god Mardi Gras is only once a year).

This is then followed up by another Mardi Gras show with a title of such originality, it'll take your breath away... Hard On. I don't need to explain it any further - but if you want to know more, go to the website. 

The Seymour Centre has a programme a little less ... a little less ... well, a little less something as they premiere Gutenberg! The Musical, another musical with an exclamation mark. I believe it is some type of a spoof, but I rarely understand in-house musical theatre community jokes.

But after Gutenberg! is a return season of The Beauty Queen of Leenane from the master director Maeliosa Stafford. 

So there's your next couple of months sorted. 

Anything else of interest, let me know.

 

Anti-Putin Play Opens B Sharp

It's good to see the Russians haven't lost their taste for being anti-everything. And so begins B Sharp's 2009 season with the Australian premiere of the anti-Putin play Ladybird by Russian writer Vassily Sigarev.

Most of the promotional info floating around is centring on who won a Sydney Theatre Critic Award or who in the production did this or who did that. The interesting story, however, is around the young playwright who has penned this work.

To begin with, Vassily Sigarev is just 31 and already the author of nineteen plays which have been performed in all corners of the world. (But not too much in Sydney funnily enough).

At such a young age and with such a prolific amount of work behind him, it's no surprise that Sigarev has won a whole heap of awards making him a theatre celebrity by the time he was just 25.

To begin with, Sigarev comes from the Ural part of Russia. Depending on who you ask, you'll get a few different notions of what that means. On the website Russia.com they describe the Urals as an area with "forested mountains, partially wooded steppes and normal, grassy steppes. Together these combine to make a beautiful and diverse landscape which exhibits topographical elements from all over Russia".

Elsewhere they'll tell you that the region was one of the most cruelly affected by the collapse of the USSR. It went through severe impoverishment and appalling isolation. The population, like many remote areas of Eastern Europe felt as though they were drowning in their new and so-called freedom. Industry was lost, commerce was lost but more importantly it was a side of Russian life not seen on our television screens. It was a Russia losing its values and its culture to a lust for material goods as it entered a stupor ignoring the rapid growth between those who could just afford bread and those who could afford a Porsche.

And in walks Sigarev who has something to say about the whole thing - which goes some way to explain why he already has a score of plays under his belt.

Ladybird, first produced in English in 2004, is set in an apartment situated next to a cemetery in a bleak little town with very little hope. As with all good things Russian it has its fair share of drinking and continues to fly the Chekhov flag of young people wanting to get to 'Moscow' (read: somewhere, anywhere but here).

How it goes down in Surry Hills will be interesting. It will be directed by Lee Lewis (now I know why she was loitering around Central Station today), stars my new favourite actor of the minute Yael Stone and received a New Work Production grant from the Australia Council for over $50,000.

Should be a corker of a show to kick off the year.

Review: Scorched

Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad
Translated by Linda Gaboriau
Company B

The former leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic was captured just this week after fourteen years on the run. Born in what is now Montenegro, he is most famous for mobilising Serbs in Bosnia against the Muslim and Croatian populations.

The area is now an autonomous zone in the northern part of Bosnia called Srpska Republika.

Radovan Karadzic faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity inflicted on Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He certainly isn't the only perpetrator, but was certainly one of the chief proponents of a war that the New York Times says had an estimated death toll of "150,000 to 200,000 and United Nations investigators have concluded that the deaths were accompanied by as many as 20,000 rapes."

Some of the worst cases of genocide occurred in the the Srpska Republika region which is an extremely beautiful part of the world. The mountains, the rivers, the small towns each became a hell hole for a people that watched as cousin fought cousin and brother fought brother.

The Balkan peninsula is a very small part of the world and for anyone who has ever been there, it makes the horror of the nineties even more unfathomable. Everyone knows everyone in Yugoslavia. From Macedonia to Slovenia, everyone is the friend of a friend of a friend. Which makes people like Karadzic all the more inexplicable.

The thing about the Balkans, despite all the western European prejudice, is it is so easy to see your own society and your own people in the atrocities.

Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad creates a very similar world in some non-descript Middle Eastern country. It could be Afghanistan, it could be Iraq, it could be Jerusalem and it could very well be Srebrenica.

Twins Simon (Ashley Lyons) and Janine (Yael Stone) are in the small and dusty office of notary Alphonso Lebel (Brian Lipson). Executing the will of their mother Nawal (played over three generations by Zindzi Okenyo, Paula Arundell and Gillian Jones), Simon and Janine find themselves with the task of finding their long lost father and brother as part of the conditions.

Over three hours, the epic tale is set out, taking us to the very early times of their mother's life, her early loves, her village and eventually her escape through a war torn land.

Simon and Janine are forced to reconcile their own tempestuous relationship with their mother who remained silent for the last five years of her life and back track through her life to discover the truth of their mother's life and their origins.

I don't think that Neil Armfield has tackled something of such breadth since Cloudstreet, in what is a shocking and emotionally draining theatrical experience.

Scorched is one of those landmark plays, a play that only occasionally comes along and sums up the very era you live in. It is the true theatrical exploration that looks at our global village, our relationships with one another, personal responsibility and our age of the butterfly effect. 'From little things, big things grow'.

Set designer Stephen Curtis has created a world of sand that covers over some ancient floor Mosaic. With rustic back walls, the play flows seamlessly from the notary's office to the funeral to villages in the middle of valleys. It is at times beautifully effective but it seems to have had many theatrical limitations (how many things can you do with a bucket of sand?).

The lighting by Nigel Levings was, in short, a phenomenal discovery that took risks that payed off, creatively complimenting the words, the action and the mood of the piece.

The highlight, apart from the considered and excellent performances was the live music by Carl Dewhurst. It is astonishing to think that such marked subtlety from a musician who usually plays in jazz bands could have got the tone of this piece so wonderfully right. This was his debut and I truly hope it is not his last venture onto Sydney's stages.

I can't speak of this show highly enough. There were some inconsistencies, some problems with vocalisation and a few over spoken lines, but Scorched is one of those rare beasts that is a pure indulgence for the avid lover of theatre.

After so many fifty-five minute junkets around town, it was a pleasure and a delight to have a show that you have to sit yourself in and let it run over you. It is a novel of a piece that brings you closer to understanding the Balkanised world we live in, with all its complexities, its misunderstandings and its compassion.


Until 7 September

Directed by Neil Armfield assistant director Wayne Blair set design Stephen Curtis costume design Anna Borghesi lighting design Nigel Levings composers Alan John and Carl Dewhurst sound design Steve Toulmin with Paula Arundell Carl Dewhurst Adam Hatz Gillian Jones Brian Lipson Ashley Lyons Lucia Mastrantone Zindzi Okenyo Hazem Shammas George Spartels and Yael Stone.

Review: The Pillowman at Company B and In Bruges at Sydney Film Festival

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
Company B

In Bruges written and directed by Martin McDonagh
Sydney Film Festival


Martin McDonagh is flavour of the month in Sydney at the moment. Not only are you able to catch Company B's excellent production of the 2003 play The Pillowman, but over this weekend you can also catch the Australian premiere of his debut feature In Bruges at the Sydney Film Festival.

For fans of his dark and brutal writing, there couldn't be two better reasons to get out into the wet and wild winter that Sydney is having at the moment. Just don't take anyone who is slightly sensitive to what one might call 'rich' language because from some reports people are walking out of the theatre production. This is not to mention the people I witnessed who got up in disgust from the film.

Doesn't it just give you the warmest feeling to know that people still get up and leave 'shocking theatre'? And it happens despite all the protective cushioning dressed up as warning signs that now plague our theatres.

So I will give it to you clearly. Martin McDonagh's plays are filthy rich in swearing, as he litters the text with feck this and feck that like confetti over a bride and groom.

The shame of it, for those that leave, is that the swearing is the least shocking element of his plays (or film for that matter). He has an elegantly forceful way of placing very normal people in extraordinary, absurd and violent situations that ask the big questions of personal responsibility, fate and choice. And despite the heightened situation it is all beautifully placed within the realms of possibility.

In The Pillowman, we meet Katurian K. Katurian (Damon Herriman), a writer living in a police state, somewhere, sometime with his mentally affected brother Michal (Steve Rogers). It smells instantly of the world of Winston Smith as the play opens up with Katurian interrogated by good-cop Tupolski (Marton Csokas) and bad-cop Ariel (Dan Wyllie).

Central to the allegations are some short stories which Katurian has written that depict violent scenes and violent deaths of children. A string of unsolved murders in the town similar to the stories as well as the toes of a child discovered in Katurian's home leads him to become the prime suspect.

Although the play is set within the confines of the interrogation rooms the stories of Katurian are told throughout, taking you to dark fairytale worlds of his imagination. But the dark fairytale soon becomes a reality as the childhood of Katurian and Michal expose a fractured and unresolved past.

Director Craig Illott has crafted a stylish and honourable production for Company B and along with designers Nicholas Dare, Jo Briscoe, Niklas Pajanti and Jethro Woodward they have created a world that does not overstate but passionately delivers the reality and fantasy of the worlds.

What is most beautiful, aside from the excellent performances from one of the strongest casts to be ensembled in Sydney this year, is the simple story-telling that has you enraptured like a child.

It was then an unexpected delight to then find myself walking into the State Theatre just yesterday to witness the Australian premiere of In Bruges directed and written by McDonagh in his first venture into the world of feature films.

Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are hitmen who have suddenly had to hot-foot it to the Flemish town of Bruges at the order of their gangster boss (Ralphes Fiennes) after an accident. Waiting for 'the call' to give them the all clear, Ray despairs at the thought of having to spend two weeks in the 'shithole' of Bruges while his older companion delights in the medieval history, the canals, cobble-stone streets and the beautiful tower of the city.

Ray explains to Ken, "I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't."

And so it goes, with Ray despairing over his 'accident' until he stumbles across a film set in the alcoves of Bruges where he meets the stunning Chloe (Clémence Poésy).

The performances by Farrell and Gleeson are spot on as they wrap the delicious one-liners around their tongues, playing brilliantly off each other.

It's interesting to see McDonagh translate his writing style to the world of film. His biting dark humour, the swearing, the politically incorrect comments and the violence are all there. So too is his trademark ability to ask those questions of personal responsibility.

But somehow, his transition into film loses a certain something. Within the beautiful realm of theatre, it is his unique strength of conjuring up worlds and people outside the four walls that makes him such a stunning playwright. The theatre is a place where he can let loose his imagination onto the audience and create a pressure cooker of tension as the outside forces bear down on the stage.

In film, he has found the restrictions and is forced to re-create the reality of his imagination and show all his cards. Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic film that is a hilarious and brilliant ride but for those who have followed his stage work, there is that missing element.

But then again, maybe that's the nature of the film beast.


The Pillowman - Directed by Craig Ilott Set design Nicholas Dare Costume design Jo Briscoe Sound design Jethro Woodward Lighting design Niklas Pajanti. Cast: Amanda Bishop, Marton Csokas, Lauren Elton, Damon Herriman, Steve Rodgers, David Terry and Dan Wyllie.

Images:
Top - Dan Wyllie and Damon Herriman. Photo- Heidrun Lohr
Bottom - Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell

Tardiness

The truth is, I managed to escape Sydney for the long weekend and spent four glorious days in Melbourne.

And no, I didn't see any theatre, hear any live music or go to a gallery. It was a pure and simple fiesta of drink, food and friends.

So I apologise for late blog deliveries, but coming up over the next few days is a long-overdue review of the brilliant Pillowman production on at Company B, as well as reviews on the new Bell Shakespeare Hamlet, Altar Boyz at the Seymour Centre and Miss Julie at B Sharp.

This will be swiftly followed by sneak peaks into the Sydney Film Festival which started last week and even more theatre openings after that - and there isn't a Hetty in sight.

It's actually a pretty jam packed month on all fronts. Keep your eye out for Chris Mead's latest essay to be published in Platform Papers where he asks the very simple question - Where are the stories by our ethnic writers?

Speaking of ethnicity (or lack of) in our theatre, my fellow blogger Ming Zhu Hii has penned her own response on the Lee Lewis Cross Racial Casting essay which also appeared in Platform Papers. Ming-Zhu's essay is actually one of a plethora of great articles in the most recent Real Time with coverage of emerging artists in Sydney and the current Brisbane Festival.

And I would encourage you to closely follow SAJ's dear friend John Wardle as he battles the political nightmare of Macquarie Street to get these new entertainment laws through both houses of State parliament. His Raise the Bar website has all the latest developments, changes and threats. His is a worthy cause that will do more for NSW than any arts grant could, so if you have time send him some support, moral or otherwise, click on http://www.raisethebar.org.au/

Review: Antigone - The Burial At Thebes

Antigone - The Burial at Thebes
a version of a Sophocles' play by Seamus Heaney
Company B

Last night as I watched Chris Kohn's Company B directing debut, I recalled a film I watched some time ago, Vanya on 42nd Street.

The whole premise of the film starts with a group of actors walking around the streets of New York. They chat, buy coffee, and catch up with each other's business. Eventually they walk into an abandoned building and before you even realise, Chekhov's beautiful, beautiful Uncle Vanya has started.

It is one of the most simple and elegant examples I have seen used in film that brings to life the resonance of a classical piece of literature from a reality setting.

In much the same way, Kohn's Antigone begins with much the same intention. Instead, Kohn along with designer Dale Ferguson have created a community hall. Indeed, a community hall so similar to any you could find in any suburb of Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide.

You have the small stage, one and a half feet from the ground, the tacky stage curtains, the tea and coffee pots, the sparse arrangement of chairs, the obligatory fire exit doors and of course, the green EXIT sign.

We find a man wandering the space who we later find out is Creon (Boris Radmilovich). He looks out the windows, tests the lights and finally takes a seat in one corner of the space that is no doubt, about to become his kingdom.

The world then comes alive, as homeless looking bodies crawl out from crevices under the stage, through all the doors and we find ourselves in the Community Hall of Thebes.

It certainly creates an awesome anticipation. What will Kohn do with this? How will the tragedy play out? How will Antigone front up to Creon, who has not allowed her to bury her brother? What status will Creon assume in this world? And enticingly, what will the gods of the Community Centre of Thebes be like?

The answer for most of those questions is, unfortunately, not very much.

When I left the theatre, people naturally come up to you and give you a smile and say, "So what did you think?" With this one, I was immediately unsure.

The first problem with this production is that the intent behind Seamus Heaney's translation was totally ignored. In a fascinating Guardian article, Heaney explains the way he began the translation:

"Early in 2003 we were watching a leader, a Creon figure if ever there was one: a law and order bossman trying to boss the nations of the world into uncritical agreement with his edicts in much the same way as Creon tries to boss the Chorus of compliant Thebans into conformity with his. With the White House and the Pentagon in cahoots, determined to bring the rest of us into line over Iraq, the passion and protest of an Antigone were all of a sudden as vital as oxygen masks."

It's a good old battle between good and evil, and as far as Heaney is concerned, that George W Bush chap is Doctor Evil numero uno.

In our Community Centre of Thebes edition, the stakes are totally lost, and you can feel that when actors are trying to wind up those fire and brimstone monologues (cause hang on a minute we are in a suburban Community Centre) that the ground is terribly shaky.

It has been suggested by casting indigenous actor Deborah Mailman as Antigone, local race relations would surface and provide the necessary context.

Indeed, in The Australian, Mailman says that "even though we haven't highlighted any of the facts of reconciliation - or the unreconciliation - that has happened within our country, certainly there is resonance that comes with me being in the role of Antigone."

Maybe the production needed to highlight it more. It certainly seems that Heaney wasn't afraid of highlighting his opposition to the actions of an American president.

The second problem is that the lighting and sound design raises the theatrical stakes to a compelling level that is unmatched by the events happening on stage. The fluorescent lights which add even further to the 'faithful reproduction' of a community hall flash and flicker whenever the tension rises. Thunderous and earthy sounds are even emitted, but when it is not matched, the effects just float off into the distance.

There is one moment, however, when Gillian Jones enters as the soothsayer and messenger through the double doors that finally provides the production with a height in tension and adds a clear and disturbing element of the 'other world' into our community hall.

This type of entrance and mood could have been utilised a lot more, especially in a play that is practically all messenger driven with all the violent action happening away from Creon's sight.

In many ways, there are too many opposing creative forces within this show, and the full breadth of its tragedy dissipates.

I wonder whether Kohn would have almost been better off doing this production within the smaller confines of a real community hall. At least then the context would have been created, like that in Vanya on 42nd Street, and where the intimacy may have lifted the tragic elements into something we could grasp and resonate with.

Until 25 May

Review: The Seed

The Seed by Kate Mulvany
Company B
Review

Unedited version of review published in today's The Daily Telegraph

It’s been just over six months since Kate Mulvany’s new play The Seed first premiered at Belvoir Street Theatre. But it was a premiere under very different circumstances to the one we witnessed this week.

In the small and cramped downstairs theatre, Mulvany put her heart on her sleeve with an autobiographical play that delved into the world of a family reunion with all the muck, confrontation and skeletons that come with it.

For audiences that venture out past the footlights of the big budget theatre productions, they found a little gem of a play that was not only an Australian story, but one that has a universal resonance. It was so popular that it has now traversed upstairs to the larger stage at the same venue.

Mulvany plays Rose Maloney a young journalist who accompanies her father Danny (Danny Adcock) on a birthday reunion to Nottingham to see her Irish grandfather Brian (Martin Vaughan).

She is keen to find out about her father’s childhood and the extended family who she has never known.

Brian welcomes the two into the home with a mixture of grandfatherly affection and a parental authority that immediately creates an emotional tension for Danny who hasn’t returned to his home for forty years.

Central to this tension is the fact that he finds himself squashed in the middle of a father he is still intimidated by and a daughter who continues to suffer the effects of his experiences as a Vietnam War conscript.

The play since last year hasn’t changed that much. It is a lot tighter with some scenes removed and some lines taken out, but the most dramatic difference is that it becomes less the story of Rose and more the transformation of Danny in facing his demons. Adcock’s stunning performance enhances this beautifully with dignity and a delicate touch.

It will be most interesting to see which direction Mulvany heads as a playwright now that success has been found through her family story. In the meantime, if you weren’t one of the lucky few to see the first carnation of this play, ensure that you enjoy the privilege of seeing it come back stronger and even more striking in its emotional power.


Belvoir Street Theatre, 25 Belvoir Street Surry Hills
$33-54 http://www.belvoir.com.au/ 02 9699 3444
Until 30 March

A change of guard at Company B

The relatively new general manager of Company B, Vicki Middleton, has resigned in order to raise a family in her new home of Australia. This elevates the recently appointed Downstairs B Sharp Theatre director, Brenna Hobson, to General Manager of Company B.

In a year where many theatre directors and actors are making their way from the downstairs B Sharp programme to the upstairs mainstage, this shift would have to be one of the most dramatic ascents up the Belvoir Street stairs seen yet.

It gives the industry a certain sense of relief that there is now two theatre companies in Sydney investing in the new 2.0 wave of theatre creatives and administrators with not only words but actions.

Now that the STC have rolled back their exciting Mead/Cowell Wharf 2 Loud programme from focussing on emerging talent to a more marketable product, it leaves Company B and the Griffin under Artistic Director Nick Marchand in a class apart.

But what will happen to the downstairs theatre programme? Currently Company B Literary Manager Eamon Flack and producer Sam Hawker are care-taking the management role of the theatre since Lyn Wallis' departure to Casula Powerhouse. But it leaves the direction of the theatre a little... how should we say... directionless.

Already I have heard rumblings from independent theatre makers involved in next years B Sharp season that the company is lacking in decision making and focus. A spokesperson for Belvoir has assured Sydney Arts Journo that a decision will be made for B Sharp by the beginning of January.

The appointment of Hobson, who has been around the Belvoir Street theatres for a long while and has diversified her experiences with Bangarra Dance and Jigsaw Theatre, it is for the company a new safe pair of hands.

But of course, with all this movement and change, the question on everyone's lips is how long will Neil Armfield stay at the helm of the company and let a new AD take over?

The Year of the Apprentice

I have a sneaking suspicion that Company B Artistic Director Neil Armfield has been watching a lot of Donald Trump's The Apprentice. If next year's season is anything to go by, Armfield has programmed not only one of the most adventurous and least commercial programmes of the last few years but has armed the programme with some of the newest theatre talent currently working in Sydney.

It truly is the year of the apprentice with the graduation of young directors and writers from Downstairs Belvoir, as well as other independent venues up the wooden hill to Company B.

As Sydney Arts Journo reported a couple of weeks ago, Kate Mulvaney's The Seed makes its way from Downstairs Belvoir with the full cast. And even though Armfield is keeping a careful eye on burgeoning director Iain Sinclair it is a key acknowledgement of the creative class emerging from the independent sector.

Chris Kohn is another apprentice with a well deserved guernsey as director who walks upstairs after a number of successful collaborations with Lally Katz in the Downstairs theatre. He's directing Antigone - but whether he got the gig due to his nagging or being approached by the company is a little less clear.

After the success of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, director Craig Ilott also secures a spot with Company B. He already made his way from the independent sector with a show at the Ensemble Theatre but this time is given the greater challenge of the Martin McDonagh play, The Pillowman.

There is quite a lot of pressure on Ilott to get this production right. This play is a huge favourite with actors for its vibrant and fleshy text, so every single actor that doesn't get cast will be looking very carefully at who he selects. As well as this, the last Company B production of a McDonagh play missed the mark by such a phenomenal distance that many fans of the Irish canon will be waiting in the wings with hurling sticks if they get it wrong again.

Much of this new transition can be attributed to the vision of Lyn Wallis, who curated the Downstairs season for the previous nine years. Just prior to her move to Casula Powerhouse, Wallis implemented the Boiler Room project which led to the development of directors and creative teams, with a view to them developing projects over the course of a number of consecutive years. This broke the trend which had plagued the independent theatre sector of lacking continuity in the development of artists.

Company B's programme is also a huge acknowledgement to the Indigenous talent that have been fostered by the company over the last few years. It also tips its hat to some of the exciting Indigenous projects that are emerging from around the country. Indeed, the pin-up girl for the Comapny B marketing and promotion is the wonderfully talented and absolutely gorgeous Ursula Yovich.

The opening production of 08, in collaboration with the Sydney Festival and Big hART, is Ngapartji Ngapartji (I give you something, you give me something). It has already toured the country and received an excellent review from Theatre Notes who describes the piece as "theatre that calls on its ritual roots. You are not buying a ticket to a show: you are being invited to participate in a ceremony." It looks and sounds fascinating.

Deborah Mailman, now ex-STC Actors Company will return to tread the Belvoir boards after giving birth to her son this year, as Antigone. Dallas Winmar, who last presented her play Aliwa! at Belvoir in 2001, has written another cracker of a tail in Yibiyung which centres around the life of her grandmother after researching 'Government file'. It will be directed by Wesley Enoch.

Armfield directs just one production this year, and it is a play discovered by a Sydney Opera House producer who believed it was better produced by Company B than the more conservative harbour-side venue. Scorched, written by Lebanese French-Canadian playwright has been compared to Jean Giraudoux and Jean Anoulih and Company B seems to have acquired a coup in presenting one of the hottest plays of the moment. It stars Paula Arundell and Arky Michael.

The year finishes up with a double-bill from Ridiculusmus duo John Haynes and David Woods who present a mad version of The Importance of Being Earnest and then dive a bit more seriously into Tough Time, Nice Time which is set in a jacuzzi in Bangkok. God only knows where it will go from there.

Armfield has curatored one hell of a programme which is exciting, diverse and adventurous. It has all the potential to push theatrical and thematic boundaries but I suppose the only thing really missing from the line-up is a female director... which is a shame.

Some juicy lil bits

What an interesting evening last night!

A colleague of mine and I have been bemoaning the utter lack of new Australian plays being presented in Sydney at the moment. They're all English or American or Australian plays from eons ago...

"The last one would have to be Mulvaney's The Seed wouldn't it?" I say.
"Yeah, that's about right." He replies.

And then on my way home from a wonderfully interesting production down at the Sydney Theatre Company (more on that in the next day or two), I run into a colleague who informs me that The Seed has just got a guernsey and will be transferring from the Belvoir downstairs space where it premiered earlier this year to an upstairs season next year.

Well, here's to that!

It's a very interesting play which I reviewed when it opened. A wonderfully diverse text with some powerful images that will no doubt work even better in the upstairs space.

I am informed that Neil Armfield will be the associate director on the production, which will no doubt pull it some rank. But hopefully the good word will spread about the show, with it working off its own merits like it did this year.

However (and a lot of people won't like this) I think that the show would benefit by having Mulvaney take off the actor hat and concentrate on the text and the changes it will no doubt go through in its transfer upstairs. This would also mean that another actor could fill her role and add a more objective dimension to the story.

But either way, I am glad to hear that The Seed will grow and grow.

And there have been some interesting developments down at the STC Actors Company. I have been informed that Steve Le Marquand replaced Colin Moody as of last week, Dan Spielman is leaving and relocating to Melbourne and Deborah Mailman is also departing the ensemble.

There are a couple of other movements which I need to verify, but it seems that it is all systems go for the ensemble as they continue to find their feet and discover the right balance. Next year should be interesting.