Vale Victorian College of the Arts

Victorian College of the Arts (VCA)
One of Australia's premier arts training grounds of the late 20th century

Born 1972 - Died 2009


A coincidence of time and place, and sheer hard work, enabled the Victorian College of the Arts (or VCA as she was known to her close friends and acquaintances), who has died aged only 37, to become one of the 20th century's premier arts training grounds in Australia.

Gillian Armstrong, Bill Henson, Sibylla Budd, Isabel Lucas, Vince Colosimo, Hannie Rayson, Adam Elliott, Nicole Youl, Phillip Adams, John Butler, Robert Luketic and Sarah Watt are just some of the alumni who had the fortune of her fine and cutting edge teaching practices.



The VCA's premature death, just yesterday, was after an assault many have called one of the most violent in the nation's history. Despite an enormous amount of witnesses coming forward, Victorian Police and the AFP say that the assailants are still on the loose. There was a spotting as recently as this morning of one of the alleged perpetrators in Canberra seen in a white car not far from Parliament House.

The VCA was at the height of her star studded career in what was a relatively short rise to fame, glory and respect amongst her peers.

Producing some of the best artists, directors, actors and film makers this country has seen, VCA was renown around the world for her vibrancy, originality and professionalism as a laboratory of investigation for the arts.

Although she had a rough first few years, her luck came when she amalgamated in 1978 with the VCA Technical School and welcomed musicians and dancers into the fold of artists. The result would make her the jewel in the crown of arts training grounds and set her on a path of collaboration and investigation that would be the envy of every state around the country.

Sadly, VCA was diagnosed with a massive brain tumour in April this year after Dr Sharman Pretty of Melbourne University prescribed incorrect medicines for what she believed was a simple cold. Police are investigating whether Pretty should face manslaughter charges.

VCA was taken to the Royal Canberra Hospital for further tests and treatment but she died on arrival.

The arts community was in mourning and shock with the news today, as it was revealed that VCAs death was the same as that suffered by her cousin Theatre Nepean just two years ago.

Some within the community are calling for a Royal Commission into how these deaths could have been avoided and whether there is any evidence of malpractice from within either the State Government of Victoria or the Federal Government.

VCA was born to Polish immigrant parents in Paris, France but moved as a toddler to Melbourne, Victoria, which gave her a lifelong love of the arts - most particularly theatre and music. When she was 12 the family moved to Perth, Western Australia where they gave birth to another child, WAAPA, but VCA stayed with close relatives in Melbourne.

At the age of 17 she was already deemed the top of her class in all forms in artistic expression and her reputation was quickly consolidated.

VCA is survived by an elder sibling NIDA, a younger sister WAAPA and twin brother AIS. VCA will be laid to rest next to her beloved cousin Theatre Nepean at a ceremony on Thursday.


Further information on VCA's death can be found HERE and HERE.

Review: Holiday

Holiday by Raimondo Cortese
Ranters Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company
SBW Stables Theatre



I've now had the fortune of seeing Holiday by Raimondo Cortese both at its Melbourne premiere last year and once again in a remount now playing at the Stables Theatre.

From a staging sense, it's always interesting to see a show in a different space and what the current production proves is how diverse and beautifully intricate this play is.

In a white space, a babies wading pool sits centre stage with two toy life rings and a beach ball. There are also two stools and a chaise lounge to the side. 

Two men enter the space - two men who are relaxing by a wading pool.

The silence of their presence is broken by the singing of a baroque song as they share the harmony and the verse. With warm eyes they look out into the audience, inviting us to listen and share in their presence on the stage. It's a beautiful opening which quietly slips into another silence.

The slightly older and greyer Arno (Patrick Moffatt) then begins his conversation with the taller and more lanky Paul (Paul Lum).

Arno: My mum sent me this parcel the other day.
Paul: What's that?
Arno: My mum sent me this parcel the other day.
Paul: In the mail?
Arno: Yeah.
Paul: She spot something... out shopping?
Arno: You know those plastic thingummies?
Paul: No.
Arno: The ones you used to find in the cereal.
Paul: The funny creatures?
Arno: She sent me a whole bag of them.
Paul: Why she send you those?
Arno: I don't know.

And so it begins.


From here a conversation takes us through ninety minutes of simple reflections, simple anecdotes all with the desire to fill a void of silence and be civil to one another. For the most part its amicable between the two men but as they start to get to know each other over the course of the play the tension slowly rises until it is broken by catholic guilt driven Arno who questions a statement made by the exaggerator Paul.

What made the evening even more interesting for me, was to see how the two shows evoked such different reactions from the Melbourne and Sydney audiences.

Spatially, the two shows are quite different. In Melbourne the play was performed under a white tarpaulin type shelter within the larger space of the North Melbourne Town Hall. The audience was seated in a proscenium formation and looked on through a fourth wall at the interaction.

In the unique and intimate space of the Stables, a fourth wall is not possible and instead, the audience is included within the space with designer painting the entire theatre white.

The change of space has had quite a profound affect on the play. The audience in Sydney found themselves more included in the action with the thrust stage and responded to the humour far more than the Melbourne audience. Add this to the fact that the black clad Melburniuns saw the play on a windy, cold and wet winter's evening and the happier Sydney audience were at the premiere on a balmy sub-tropical evening and the difference was palpable.

The loss of the fourth wall also meant directorial changes to the staging. Those long dramatic pauses between the bits of dialogue have been shortened substantially and the beach ball being hit into the audience to break the wall is also gone.

This is all replaced by a familiarity and constant interaction with the audience which didn't occur in the Melbourne version. Certainly this means the heights of tension are diminished, but what you receive instead is a closer look at the bare bones of each character as they expose themselves not only to each other but to fifty pairs of eyes looking on from two sides.

Holiday is one of those rare pieces of theatre writing rarely seen on Sydney's small stages. It is a play you just wouldn't see come out of our independent theatres for a number of financial, marketing and cultural reasons. It delicately flicks off the cloak of the overly dominant Anglo-culture and embraces the theatrically experimental writing of Eastern and Central Europe, housing it within the strong history of the universally-themed writing coming out of Melbourne's fringe sector.

In a recent interview with Currency Press, playwright Cortese explains in one sentence why he loves the theatre replying it is because "in theatre there’s nowhere to hide".

Every emerging playwright and director in Sydney should see this play if only to see how simplicity can fascinate. There's certainly nowhere to hide which means there's endless possibilities.

The provocative Berkoff to provoke

I have never understood why many don't like Steven Berkoff. Some people think of him as just some type of egotistical performer and director while others think of him as one of the most talented theatre creators of the late 20th Century.

My first experience of a Steven Berkoff production was in 2001 at the Belgrade International Theatre Festival where he presented Messiah - Scenes from a Crucifixion.

Berkoff wasn't in the original piece (although he later played the role of Satan when it returned for a London season) but he directed and wrote the piece which greatly humoured the Belgrade audience this particular evening.

Drenched in his typical humour and trademark physicality, it was a production that is a delight to remember. Jesus cast as some Machiavellan orchestrator, Satan taunting with a beautiful nonchalence and disciples in bowler hats beat any World Youth Day crucifixion recreation.

The 71 year old is back in Sydney to perform another one man show appropriately entitled One-Man.

But before he embarks on the tour, he is giving a talk at Sydney University tonight which will, fingers crossed, rattle a few cages;

Critically acclaimed UK actor, director, playwright and author Steven Berkoff will give his unique perspective on the art of provocation at an exclusive Sydney Ideas event to be held at the University of Sydney next Monday night.

In what promises to be a fascinating lecture, titled 'Provocation: How far can an artist go?', Berkoff will discuss how he has managed to stay on the fringe since he formed the London Theatre Group 40 years ago.

How far can an artist go...? In Sydney, a lot further.

Should be a great evening at the Seymour Centre. And there's even a great pub across the road for post-chat chats.


Event details:

What: Provocation - How far can an artist go? Steven Berkoff at Sydney Ideas, the University of Sydney's international public lecture series

Where: The Seymour Theatre Centre, Cnr of Cleveland St and City Rd, the University of Sydney. Phone: 02 9351 7940
When: 6.30pm on Monday, 25 August, 2008.

Tickets: $20/$15 concession.

Bookings: Box office 02 9351 7940 or online

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: Construction of the Human Heart

Construction of the Human Heart by Ross Mueller
BSharp & Keep Breathing Productions
18th October 2007

Full-text version of review published in The Daily Telegraph.

What’s going on in Melbourne at the moment? What are they feeding into the theatrical water trough that is producing all of this daring and intense work?

In just over a month, this reviewer has had the pleasure of seeing three independent theatre productions come up the Hume Hwy and in different and unique ways push theatrical boundaries that Sydney groups just don’t seem to be pushing.

It seems that where Sydney seems to be falling behind is in experimenting with theatrical form, that is, the way that material is presented. Construction of the Human Heart, by Ross Mueller is in so many ways the apex of what is being investigated on Melbourne stages with a form that challenges not only theatrical but audience expectations as well.

As the house lights are up, two actors introduced as Him and Her (Todd MacDonald and Maria Theodorakis) walk onto a stage that contains nothing but two chairs and two bottles of water. With scripts in hand they acknowledge the audience, take their seats and begin reading. It seems as though we are at a public reading that could be in any hall or room in the city.

It appears they are reading from a script she has written as some fantasy child’s tale. But then, Him, drops the script, pages go flying and without a beat the script continues. The play takes on another play. Are we hearing a play that both of them have written? Or is it a play that is merely about them, the two writers? The troubles they encounter, the feelings between each other and the lost tenderness are all being exposed.

At the same time the lights on the audience gradually grow darker as the overlapping plays start to fill up the imagination of the audience. Then a blaring voiceover announces the stage directions. The fantasy tale is blending with the reality of the two characters lives and the consciousness that this is theatre.

The power of Mueller’s play and the imagery it evokes is a stunning theatrical work (the story of the angels encountering a small boy in the forest is a devastating image). Coupled with the stark simplicity of Brett Adam’s direction and Rob Irwin’s lighting as well as the intricate performances of the two performers, this theatrical piece daringly asks audiences to fill in the gaps, to make up their own minds and to engage. This is beautiful theatre.

Till 28 October
25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills
(02) 9699 3444
www.belvoir.com.au $23-29

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.

Review: Mercury Fur

Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley
Stablemates, Griffin Theatre
28th September 2007

This the full text version of the review which appears in The Daily Telegraph

Just when you think you have seen some very good theatre of late, a production like Mercury Fur comes along and raises the standard to a whole new level. This is theatre that taps you on the shoulder and smacks you in the face. It is theatre that is vibrant, muscular and breath-taking.

But be warned, this is not the show to go to on a first or second date, as one unlucky couple did on the night that this reviewer went.

When Mercury Fur by British playwright Philip Ridley first opened in the UK in 2005, it fiercely divided critics and caused such contention that Faber & Faber refused to publish the text. This production which has travelled from Melbourne has been similarly divisive.

Mercury Fur is set in derelict London. It’s a dark fairytale world where society is on the brink of destruction, where gangs rule the streets and solitude is hard to find. Unless, of course, you can get your hands on some magically potent butterflies.

Elliot (Luke Mullins) and his younger brother Darren (Xavier Samuel) are on the search to find an abandoned warehouse so they that can get prepared for the arrival of party guests.

However this is no ordinary fiesta. In this derelict world there is just one party guest who arrives to act out his ultimate sexual fantasies on what the characters refer to as the ‘party piece’. With much of the physical violence occurring off-stage, the text replaces it with a language that is deliciously colourful.

It’s a despairing and brutal world which breaks down borders and nationalities and brings home the clear message that destruction is so much closer than you think.

Director Ben Packer along with designers Adam Gardnir, Danny Pettengil and Kelly Ryall have created a suitably horrific production with a cast that fill their roles with such vitality that by the time the curtain falls, you become totally disorientated. This is a roller-coaster of a play

But for the young lovers who attended on this particular night, the sight of the boyfriend leaving without saying goodbye might caution other viewers to choose carefully who you take. Either that, or go it alone.

The rest is silence...

Last night I sat down to watch an interview that Kerry O'Brien had recorded with Marcel Marceau during his recent trip to Australia in 2003.

Reflecting on the post I penned yesterday, I have thought a little more on what I said at the end of the post:

His death reminds us not only of the beauty of his performance but of the way that theatre can take us to places that no other art form in the world can. With so many trying to out-do each other with technical and multimedia effects, it is timely to remember that the journeys that Marceau carried audiences on can be reached with the mere flick of a hand, or the look of an eye.

I have seen a fair amount of interesting theatre in the last few years. A fair amount of bad theatre too. But essentially, most of the theatre I see is adequate.

Adequate in that actors can say their lines. The script is pretty good and that the production values of the play have covered all the bases and supported the actors appropriately.

But so often I walk out of the theatre perplexed at how so many directors cram their productions with bells and whistles, flashing lights, sponsored sets, overwhelming soundscapes and dreaded filmic elements.

Something has been forgotten. A missing key.

Thinking about the art of mime and watching some footage of Marceau over the weekend, it has affirmed my belief that so much of the theatre I see has forgotten the art of silence. The art of simplicity.

If you want any guide into what I am talking about, you need not go any further than Peter Brook:
... there are two ends of the pole of silence. There is a dead silence, the silence of the dead, which doesn't help any of us and... there is the other silence, which is the supreme moment of communication - the moment when people normally divided from one another by every sort of natural human barrier suddenly find themselves truly together... In between two silences.. are the... areas where all the questions arise.

I think that when Brook talks of the silence between people, it is not only that which exists between actors, but that which exists between actors and the audience.

I knows it's a cliche to pull a quote from Brook to support a statement, but I think it's relevant to consider the lost of art of silence that theatre in Sydney is plagued by.

The digital age has brought about a need by so many companies and directors to fill silences and not leave anything to the imagination. The amount of times I have seen a lighting or sound cue destroy what could have spoken in greater volumes through silence makes me sometimes despair.

From much of the theatre I have seen of late, it seems that many directors have (through what I believe is an imagined fear) tried to compete on the technology stakes so that they can produce the latest, bestest, amazingest theatre experience that throws the gauntlet down to any of your facebook'd, second life'd virtual fantasy.

I know that the reason for this in some instances is that a handful of directors are wasting our time by using the theatre medium as a stepping stone into their real dreams of entering a career as music video director or film producer, but on the whole this journeying into technologically-induced-theatre (TIT) is a blind assumption on where theatre is heading.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's important to try out new elements of theatre technology as they make themselves available, but too many directors are using the technology as cornerstones of their rehearsal journey, not as the support instruments to a more organic process.

Robert Lepage is one great director who has deliberately installed the bells and whistles of TIT to tell his stories. Where he departs from a lot of what I see in Sydney is an astonishing ability to use the technology as a beginning to an end result of simple story-telling.

He said in an interview that "in my own work, the difference is that my starting point is a strictly formal one: just trying to get a form on stage and to have actors and collaborators visit that space, that form, and to try and find what stories it contains."

You can see evidence of the misuse of technology in Sydney theatre on a weekly basis when basic director skills in the movement of actors and in the discovery of simple theatrical processes is non-existent. So often I sit and am amazed at not only the lost opportunities, but the convoluted nature of production values.

More often that not, the embarrassing affect of this vamped up TIT is when you see an actor struggling under the weight of the 'amazing mood' of the music or the 'amazing mood' of the lighting. It becomes clear that the actor has found something else in rehearsal but is fighting against it because of the dictates in direction of design.

It all gets very tiring for audiences who aren't as stupid as many think. But somehow directors feel it necessary to clobber a hundred or so punters over the head with not only a clear text, but in the re-enforcement of the music, re-enforcement of the lighting and the indulgence of direction. It all adds up to getting the message three times all at once... "oh, I see!! This is a dramatic moment!" The end result is a theatre that is beginning to look a little uniform, corporate and mercantile*.

Enough already.

I am not alone in sharing the opinion of many that dislike the new multimedia affects now regularly used in so many shows. The central problem of the multimedia is that as soon as you throw a two-dimensional blanket over a three dimensional image, you deflate it quicker than a helium balloon with a flame. Whoof!

I apologise if I am preaching to the converted, but it seems so many have forgotten the art of story-telling. Theatre has with it an element that no technology can ever compete with and that is the raw nerve of human interaction.

"If the world of sameness refuses to absorb the element of otherness that every group and human being unconsciously carries within themselves, just as Pentheus refuses that mysterious, feminine Dionysiac element that attracts and fascinates him, despite the horror he claims to feel for it, then all that is stable, regular and the same tips over and collapses... The victorious eruption of Dionysusis a sign that otherness is being given its place with full honours at the centre of the social system."**

Theatre can learn a lot from the great Marceau and it's not just his passion for theatre, but in his ability to capture silence and overwhelm an audience by sliding it in next to the imagination of many. That is theatre and that is what takes an audience anywhere you want them to go.


* Michael Kustow, Theatre @ Risk, Metheun 2000
** Jean-Pierre Vernant, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, Zone Books 1999

Review: Corvus

Corvus by Jasmine Chan

Directed & Designed by Kate Davis

Presented by The Rabble in association with Carriageworks

29 May 2007

Finally, finally, finally I have found a group of young Australian theatre makers who are pushing the boundaries of theatrical exploration. And I use the term 'theatre makers' quite deliberately to differentiate them from the more usual theatre collaborations.

It was through Alison Croggon's Theatre Notes that I first heard of this group, saying 'Sydneyites interested in bold new writing' should get to this production. But it is quite clear that it isn't just new bold writing that is on display.

Essentially this production is a monologue of poetic rantings from the self baptised character of Corvus - a name that originates from the Latin meaning 'crow'. It is the mythology that surrounds this symbol that provides the basis for this production and springs into a theatrical exploration of space, time, imagery and ritual. Think Greek Mythology, Apollo, Volpone, The Alphonso, Ted Hughes, John Fowles.

Entering the large and cathedral like theatre in Carriageworks, it is clear that this show is the first time that a company has created something specifically for the Carriageworks space. The balance and decoration of the stage, the lighting and the depth of movement make this a unique event that should be experienced within this theatre. From the moment you walk in, there is a manipulation of the eye and you quickly become aware of how vast the space is through the exposure of its industrial skeleton.

Like a wind-chime frame over the stage hangs a collection of gates, grills, metallic frames, window frames, prison beds. The immense size of it creates a cocoon for the audience, or more specifically, a kind of cage, from which we view the travellings and emotions of the raconteuse.

The writing is some of the most robust I have heard in a performance in this city. It is provocative and poetic and provides a stunning platform for the collaborators to create visual images that are so striking that you almost forget where you are, so dizzying is the look and feel of this piece.

At times the writing does envelop itself and loses certain ideas by being occasionally self-conscious. But as a text, it is throwing the gauntlet down. It is experimenting with the form of words through metaphor and ancient symbol and slamming them down upon a character's shoulders and allowing that character to breath a rhythm that can be at times shocking.

This theatrical rhythm is explored through one performer who makes her way from one station of the space to another. At each station, Corvus will deliver a piece of her monologue and will be accompanied by a subtle yet striking theatrical image through the use of the space, lighting and sound. She carries us on this raw emotional journey, at times talking to herself, talking to us, talking to her mother, talking to a priest and moving through the space in the most painstaking way.

I want to fly, full of lightness. To be a sparrow, a bluebird, a blackbird, a wren. Small and buoyant. Easy in the air. I want to move through stories, through the ages. I want to glide across the years. I want to peel the moments away from me like skins. To haunt the wings of the poet. I want to pepper the prayer book with whispers of love and dreams of love. I want to be a sparrow, a bluebird, a blackbird, a wren.

It is at its simplest a production that blends performance art with text. It is, at its most complex an exploration of individuality, sexuality, love, feminist identity, responsibility and expectation with the backdrop of man-made devastation and the original sin of Adam and Eve.

Dancing in the afterglow of the mushroom cloud. The crow moves with an unbearable weight—fashioned from all the world’s night—inside herself. The crow flies from nightmare to nightmare, infecting mythologies, polluting the transparent drop of rain, of flame. The crow flies sickly though black wave after black wave, the ocean floor concealed by oil.

But what stays with me the most from last night is the photographic type imagery that was created within the space. From the far reaches of the back wall and the experimentation of side and foot lighting, to the use of shadow, silhouette and the use of sound that at one moment is emotionally frightening. This production is pure theatre that has brought together the talents of some exciting individuals that are at the forefront of a theatrical exploration. It is brave, honest and passionate and a desperately needed influence in Sydney.

This production is on till Saturday. Go and see it.

Image credit: Brett Boardman

My goodness... Look at their grass!

The last three weeks have been, to say the least, hectic. Consequently, I have been only sporadically updating Arts Journalist, much to furious emails.

The disgrace of this is that I have been flat out when there has been a fantastic debate raging between London, New York and Melbourne about the role of critics. It has been a fantastic tussle, and as you all probably know, started when Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre gave critics a spray in The Times calling them 'dead white males'.

It appears that he was quite aggrieved at the state of criticism in the UK, particularly by, you guessed it, older white men. In particular, he felt that they were being a disservice to the industry particularly towards female directors.

This little article took off like Errol Flynn, flew smack into the side Michael Billington at the Guardian, which then ricocheted off Lyn Gardner also at the Guardian. The tremors spread through the net and the theatre blogs all jumped in the pond together with George Hunka in the US having a splash, swiftly followed by Andrew Field jumping in while Alison Croggon stood on the side clapping her hands in glee and egging them all on! Encore Magazine got amongst the fray as well and then David Eldgridge and finally the UK's Telegraph jumped in and sprayed a bit of water.

It has been marvellous. Then to top it all off, Michael Billington recalls a carpark encounter with Hytner, where they air their opinions once again.

On this side of the fence, I can only salivate at the mouth that these types of empassioned responses happen at all. This has got to be one of the most beautiful examples of how the Internet has pressed forward theatrical discussion, where blogs and opinion pieces blend together creating a symphonic debate that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

I am going to get parochial with Alison Croggon and point my bloggy finger at the Sydney Morning Herald and say, 'where are you?!' They are barely able to update their blog, which has now been gathering dust for two months now and the silence of the industry and the critics in Sydney has been deafening.

One could suggest that maybe mainstream criticism in Sydney is not a problem. That is certainly true in the sense that there is essentially only two newspapers that provide criticism and therefore it makes the debate null and void, but there are increasingly worrying things happening down at Darling Park, particularly online.

It now appears that the broadsheet Sydney Morning Herald is gradually doing less and less independent theatre and performance reviews while generally maintaining constant coverage of the institutional offerings with their larger budgets. What the Sydney Morning Herald online then does, to appear a lot more comprehensive than they actually are, is use the reviews of Jason Blake in the sister Sunday paper, The Sun Herald on their website. This is the equivalent of the Guardian using The Observer's reviews as their own.

No, the debate about gender and age in criticism hasn't even entered Sydney.

Is it any wonder?



Image: myopera.com

Caught in the Theatre Nets - Parts 2

One of the most wonderful things about starting a blog, is the little community that you set up through the so-called blog-o-sphere.

You will see on the right hand side of my page, a link to a few theatre based blogs that I go to. Most of them are Australian based, but there's a couple from the UK and one in the US. I owe Theatre Notes a lot of the credit for networking me in with the small community that are blogging about theatre in their respective towns.

This whole exercise has added a whole new dimension to the dialogue that has traditionally occurred within our local communities. Suddenly, the dialogue of theatre is happening in a more international framework and is opening up people that would usually keep their ideas and opinions to the dark corner of a pub out into the public sphere.

Since starting Arts Journalist, I have struggled with finding the right tone for my opinions. I am still struggling because a blog is a personal diary, a personal reflection that ones see fit to share with those that care to log in. But it I am getting closer and closer and the journey has only just begun.

It is quite different to the mass media instrument of going to print or broadcasting through the mainstream. You are your own editor and journalist and copy editor and sub editor and investigator.

The immediacy of rebuttal and comment suddenly lifts my personal thoughts and the public dialogue begins. I certainly have not reached the level of debate that I wish to see happening online, but slowly that is occurring and the community is slowly becoming aware of this new dimension to arts debate.

What has amazingly increased is the number of personal email responses I get, and an ever increasing traffic that is uniquely international. It would be true to say that most people log in from Sydney, but there is heavy traffic from Victoria and Queensland and more recently the other states in Australia. But so many regular visitors are hosted in Canada, the US, the UK, Slovenia, China and most surprisingly France & Germany.

One couldn't say that the first three months of Arts Journalist blogging haven't been contentious. But the real feedback I get is on the street. People I run into that have logged in and mentioned this, that or the other. If only I could could get them to leave their opinion, anonymous or otherwise, and get amongst the fray. But it is all new and sometimes you like to sit back and see where it heads without getting involved.

I can relate to that feeling and it has most recently occurred while I read a seven part installment by a dear friend of mine who reflected on a theatre experience he had while he was 25 and living in London. And over the course of a week, he published his reflection while a small band of us waited each day in the most eager anticipation for each installment.

It is seven chapters of beautiful writing that would make any theatre person crumble at the knees and make them remember the very earliest love and passion they have for this beautiful artform we have.

It made me take stock, and three months into my blog experiment forced me to remember the very reason I got involved with the theatre in the first place. I recalled those earliest times while studying theatre. I remembered the shows I first saw that changed my perspective. I remembered the simple and delicate beauty that theatre can bring to a society and the importance it has within our self made complications.

Have a look if you will.... the first installment starts here.... then go to the homepage and follow your nose from there...


Image: Epidaurus

The future of Wharf 2

Last week, Simon Ferguson reported in the Daily Telegraph that Brendan Cowell will be leaving the Sydney Theatre Company and heading to the UK to be with long term partner, Rose Byrne.

This is hot on the heels of Chris Mead's departure from the Wharf2Loud season to head up PlayWriting Australia.

Earlier this year I interviewed the two of them as Mead's tenure was drawing to a close, and I recall asking them about the future of the programme. I remember feeling that there was more to it than met the eye, also suspecting that Cowell would be out of there soon as well.

This is a big blow to the Sydney Theatre Company's Wharf 2 programme. Robyn Nevin's commission of these two has boosted the profile of the company to a more varied audience in a spectacular way. Their instinct and vision contained a clarity that allowed for an efficient and experimental programme that has been beneficial to individuals and the industry as a whole.

As I wrote in my article in January;

Creatively they are challenging the independent scene to steer away the aspirational high-tech productions and to get back to the basics of story telling. But the introduction of these Pushes has really meant that more and more emerging writers, directors and actors are walking through the stage door of the STC, and a platform is being provided to harness their skills closer to the professional stage.

This is a relief to many. The infrastructure of Sydney theatre means that there are two distinct tiers in place with little cross over - the funded professional theatres and the non-funded fringe scene. Between the two of them, there is little to prepare independent artists for the responsibility and glory of a larger venue.

The loss of the playwright and the dramaturg who have been the first to engage with audiences through the Wharf2 programme is naturally a cause of concern, especially after the less than impressive programme previously implemented.

What should the Sydney Theatre Company's vision be for Wharf 2 next year? How should they advance the credible start to Mead and Cowell's programming? How else can the STC spend that $500,000 allocation?

It would be nice to see a continuation of the development of playwrights along with design and directing teams. It would be advantageous to continue seeing more and more young talent being shown the inner workings of the Sydney Theatre Company. As well as this, the concept behind giving a showcase to the more successful Push Teams to create a full production is something definitely worth continuing.

Building further bridges between independent artists and the STC is paramount. The work that Mead and Cowell have done has brought down large barriers between these two sectors and made the institution a lot more accessible.

What is missing between the two, however, is a middle ground. It's certainly one thing to produce a show at any of the smaller venues in Sydney, but quite another to produce something at the Wharf.

I suppose that this is really the realm of a third party, or an initiative that could be established between the two sectors and some funding arrangement. There would be no reason for the STC's Wharf 2 activities to be restricted to just Wharf 2.

It would be extremely interesting to see what a working group could come up with. A dialogue between the STC, independent artists and venues along with the Australia Council, Arts NSW and ABAF to see how the channels between all these stakeholders could be opened up even further.

A working group that could establish a ten year plan or a proposal for the sector in ensuring the long term viability of its artists, its playwrights, directors and future audiences. The theatre scene is very different to what it was a few years ago and the cooperation between the now, very different elements, would be creatively and financially sensible.

The departure of Mead and Cowell may be a blow, but the potential that they have created could turn their vision into something that is even more tangible, even more adventurous and make a mark for the future of Sydney's theatre industry.

Image: London Tube

Would you find this article in the SMH?

If you thought that the Sydney Theatre Company's reaction to a blog was extraordinary, hold your breath and wait for the response to this article in today's The Australian.

Rosemary Neill has asked the questions that dared not be asked and illustrated an extraordinary portrayal of the characters, the ego and the high drama within and around Australia's flagship theatre company.

It's sobering reading indeed.

I don't recall such a frank media discussion of the Sydney Theatre Company workings in quite a while... if ever. I can only imagine that they are apoplectic down at the Wharf this morning.

One of the most interesting aspects of the article is when they talk about the role that the STC plays in developing new playwrights for mainstage productions (Neill's brackets):

Robyn Nevin... adds that the STC runs the largest new writing stream of any state theatre company. (Even so, last year the STC programmed just one new Australian play in its main season).

It really is a sad state of affairs when the flagship theatre company points the finger to other smaller state theatre companies and says 'But, we're doing better than them!' and that the total better is one play a year.

Let's wait and see what happens next in Act II.


Image: 'Putting out the fire', courtesy University College Davis

The Direction of Theatre

I need to confess that my theatre beliefs come from my background as a theatre director. It influences my point of view and ignites a big struggle within as I write my entries on this blog.

I need to confess this so that my handful of readers understand where I come from... where each of my entries draws inspiration.

At the same time, I try not to write reviews from the point of view of a director. That's as boring as reading a theatre review from someone who is a writer. A review is a reflection of an experience that happens once and once only and as an audience member. And I don't need to bore you with the rantings of a director. I do that with my director friends late at night over various types of ales.

However, after The Nightwatchman experience, I have a need to vent. Vent as a director. Maybe this will create a new type of entry in my little blog. A commentary of reflection.

It's been three days since I took myself off to the Griffin presentation and it has upset me so. It upset me because here is a playwright that captures a miniature of life and hurls it into the pages of a play and breathes a life that expands through the action of a theatre production.

What makes Keene so glorious is that his work is for theatre and theatre alone. They wouldn't work on film, on television or a book. His writing is for theatre.

But what the director did to this play was a travesty. It was deadly direction. It was timid and cowardly. It was clinical.

I am unsure whether she misunderstood its potential, but one wonders what she did with the actors over the course of four weeks rehearsal. What exploration did they have? What theatricality did they explore?

Before I go on, I probably need to explain something... the plagues that are infecting this beautiful art from in Sydney. The plague of realism and the plague of gimmick.

Today, I will talk of the Plague of Realism. I often talk in my reviews about 'realism' and I probably need to clarify what I mean by it.

So often I head down to my local theatre and see a show, listen to the words and walk away so disappointed by the production. Because in my imagination I feel something so different to what is presented to me. This occurred on Wednesday evening.

Let me take a central problem with this production.

The main character is an old blind man. The audience has it clearly established from the beginning that the man is blind... leading questions and moments where he finds himself talking to no one but himself.

In Act Two he confesses to his daughter the pain of his blindness:

"I went blind very gradually, of course, so I've forgotten much of what it was like to slowly... to slowly lose the world. The details, I mean, the small details...

"At first it was as if someone had placed a fine guaze bandage over my eyes. Everything was less distinct, but I could still see. Then, gradually, the world became more and more ghostly. For a time it seemed to me as if I was seeing... only memories. Memories seem to have a different light, a softer light perhaps, as if time, like some kind of... leech.... drains them of colour, of life, of reality."

Such stunning words.

For a director this play offers so many opportunities to play with the concept of blindness and to play with it theatrically. To play with the concept of memory, of sight, of seeing. What is to see? To understand? To look? To study?

The decisions made by the director for this production was to force the actor to keep playing blindness through the entire play. Why?

We know he is blind. That is why he is leaving the house that he has lived in for most of his life.

Why not play with the theatricality of it? There are beautiful moments when he talks to his dearly departed wife. Why have him stumbling around and banging into the walls and chairs. Have him standing proud, seeing clearly in moments when he reflects and his mind flickers to other times. Or even a physicality. Play around and explore the concept of blindness. Reality doesn't have to be so clear-cut. Reality is the starting point, not the finishing point.

Sometimes I feel directors need to constantly qualify the thematics of a play. Hammer it into the audience as though they were sheep unable to fill in the gaps with their own imagination and life experience.

This was certainly apparent in this production. The man is blind. The man is blind. The man is blind!

But what if? What if there is a small moment when he looks at us. Looks at the table. Picks something up and places it perfectly down. Capture the audience with something that is not realistic. They might then be caught in the headlights. What happened then? He is looking at us..... Or maybe there might be a moment when we think he is alone, but someone is listening.... deliberately. Or maybe they can't hear him. I don't know, but I bet it would be amazing to have a crack at it in a rehearsal room with such a fine cast of actors.

This is just a couple of instances of deadly realism that destroyed this beautiful play.

Peter Brook talked of this in The Empty Space:

"Deadliness always brings us back to repetition: the deadly director uses old formulae, old methods, old jokes, old effects, stock beginnings to scenes, stock ends; and this applies equally to his partners, the designers and composers, if they do not start each time afresh from the void, the desert and the true question - why clothes at all, why music, what for? A deadly director is a director who brings no challenge to the conditioned reflexes that every department must contain."

Why? Why? Why? Indeed.

As I sat there on Wednesday eve, I had to control my exasperation at the blindness of the director. Why a set that is black? Because black is blindness? Why not white? Why not a rainbow? Why darkness during a scene where they can't find each other? Why not blaring light?

Why the sound of crickets and birds all the time? Do I need to be hammered over the head that we are in a garden? They say it in the play.... constantly. And besides there is a huge lighting fx at the beginning and the end to again tell me I am in a garden. Why not silence as we look upon William Zappa's face? What is he listening too? Maybe it's birds? Maybe he is feeling a breeze on his face? Who cares? Let the audience work to understand. Engage them.

I believe that directors in Sydney need to start giving more credit to their actors, their designers and most importantly to their audiences.

The Plague of Realism is getting deadly and the cost could be losing a whole generation of potential theatregoers. Theatre is unique and a celebration of that uniqueness in the rehearsal room and on stage could be the difference between an industry that flounders or flies.

A Swiss Must Sea

I don’t make the sort of theatre that’s intended to change the world. I would never be able to do that. I want to awaken something in people.
Christoph Marthaler


I knew of Christoph Marthaler’s reputation through years of sniffing around the great festivals and theatres of Europe, but his productions have always eluded me. Who was this man that made theatre through music? Who was said to create a performance atmosphere entirely unique in Europe today? I could hear the standing ovations from Paris to Berlin to London but I never seemed to catch him. Finally, a 30 minute walk from where I live in inner city Sydney, Marthaler will present his latest production as part of the 2007 Sydney Festival. I'll get to meet his work, with the rest of Australia, for the first time.

The arrival of Marthaler’s epic Seemannslieder to Sydney shores marks the latest instalment of great theatre makers on festival shores - following Artistic Director Fergus Linehan's previous exports, Cheek by Jowl’s Twelfth Night and Robert Lepage’s The Andersen Project.

There is often a mythology around the great theatre directors of the world, from Brook to Donnellan to Mnouchkine to Lepage, their influences span far and wide. Marthaler, sometimes dubbed the "bad boy of the Swiss theatre", is no different.

His Seemannslieder, which means Sailor Songs, brings to life the stories of a Dutch port town based on Herman Heijermans’ classic, Op Hoop Van Zegen (God Help Us). The production explores the lives of everyday people that live on the dykes of Holland. All of them are subject to the powers of nature, at the whim of their environment and the sea. It is women waiting for their men to come back. It is men lost to the sea. Using Joseph Conrad and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman as a backdrop, Marthaler has created a theatrical event that could be called a meditative spectacle.

The characters in the production, says dramaturg Paul Slangen, are “between two worlds...they are imprisoned between past and future, but have no clear view of the situation they find themselves in because it is constantly changing. While the ship is making its journey, all that remains for them to do is to amuse themselves with each other and kill time while waiting for things which may never happen and take their leave from a past that may after all remain in their lives.”

As with many of life (and art's) important decisions, the original concept for Marthaler’s Seemannslieder was borne in a pub. The director was chatting with his good friend Johan Simons, a director from Holland, and a deal was struck - if Simons came to Marthaler's home turf of Switzerland, he must create a production based on the mountains. Johan agreed, but only if the Swiss director would reciprocate the offer by travelling to the Netherlands to make a production about the sea.

Marthaler is in fact renowned for hanging out in pubs, and similar spots where he can observe 'the lives of the lonely'. Stefanie Carp, another dramaturg on Seemannslieder, says Marthaler considers himself a director of the ‘meantime’, where “something has concluded and something new has not yet begun.” Adds Slangen, "He deliberately seeks out unspectacular places where time seems to stand still and the same rituals are eternally repeated. Nothing ever happens until one single incident for a moment changes the room into a place full of vitality and energy." This is the essence of his theatre.

Seasoned Flemish actor Chris Nietvelt worked with Marthaler for the first time when she joined the cast of Seemannslieder. She calls it the most unique experience of her career. “It was the ultimate, how do you say, ensemble. For the first time, I realised what it is to function as a group.”

Nietvelt was able to give some insight into the intricacies of Marthaler's working method. He puts his performers through their paces with two hours of singing each day, pausing to prepare them elaborate meals. Rehearsals consist of improvisation with extracts of the script using props. Through improvisation the actors are encouraged to discover characters in small interactions and scenarios. For ten weeks they discover stories on a set created by long time Marthaler collaborator Anna Viebrock, using a mask, an umbrella, a coat - anything that is in the room. For ten weeks that is all they do.

A former oboe player for orchestras in Zurich and Paris, Marthaler believes that music is key to process and product alike. Says Nietvelt, "He is always working with music. He’s not in the text, but he’s looking for the music in the words. Bringing an atmosphere where you float with the rhythm of intensity."

Three days out from opening night with a range of improvised five minute scenes and countless songs, Marthaler produces a large script with the production order. Using the setting of a pub, a passenger terminal and a ship, the show intricately links the stories of the characters through song and physicality. This is the first time that the actors have any idea of how the production will look and feel.

Audiences in France, Germany and Holland, where Seemannslieder has previously moored, have been overwhelmed. Nietvelt says crowds immediately recognise themselves and people they know in the production. “They are people waiting, people longing, people who have lost things. You can recognise all of them”.

For many, Seemannslieder (performed, somewhat appropriately, on the edge of the city's harbour), will be the theatrical highlight of the Sydney Festival.

“Allow me to present myself: I am a human being with a stolen identity. For me, the only thing which I can affirm with certainty is that I am a woman, that I am on the threshold of maturity and that I live in Europe at the hour of change of the millenium. All that remains is rather vague, undecided and opaque.”

Biljana Srbljanovic, December 1999. Part of an acceptance speech for the Ernst Toller Prize


I am a bit of a Biljana Srbljanovic junkie. Not to her. But to her plays. She is such a damn confident, brazen and broody woman and her plays are painted in the most amazing colours which lift right off the page. If you haven’t heard of her, it’s no wonder. Until this week, she has never been produced in Australia.

I could say to you her plays are so good they have been translated into countless languages and been performed in over 40 countries around the world, but that is no measure of success. The Da Vinci Code can affirm that.

No. Srbljanovic’s plays are uncompromising, violent and beautiful. She writes with an arrogance that both respects and abuses her audiences. And for a director, sets a challenge to create theatre from a buffet of conflicting and imperfect choices.

It was a film maker friend of mine in Serbia who first introduced me to Srbljanovic’s work. I had been living and studying in Slovenia at the time and would often take a train to Sarajevo, Zagreb, Belgrade, Novi Sad or wherever my nose led me in the old republics of Yugoslavia.

Opening up the play as the train pulled out of Novi Sad, Family Stories: Belgrade would consume me for the entire journey as the outskirts of the city gave way to the open plains of Croatia and finally the mountains of Slovenia.

On a stage, or at the back of an apartment block, four adult actors play children who in turn play adults; mums and dads, sons and daughters. Eleven scenes. Eleven stories of brutal domestic life as seen through the honest eyes of children. Childs play. A game of house which becomes a violent slapstick tragedy.

Everything is make-believe. The Play is a game. You have to pretend it's true and it is. It’s almost as if nothing can be taken seriously if it’s seen through kids’ eyes. Until it goes too far. And then everything is too serious. So serious it is painful. So painful one can only laugh.

Mum and Dad (Abi Austin & Alex Lissine) raise a son (Ed Keane) in Belgrade during the years spanning the Yugoslavian civil war. And they have a dog (Megan Drury), a girl with tics who appears to be unable to speak.

The images of the play flickered in my mind and I set out to produce it. The play may have been a Serbian one, but the universal appeal of its theatricality and its themes were too wonderful to ignore. Arriving back in Australia with the play under my arm, I was determined to get the play on somewhere in my home town of Sydney.

Searching for venues, it became apparent that I needed a large playing space for the four actors. Something a bit empty. Something a bit remote. Most of the independent theatre venues in Sydney are relatively small and wouldn’t provide the freedom of movement I was seeking. It was the New Theatre in Sydney’s inner city which, after a long search, could provide the dynamics I was searching for.

At about the same time, I happened to meet Bojana Novakovic. In a casual conversation we suddenly discovered we shared a similar passion – the work of Srbljanovic. Not only that - she had recently translated Family Stories: Belgrade.

Providing me with this new script which was a direct translation from Serbian to English, the play instantly took on a new form in my mind. It was more colourful, more violent and more uncompromising.

Little did I know that I had been reading a translation which had come from Serbian via German to English. And although the translation I had been reading was excellent, to read a new direct Australian translation opened up a whole world of possibilities for a Sydney production.

Bojana and I set about to get the rights, confident in what we were about to create. We firstly approached the theatres in Belgrade and all of our contacts in the Balkan peninsula to get approval from the playwright. No reply. We then consulted an entertainment lawyer in Sydney for an agent or representative that could get us in contact with Srbljanovic. Nothing.

Fortunately, Bojana was due to head to Belgrade to act in a locally made film there. It would be the perfect opportunity to contact the playwright directly and get the relevant permission. In the meantime, I was in Sydney, cautiously attempting to organise the show as well as an Australia Council grant.

At last I got news, a phone call had been arranged for Bojana to speak to the playwright. Things were looking up!

But just as quickly as the good news came in, all hope was lost when we heard the response: “I can not give you the rights. The American translator has universal English rights. You need to speak to her.”

I reeled. What? Does such a thing exist? Universal? What does that mean?

Literature Copyright 101: ‘Universal rights’ means that a person/organisation can have the rights to the translation of a piece of literature as well as any other subsequent translations into that language. And it does exist.

Time was running short. The production was due to go up within a matter of months and we desperately needed to organise the rights. Through the amazing dedication of agents and friends in both Australia and Europe, we appealed to the playwright and translators respective agents.

Most of the time however, there was either no response or replies arbitrary in nature. Our frustration escalated. What could we have done differently? When you set about to do a show, when you organise in your mind that you need to organise the rights, you tend to give yourself about twelve months. Suddenly Bojana and I found ourselves, months later, no closer to securing the deal.

One day we had had enough! Enough of these literary agents. Enough of the to-ing and fro-ing and the double-speak. Bojana and I searched the net for the American translators name and found an email contact for her. Together, we penned a pleading personal letter, from artist to artist, outlining the cultural importance of a local Australian translation. It was an appeal to her good sense and better judgement. After several drafts, rewrites and considerations, Bojana and I hit the send button and hoped for the best.

Here was a show that had been milling around in my mind from the day I caught that rickety old train from Novi Sad four years ago. It had consumed me. My determination and desire to get this production up had only increased and here we were sending one final plea to get permission.

The reply arrived 24 hours later. “Sure! No problem.”

Until our letter, the American translator had no idea about all of the correspondence that had been flying between Sydney, Belgrade, Paris, Berlin and New York. Bojana and I had removed the money people. We had removed the power brokers. We were suddenly like the characters in the Family Stories: Belgrade, children trying to throw off the burden and control of ridiculous parents.

All that angst. All that frustration. All that disillusionment. And all it took was a personal letter to turn things around.

At the end of it all, the play is in rehearsal and it will open on Thursday. And am I delighted. I now hope that a few more people in this country will sit and enjoy a good strong hit of Srbljanovic just like me.


Bojana Novakovic - An acting graduate of NIDA and winner of the AFI Award for best leading actress in a TV drama or comedy. Born in Serbia and migrating to Australia, she was an active member of the fundraising committee for anti-government demonstrations in Belgrade during 1996/7. Fluent in both Serbian and English, she has translated the feature film Summer Star directed by Milan Spasic and Overbearing Inheritance by Vladimir Paskaljevic. She is presently in the production of 'The Female of the Species' opening at the MTC this week.