Love
Love mean to learn to look a yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills-
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.
Czeslaw Milosz, The World in New and Collected Poems 1931-2001
Katherine Harris as Nora in A Dollhouse by Henrik Ibsen, a VCA production directed by Daniel Schlusser. Photo by Ponch Hawkes. 2007.
Alison Croggon's review at Theatrenotes
Matthew Clayfield's at Esoteric Rabbit
Martin Ball's review in The Age
Katherine Harris as Nora and Nick Jamieson as Torvald.
Ben Pfeiffer as Dr. Rank. 
Katherine Harris as Nora and Ben Pfeiffer as Dr. Rank.
Michael Wahr as Krogstad and Katherine Harris as Nora.
Edwina Wren as Kristine.
Michael Wahr as Krogstad.
Nick Jamieson as Torvald, Ben Pfeiffer as Dr. Rank and Katherine Harris as Nora.
Full Credits:
A Dollhouse by Henrik Ibsen, directed by Daniel Schlusser. Set design by Jeminah Reidy. Costumes by Tiffany Abbott. Lighting design by Kimberly Kwa. Surround sound by Tessa Eleiff. Composer Johnny Milner. With Katherine Harris, Nick Jamieson, Michael Wahr, Edwina Wren, Ben Pfeiffer and Veronica Bryant/Heloise Jackson. Produced by the Victorian College of the Arts Drama and Production schools.
All photos by Ponch Hawkes. 2007
Ninth in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
St. Georges Road South, North Fitzroy
Mayor John So announced this week that the fountains in the Carlton Gardens would flow again. The house I am living in seems to be leaking upwards.
These shots of a lake in Princes Park were taken in March.
Dana Miltins with (and without) antelope in Corvus (designed by director Kate Davis, lighting designed by Emma Valente, photography by Brett Boardman)
Reading Nicholas Pickard's review, I was involuntarily thrown out of my seat. Still quite a distance from the airport, I came to my senses, unfortunately.
Instead, some beautiful photos to tease those of us not in Sydney. Rumour has it that Corvus might make it to Melbourne, which would be just fab.
While we wait, the same gang are bringing their production of Osama the Hero to Melbourne later this month. Although an altogether different beast from Corvus, Osama... was one of the most intelligent "straight" theatre pieces that I saw in '06.
On this day 40 years ago, over 90% of voting Australians voted "Yes" to a Federal referendum that made two changes to the constitution. The second of these changes was to include aboriginal Australians in the national census and to remove a clause that had excluded them from Federal legislation.
Of these two amendments, the inclusion in the census rectified an intrinsic racism within the constitution (prior to this, aborigines came under the "Flora and Fauna Act"). The second was more ambitious in that social, economic and political inequality could be more effectively addressed if the power to pass laws affecting aboriginal Australians was held by the Federal government.
may your hope not be hidden.
even if it is very small
Seventh in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
Ewing Street, Brunswick
A dark room at the National Gallery. Squinting to read the information. A child has a tantrum but it is an erudite tantrum, she’s not happy in this room with Piranesi’s Imaginary Prisons, she wants go back to the Virgin Mary. I share a laugh at this with a woman standing a few pictures down. When the father scoops the child up with a smile and bustles out, this stranger and I are suddenly the only two people in the room. I return to looking at the picture in front of me, she, in her own rhythm moves one closer to my left. “These are brilliant,” she says, “I hope they have reproductions.”
Then she joins me. I move to the next one. She moves too. “I feel like I am stalking you,” she says. “Stalk away,” I reply, cheerfully. We look at the picture together. “I’m studying prisons,” she offers, “I just got back from the States, Louisiana, Death Row.” “Wow, heavy.” “I’m doing my PhD on Penology,” she says, in what is now a rush of information, “I have to explain to people that Penology is not the study of penises.”
Moments before I had been showing off to my father, referencing Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, musing on the relationship between prisoner and gaoler and how that might echo the bond between performer and spectator.
All I manage now is a stuttered, “Penal. Penology. Panopticon…” I am still smiling. Underneath my beanie I am lightly sweating. She doesn’t pick up on my obtuse word-association. My father returns and she wanders to the next room. When we move there, she has already gone. Nor is she in the bookshop where I have the faint hope that I will see her again, looking for reproductions.
Piranesi’s Imaginary Prisons(Carceri d’invenzioni) are at the NGV International (what they call the St. Kilda Road building) until September 30. It’s free, and there’s some pretty cool Leggo on the way in too…
You've got 11 days to disagree (and alter) this assessment of me. Now, I would have hoped for something a bit more, well, handsome than a raccoon, but that would contradict the "modest" bit wouldn't it? Thanks Alison, this is fun!
The Alethiometer is also a pretty good representation of a wonderful idea but nevertheless, I am in the process of begging friends to read the trilogy before Kidman and Co. embalm our fantasies forever.
Also giving me joy, Credible Witness is providing the perfect warm-up to the Eurovision Song Contest by posting some old goodies. You know you love it and don't pretend it's in some groovy/ironic way either, you just love it. Apart from one unforgivable lapse of taste (Finland.'06. Genius.) Lauren is the one to get us there. This entry particularly, is very, very special.
Don't get me wrong, Lysandra is a lovely name and I really don't mind the part-soulful, part- "I just pee-ed on your pillow and I'm not going to apologise"-look of the thing but a raccoon? Really?
Every art, every philosophy may be viewed as an aid and remedy in the service of growing and striving life: they always presuppose suffering and sufferers. But there are two kinds of sufferer: firstly he who suffers from a superabundance of life, who desires a Dionysian art and likewise a tragic view of and insight into life – and then he who suffer from poverty of life, who seeks in art and knowledge either rest, peace, a smooth sea, delivery from himself, or intoxication, paroxysm, stupefaction, madness.
-Nietzsche
The Gay Science, 1887
trans. R.J. Hollingdale, Penguin, 1977
Sixth in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
Under the Capital City Trail Footbridge, Yarra River, Abbotsford
"Simplify your life as modern Europeans do..."
Corner of Nicholson Street and Brunswick Road, Brunswick
Fifth in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
Greg Baum writes today about spectator-auditing, Major Events Corporation-style. His shot at the figures for the world swimming championships and the Grand Prix should be read by theatre producers, artistic directors and funding bodies across the land.
I expect attendance figures for theatre in this country will inexplicably rise in the order of 10 to 30%, the next time a federal enquiry happens to ask.
I'm only interested in a level playing field.
Vale Freddie Francis
You imagine you will measure your own mortality by your parents, friend's parents, friends. It didn't occur to you that there would be an age during which your heroes would start dropping like flies.
Jasmine Chan loves the S-Bahn, so she should fit right in here. The Rabble are planning a major production in Sydney soon, keep eyes open.
Back to Back are one of the best theatre companies in the world. Seeing Small Metal Objects recently proved that, again.
So I've added them to the list!
+script: quite coincidentally, Jasmine also has a review of Small Metal Objects.
my favourite capitalist girl done got caged by developers
Last week an Irish make-up artist visiting Melbourne asked me if I was sport-obsessed, like all the other Aussies she had met. I said I wasn't.
Last weekend I saw Zinedine Zidane: a 21st Century Portrait
I want to be him.
It's a beautiful film. Co-director Douglas Gordon also made 24-hour Psycho, that film slowed down so that it lasted 24 hours...simple, effective. This portrait is in real time and it is a hypnotic 90 minutes that closely follows Zidane through a match he is playing for Real Madrid. So closely is he observed that you don't really know how the game is progressing and it takes you a while to realise he is sharing the pitch with the likes of Beckham and Ronaldo. He stalks like a lion, clips the ground like a restless horse and when he does strike, it seems to be in slow motion (which mirrors the experience of watching Wayne Carey live, btw) He doesn't waste time with words, just the odd yell. In the one moment when he smiles, his whole face lights up; it's a "feminine" moment in a portrait of pure masculinity. Masculinity and Flow. The first is intrinsic to the subject, the "sitter", the second is the theme that justifies the form, the use of the close-up video, the manipulation of the sound from personal, interior space to the roar of a full stadium, and Mogwai's music. The 'Flow" that is achieved when you are totally focussed on a series of discrete actions, when time stops behaving and ideas link with each other before you have thought them. When you have forgotten the exterior world and yet are totally in synch with it. When you feel predestination. This film is a celebration of the sportsman as artist, or the masculine in art, or the art of masculinity.
In an interview Gordon suggested that Zidane's headbutt-exit from the World Cup was an orgasmic/destructive urge to sully the perfect moment. I have an ongoing , complex response to Zidane's 'final moment' so the simplicity of this idea is attractive.
And I want to be him.
Anti-AFL-ers should duck the next two pars. I was losing bits of teeth reading the likes of Robert Walls pontificating about North Melbourne and as always, Leapin' Larry at The Age leaps the right way:
SNOOZER OF THE WEEK
Anyone still congratulating themselves at length on recognising the Gold Coast as the Kangaroos' "only option". Yes, after years of successfully white-anting such local supporter base as they had here by shipping their games all over the national landscape, and otherwise publicly eroding confidence in their finances, there was only one path left, so all due congratulations to those pundits on the marvelous feat of recognising it. Hoorah. (The Sunday Age, 4/3/07)
As a former Fitzroy supporter who couldn't bear (ha bloody ha) a Brisbane-based version of his beloved club and so spent 3 seasons in the wilderness before following North (another inner-urban club, a smattering of ex-Fitzroy players) you can imagine how overjoyed I am by the prospect of never seeing a free-to-air game not telecast from the Gold Coast. Gold Coast Kangaroos? Oh, the humiliation.
Ben Ellis points us to the Radio 4 site for some Tynan. Also there at the moment is Mike Brearley, yes, THAT Mike Brearley investigating the Art of Directing. (Can't link directly, click on a weekday and find it in the A-Z listing).It's typically English, uptight but forensic. Early on, Sir Peter Hall describes G.B. Shaw's rehearsal process and it is soundly tut-tutted. Unfairly, I think.
You can't go past Katie Mitchell's "98% of directing is hard work." Her observations of the origins of Stanislavski's Method should also ring some bells for Melbournians, although the implications for a methodology that is founded on fear are not pursued.
All in all, well worth a quick listen, and I look forward to the second installment next week.
I now have an image of Alan Border interviewing Simon Phillips about rehearsal processes, and it won't go away.
I'd like to dedicate today's blog to the The Age report, about Harry Potter performing in the current West End production of Equus, that described the protagonist Alan Strange as "a stable boy obsessed with horses." Makes me feel very sane indeed.
and did I mention this man amongst men?
lane off Fenwick Street, North Carlton
Fourth in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
Today, Cameron Woodhead writing in The Age referred to a "neutral Australian" accent. Coincidentally, yesterday I was sharing my German copy of Les Murray's Freddy Neptune which is billed as a "translation from the Australian English", and not so coincidentally, I have been branding my own translations as "from the German into Australian English". It warms my provincial heart. Hopefully my spell-checker will catch up soon.
In other big news, I have added the German text to my Rilke translation, both for the pedants, and so that the rhyming scheme can be admired. I have also added a photo of fire-woman, designer and all-round theatre genius Margie Mackay to the "Golem" post.
Supernaut posted blog#1000 recently. I'd like to celebrate with a joke:
There are only ten different sorts of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't.
Reading true blog-veterans makes me aware that I have lobbed in at a moment when everything is ridiculously easy. Mine is a pret-a-porter template with only a few minor hacks (courtesy of Hackosphere). Apart from admiring the pioneers, I have been aware that my current layout actually mitigates against the complex thought. A bit like those of us that still find long-hand writing a better way of thinking, this template discourages the essay.
That leads to the fact that this blog is by nature aimless. It was started as a reaction (loss, dislocation, home) not an action. The "why I am doing this" begs to be answered. The beginning of an answer is that the format has imposed it's own requirements. In a strategy that I often use on stage, I have recently decided to react to the limitations of the template, not by reformatting, but by accepting them as an interesting stretch:
This template is suitable for pictures and short texts. Because I have a little experience either with photographs or with brevity, that is exactly what I am going to stick with! For the moment, at least. Hope it's worth a visit now and then.
Johnston Street, Fitzroy
(referring to the state of the office behind, rather than the window)
Third in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
I hurt so bad. I saw you pale and scared.
This was in my dream. And your soul pealed.
Very softly, my soul resonated with yours
and both souls sang each other. I suffered.
Then, joy, deep inside me. I lay
in that silver heaven between dream and day.
my loose translation of:
Mir war so weh. Ich sah dich blass und bang.
Das war im Traum. Und deine Seele klang.
Ganz leise tönte meine Seele mit,
und beide Seele sangen sich. Ich litt.
Da wurde Friede tief in mir. Ich lag
im Silberhimmel zwischen Traum und Tag.
Rainer Maria Rilke, from Advent (1898)
It has often been remarked that I possess a preternatural sense of smell.
Now, my life's potential has finally been fulfilled...and to think, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille thought he had his work cut out for him bottling the scent of a virgin.
Two nights ago, I watched and AWESOME Australian film on DVD.
How often do you get to say that?
I had no intention of blogging about it, until this morning's paper carried an article about the unfortunate effects of a particular sleeping tablet.
Interestingly the details differ between the online version and the print version, with the print version being a superior read.
"Abandoning it's usually dry language" reports Julie Robotham, "the Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee's bulletin, published yesterday, referred to "bizarre sleep-related effects", of the drug."
Different examples are given in each version but they share the important detail: "104 reports of hallucinations and 62 of amnesia since the drug...was released in 2000."
I recommend you check out the references to "inappropriate or strange automatic behaviour while asleep."
Now, go slowly with me here, the film I saw...(drumroll)... has the tag: "The first phase is hallucinogenic...the second phase is glandular...And the third is...(have you got it yet?)...BODY MELT.
Oh alright, I sort of gave it away in the post heading.
The article could be a bit of serendipity but really is just a handy provocation for me to rave about this movie, which has, as it's far-out premise, the idea that an evil corporation is marketing a very unsafe vitamin supplement to unsuspecting Melbournians.
Body Melt was made in 1993 and re-released, in a speccy DVD version last year by a mob called Umbrella. I'm very late to the party, please forgive my enthusiasm.
I've watched a lot of horror/slasher/splatter flicks over the last 18 months or so - in preparation for the (eventual) staging of "Zombie State", a play by Ben Ellis.
These films have such clear genre specifications that even the worst really hone your sense of who has command of the narrative tropes and, importantly, who has something to say, or not. Actually, this last thought is more interesting; there is equal delight in the high art/low-art/no art gemischte of the genre in general.
Body Melt stands up. On all those fronts.
The film is brilliantly crafted and has an aesthetic that, I would wager, makes it better with time (in stark contrast with most Aussie movies actually of that era, which date appallingly). Sound design, from such a prestigious sound designer/director is obviously fantastic, particularly fun is had with the cheery, counter-intuitive jingles that kick in, almost subliminally, when things get really ugly. The pacing of the whole is spot on and the movement of the camera is classy. Brophy has a kind of Kubrickian-thing (I'm thinking of The Shining) going on, with the camera inexorably thrusting into dark spaces, altering our sense of scale and generally probing in a way that YOU REALLY WISH IT WOULDN'T.
Add to this unnerving element a fine integration of dodgy computer graphics, great design all round (there is a tie that Andrew Daddo wears, at a specific climax that should have won its very own AFI) a number of nicely understated lead performances, an elegant coat-hanger plot, and you have a ripper film.
What makes it great, tho', are the so-bad-they're-brilliant elements: the two totally OT "Wogboys", a dag-version of the Chainsaw Massacre family and some truly awful dialogue (Ramsay Street drivel colliding with feeble buddy-movie one-liners). Gratuitous porn and bodybuilders almost complete the picture but I would be forgetting a feast of scenes. I won't spoil them all but can't help recording my pleasure at the delightfully "Monstrous Feminine" plot-tangent that sees William McInnes having his (presumably spare) rib ripped out by Suzi Dougherty. And then there's what they do to Lisa McCune... but now we are back into plain "good-film-making" territory. It is this game between the low and the high that make it such terrific stuff.
All in all, Brophy has every reason to write
this article which I also highly recommend for a chuckle and a weep.
and now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to make a movie of my own. I was going to head up to the Top End and bait a psycho-killer croc with, maybe, Rhada Mitchell, but I'm not sure anyone will buy that...
Mary Street, North Carlton
Second in a series of documentations of deliberate and accidental street art.
reviews here and here
Curses, evil spells, magical weapons...
Something sinister is coming after the families of Northcote!
What can protect us?
And what is the cost?
Platform Youth Theatre presents an incredible fantasy set on the streets of Northcote.
Action-packed with live music, circus, fire, puppets, comedy and, well, action …
Performed by the members of Platform Youth Theatre, and a bevy of singers and puppeteers
Directed by Michael Camilleri
Written by Michael Camilleri with Bernard Caleo & Daniel Schlusser
Musical Director - Karen Berger
Head Puppetmaker - Emma Pryse
Fight Choreographer - Felicity Steel
Fire Choreographer - Margie Mackay (pictured with Golem legs)
Tickets ONLY $10
Bookings – Phone: 9482 9278 or Email: bookings@pyt.org.au
Both Theatrenotes and Supernaut have picked up on John McCallum's blazingly good essay. I only wish that all those colossal wastes of tax-payer's money from Nugent on, had concluded the same.
Apparently, this is to be the first in a series of essays in The Australian. Can't wait. Meanwhile in The Age, resident Grand Poo-Bah of Everything Michael Shmith has strayed from his usual arts beat into political territory...now, I've made a few New Year's Resolutions one of which I can't bear to break so early in the year, so I will not comment, but read it for yourself.
And a little congratulation to acting graduate Beth Cleary who was a deserving recipient of the women@minterellison Rising Star Award. Her body of work in 2006 included my gore-fest, Touch Me, I'm Sick. Pictured above is a (live-videofeed) photo of Beth singing a rousing version of "Johnny Appleseed" to a soon-to-be-mutilated Japanese exchange student.
tis the season for season wraps. Mine is very selective. Lot's of travelling and surprisingly little theatre-going. For Melbourne, my picks can be expressed by a "Fantasy Theatre" wish: to see Anita Hegh (The Yellow Wallpaper) playing Lady Macbeth opposite Peter Houghton (For Samuel Beckett) as Macbeth. That idea is now public property, somebody grab it! My other Oz highlight was Minmi and Me, a work for children at the Melbourne Museum:
This show really got me thinking about good theatre and the relationship between good theatre and working for children: the way that an audience of 10 year olds really clarifies some of the basics. Minmi and Me packed in the sophistication of some beautiful shadow theatre and puppeteering, with equally stunning low-tech effects thanks to Michael Camilleri's "live-drawing". Bernard Caleo, who is known around town for his raconteuring gifts, pared back some of his florid excesses and kept his audience (young and old) educated, amused and on tenterhooks (while operating his own sound) for the whole show. Simply brilliant.
My "Blimey he's good" award would go to Brett Adam for his exquisite handling of Ross Mueller's Construction of the Human Heart and my "who the **** is that?" discovery award goes to Tom Wright for his hypnotic performance in Osama The Hero at The Old Fitz.
My London highlight was a production of Joyce's Exiles directed by James Macdonald at The National. For only the second time in my life, I was enraptured by Naturalism (the first was Zadek's Cherry Orchard in '96) When executed with care, it really is a magical form.
Finish Tango by Nina Wehnert and Eva Burghardt (pictured top), was an exceptional dance-theatre piece that premiered in Berlin and will be seen often this year.
Other features of 2006:
favourite inter-cultural moment: being screamed at by a triumphant Italian, after I had barracked for the French in the World Cup final, in a pub in Bermondsey.
favourite musical discovery: Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum
favourite "books never prepared me for the heart-stopping grandeur of it all" moment: Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
favourite 2nd-hand bookshop find: 1st Edition copy of The Root Letters.
favourite gift received: Arrested Development, Season 1
favourite footy-speak: "...there's no doubt that I'll be trying to exit him out rather than exit him in". (G. Thomas, about R. Harvey)
and to end, my favourite lyric of 2006:
what do you do with the pieces of a broken heart?
and how does a man like me remain in the light?
and if life is really as short as they say, why are the nights so long?
(thanks M.Ward) and Merry New year to you all.
