Theatre Network Australia - Some Critical Information

Posted by Frank McKone

https://www.tna.org.au/pre-budget-submission-for-the-2020-21-federal-budget/

Media Contact: Nicole Beyer nicole@tna.org.au

SYDNEY CONSORT - FAREWELL CONCERT

Stan and Monica Kornel

Wesley Music Centre

Sunday 9 February

Monica Kornel, harpsichord

Stan Kornel, violin, viola d’amore and pochette

Reviewed by Len Power

It might have been a farewell concert by leading music ensemble, the Sydney Consort, but these excellent musicians did not allow any emotion to get in the way as they delivered a superbly played concert for their appreciative audience in the Wesley Music Centre.

The Sydney Consort has been devoted to early music of the 17th and 18th century, as well as contemporary Australian music on period instruments, providing excellent historically informed music to a wide audience.  One of the ensemble’s visions has been to “revive” forgotten music and works by obscure composers, unpublished scores and rarely performed compositions which still deserve to be presented.  They are renowned internationally as well as locally in Australia.

Their farewell concert consisted of music that audiences had asked them to perform again.  The program included music by JS Bach, Handel, Castello, Vivaldi and Royer, amongst others.

Monica Kornel played on a French Double Harpsichord and Stan Kornel played violin, viola d’amore and a pochette.

Stan Kornel compares the pochette with the violin

The concert commenced with Bach’s sonata for violin and harpsichord.  This work with contrasting slow and fast movements was very well-played.  Especially notable was the depth of feeling in the playing of the third movement and the high energy performance of the fourth and final movement.

Other highlights of the concert included Handel’s viola d’amore Sonata which featured Stan Kornel’s mastery of this period instrument, Royer’s March of the Scythes, played with great energy and colour by Monica Kornel on harpsichord and an extraordinary performance of Michel Corrette’s Giga from Sonata in D Major by Stan Kornel on his tiny Pochette instrument made from the remains of a damaged violin.

There was also a fine performance of the Sonata by Dario Castello, a haunting work of great beauty, and their vivid and colourful playing of Vivaldi’s sonata was delightful.  Ground after the Scotch Humor, by Nicola Matteis was played with great energy and precision, bringing this fine concert to a close.

With his characteristic quiet humour, Stan Kornel thanked the audience for their support over the years and he and Monica left the stage to enthusiastic and heart-felt applause.

Photos by Peter Hislop

This review was first published in the Canberra City News digital edition of 10 February 2020

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.

AMANDA PALMER - There Will Be No Intermission.

Amanda Palmer 

Canberra Theatre – 7^th February 2020

Reviewed by Bill Stephens

Perhaps best known for her punk cabaret duo, “The Dresden Dolls”, for her crowd-funding expertise, her mesmerising videos, or even her recent world-first public performance at the Mona Foma festival in Launceston, where for several days she sat in a small cubicle listening to members of the public confide their deepest, darkest secrets, Amanda Palmer is a one-of-a-kind performer who defies categorization. Described as a singer, songwriter, musician, author and performance artist, her powerful songs tackle head-on, the big questions like abortion and rape.  To watch her perform them in person, sitting alone at a grand piano is an unsettling, and certainly memorable, experience. 

Her concert was entitled “There will be no Interval”. Thankfully there was one. It lasted 20 minutes, in a marathon concert that ran for four hours. Much of that time was taken up with Palmer assaulting the Steinway with enough ferocity to spark doubts as to whether it would survive the concert, while belting out lyrics so over-amplified that most were unintelligible. This was a shame, because when they could be understood, her lyrics sounded tantalisingly perceptive.

For the most part though, after opening her show, surprisingly with mischievous version of “My favourite Things” from “The Sound of Music”,   she stood at the front of the stage, bathed in the inevitable haze necessary for the impressive rock-star lighting, and talked to her audience.

Amanda Palmer 

A charismatic story teller, Palmer’s eyes brim with tears as she confides details of her sexual awakening, at fourteen, at the hands of the Corrupter. Her stories are powerful and deeply confessional. You could have heard a pin drop as she described, in harrowing detail, her three abortions, her miscarriages and the death of her best friend and therapist, Anthony, before expertly releasing the tension, with a flourish of sardonic humour, earning relieved laughter from her audience.

Occasionally she would punctuate the stories by returning to the piano to belt out one of her songs to underline a point. Among them “It Runs in the Family” with its unsettling repetitive “Me Up” refrain, “Straight (with Strings)” and the disturbing “A Mother’s Confession” which ends with the lyric “But at least the baby didn’t die”.

After commencing the second half of the program with her ear-worm, “Coin Operated Boy”, she ignored audience calls for more of her songs, preferring to continue with her stories, which felt a bit risky, and smacked of self-indulgence. However, she did perform, (again surprisingly), a sardonic, screeching version of “Let If Go” from “Frozen” before ending the concert gently with an encore, which neatly summed up the evening. It was called “The Ride”.

This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au

ADELAIDE FRINGE 2020

 

Adelaide Fringe 2020.

Artistic Director and CEO Heather Croall. Principal Sponsor Bank SA. Adelaide CBD, Environs and South Australia Regions. February 14 – March 15 2020.   www.adelaidefringe.com.au

Preview by Peter Wilkins

Anyone who has ever jostled their way through the crowded footpaths of Rundle Street’s East End in Adelaide will remember the buzz of the Fringe. Anyone who has stood on the long queue to see their favourite late night show in the bustling Garden of Unearthly Delights will know that there is no better place to be than Adelaide during Fringe time. Of course the Fringe is not alone in the festive month of March. There is the Adelaide Festival, located primarily at the Adelaide Festival Centre. There is the Writer’s Week in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden behind Government House. And there is WomAdelaide between the Botanic Gardens and the Zoological Gardens.  But the Adelaide Fringe is much much more, stretching its inspirational feast of artistic events far and beyond the CBD. Throughout the state, satellites of Fringe events enliven Adelaide’s suburbs and regional centres as far apart as Mount Gambier in the south and Port Augusta in the north. Artists of all kinds flood the myriad of strange and wonderful venues with comedy, theatre, music, dance, community arts and free events for the entire community.

Heather Croall. Artistic Director and CEO
of the Adelaide Fringe

This year, the Adelaide Fringe celebrates its Diamond Anniversary, sixty years of bringing the community together with a plethora of cultural delights to tempt every palate and excite every taste. A magnificent coffee table book, published to celebrate the sixty glorious years of this phenomenal festival reveals each year in glossy reminiscence. From its humble beginnings as an adjunct to the prestigious Adelaide Festival, intent on giving a voice to local artists, while the Festival attracted primarily international visitors the Fringe has grown to become the largest festival in the Southern Hemisphere and second only to the Edinburgh Fringe. Visitors, including artists, directors, administrators and entrepreneurs travel from across the globe to immerse themselves in the four weeks of the Fringe, and many shows over the years gain international standing as a result of their Fringe season. Crowds flock to venues like the Garden of Unearthly Delights, Gluttony and the Royal Croquet Club, or seek out original theatre works at Holden Street Theatres, The Bakehouse and Joanne Hartstone’s productions like the acclaimed The Girl Who Fell From the Hollywood Sign in the Botanic Gardens.

True to its origins and affirmed by Father of the Fringe, the late Frank Ford OAM, the Adelaide Fringe has remained an open access festival, extending an invitation to anyone who would like to showcase their work. 7000 artists make their way from all corners of the nation and the globe to participate in this amazing festival. While some may find their way to the established venues, many will seek out unusual spaces in which to present their work. One such surprising venue is the tunnels beneath Adelaide’s old and charming Treasury Building now housing the Adina Apartments.  In Rundle Mall in the heart of Adelaide’s CBD, street performers will entertain the passers-by with feats of daring and physical prowess. Buskers will fill the air with music and song and for four high octane weeks, Adelaide will explode with talent and first class entertainment.

Gravity and Other Myths

 “It’s a springboard, a launching pad’” says Artistic Director and CEO, Heather Croall of her fifth Fringe Festival. “I think it’s too easy for people to think of our open access model that it  wouldn’t be excellent work. It’s not as highbrow as the curated festival, but artists are presenting excellent work at the Fringe much of which does end up at curated festivals such as physical theatre group Gravity and Other Myths which appeared in last year’s Adelaide Festival and has toured internationally to resounding success.. “The fact that the Fringe is an open access model does not reduce the brilliance of the work.” Gravity and Other Myths will return to perform at the Fringe again this year. “Programmers from around the nation and the world see the Fringe as a great place to be discovered for bookings in the future and a fabulous place to find audiences and a wonderful experience to be a part of and around their peers” says Croall.

This year Croall with the assistance of a grant from the South Australian government has intervened positively to allow more aboriginal artists to be represented in the Fringe. There has always been a First Nation element from as far back as the sixty year old origin of the Fringe. This year for the first time, the Fringe has created a First Nation Hub that is absolutely full of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander shows at Tandanya, Australia’s first cultural aboriginal institution, established in 1989.

Yabarra  Dreaming in Light

Each Fringe features a signature project and for the Diamond Anniversary year the Fringe has created Yabarra Dreaming in Light. “We have created an immersive projection piece that is all around you in the Tandanya Gallery. It is like walking into an aboriginal Dreamtime. You have the Milky Way and the stars above you. You have the flora and the fauna  all around you. Footprints of animals along the ground entice you to come in and wind spirits blow in the distance. It’s magical. It’s amazing!” The installation is free but visitors will need to book a time slot guaranteed to blow everyone away with its cutting edge technology.

The 2020 Fringe will officially open on St. Valentine’s Day with a sunset ceremony in the picturesque Millawirraburka Rymill Park in Adelaide’s East Parklands. “It is fitting that we are opening on Valentine’s Day.” Croall says, “because the Fringe is the Festival of Love with everyone coming together and opening night is the perfect Date Night with your friends, with your partner, with the earth and with everybody. Lots of people tell me that they met their life partner at the Fringe!”

As an open access festival, the Fringe will always represents a large number of views. “The way we see the world is an important part of democracy.’ Croall says. “It’s a really important part of any democratic society to have a strong arts scene with vibrant cultural elements around us that we can all be part of and that is why I think the Fringe plays such an important role in our lives. That’s why the love is so deep.”

The political shift will be reflected much more in the vast programme. The Fringe has always offered a strong commentary on the world around us in its comedy shows, cabaret and theatre. This year will be no different. With 1200 theatre shows to choose from let alone all the other free and ticketed events, audiences could be excused for feeling overwhelmed by the choices presented. It is something that Croall is acutely cognisant of. “We’ve devoted resources, time and planning to make the programme easy to navigate for all the different tastes. There’s a lot of Fringe lists on our website. Media commentators will pick their top shows. Like artistic directors before her, Croall offers similar advice to visitors to the Fringe “Go to see something   you’ve heard of but I always like to say go and see something you know nothing about. Take pot luck because that’s often the show   you’ll be talking about.”

The Fringe website is obviously the starting place for people who are hoping to select things to see and do. Those who may be visiting Adelaide for a short time can focus on the listed dates and choose their favourites without having to navigate the entire guide. “ Jump onto our website and if you already know the dates that you can come then don’t search the entire programme, just limit the search to the dates that you’re coming so use the filters on our website to monitor your own curatorial prowess. You can just put the genres that you’re interested in or just put the dates that you want. Limit the number of shows you’re viewing and start to pick through and choose your favourites. It’s a really great tool with Fringe favourites. There are so many elements of the Fringe to just lap up while you’re here . The lovely balmy nights we have obviously help. It’s something that people comment on a lot. They don’t just go and see the shows but also make a night of it, sitting out at a piazza style restaurant on the street, or simply having a drink under the gum trees and the starry skies”.

Croall’s passion for her fifth Fringe is palpable. She claims that it is the inclusivity of the Fringe that still gives her that special buzz. “It really does move me how inclusive it is. It is not an exclusive event. It has no elitism. There is room for every artist. There is room for every audience member and we know that the impact that inclusivity has on people is huge. People tell me all the time, ‘The Fringe changed my life.’  That’s amazing. It really moves me”

Adelaide Fringe. February 14 – March 15 2020

Bookings and further information: www.adelaidefringe.org.au

Fringe Tix Call Centre: 1300  621 255

Email: buzz@adelaidefringe.com.ai

Adelaide Box Office: +61 8 8100 2000

Platform Paper No.62

Performing Arts Markets and their Conundrums by Justin Macdonnell.  Platform Papers No. 62, February 2020.  Quarterly essays on the performing arts from Currency House.

Reviewed by Frank McKone

APAM or APAX? That is the question.  What are Performing Arts Markets for?  Are Performing Arts Exchanges better?

Justin Macdonnell is more than well-qualified to ask the questions: he has “been employed in arts management, producing and consultancy for over forty years.  His early career was occupied variously as General Manager of the State Opera of Australia, Director of the National Opera of New Zealand, Program Director of the Festival of Sydney, Executive Director of the Confederation of Australian Professional Performing Arts and Artistic Director of the Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, USA.  As principal of Macdonnell Promotions he was for twenty years one of Australia’s leading arts management consultants to both the public and private sectors and to scores of arts organisations here and abroad.”

In a lengthy but fascinating history of arts markets on every continent, he even wonders about an unexpected “elephant in the room: the entire face-to-face market model is based on continued extensive international air travel, not only to assemble delegates at one or more market-like events in Australia—a great distance by anyone’s standards—but to continue to support international touring itself.  Despite Qantas’s optimistic claims of being carbon neutral by 2050, there is already a known, marked reluctance among those concerned at the threat of climate change to use such transport.”

We Canberrans didn’t need to fly anywhere when the first Australian Performing Arts Market seemed, to me at least, to appear quite out of the blue in the midst of the 1994 National Festival of Australian Theatre, directed by the doyenne of Kurt Weill singing, Robyn Archer AO.  APAM was set up by the Australia Council for the Arts, a statutory authority, nowadays simply known as The Australia Council, which is the Australian Government's principal arts funding and advisory body. The Council is the national advocate for the arts and its purpose is to “champion and invest in” Australian arts.

Macdonnell sees the what-for? question having two answers, which have had different degrees of emphasis in the parallel arts markets which have been established around the world.  He writes, “in order to have an effective trade fair one must have buyers and sellers. It is arguable that in APAM, while there have been a number of buyers, there has never really been selling. The work has been displayed but not sold.”

Then he goes on to say, “most observers today would acknowledge that these events have a networking and relationshipbuilding purpose alongside their buying and selling
role. While there is concern with the narrowness of what ‘market’ might mean, many feel that it has been useful to add new dimensions to the program in order to facilitate what might be called ‘curated conversations’.”

On one occasion, at a US market, “Australian colleagues and I once did a roaring trade there with mass-produced clip-on koalas.”  But then he contrasts this approach, saying “But in the end success is achieved mostly after long-standing connection between artist manager/producer and presenter.”

Macdonnell’s descriptions of the experiences of attending the many dozens of arts markets, as potential buyers, hopeful sellers and professional management and artistic networkers are not only interesting in their own light, but raise for us as critics a fuller understanding of the milieu – the world-wide culture of theatre – out of which the individual performances we see emerge.

A particularly fascinating case, seen here at the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre (The Q), was the dance work by Queensland’s Expressions Dance Company combined with BeijingDance/LDTX in two parts, Auto Cannibal by Stephanie Lake and Encircling Voyage by MA Bo under the overall title Matrix.  This international cooperative venture received five strongly positive reviews on this blog alone (November 2019), demonstrating the value of the very networking and relationship building that Macdonnell emphasises – while also showing how the arts market provides the opportunity for the director of a small regional performing arts centre to buy in, to great acclaim, new cutting-edge work to expand a local audience’s appreciation of the arts.

In the past few years, the government-initiated and managed APAM now faces the establishment of Australian Performing Arts Connections as “the national peak body representing performing arts presenters and creators in Australia”.  While APAM moves towards conducting a number of markets in the year, each in a different city with a focus (for example on Indigenous work in Darwin), 2020 sees the APAC annual conference combine with Performing Arts Exchange to become an annual APAX. 

Perhaps, implies Macdonnell, APAM will become too spread out and diffuse; less effective for developing artistic relationships; less effective for selling to international buyers.  Perhaps, he writes, APAX—the Australian Performing Arts Exchange—stating that: “98 per cent of people coming to PAX and the conferences this year [2019] said that ‘Market and audience development are a critical part of the performing arts sector’ may in time challenge APAM for its place as the major performing arts gathering for the nation and New Zealand.”

So he concludes (with some reference to the role nowadays of social media and internet communication) “Regular opportunities for meeting and talking and learning are a central factor in maintaining such relationships—call them friendships if you will—and to the extent that such meeting and talking can be structured, goodwill and trust is gained and grown over time and when all is said and done, no amount of technology or wizardry of other kinds has yet found a better way.”


Media Contact: Martin Portus mportus2@tpg.com.au

Currency House:
https://www.currency.com.au/books/platform-papers/platform-papers-62-performing-arts-markets-and-their-conundrums/ 

PRESENT LAUGHTER

Written by Noel Coward

Directed by Matthew Warchus

National Theatre Live film presentation from London

Dendy Cinemas Sunday 2 February

Reviewed by Len Power

In the latest National Theatre Live film presentation, Noel Coward’s play, “Present Laughter” gets a stylish makeover by director, Matthew Warchus.

Written by Coward in 1939, it was not produced until 1942 because the Second World War began while it was in rehearsal, and the British theatres closed.  The title is drawn from a song in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night that urges "present mirth hath present laughter".

In the few days before embarking on an African tour, star actor Garry Essendine’s colourful life is in danger of spiralling out of control.  Engulfed by an escalating identity crisis as his many and various relationships compete for his attention, Garry’s few remaining days at home are a chaotic whirlwind of love, sex, panic and soul-searching.

Played out on Rob Howell’s beautifully designed art deco setting, the cast of ten expertly wring every laugh out of this entertaining play.  Watching the performances by these actors is a master class in playing this type of mannered comedy.

As the leading character, Garry Essendine, Andrew Scott is brilliant.  Playing at a feverish pitch throughout, he makes this spoilt, temperamental, self-centred actor a man of great charisma and charm, even though he’s a pain in the neck at the same time.  It’s an extraordinary performance, physically and vocally.

Sophie Thompson as Essendine’s long-suffering secretary and virtual nanny, Monica Reed, is equally impressive with a quirky yet commanding performance.  Indira Varma gives a highly sophisticated and attractive performance as ex-wife, Liz Essendine, who still makes it her mission in life to keep him on the straight and narrow.

There is fine support from the rest of the highly skilled cast including Enzo Cilenti as the handsome and very available Joe, Luke Thallen as the hysterical writer, Roland Maule, and Abdul Salis as the nervous agent, Morris Dixon.

The direction by Matthew Warchus is impressive with its depth of characterisations and believable relationships.  He has it all playing at break-neck speed with split second timing especially in the farcical second act.

Coward’s play has been altered from the original by changing the gender of certain characters.  In the original play, the seductions and affairs are strictly heterosexual.  At the time it was written, censorship laws would not have allowed for anything else.

In this production, Garry Essendine is portrayed as bisexual in his relationships.  It’s easy to see how this could feel justified by the production team.  The play originally had a working title of “Secret Sorrow” and Coward, a homosexual who never actually declared his sexual preference during his life, acknowledged that the leading character of the play, Garry Essendine, was a caricature of his real-life persona.

While this version plays beautifully and is very entertaining, it’s a concern that modern audiences will now think that this is the play as originally written by Noel Coward.  If the play is considered a classic and is still worth performing, the script should not need to be altered from the author’s original intention.

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on the Artsound FM 92.7 ‘In the Foyer’ program on Mondays and Wednesdays at 3.30pm.

SONGS FOR NOBODIES - with Bernadette Robinson

Bernadette Robinson in "Songs for Nobodies" 

Written by Joanna Murray-Smith - Directed by Simon Phillips

Musical Direction by Ian McDonald - musicians Ian McDonald, Graham Jesse, Ron Lemke

Lighting Designed by Malcolm Rippeth - reproduced by Scott Rogers.
Set Design by Justin Nardella - Sound design by Nicholas Reich

Sydney Opera House until 9^th February 2020.

Performance on 23^rd January reviewed by Bill Stephens

Bernadette Robinson is a unique talent. She has the uncanny ability to reproduce, exactly, the voices of famous singers. Plenty of other impressionists can do this, but what separates Robinson is that she is also an accomplished actress, able to capture the personality and soul of the person she is portraying, including their speech patterns and language, so that her dialogue is as captivating as her songs.

Bernadette Robinson in "Songs for Nobodies" 

“Songs for Nobodies” is a collection of five individual one-woman plays, specially written for Robinson by Joanna Murray-Smith, to showcase the full range of Robinson’s talents. Not only is each an absorbing vignette in its own right, but each requires Robinson to captivate her audience with the sheer virtuosity of her vocal and acting skills.

First performed in 2010, directed by Simon Phillips, “Songs for Nobodies” toured nationally, and was nominated for a Helpmann Award in 2010. In 2019 it was nominated for an Olivier Award following a seven-week season at the Ambassador Theatre in London, again directed by Phillips, as is this tour.

The work is performed, without interval, on a deceptively simple, black, circular setting. Malcolm Rippeth’s evocative lighting design continually surprises by revealing, or concealing, features like Ian McDonald’s smooth accompanying band, the cocktail cabinet, from which Robinsons occasionally pours herself a drink or makes a pot of tea, or the Broadway lights which unexpectedly circle the stage and proscenium to provide pizazz at appropriate moments.

Bernadette Robinson in "Songs for Nobodies" 

Costumed throughout in an elegant black dress and jacket, hair tightly set, her mobile features accentuated by a splash of bright red lipstick, Robinson, by changing only her voice and mannerisms, miraculously transforms herself  into ten completely different characters, to act out a series of imaginary encounters. Each encounter includes the voice of the famous singer at the centre of the story, sung with such stunning power and accuracy as to create the sensation that that person is in the room.

For one encounter, she’s a star-struck cleaner relating her powder-room encounter with Judy Garland to whom she pours out the details of her own messy divorce. Then she’s an ambitious fashion journalist who recalls an interview with an unco-operative Billie Holliday. She becomes a Nottingham librarian recounting how Edith Piaf helped liberate her Belgian father from a German prison camp, then a young Kansas City usherette describing how she unexpectedly became a back-up singer for Patsy Kline. Finally, she’s a jilted Irish lass who recalls her experiences working on the luxury yacht of billionaire, Aristotle Onassis culminating in a spine-chilling moment in which she becomes Maria Callas to sing a haunting account of  Puccini’s, “Vissi d’Arte”.

Bernadette Robinson in "Songs for Nobodies" 

“Songs for Nobodies” is a once-in-a-lifetime show. A masterpiece crafted with style and finesse by Australian creatives at the peak of their skills to showcase the talents of a truly unique and exceptional performer. Take this opportunity to catch this show while you still can, before the rest of the world discovers Bernadette Robinson.

.  

                                    Photos provided by the producers.

This review also appears in Australian Arts Review. www.artsreview.com.au