HIGHWAY OF LOST HEARTS

by Mary Anne Butler. Directed by Adam Deusien. Original live music by Smith and Jones. Lingua Franca. The Q Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre. June 6-7.

This is one of those pieces that shines. Mary Anne Butler’s original play about a woman’s journey across Australia to lay some ghosts and settle her heart was performed by her in Darwin in 2912. This production adds rich original music performed live by duo Smith and Jones. It’s a mesmerising journey. 

Mot (Kate Smith) drives a van from Darwin to Sydney through the heart of the country, with only her dog for company. She’s on a quest to settle ghosts -  a dead father, the husband who left, the friend who died. She’s looking for her lost heart.

Smith holds this monologue together with humour and a compelling power. Mot’s journey through the middle of this country then the left hand turn towards Sydney and the coast, is caught in a narrative that includes roadside encounters, dodgy characters, the reality of racial prejudice and the tensions of being a woman travelling alone.  Smith’s performance brings out the deeper truths of the country. If you have travelled some of those roads or lived on them it will especially strike home.  

Backing Smith’s performance are duo Smith and Jones (Abby Smith and Sophie Jones) , with their sonorously beautiful songs another part of the evocation of place and feeling and country. 

Annemaree Dalziel’s moody set of towering drapes and scattered possessions is supported by sensitive lighting by Becky Russell, often appropriately more dark than light. 

Highway of Lost Hearts catches the history and nature of this place in a way that strikes at the deepest feelings, understandings, confusions and guilts you might’ve about this country. 

They are finishing a NSW tour on June 14-15 at Riverside in Parramatta. It would be great for them to take this show down that outback Australian road some time.

Alanna Maclean

HIGHWAY OF LOST HEARTS

Written by Mary Anne Butler

Original Live Music by Smith & Jones

Directed by Adam Deusien

A Lingua Franca in association with Arts On Tour presentation

Q Theatre, Queanbeyan to 7 June

 

Reviewed by Len Power 6 June 2024

 

Simply staged to evoke the atmosphere of regional Australia, this play about a woman’s drive through the heart of the country and the people she meets along the way, is a complex exploration of love and loss, joy and sadness.

The woman, Mot, travels with her dog as a much-loved companion. On the outside, Mot seems gutsy, strong and determined, but underneath the rough language and her fearless inaction with people, there’s a vulnerability that we connect with and warm to.

Written by award-winning playwright, Mary Anne Butler, and performed by Kate Smith as Mot, this is an in-depth character study of a woman searching for her place of happiness in this world. Smith shows every facet of this woman in a finely balanced and truthful performance. Butler’s words are both poetic and down-to-earth.

Kate Smith as Mot (photo by Phil Blatch)

Adding greatly to the atmosphere is the music written by and performed by Smith & Jones that accompanies and comments on the action. Their music and lyrics give an emotional truth to this woman’s story as well as evoking the sounds and sense of the country.

Smith & Jones (photo by Hannah Grogan)

Director, Adam Deusien, keeps the action simple and focussed, allowing the woman’s emotional journey to set the pace. The clever set design by Annemarie Dalziel has simple elements that create an atmospheric picture of the places this woman is travelling through.

Kate Smith (seated, foreground) and Smith & Jones (photo by Hannah Grogan)

It is a unique production, performed and sung with skill. This woman’s journey through country and life is readily identified with and is quite memorable.

 

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

 

 

Theatre Network Australia 2024 Budget

 

Posted by Frank McKone - Theatre Network Australia

 ©Frank McKone, Canberra

TERROR

 

Terror by Ferdinand von Schirach.

Directed by Kim Beamish, Production Designer: Kathleen Kershaw,Lighting Designer: Stefan Wronski, Production Stage Manager: Disa Swifte, Assistant Production Designer: Sam Thomas , Set Construction: Simon Grist, Photographer: Daniel Abroguena, Producer: Lexi Sekuless Productions ,Major partner: Elite Event Technology. The Mill Theatre. June 5 – 15. Bookings:www.humanitix.com

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 Presiding judge (Tracy Noble) addresses the audience

Consider this. A Lufthansa aircraft has been hijacked by a terrorist and is being forced to crash into a Munich sports stadium. On the plane are 164 passengers and crew. In the stadium 70,000 have come to watch a football match. Pilot Lars Koch (Mark Lee) has a terrible decision to make. Does he shoot down the plane to prevent the plane crashing into the stadium? He has decided to sacrifice the lives of the smaller number to save the greater number. And for this he has been arrested and placed on trial for the murder of the 164.

Passengers on the Lufthansa flight

Kathleen Kershaw’s stark grey panelled walls remove any emotional connection with the play, and encourage the audience to focus entirely on the intellectual demand of the experience – to judge the evidence presented by the court and decide the verdict. By placing the audience in the role of jury  von Schirach ensures a Brechtian approach where an audience is persuaded to judge with clear reason and emotional detachment. This is only possible if the theatre is thoroughly absorbing. Director Beamish has avoided the clichéd courtroom with its formal setting and static convention. There is a fluidity of action as the drama unfolds as prosecutor  (Lexi Sekuless) and Defence (Timmy Sekuless) vie for the most persuasive argument. Both actors present a convincing contrast in their presentation. Lexi Sekuless captures the confident and incontestable truth of her case. Timmy Sekuless presents a human face to legal argument citing Kant and previous cases to argue his client’s innocence. As well as playing the roles of witnesses and courtroom officials, members of the cast double as passengers of the ill-fated plane in a scene of beautifully choreographed  physical theatre, aided by Stefan Wronski’s striking lighting design and sound design.

Mark Lee as defendant Lars Koch

After almost two hours of evidence and argument that ricocheted throughout the small theatre, only the closing summations presented by prosecution and defence seemed to test the attention before being called upon to give a verdict to the court stenographer (Alana Denham-Preston).  After the verdict is read out, most actors depart leaving the solitary figures of Koch and the guard (Rhys Hekemian) on one side of the stage and Franziska Meiser, the widow of a passenger (Maxine Beaumont) on the other. It’s a powerful and revealing image that places the impact of the human experience.at the centre of the legal judgement.

Terror is a night at the theatre that will have you glued to your seat as you struggle with your  interpretation of the facts and the evidence presented to you by judge, witnesses and attorneys.  Von Schirach’s Terror has been given a first rate production at The Mill Theatre that will stay with you well after the presiding judge announces the audience’s verdict. 

 

Neil Pigot as Christian Lauterbach. Lexi Sekuless as Prosecutor

Timmy Sekuless as defense Attorney

  

TERROR

 

Written by Ferdinand von Schirach

Directed by Kim Beamish

Lexi Sekuless Productions

Mill Theatre on Dairy Road, Fyshwick to 15 June

 

Reviewed by Len Power 5 June 2024

 

When, on arrival, you’re handed a juror’s badge and, in the lobby, the Presiding Judge explains her expectations of you, first in German and then easing into an English translation, you realize you will have a serious judgement to make in the “courtroom”.

Tracy Noble as the Presiding Judge

A hijacked plane was heading towards a packed football stadium. Ignoring orders to the contrary, a fighter pilot shot down the plane killing 164 people to save 70,000. On trial and charged with murder, the fate of the pilot is in your hands as jury members.

Written in 2015 by German lawyer, writer and playwright, Ferdinand von Schirach, the evidence is presented by the defence and the prosecution, and the defendant is questioned. Various issues arise regarding the legality of his action, his defence force training and the moral decision he had to make under extreme pressure.

The jurors have a difficult decision to make at the end of the trial. Is the fighter pilot guilty or not guilty?

A simple, but effective design by Kathleen Kershaw sees the entire Mill Theatre re-imagined as a cold, almost forbidding, courtroom. The lighting and sound design add considerably to the atmosphere as the trial unfolds.

There is not much opportunity for major character development, but there are good performances from all the cast, especially Tracy Noble as the Presiding Judge, Lexi Sekuless as the State Prosecutor and Mark Lee as the Defendant.

Lexi Sekuless as the State Prosecutor

Director, Kim Beamish, ensures that the script unfolds at a good pace and the depiction of events on board the plane at critical moments was imaginative and well-played.

This is a play in which moral and legal issues are of most importance. In the lobby after the performance, a spirited discussion continued, showing that the audience had been deeply moved.

 

Photos supplied by the production

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

Sanctuary

Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope

SANCTUARY | 25 Artists

Sutton Village Gallery | 1 - 23 June 2024

The goal of this exhibition is to present a wide range of viewpoints about sanctuary. Australian and international artists honour the history of photography and the skill that goes into making images using traditional printing methods. The labour-intensive methods have produced handmade prints with rich textures and fine details that compel visitors to take their time, approach closely, and recognize the creativity and talent that went into each artwork. The visual narrative transports viewers to comforting spaces through found moments of serenity or consolation. We are encouraged to consider how we define sanctuary and how it may be apparent in our own lives.

The artworks include photopolymer photogravure with chin colle, salt prints from a wet collodion glass negative, cyanotypes and gum bichromates over cyanotype, Vandyke brown prints, albumen prints, carbon transfer prints on glass, a polaroid lifted and transferred onto watercolour paper, carbon prints from an iPhone capture, lith prints, chromogenic colour contact prints, tintype, and the Mordençage technique. No doubt, like me, most readers will not be familiar with all these processes. That is just one very good reason to visit this exhibition.

So, let me now share here just some of the pieces on show. Sydney artist Amanda Lawson has a profound love of botanical forms. She is exhibiting two delightful photogravure prints of tidal flow scenes in the Jervis Bay national parks. 

TIDAL FLOW 2024, Photopolymer photogravure with chin colle on Fabriano Ivory 220 gsm © Amanda Lawson

Danielle Edwards, from Melbourne, similarly finds sanctuary whilst walking through forests. Her infrared capture of a giant coastal redwood is simply beautiful.

THE GIANT ed. 4/15. Photographed 2018, Printed 2022 Platinum Palladium
on French Bergger 100% cotton paper - © Danielle Edwards

Local artist Chris Holly also finds sanctuary in the bush. His artworks were made on black & white film on a 1950s twin lens reflex camera. Then he used the Van Dyke brown process with a ferric ammonium citrate/silver nitrate chemistry. The emulsion was hand-painted onto Bergger 320gsm 100% cotton paper and then exposed by contact printing to ultraviolet light. He describes the resultant prints, of rocks in the Namadgi National Park which many of us would not even notice, as reverent and respectful. And, indeed, they are.

Untitled I, 2024 - Vandyke on Bergger 320gsm COT paper, Print size, 16x16cm, 41x51cm, framed © Chris Holly

Canberra artist (and busy commercial photographer) Hilary Wardhaugh is now an empty nester. She has moved to a home where the garden provides her with inspiration as well as sanctuary. Using Polaroid film that expired 20 years ago when her son was born, she has created a Polaroid lift of her favourite chair in the garden. It is an excellent example of how a good image can be made using a simple subject.

EMPTY-NESTER GARDEN U/S Polaroid lift and transfer onto watercolour paper © Hilary Wardhaugh

Another Canberran, Ossian Desmond-Jones is showing cyanotypes. One is of a nautilus shell which “forms a perfect protective sanctuary for the creature that inhabits it, and functions as an object of beauty on its own.” The technique used has created most interesting colours. 

NAUTILUS II U/S 2024 - (Cyanotype with copper instead of iron) on A3 Fabriano watercolour paper
© OSSIAN DESMOND- JONES

One international guest artist is Diana H. Bloomfield of North Carolina, USA. Her gum bichromate piece most successfully demonstrates that this process can resolve fine details in numerous colours.

SUNFLOWERS U/S 2018, Gum bichromate on 100% archival cotton rag. Print size 32x41cm,

frame size 48x39cm © Diana H Bloomfield.

Gallery operator Kim Sinclair has assembled a fine body of handmade prints, including one of her own delightful artworks. Every piece is of high quality and worthy of close inspection.

This review is also available on the author's blog here. And it has also been published in the June issue of The Printer at pages 18-21: here.

THE MIRROR

Flowers Of Peace Project

Christopher Latham, violin

Edward Neeman, piano

Wesley Uniting Church Forrest June 1

 

Reviewed by Len Power

 

To understand the experience of refugees and displaced persons fleeing the Nazis and the Holocaust, The Mirror examined the creations of composers and artists affected by these events.

As part of the Flowers Of Peace project for the Australian War Memorial, Christopher Latham and Edward Neeman told 12 stories of WW2 refugee composers and internees through their music.

Projections of artworks with narrative provided a smooth continuity. Apart from a brief introduction by Christopher Latham, there was no spoken commentary during the concert.

The experiences of the composers attempting to flee to safety – some succeeding, some failing, none unaffected – was powerfully and emotionally told through their music. The carefully selected artwork added considerably to the program.

Composers Edwin Schulhoff, Pavel Haas and Victor Ullmann perished in the death camps. The beautiful music of these composers poignantly showed the promise of talented people whose lives were brutally cut short.

Amongst the composers who survived or escaped, Boaz Bischofswerder, Georges Boulanger, Henriёtte Bosmans, Erich Korngold, George Dreyfus, Ignaz Friedman and Georg Tintner, it was made clear that they did not do so unscathed. Their stories of displacement, of careers cut short due to illness or the impact on friends and family were devastating.

Christopher Latham and Edward Neeman

The playing of Christopher Latham and Edward Neeman was superb. Allowing the music to speak for the composers and their lives, the concert was a tribute to a group of artists caught up in a horrific time that abruptly ended their careers or seriously affected them forever.

Providing context and preparation for Kaddish: A Holocaust Memorial premiere concert by the Melbourne Symphony in October 2024, The Mirror was a sobering, reflective experience that was still uplifting because of the opportunity to hear the fine music of composers who should not be forgotten.

 

Photos by Peter Hislop

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.