WHAT TO DO IN A CULTURAL OUTPOST

People in both Perth and Melbourne have said words to the effect of "what are you going to do in a cultural desert?" i.e. a sense that I was giving up Australia's cultural heartland for some uncouth outlier world. But so far, even though I've missed a couple of Melbourn Theatre Company shows this year, there's been plenty to keep me entertained. 

For example, in the first week of June I saw three shows, went to two art exhibitions and bought two pieces of art. A better hit rate than most weeks in Melbourne. 

The first show was Blue, an impressive work by a young indigenous writer with an indigenous performer and director. Produced by Black Swan, it's a powerful one man show about death and suicide, told with grace and care with a pair of revolving mirrors working brilliantly as a centre piece of the set. [Yes, you can see Susan and I in the photo].

The second show was its opposite. Badly produced, badly performed, tedious in the extreme. It was Utopia Limited, a rarely performed (for good reasons) Gilbert and Sullivan piece that I mentioned in a previous blog about UWA theatres.

The third show was a musical - Footloose - performed in a theatre I'd never heard of above Planet Royale, a bar full of games machines.

It wasn't a musical I knew and I had to cajole Susan into coming but we both enjoyed it thoroughly. It was performed by a young talented cast, many of them WAAPA students, directed with flair and with an effective 3D projection providing most of the design elements. The gentlemen of Indian subcontinent heritage sitting next to me, clutching his pizza box (yes, you can eat and drink during the show), found it enthralling. It was his first theatre experience (leaving aside his son's school shows) and as a result of having such a good time, he was going to try theatre, perhaps even opera! So if nothing else, the conversion of one person to the joys of theatre made the show worthwhile.

One art exhibition was of 100 WA artists at Hale School, Perth's oldest private school and the other was in the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre's gallery. The latter was in fact three exhibitions - one of plein air painting, another of prints and a third, the oils and acrylics of three friends. I bought a print at the latter. which you will have seen in my 12 June post. 

Susan and I don't always agree on art work but at the Hale exhibition we were fascinated by a piece of wood carved into the shape of a vase and painted with WA wildflowers. The creator, Olive Cheng, works in the mediums of pyrography (wood burning) as well as crafting murals and we couldn't resist this work.

All in all, a very cultural week in Perth.