A VISIT

I had been invited to Melbourne to run a strategic planning session for an arts company but they cancelled at the last minute. However, flights had been booked, theatre tickets arranged, dates with friends confirmed so I decided to go anyway.

It was only the equivalent of a long weekend but I did manage to fit in two theatre productions, two restaurant dinners, two cafe lunches, two home-cooked meals and a morning tea plus a film. I'm lucky to still have kind and inviting friends in Melbourne.

The first MTC show was Do Not Pass Go by Jean Tong. Remember that phrase from Monopoly? It is set in a (cleverly designed) factory where two workers do repetitive tasks. They are new to each other and have qualities that feel very contemporary - one is a mother who may have undiagnosed ADHD and the other is a trans person, saving up for surgery. Each part was beautiful performed by Belinda McClory and Ella Prince. I don't know the latter actor but Belinda is wonderful performer so it was rewarding to see her fine work again. As for the play itself, in the words of Katy Maudin, the director, here are things they discussed as they rehearsed:

We've talked about work as identity, and about the strange grief that can emerge when work fails to deliver purpose, stability, or time for connection. We've examined how gender and queenrness shape experiences of labour - who is expected to endure, who is permitted to opt out, and who plays the price when opting out isn't an option.



It was an engaging play which sadly petered out at the end. It didn't quite work but it did get us thinking and as a friend said at the end, "aren't we lucky we had jobs we loved".

The second production was also a locally written play, exploring the cause and the impact of the Westgate Bridge disaster in 1970. Like the previous play, there were flaws in the writing but it had all the virtures of MTC productions at their best: brilliant cast; clear, thoughtful direction; stunning design showing off all the skills of the back of house production team. The lighting, sound and physicality of the set were all impressive and the moment when the bridge collapsed, truly shattering.

Eight actors told the story and they might have all been caricatures: the opinionated engineer, the "wog" with the smelly lunch, the weasily boss, the loud shop steward, the distraught widow, the lazy young man. But somehow the director and the actors managed to turn each into a powerful architype. A moving production about Australia's worst industrial accident.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VALE INDIGO

Image
Today, we sent our companion of nearly 17 years, Indigo, across the rainbox bridge. That's a phrase a friend uses when you have to say goodbye to a pet. With the help of a gentle vet, we put Indigo to sleep.  She's been an indoor cat all her life and apart from a couple of weeks, most of it has been spent within the confines of the Pink House. We knew that it was going to be a risk disrupting the life of a cat who in human terms was in her 80s. She's had more homes in the last couple of months than in her entire life. First there was Glenlyon Rd, then a 4 hour flight to Perth, a short stay in South Fremantle, a longer stay in Loch St and 10 days in the Furbaby Retreat while Susan and I were at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. We were open to the fact that she might not survive the transition and even said so to the vet when we went for her "Fit to Fly" certificate. But it's one thing to say it and another to face up to it. The lovely owner of the Furbaby Retreat ...
Read more

THE ROAD TO HELL

Image
The key reason for going to Melbourne this time was to see the musical  Hadestown .  It was created by the singer/songwriter Anais Mitchell in the 2000s but it feels very ‘of the moment’. The Australian production is the original Broadway show recreated by Opera Australia with Australian singers/performers/musicians who are, in my opinion, even more skilled than those I’ve listened to on the Broadway and West End soundtracks. The story is of Orpheus, the musician, and his love Eurydice. It’s a story of gods oppressing mortals. It’s a story of the power of art. It’s a Greek myth  that’s inspired operas and novels, poems and films. My favourite TV series of last year Kaos  also featured this story. Two of my favourite retellings are poems. There’s an exquisite moment of deep hurt in Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem  Orpheus, Eurydice, Hermes . Orpheus travels to the underworld to rescue Eurydice. After using music to soften the heart of the god Hades, he’s allowed to tak...
Read more

MOVING AGAIN

Image
My only excuse for not posting recently is that we’ve been in the middle of the next (and last - at least for the next few years) relocation. That, and the fact that we still don’t have any internet. But in the scheme of all the things that might go wrong in such a move, no wifi along with an ant infestation and lots of bruises are the worst we’ve had to deal with. The move from Loch St to Archibald St wasn’t quite as traumatic as our other recent moves. For one thing, half of our lives was still in boxes in the Loch St garage. Secondly, we gave ourselves a couple of weeks between getting the keys for Willagee and handing over the Claremont ones. This has given us time to install a fridge, buy a new induction top oven and get the house rewired to take the electrical load, have a handyman fix all the shelving in the built in robes and take out the gun cabinet (!), meet Abe the pool man and get a tutorial on how to look after our salt/chlorine heated (a little bit) pool, add some more po...
Read more