2 Days, 6 Plays
Two days, six plays – and no cooked breakfast after 11AM.
That’s how the National Play Festival went down in Brisbane last week, a tumult of Australian theatre-in-progress, and the most compelling reason for deep-veined thrombosis known to any culture vulture.
All up, eight scripts were on show – the winners among last year’s callout issued by the Playwriting Australia. Some 160 plays landed in the Newtown letterbox, the best these eight. Last weekend was the public’s chance to find out why.
Just as truckies are advised to break up long hauls, my mate and I passed on two – Helly’s Magic Cup by Rosalba Clemente, and In The Violet Time by Sue Smith. But if that sounds timid, I did drown in 8 hours of rehearsed readings – all superbly tackled by a mixed-state ensemble – and emerged with these inklings:
Australian Gothic (Mary Rachel Brown) dovetails two stories – a detained activist in Oz, and the creepy parallels of Stasi Germany. The strength of the script lies in the language overlays, where one image or phrasing will chime in a later scene. It’s a fine play, a deserved winner of the 2006 Griffin Award, where the audience seldom gets ahead of the story. In two rare moments, when the stories cross over, the mood is charged, and yet gracefully restrained, often shot with relieving humour. Make sure you see it.
Scissors, Paper, Rock (John AD Fraser) follows three blokes in a lighthouse – a cause for humour and claustrophobic menace. Though its lively scenes go closer to being interlinked moments rather than any thematic exploration. The script is energetic, and the characters fleshed, yet the late kapow revelation is neither pivotal nor surprising, and certainly seems to trigger a false response in the younger Dougie. While Ron’s boast (“I know the smell of every stone in this place…”) is why writers rely on workshops. But thanks to Fraser’s sharp sense of theatre, the going ain’t rocky, despite the craggy setting.
The Man With The September Face (Kylie Trounson) is Strictly Ballroom meets Starlight Express, with Das Kapital and Spandau Ballet for ballast. Not easy to imagine a musical in utero (most of the numbers and routines were shown in compromised form), so I won’t be too harsh. However, a fresh opening soon loses pace and consonance in a mishmash Act 2. Specifically, what real role does Rona play? Or why do we care so little for stranded Jesse – and so much more for the neglected Wolf? Potentially, this is a dynamite show – laughs, twirls, Camus-meets-Ultravox – but the script needs to pare its depth-seeking references and start celebrating the beautiful ordinary.
That’s enough for now. (I’m still recovering from Brisbane’s strange breakfast rules and the sheer cerebral assault.) Drop by soon for some thoughts on the other three plays: The Wiredancer’s Waltz (by Sven Swenson), Savage River (Steve Rodgers) and Ross Mueller’s Concussion. Ah, yeah, that’s the word I was after: concussion. I need a lie down.