Remembering David Branson

On Sunday 11 December, The Street Theatre in Canberra is hosting an afternoon to celebrate David Branson's memory.

It's been ten years since David died in a car accident in Canberra.

I met the unforgettable David in 2001 when I was working in Canberra as the Manager of FoCA5, the fifth Festival of Contemporary Art. As I was new to the city, it took David about a second to decide that he was to be my guide to independent artists in and from our capital.

Over the next weeks, he spent a lot of time in my Gorman House office or at the cafe telling me how wonderful everyone was. He was usually right and without his passion, his personal and professional support, and his active contribution, FoCA5 would have been a far less interesting event and I may not have smiled so much in the lead up.

For all his performances, my favourite remains a Saturday at the Gorman House Markets when he was busking with the newly formed Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen. A group gathered on the grass as three besuited gents (it was just David, Mikel and Phil that day) charmed gold coins from us and hinted at just how wonderful this group would become.

I also remember being in my kitchen and hearing on the TV news that there was a car accident on Anzac Parade and deciding not to look. I wonder if I'd have recognised the green Tarago?  Early the next morning, I heard that it was David's life that was lost and Canberra's shaken arts community gravitated to The Street in disbelief.

It doesn't seem like ten years. I'm still friends with artists I met through David and have followed the careers of many others whose work he insisted that I see.

The Street is putting on a barbeque and there will be performances, stories and music to remember this remarkable man. It will be followed by a very special performance by Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen and I have no doubt that Senor Handsome will have his violin and join in.

David, I only knew you for a few months, but I still miss you and am proud to have been your friend.

Photo by 'pling

SOMETIMES CANBERRA

Many independent artists who now call Melbourne home are from our capital.

Yes Canberra is indeed a strange place - but small, strange cities have an intensity and a freedom that can create amzing art.

I spent three cold winters there at a time when arts support and funding was diminishing, but I could see what a thriving and original arts scene had existed in the 1990s.

Musician ,writer and arts worker Gavin Findlay still lives in Canberra and has written this terrific piece for Real Time about arts in the town of bureaucrats. Part one.  Part two.

He also wrote this review about the 2001 Festival of Contemporary Arts (FoCA5 program)

FoCA5 staff

(The Pilot Version of…) Something to Die For

(The Pilot Version of…) Something to Die For
Store Room Theatre Workshop
28 October 2007
The Store Room

“This is a risk”, declares The Author midway though (The Pilot Version of….) Something to Die For. I am thrilled that the Store Room Theatre Workshop (SRTW) program gives its artists the opportunity and freedom to take these risks to explore and create original, complex and relevant theatre.
 
(The Pilot Version of….) Something to Die For is written by SRTW associate artist Ross Mueller. It’s is a monologue by the playwright, who has written himself as the character – but it will always be performed by an actor. In this case David Tredinnick is playing Ross Mueller.

You can see this simply for Tredinnick’s superb performance, which is ably guided by director Aiden Fennessy. Tredinnick has a difficult script to work with, but continually keeps the audience personally engaged and fascinated. He demonstrates the difference between a good actor and someone who knows his craft so well that we can no longer see the work and the skill.

The structure of this work references David Hare’s Via Dolorosa. Don’t know it? Sir David himself performed it at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 2004. Patrick Dickson presented the Australian premiere at the Festival of Contemporary Arts in Canberra in 2001. Missed it? Hare wrote The Blue Room (that play where our Nicole and then our Sigrid got their kit off) and Stuff Happens (that play about American politicians). What about his screenplays? Plenty (Meryl was in it) or The Hours (the one where our Nicole won the Oscar for having the big nose – and Meryl was in it). Come on – Sir David Hare. If you go to the theatre, you must know him.

If you know Hare, the premise of the work is Mueller meeting Hare at a workshop in London.

If you don’t and you’re wondering why on earth I’m raving on about David Hare, I’m guessing this is how you’d will feel watching (The Pilot Version of….) Something to Die For.

It’s no secret that I love Ross Mueller’s writing. He understands theatre and why we keep going back. He writes personal, honest and heart moving works that resonate way beyond their intended audience. I reckon he’s as good as David Hare.

Very early in the piece, Mueller tells us that he believes that anyone who goes to the theatre is intelligent and that he’s openly prejudice towards the intelligent. Kind of makes you feel special and much more inclined to admire and laugh along with the jokes. I admit that I caught myself laughing at a reference I didn’t understand, because I didn’t want to appear ignorant. (Thanks to Google I now know about playwright Martin Crimp – and will read his work.)

I understood (The Pilot Version of….) Something to Die For. I was intrigued and laughed out loud, because I know Via Dolorosa. I know it very well. I’ve read it, saw Dickson’s performance, Hare’s performance, heard Hare discuss it and even have a copy of Acting Up – Hare’s book about writing and performing it – which I’ve read.

I know this play isn’t really about David Hare or Ross Mueller. It sensitively, accurately and creatively deals with issues of depression and male identity. It delightfully and over-intelligently satirises and references its own form, theatre writing, Melbourne independent theatre and the playwright. The emotional core and structure of the work is so strong, but it is getting obscured by its own intelligence. It’s trying too hard to be clever, searching too hard for metaphors and trying so hard to connect with its audience that it may be pushing them away. The excellent writing is getting in the way of the story telling.

I’m afraid I have to quote myself here. This is what I wrote on this site about Mueller’s astonishing Construction of the Human Heart.

“Mueller does write for a very specific demographic. Mid-30s to early-40s / living in inner city Melbourne (preferably north) / over educated / know too much about theatre (please laugh at the “it’s David Hare, not Williamson” joke) / struggling with your own creative career while trying to earn an income / loath the concept of Ikea, but have too many Ikea items in your house / and have experienced the kind of love that leaves you empty and broken at its loss. Fortunately that is most people I know (except some of us live on the south side of the river). Construction of the Human Heart is written for now and written for us. In doing so, Mueller shows how honest, personal writing can connect with universal themes. Even if you don’t get every cultural reference and joke, the emotion of the work sustains it.”

My concern with his recent work The Ghost Writer (MTC 2007) was that Mueller was writing to such a broad audience that the work was losing the personal emotional resonances. My concern with (The Pilot Version of….) Something to Die For is that he is writing to such a sub-section of his audience that it’s losing the universal emotional resonances.

If I had to review this review I’d say. “It is over wordy, far too long, needs a ruthless edit, loses itself in its own structure and seems so intent on proving the author’s own credibility, intelligence and knowledge that it forgets about its intent and its audience.” I guess I’m trying to create the same sense of frustration I felt with Mueller.

I enjoyed (The Pilot Version of….) Something to Die For and am sure it will grow and change from this season into an amazing work. However, in its current state I’m hesitant to recommend it.

This reveiw originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.