What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 3

Today are another three of my favourite people; we'd make a very good lunch foursome. All refuse to accept the blah images that are forced on women and work to encourage and support opinions and voices that are still put in the margins.

And Sometimes Melbourne is always happy to go to other places, like Adelaide.

Write your contibution here.

It can be one moment or lots, or a list or a poem or whatever you want your answer to be.

Bron Batten
Theatre-maker, producer and performer

Bron Batten. Photo by Theresa Harrison

Favourite moments in 2019.
Mine is a rather long list but I saw a lot of great work this year so bear with me. In no particular order I very much enjoyed:

Leah Shelton’s Bitch on Heat, a searing examination of female rage and patriarchal violence.

Gary Abrahams’s epic 33 Variations, featuring a stunning performance from elderly Academy Award–winning Ellen Burstyn, taking up all of the space and eating all of the furniture.

Joshua Ladgrove Presents Melbourne’s Only Bilge Pump Sales Seminar at Melbourne Fringe was the kind of absurd, improvisational and gross brilliance we’ve come to expect from the ex-Neal Portenza.

Lady Example by Alice Dixon, Caroline Meaden and William McBride at Dance Massive proved that contemporary dance can be smart and silly and accomplished all at the same time.

It’s always great to see what Aphids are up to and Mish Grigor’s Exit Strategies at Arts House was no exception.

Back to Back’s The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes at Melbourne International Arts Festival proved why they’re one of the most interesting companies working in Australia at the moment.

Images from Emma Hall’s World Problems have stayed with me since I saw it way back in March.

Recently, I saw Children of the Evolution at Due West Festival and it melted even my cold, cynical heart.

I also had the pleasure of witnessing the evolution of Passenger during the UK premiere of the work at the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival in London in June.

Special mention to two of the amazing shows I saw in Edinburgh that aren’t Melbourne based: Belgian company Ontroerend Goed’s Are We Not Drawn Forward To New Era and Sh!t Theatre’s Shit Theatre Drink Rum with Expats. If you get the chance to ever see these two works then please go go go go go.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I’m looking forward to seeing Fun Home again as I wept through the first time I saw it at the Young Vic last year and thus the whole show was rather blurry. I want to finally volunteer to be a part of post’s Oedipus Schmoedipus at Asia TOPA, though I’d also settle for just seeing it again. Oh and Patricia Cornelius’s Do Not Go Gentle... and Stephen Nicolazzo’s Loaded at Malthouse. More big Australian work please.

SM: Bron's Waterloo had its first season at Melbourne Fringe; it's touring next year and if I had any money, I'd follow her like a groupie just to sit in different audiences and see how they react to the show. It's a show about choices and how we judge other people; about being not-as-right-as-we-think-we-are – or as left. Near the end of the night, without any explanation or discussion, she gives the audience a choice to cross a line they would swear they would never cross. Some do. They do it with joy and glee; all it takes is opportunity and silence to cross a line. I'm still thinking about it.

And I'll happily keep seeing Onstage Dating until I see a happy ending.


Claire Glenn
Artistic Director SAYarts, Creative Producer ExpressWay Arts, Theatre Maker, Actor, Lover of theatre and cats.

Claire Glenn. Photo by Sam Oster, Silver Trace

Favourite moments in 2019.
I'm living in Adelaide. I definitely had three favourite theatre moments. The Second Woman: I give endless thanks to Emma Webb for working so hard to bring this to Adelaide. I could only stay for a little over 5 hours but it was EVERYTHING.

Also Femme by Erin Fowler spoke to me on so many levels. Erin is an incredible performer and I loved the honesty of her journey from girlhood to womanhood and what it is to be sexualised in this work. It was so beautiful to be able to spend time with her in the Yurt at the conclusion of the piece.

And £¥€$ by Ontroerend Goed for Oz Asia Festival helped me understand the world of global finance in a way that I don't think I've ever been able to comprehend. Oz Asia in general is my favourite festival in Adelaide and as a whole would be my favourite moment of 2019.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I'm looking forward to the beast that is Adelaide Fringe and finding the gems within the thousands of shows. I'm really looking forward to Rumpus's next season. The 2019 season was so fantastic so I can't wait to see what they program next.

I'm keen for Fire Gardens, Breaking The Waves, Mouth Piece, Dimanche and basically the whole theatre program at Adelaide Festival. I can't wait to see what Oz Asia has lined up. Plus all of the fantastic youth theatre that will created by young people in 2020.

SM: It's sad for us that Claire isn't in Melbourne anymore, but it sure is Adelaide's gain. I still remember her performance in a show back in 2006/07. She now works with young theatre makers in Adelaide and often makes me want to fly over and see the work she's helped create.


Monique Grbec
Sometimes critic, Sometimes Melbournian, Always proud Aboriginal woman

Monique Grbec selfie

Favourite moments in 2019.
Thanks to the absolute privilege of being welcomed into the critic world, I've been fortunate enough to see heaps of incredible theatre this year. So much love and blessings go out to the creative beauties who bared their heart and made me cry and laugh, and see the world from different perspectives.

Five that regularly revisit my thoughts are: Scar Trees, Conversations with the Dead, Gender Euphoria, Blood on the Dance Floor and Barbara and the Camp Dogs.

Special mention to Tales of an Urban Indian, a Canadian show that came out for Yirramboi First Nations Festival. Brutal, ugly and beautiful. Tears still sting when parts of that story re-emerge;  I think it will take me many years to unpack.

Looking forward to in 2020.
My fingers are crossed across my heart with the prospect of heading to Perth for their festival...

SM: I was meant to be with Monique for Tales of an Urban Indian but I had the wrong time in my head; I still regret that. However, she's made sure that I've seen some other amazing shows this year. It may be hard to believe but critics sometimes need to form their own mini community. I read all of her reviews on Witness.

FESTIVAL: Teenage Riot

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL 2013

Teenage Riot

Ontroerend Goed, Melbourne Festival

15 October 2013

Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne

to 18 October

melbournefestival.com.au

Belgium’s Ontroerend Goed makes theatre with teenagers for adults. It’s nothing like an end-of-year school concert; this company tours the world.

In Teenage Riot, eight 17ish teens shut themselves in a large box. Hidden from curious/suspicious adult eyes, the space is theirs and they let the audience peek with a hand-held camera.

Like confessing on the internet, the camera offers an intimacy and a distance and lets the performers (and co-creators) control what’s seen.

From a hand covering the view of a bikini-clad girl to close ups of ambiguous fondled flesh, they reveal genuine teen frustration and, with pedophile and fingering jokes, a tongue-in-cheek look at what adults expect of teen angst.

They still yell at the “so awful wrong” adults, but there are times when they should be screaming because adults aren’t looking after or loving them. But this anger is swirled with friendship and a humour that’s as much about the audience as the performers.

As it continues, the need to physically see the performers in the box is overwhelming, even if they don’t seek approval or our acknowledgement of remembering what it’s like to not have the right words.

This first appeared at issimomag.com.

And here's Kerith Manderson-Galvin's wonderful response on AussieTheatre.com.

Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen

ARTS HOUSE IN AUGUST
Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen
Ontroerend Goed, Kopergietery and Richard Jordan Productions
7 August 2009
Meat Market

When I was a teenager in Adelaide I performed in pantomimes and bad school plays. In Belgium’s city of Ghent young performers are given an enviable creative freedom and respect that is taking their performances all over the world.

Ontroerend Goed’s Once and for all we’re gonna tell you who we are so shut up and listen is immediately similar to Victoria’s That Night Follows Day (MIAF 2005, directed by Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells). Both open with a line of chairs across the stage, are performed by children and teenagers and were created by Ghent-based companies.

Victoria and Etchells confront adults by exposing what children think about adult control and love, while Ontroerend Goed present teenagers without questioning the adult relationship with them.

A young man looks at the audience and says, “By looking at us you have to start feeling old”, but even if we are distanced from the cast by age, it’s comforting to see that teenagers are the same as we were and we can giggle about their fear of turning into adults like us! It’s also comforting to know that we are unlikey to live through such an angsty, hormonal and angry time again.

Director Alexander Devriendt says he “wanted to create something for the teenager inside everyone”. It’s not just their love of swearing and wearing shiny leggings that remind us of our own teenage years, but their the fearlessness and destructive power, which they don’t really understand.

Devriendt spent two months meeting weekly with his cast before any performance took shape. By creating a space where they were free to do whatever they liked, the cast of 14- to 18-year-olds created the content and Devriendt designed a repetitive structure that gives them the freedom and safety to show us their world without judgement.

The desire to shock is inherent in being a teen (and possibly in being a performer), so there is a degree of sexuality, violence and drug taking on the stage that actively tries to confront the audience, but I suspect they are showing us what we fear they are, rather than what they really are. As we know their fear about all adulthood being ‘boring’ and ‘the same’ isn’t true for everyone, adult fears that teens are behaving without thought of consequence also isn’t universally true.

The cast of 13 relish the freedom the stage gives them to experiment and be what they dream of and they present performance maturity, stage knowledge and a freshness that is irresistible to watch. Just don’t let the attention-seeking teenagers know that we see them not seeking attention, sharing a space and letting adults understand what they are thinking and saying.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.