Last night of The Container Festival

The Container Festival

MUST 
Monash University, Clayton

to 16 August

monashstudentassociation.com

Facebook page

Being crook and being not in Melbourne meant that I couldn't get to The Container Festival until it's second-to-last night.

In its second year, this amazingly fun and original festival is presented by the Monash Uni Student Theatre and Yvonne Virsik is its Artistic Director.

Students and graduates are invited to create any type of performance, on the condition that it fits in a shipping container or other surprising space. The results are intimate and personal and can't be seen anywhere else

Tonight is the Closing Gala Extravaganza with over 20 of the best cabaret, music, comedy, burlesque and theatre acts of the festival. And it's all in the Hub where it's much warmer than outside and there's a bar with good beer and $5 pizzas!

Last night I saw Re-verie: Tom Molyneax's beautiful, creepy and confronting verbatim piece about dreams. If you think your dreams are disturbing, try seeing stangers' dreams come to life when you're shut in a shipping container with such stunning lighting that it's easy to forget that it's safe.

Gale Force

Next was Gale Force Wins!!!: a live game show hosted by Gale Force (the endlessly classy Jack Beeby). We were allowed in a small room for this one. Gale hates KAK and wears a 70s psychedelic jumpsuit better than anyone has dared to. Four contestants are chosen from the audience and then it's nothing like Rock Wiz, Family Feud or Deal or No Deal. My team came second (last) and my favourite game was Celebrity Head, which had nothing to do with guessing celebrity faces.

And Jack is hosting the gala tonight!

The Dig Collective in the Hub

Then it was into the Hub for The Dig Collective  for cabaret, pizza and beer. They said that their "show contains coarse language, unsexy bodies and Scott Morrison being hit by leaks". I couldn't have said it better myself and think that Whack a Mollinson should be played in Canberra.

My night ended with Unease: a burlesque piece that's about every women finding what they think is glamorous and not being scared if it seems weird, gory or unexpected. 

This is a wonderful little festival that creates a sense of excitement and place at Monash Uni and encourages emerging artists to create the kind of work they want to make. And when you make the work you want to make, you find the audience that loves you.

The Container Festival

The Container Festival

MUST

Monash University, Clayton

2–20 August

monashstudentassociation.com

Facebook page

Just when it looks like there might be a week without an arts festival in Melbourne, along comes the inaugural Container Festival presented by MUST, the Monash University Student Theatre association.

From August 2 to 20, a performance hub of shipping containers is being set up at Monash University in Clayton. The containers are performance venues and the MUST theatre is being transformed into a lounge bar.

With over 200 diverse performances and exhibitions including music, dance, theatre, visual art, games, burlesque, poetry and puppetry, the festival is designed to showcase and encourage student and graduate talent, while engaging the university and local community in an interactive and welcoming way.

MUST Artistic Director, Yvonne Virsik says, “It will ignite cultural engagement and expression, foster innovation and provide brilliant and affordable entertainment.”

It’s a bit like a mini Fringe festival, but there are no participation fees for the artists, it’s in one place and tickets are very affordable.

There are lots of FREE events, but the bargain is a $50 Festival Pass that gives you entry to every festival event. Day passes are only $15 or tickets for individual shows range from $2 to $8.

With offerings including one-on-one story telling, an espionage caper game called Dead Drop, 10-minute dance parties, Vietnamese folk takes, a Bingo Bonanza (with “genuine $2-shop quality prizes), performances from the Monash Jazz Orchestra and an intriguing piece called Belgian Roulette where you have to choose between two chocolate brownies (one of which is filled with chili), the Container Festival promises a unique experience for every visitor.

Theatre highlights include a workshop production of Robert Reid’s new work Bacchae Rising and new works by Fleur Kilpatrick and Tom Molyneux.

The festival launches with an opening party on Friday 2 August from 6 pm. Entry is FREE and there will be plenty of chances to meet the artists and have a sneak peak at the performances.

Monash arts graduates and MUST members continue to make an impact on the Melbourne (and Australian) independent and professional arts scene and there’s likely to be a former MUST member in most local companies from writers to performers to general managers.

Playwrights like Declan Greene and Amelia Roper had their first full-length works performed at Monash; local companies Attic Erratic, Quiet Little Fox and A Modern Deception met at Monash; and creators like Sarah Collins, Daniel Lammin, Mark Wilson, Celeste Cody, Tom Pitts, Sarah Walker, Danny Delahunty and Kaitlyn Claire all began their careers in MUST productions.

Events and festivals like this are vital to develop and encourage emerging artists and to give more experienced artists an opportunity to experiment and give new work its first outing.

The Container Festival is a terrific opportunity to see and engage with the next generation of Melbourne artists and performers.

And remember that Clayton campus is only a 20-minute drive from the city and there's parking or  public transport will drop you at the door.

Glitter photo by Sarah Walker.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

What Melbourne loved in 2012, part 7

Today Matt Kelly talks about the "horrific flaying of one's dignity", Tom Molyneux says how LePage sent him to MacDonalds and Nicole Eckersley remembers No Child.

Matt Kelly
actor, poo aficianado

Matt and Richard Higgins (The List Operators) are in the middle of developing a new show (hooray), but he couldn't miss putting his favourites in.

photo by Max Milne: Matt and the giant poo

MATT: Summertime in the Garden of Eden and Miles and Simone's album launch.

SM: My favourite Matt moment was his playing an ass's arse and baby Jesus (in a rainbow adult diaper) in the Last Tuesday Society's Xmas ballet. It made me understand the meaning of "Good god".

MATT: That photo sums up everything that I love about Last Tuesday Society. It's a wonderful collection of weirdos who will do everything they can to make the audience laugh. Often it involves an unquestioned and horrific flaying of one's dignity. Miles playing a donkey, Richard dressing as a giant shit, Bron's jazz ballet. And well, the photo ... fuck it ... use it if it makes you laugh!

SM: It made me laugh. If that's not art, buggered if I know what is.

Tom Molyneux

actor

TOM: I've thoroughly enjoyed the smorgasbord of theatre in Melbourne in 2012; although, haven't been able to see nearly as much as I would have liked. Some memorable moments were the classy performances in The Wild Duck, the unrestrained hilarity and beauty in The Rabble's Orlando, the delicious mind-fuckery that was Enter Certain Outlaws as part of Short and Sweet, and just about everything that was On the production of monsters. 

But the one that stands out above all others was Robert LePage's Lipsynch. Despite being exhausted and hungover, despite the fact that it was nigh impossible to get any food at the Arts Centre (and Swanston St Maccas became the only viable option...) and despite the fact that this sprawling nine-hour epic could easily have been two hours long without losing a great deal, I came out the other end of it with a mile-wide grin and the satisfaction of having completed an endurance theatre event that challenged and provoked in more ways than I can remember. It was pretty rad.

Oh, and I can't neglect to mention the fantastic work that is coming out of the next generation of theatre-makers through universities. Some truly experimental and cutting-edge stuff being done there, it's a shame that so many people miss out on it!

SM: Tom was one of the wonderful cast of The Well, but it was his performance in Falling Petals that made me pay attention.

Nicole Eckersley
Skewers hapless artists in words for Artshub

There was so much deliciousness in theatre this year that I barely know where to start. 2012 has been a great year for genius off-kilter comedy. Fringe was a goldmine of joy, with Slow Clap's Truth, The Unspoken Word Is 'Joe' and The Lichtenstein Nursing Home Massacre burning little holes of hysterical laughter in the programme. At Next Wave, Wheyface's post-apocalyptic museum of 20th-century ephemera was utterly fascinating and deadpan hilarious, and Karlis Zaid and Karin Muizniek's Australian Horror Story (which ran for about 43 seconds at Chapel Off Chapel) had me mopping tears of laughter from my eyes with my delicate lace-edged handkerchief. Okay, so it was my sleeve.

On the serious side, it's hard to go past Nilaja Sun's astonishing No Child at the Melbourne Festival, which was everything a one-human show should be: funny, insightful, immaculately characterised, tearjerking and totally, utterly brilliant. Usually it takes a good thirty seconds for a standing ovation to properly get going; this one took about two. I have never seen an audience leap out of their seats that fast.

SM: I met Nicole at the nine-hour experience of Lipsynch. May we never forget the inspirational bliss of such endless cheese. Not the art, the catering. (Sorry, Tom. We didn't have to go to evil Ms.)

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

part 6

part 8

part 9

part 10

part 11

It's stopping at part 10, so if you're thinking of sending your moments in, now is time.

After Hamlet: last week of 5pounds of Rep

The 5Pounds of Repertory Theatre troupe are in their last week. For the last five weeks, they rehearsed a play during the day and performed the play they rehearsed last week at night. It's fucking mad, but what a process and what an experience for everyone involved, including the audiences who have made sure that The Owl and the Pussycat has been full each night.

The idea was to create a repertory theatre experience: same cast and very different works created with the pressure that an audience is going to be seeing them in a few days.

I admit that my first reaction was that this is going to be great for the performers, but not so much for the audiences. I love being wrong.

Watching how actors Jason Cavanagh, Susannah Frith, Sebastian Gunner, Tom Molyneux and Freya Praget have adapted and changed each week has been fascinating. Back in week one, there was still a layer of "acting" around their performances. When we can see the acting, the characters are always hidden by the actor. This protective layer has fallen off more each week and, even though they are performing as well as they were in week one, their performances are so different.

The ingredient that's taken this process to such a delicious level is bringing a fresh director in each week. This has freed up the performers, who have to trust where they are being led, to focus on character, and freed the directors, who have to trust that their actors can find the characters, to focus on story.

Most theatre is story and too often the telling of the story gets lost in the theatre making. With only a few days, no nights and a budget that extends to what's in the wardrobe or the back alley, each director has found their tone, trusted their cast and and told the audience the story.

Director Daniel Lammin cut Pgymalion into an intimate tale about Henry and Eliza, and he put the audience around them so it felt like we were eavesdropping. It was as far from My Fair Lady as it could be, which let them create a new telling of JB Shaws's famous story.

Photo by Sarah Walker

Celeste Cody let everyone have a hell of a lot of fun with the 1920s musical Sally. She created a space that let the non-singers feel safe enough to sing, and let everyone adore the cardboard and paint props.

I sadly couldn't get to Danny Delahunty's week three developed piece (mostly because I was at the Short and Sweet theatre festival, directed by Celeste Cody), but I've heard all good about it.

But I wasn't going to miss Robert Reid directing Ben Ellis's play Falling Petals. Geelong-born and Melbourne indi-theatre bred, Ben's been living in London for many years and this production has already created a new mob of fans. I saw its Playbox production and this was just as good. Good writing tells good story. So, we'd love to see a new Ben Ellis play in Melbourne, please Ben.

There's one week left to be a part of this experiment and they're going out with an easy task: Hamlet. Rehearsed in a week by very tired actors who were performing their guts out each night. What could possibly go wrong?

I know that it's been cut by director Trent Baker and I've heard there will be songs. I recently watched Trent at Simon Callow's Shakespeare masterclass. It took him a while to drop the acting and tell the story, but he did. I'm looking forward to if this experience has changed his approach to Shakespeare.

A day out from their final opening night, I asked Jason Cavanagh, 5 Pound co-founder, how he felt about being in the last week.

 "It’s still hard to see the bigger picture because while the light at the end is getting tantalisingly bright, we are still very much in the guts of this project. The oh-so modest task of putting Hamlet on the stage tomorrow night is casting quite an impressive shadow.  But the thought of an opening night without 9 am rehearsals, not to mention the wider ambition of having an actual closing night – don't get me wrong, the whole thing has been absolutely amazing – but there will be quite the party when that last curtain falls."

After Hamlet (cos it's not the whole work) opens tomorrow (Tuesday) night and runs until Saturday, including a matinee.

Book here. It's a tiny space, so worth booking instead of trying for door tickets. And the easiest way to get to the thearte is to get a train to Richmond. Walk out the Swan Street entrance, cross the road and you're there.