What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 7

Today we have amazing directors who have been SM supporters since the beginning: Declan, Daniel and Penelope. All still work as indie freelancers and also have had some pretty damn cool positions in some pretty damn cool places. Each make theatre that collaborates and shares and has created three of the most astonishing and original aesthetics around.

Declan Greene
Theatre-maker, half of Sisters Grimm, and, as of verrrry recently, AD of Griffin Theatre

Declan Greene, who knows that there's enough of his headshot in today's arts media

Favourite moments in 2019.
Adena Jacobs's Titus Andronicus. I'm cheating a bit cuz this was in Sydney, but Adena is as definitively "Melbourne" as it gets. Adena and Eugyeene Teh's procession of images was a spectacular, ever-deepening nightmare, and I'll never forget it.

The Rabble's Unwoman. Enough will be said about the exquisite design and imagery, but can we please talk about how its second act is The Rabble making a piece of straight-up *playwriting!!!* – and some the best on any stage in Melbourne this year, at that (Dana Miltins and Mary Helen Sassman). This just a few months after director, co-creator Emma Valente decided to casually dash off an opera to end My Dearworthy Darling. At this point I'm pretty sure there is nothingThe Rabble can't do.

Little Ones's Happy Prince. Another slight cheat as I finally got to see it at Griffin in Sydney, but it was as exquisite as I'd been told countless times. Such a masterful study in theatrical minimalism; only 60 minutes long and every second, every breath mattered.

Stone Motherless Cold and Miss Jane Doe at Cocoa Butter Club. Cocoa Butter Club is always a great time, but these two performances at the closing night of Iridescent festival were the definition of a Fire Act. On the tiny Hares and Hyenas stage, Stone delivered a jaw-dropping masterclass in high-femme eroticism, and then Miss Jane Doe pounded a watermelon to pieces by jumping into the splits. No moment in any traditional theatre this year could ever top it.

Cloudstreet at Malthouse. What an event. That ending with Benjamin Oakes's final words as Fish, and that cascade of water held in a final suspended second before a snap to blackout... Beyond.

Krishna Istha's The Beast. I could watch Krishna read the phone book, but very happily I didn't have to, because their first foray into stand up was blessed with some amazingly good jokes and some very silly stagecraft (co-created by Zoe Coombs Marr). So stupid, so smart, so prodigiously funny. It's back in Melbourne next year, don't miss it.

Looking forward to in 2020.
As of next year I'm living in Sydney, so seeing all the stuff people are looking forward to is giving me big pangs in the chest. There's so much stuff I wanna see. At Asia TOPA: Adena Jacobs and Ida Ayu Wayan Satyani's The Seen and the Unseen and Sipat Lawin's Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands?". A production at Theatre Works of Kim Ho's incredible The Great Australian Play. Ra Chapman's K-BOX and John Harvey's The Return at Malthouse. Ben Law's Torch the Place at MTC. A new Ash Flanders solo show (!!!). Argh. I will miss this city so much.

SM: I had my paragraph ready to go about Dec's extraordinary direction and writing of Wake in Fright (with Zarah Newman, of course), but he told me that his moments had to wait until today – and the WIF rave can also wait. My favourite moment was late last night when I heard that he'd been appointed Artistic Director of Griffin Theatre. Sure, we lose him to Sydney, but this is going to be so fucking amazing. I first saw his work in 2008, which was maybe four years ago, certainly not over 11 years ago because neither of us have aged a bit. I still remember Cell Block Booty in vivid detail. This was the kind of theatre I knew had to exist somewhere, even if I'd never been able to articulate what I wanted to see. Queerer than fuck and pearl-clutchingly offensive, its forensic autopsy of camp was doused in vodka and fueled by poppers, while being so brain-draining smart and having a stage that showed what we mean when we scream "representation". And that's before I start listing the amazing people who I first saw on a Sister's show. This re-set my aesthetic and every time I sat in a room surrounded by people who accepted that theatre is inherently dull, I want those theatre makers to go back in time, put on a warm jacket and see that show in the carpark theatre of the Collingwood flats.

Now, as I earn no money as an arts writer, how can I get to Sydney to see every Griffin show...

Daniel Lammin
Director, writer; Producer and programmer Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance

Daniel Lammin didn't let me go and choose my fave pic from FB this year.

Favourite moments in 2019.
I really adored the Grand Gesture, the gorgeous work that Katrina Cornwall and Morgan Rose created with the third year VCA students; a dissection of romance in cinema that was both a through interrogation and an open love letter.

I was also really blown apart by Barbara and the Camp Dogs, which I’d say is the best piece of Australian theatre I’ve seen since the Malthouse production of Picnic at Hanging Rock. It had me on the edge of my seat before emotionally pummelling me with its astonishing storm of words, music, emotion and fury. I don’t think I left the theatre the same person I was when I went in. It was something I knew from the moment I began that it was vitally important that I open my ears, open my heart and listen, really listen, to what it had to say. It demanded that, and it had every right to.

There was also UnHOWsed and The Other Place at Theatre Works, Disinhibition at MUST, Underground Railroad Game at Malthouse, and getting another chance to see and consequently finally fall in love with Dee and Cornelius’s Shit at fortyfivedownstairs.

The ultimate highlight though was Hofer Shechter’s Grand Finale at MIAF. I’d never seen the company before, and will never forget it. There’s no use even trying to describe it in words. If you were there, you know what I’m talking about. Man, I cried. I cried so, so much.

Oh, and touring Forgiveness, a Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance student work created with Penelope Bartlau and Ashlee Clapp to the Wuzhen Theatre Festival. That was pretty fucking cool.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Finally seeing Patricia Cornelius’s Do Not Go Gentle... – I mean, how awesome is that going to be!And seeing Stephen Nicolazzo take on Loaded. And new works from Chris Bryant and Chris Edwards at Theatre Works during Midsumma. And anything Morgan Rose and Kat Cornwall do, the work they make is wondrous.

And directing again. I’ve missed that.

SM: I also miss Daniel directing, but there's next year to look forward to. Daniel's someone I always try and talk to after shows because, as you can read, he feels shows. He listens to what the creators are saying rather than just looking for the connection to himself.


Penelope Bartlau
Artist and director Barking Spider Visual Theatre

Penelope Bartlau. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
Hands down, my favourite moment was Do Not Collect $200 – an interactive game/performance experience produced by MUST, created by Harley Hefford and team. Its controlled chaos was delicious and its politics searing. Sublimely clever and so much fun. I had seen a number of MIAF shows during the same time frame and Harley's show caught me off-guard. Brilliant.

Grand Finale by Hofesh Shechter at MIAF was relentless and powerful. I hope never to miss one of this artist's shows when they are in town. Speaking (again) of MIAF, Stephanie Lake's Colossus remount was a gobsmacker: compelling and beautiful.

The hair forest of The Rabble's Unwoman (Kate Davis's design) was marvellous, and the second scene with Dana Miltins and Mary Helen Sassman was a rare moment where I felt like my story – our story as women – was represented in such a sharp, gut wrenching and fearless way.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Lots of very interesting work involving infrastructure, transport, regional development and communications.

SM: I haven't seen anything of Penelope's this year: that's not good at all. As she's just stepped down as Creative Director Women's Circus, perhaps there's more Barking Spider to see next year.

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 6

Katie, Yvonne and Daniel are today's guests.

Every year, people tell me how they are angry at themselves for doing this in their head and not going any further. Remember that all it has to be in one moment (and everyone has their dodgy grammar edited). All you have to do is fill in this form.

Katie Sfetkidis
Artist, lighting designer

Katie Sfetkidis. Photo by Marcel Feillafe

 
Favourite moments in 2019.
2019 has been amazing , even though I was away for a large chunk of the year, I have still see some amazing work!

Raina Peterson and Govind Pillai's Third Nature. One of the most sensual and erotic shows I have ever seen. Just exquisite.

The Rabble's Unwoman. I love this company and I love this show. Visually striking and super political. I found this show incredibly complex and overwhelming. I have such great admiration for these company of incredible women and hope to be able to see this show again.

Sound art at The Substation. This programming at The Substation has been really wonderful this year, highlights wwereas seeing William Basinksi and Merzbow. I also really enjoyed the quirky cabinet of curiosities that was the Violin Generator.

Those who Rock by Joseph O’Farrell (JOF). What a rush! There was something so amazing about seeing hundreds of guitar players from around Melbourne take over the stage at Hammer Hall. Ultimate highlight was the finale; nothing can beat seeing over 300 guitar amps onstage whilst the audience sang along.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I am looking forward to seeing some exciting collaborations for Asia TOPA including post’s Oedipus Schmoedipus and Adena Jacobs's The Seen and Unseen.

Next Wave festival: I just love the theme for this year's festiva' – A Government of Artists and can’t wait to how the artists responds to it.

Also on my list is: K-Box by Ra Champan, Go to Hell with Paul Capsis and iOTA, Torch the Place by Ben Eltham and La Boite’s adaptation of St Joan of The Stockyards directed by Sanja Simic.

For my own work, I can’t wait to work with my best friend and collaborator Stephen Nicolazzo on Orlando and Loaded. Both these works are ultimate favourite texts of mine and it is such a treat to get to reimagine them for the stage.

SM: Katie has been out of Melbourne for most of the year, including with The Director, which was one of my absolute favourite shows from last year. But she was back for Aphids and Mish Grigor's recent Exit Strategies at Arts House. I loved this show for many reasons, including how Katie's lighting defined the distinct spaces on the stage – that corridor of light –, created mood and let us move in time. What we feel when we watch shows is so often created by elements of the design, and so often it's not noticed because it sneaks into our brains unconsciously.

Yvonne Virsik
Director, producer; Artistic Director MUST (Monash Uni Student Theatre)

Yvonne Virsik

Favourite moments in 2019.
Moments, with lots of realisations, in no particular order:

In Slaughterhouse Five, adapted from Vonnegut by Fleur Kilpatrick: when an actor drew a light switch on a blackboard, pressed it and turned all the stage lights off (MUST and Theatre Works).

Realising when watching MTC's Golden Shield that it was a new Australian work of epic scale by a young woman of colour (Anchuli Felicia King), and on The Sumner stage, and one of the best things I felt I had seen all year.

In Gender Euphoria (remounted at MIAF), during Nikki Viveca's monologue: realising that I didn't think I'd ever seen a personal story integrated so beautifully into a cabaret work.

Sharing the pure sheer, generous joy of performance from Jue and Poh in Equation at Signal at Melbourne Fringe.

UnHOWsed (Theatre Works, Tashmadada and Voices of the South Side): realising something on another level about homelessness, particularly during the extended shower sequence.

Those images in Colossus (Stephanie Lake, MIAF /Arts Centre Melbourne remount).

The joyous (seemingly spontaneous) concert in the alley after the final performance of Calamity Jane at Comedy Theatre.

Realising I was experiencing a pure, challenging discomfort in Malthouse's Underground Railroad Game.

Realising just what a brilliant job my table's 'personal banker' was doing, and how reliant we were upon them in the interactive game/performance experience of MUST's Do Not Collect $200 (created by Harley Hefford and team, based on a previous iteration).

Climbers at MUST:written by Elly D'Arcy and co directed by her and Natalie Speechley:  seeing one of the most compelling new texts I've read come to life.

When in the Q & A after A_tistic's Helping Hands at La Mama: man said the show had completely transformed his understanding of his son's neurodiversity and how he would endeavour to communicate with him from now on.

The train scene with the distressed mother and child in Anthem (MIAF): incredibly powerful and disconcerting.

Just some (more) of the shows I loved, in no particular order:

The Bloomshed's Paradise Lost at The Butterfly Club: hilarious, gloriously pointy and brilliantly realised.

Wake in Fright at Malthouse: Pure, electric theatre;the power of text, actor and director powerfully collaborating to crystallize their story.

Cock directed by Beng Oh at fortyfivedownstairs: the power of text, actors and director  collaborating to crystallize their story.

Love and Shit by Dee and Cornelius at fortyfivedownstairs: as above.

Sweet Phoebe directed by Mark Wilson at Red Stitch: as above.

Oil by Ella Hickson, directed by Ella Caldwell at Red Stitch: as above.

I'm a Phoenix, Bitch by Bryony Kimmings at  Arts Centre Melbourne in Melbourne Fringe: devastating story and performance.

Patrick Collins, Mime Consultant: a great, fun, smart, slick show from Patrick and his director, Justin Gardam.

Love + at Melbourne Fringe: a layered, beautifully told story about AI and human interaction

A View from the Bridge at MTC: See MTC, you don't have to have all the bells and whistles, just powerful choices.

Unwoman by The Rabble at The Substation: Those images! And incredible text and performances in act two.

Sublimal Massage by Marcus McKenzie at Melbourne Fringe: a super-sharp provocational unpackign of us and out attitudes to art and pop culture; surreal yet highly accessible.

The Drill by Womens Circus, AD Penelope Bartlau: A stunning, surprising, shared community experience; very special to get the tour of the spaces we didn't see during our particular journey.

Grand Finale by Hofesh Shechter at MIAF:  REQUIRES CAPITALS TO INDICATE ITS PURE THEATRICAL POWER!

Looking forward to in 2020.
You've heard enough from me - all of it!

SM: Yvonne's direction of Dishinbition by Christopher Bryant at MUST. Her direction lets the writer's voice be so clear and she finds ways for her actors (who are often relatively inexperienced) to bring the parts of themselves to the characters that complete the characters.


Daniel Clarke
Executive Producer, Programming at Queensland Performing Arts Centre; on leave from his role as Creative Producer, Theatre and Contemporary Performance at Arts Centre Melbourne

Daniel Clarke

Wake in Fright by Declan Greene and Zahra Newman at Malthouse was an extraordinary work; completely thrilling and so exciting. I literally had jaw-dropping moments throughout the whole piece and I left the theatre shaking. Incredible.

I was completely bowled over by Counting and Cracking by Belvoir at Adelaide Festival. I was moved to tears many times, but also to joy that this story was being told and grateful to Belvoir for investing the resources and care to make it. For me, this was one of the most relevant, contemporary Australian plays in years. A hugely ambitious work; a unique, inspiring, cultural collaboration; a great work that matters now. A work that can speak to so many people; a significant contribution to our culture.

Other highlights include Harry Clayton Wright’s Sex Education, Are we not drawn onward to a new era by Ontroerend Goed and Seasick by Alana Mitchel at Edinburgh Fringe; Noni Hazlehurst and Yael Stone in The Beauty Queen of Leenane at STC;  Battersea Arts Centre’s Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster; Things I know to be True by Andrew Bovell  at Belvoir Street; and Ainsley Melham’s performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman at MTC – what a star!

Oh and how could I not mention Harry Potter and The Cursed Child and Come from Away: both brilliant.

Looking forward to in 2020
Louise Bezzina’s first Brisbane Festival.
Michelle Law’s Miss Peony at Belvoir in Sydney.
Stephen Nicolazzo’s Loaded at Malthouse.
Sisters Grimm’s musical of The Sovereign Wife at Hayes Theatre Company in Sydney..


SM: To say that Dan's had a humongous year is still an understatement. Without him we wouldn't have had Gender Euphoria or Anthem or I'm a Phoenix, Bitch. He finds ways to bring the the best indendepdent artists and theatre to main stages and creates spaces where new work can be developed, never taking "it can't be done" for an answer.

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 5

So today, our federal government dumped the arts ministry.

I'm running out of positive today, then I get this contribution: "A lot of the works that stayed with me explored post-humanism, native peoples self-determination or the post apocalypse; further cementing that theatre is dangerous, vital, conversational and provocative. No wonder funding is drying up, like the creek beds of our planet."

It's easy to give up at the moment, so we need to let artists and theatre makers know that their work makes a difference. Have your say here.

Joshua Ladgrove
Joshua Ladgrove The Wise

Joshua Ladgrove and Frobert selfie

Favourite moments in 2019.
Someone in the front row of my show using their iPhone torch to loudly search through their bag for a lolly, and then try to quietly unwrap said lolly while I stopped the show and watched them the whole time unbeknownst to them; it was very funny.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Creating a new show.

SM: I saw his seminar about bilge pumps (its name changes) at MICF and Melbourne Fringe; it's the only show I saw twice this year. And that wasn't enough. Even when I knew what was coming, he still surprised me. Watching this show is fear clashing with the joy of complete trust that he's going to make everything pay off. And he does. If the world were fair, he'd have his own tv show and be so fucking famous by now that he wouldn't give a toss what bloggers think.

There's a final 2019 showing of Joshua Ladgrove's Award Winning Bilge Pump Show TOMORROW (Friday 6 December).

It's a fundraiser. In order to create new shows, artists need money. It's not like there's funding.

It's at Docklands. This is the ideal place for a bilge pump seminar. (It's at the library, which is actually really groovy.)

You can book here. It may be the best seminar yet.


Carla Donnelly
Broadcaster and critic

Carla Donnelly selfie

Favourite moments in 2019.
2019 has been a year of incredible art for me. Music, film and my beloved theatre. There have  been so many amazing performances that my memories become nested into moments that had my jaw unhinge with tears of disbelief that life could be so beautiful. A lot of the works that stayed with me explored post-humanism, native peoples self-determination or the post apocalypse; further cementing that theatre is dangerous, vital, conversational and provocative. No wonder funding is drying up, like the creek beds of our planet.

Sarah Ward’s alien/rock/monkey space rock opera The Legend of Queen Kong: opera singing MOTHER FUCKER to a baroque harpsichord psychedelic freak out.

Ursula Yovich’s defiant, heartbreaking and vulnerable rock musical Barbara and the Camp Dogs: too many moments to list that had me in tears.

Mr Burns, a post-electric play was an absolute miracle of production, the amount of moving pieces to get right would have been back breaking. Its message of the way humans make meaning and connect, how memory works, and our utter compulsion to tell ourselves and each other through story completely blew me away. The pop medley was the prestige in an already inconceivably incredible independent theatre production.

Emma Hall’s World Problems. A simple conceit – a woman builds a trampoline on stage, with a monologue projected at/to the audience. Emma tells us the story of how ‘you’ let the world die. The mental gymnastics I went through to avoid complicity took me to at least half way through the show before my heart sank and I started to cry realising that it *was* us. We did let the world die.

The Honouring (during Yirramboi) was a work of such tenderness and pain; I am crying now thinking about it. Jack Sheppard’s physical rendering of Indigenous suicide through text, movement and puppetry was staggering. A work that didn’t get enough attention. Nor the festival really; Yirramboi is extraordinary.

Joel Bray’s Daddy (also at Yirramboi) a was another incredible work featuring dance, text and tableaus presented to the audience by following Bray around the room. Joel Bray is filled with rage and hope and love and desire and this was beautifully rendered. It was electrifying.

The Patricia Cornelius/Susie Dee power combo continued to slay with Love: stories, faces and bodies I never see on Melbourne stages. Working class people. Drug dependent people. The traumatised. The vulgar. The aberrant. All lovingly and respectfully brought into focus. I walk away from their shows thinking why do I never see these kinds of stories? Who has the keys?

Them (La Mama) was one of the most profound plays of the year. Mystical in its realisation the perfection of casting, time, place and script. It is truly gifted to make a drama about war deeply funny in places. It had me laughing and sobbing and believing the best in humanity that plays like this can find a stage.

I flew to Sydney to see Adena Jacob’s Titus Andronicus and it did not disappoint. Jane Montgomery-Griffiths was clearly having the time of her life in this role. My moment of the year was Catherine Davies ‘comic relief’ clown smearing shit all up the back of her legs whilst doing a sexy dance. Just when you think things can’t get worse, that happens to you and you wonder how life can get any better?

My last three are the most creative and original of the year. Yay for Canetoads! at Melbourne Fringe  was one of those word-of-mouths gems that I would never have known about. So skillfully wrought with colonialism succinctly expressed through the “white death” of the sugar cane industry. Ordinarily this pun could have been one note or on the nose, but Kendra Keller’s tremendous skill and commitment makes our complicity and embeddedness in this horror felt.

Subliminal Massage at Melbourne Fringe was truly one of the most left field and surreal works I’ve ever experienced. A post (post?) human exploration/celebration/exhibition of the trash bag of western “culture”. Puns, portmanteaus, wellness, white cubes, black screens… This AI hasn’t been updated in a century and his database has festered. Glitched out, hilarious, touching, terrifying… just absolutely fucking mind blowing.

And finally Unwoman by The Rabble. From the fecund idealisation of the function of femininity to Yumi Umiumare's butoh – 50 minutes of screaming and giving birth to rocks in a concrete prison reality. This work truly communicated the female experience. Funny, paternalistic, objectifying, non-agentic, tedious, primal – you name it it was in there. The design was also exceptional.

A deep gratitude to all these artists (and the 60+ other performances I saw this year). The  diversity of skill and talent in this country is staggering, and your work, minds, hearts and bodies make my life worth living.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Seeing Daddy again at Midsumma; Fun Home and Slap.Bang.Kiss at MTC; Grey Arias, Do Not Go Gentle and Loaded at Malthouse;  Asia TOPA.

SM: Carla is another critic who keeps going even when everything seems bleak. And, those earrings!

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 4

Today we go to indie, funded and opera stages with three SM regulars.

To share your love, all you have to do is fill in this form. The trend this year is long; be free to buck the trend if you want. If you've sent me one and it hasn't been published,  please let me know because there are gremlins in the internet.


Fleur Kilpatrick
Playwright, librettist, director, pot plant parent and person who chats about theatre on the radio

Fleur Kilpatrick. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
Robot Song’s (Theatre Works) warm tenderness and compassion was theatre at its best. It met its audience where they were, be they children or adults. I think back in particular to the parent characters, who spent most of the play as back up musicians to their child, watching her struggle with the cruelties of the world and unable to make it all right. The gentle ways in which they tried to make magic for and around her as she stood in the centre of the stage will stay with me. I learnt a lot about love watching it.

The beautiful, dreamlike way in which Love/Chamberlain’s (also Theatre Works) script and set spoke to each other still gives me a little shudder. The audience were so still, tipping forward in their seats, leaning into this gentle grief world where two blamed and shamed women – Courtney Love and Lindy Chamberlain – met and shared a moment in a dream desert.

Emma Hall’s World Problems use of past tense, dragging us through time and the gorgeous image of her labouring away to create a trampoline. The sight of her bouncing gently up and down brought back so many memories of childhood hours spent in airborne storytelling. To go straight from this play into a practical response – the night I saw it, a workshop on energy saving in your home – was such a beautiful way to make her imagined world part of our real one.

Looking forward to in 2020.
I don't know. But I hope everyone is nice to each other and we all get some rest.

SM: I recently asked someone "What was the name of Fleur's play about whales that had a whale in it?". "You mean Whale." Yes I did. I loved it. I might not remember names and titles but I remember how I felt during Whale and how I felt after and that Fleur and her team of amazing creators trusted that an audience of strangers would step up every night to make this piece of theatre.


Katie Purvis
Theatregoer, comedy and cabaret lover, sometime critic, radio presenter

Katie Purvis. Photo by Betty Sujecki

Favourite moments in 2019.
In theatres: Barbara and the Camp Dogs at Malthouse broke my heart into tiny pieces; I was thrilled by MTC's A View From A Bridge; Come From Away at the Comedy Theatre made me leap to my feet to applaud and cheer; and I laughed till my face hurt at Nakkiah Lui's Black is the New White at MTC.

At the Melbourne International Comedy Festival: Larry Dean's Bampot was face-achingly funny and unexpectedly poignant; Jude Perl's I Have a Face was seriously great; and I literally laughed till I cried at Lano and Woodley's brilliantly silly Fly.

Musical highlights: It was a privilege to be at Hamer Hall for Deborah Cheetham's Eumeralla : A Requiem for Peace, sung entirely in dialects of the Gunditjmara people and featuring a huge cast of performers (including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Dhungala Children’s Choir); the prolonged standing ovation was hugely deserved. And it was a joy to see piano man Trevor Jones doing his thing at the 2019 Melbourne Cabaret Festival Closing Party – simply superb, and the best night I had in a performance space all year.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Haus of Hans:Disco Spektaculär at MICF; Grey Arias at Malthouse, featuring Le Gateau Chocolat and Adrienne Truscott; Conchita Wurst and Trevor Ashley in concert at Hamer Hall; and Fun Home at MTC.


SM: Katie is my go-to editor and reader. She understands why I despair because program notes almost never seem to be proofed and are usually filled with grammar mistakes that change the meaning of what the writer is trying to say. Katie also hosts Miss Chatelaine on Joy 94.9 on Sunday mornings; she knows me well enough to know that I am never awake to listen live, but I do listen to some of the on-demand recordings. Yay for on demand.


Paul Selar
Opera critic, the Opera Chaser

Paul Selar. Selfie

Favourite moments in 2019.
Melbourne has generally supported a rather good balance of opera on a variety of scales. The year produced many highlights; however, from the all-important small independent players, it didn’t feel like it was buzzing with the same kind of optimism of recent years. Apart from a sympathetic re-staging of Australian composer Barry Conyngham's 1984 Fly, Lyric Opera of Melbourne have been unaccustomedly quiet and BK Opera seem to epitomise what living hand to mouth from one show to the next is like.

It’s all to do with money. Isn’t it always? Gertrude Opera’s much appreciated hard work behind the scenes is paying off with simple, effective and increasingly impressive production quality. Every opera-loving soul should’ve clogged the roads to get to the company’s Yarra Valley Opera Festival, now in its second year. Two of the year’s best small independent works could have been seen on one day! Jonathan Dove’s, The Enchanted Pig, in its Australian premiere, was a gorgeously slick, infectiously entertaining and superbly sung work. Monteverdi’s almost 370 year-old early baroque opera, Poppea, looked, felt and sounded as fresh as any new theatre. Both were directed with an acute eye for drawing meaningful characters by Gale Edwards.

On a far larger scale, a Rossini rarity got masterpiece treatment, literally, in Opera Australia’s Il Viaggio a Reims from director Damiano Michieletto, whose ingeniously devised production and inventive angle came with a long list of radiant performances. The company also stood out on top in a concert performance of Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, a work often criticised for its thin plot but more than compensated for by splendid musicality. It helped that international star tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who deserves every glowing superlative showered upon him, was there giving layers of magnificently coloured and carved vocals.

Melbourne’s continuing love affair with Wagner resulted in two memorable outings. In Victorian Opera’s Parsifal, director Roger Hodgman brought clarity to every character and subtlety to its strong symbolic and religious overtones and Melbourne Opera, without a penny of taxpayer funding, got the year off to a brilliant start with The Flying Dutchman. Darren Jeffery’s performance as the Dutchman had thunderous heft and stature and the large chorus of sailors and weavers won’t be forgotten. It’ll be hard to forget the company’s production of Bellini’s Norma as well. I saw it three times. Anyone who knows how precious an experience it is to hear soprano Helena Dix sing her proud and glorious high notes would count themselves lucky. And she’s a devilishly good gestural magnet.

Looking forward to in 2020
More Wagner! I feel enormously lucky to live in a city that is up to the challenge of staging Wagner’s sprawling works. We’ll be getting Opera Australia’s Lohengrin, a co-production with Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, with English heldon tenor David Butt Philip making his company debut in the title role. And Melbourne Opera, who have been instrumental in presenting Wagner’s works, have a new production of Das Rheingold up their sleeves. My prediction (it’s already a year old) is that this will be the start of another Ring Cycle for Melbourne. There’s also Victorian Opera’s Salome, Gertrude Opera’s Yarra Valley Festival and news from Lyric  that they haven’t fallen by the wayside.

You can also join me for my 5th Annual OperaChaser Awards on Twitter party to celebrate and honour the exceptional work of opera companies and individuals. It starts at 5 pm on 28 December.

SM: Paul has a job that lets him fly all over the world and see the kind of opera that leaves many of us seething with jealousy. There are so few opera critics in Australia. Without people who know an art form inside out, it's so hard to share why we love it to new audiences and to people who think of opera as stuffy and boring. Some of it IS stuffy and boring, but so much of is isn't. You can read Paul's reviews at operachaser.blogspot.com.

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.

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 2

Today, we hear from some of those artists whose work creates, develops and supports other art and performance in Melbourne.

Here's the form to write your contribution; you get to chose your own photo.

Keith Gow
Playwright and critic
keithgow.com

Some actor & Keith Gow in London. Hello, sweetie.

Favourite moments in 2019.
I was so pleased to see my friend Andi Snelling back on stage in Happy-Go-Wrong telling a deeply personal story about invisible illness, without it feeling at all indulgent – and making an utterly mesmerising, moving piece of theatre.

Some really excellent theatre at Malthouse this year, with Underground Railroad Game, Barbara and the Camp Dogs, My Dearworthy Darling and Australian Realness being utterly superb.

I saw three Arthur Miller plays this year (!), two in London – a bland production of All My Sons and an astonishing mixed-race production of Death of a Salesman – but the best one was by the Melbourne Theatre Company, in its A View from the Bridge.

And some solid, exciting work at Red Stitch this year, too, with Control, Dance Nation and Pomona as the real stand-outs.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
Grey Arias, Do Not Go Gentle... and Loaded at Malthouse. Home I'm Darling and Fun Home at MTC. Orlando directed by Stephen Nicolazzo at Red Stitch.


SM:Keith is another independent writer who writes about shows because he loves them and wants to support our arts community. His reviews are honest and beautifully written. Read him; I sure do. And he supports other writers by reading everyone else's reviews.

Danny Delahunty
Producer of festivals, Lover of art

Danny Delahunty. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
2019 was a really great year for amazing theatre, particularly in the independent sector. If I put aside my shining conflict of interest with Melbourne Fringe, my favourite moment that has stuck with me is Queen Kong. Everything about it was excellent, but the big thing for me was how progressed the concept of integrated access was in the work (most noticeably with the Auslan elements, which were a core part of the creative work itself and not just an addendum tacked on at the end). It was just such a great example of what can be done to make a work accessible without that accessibility feeling clinical and separate from the creative elements.

I also have to mention the absolutely stunning stagecraft and production wizardry in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. For such a dire script, the fact that this show was nothing less of spectacular is a testament to all involved. Yeah, I know, budget budget budget and the fact that you could have funded 10,000 indie theatre productions on a fraction of their operational costs, but ... to see a piece of theatre that literally rebuilt the internals of a heritage venue from the ground on up in order to fully come alive felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I also really appreciate the capacity of this show to introduce a heap of young 'uns to theatre for the first time in a context that's a bit more interesting for them than Year 7 trips to Uncle Vanya at MTC.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
The Asia TOPA program looks great, with my top pick being Metal (Lucy Guerin Inc collaborating with an Indonesian heavy metal choir – it's perfect.) I'm also really looking forward to Le Gateau Chocolat and Adrienne Truscott's Great Arias at Malthouse. Past that, I'm not sure what else it on its way in the indie circuit... usually I read through the "What Melbourne Loved" answers and put together my calendar from that, haha*!


SM: Danny and the team at Melbourne Fringe created a whole new amazing arts venue at Trades Hall! A new arts hub filled with so many performances spaces**. The Melbourne Fringe 2019 brought Trades Hall back to life. As unions struggle and our dear leaders try to portray the idea of people working together to stop exploitation and greed*** as dangerous, it was wonderful to see so many people back in the space created by Melbourne's workers unions. So many people getting together to see so many people creating art that show us our communities and beliefs through different eyes, that shows what the world should be and what it could be if we don't see those different perspectives.

* That's how I choose my shows.
** He may not have slept in September.
*** Join your union.

Emily Sexton
Arts House artistic director

Emily Sexton. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
Walking into the opening night of the Yirramboi festival at the Meat Market was a revelation. I had never seen the space so transformed and so beautiful, and the performers that night were incredible: Deborah Cheetham, Sermsah Bin Saad, Monica Jasmine McDonald, Allara Briggs Pattison, The Merindas, Soju Gang. It was very memorable and a clear indication of First Nations artists in Victoria going from strength to strength.

I loved the double-bill that saw Vicki Van Hout’s plenty serious Talk Talk alongside the premiere of Joel Bray’s Daddy. It was so interesting to see these multi-generational Wiradjuri artists intersect – their stories, their form and craft, their humour.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
I was lucky to see The Mysterious Lai Teck in Yokohama in February as part of TPAM and it is a fascinating, literary show that left me much to contemplate about the nature of translation, the power of oral histories and the flaws of written archives;  it is coming to Melbourne as part of Asia TOPA.

Can I plug my own stuff? I’m going to plug my own stuff. I’m super excited by the local and international premieres happening in Arts House’s Season 1 in 2020 – did someone say Filipino action thriller musical? We have also announced a new project: Bleed – a biennial live event in the everyday digital. We have joined forces with Campbelltown Arts Centre to explore the relationship between the live and digital experience. From URL to IRL and back again, this is art that meets you where you already are: online, hyper-connected and endlessly networked. As digital increasingly seeps into our communities, identities and culture, we are working with artists who seek to make visible the shifts in power that result. The project will explore different models of sharing art, and in the process celebrate the spaces contemporary art is claiming within a digital public sphere. It will encourage different modes of listening, watching and playing, while still asking the question: where, when and how do we come together? The first edition starts in June at Arts House, Campbelltown Arts Centre, online, in the flesh and in your pocket. 

SM: Every time I see a show at Arts House, I tell myself that I should see more shows at Arts House. (Sometimes, the only thing wrong with Melbourne is how long it takes to get from one side of the city to the other for a 7 pm show.) It's a place where artists are free to make the work that they want and need to make without the pressure of box office and stars. It's a place where work develops and experiments and questions why we do this.

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 1

What Melbourne Loved officially starts in December, but let's get started now. OK, this is a reminder to write your contributions. Fill in this form.

And what better way to start than with three of my favourite people, artists and creators who all put perspectives, concepts, point of views, writing and artists that are STILL dismissed or ignored on our stages. This is why we keep coming back to theatre.


Stephen Nicolazzo 
Director
Little Ones Theatre

Stephen Nicolazzo

Favourite moments in 2019.
The works that really stayed with me this year were a combination of fierce feminist performance art, dance and fiery theatricality. My all-time favourite moment of 2019 was Bitch on Heat by Leah Shelton at Theatre Works. It was pure genius: violent, sexy, disturbing, visually arresting and genre bending. One of the most glorious examples of how heightened physical performance can touch the soul, be critical and have a vital and unique pulse. I have not stopped thinking about it.

Other works that shook me were Antony Hamilton’s sensual, expressionistic masterpiece Token Armies for Chunky Move and the Melbourne International Arts  Festival, The Rabble's poignant and darkly humorous Unwoman, Bron Batten’s deeply confessional and arresting Waterloo at Melbourne Fringe,  Adena Jacobs’s horrifying and nightmarish Titus Andronicus at Bell Shakespeare, and two shows in New York (which I know are not Melbourne but too good not to mention!): Heidi Schreck’s deeply moving political meditation What The Constitution Means to Me directed by Oliver Butler, and Jacquiline Novak’s feminist manifesto about giving head, Get On Your Knees at Cherry Lane Theatre.

A personal highlight was meeting camp and queer theatre legend Charles Busch (writer of Psycho Beach Party) in New York City and getting the chance to spend a day with him talking about queer theatre history, the significance of comedy and his run in with Paul McCartney. I also had the pleasure of attending the 2019 Director’s Lab at Lincoln Centre Theatre. It gave me a new love and appreciation of Melbourne theatre and all of the vital and exciting work we create. Also, directing the INCREDIBLE Joel Bray in his work Daddy, which was presented as part of Yirramboi Festival, Liveworks and Brisbane Festival. AND FINALLY, getting to reunite The Happy Prince team after two and a half years at Griffin Theatre Companyin Sydney. Truly nourishing.

Oh! And getting to do Merciless Gods at Arts Centre Melbourne was the single greatest theatrical experience of my life?!

Looking forward to in 2020.
Asia TOPA's presentation of The Seen and Unseen, Jenny Kemp's production of Anatomy of a Suicide at Red Stitch, Paul Capsis and Michael Kantor's Go To Hell at Malthouse, K-Box at Malthouse, Triple X at Queensland Theatre/STC, and anything at Arts House, Dance House and the many exciting shows and events for Asia TOPA and the new Melbourne Festival.

SM: Stephen convinced me to go ahead with this again this year. As I see everything he does, I'd already seen the work he got to remount this year, except Daddy. I tried both seasons and sometimes it's not possible. But there is another chance next year.


Mama Alto
Jazz singer, cabaret artiste and gender-transcendent diva

Mama Alto. Photo by Alexis Desaulniers-Lea

Favourite moments in 2019.
I loved seeing the virtuosic piano performances of Andrea Katz deftly incorporated into the Cameron Lukey and Gary Abrahams's vision of 33 Variations.

I loved the absolute triumph of Queen Kong during Midsumma: Sarah Ward and her incredible band, with fully integrated Auslan with interpreter Kirri Dangerfield and Deaf interdisciplinary artist Asphyxia, on a journey through the cosmos and the interior universe of the human psyche, confronting so many of our contemporary issues through glam rock cabaret. And that powerhouse voice!

Looking forward to in 2020.
I am looking forward to hopefully seeing even more; one of the hardest things, for me, about working in the arts is that sometimes you miss out on seeing things because you're also doing a show!

SM: The absolute gut-felt joy of Gender Euphoria at Midsumma will be a life-long favourite moment. Then multiplying that again at Gender Euphoria at the Melbourne International Arts Festival. I feel better about life just by thinking about it again. As a critic, I get dismissed for criticising shows that dismiss how they perpetuate fucked-up and hurtful ideas about gender, race and sexuality (last week, I saw an opera that still has people onstage in unnecessary slanty-eye make up). So when artists like Mama and Maude Davey and producers like Daniel Clarke make and support shows that show us how the world should be, our community shares a sigh of relief. Is it really so hard to think about the impact your art has on your audience? Of course, it is easier to not invite people who might not shower you with meaningless stars and to encourage an audience who all look and think alike.

But nothing was quite as good as the look on Mama's face when she arrived at her surprise-birthday-party-cum-intimate-performance-spectacular, organised by Creatrix Tiara. 


Robert Reid
Playwright, game maker, critic

Robert Reid. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2019.
MDLSX by Motus at Arts House.  Okay, I guess if I had to pick one thing, then it would actually be this because this is the first thing I think of every time I think of filling in this form. Incredible solo performance, and incredible use of tech, sound, light, story, meta narrative.  Hard, fast, brutal, honest, smart... yeah, MDLSX was my fave, I guess.

BUT, Barbara and the Camp Dogs at Malthouse comes a close second. Terrific night in the theatre; never felt for a moment the show didn't care if I was there or not; told the story we need to keep hearing; not a dry eye in the house; rock and roll theatre.

If they were they only things I'd seen all year, I'd have been pretty happy.

Looking forward to in 2020. 
I dunno, it's so hard to look forward to things at the moment. I'll be happy just to see who survives into 2020. What I'd like to be looking forward to is a restructuring of the funding models and an increase in budgetary allowance for the arts... Is that so much to hope for?

There is at least one show I'm looking forward to next year. Sipat Lawin is coming out with are you ready to take the law into your own hands. I am going the hell to that, I can tell you.

SM: I'm pretty chuffed that Witness is still going, but it's too easy to choose my favourite Rob moment this year: The Bacchae. Produced by MUST at La Mama, written (over many years) and directed by Rob, and with a huge cast of the most amazing women and female-identifying performers, it was an epic afternoon and evening of theatre that put women in the centre of the stories and found the point of views that are too often ignored, even when women are the story.


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Contribute: What Melbourne Loved in 2019

I asked Facebook if Melbourne wanted this again. The response guaranteed enough contributions.

I love this series because for a short time we can forget the artist V critic bullshit. We can forget the lust for stars and the dismissing of anything that dares to question what we see on our stages. We hear from the theatre community and remember that we are a community. And I can talk about shows and artists that didn't get reviews but still got a lot of love.

(And we get to see the photo competition between Ash Flanders, Eugyeene Teh and Kerith Manderson-Galvin.)

We share those moments that made us remember why we love theatre. We share our love for artists, creatives, writers, companies, makers, those who work behind the scenes, and all those everyone who make the theatre industry in Melbourne so damn awesome.

Everyone is welcome to contribute. Please don't wait for me to invite you.

And if you want to hear from someone, send them this info.

As always, all you have to do is answer these questions and send a photo that you like.

What was your favourite moment in Melbourne theatre in 2019? 

What are you looking forward to in Melbourne theatre in 220?

Here's a Google form.

Or you can email sometimesmelbourne at hotmail dot com.

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Review: Oil

Oil
Red Stitch Actors Theatre
17 November 2019
Cromwell Road Theatre
to 15 December
redstitch.net

Daniela Farinacci. "Oil". Photo by John Lloyd Fillingham

Oil by UK writer Ella Hickson takes place between 1889 and 2051. Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural gas) began to be used in the late 1800s and it's predicted to take about 250 years for humans to use all of the fossil fuels on earth. It will take millions of years for our fossilised bodies to make more.

But Red Stitch's Australian premiere of this 2016 play is far more than a history lesson, social commentary or plea for us to treat our world better.

While it moves from Cornwell and Hamstead in the UK to Tehran and Bagdad in Iran, with visits from Libya and China, its emotional spine and connection to the audience is the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Daniela Farinacci and Hannah Fredericksen are both mesmerising as consistent characters who age as each act moves in time and place. Their story of choice, sacrifice, loneliness and the line between control and love is gripping as it finds its space in the parallel story about humanity. If only we could always choose to have light, warmth and freedom.

Red Stitch have opened a new theatre in South Yarra in an old Anglican church hall. It's bigger than their St Kilda theatre and gives the space needed to share an epic story, especially as its age asks how many other stories have been told in this place. The church next door was built about 150 years ago so would have been lit by candles.

The script is layered and structurally balanced in ways that ask even more questions as its brings attention to the writing. Director Ella Caldwell adds more layers and questions with a consistently strong cast (Jennifer Vuletic, Darcy Brown, Jing-Xuan Chan, Matthew Whitty, Justin Hosking, Charlie Cousins, Krisraw Jones-Shukoor, Nicole Nabout) who let the epic nature of the work tell the story; characters create the world rather than letting the world create the characters.

Some of the most striking performances can't easily be seen. The only time the full cast is on stage is in act one in a farm lit by candles. Candles don't create much light. Clare Springett's lighting (working with Greg Clarke's set and Chloe Greaves character-defining costumes) is the character that influences every choice in Oil and makes the telling extraordinary.

It's so easy to dismiss how much we depend on the light and warmth created by fossil fuels, as it's so easy to know why we choose light and warmth. And to question it all in an old dark hall is riveting.

Not a review: The Audition

The Audition
Outer Urban Projects and La Mama
14 November 2019
La Mama Courthouse
to 24 November
lamama.com.au
outerurbanprojects.org

"The Audition" Peter Paltos, Sahra Davioudi. Photo by Darren Gill

Last night, the door prize at La Mama was a copy of No friend but the mountains by Behrouz Boochani‎. Where I was standing, there were murmurs of "the guy on Manus from Iran" and everyone wanted it. After all, we were at the opening night of The Audition, a new multi-writer work by Outer Urban Projects about the experiences of asylum seekers and immigrants in Australia.

This book won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature. This is Australia's richest literary prize; it's one writers aspire to win. Boochani is a Kurdish refugee from Iran. He has wasn't at the ceremony when he won because he was still incarcerated on Manus Island. The book was written by text messages; the same way he written for The Guardian in recent years. (Links are to Guardian stories.)

Directed by Irine Vela, The Audition project has been developed by working with and sharing stories with artists who are also asylum seekers. With contributions from writers Patricia Cornelius, Tes Lyssiotis, Sahra Davioudi, Christos Tsiolkas, Melissa Reeves, Milad Norouzi and Wahibe Moussa, it's a not-miss before it even gets seen.

There are theatre in-jokes as it compares the power imbalance of the theatre audition process to how immigrants have to audition to be "good Aussies", and personal confessions and stories that affirm that so much of Australia's attitude and government response to refugees and asylum seekers is racist and ignorant and the cause of so so much suffering.

While each has it's own strength and emotional drive, the theme feels forced at times and the strength and power of the writing varies, as do the performances; the writers Davioudi and Norouzi also perform and are joined by Mary Sitarenos, Peter Paltos and Vahideh Eisaei.

None of which takes away from why this project is on our stage. But I left wondering how a work like this reaches anyone who doesn't already believe everything it's saying.

Then this happened last night.

Behrouz Boochani‎ is free because of a writers festival in New Zealand. A writers festival.

So, let's keep telling, writing, reading and seeing stories, even if no attitudes change, because telling stories is how the world will get better. Telling stories is how creative minds find solutions to horror and work towards humanity. Telling stories – even if no one except the inner-city leftie woke read the book – is how Behrouz Boochani is finally FINALLY out of the hell that Australians put him in.



From this story.