What Melbourne Loved in 2021 (and 2020), part 2

Today we see hear from long-time Sometimes Melbourne regulars Fluer Kilpatrick and Stephen Nicolazzo.

Stephen Nicolazzo
Little Ones Theatre
Director, teacher, high camp, high stakes

Stephen Nicolazzo riding to work

What theatre/art/creative experience did you love the most 2021 (or 2020)?
I had two incredibly satisfying creative experiences in 2020 and 2021 in spite of Corona (the pandemic, not the 1990s techno singer). The first being our pivot from a live stage adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s Loaded into an audio experience. Working so deeply and closely with Dan Giovannoni and Christos on the script over the course of two years, it felt vital to bring the show to life in what ever way we could. Originally we were going to be in the Beckett theatre, then the Malthouse Outdoor Stage and when things took a turn for the worse, I knew we couldn’t let our baby fade into oblivion. So, we decided to explore a new form, focusing on text, audio design and composition; creating the world of Loaded through the audience’s ears. It was an incredible experience. Rehearsing, recording, editing, mixing, composing over the course of 8 weeks of lockdown. Luckily during this time we had the privilege of bubble buddies, so I basically moved in with sound designer Daniel Nixon and we worked into the night developing the sonic experience of this one person show. It was truly liberating. It was like creating a film without pictures. It was a godsend in a time where producing work felt uncertain and more unstable than usual. I learned a lot and felt incredibly proud of the result. It was a true test of creative limits and that felt like a lesson worth learning in a time of darkness.

The second was my first live outing after 6 months locked away – Considerable Sexual License, Joel Bray’s immersive dance theatre work. Getting to be in a space again and not only putting on a show but making one designed to have the entire audience dancing and participating was truly inspiring and emotional. Getting to watch audience after audience dancing around Northcote Town Hall to Donna Summer over the course of May was a true highlight and one I will cherish for as long as I live.

What surprised you about finding new ways to make art in locked-down worlds?
The surprising thing was that it meant you could delve deeper into the world of the work – develop and question from the comfort of your home. I was in development for Looking for Alibrandi, Loaded, Considerable Sexual License and The Monkey’s Mask over the course of these two hellish years and what I found so humbling was that instead of rushing works to the stage they were given space to grow and develop and shine with time and rigorous focus. The thing that was most surprising during this period was the clarity – not being muddied by self doubt or reviews or box office – there was something really special about just being able to make the art again and not listen to the noise around you.

What did you do to stay connected to your arts community?
I kept working. I made work. I taught at Monash and VCA and Collarts and was constantly engaging with young artists and watching them make INCREDIBLE online art. For me, it was my connection to young people that really kept me engaged with the art; their perspectives and experiences of the pandemic gave me a real insight into the pain this pandemic caused emerging dreamers. All I wanted to do as a result was continue to try and inspire them – every day – even if I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, or had drank myself to sleep the night before.

What are you looking forward to in 2022?
I am looking forward to unleashing the projects I have been working on over the last two years. I am looking forward to being in live spaces again and making things that elate audiences post-the-never-ending dampening of our spirits. I am looking forward to watching people dance again on stage – and sharing Looking for Alibrandi (Malthouse and Belvoir) with audiences (if Omicron permits…).

SM: In Stephen's first WML in 2012, he talked about creating without "censorship or fear" and he's still exploring that idea.

Listening to Loaded in my flat in lockdown was a highlight of 2020 for me. I think I enjoyed it more as an audio experience than I might have on the stage because it felt like I was there. I also love that it's now around for ever and not forgotten once its season was over. Considerable Sexual License was another absolute joy, even if I didn't dance. The works Joel and Stephen are creating continue to create glittery and so-pretty words that are supported by darkness and honestly. They address identity, belonging and sexuality in ways that let audiences question everything about themselves by being in someone else's story. 

And I can't forget  Body Horror, an online 1970s horror weirdness created with Monash students for Melbourne Fringe. So much blood.

 

Fleur Kilpatrick
Gardner, grower, spoon maker, teacher, dog whisperer, writer
Creative Producer, Riverland Youth Theatre
https://www.facebook.com/riverlandyouththeatre

 

Fleur Kilpatrick at work in early December

What theatre/art/creative experience did you love the most 2021 (or 2020)?
Sensorium Theatre’s Woosh! At the Chaffey Theatre in Renmark, with a class from Riverland Special School. I went to space for an hour, ate space food, touched squish things, made things beep, smelt things and sung songs. Especially special was seeing the teachers relax as they came to understand that this was an experience made for their class and that the performers were ready for anything and everything.  
 
 What surprised you about finding new ways to make art in locked-down worlds?
Everything about this year surprised me. I am still shocked when I look around and see where I am and how I came to be here. I started the year traumatised and depressed after losing my beloved job and community at Monash Centre for Theatre and Performance (and the Centre itself) to Covid cuts. I lived in a caravan without power. I had nightmares about bumping into colleagues I couldn’t deal with seeing again. I dug holes, pulled weeds and planted trees and grasses and little native ground covers, perhaps 1000 of them, on my little block of land. Then suddenly I had a job, a new community, a new part of the country and a Chaos Monster (dog) and everything changed. I now run Riverland Youth Theatre in beautiful Renmark, South Australia, and I work hard every day to serve my community through art, creativity and play.  

I think the big surprise has been just discovering have valuable artistic skills are to communities. Things that seem so simple and obvious to me (‘Oh you want something else for your Halloween Spooktacular events but don’t know what? Give me a few hundred dollars and I’ll get up some great actors – they have clown training! – to be witches and tell fortunes! Easy!’) are so big and strange to others. (‘So what do I say to the actors? Do we have to write a script or rehearse or something?’ ‘No, this is what they do: they create worlds and interact with people in those worlds. It will be really simple and beautiful.’) Some of the best moments and conversations have come about from community members saying ‘we have this problem’ (for instance, struggling families have nothing to look forward to) ‘can you see a way to help?’ And the answer is always ‘yes’ because art does these things so well.

I think for me, it has been about discovering how special and valuable the tools in any artist’s tool belt are in a community context.  
 
What did you do to stay connected to your arts community?
It was hard. It was hard to stay connected, particularly when my friends were all too ‘zoomed out’. And at the start of the year I was so depressed and then things improved for me and they went back into lockdown. But voice recordings helped. It was like having a phone conversation in slow motion and just when friends wanted to engage. A little message – ‘I’m out walking along Bookmark Creek, oh and that jingle is Betty’s collar. I was thinking of you today when I…’ – a few words of love or a summary of a podcast listened to. For my friend Kat, I found ponds or creeks filled with the sound of frogs and bush birds and sent her little bushland soundscape from the Riverland to Melbourne.  
 
What are you looking forward to in 2022?
I have a passion project I am creating with local children and their guardians called Everything I Know About You And Me, in which they attempt to document their entire relationship through stories, drawings, dancers, jokes and songs. I think that having a creative way to bond and celebrate their relationship and the wins will be good for our vulnerable families. I am looking forward to knowing more about my job and community and river. And to being less scared of budgets and grant applications.

Most of all, I want to see my friends again. I want to hold the people I have barely held in two years – the people I grew up with over 15 years in Melbourne. I want to attend Danny and Lucy’s wedding and feel so full of love for them and celebrate, not only their relationship but that the wedding, postponed so many times, is finally here. I want to raise my glass with you all and say ‘Wow. We did it. You are here and I am here. We are still standing.’  

 SM: When Fleur started at RYT, all I could say was what a perfect job it is for her. It's like it was just waiting for her to come along. 

I've loved seeing Fleur's dog Betty become a more good dog every day though pictures and videos, especially when she does things like make Fleur strip off and jump in the river to save Betty from a kangaroo – even though Betty and the roo didn't need any help. I also love that she likes every photo I post up of my cat, Imado. But my favourite Fleur animal-memory of the last year or so was being too-awake in the middle of the night and seeing on Facebook that Fleur was struggling with a spider in her caravan. I know how she feels about our 8-legged friends and all I could do was be a witness and hope that she didn't burn the caravan, her block of land, and the town down. If we ever need to look for a 2020-21 metaphor, it's the hunstman spider on the curtains in the caravan.

 

 

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. 

MIAF: Anthem

MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL
Anthem
3 October 2019
Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 6 October
www.festival.melbourne

"Anthem". Photo by Pia Johnson

Anthem is the 20-year follow up to the much celebrated 1988 production of the Melbourne Workers Theatre's Who's Afraid of the Working Class. I didn't see it. I wasn't living in Melbourne and somehow even missed the tour. When I moved to Melbourne, I saw some of the MWT's last productions but still regret missing Who's Afraid. And I miss an arts political culture that supported a company called the Melbourne Workers Theatre (1987–2007). Sometimes we don't realise how important some voices are until they are gone – even if it's nice to not hear so much of Kennett.

The Who's Afraid writers were Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Melissa Reeves and Christos Tsiolkas, who have since individually made significant impacts on our theatre and other writing. Each have also written at least one thing that I've loved so much – SO much – that I've asked myself why I haven't loved all of their work.

To see them all writing new work for a main stage in an international arts festival is something to cheer about. Thank you Arts Centre Melbourne.

To re-visit independent theatre 20 years after it was first made, find a way to get the gang back together – including director Susie Dee, who conceived the idea of original work, and composer Irine Vela –, and to offer enough financial support to cast, create and stage a follow up is so positive and exciting that it offers hope in a bleak arts scene. Let's hope it also leads to re-staging some of those Cornelius, Reeves and Bovell plays that only got one run; Tsiolkas is already read by a lot of people.

On a simple level, Anthem asks what we sing about today; hands up if you know your AFL team's song and mumble the words to Australia's national anthem. Like the first play, the four wrote an individual story and these stories are interwoven into a bigger story about the issues that face our city, and world, today.

Their common ground is trains. Trains are a social equalisers in Melbourne with most lines beginning in very far out suburbs and passing through some of our wealthiest suburbs.

"Anthem". Photo by Pia Johnson

Marg Horwell's striking design creates the mood. Her designs consistently get into the heads of the writers and bring their worlds to a visual life that I doubt any writer could imagine until they saw it. It looks like an underground station that reminds me of the old Spencer Street station. But they could be anywhere with functional concrete walls, stairs to the places we don't see and benches that are moved and reconfigured to create the feel of crowded trains while giving the stories as much emotional space as they need.

With a consistently remarkable cast of 14 – bloody Nora, they are good –, Vela's score played live and building the emotional complexity, and Dee's direction that never lets go of the big picture, it's easy to see it as one work, even if the writing voices are different.

Bovell's chorus of commuters makes the ritual of public transport feel mythic and his story of a Myki ticket confrontation leaves it impossible to chose whose side you're on. Cornelius brings the still-too-rare sight of middle aged and ageing women onto the stage. These women should be at the best time of their lives and yet have no way to even imagine a safe, let alone a comfortable, future. Reeve's story of exploitation and unpaid wages becomes a love story that finds joy even when everything else is pretty horrible. And Tsiolkas's continues to create Melbourne characters who are so recognisable that I don't want to see him write a middle-aged arts writer still struggling to rent in the Bayside area.

There's empathy, anger and frustration in these stories but it's hard to know who this show is talking to and what we are laughing at when it's easier to laugh than to despair. We happily cheer a woman singing for coins on a fictional train, but did any of us give $1 to the young woman begging for change on Princes Bridge when we walked back to Flinders Street station to get a train home?

And I didn't even do that; I drove because the Frankston line only runs a twice an hour after 10.00, which correlates to who catches the trains at night (end of the line suburbs) compared to those who catch it during the day (close to the city suburbs). Try relying on trains if you don't have a car, live way beyond the tram zone and don't have an Uber account because you don't have a credit card. Public transport might be an equaliser if it really served the people who need it.

And try talking about class, race and equity during a capital-A Arts festival.

Anthem is a passionate reflection of a city that struggles with its own inequity, even as it sings along to that Courtney Barnett song about having to move to Preston. But there's a degree of political and social writersplaining that takes away from its authenticity; you has me at Northcunt and lost me at nihilism.

These are stories about people who face so many of the barriers explored in this work that they may never see themselves on the stage.

And perhaps that's the point.

Having a large cast means that there are always observers to each story. And while we're following stories, it's being with the observers that create the moments when Anthem spits on our assumptions and forces us to be on the train wondering what we would do if it were us. Or what we didn't do the time it was us. Or when we complained that a train was delayed...

The biggest hope is that this isn't the only production of Anthem. Like its inspiration, it's a work that needs to develop and be seen far wider than a festival audience.

Review: Tenderness

Tenderness
Platform Youth Theatre and Footscray Community Arts Centre in association with A.R.A.B
4 September 2011
Footscray Community Arts Centre
to 11 September

I wish I were shocked by the anger, violence and cruelty of Tenderness. I'm horrified that any 12-year-old girl would shave her public hair and lose her virginity to a 16-year-old or that any teenager will punch until bones crunch, but it's too easy to understand why when the impact of words like "ugly" and "slut" never seems to change.

Platform Youth Theatre create striking theatre that is led by the perspectives and voices of young people, and finished and strengthened by the experience of professional artists.

Tenderness is two short plays, Ugly by Christos Tsiolkas (The Slap etc) and Slut by Patricia Cornelius (Do not go gentle... etc). Commissioned in 2007, both were researched with young people in the northern suburbs and have undergone creative development presentations that have left them with authentic raw and angry young voices, without the implied judgment or now-I-know-betterness of the older writers.

Working with a remarkable young cast (Matt Hickey, Stephanie Capiron, Rebecca Mazel, Peta Sergeant) and Kelly Ryall's emotive score, director Nadja Kostich (Bare Witness) uses a constant and dangerous physicality that lets the scripts confront, scream and punch to show the vulnerability of these young people who see the world as ugly and pretend that they don't care.

As adults we can re-embrace words, take part in Slut Walk and happily have as much wild, skanky and consenting sex as we like, but do we or should we apply the same openness to promiscuous teenagers? I wish that everyone who has ever referred to a child as a slut (especially "journalists" and talk-back radio scum) could be made to see this play every time they throw such powerful words about.

Tenderness is the first work in the new performance space at the wonderful Footscray Community Arts Centre, and if this stark reminder of how little tenderness some teenagers have in their lives is setting the standard for what we will see in this space, it hope it will soon be one of Melbourne's favourite spaces

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com