Theatre is a strange bureaucratic beast out here in the Oz
hinterlands. It all hinges on money of which there is a scarcity. The
amateur companies are definitely that and rarely do anything original.
They do try out various extremes of theatre occasionally, only to
scurry back to the safety of the tried-and-true quickly thereafter.
I was writing at a golden age for Perth theatre when Frank
Baden-Powell was finding his way and Aarne Neeme was a young blade
with a troupe of actors from 'the Eastern states' (as they are known
here on the West coast). In the 60s/early 70s, I went from barman to
playwright at the Hole In The Wall theatre, and husband of a leading
lady (musical comedy hoofer and singer), so I had an intense but short
career in the burgeoning scene (which went from Resounding Tinkle to
Old Tyme Music Hall and Dirty Dick's Elizabethan restaurants).
Judy Davis, Heath Ledger and some other famous dudes come from our
local Academy here, but creative theatre? Original live theatre is
outer fringe to say the least. It seems more about film and television
these days.
Campus theatre is apparently of a very high standard here, but it is
all about production qualities, not original scripts.
Andrew
2009/6/1 Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>:
> It sounds like an interesting scene, Doug. Stewart Lemoine strikes a
> faint bell somewhere, I might go google... Yes, it's very hard to
> write good comedy.
>
> To generalise wildly, we have the Melbourne/Sydney nexus, and
> Melbourne has the more interesting independent theatre and Sydney the
> more interesting mainstream. Work in Darwin, Perth, Brisbane &
> Adelaide (though less so these days) tends to be a little
> marginalised. (Ask Andrew! Though one of the brighter young sparks on
> the directing scene, Matthew Lutton, is a Perth boy). And people know
> hardly anything at all about work from Central Australia. Partly, as I
> guess it might be in Canada, it's simply distance between cities.
> xA
>
> On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 3:41 AM, Douglas Barbour
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Oh yeah, there are the big international names, but I was thinking of the
>> various local companies etc; Toronto's always had a large local playwriting
>> scene as well as theatres doing everything, & Edmonton, too, with some
>> intriguing local authors, like Stewart Lemoine, who formed a company to
>> present his, mostly lightly comic, but actually very witty, in the best
>> sense, plays (to write really good comedy takes a certain genius). We have a
>> bunch of local playwrights, & theatre groups, which sounds a lot like you
>> do. And a wide range of theatre coming from them.
>>
>> And something similar can be said of the local, often not well known beyond
>> the city, theatres in Vancouver, Regina & Saskatoon, Calgary, Winnipeg, just
>> in Western Canada (which is pretty well ignored in Ontario & Toronto; do you
>> have that problem with Sydney?).
>>
>> Doug
>> On 30-May-09, at 4:13 PM, Alison Croggon wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks Andrew - if you invest in the paper you get a gorgeous shot of
>>> Cate and cast in the War of the Roses (did you see that when it was in
>>> Perth?) - Doug, I wouldn't be surprised, although I don't know a lot
>>> about Canadian theatre - Lepage and Marie Brassard and a couple of
>>> others. I guess we have similar histories as colonies and Commonwealth
>>> countries, though significant differences too.
>>
>> Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>>
>> Latest books:
>> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>> Wednesdays'
>> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
>>
>> Swept snow, Li Po,
>> by dawn’s 40-watt moon
>> to the road that hies to office
>> away from home.
>>
>> Lorine Niedecker
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
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