Week #19 : 'Tame' by Declan Greene

2012 and 2013 saw the Education department at the Malthouse Theatre create The Suitcase Series for Year Nine and Ten Victorian students with the script Tame.  
Students from all around Victoria have the opportunity in Term 3 to workshop a play commissioned specifically for the Malthouse Prompt series and then attend the theatre and perform sections of the script to other school students; as well as seeing a performance of the same script by the resident actors of the company.

'Tame' - Matlhouse Theatre Actors Production

The script was written by Declan Greene, who also wrote Pompeii, L.A and Moth.  He is the creator of “gay D.I.Y drag-theatre” group ‘Sisters Grimm who won a place in MTC’s inaugural Neon Season (2013) with the group devised project – The Sovereign Wife.

His work Tame is an episodic piece of non-naturalism theatre that explores one family’s predicament and behavioural response to climate change - ‘a slow motion catastrophe’ as described by David Suzuki.

Tame is described on the Malthouse Theatre website –

‘It all starts around the kitchen table.  A visitor from the wild visits and eats more than KFC.  An ungrateful young upstart fights nature with nurture.  And finally, apathy and disorganisation brew discord and then disaster.

Tame presents vignettes of an everyday modern family who seem to be ‘happy camping’ whilst the world changes catastrophically outside.’

And described by Declan Greene himself:

‘Now its eaten the family dog…. Will apathy, disorganisation or their new visitor (a bear?) ever allow this family to leave the house again?’

2013 was the last time that this will be performed at the Malthouse Theatre, as they have commissioned a different script, however still centered around the theme of climate change and in a non-naturalistic style, for 2014 (and possibly 2015).
I have taken a personal interest into this script as I am going to be attending the 2014 Suitcase Series with my own students and I am interested in the way that this process works.  I will be trialing out the Tame script with my first semester students and then work-shopping the new script for performance in Term 3 next year..... 
Wish me luck!!!  It's certainly going to be a bumpy ride!!

Week #18 : 'Falling Petals' by Ben Ellis

I have very much delayed in putting up this post because I am not sure how to start with this play.

Written by Ben Ellis, an (Melbourne – Gippsland) Australian born playwright who has written a few plays, most notably for ‘Falling Petals’ (2002) and ‘Post Felicity’ (2001).  His plays seem to centre on home-life in regional areas in Melbourne and dealing with the locality and small township relationships.
His play ‘Blindingly Obvious Facts’ about American peace activist Rachel Corrie was highly noted in the Melbourne ‘Short and Sweet’ play competition in 2007, featuring in the top 30.

‘Falling Petals’ was first performed at Playbox Theatre (now the Malthouse Theatre) opening on 2nd July, 2003 in Melbourne Victoria.  It won the Wal Cherry Play of the Year in 2002.

The premise of the play is in a town called Hollow in regional Victoria which is in rapid decline socially and economically.  Three teenagers are looking forward to their end of year VCE exams and planning their escape to University in Melbourne.  

The play starts with the death of a young boy from a mysterious disease.  Dubbed the ‘Hollow Syndrome’, the town soon becomes over run with the disease eradicating all the children and teenagers. 

Most of the action takes place near a cherry blossom tree on the outskirts of town.  As Phil, Tania and Sally study under the tree, they watch the petals fall and designate each petal to the other children who slowly die in the town.

Phil Moss is the most dedicated to gaining an entrance score to study in Melbourne; Sally Woods is not as intelligent, but loves hanging around Phil; and Tania, Phil’s love interest is of near intelligence to Phil, but not as dedicated to study as he is.

Another female and male actor play multiple roles as other adults in the town. 

MALE	FEMALE
Dr Franz	Ms Golden – a reporter
Mr Syme – Careers teacher at the local high school	Mrs Woods – Sally’s mum
Mr Mulvaney – the president of the Chamber of Commerce	Gayle Moss – Phil’s dad
John Moss – Phil’s dad	Ms Lawrence – Vice Principal
Mr Worboys – Teacher at high school	Marg Bennett – a psychologist
Jonsey – Border Patrol

 

As ‘Hollow Syndrome’ takes hold over the children in the town, the adults take severe measures to not let the disease spread, they shut down the school taking away the opportunity for Phil, Sally and Tania to complete their VCE.  Sally’s mum takes her own steps and kicks her out of the home.

As you can tell, tragedy ensues and Sally (living outside near the cherry blossom tree) contracts ‘Hollow Syndrome’, Phil becomes blindly incensed in breaking the containment lines around the town and to complete his VCE.  Tania follows Phil along like a blind little puppy and tried to make his wish come true by sexually controlling him to help her study.

Unfortunately this play is hardly produced since its creation. 

The Production Company, a cross-cultural relationship company between the US and Australia (produced in America) performed this as part of their season on The Australia Project.

5 Pound Repertoire Company in Richmond performed this play as part of their repertory season in November/Decemberof 2012.

Apart from these two productions, there is little else about this play to be located on the internet.

I will leave this here, as this post  is 3 weeks late and I have a lot to catch up on!

Week #17 : 'The Room' by Harold Pinter

”My first play was The Room, written when I was twenty-seven.  A friend of mine called Henry Woolf was a student in the drama department at Bristol University at the time when it was the only drama department in the country. He had the opportunity to direct a play, and as he was my oldest friend he knew I'd been writing, and he knew I had an idea for a play, though I hadn't written any of it. I was acting in rep at the time, and he told me he had to have the play the next week to meet his schedule.  I said this was ridiculous; he might get it in six months. And then I wrote it in four days.”  

Harold Pinter interview with The Paris Review Fall Edition 1966 #39

Influenced by Samuel Beckett (and not being introduced to Ionesco until he had written a few plays), Pinter attributes him and Franz Kafka as being the most captivating literary voices in his own world of writing.

The first play written by Harold Pinter was titled 'The Room'.  Taking only 4 days to write in 1957 when he was homeless, always on tour with a Repertory Stage Company performing in small dingy theatres around provincial cities and small out-of-the-way seaside villages.

'The Room' is One Act play set in a single room in the house of Bert Hudd and Rose.
Rose dominates the conversation whilst making breakfast (yet it seems to be dark out with stars present, making the audience wonder if it really is day or night) for Bert with very... small.... talk....
"It's very cold out, I can tell you.  It's murder."
"Just now I looked out of the window.  It was enough for me.  There wasn't a soul about.  Can you hear the wind?"
Rose discusses (single handedly) the new tenants that live in the basement of the house.  We are given no stage directions for Bert, but can safely assume that he sits at the kitchen table ignoring all that Rose is saying whilst reading his magazine.  She continues the one sided conversation musing about the people living downstairs and the prospect of Bert going outside in the cold weather to drive on the icy roads. And she talks... and talks..... and talks......
Suddenly there is a knock at the door.  Mr Kidd drops by to let them know that he has been looking at the pipes.  Rose chimes in about the weather (again!) and they have a pleasant chit-chat.  (So far, we can really see the influence of Beckett here and the start of the conversations that happen in the 'The Dumb Waiter' which I previously blogged about.)
As per Absurdist theatre techniques, there is frequent repetitions in the dialogue.  Rose continually says to Bert "I'll have some cocca on when you get back."  also "Don't go too fast" - in relation to his driving on the icy roads.
After some more dialogue from Rose and ignorance by Bert, we meet Mr and Mr Sands, the basement dwellers!  In this initial conversation Mrs. Sands repeats the phrase from Rose earlier on "It's murder out."  and again we are given another Absurdist technique of misheard lines.  There is a confusion as to who the landlord is : Kidd or Hudd.

After Mrs Sands finishing telling Rose about how they came to rent the room below... by walking into a dark room and hearing a voice telling them that the room was free, Rose states that Mr Kidd said earlier that all the rooms were taken.  Mrs Sands responds saying that the 'voice' told her and her husband that room seven was free.  "That's this room" Rose responds.
(It is all becoming very Ionesco's 'Bald Soprano' at this point in the script!) 
Just then Mr Kidd comes into the room and Rose accuses him of renting the room to the Sands.  
Mr Kidd tells Rose that there is a man in the basement that knows her and she must go and speak to him immediately.  This man refuses to talk to anyone but Rose.  Mr Kidd fetches him and we are introduced to a 'Blind Negro' - as it states in the script.  We soon learn his name is Riley and that he has a message for Rose - 'Your father wants you to come home."
Riley starts to call Rose - Sal .  At this moment Bert arrives home regaling Rose of his tales on the road driving 'her' back.  (This is never referenced again...)  
Bert sees Riley sitting on the chair at the table, he looks at him for a coupleof moments , and with his foot lifts the chair up dislodging Riley, whom falls to the floor.  "Mr. Hudd, your wife - " Riley begins to say, and to this Bert strikes him, knocking him down, kicks his head against the stove a couple of times and walks away.  
Rose closes the play yelling "Can't see.  I can't see.  I can't see."


Throughout the play we are surrounded by fear.  Fear of the outside, fear of other people, fear of losing others, fear of losing oneself.
We are also blurred by the elements.  It is cold and dark outside.  Rose is cooking up breakfast foods.  No one seems to want to stand near the fire to warm up, yet they eventually gravitate that way.  
Rose is seen to be the dominate character due to her dialogue at the beginning if the script.  She is making all the conversation, delivering food and making sure that her husband is well fed, warm and has a jacket to wear on his trip. No one seems to be in control in the middle section of the play - Rose does not know why Mr  Kidd has come to visit. Mr Kidd is dependent on Rose to get rid of the blind man downstairs. Mr and Mrs Sands are not sure whether they have come up or are going down stairs, not to mention that they don't even know who the landlord is. 

This is a perfect example of Absurdism at its greatest.  Limited character profiles, disjointed scenes, repetition of lines and no knowledge of their place in their world.


To sum up quite nicely, a word from Pinter on seeing his first play in it's first performance...

“It was the process of writing a play that had started me going. Then I went to see The Room, which was a remarkable experience. Since I'd never written a play before, I'd of course never seen one of mine performed, never had an audience sitting there. The only people who'd ever seen what I'd written had been a few friends and my wife. So to sit in the audience—well, I wanted to piss very badly throughout the whole thing, and at the end I dashed out behind the bicycle shed.” 

Harold Pinter (same interview)

Next Week: 'Falling Petals' by Ben Ellis

Week #16 : 'The Frogs' by Aristophanes

Aristophanes, the only playwright whose comedic plays are the only left surviving from the Greek period to this day.  His play 'The Frogs' written 405BC and presented at the Lenaia Summer Festival where it won first prize.  Since then this play is not often performed in modern day, being overlooked by the classic Tragedies of the genre.  Yet, he was one of the most clever of al the Greek playwrights.  Incorporating philosophers, including Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus – not to mention Dionysus himself, he created the Old Comedies which encompass topics that the other great playwrights did (the Peloponnesian War, Family relationships, sex and death) he wrote in a comedic style that was more for the educated and intelligent than the general public.  Although he also wrote with an astonishing ability for comedy (now called Old Comedy) that was adopted into a Vaudevillian/Absurdist style of  comedy that is still used today.  Take for instance the first few lines of the play:

XANTHIAS: Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, 

At which the audience never fail to laugh?

DIONYSUS: Aye, what you will, except "I'm getting crushed": 

Fight shy of that: I'm sick of that already.

XANTHIAS: Nothing else smart?

DIONYSUS: Aye, save "my shoulder's aching."

XANTHIAS: Come now, that comical joke?

DIONYSUS:With all my heart.
Only be careful not to shift your pole, 

And-

XANTHIAS:What?

DIONYSUS: And vow that you've a belly-ache.

XANTHIAS: May I not say I'm overburdened so 

That if none ease me, I must ease myself?

DIONYSUS: For mercy's sake, not till I'm going to vomit.

I believe that this showed a great forbearance to how we now perceive the comedy stylings of a duo: Abbot and Costello,  Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Laurel and Hardy and even Walter Mattau and  Jack Lemon.

Aristophanes' play ‘The Birds’ was turned into a popular Opera, yet ‘The Frogs’ is much lesser known despite the list of characters he uses to unravel the processes of travelling to the underword to bring back to Earth one of the great dramatists of the age – Euripides.

The basis of the play is simple – Dionysus travels to the underworld with his servant to bring back Euripides from the dead.  Yet he does not bet on the journey being so difficult and fraught with decisions.

We are introduced to Dionysis as a theatre-goer.  He bemoans to the audience the sever lack of good dramatists in the world.  As the God of Wine, Theatre and Merry Making, he feels that this reflects upon him personally.  He resolves to go with his servant Xanthias and return with Euripides, the Prince of Dramatists.

With a lion-skin in tow, he disguises himself as Heracles (the Gatekeeper of Olympus) to herald his strength and ward against the possible dangers of the journey to the underworld.

Ferried across to the Underword by the boatman Charon, we are introduced to a huge croaking chorus of frogs – who seem to be the vocal link between the Earth and the Underworld.  In the meantime, servant Xanthias was denied a boat trip, he has had to walk across the lake to the entrance to the Underworld.

Taking the opportunity to get even with Heracles for misdeeds committed in the underworld, Dionysus forces his servant to change clothing/costumes with him (which alludes to a great banter between the two as a modern musical Vaudevillian style comedy).  The change is barely complete when a handmaiden of Proserpine to bid Xanthias (thinking he is Heracles) to a great banquet.  Dionysus insists that he changes back into the lion skin – that is until two housekeepers of Pluto (the God of the Underworld – in classical Greek mythology) attack Dionysus thinking that he is Heracles and wanting revenge for the damages he had done on his last visit to the Underworld. In a rush to prove his identity the chorus of frogs help to substantiate his true form.

The news soon spreads throughout the Underword that Dionysus has arrived to herald one of the great dramatists back to Earth.  There is a great disturbance and we hear quarreling from Aeschylus and Euripides, each trying to prove his worth to gain the position of the King of Tragedy and to take the high honour alongside Pluto for the great banquet.  It is soon decided that as both their plays were written and performed for the Dionysus Festival, that he should make the decision and decide who is to be the King of Tragedy.

A trial is set where Aeschylus and Euripides both need to prove their worth by presenting the first lines and verses from their plays.  Dionysus is torn between the two and originally takes the side of Euripides as he was the original intent of his visit to the Underworld.  Finally Aeschylus is declared with winner, yet it has also change the mind of Dionysus as to whom he wants to bring back to Earth.  Dionysus and Xanthias leave the Underworld, bringing back Aeschylus to write on Earth again, thus leaving Sophocles in the place of honour of King of Tragedy.

Like most classical Greek plays, the chorus is used as an intermediary between the main actors and the audience, both in representing what happens off stage to the audience and sometimes to the main actors, re-delivering imperative information to the audience and becoming the main conductors of movement on stage.  This play is no different, however there is a comedic prescense, not only used by the vaudevillian style comedy between Dionysus and Xanthias, but also with the information that the frogs deliver to the audience - always beginning with the requisite croaks and brekekex's of a typical frog call.

Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax, 

Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax! 

We children of the fountain and the lake 

Let us wake 

Our full choir-shout, as the flutes are ringing out, 

Our symphony of clear-voiced song. 

The song we used to love in the Marshland up above, 

In praise of Dionysus to produce, 

Of Nysaean Dionysus, son of Zeus, 

When the revel-tipsy throng, all crapulous and gay, 

To our precinct reeled along on the holy Pitcher day, 

Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax.

It's nice to enjoy the lighter side of Classical Antiquity!

Next Week: 'The Room' by Harold Pinter

Week #15 : 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora and Delia Ephron

Five women dressed all in classic and well fitting black dresses sitting on a stage in front of music stands.  Doesn't really sound like an interesting play does it... but as the stories in 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' unfold, we hear from 20 different characters (and some others to help tell their story) about the importance of memory in clothing.  These characters deliver moving and hilarious monologues based on pieces of clothing from their past that have remained imprinted in their memory for one reason or another.

Each actor plays 5-7 characters telling their stories or love, loss, heartache and embarrassment (and one very torturous story about rape).  
The main character, kind of like a narrator (but kind of not, at the same time) 'Gingy' is the only character for that actress and is the centre of the plot who sets the tone for each section of the play (based on Ilene Beckerman and her book of the same name).  Her stories are numerous and she has a more detailed plot line than the rest of the characters.
Each of the other characters delivers a shortish 3-5 minute monologue about the importance of a specific piece of clothing, like a tuxedo or Eggplant coloured dress (my personal favourite story in the whole play!) or a pair of boots, a bathrobe that holds infinite memories or a pale blue and white chiffon prom dress.  

The stories are set out in semi tonal waves, each slightly pertaining and responding to 'Gingy's' last clothing story.

Cast from 2009: Tyne Daly, Rosie O’Donnell,
Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.

The most hilarious tale is about the uselessness of the handbag - One item that every woman has and an item that every woman dreads, which is directly from Nora Ephron's collection of acerbic essays "I feel bad about my neck." - "I hate my purse.  I absolutely hate it.  If you're one of those women who think there's something great about purses, don't even bother listening because I have nothing to say to you."
The saddest is the tale of the olive green boots - "I thought my boots gave me a kind of mysterious, Bohemian charisma, tough but tender, rugged but sensuous, poetic but unself-conscious, like Joni Mitchell."
Some of the other tales encompass the decision to wear heels or be able to function properly in society - 'I started wearing heels again.  Oh the pain, I can't think.  but I look gorgeous.  I had to choose - heels or think.  I chose heels."
The blunders of fashion 'There was, for a very brief moment in time, the paper dress.  And I had one." 
The trials of finding the right clothes for your body shape - "My mother as the most competent human being alive but she gave up on me clothes-wise.  She would send me off alone in a taxi to a store called Jane Engel on the southeast corner of 79th and Madison, and they'd bring me clothes and I'd try them on.  There was a dressing room with three mirrors, and no matter which way I looked, there I was, as big as a house.  There has never been a good time to be fat, but this was a particularly bad time on account of Audrey Hepburn.".

The monologues are intermingled with 'clothesline' mini tales.  Each one about a poignant clothing moments in every females life: 'What my mother said', 'The Bra', 'Madonna', 'The dressing room', 'The closet' and the importance of 'Black'.

The 'Madonna Clothesline'

  However you see the monologues, there is going to be at least one tale that each woman can respond to in some way.  Be it just the memory of the way a particular dress made you feel, the memory of a non-descript outfit you were wearing when you heard elating (or devastating) news, or that all important choice of a wedding dress.
These all encompass happy, shocked or terrified moments in every woman's life.

Playwright Nora Ephron (and co-wrote by her sister Delia Ephron) bought us perfect romantic/comedy films as: 'When Harry Met Sally', 'You've Got Mail', 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'Julie and Julia' (she also directed the last three on this list).  Also an accomplished Essayist, Nora Ephron wrote heartfelt female stories of love and loss and the ways in-between.  This play is no different. 

'Love, Loss and What I Wore'  was first officially staged at the Westside Theatre in  New York for Off-Broadway (there were numerous readings of the play on Off-Off Broadway at the D2 Theatre) in 2009, it has increased in popularity ever since.  

The cast consisted of Tyne Daly, Rosie O'Donnell, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.  It soon became a revolving cast including stars of stage and screen (and the comedy circuit): Joy Behar ('The View'), America Ferrera ('Ugly Betty'), Blyth Danner, Rita Wilson, Barbra Feldon (Agent 99 in 'Get Smart'), Kirsten Wiig (SNL and 'Bridsesmaids'), Kristin Chenoweth (Broadway star - Glinda in 'Wicked'),  Jane Lynch, Kathy Najimi (Sister Act 1 & 2), Janeane Gafofalo, Melissa Joan Hart ('Sabrina the Teenage Witch') and Rhea Perlman.

An interview with Nora and Delia Ephron about the play gives you an understanding into the creation of some of these stories.  There are real life stories from the playwrights themselves, stories from Ilene Beckerman's book as well as stories from friends and relatives of the author and playwrights.  We see glimpses of how Nora and Delia, in conjunction with Ilene Beckerman's book, designed the elements and the importance of the moments in the play - each punctuated by the 'closeline' moments.

Nora Ephron passed away in June of 2012 from pneumonia aggravated by myelodysplastic syndrome which is a pre-leukemic condition.  Only close friends and family knew of this and it was not made public until her death.

This play has something for every female in the world and also allows males to catch a fleeting glimpse of what it is like to be a female.  Hopefully this play will help men to understand why females can take so long to choose a dress/shoes/handbag for certain situations!!

Next Week : 'The Frogs' by Aristophanes

Week #14 : 'EndGame' by Samuel Beckett

HAMM:  I wonder.  (Pause.)  

Imagine if a rational being came back to earth, wouldn't he be liable to get ideas into his head if he observed us long enough.

(Voice of rational being)  Ah, good, now I see what it is, yes, now I understand what they're at!

( Normal voice)  And without going so far as that, we ourselves...

(with emotion)  ...we ourselves... at certain moments...

(Vehemently)  To think perhaps it won't all have been for nothing!

Samuel Beckett, the God of Absurdism, brings us a disastrously tragicomedy in one long act.  EndGame, the tale of four misfits living their rudimentary lives in a post apocalyptic world, not in any hope of gaining a better one, but just - to be.

Living in a cyclical stasis, Hamm and Clov discuss the world, it's complexities and the nature of beginnings and endings, whilst being completely alone and devoid of happiness.

Clov and Hamm

Hamm is the Protagonist of EndGame.  All though his obnoxious and disagreeable behaviour at times makes him the Antagonist to his man-servant, Clov. Blind and completely imprisoned (we assume, by old age) in his wheeled chair, Hamm continuously comments that no one suffers more in life than he. For Hamm, there is no reason for being on this Earth, particularly not in the damp and chilly hole where he also polices over his parents - Nagg and Nell.

HAMM:   In my house. (Pause)

(With prophetic relish) One day you'll be blind like me. You'll be sitting here, a speck in the void, in the dark, forever, like me. (Pause.)

One day you'll say to yourself, I'm tired, I'll sit down, and you'll go and sit down. Then you'll say, I'm hungry, I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up. You'll say, I shouldn't have sat down, but since I have I'll sit on a little longer, then I'll get up and get something to eat. But you won't get up and you won't get anything to eat. (Pause.)

You'll look at the wall a while, then you'll say, I'll close my eyes, perhaps have a little sleep, after that I'll feel better, and you'll close them. And when you open them again there'll be no wall any more.  (Pause.)

Infinite emptiness will be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it, and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe.  (Pause.)

Yes, one day you'll know what it is, you'll be like me, except that you won't have anyone with you, because you won't have had pity on anyone and because there won't be anyone left to have pity on you.  (Pause.)

Clov is the Antagonist of EndGame (and as his character is more downtrodden and worn out – He is the more likable character and therefore assumes the role of Protagonist in our minds).  He is the servant to Hamm despite his own disability – Clov cannot ever sit, he is forever walking – often pacing from one side of the room to another and looking out the windows for something.

Adopted into his household by Hamm as a young boy, the play's tension centres around Clov's yearning to leave against his feelings of responsibility to stay with Hamm (an obligation he constantly questions throughout Endgame). Clov constantly attends to Hamm and his relentless commands, such as wheeling him around the dank hole, relaying the landscape outside the windows, giving Hamm his medicine and covering him up at night.  Clov has inexorable juxtaposing emotions of hatred and bonds to Hamm.

CLOV (as before):  I say to myself— sometimes, Clov, you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you— one day. I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must be better than that if you want them to let you go—one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it'll never end, I'll never go.  (Pause.)

Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don't understand, it dies, or it's me, I don't understand that either. I ask the words that remain— sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say.  (Pause.)

I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit.  (Pause.)

It's easy going.  (Pause.)

When I fall I'll weep for happiness.  (Pause. He goes towards door.)

Nagg and Nell

Nagg is Nell's husband and Hamm's father. Living (or should I say – Not living, as Nagg and Nell are in all aspects of the word – dead) in a rubbish bin next to his equally ‘binned’ wife.   He arises every now and then to yell out for food or to try, and always in vain, to kiss Nell and retell the identical story he always tells (we assume on a daily basis). Often, especially when demanding food, he is childish, barely verbose, but sometimes he can be quite profound and articulate.

Nell is Nagg's husband and Hamm's mother. She is resigned to the routine and sameness of their existence, professing the frequent attempt and persistence of Nagg to kiss her a "farce." Nell, as a character, is minimal and not important to the plot, she appears to be the only reason Nagg keeps ‘living’ and is the the sole example of a normal relationship in the play.

NELL (without lowering her voice):  Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. …  ... ...  Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more. 

Hardly a verbose play, the dialogue is frequently one to three words in response from Hamm's musings and barking orders and Clov's responses.  Some of the longest sections are the stage directions for Clov.  They are long, detailed and highly important to the characterisation of EndGame.  The first entry to the play is Clov walking from one window, getting up on a chair, getting down and walking to the other side of the stage, only to repeat the same movement.  this is a long and laborious task, but gives the audience a clear depiction of the characters and the world that they are living in.

It is extremely  difficult to describe this play.  I suggest, if you have a week spare:

Read it.

Muse over it.  

Put it down.

Pick it up again and sigh.

Put it back down.

Stare at it wondering if the next time you attempt to read it, it will make a little more sense.

Pick it back up.

Read it.

Put it back down.

Sigh.

Pick up a pen.

Pick up the script again.

Read it and scribble notes all throughout the script.

Put it back down.

Sigh in realisation that you will NEVER fully grasp the complexity of Beckett's writings.

CLOV (straightening up): I'm doing my best to create a little order.

 (Don't ask why there is a red background to the text........ Grrrrrr... I have no idea why it is there and how to get rid of it......  Blogger is getting worse and worse to use.)

Next Week: 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora Ephron

Week #13 : 'Hedda Gabler' by Henrik Ibsen

“I am mortally bored to be everlastingly in the company of one and the same person.”

Hedda Gabler, the belle within her social standing, has just returned from her honeymoon with her new husband George Tesman, a colourless and forever tedious lecturer, to their new ostentatious villa given to them (under great sufferance) by Hedda’s aunt.

Upon their return from their overseas honeymoon and Tesman’s research trip, they receive many visitors to congratulate their union.  Tesman’s Aunt Juliane brings news that his Aunt Rina is on her death bed.  Mrs Thea Elvsted secretly ruminates her love for her children’s tutor Ejlert Lovborg, whom has just written a book to rival Tesman’s lifelong work and has the chance at ruining his career.

Throughout all of these untimely visitors, Hedda is cruel and callous to those who deign to become her friends.  She is deliberately and viciously rude to Tesman’s Aunt.  She conspires to move Thea and Lovborg together, only to rip them apart again by giving Lovborg the ‘ammunition’ to destroy himself.  She destroys the only manuscript of Lovborg’s book and treats their housemaid with disdain and condescension.

All to what gain?  There are many reasons, the main one possibly is for Hedda's own personal gratification.

In 2004, Sydney Theatre Company produced Hedda Gabler with Cate Blanchett at the helm with Hugo Weaving as Judge Black. This traditional setting directed by Andrew Upton was probably one and the last that we have seen with Ibsen 1800s traditionalist costumes and set.

This year, Australia's most revered playwright Joanna Murray-Smith took it upon herself to reinvent this classic for the South Australian stage.  When I say 'reinventing' I don't mean in a 'Simon Stone-kind-of-way' (not that there is anything wrong with that!! I adore his adaptations); Murray-Smith stayed true to the plot line and importance of the main character and Ibsen's classic writings for strong female characters. She updated the script within a modern framework, whilst keeping the tradition of Ibsen's work alive, and added a few tongue-in-cheek references to liven up the script and bring it bouncing into 2013. 

 Taking the title role of Hedda was Alison Bell, best known for her work in ABC's series Laid and for Sydney Theatre Companies performance of Doubt.

Director Geordie Brookman opted for a non traditional set for his production making the text and it's translation speak entirely for itself. Again, the costumes were minimalistic allowing the actors portray at the characters all the more important because they didn't have the stereotypical 1800s costumes to hide behind to help viscerally adopt the seriousness of the content.

Ben Brooker of the blog Marginalia commented that "the most remarkable thing about Joanna Murray-Smith’s adaptation of Hedda Gabler – which replaces Henrik Ibsen’s hermetically-sealed world of the Norwegian bourgeoisie in the twilight of the 19^th century with a slice of contemporary upper middle class Australian suburbia – is how unremarkable it is. That is not to say it is bad, but that it is good for a curiously self-defeating reason: that it leaves so much intact. Whole lines of dialogue, and even several longer exchanges, come across from earlier English translations virtually unchanged in Murray-Smith’s one act version. Her most original contribution is her first-rate line in barbed humour which makes its way into a great deal of the dialogue."

Along with No Plain Jane (another Australian Arts blogger) who also commented that:

"Perhaps one of the dangers in adapting Hedda Gabler to a contemporary context is the way that women’s place in society has changed in 120 years. Ibsen’s women, his Hedda and his Nora in particular, were revolutionary in their portraits of middle-class women unhappy with their lives, questioning society, and, ultimately, taking control of their own destinies – in radically different fashions. It would be all too easy for a contemporary Hedda to not ring true: while women are still under many pressures and societal expectations, today’s women are, on the whole, more activated both inside and outside the home. Yet, Murray-Smith’s adaptation brings with it startling relevancy, none more so in the ever-prevailing expectation and tension on women to become mothers: here, this conversation feels shocking but in no way false."

Next year the new Director in Residence at Belvoir St Theatre Adena Jacobs will be tackling this text.  It will be interesting to see what take she will have on the play and female lead.  Jacobs has a flair for strong female characters and I think that this is an excellent choice for her to approach in her first appointment at Belvoir St.  Will she heavily adapt it, as per the state of theatre in Australia at the moment? Or will she subtly maneuver the text into the 21st Century as per Murray-Smith??

I certainly think there is a place for adaptation. There are those out there that think that this contemporary theatre practice is ruining the theatre for emerging artists. (Check out this scathing articlehttp://m.theaustralian.com.au/arts/the-local-voices-being-swept-off-the-stage/story-e6frg8n6-1226651624628?sv=4d4d97a3d6abaddf86efff684124e275)  There has been extensive research gone into this area, especially by Alison Croggon, Australia's most outspoken theatre spokesperson - and all for the triumphs and waves that new Australian theatre is bringing. Theatre is a burgeoning area that the needs of the many (and the few) are being indulged, but also bent treated with respect.

You can read Alison Croggon's views on Adaptations Vs New theatrical works here: http://m.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/hooked-on-classics/story-fn9n8gph-1226648616479

I also highly recommend you read the Andrew Upton (co-Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company) Phillip Parsons Memorial Lecture delivered on the 2/12/2012 at Belvoir St Theatre.  It is a stirring speech about Theatrical pursuits of the many and the few.  It made me triumphant and tearful all at the same time.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/theatre-is-a-place-of-here-now-and-destiny/story-e6frg8n6-1226528488602

(Sorry about the messy links.... I really with they would update the blogger app for the iPad to have the ability to embed links in posts.)

I LOVE Australian Theatre. It is such a small scope of what happens here, yet the Directors, Producers, Actors and blossoming major and indie companies are becoming more recognised for the passion that goes into the works and the tremendous output and brilliant productions that are happening across this land. I would not ask to be anywhere else right now.

I realise that this post is a week late, unfortunately due to some personal issues I had to delay this entry.

Next Week: 'EndGame' by Samuel Beckett