In 2007 White Whale Theatre commissioned Melburnalia, five short plays about various Melbourne suburbs. The idea was good and the plays, although disparate in style, sat well against each other. Five more plays Melburnalia 2 have been commissioned with a unifying theme of trams and again the styles vary from almost sketch comedy to a purely vocal evocation of place based on Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.
Indigenous and migrant experiences feature as well beginning with Birrarung, by Andrea James, where the spirit of a Wurundjeri man evokes a memory of public transport with conductors instead of fare evasion officers and the legendary Flinders Street Station Ballroom as a kind of White Man’s Dreaming. Hoa Pham’s Maribyrnong powerfully contrasts the post war migrant settlement camps with the severity of the modern detention centres. A visiting Vietnamese student has been detained due to her working more hours than her student visa allocated. In this suburban detention centre she meets a Greek national who has been resident in Australia since he was two years old but who had not formalised his citizenship. Between them a ghostlike, elderly migrant begs to be let into this awful place because, according to her parents, these 'holding centres' were nurturing places. That this takes place in the suburbs - the Maribyrnong tram rattles past! - instead of somewhere hidden in the outback gives this playlet a nasty edge.
Aiden Fennessy’s Mentone is a ‘choral symphony’ which cleverly incorporates Under Milk Wood into its text by way of the local drama society rehearsing the famous play. Even more so than in Melburnalia, the older history of each suburb informs the plays. Preston's 19th century origins as a pig farming and bacon curing centre underpins Kit Lazeroo's play which has a veiled attack on the modern Real Estate industry.
Danny Katz's Caulfield is a sketchy sketch where thinly drawn caricatures of squabbling thirty-somethings showing off in a desirable yuppie suburb tries to either emulate or encapsulate a David Williamson snob comedy ending with the infantilism of their pretensions given a surreal twist.
The juxtaposing the past and present and, particularly in the plays about Maribyrnong and Preston, works particularly well, pointing the way to a Melburnalia franchise with more ways of exploring our suburbia.
Melburnalia No 2 (2009)
Birrarung by Andrea James
Maribyrnong by Hoa Pham
Caulfield by Danny Katz
Preston by Kit Lazeroo
Mentone by Aidan Fennessy
Director - David Mence
Fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders lane, Melbourne
20 May - 7 June 2009
120 minutes (including 1 interval)
White Whale Theatre
Melburnalia 1 on DVD and (parts thereof) in Revival at the MTC
In the past few years Melbourne's independent theatre has had an enormous boost thanks to the scripts of many of the plays written and performed being put into print. While the scripts of Melburnalia have yet to be published, the production has been made available on DVD. Filmed in performance with multiple camera angles, some fudged through trying to be discreet, but with acceptable sound and eminently watchable accounts of the plays in performance. I was very happy to revisit Melburnalia this way and re-watch the writers forum where the authors spoke about their work which is included on the DVD.
Melburnalia (1) included Lally Katz's wonderful little two-hander The Fag from Zagreb which featured one of the earliest sightings of her enigmatic Apocalypse Bear (who certainly has a thing for gay boys). That terrible teddy has now been developed into an Apocalypse Bear trilogy, including a revival of The Fag from Zagreb, at the Melbourne Theatre Company's new Lawler Studio between 8-24 October this year. Meanwhile the DVD of Melburnalia is $10.00 and is a hopefully the first example of recording the very exciting work happening in independent theatre at this time. The plays in Melburnalia were good but, like the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Indigenous and migrant experiences feature as well beginning with Birrarung, by Andrea James, where the spirit of a Wurundjeri man evokes a memory of public transport with conductors instead of fare evasion officers and the legendary Flinders Street Station Ballroom as a kind of White Man’s Dreaming. Hoa Pham’s Maribyrnong powerfully contrasts the post war migrant settlement camps with the severity of the modern detention centres. A visiting Vietnamese student has been detained due to her working more hours than her student visa allocated. In this suburban detention centre she meets a Greek national who has been resident in Australia since he was two years old but who had not formalised his citizenship. Between them a ghostlike, elderly migrant begs to be let into this awful place because, according to her parents, these 'holding centres' were nurturing places. That this takes place in the suburbs - the Maribyrnong tram rattles past! - instead of somewhere hidden in the outback gives this playlet a nasty edge.
Aiden Fennessy’s Mentone is a ‘choral symphony’ which cleverly incorporates Under Milk Wood into its text by way of the local drama society rehearsing the famous play. Even more so than in Melburnalia, the older history of each suburb informs the plays. Preston's 19th century origins as a pig farming and bacon curing centre underpins Kit Lazeroo's play which has a veiled attack on the modern Real Estate industry.
Danny Katz's Caulfield is a sketchy sketch where thinly drawn caricatures of squabbling thirty-somethings showing off in a desirable yuppie suburb tries to either emulate or encapsulate a David Williamson snob comedy ending with the infantilism of their pretensions given a surreal twist.
The juxtaposing the past and present and, particularly in the plays about Maribyrnong and Preston, works particularly well, pointing the way to a Melburnalia franchise with more ways of exploring our suburbia.
Melburnalia No 2 (2009)
Birrarung by Andrea James
Maribyrnong by Hoa Pham
Caulfield by Danny Katz
Preston by Kit Lazeroo
Mentone by Aidan Fennessy
Director - David Mence
Fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders lane, Melbourne
20 May - 7 June 2009
120 minutes (including 1 interval)
White Whale Theatre
Melburnalia 1 on DVD and (parts thereof) in Revival at the MTC
In the past few years Melbourne's independent theatre has had an enormous boost thanks to the scripts of many of the plays written and performed being put into print. While the scripts of Melburnalia have yet to be published, the production has been made available on DVD. Filmed in performance with multiple camera angles, some fudged through trying to be discreet, but with acceptable sound and eminently watchable accounts of the plays in performance. I was very happy to revisit Melburnalia this way and re-watch the writers forum where the authors spoke about their work which is included on the DVD.
Melburnalia (1) included Lally Katz's wonderful little two-hander The Fag from Zagreb which featured one of the earliest sightings of her enigmatic Apocalypse Bear (who certainly has a thing for gay boys). That terrible teddy has now been developed into an Apocalypse Bear trilogy, including a revival of The Fag from Zagreb, at the Melbourne Theatre Company's new Lawler Studio between 8-24 October this year. Meanwhile the DVD of Melburnalia is $10.00 and is a hopefully the first example of recording the very exciting work happening in independent theatre at this time. The plays in Melburnalia were good but, like the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
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