Helen Howard in the poster image for Colder. Image Sean Young.

A fair bit has happened since last time. Got a lighting sponsorship from the awesome Heath at FireFly Lighting. Our lighting designer Dan Anderson is licking his lips in anticipation, and I’m really interested to see who this comes together with the set. Poster art has come back from the printer and will go up around town in the next few days. Working on doing a little production preview video … production meetings blah blah … there’s a lot to do and strangely the last thing I think to do is sit in on a rehearsal. Check in on the art. See what demands they are facing. See what help they need.

Mostly being a producer is doing and communicating the doing. But before the doing (and the communicating the doing) comes the thinking and after comes the reflecting…. and perhaps it’s this thinking and reflecting which is the real task in the rehearsal room. Not thinking and reflecting on product, that is after all the director’s job, but thinking and reflecting on process. The point is to be helpful, to keep the challenge in focus, manageable, and resourced.

That, and laugh at all the funny bits.

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This is the creature’s story. A story of longing and loneliness, of bigotry and monsterism.

What if – a man is born fully made, though horrible to look at he is a sympathetic as any new born, what will become of such a man if they are abandoned and left to fend for themselves? Who will they turn too? What will they seek out?

This is the question behind Frankenstein. It is heart breaking in its answers.

Confronted by bigotry and abuse the creature with the wit and intelligence of a man slowly becomes the monster that is his destiny. It’s a tragedy of the worse kind. A tragedy of isolation and abandonment, where the creature’s behaviour is not so much justified, for murder and violence is never justified, as motivated. Indeed, he is all too human in his motivations and in his desires.

And what does he seek? The same as any man, companionship and love. It is through his maker, Frankenstein, that he sees his great hope of achieving this. Frankenstein driven by pride and desire of perfection sees in the creature only his failure. For what has Frankenstein created – certainly not the perfection his was after – no only the human, the real, the commonplace.

Where the abusive relationship between the creature and his maker may be the heart of the drama, the all to easy humanisation of the creature is the mind of it. Why? For in the world of Frankenstein, in every sense, the creature is a person, born in a cradle of filth, spat out onto an unsuspecting citizenry. As a person we must necessarily honour him with all the rights and status of any other. If we have a soul then we must say so does the creature, if we have a mind then so does the creature, if the creature is nothing but muck and filth then so are we.

Monster? Yes. But only in the sense that we are all monsters.

Frankenstein @ The National Theatre

Goto ntlive.com to see the National Theatre in a cinema near you.

Written in 1956 The World Jones Made shows some startling insight into a post apocalyptic 1950s America.

It asks a bold question. If a man can see his personal future as if it was his present, then when he acts is it because he decides to do so or because he was fated. What then is man? At the whim of an unrelenting universal nothing, or a driving force against that.

In dramatic terms, agency – that is the action of the characters, their goals, desires, wants – is what drives a story. What keeps it for falling down on itself.

How then does Dick write a character seemingly at the whim of fate so they still have agency?

Jones talks about himself, not as if he knows the future but as if he lives in the future with a foot in the past. Reliving over again stuff he’s already live. As if he soul or life force is displace one year forward, and his body stuck in the present.

This is problematic. When Jones acts in the present, he acts with full knowledge of the future, or at least the next year, in fact he acts only to fulfil what in his mind has already happened. Technically this is not a dramatic action. There is no character agency here, in the sense that a character decides they want something and then chases it.

Strangely through Jones doesn’t feels like he lives in the present, instead he feels like he lives a year in the future on that edge where the unknown becomes known. As if Jones is a third party voyeur on his own life.

Jones (as voyeur on his future) then does not know what his future self is going to do at any moment to the next – he both becomes aware and lives it at the same time.  Interestingly at some point when his present self catchers up to this moment in time, his present self will have knowledge of the future and will therefore act accordingly, even if that action is merely to fulfil that knowledge of the future.

Jones the must always act as if with full knowledge of the next year of his life. The deeds and actions of his future self will only be those informed by the knowledge of the future his present self will have when he has finally caught up. When Jones voyeur’s in his future, he’s watching a self with knowledge that he does not yet have. A self that will act with this knowledge a self that will act to fulfil a future not yet seen. This then is his agency. A self acting to fulfil an unknown future. Only for Jones this agency is external to his self. Yes, it’s an agency that drives Jones on to ultimate power, but it’s an agency that Jones has no control over. “I don’t know what to do. And the awful part is I don’t have any choice.” (39)

This external agency, out of grasp in some ethereal self, is both acting without any knowledge of the future, and living with full knowledge of the future.

Creating Drama.

Set in not too distant future, Chile is at war with both Bolivia and Peru in a seemingly repeat of the War of the Pacific.

A brother home for Christmas is confronted by his pregnant twin sisters each with their own plans for his future. The older (i think) wants him to fulfil his patriotic duty and kill as many of the opposition as he can, while his younger sister, wants him to run away, flee the army and find refuge in the South.

It’s brave work. Not least because it was not so long under the Regime of Pinochet ago that such a work would not have been possible.

In as much as can be said about the world of the play then, it seems to inhabit a time and a people doomed to make the mistakes of the past. And perhaps because of this it is a half-constructed world not meant to fully capture a national mood or present a realistic future, but instead present a frame through which to examine the present – our own feelings, and desires.

This is quite excellent theatrical enterprise, lifting a relatively straightforward family drama into the realm of something special. A space where racism, nationalism, humanism, pacifism and Christmas collide and in doing so allow us to think about who we are.

For all it’s seriousness, though Diciembre is at times a funny and joyous work, with characters twisting themselves into knots trying to get their way, and a text (even through translation) that takes joy in the inanity and weakness of people as much as their strengths.

Problematically, for this presentation, the subtitle is placed just above the primary light source – a Christmas tree esque hanging light-bulb installation – as shown in the picture. Annoyingly after some 20 minutes or so of watching my eyes started to water from having to look at the light straight on. It was either do this or look away and miss what was being said on the sur-titles.

This grievance aside, Diciembre was an exhilarating work in the best sense making me remember all that I love about theatre.

Show watched as apart of WTF2011 @ The Brisbane Powerhouse.

For those that can read Spanish read more here, Teatro en el Blanco

The set of apollo 13 showing audience in their roles

Raise your hand if you like a bit of Tom Hanks in a tin can?

You know what I mean. The movie Apollo 13. It is just bloody good fun, in that whole will he or wont he kind of way. Spoiler. He does.

Question. Take this story based on the events of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission and then stick it on stage where the audience (or at least a good deal of them) is in mission control and what do you have?

Well, want you don’t have is the will he or wont he. Not because there isn’t a Tom Hanks in sight, and certainly not because the fundamental story isn’t gripping. It is, regardless of familiarity.

But perhaps primarily because of the way it is done. This is an experiment in immersive theatre where the audience is involved in the re-telling of the drama. This is it’s strength and it’s weakness.

Your average person of the street is not a trained actor and will have only a basic familiarity with the story. Ask them even on mass to help in a re-telling and you got to be on your game. And indeed Hackman (the creators) are on their game, amazingly so.

A bit of background. For this re-telling you can chose to be either in mission-control and get one of the cool seats shown in the picture, or you get to sit in the media bank and watch on. I was in the media bank, and my comments reflect this view point. For an interesting take on sitting in mission control have a look at Katherine Lyall-Watson’s Comments.

Being an audience then puts you in one of two frames. This rare, and certainly encourages a second viewing/helping. One I would be inclined to take had the mission control seats not been sold out.

Why? Well as one watched on the disparity in experiences grew, the mission control began to look more like being caught on a runaway train and the impending doom that goes with that, while the media bank had that sense of watching a masterful illusion or a circus event, and the execution wow that goes with that. Where did this leave me?

Well, an interesting, albeit overly familiar story, a stunning and overwhelmingly successful re-interpretation of the theatre space and audience role, and finally a fun night out watching performers on their game, not immersing themselves in character, but instead immersing us (or at least part of us) in their world.

That they do this with such beguiling aptitude for me was the greatest pleasure of the evening.

Bravo Hackman.

Johnny is a fourteen year old logged onto a chat room as LBJ. There he meets Markymark. A football star a couple of years his senior. Markymark mistakes LBJ to be a girl. Oh the deliciousness of it all. What pranks could a fourteen year boy pull on the older lad? Well, not so much of a prank. No, in fact, Johnny falls in love with him.

For serious right? Well, yes, but also a lot of bloody fun.

You see, what is poor old Johnny (as LBJ) going to say to him when he wants to meet? That’s right, Markymark is a regular horny teenage boy who’s going to want to see this LBJ in the flesh (if you get my drift), I mean, really wants to see this LBJ. Clearly this isn’t going to work for Johnny. And so the real deception begins. LBJ gets a step-brother, then another step-brother (actually Johnny) then a dangerous ex-boyfriend out for revenge, parents, obviously – and well – the cast of fictitious characters begins to outweigh the actual. Indeed a veritable army of online handles come into existence all designed to help Johnny get his man. And does he? Well, you’ll have to see it.

Our hero is brilliantly writ and played. The language walks this beautiful balance of teenage innocence crossed with an adult sophistication able to comment on the shear absurdity of the increasingly complex story Johnny creates.

Sure the play captures unrequited love, but perhaps more interestingly, there is a real art to the way Johnny goes about playing his creations. Throwing himself deep into the lie, so even he begins to lose sight of the real.

I Love You, Bro is one of those rare theatrical treats where we get to be kids and adults, where we laugh, where we barrack for our hero, where we go on the roller-coaster too. Although it is based of an English story, it’s Australian theatre at its most fine.

Recommended for all. Take a date, take you’re mum, take your son. Either way you’ll get a good laugh and a fine night out.

Show watched Thursday 22nd July 2010.

Playing at La Boite Theatre at the Roundhouse. Season extended until 15th Aug 2010.

A young man and a woman are very much in love, the sort of love that creates lines in the mind, defines the personalities within that love, and everything else as being without. Joyous and serious.

Only, the man is gone, missing – traumatically so.

The woman? As if unable to live or redefine herself without him, has forgotten – unable to even make new memories. Past and present get muddled, identity gets consumed, and love gets tested.

The parents of the missing young man are split – torn between between their love for their son, their feelings towards their damaged daughter-in-law, and their need to keep their only grandchild in their life.

The mystery? Can this perfect love survive even this most tragic of circumstance. A difficult and worthwhile endeavour.

Strangely this production doesn’t quite succeed in wrenching us through that same knot of anguish so evident on stage, despite some fine performances and beautiful design. However where it does succeed is perhaps more important, for the production wraps you within an Australian aesthetic – a dramatic aesthetic as much as a design aesthetic – that quietly seeps into you giving both the performance and the audience that feeling of belonging – yes, it’s meant to be there on an Australian stage, and yes, we are right to be here, to prefer this flawed Australian struggle to an import.

This play then as much as anything is about claiming within us a space for Australian drama – how do an Australian husband and wife react at the loss of a son? how does a young Australian wife fight against her inner demons? And importantly, how does this make us Australians feel.

And so for me, perhaps even because of its flaws, it made me feel love and perhaps quietly proud.

Recommended of those seeking Australian fiction, for romantics, for those engaged in the Australian aesthetic.

Show watched 30th June 2010.

Playing at Metro Arts until the 17th of July.

A doctor needs her house cleaned – she likes a clean house – only she doesn’t like telling people to clean it. She hires a Brazilian girl, who frustratingly is depressed over the sudden and comic-tragic passing of her parents – the greatest joke tellers in the world – and so doesn’t want to clean. This girl – what does she do? She passes her days thinking up the perfect joke, whilst secretly, the doctor’s sister does the cleaning for her.

Matters get complicated. The husband (also a doctor) falls in love with another woman. A beautiful South American lady.

So, on the surface? The Clean House – Four women from diverse backgrounds, two from South American, and two sisters from North America, are thrown together by a philandering husband who perhaps should know better. That he doesn’t, is what kicks this play forward.

This decidedly American take on love and loss adds a new vigour to the aging drawing-room comedy genre. But more interestingly it politely presents difficult truths about the growing class divisions (often on race grounds) that have been developing within the North American social fabric.

The playwright Sarah Ruhl is taking swift and fast aim at both North and South American cultures and I can imagine that on Broadway a production similar to what I saw would sparkle as each of the playwrights arrows hit their intended target.

In Australia, it still works but instead of that beautiful uncomfortable feeling you get when a play challenges you, instead we get to laugh at the funny Americans (North and South). This is still pretty good.

The audience I watched it with was split, with some of the more hard nosed theatre types not feeling it went far enough. That said, there were many delicious and heart felt laughs coming from the older set. The Clean House then, is four great female roles with terrific performances, a touching and pleasing story, and fun to boot. Something quite rare on Australian stages.

Recommended for Baby Boomers and Up, Ladies Social Groups, and for those that like their theatre passionate and kind.

Show watched Preview, Mon 28th June 2010.

Playing at the Cremorne Theatre unitl July 31st.