THE REBIRTH OF ‘THE DOLL’ AT ITS THEATRE OF ORIGIN

History and future come together with a new staging of Ray Lawler’s iconic play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll at the new Union Theatre

By Petra Kalive, University of Melbourne and Xanthe Beesley, University of Melbourne Student Union

The premiere of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by the Union Theatre Repertory Company (URTC) in 1955 was a seismic moment in Australian theatre.

This iconic play, which debuted at the old University of Melbourne Union Theatre, not only left an indelible mark on the nation’s cultural landscape but also reshaped the trajectory of Australian drama.

The cast of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, 1955. Picture: Melbourne Theatre Company

Rooted in larrikin culture, mateship and urban life, it struck a chord with audiences starved for authentic Australian stories on stage.

Now, as we present this play at the University’s new Union Theatre in the Arts and Cultural Building, we’re provided with timely reflections on notions of legacy; of this great play, of the place it was first performed, about culture on campus and the way we have changed as a country.

The journey begins with the history of student theatre on campus, which evolved from performances at residential colleges in the 1930s to the opening of the Union Theatre in 1938.

John Sumner’s tenure as its manager starting in 1952 marked a turning point, as he saw an opportunity to use the time when the venue wasn’t activated by students to establish a full-time professional theatre company, the Union Theatre Repertory Company (UTRC), which later evolved into the Melbourne Theatre Company in 1968.

This transformative era represented a departure from staging foreign imports in favour of celebrating the Australian experience.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll – the tragic story of the neglected fractures in relationships after seventeen years, set in Melbourne in the summer of 1952 – was met with thunderous applause and signalled a hunger for Australian narratives rich in vernacular and authenticity.

It was not just nationally significant but also gained international recognition.

John Sumner (left) and Ray Lawler. Picture: Melbourne Theatre Company.

Today, with an expansive and complex canon of Australian literature, the play’s enduring resonance is remarkable. Olive, a central character, personifies nostalgia for an idealised past, mirroring contemporary society’s yearning for simpler times amid rapid change.

This connection makes Olive’s character and the play’s themes more pertinent than ever.

Just as the play reflects the past, the venue – the new Union Theatre, also echoes shades of another time when industry and student creativity sat side by side.

The programming in the new Union Theatre is shared between the Student Union (UMSU) and the University. This production of The Doll brings alumni from the University to work with current student actors and first-time designers to learn from their experience.

The Union Theatre is a critical space – a place that’s helped shape the history of theatre in Australia. Writer-director Malcolm Robertson argues that the Union Theatre “must assume in the annals of Australian theatre a pre-eminence that would be difficult to be superseded by any other theatre in Australia.

“It has been a crucible for the development of the performing arts in this country.”

This project brings that history into the brand-new venue. With Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, not only do we celebrate the legacy of Australian theatre, but we also hope to inspire new generations of makers, actors, writers, directors and backstage teams to become involved in what theatre can offer.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, 2012. Picture: Melbourne Theatre Company

The community on campus has been nurtured over decades. This play was a historical milestone; its legacy and the often-overlooked iconic status of the Union Theatre intertwine to provide an opportunity for today’s voices to interpret the work.

Current students – through this production and engagement with the Union and Guild theatres – walk in the footsteps and legacy of the students who have become influential arts workers and cultural influencers since the Union’s inception.

At its core, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a narrative about identity, nationhood, and belonging, intertwined with the motif of sugar, emblematic of Australian identity.

By staging it today with this new generation of artists, nearly 70 years after it was first written, we are prompted to confront that nostalgia, history and the selective memories of the past.

We are asked to unearth untold stories, question our collective blind spots, and engage with the legacy of our nation’s identity. The past and present collide, inviting us to reflect on our own flawed legacies and the narratives that shape our future.

And just as the 1950s marked a period of cultural dynamism in Australia, we are living through a similar transformation today. As we grapple with issues of identity, belonging and resistance to change, the play’s portrayal of characters unwilling to face the future resonates deeply.

The term “wilful blindness” becomes a pertinent question for us: What are we deliberately ignoring or refusing to accept in our quest to preserve the status quo?

Watch the video

WATCH: The new production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is directed by Petra Kalive with movement direction by Xanthe Beesley. Video: Supplied

Reimagining the first ever Australian play the URTC performed in the Union is not only a nod to the performing arts legacy of theatre at the University, but it also holds a mirror up to today.

This production of the play asks important questions while paying homage to a time in our past, it engages today’s students and artists in conversations about our wilfully blind history, the relevance and resonance of a canonical text and our changing national identity.

We hope this production, and the satellite works devised by the students and inspired by The Doll, demonstrate how the Union Theatre looks forward to a future as equally influential as its past.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is presented by Union House Theatre (UMSU) and runs from 3-7 October 2023 at the Union Theatre, Parkville Campus.

Banner: Newspaper photos of the 1955 production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll/Melbourne Theatre Company

First published on 28 September 2023 in Music, Arts & Screen

An evening of re-imagining with Emilias by Emilie Collyer

An evening of re-imagining with Emilias by Emilie Collyer

Emilia enters from the audience. As does the second Emilia, and the third Emilia and then the whole ensemble of actors. A simple but profound gesture that says: this story comes from you, from us. From the voices and bodies that have for so long been watching from the dark. From people who didn’t get to be in the spotlight. It is one of many such moments that occur during this production, directed by Petra Kalive. Those theatrical gestures that feel simple but come from years of experience, understanding the relationship between actors and audience, actors and text, text and space.

The play is Emilia by UK playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcom, inspired by the life of 17th Century poet Emilia Bassano. Emilia 3 (Lisa Maza) speaks first. She reads from a book, various ways in which Emilia Bassano has been described. Words rain down into the audience, ones that most women will be familiar with. Words that dismiss, belittle and demean, that make assumptions based on gender. Eventually Emilia 3 tosses the book away in disgust. Now is the time, she says, to listen. The play and the production set up the promise of hearing history told anew. I am struck by the casting choice for Lisa Maza to open the show. She also has the final, searing, soaring words. The play, while focussing mostly on the silencing of women, also speaks to other oppressions including racism and the impacts of colonisation. To sit in one of this city’s (Naarm/Melbourne) most opulent theatres (The Playhouse at Arts Centre Melbourne) in the colony of Australia and have Meriam/Yidindji/Dutch actor Maza deliver text about it being time to listen, time for new stories to be told, is extraordinarily powerful.

The conceit of the three Emilias at three different stages of life: youth (Emilia 1 played by Manali Datar); adulthood (Emilia 2 played by Cessalee Stovall) and older woman ties the play together and is the main non-naturalistic element of the script. All three Emilias are nearly always on stage. The presence of the older Emilias initially watching over the younger one and then the transition moments as each ‘takes up’ the narrative work beautifully. There is a sense here of the ways in which we are all several people throughout our lives. But also – another one of those simple yet powerful theatrical gestures – that this story is being told from and for the many, not the standard singular, individual narrative we are accustomed to in most plays. Emilia has many bodies, many selves. She is on stage, she is watching and being watched. She is in the audience, watching and being watched. She, they, we, are given space to utter and narrate, to tell her, our stories anew.

Other than the Emilias, who only play themselves, the rest of the thirteen-strong ensemble play multiple roles. This fact in itself – thirteen women and non-binary performers filling up the stage – is thrilling and heartening to witness. The actors bring verve, wit and skill to their roles and to telling this story. The joy and bond between them is palpable. The deft hands of director Kalive and movement director Xanthe Beesley are apparent, from the specifically choregraphed dance sequences through to a cleverly executed birth scene, Emilia’s movement throughout her life and throughout the city of London and a stunning, deeply moving tableaux of grief towards the end of the play. Costumes (by Zoë Rouse) are bright and speak both to the Elizabethan era and to today, with many of the actors wearing runners. Another small, smart gesture that serves to intervene in history, to invite the audience to re-think and reimagine. What if women were, and had always been, free to run wherever they pleased, in comfortable footwear! Emily Collett’s set design centres around moveable ladder structure which serves to evoke both social hierarchy and adaptability. In a powerful moment at the end of Act 1, a curtain drops and is then gathered and folded at the start of Act 2, as if to indicate a putting away of a certain version of history, a folding of the past. Lighting (Katie Sfetkidis and associate Harry Hogan) plays a key role to keep the story and world dynamic, and composition and sound (Emah Fox and Sharyn Brand) provides shifts in atmosphere from the celebratory dance numbers through to quiet moments of pathos and grief.

The script traverses a huge amount of material, aiming to cover Emilia’s life from childhood to her seventies. I am aware that some of the play is based in fact, some takes creative license and there are moments of clear, contemporary commentary such as a moment in Emilia’s early life at court where she is grilled by the other young women asking: ‘Where are you from? No, where are you REALLY from?’ in echoes of the kind of exhausting questioning people of colour put up with in white dominant cultures such as Australia.

The central fact that Emilia Bassano is most ‘famous’ for is her relationship with William Shakespeare. The suggestion that she was not only his muse, but also perhaps wrote large sections of poetry, or suggested story lines that he used in his sonnets and plays. This element of the play reminds me of the television series Upstart Crow, a comedy about Shakespeare by Ben Elton starring David Mitchell as an arrogant, buffoon-like (but ultimately lovable) character. In that series, the suggestion is that Will’s wife Anne Hathaway came up with a lot of ideas for his plays.

Probing and deconstructing the massive myth of male genius that surrounds Shakespeare (and a multitude of other artists) is rich fodder. It is handled in an interesting, if not entirely satisfying way in Emilia. But the ‘unsatisfying’ quality is something of note to consider. While this aspect of Emilia’s narrative is key to the play, it is not absolutely central. We meet Will Shakespeare, but he actually doesn’t get a whole lot of stage time. He is played, in this production, by Heidi Arena and she plays him with a light touch. He is present. He is important. But he is played as just one character (albeit a very significant one) in Emilia’s life, not as a main character around which her story is told. I could imagine a version of this story, this relationship, that could be much more deeply investigated, that could be a whole play or indeed novel, or television series. But the choice here, by playwright Lloyd Malcolm and by Kalive and Arena in how Will is ‘managed’ in the story and on stage, is to restrict the voice and presence of this overwhelming historical figure. To let him be smaller. To tell something of this aspect of history anew.

The question of scale is present through the play. At times, I was keen for deeper dives into relationships and moments. There are so many fascinating tensions and connections to explore. From Emilia’s court relationship with Lord Henry Carey (played with superb ‘masterful benevolence by Genevieve Picot), to her strained yet strangely convivial marriage of convenience to the presumably gay Lord Alphonso Lanier (a beautifully poignant scene about this where Emilia observes they are both ‘out of time’ and Lanier, played with a lovely low-key foppishness by Catherine Glavicic brushes off the suggestion, not ready to acknowledge his ‘reality’, is a highlight of the play), and her strong bond with Lady Margaret Clifford (played with authoritative gravitas by Emma J Hawkins). There is simply not scope in a play of this length to ‘cover’ a whole life and also provide detailed and gritty nuance for each character and relationship. The choice by Lloyd Malcolm is to go for breadth rather than depth. The politics of the play speak to multiplicity and ensemble. Emilia has an impact on and is impacted by the groups of women she encounters; the ladies of court and then the working-class women she befriends, teaches and encourages to read, learn and write.

Facts mix with fiction as a portrait of one person, of many people, of a time in history, is evoked over the few hours of the play. I am struck by the sense of a woman who lived a full life. The Emilia / Emilias we meet integrate family heritage (coming from a legacy of court musicians), the family’s need for income, role as court mistress, as mother, as wife, as writer, muse, teacher, published poet, agitator and activist. Polemical speeches are mixed with naturalistic dialogue, moments of actual Shakespearian (Bassanian?) poetry, and philosophical musings. We see communities of vibrant, funny, raucous, smart, women. They are not abject or small. There are moments of gendered violence, oppression and the climax of the play is tragic as a key character is punished for her voice, her poetry, for speaking out. This moment pulses throughout the audience, leaving us quietly recognising the real consequences that are still suffered by so many women. I am reminded of the recent death in Iran of Mahsa Amini, punished for violating the country’s dress code. The final, raging monologue delivered by Maza, saying, she, they, Emilia hold the muscle memory of all women before and will send it forth to all women to come, provokes a standing ovation.

It is fascinating to experience this work in this venue. The production has a very ‘indie’ feel. It is a collaboration between Arts Centre Melbourne, Geelong Arts Centre and renowned local independent company Essential Theatre. Restrictions such as budget, that would not normally be visible at The Playhouse but are part and parcel of independent theatre, create a rippling tension and speak to the themes of the play. Who gets to tell stories, even today, in funded, approved, sanctioned spaces? Whose voices are not usually heard and what does it feel like to present a ‘poor theatre’ (politically, aesthetically) production in a ‘rich theatre’ place?

The audience, too, seems to be a real mix. I recognise many peers, theatre makers and independent practitioners. As well as those who ‘look like’ more regular Arts Centre attendees, or tourists (overhearing some people speak). Two women take a selfie before the show begins, clearly excited to be at theatre and they are two who jump up immediately, standing and applauding at the end of the show. My sense is that for some in the audience, the ideas of the play are new, even radical. This reminds me that while feminist and other movements of resistance including decolonisation have firm traction and shared understandings in some parts of the arts sector, for others there remains an urgent need to keep airing and sharing, deconstructing and making anew.

My evening, our evening with Emilias contributes to this sharing in a vital way. Adding one more act of re-thinking, re-imagining, re-listening.

Emilie Collyer

WRITER / DIRECTOR PROGRAM NOTES - LAURINDA - MTC SEASON August 2022

Alice Pung’s Laurinda had been sitting on the shelf for a while at Melbourne Theatre Company. While several people had wanted to realise it, for some reason it hadn’t happened. Then, the first Melbourne lockdown hit in 2020 and being new to the Company with the energy for something to sink her teeth into, Petra grabbed it with both hands. Diana immediately popped into her mind as a collaborator on this work – there was a sensibility to Diana’s humour and perspective that Petra thought married well with the essence of Alice’s novel. Diana’s work had also featured in Alice’s anthology Growing Up Asian in Australia – and both were huge fans of Alice’s writing.

We had worked together years previously in an improvisational company and knew our values centred around collaboration, advancing and extending offers, deep listening, the use of metaphor and the drive to find the ‘heart’ of a moment – and the humour – always humour.

So, during that first lockdown, we began developing this work over Zoom (and sometimes phone when internet connection was dodgy) and had a series of workshops (live and virtual) with actors. These workshops were invaluable. Developing the work with the support of so many Asian–Australian actors and creatives has made the work what it is. We could not have articulated the nuance of experience, nor been so bold, without their challenges and generosity. We thank them from the very bottom of our hearts. We could not be more grateful to Alice Pung. Not only for her trust in us to translate her coming-of-age story but also for her generosity in allowing us to adapt the work so it speaks to a whole new audience. While so many reviews of the book categorise Laurinda as ‘charming’, ‘relatable’, ‘important’ and ‘insightful’, what sits underneath their positive statements is a diminishing of the power of what we have uncovered through Alice’s work. She has written an honest, uncomfortable and exposing investigation of the negotiation necessary to walk between cultures. She effortlessly and with humour communicates the internal trauma that is carried intergenerationally and the strength and self-love that is required to simply exist. The magnificence of what Alice has achieved is that she makes this complex and difficult existence relatable and charming, important and insightful, while exposing structural, casual and internalised racism. Perhaps her book was ahead of its time. Although set in a high school, what was clear to us from the beginning was that this was a coming-of-age story that isn’t only experienced at 15 years old. It is a coming-of-age for every age because reconciling the constant and unrelenting negotiation that the dominant (white) culture demands is unceasing.

So, we decided to set Laurinda deliberately in 1997 and 2021 – two periods of intense and visible Asian hate in Australia. In 1997, Pauline Hanson formed the One Nation Party and her maiden speech railed against Indigenous rights, so-called ‘political correctness’ and ‘reverse-racism’ and called for the halting of migration to Australia because she feared that Australia was being ‘swamped by Asians’. She contributed to shaping the cultural conversation about racism, normalising xenophobia. In 2020, with the arrival of the coronavirus (COVID-19), like many other parts of the world, anti-Asian hate crime soared following news that the virus originated in Wuhan, China. While in the intervening years, conversation about Asian-focused racism was not front and centre, what the coronavirus event demonstrated was how close to the surface the racist sentiment was in Australia. It revealed how much work there is still to do. So, while we were experiencing the real-life events of 2020, it was impossible to interrogate a book set prior to the advent of Google and not engage with the complex conversations about how far we’ve come as a society, how far we have still to go and where the pressure points are on the individual who experiences prejudice, bigotry and bias. It is for this reason that we made the character of Lucy begin the play as a woman in her late 30s, living today, reliving her 15-year-old self through the lens of her adulthood. We took inspiration from the coming-of-age classic Freaky Friday. Lucy is transformed into her own body, 20 years younger. This form allows us to stay true to the comedy and light touch of Alice Pung’s novel, but layers in a dramatic tension that gives the play momentum. We also deliberately centralised this family home of Vietnamese refugees. We both have lived experience of growing-up as second generation Australians and felt it was important to articulate the specific pressures on a young Vietnamese–Australian woman. It was very important for Diana to see a production on the mainstage articulate the nuance of a refugee family fleeing war for a better life. We would like to thank Chi Nguyen for her Vietnamese translation, which we feel really grounds this family arc of the story and authentically communicates a Vietnamese sensibility. Returning to the 1990s allowed us to revel in 90s music. We have had the best time reliving our teenage years and injecting the play with references you will only get if you lived it. Relooking at the 1990s through a post-2020 lens offers the opportunity to play, reframe, cringe and laugh at what we were, to better understand where we find ourselves today.

What we have endeavoured to do in adapting Laurinda is reveal current ideas about representation, appropriation and deep dive into who gets to tell what stories. We know that the stories we tell have a cultural ‘ripple effect’. Alice Pung’s novel has already made significant impact. We hope that by adapting it for the stage, we continue the conversation she started with a new audience. We hope to improve connection, empathy and understanding and, if we’re lucky, generate discussion and debate about where we are headed as a culture. A big thank you to MTC’s NEXT STAGE Writers' Program. We couldn’t have done it without the support. We need ongoing investment in Australian stories and storytellers so that the cultural identity on our stages is as rich and complex as the Australia we live in.

Big love. And thank you. Diana and Petra

KEYNOTE - UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE PROFESSIONAL STAFF CONFERENCE

KEYNOTE – MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PROFESSIONAL STAFF CONFERENCE

The Professional Staff Conference highlights best practices, shares ideas and provides personal development and networking opportunities to our vibrant professional staff community.

This is an abridged version.

I come to you today from the lands of the Wurundjeri country people, at acknowledge that MTC sits on the lands of the Yalukit Willam people of the Boon Wurrung and has been a place for performance and sharing of ideas for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It is such a privilege to be continuing the tradition of storytelling and performance on these lands. If the last 20 months have taught us anything is that when there is nothing else - stories, music and art keep us going and help us navigate the dark. So, I pay my respects to the lands on which we perform on - and the first story tellers - our first nations elders, past present and emerging and any indigenous people here today.

Today, I have been asked to offer a perspective on how the arts have reacted, pivoted, changed because of COVID.

It’s a difficult question because I acknowledge that the experience of those working for the larger companies (like myself) is different from those working in the small to medium or independent sector. It’s also difficult because trying to remember anything from the last 20 months feels impossible. I am sure you have all found, the lack of usual structure or things to really look forward to – events and markers that would usually frame our lives – without them it becomes hard to mark time and remember what came before or after.

Thinking back to the before times – as we call them in my household – feels like a million years ago – a time when things were less complicated – a time when (now, looking back) we took so much for granted.  I never took my role as an artist, or storyteller for granted – that has always been something I have felt incredibly fortunate to do.

I did take for granted the simple act of a large group of people sitting together in the dark for two hours to share the experience of a story - live. 

I took for granted how much being in that collective experience was shaping my experience of the world – how it improved my ability to empathise with others, how it made me feel less alone – more connected, even though sometimes I would go alone – I was connected to the other strangers in the audience through the shared experience of the play we were seeing together. And I am not alone in this experience – this was the overwhelming experience of the audiences who briefly came back between lockdowns. When lockdowns lifted briefly earlier this year, I managed to direct and present two shows. I know! How lucky am I?

I directed Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes by Hannah Moscovitch about a sexual relationship between a university lecturer and a student – which happened to coincide with Brittany Higgins and all the revelations of her assault on the front pages of the paper, every day.

The other show was The Lifespan of a Fact, - an adaptation of the book written by author Jim Fingal and fact checker John D’Agata - an ideological battle over the nature of truth and the value of storytelling – and in the post-trump, ‘algorithmed’ online spaces we are inhabiting – the idea of whether facts are negotiable in search of a greater truth was more prescient than I could have imagined at the time of programming 12 months earlier.

It is also not lost on me how LUCKY I was to direct two shows in between our two lockdowns and two plays  - two plays which incredibly spoke to the times in which we live with power.

But -  it was the simple act and novelty of sitting in a group of people - in the collective presence of heightened emotions – that was the true gift. Audiences were hungry for a story that was meaningful, that moved them, that made them laugh, reflect – and they wanted to do it together. I’ve heard recent reports in the US as Broadway has reopened after 12 months off stage - unknown actors stepping onto stage are being met with standing ovations. The shared intimacy of a live performance is impactful, and audiences are, by all accounts are loving its return. And after being part of a company which cancelled 4 shows in the last few months, one of them 2 hours before opening night – it gives me hope that people will return with gusto when we can return to the stage.

But there’s that word – Hope. Hope is something that has been a recurring theme for me at MTC over the last 18 or so months – not only hope and optimism for the future and our capacity to get through this incredibly difficult time, but I also think it is our job as artists to provide hope in the work that we create. When I say that, I do not mean a schmaltzy it’ll all be ok in the end stories – I mean, a hand in the dark or watching something virtuosic, or a line that summaries exactly your unarticulated feeling, or being taken out of the complexity of our lives for a moment, to sit in an imagined future or alternate reality, or something that helps you make sense of, grieve, process, digest something from the last 20 months …and even though the arts have been so dark for so many – it is those moments of connection that artists have created even in lockdown , inspiring examples of creativity and ingenuity - that will endure beyond the memory of all this “covidness”.

Hope is something that has been severely lacking over this time for artists. Not only have they experienced the general pandemic angsts – which I am sure you all know well -  feeling trapped, lack of control, despondent, lonely, lethargic, ‘languishing’ – artists in the performing arts have also been feeling this pervasive sense of worthlessness – for while people have turned to books and music and Netflix over this time – there is a disconnect between that content and what artists do and how that work gets created – the live-performing arts are a key part of that ecosystem and for so much of the pandemic they have been left out of the conversation.

I know from speaking to actors, creatives and people who work in production not only have they lost multiple contracts – watching them fall like slow dominos – they have fallen in the cracks of the funding/support models and with a lack of their plight being part of the conversation at a leadership level -  with it has come a sense of purposelessness and an existential dilemma –And in conversations I have with had -  the same phrases appear - 

“is what I do of value? Because no one seems to care.”

“Maybe what I do isn’t important” 

“I just can’t do this anymore.”

And I know that this isn’t just the experience of the arts sector – I am keenly aware that Universities too have been largely ignored with dramatic impacts. In the arts one of the biggest problems in the future will be a shortage of workforce. This year in particular has seen a significant exodus, particularly off-stage - in production and creative roles .

Returning to hope though – What keeps me hopeful is the experience I had of theatre’s reopening earlier this year and the impact those shows had on the audiences who went and the team involved in realising the work -  and -  something I read from Historian Anslem Heinrich who wrote about how the performing arts not only survived the 1918 pandemic and first world war, but also came out stronger -  with the arrival of the avant-garde. From life threatening crisis - the arts sector was reinvigorated with new people and new ways of creative expression. And we are in the midst of this dynamic shift in the arts right now.

And that takes me to some of the exciting work that has been happening in the arts sector over the last 18 months. What MTC and Malthouse, the Melbourne Fringe, the Arts Centre, the ballet to name a few have all been doing is interrogating what we do, how we do it and like everyone figuring out what we can do online or socially distanced – and the pressure of the pandemic has created an environment where companies – like every business - have needed to take action on their digital strategies. MTC prior to 2020 had been working towards lots of very exciting digital outcomes but Covid meant that the money, support and focus were redirected towards digital. Our outlying Education department was up front and centre, because it was the department innovating beyond our core product. And just like in the past when pandemics or political censorship or war placed pressures on the live experience – we have been attempting and testing how to innovate the form of live-experience.

MTC were in a bit of a spin when COVID hit last year – and the pressure to move online NOW was intense. But we started small – we had no shows that we could record and there was the general consensus that archival recordings were a less than satisfactory way of viewing a performance.

We had a number of digital outcomes that we redirected our energies towards.

Firstly and possibly most simply, our Marketing Department did an extraordinary ramp up. We upped the game on our Enews, making it a place where there was interesting content about our history, interviews with actors and creatives, we shone a light on the people behind the scenes who make up the company – the milliners, and producers and production staff that don’t get seen often.

 We decided to work with writers, actors and directors creating audio experiences – One of the projects I worked on was a series of Great Australian Speeches. I felt at the time there was something to be learned from the likes of John Curtin and Faith Bandler. They were speaking of hardship and sacrifice with inspiring oratory that was significantly lacking from our own leaders.

Our education department was busy creating a host of online resources for schools including virtual theatre tours and my personal favourite interactive set-design tours Berlin by Joanna Murray Smith – with explanations of why the designer had chosen various elements, the stage craft and practicalities that informed the design choices. And a bump-in time lapse video.

Education were also busy running all their programs for young people online – which had the side benefit of increased accessibility and attendance.  They Ed Team also spent much time working on their online resources and I am very proud to say that the quality of this content is so good it has become a resource for tertiary acting courses.

We also created documentaries about process – for example realising a show from a directors perspective.

There was backstage banter – informal interviews with actors about what they do and how they do it -  a great way to employ artists and also provide fun content from MTC’s most loved performers.

And behind the scenes we dived into the development of our commissioned works, over zoom. A project, very close to my heart was the development of Pandora by Kylie Trounson, with Don Hany and Naomi Rukavina. We were developing this work on zoom, and usually at the end of a development you would have a live-showing, I decided that this piece could work as a zoom showing - a window into the development and a work in process at MTC. 

I have been working on the development of a new play– Laurinda - an adaptation of the novel by Alice Pung. I have been co-adapting this with Diana Nguyen for presentation in our season next year since July last year. Diana and I have been working via Zoom and Google docs to collaborate on this work.

Flash forward to 2021 and the digital strategy was for MTC partner with the broadcast team at Arts Centre Melbourne to record 4 of our plays this year, with a focus on new Australian work. Unfortunately, because of the lockdowns in the second half of this year it meant that only Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes and Joanna Murray Smith’s play Berlin were recorded for streaming.  These were hugely successful shows in their own right, garnering great houses - but the online uptake has been something of a surprise for MTC.  In limited seasons online these shows sold over 3000 tickets and counting and have been included in tertiary curriculum. Our market research tells us that most viewing this material are doing so in at least groups of two. So that is an audience of over 6000 who saw the works – which with the competition for online content over this time, was I thought kind of extraordinary. This means that MTC will pursue filming and broadcasting at least some of their season each year for the foreseeable future.

For me, working with another director on a filmed outcome of live show was a really different way of working and an incredible collaboration. Lillian Yau from Arts Centre was tasked to realise this work in a 2D form. Her background was in editing sport – so working in a live space was completely natural for her – but watching her navigate the shots live, was pretty impressive. Lillian was so generous in the way that she worked with me and we created the online version together. We recorded 2 shows, live-cut in front of an audience – one of which we used for the broadcast version. There was lots of preparation which meant the actual filming was as seamless as possible. Then some minor edits and some colour grading before we took it to our audiences.

Prior to 2020, MTC was planning to exploring the potential of a live-streamed digital experience of a full length work. In 2021 we were so keen to pilot the live-streaming of a performance – an attempt to capture the liveness of theatre in the digital realm. Unfortunately, lockdowns this year stymied those efforts. It is something we are going to pursue next year. This is of particular interest to our education team, who find that opportunities like this are of great benefit to young people in regional settings or with access needs. It literally makes theatre affordable and accessible.

In fact, thanks to 2020 and 2021, MTC sees an opportunity to become a leader in the digital theatre field in Australia. The covid-induced dedicated focus on the digital experience means we have begun a solid library of resources, and in the coming years a growing catalogue of shows.

Indeed, dreaming into the future – and not too distant future I might add – those online resources may include a 360-degree interactive rehearsal room – literally placing the audience in the centre with the actors and director – so the participant can get a sense of what it is to be like on stage or placing them in the action of the performance.

OR using gaming technology to enable a theatre artist to be in the same virtual space as the participant – the number of people who can be in that virtual space is only limited by the number of gaming headsets. It’s about creating an interaction – that shared experience I was talking about before  – telling a story in the virtual world in a new way – the kinds of new work that could be created in this way feels limitless and very exciting. A new form is emerging. It’s the modern equivalent of the 1918 avant-garde movement. We’re not there yet, but covid has forced us to reimagine what a ‘theatre’ or live experience could be.

That not only gives me great hope for the future but also charges me with energy.

And the other thing that fills my cup and makes me so grateful and hopeful for the future of live-performance is that although we have felt largely ignored from the political conversation - our community has rallied.

When MTC’s development team reached out to our ticket buyers and donors with an urgent call last year they saw the biggest and most generous response they have ever seen and an influx of new donors – people who had never made a donation to MTC before – wanting to give and support theatre in Melbourne. We weren’t sure if those new donors were going to return and give again this year - but they have, again, generously donated. Which has had a direct impact on MTC being able to keep its doors open and people employed.

To me this speaks to a community rallying around us and shouting that they value what we do, they see the importance of connection and empathy – these donations came from a real desire to want to let us know that they did care and what we do is important.

So I am left with a great sense of hope for the future – even though much of this year I have not felt that way and Melbourne Theatre Company is losing millions and the future is uncertain, I am buffeted by the people in our community who have helped stave off insolvency (and the government support which has recently been announced). I am, Inspired and excited by the potential of digital and the evolution of what we will be able to do into the future. And comforted by the fact that when we do return to the theatre people will be hungry for the stories that we tell and excited to share them together because for me – nothing beats that.

A call for generosity amid a time of crisis

A CALL FOR GENEROSITY AMID A TIME OF CRISIS

If you work in the arts, maybe you have felt like me – disconnected from my peers and audience, questioning my contribution to society and sensitive to the waves of grief, depression and anxiety flowing throughout the world.

At the beginning of this year I was appointed Associate Director at MTC. I took the role part-time to honour my freelance commitments. When the pandemic hit, I was among the thousands of artists who saw my contract work disappear overnight. So, I have had a strange kind of dual existence – the privilege of being ‘inside’ a major theatre company observing it in this time of crisis and experiencing the heightened uncertainty of being a freelance artist.

Part of my job as a theatre director is to create a space where all voices contribute and are of value to the conversation. It is a critical, thoughtful, playful and dynamic role. It balances the needs of many while focusing attention on a shared goal – the show must open on time (and on budget) for a hungry, deserving audience. This year I am still engaged in this conversation, but it is not in the rehearsal room, it is via Zoom and it is not about the play at hand, it is about the hand we have been dealt.

At MTC, it has been heartening to witness a company so dedicated to its creatives and workforce – honouring contracts and creating opportunities so that actors have some income. So many arts companies have been doing the same. The common thread is digital; hastily finding ways to stay connected to audiences, create work for artists and assert value in an increasingly complex world. It is an exceptionally steep and very public learning curve, with scant resources, all while planning for an uncertain future.

Across the industry I have witnessed the ire and distress from artists who feel ignored, undervalued and scared. Their work is cancelled. They are left off JobKeeper. Their futures: uncertain. Directionless, they are constantly expected to step up – audition without payment and compete for grants with impossibly stacked odds. While companies try their best, budgets have been slashed, rehearsal time is reduced, and available funds do not provide for the amount of preparation needed to get the piece audience-ready. Creatives look to those in ‘secure’ jobs within arts organisations and are further disheartened – after all, artists are the reason these companies exist. 

There are challenges creating work at this time for everyone. Critical response to digital exploration has failed to take this into account. These critiques have shamed the writers, directors and actors without empathy for the fact that this is a brave new world for many of us. Instead of meeting the work where it is at or acknowledging the context of its creation, these critics opt to belittle and discredit the artists involved. We need our critics to lead conversations which engage in robust and critical dialogue. It is essential to the making of better art. Publicly panning artists as they step into uncharted territory, without usual supports, is in no way helpful to the immediate situation nor the conversation about how we move through this together.

The danger of ignoring the specific pressures that artists and companies face right now is that vital and important voices are going to be lost – and who could blame them? Existing in a world that does not adequately remunerate your work, or what you contribute to society, one that constantly questions your relevance, and worse – dismisses you as not even a part of the conversation – takes too great a toll. Why not go somewhere where working incredibly hard, creatively solving problems, bringing analytical and emotional intelligence to the table every day and making it look easy, is valued? 

Arts criticism exists in a much broader conversation. The last six months has exposed rhetoric and a value system around the arts that is emphasised by the phrase ‘not essential’. While creatives understand they are not front-line workers, these sentiments have a dramatic impact on artists personally, and profoundly influence a collective opinion around the value of the arts and the skills of people who work in the arts. The advocacy challenge for all of us is to find a way to communicate our value to people who do not yet know it or understand it. The shared goal – for critics, creatives, policymakers and audiences alike – should be to protect a vibrant, dynamic industry that is invaluable to our culture, wellbeing, economy, even international standing.  So, I call for generosity. Speak to the value of what you see. For if we continue to shame people for bravery, for their attempt to ‘give it a go’, no one will do anything and the performing arts community will simply crumble.

Australian Women Entertainers (AWE) Speech given at a gathering on 18 Feb 2020

Australian Women Entertainers (AWE) Speech given at a gathering on 18 Feb 2020

“I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are meeting. I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Aboriginal Elders of other communities who may be here today. Thank you for having me here today.

Hello everyone my name is Petra Kalive, I am Associate Director at Melbourne Theatre Company. I have been asked to speak today about my career. It feels weird to be at the age now where I can do that. But it has been a long and winding road to arrive where I currently find myself – I am very proud to be contributing in such a meaningful way, telling stories to such a large audience – being part of the conversation about the stories we tell and how we choose to tell them. I guess to sum up how I have forged a path in an industry that is brutal and competitive is through storytelling and polite persistence.

I didn’t begin my professional career as a theatre director – in fact, if you had asked my 17-year-old self studying a Science Degree, I would have told you that although passionate about the arts I’ll probably become a dietician. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Although the performing arts and acting -  had always been a passion – no one thought I should head into the arts – not my family, nor my careers counselor who said it should be a hobby or even my best friend who was like “you’re good, but you’re just like too normal to work in the arts – no offence”.

I completed my science degree and auditioned for the drama schools – at that stage – it was acting that I wanted to do. I didn’t get in.

I went and studied with the youth theatre company in South Yarra, took a gap year, auditioned again. Didn’t get in. But I got some good feedback. Which kept me going.

Did some amateur and community theatre. Travelled to China and Europe. Worked as an audio-transcriptionist at a hospital. Auditioned again. Was shortlisted for NIDA and VCA and was accepted into the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. I had a great time at drama school. I was an excellent student and I came out thinking I could tackle anything – I knew now, that my hunch about myself was true I was actually good at this.

It was a rude shock to find myself in an industry that didn’t actually care how good I was. They couldn’t figure out how to cast me. At that time - I wasn’t white enough for the white roles nor “other” enough for the ‘other’ roles.  I always got down to the last two – and they almost always went with the other actor.  When I did land a couple of good television gigs and stage roles, I quickly got bored. Playing the mute girlfriend – or the weeping widow, the fish & chip shop girl or the prostitute. Where were the good roles for women? Where were the good roles for women who looked different? (AND SERIOUSLY, I wasn’t that different). This was not what I had spent 3 intense years at acting school to do. AND why didn’t the casting around me reflect the people I was catching the train with? It was infuriating.

It was at that stage that I decided to delve into new work. Again no one thought this a good idea – I had decided to adapt a novel into a play – and a friend said – “like they’ll ever give YOU the rights.” Well, they did. And the show was a hit and it toured to Adelaide. From that Maryanne Lynch the then Dramaturg at Malthouse gave me a gig as her assistant and Red Stitch asked me to work alongside Gary Abrahams as their dramaturg in residence and St Martins asked me to work with their Performers Ensemble. None of it was acting. Which is what I was trained to do. Then, I was accepted into an improvisational theatre company as a performer (finally some acting!).

It was the combination of the work with an improvisational company, the teaching and the new text-based theatre that I was involved in that really began to shape the director I’ve become. Although at the time I didn’t think I was a director. I was an actor and a dramaturg and a sometimes writer. And the writing and the dramaturgy was all done so I could act. This is what I was born to do. Right?

At first, it was just simpler for me to direct the shows I was ‘dramaturging’ – because the VCA Directors course wasn’t a thing then and it was really difficult to find emerging directors who were interested in new work. You have to remember this was a time of white sets, with lots of glass and the ‘in thing’ was adaptation of classics. During this time I became really clear about my values – and these informed the work that I chose to do and who I chose to work with. I wasn’t being paid enough to work if I didn’t find of value.

 I wanted to be involved in new work, from new voices, with casts that were representative of the community I lived in – I wanted to work with people who didn’t bully – who got what it was to work collaboratively – and at the time, this was really really really unfashionable. Auteur directors were in. Directors of new work were not. But I didn’t care. Well, I did. But what else was I gonna do? The thought of adapting a Checkhov made me want to fork my eyes out.

The improvisational theatre company I worked for would take the audience’s stories and use them as the script for the improvisation. I learnt so much in that company about storytelling, connecting with the audience, how to think fast on your feet, what a good story is and the potential impact it has. I learnt how story and the stories that we choose to tell shape our community. It’s not instant or immediately ground-breaking – they ripple, and permeate culture ---  and much more importantly the stories that we choose to tell ourselves in our own heads or our colleagues create culture. We did a long term project for a major Australian organisation and they needed to undergo a cultural revolution to remain viable – they were a service industry whose service record was plummeting – the culture changed by this improvisational company reflecting back the stories that the people in the company were telling about themselves.

They saw that they were habitually retelling a historical narrative that may be true but wasn’t helpful to the current conversation. By focusing on what was working, being grateful for what they did have, focusing on small goals that were achievable the stories that they began to tell about themselves changed and so too did their culture.

We can get trapped into thinking that we have no power over our current situation – but I believe story is the most powerful tool we have. It is why through the ups and downs I have stayed the course. I know that the stories that we tell have the potential to influence those around us and it ripples out. It isn’t necessarily instant and at the time it doesn’t feel ground-breaking – but we can improve our world and change the status quo and change the conversation by paying attention to these stories – those we are told and those we tell ourselves.

It was quiet persistence and dedication to stories that needed to be told – stories from a diversity of perspectives that has opened doors for someone like me. From the inside, I can tell you it has felt like a slow and meandering trudge through thick mud and I have often fallen, not wanted to go on, and wondered if the dietitian route wouldn’t have had an easier run.

It has been those that have advocated for me along the way that has been truly helpful.

I wouldn’t have got the gig at St Martins – had Anthony Crowley not seen a director in me. Nor would I have not got the gig at Red Stitch had not Sam Strong tapped me on the shoulder and said you should go for this. I wouldn’t have been at Malthouse without Maryanne thinking I had something to offer new work and something to learn from being inside a major arts organisation. I wouldn’t have been confident enough to speak my mind had not Melanie Beddie, Jane Woollard, Kim Durban, Leticia Caceres and so many women in the Australian Women Directors Alliance told me my voice was valuable. Had that not happened I wouldn’t have been brazen enough to make meetings with Artistic Directors and Associate Directors and writers and actors to tell them what I valued and what kind of shows I wanted to direct. I would never have had the chutzpah to apply for the Artistic Director position at Union House Theatre at Melbourne University. Which was the most incredible and challenging 5 years. I would not be where I am today without their advocacy. It’s only retrospectively that I can acknowledge their contribution to my career. And there are many I haven’t named. Because at the time, I was all head down and bum up trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing. But I’m taking a moment now to publicly acknowledge their support and guidance. I was too young and egotistical to thank them then. And having just spent 5 years in an environment where I was that person for many young people – I get why they did it. They were responding to my persistence, my talent, my willingness to take advice, to learn, to step into things and to weather the hard times. They saw something in me that I couldn’t see – didn’t see – so blinded was I by the goal I thought I wanted. Someone asked me today if I was to give my younger self some advice what would it be? And I thought that might be a good place to end today.

·      Don’t be so hard on yourself

·      It won’t be perfect.

·      You think you’re working hard now. You have no fucking idea. Suck it up.

·      Brag. Not in an arrogant way – but acknowledge your successes – because truth be told there won’t be many and you need these to hold onto in the dark times – and truth be told there will be lots of those. Or at least it will feel that way. People on the outside won’t think those times are that dark and looking back you won’t think they’re that dark either. Because you have no idea what dark is. Suck it up.

·      Find your tribe. This will take you a while. But keep going. Your people are out there. There are lots of people who are not your people. That’s ok. You will find your tribe. Eventually. After everyone else has found theirs. But it will be worth the wait.

·      Take the hand the dark. Those people see your potential when you can’t. Listen to them. Sometimes they only whisper.

·      On whispering, listen to that. That thought that comes from your gut in the middle of a rehearsal or that wafting idea that floats across your mind as you read a script or that slap in the face when you’re auditioning an actor. Trust the whisper. She’s really smart.

·      Let what’s important to you lead you – this might mean that you step away for a time and do something else – or have kids, or try another career. That’s ok. If you’re driven by your values and not by your ego – you will be happier. Your ego will never be satisfied – it will always want more, think it deserves more. And your happiness is worth more than pushing yourself into a depression because you want to be noticed. You are enough. You don’t have to prove anything.

·      And finally petra – suck it up. No one died on an operating table. You make theatre. It’s called a play for a reason. Have fun.

Why I wrote Oil Babies

In the lead up to the season of Oil Babies at Northcote Town Hall as part of the Darebin SpeakEasy Program below are my writers notes for the production.

The idea of children – having them, not having them had been rolling around my head for years. I never had that deep urge – that sense that my life would be incomplete without them. Then, I got pregnant quite unexpectedly and it threw my world into a spin. Unfortunately that pregnancy was unsuccessful – but what it did, was get me thinking in a whole different way about the world in which we live, our legacy, how the choices we make every day impact our internal and external worlds.

At that time everywhere I looked on social media, podcasts, radio and newspapers, the same message was being reported  – the world was ending (or the world as we knew it was ending). Science was being interrogated in a public arena, it was contributing to government policy, it was helping win and lose elections - all because humans were having a catastrophic impact on the planet. Everyone was talking about how perilous our situation was but nobody seemed to be doing anything. Babies were everywhere. We were in the midst of another baby boom. These two things seemed weirdly incongruous.

Changing our behaviour is difficult, especially when the impact of what we do is not immediate. Behaviour change is made even harder when the structures around us support the comfortable and easy lifestyle we have created for ourselves. We do not need to walk 10km for water every morning. We do not need to stoke a fire in the for warmth. When it gets hot we turn on our air conditioning, we go to a movie – we leave the discomfort, which is usually an agitator for change. So in the developed world, is change of the scale required even possible?

Then, I unexpectedly got pregnant again. Now, I was another one of the billions creating thousands of extra tonnes of waste and CO2. Logically, rationally it was a no-brainer – but that idea was not even entered in to. This human was wanted. This human wanted to be in the world and I felt helpless and small in the wake of being so informed and at the same time so beholden to my biology. So, I listened to a lot of Radiolab. In the dreaming space that happens when I listen to the stories around science, I was inspired to let these thoughts and feelings about babies, our extinction, birth, betrayal, women’s bodies and legacy take form.

So, it is no accident that women power this play, literally and figuratively – they are driven forward by external events, they continue to cycle because of internal events. And all the while these women are under pressure – this pressure is self-inflicted, societal and environmental - it is written on their bodies; bodies that generate the energy for the play and bear the promise of the next generation. Oil Babies is about legacy. It is an attempt at agency in the face of an impossible situation.

Why Mutual Respect Allows us to make better art

Why Mutual Respect allows us to make better art.

A fun, playful, safe space to fail gloriously yields the riskiest and most exciting work in the arts. It is a hard space to create. As artists we put ourselves on the line, making ourselves vulnerable, open to be judged and it can be scary. In addition to that the way arts funding is structured, and the lack of opportunities can create a space of competition, which only increases this feeling of vulnerability. And problematically, when negativity and fear encroach in the creative space the work is never as good, the conversation is poorer and the potential of the work is harder to realise.

Early in my career I had a terrible experience. I was engaged as a dramaturg with two incredible writers. They had been commissioned to write a play. The process was challenging from day one. The commissioning company were difficult. Ego and fear made conversation and constructive criticism impossible. I felt it was my job to protect the writers from the incessant negativity about their work and their ideas. It was an untenable position to be in. In advocating for the work of the writers I was eviscerated by this room of egos. I was one person speaking to the quality and potential of the work in a room that had decided they did not like it, were not interested in it and it held no value. The sad thing was, I think much of what this company had to say was actually good feedback – but they went about it in the worst possible way. I felt bullied and what I had to say carried very little weight. The lack of skill in being able to talk to the work, the attack on the artists and myself, got in the way of what could have been a really exciting constructive conversation. I have thick skin. I want robust conversation about work. I can count on one hand in a career of almost 20 years, the number of times I’ve left a working room, cried and had to re-compose myself. This was such a formative experience for me. It went on to inform the way I approached all my subsequent work.

I now go out of my way to make sure that all artists feel safe, supported and of value. In whatever capacity I am employed. I spent years working in an improvisational theatre company and the values of trusting your fellow creatives, thinking the best of them, saying “yes and”, and ‘making them look good’ are fundamental to my process. I do not always get it right. There have been some spectacular failures. However, I know now, that this space of trust, generosity and thinking the best of your peers, your fellow artists, creates the potential for yielding extraordinary results. Artists do their best work when they feel confident to play, when they feel they are not being judged, when they are spoken to with respect.

I think this way of working starts best from the inside out. If we can believe that we are of value, that we have something to offer and resist putting ourselves in competition with our peers, then we can create an industry where people do not exploit power imbalance. Where common courtesy and respect mean you can be direct and constructive. Where collaboration and consultation and consideration are pillars on which the work is made. Robust conversation about work can then happen in a meaningful way. We can give constructive criticism that is not received as a personal attack. People will feel it possible to stand up when someone oversteps, they will be listened to when they make a complaint about harassment.  I think it starts with all of us taking responsibility. If we have been bullies, if we have let fear, competition and ego get in the way of treating people with respect - then step into the space, say sorry. Acknowledge that what we do is hard and sometimes we say or do things out of fear rather than compassion.

I want to work in an industry where we expect the highest quality work from our artists. This can only happen when we respect and value what each other has to offer. Sometimes that means leaving space, getting out of the way and letting other voices speak. Sometimes it means stepping in and saying “I think you’re great – I don’t think this work is the greatest.” In a world of quick quips on social media, calculated trolling, and a lack of greater political and community support for the arts and what we do, let’s strengthen this community by treating each other with respect. The work will be better because of it.

Hungry Ghosts Intro

Jean Tong's Play - Hungry Ghosts

“How long is a piece of string if you tie one end to your home country and the other to your heart?”

Jean Tong is a fiercely intelligent playwright with something to say. We first met when she was studying Arts at Melbourne University. I had been brought on as director’s mentor on a short play she had written. What struck me about her writing was its rage and immediacy. Although at the time she wasn’t yet in control of her craft, the text had a pulsing intensity and a desire to communicate something angry. Fast-forward five years, Jean has honed her craft and all those qualities endure – that rage has not abated one bit.

Hungry Ghosts deftly weaves together the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 disaster, Malaysia’s billion-dollar 1MDB scandal and the story of a Queer-Chinese-Malaysian Australian trying to find her place in the world. By intersecting these three narrative threads, Tong insistently interrogates ideas of absence and identity, finding tension between desire and greed, family and nationhood. Sitting underneath is a pulsing rage for a country where corruption is endemic, an identity that cannot be fully expressed, a longing that will never be sated.

The longing is most explicitly represented by the MH370 disaster. Malaysia Airlines flight 370 was an international passenger flight that disappeared on March 8, 2014. The flight was scheduled to fly from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport. It was carrying 12 Malaysian crew and 227 passengers from all over the world. While flying over the South China Sea the aircraft disappeared from air traffic control systems and military radar. Despite the most expensive multinational search in aviation history, the aircraft was never recovered.  Two hundred and thirty nine souls lost, families unable to gain closure, Facebook and Twitter awash with ‘thoughts and prayers’. In January 2017, almost four years later, the search was suspended with no conclusive findings. These souls are lost, forever searching, most likely victims of foul play. The idea of the searching lost soul is integral to the diasporic experience that Tong interrogates. It no accident that the play is titled Hungry Ghosts.

In Chinese Buddhism, hungry ghosts are beings driven by intense emotional needs and only manifest from tragedy or ‘evil deeds’. Interestingly, if we go further back, in very early Chinese and Vietnamese mythology, hungry ghosts are those who have been false, deceitful, greedy people and their karma is an insatiable hunger. Tong’s Hungry Ghosts are seekers but they also exist in and embody corruption, another central tenet of the work.

“How many planes do you have to lose before people forget about the money you lost?”

The 1MDB Scandal (1 Malaysia Development Berhad), is a complicated, corrupt and bloody web of financial dealings involving Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, that spans the globe. In short, Razak had been accused of channeling close to US$700 million from 1MDB, a government-run strategic development company, to his personal bank accounts. 1MDB was created to boost Malaysia’s economy. Razak denied allegations that he funneled public funds to his personal account, claiming instead they were large donations from undisclosed sources. The highest profile aspect of the 1MDB scandal is the financing of the box-office hit The Wolf of Wall Street, which was funded by Red Granite Pictures, a production company owned by Riza Aziz, Razak’s stepson. It is alleged that millions of dollars was diverted from 1MDB to fund the film. No-one is left untouched by this corrupting element in the play. Even the audience becomes complicit, as consumers of the film and unwitting participants in a fraudulent system. The murder of Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa – a Mongolian National who worked for Razak – is at the epicentre of this corruption thread in Hungry Ghosts. Altantuyaa was employed as a translator for then Defence Minister, Abdul Rasak Baginda, and they became romantically involved. It is reported that Altantuyaa discovered one of the parties involved in negotiations to purchase submarines from France for the Malaysian government paid out commissions of €114 million, which were subsequently credited in the accounts of Baginda. A letter written by Altantuyaa (found after her death) shows that she had been blackmailing Baginda to remain silent about her knowledge of the deal. The Malaysian police found fragments of bone (later verified as belonging to Altantuyaa) in the Malaysian forest. She had been shot twice before C4 explosives blew up her remains. Just like the lost souls from flight MH370, Altantuyaa is lost (her DNA literally obliterated) and Malaysia itself lost in a quagmire of scandal and corruption.  

In an interview with Melbourne Theatre Company, Tong expressed how the three narratives clicked for her when she realised:

“The nature of grasping at straws during a tragedy, the scale of the financial operations and volume of assets, my physical distance from home and inability to fully contribute to the discussions that were unfolding about the country’s socio-politics – it fell into place so suddenly. I noticed that the common thread seemed to be a sense of loss, or an inability to speak due to either the suppression or lack of knowledge, or the wistful melancholy for something missing.”

Formally, Hungry Ghosts is a collection of scenes, events and monologues using multiple languages, modes and tones, which all refract and relate to its central idea of what it is to be unexplained, forgotten, to exist in the liminal – to be ‘ghosts’. The lack of traditional narrative allows the audience to make their own meaning from the disconnected scenes and moments. The specificity of material does not push its audience away – quite remarkably it grounds the work and makes it relatable on so many levels.

In the first scene of the play, ‘Animal Kingdom’, Tong uses the metaphor of pistol shrimp to unpack the idea of how one small lone voice, although lost in a vacuum, can have a large impact on the world around it. The pistol shrimp is a small crustacean that creates a bubble of nothingness, a void, when it snaps its claw shut. This tiny bubble is suspended in the middle of the ocean until it explodes and the ocean crashes back in to fill the void. The noise that colonies of these shrimp make is so loud that it interrupts military and scientific sonar. A lone voice then asks:

“I wonder what it’s like in that bubble. In that absolute quiet, in the silence of a million waves, billions of networks of oceanic activity. Imagine that peace. It stretches on forever, a silence where anything can happen. I could be anyone. Do anything. I could hide in that silence. I could become something in that silence. I could weaponise myself, kill a king. I could make myself the greatest, most invisible danger of the big blue sea wrapped in a tiny, tiny, shrimp body. And then the moment passes, and the great crushing weight of the ocean whooshes back in.”

Tong proposed, when introducing Hungry Ghosts to the Melbourne Theatre Company subscribers at the 2018 launch that:

“People are increasingly discovering highly specific ways of identifying themselves and figuring out how to talk about the way they experience the world. I’m really interested in the outliers of these categories – when and why do these labels fail, and what other expectations come with those new identities or categories? Language is intoxicatingly powerful, but incredibly slippery: who are we with it, and who are we without it? I hope that my writing opens up some spaces on all of those levels.”

Tong opens up a quantum space in this first scene to tackle the biggest mystery, our own existence – Who are we? What is our true nature? In the realm of quantum physics there is no matter. What we think of as matter are tiny particles that are waves of potential – different potential outcomes of reality with infinite possibilities. Space and time exist within (rather than without) the quantum space. Hungry Ghosts exists in this quantum space, underneath the waves, inside the bubble, in the absolute quiet, where anything can happen. It is at once a love/hate letter to Malaysia and a meditation on who we are, in the silence. 

Jean Tong is part of a new wave of writers and performance makers finding their way to our main stages. Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of directing a number of works written by artists from diverse backgrounds. These works all share an investigation around identity and belonging in relationship to the dominant culture. They have all used multiple languages as a tool to expose their audiences to ways of seeing, feeling and interpreting fluid identities. These perspectives on our stages allow some audience members a new lens through which to see the world, and affirm and celebrate the experience of previously ignored audiences. I can only hope that with the inclusion of stories like these (and many others around the country) on our main stages, we will increasingly see more diversity embedded in the dominant cultural narrative. Tong’s work is an important voice in this growing conversation.

From the rehearsal room... at MTC

The thing I love most about being a director is no one day is the same. The skills I use in week one are completely different to the ones I use in our final rehearsals. Yesterday was slightly more charged as we were doing a run of the play for the first time and we had some guests watching. It is the most vulnerable time as a director (except maybe for opening night) when the play is unfinished and actors are still finding their feet in the work, to put all the pieces together. Invariably (because there’s still a few weeks to go) actors performances are patchy - they are trying to remember where to stand, what to say, who they’re saying it to and what happens next - the play runs too long, the sound design is all over the place, the wheels of the play feel a little rickety, and someone broke an essential part of the set. Nobody feels particular good after a first run. This time I think I heard, “Well, I’m glad that’s over". The thing is, it is only after the first run, that the play really begins to make sense. This day was no different. The actors looked spent and vulnerable. The observers left the room having thanked me for watching - but I could tell they were nervous; "Is she going to be able to pull it together? They’ve only got 8 more days of rehearsal. What if, it’s a disaster?” Ok, so that might be what’s actually going on in my head. The thing is, after that awful, uncomfortable, vulnerable first pass at the show, things begin to get really exciting. Conversations from week one begin to inform moments in the most nuanced of ways. The idea that we thought was brilliant is thrown out the window to replaced by something far better. Most exciting of all is that, the first run seems to provide cast and creatives with a focus. It might be wobbly, uneven and some parts may not work at all - but everyone has a sense of what we are working towards. Until then it has been an amorphus unknown. Now it has shape. We all have direction. We all take a big breath and I say “Well done everyone. I have notes." I am so often humbled by the people that I work with and their dedication to delivering a high quality product on time. I don’t think as theatre-makers we celebrate that fact enough. There are so many variables that we are working with, much can and does go wrong - but the people who bring it to you are working so hard to realise the work and find a way to share it with you in the most impactful way. That is what keeps me coming back again and again. 

And the great thing is, I know, tomorrow will hold something completely different.

Union House Theatre Launch

I recently gave this speech at the launch of the Second Semester Season of Work at Union House Theatre at Melbourne University. 

I am so excited about this semester and the 23 productions we have.

I am most excited about amount of new and Australain works that are being presented by student theatre groups. 

We also have lots of other comedies and revues happening this Semester with Medley’s (the Med Revue) and MUDCRABS (Melb Uni Comedy Revue Board) and the Melbourne Uni Law Revue are returning to the Union Theatre for the first time in many years. They open tomorrow night in the Union Theatre 

As it is the year of celebrating Shakespeare’s Death – Shakespeare 400 – we also have Midsummer Nights Dream – currently playing in the Guild, Twelfth Night by MUSC in week 11 and 12 and UHT’s own production Macbeth + MacDeath: A coda

This semester sees almost record-breaking presentation of Australian work and new work by students. I can’t tell you how proud and happy this makes me.

In addition to the revues we have:

Open Body’s performative movement piece – Unknown Show Unknown Location tonight, tomorrow and Saturday not to mention THE BOX by Amy Spurgeon and Hanna O’Keeffe performed in week 4.

Lally Katz play – Apocalypse Bear presented by Periscope in week 3.

Nick Enright’s play – Blackrock presented by International House in week 6.

Barry Dickens - Remember Ronald Ryan – presented by Queens College in week 7

Tastings in week 7 with new work by your peers in the Guild

Whose Afraid of the Working Class presented by Four letter Word in week 10.

Turning Back Time Presented by the Chinese Music Group in Week 10.

Raffles on Capris  – a new Music Theatre work presented by Balloon Head in week 11

Contemporary Australian work by Nude in Week 12.

And also in week 12 a new Dance Work by Flare.

Additionally this year – MUSC are presenting Shake It Up - a series of radical adaptations of/departures from Shakespeare texts,

I am so excited that the offering this year from Student Theatre Groups is so Australian Focused and includes so much new work -  devised, written and created by Students.

Presenting work that uses our own voice and investigates our own culture is so important. To quote David Williamson (he makes a very valid point) the “Social and political realities of the moment – what’s going right or wrong with our society and why. It’s a hugely important source of information about ourselves and if we kill it off by using stories from other cultures and other times, then we are killing of possibly the most exciting and penetrating truths about ourselves. Truths that we sorely need."

Many of you are relishing your time in student theatre to and are using every opportunity to positively exploit your unique and privileged situation. You are perfectly placed to do what the rest of the arts industry finds impossible – never again in your lives as theatre makers, producers, writers, composers, designers, musicians will you have the freedom, support and finance to develop your own voice, find your tribe - experiment with them and have the support and mentorship to be able to do it. History tells us – just look at our extraordinary student theatre Alumni - that many of you are future leaders in the arts industry – sure you wont all do theatre, but your time here shapes you and it is here that you really begin to define your adult identity. I believe each and everyone of you will go on to be a leader in some way shape or form and as leaders, potential leaders and reluctant leaders I want you to think about this…

What stories are you telling both on stage and off – and how is that narrative shaping you and the world around you? Is this a story that you want to be a part of? Does it align with what you want to say about the world? If it doesn’t how do you change it?

Is the theatre that you are a part of or leading representative of the diversity you see in lectures every day? If not – why not? As leaders in your creative endeavours you have a choice to actively change and challenge the status quo. I have had the pleasure of having a little bit to do with Richard Frankland, who is is one of Australia’s most experienced Aboriginal singer/songwriters, authors and film makers. He is also the Head of Curriculum of Programs at the Willin Centre at the VCA – he speaks about changing the shape of the door. That it is the responsibility of the dominant culture to change the shape of the door so other cultural groups can actually access the dominant culture. I think this is a really simple way of articulating a complex idea. It is our responsibility as the leaders of a project to make our work accessible. Expanding the metaphor, It is arrogant to assume those of other cultures will know how to knock. And shifting the shapeof that door, may be as simple as posting an audition advertisement in a different place, it may be a simple as stating on your audition notice that this is something that people from all cultures and experience levels are free to audition. I can attest that when I have engaged in this way, my work has immediately become more rich, my conversations about the work and the world that we live in more complex and the world I represent on stage more like the one I see every day on the train. As leaders – and you are all leaders – what are you doing to change the shape of the door? What are you doing to broaden the scope of what defines our dominant culture. With political fear mongering at it’s height it is incumbent on all of us to be inclusive, to challenge ourselves and to change the shape of the door.  Who is not at the table?

Failure and Critique

Failure

 she was regarded as a failure: loser, underachiever, ne'er-do-well, disappointment; informal, no-hoper, dead loss, dud, write-off.

Sir Ken Robinson, the internationally recognised leader in education, creativity and innovation at a TED talk in 2006, said:

“Kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original -- … And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong."

Ok, so I'm over it. I have read one too many unforgiving, harsh and downright offensive reviews! 

I feel to be an artist you need a fair amount of sensitivity. But this sensitivity is an absolute liability when reviews come out. I have witnessed (and have experienced myself) the embarrassment, shame and humiliation after a ‘shocking’ review. I am more than happy for people not to like my work – to not get it – to find it difficult, confronting, meh or just plain boring – they have every right to their opinion. And all power to them. I am putting my work out there for them to receive however they will. I do believe however that a reviewer has a responsibility – not only to the audience they are writing for but to the artist whose work they are trashing. I am not suggesting a review cannot be negative or critical but I am suggesting that respect for the integrity behind the art making and a contextual understanding of the work inform the critique.

I am haunted by my failures. Haunted by the mistakes I have made and the public humiliation I have felt from “bad reviews”.  However the shame and guilt I feel about these failures is always countered by the knowledge that I have learnt the most from these moments of debacle, collapse and disaster. Failure has sent me down a rabbit hole of investigation. I have asked myself some really hard questions and come out the other side a better theatre-maker for it.  And on reflection I recognise the learning happens in the doing. - in the preparedness to fail, in the risk-taking and the simple act of actually staging something.

So whether you are reviewing, tweeting, posting, commenting, consider: 

• The months (often years) invested to stage a piece of work.
• The nature of collaboration – the fact that this product is the result of hours of input from a whole host of unseen creatives.
• The compromises the team may have had to make, willingly and unwillingly on independent and main stages.
• That most of the creative probably aren’t being paid very much.
• That each creative has gone into the process with the best intentions, with integrity and above all to communicate something to you.
• The ephemeral nature of theatre and the fact that documentation of it is exceedingly difficult – a reviewer’s words are the written legacy of that work for history to judge.

Theatre is not always good. The conflicting influences of collaboration, space, time and a weird alchemy, means sometimes it works and sometimes doesn’t. And sometimes all the pieces independently are ‘right’ – but the thing just doesn’t work. Sometimes you don't agree with what the piece is 'saying'. But that is no reason to humiliate the artists involved. Talk to the ideas. Talk to what you liked and what you didn't like. Write about the productions failures, where it missed the mark. Personal attacks just aren't fair.

 The mere fact that Melbourne’s stages are so full of such strong creative output is testament to the strength and resilience of its artists in spite of the unpredictable, moody and spiteful critique they receive.

I’m not reading any more reviews  (my own or those of others). I’m not going to let myself continue to be exhausted and disheartened and afraid of the judgement and ridicule from short form critique. I am going to continue to embrace my failures (or my opening for future learning” – Balies, S.J, Performance Theatre and the Poetics of Failure) and by doing so create something. It might not be wholly successful - but at least I can take comfort in the fact that I have set myself the goal of stumbling across something truly original – and that can only be found by being prepared to fail.

 “….ask yourself this question: What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? If you really ask yourself this question, you can't help but feel uncomfortable... Because when you ask it, you begin to understand how the fear of failure constrains you, how it keeps us from attempting great things, and life gets dull, amazing things stop happening. Sure, good things happen, but amazing things stop happening... The path to truly new, never-been-done-before things always has failure along the way. We're tested. And in part, that testing feels an appropriate part of achieving something great. Clemenceau said, "Life gets interesting when we fail, because it's a sign that we've surpassed ourselves."

Dugan, R. (2012, March) Glider to humming bird drone [video file] Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/regina_dugan_from_mach_20_glider_to_humming_bird_drone.html?quote=1440

From the rehearsal room...

As I write, I’m sitting in the rehearsal room for Macbeth at Sydney Theatre Company - the actors are on break. We are halfway through week four and this incredible play is still revealing its secrets, posing challenges and making everyone work very hard. But as I have been watching, I’ve been thinking about the privilege of assistant directing. To be able to sit in on another directors rehearsals, to watch them work, watch them sort out problems, to (if you’re lucky and have a director who is generous) make suggestions. Actors get to watch each other work all the time and so much is learnt from watching fellow artists and reflecting on their practice and ways of coming at things. It is no different with directing, we just get to watch each other less often. So what is this rehearsal room like? Well, the director is open and generous, but he is also very softly spoken – so the room has a quiet, throbbing intensity. He is incredibly detailed, very precise and each moment is thoroughly interrogated. It’s very exciting to be a part of - and if I’m completely honest, combined with a creative team par excellence, a little intimidating. Especially in my first week - I don’t think I said two sentences.

People often talk about alchemy when creating theatre – the right ingredients, the right time, the right place and an ‘intangibleness’ which makes everything cohere in surprising and profound ways. Alchemy seems an entirely apt word for this production. A world of prophecy, ambition and murder - of double-speak and a cold and murky hell. I don’t want to say too much for fear of ruining a wonderful surprise … but I leave you with what I just wrote down in my notebook…

Not only is the configuration of the theatre literally reversing the order of things, this play will literally appear, a phantasmagoria - and we won’t be entirely sure how we arrived there – and as quickly as it appears it will be gone again and we will be left with Macbeth exposed, alone and completely detached. The magic of this production exists in its staging.

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Blog entries coming soon....