Yep, it’s been a big twelve months for Ms Geraldine Pascall Crrritic of the Year. And it behoves me, before I hang up the sash and hand over the crown, to tug my forelock at Yuletide crrritical tradition: viz. write my magisterial overview of the year. But first, a confession.
Because 2010 is round the corner, the media is bristling with Best of Decade lists: best music, best books, best video games, best movies, best literary feuds, best comics … well, you get the picture. And really, who gives a rat’s arse? (It must be admitted nevertheless that some of the “worst of” teardowns can be quite a lot of fun.)
Although I’m always prepared to spit in the face of futility, Ms TN can’t do a best of decade list, and not only because – as all pedants know – it isn’t the end of the decade until December 31, 2010. The fact is that TN has only been around for five years, and while in web-time that’s approaching Methuselah status, it’s still only half of ten. So I’ll stick to the 2009 highlights reel, with the caveat that there was also a lot that I didn’t see, and let everyone else argue.
While Hugh Grant and others have been complaining about how only five per cent of plays are worth the eye-time, Ms TN – always the half-glass-full type – has been doing her own mathematics. This year, I saw 66 shows, and deep meditation with a pencil has revealed that of those, around seven made me want to shoot myself. Which works out to 10.60606 per cent.
Of those 66, 20 (30.30303 per cent – how I love the symmetry of numbers) sent me out of the theatre humming with happiness; or, if not precisely with happiness, with faith rewarded, the spirit nourished, the intellect bracingly buffed and the heart called to its truthful home. The remaining 54.54545 per cent were the shows where, to varying degrees, the interesting and the less interesting marbled into deeply discussable experiences. Of these, surprisingly few were merely mediocre.
Which means that 84.3934 per cent of the time, I’ve had a much better time in the theatre than Hugh Grant. Is it me? Of course it is. But it is also Australian theatre. I love you, Australian theatre. You’re beautiful, smart, curious, truthful, brash, skilful, intelligent, funny, passionate and unafraid. And you have a very charming seriousness.
For the listmaniacs among you, here, in strictly alphabetical order, are my Top Five Shows of 2009, complete with handy links to the original reviews:
Glasoon, Black Lung: Thomas Henning and the Black Lung gang reached a reductio ad absurdum in this show which, from their earlier work, ought to have been impossible.
Happy Days, Malthouse Theatre: Michael Kantor’s best work to date, featuring a definitive performance of Winnie from Julie Forsyth.
Peer Gynt, VCA School of Drama: Daniel Schlusser showed how blowing up the classics can bring them to life. Exemplary, stunning work.
Poppea, Sydney Opera House: Barrie Kosky’s sublime mating of Cole Porter and Monteverdi. A great director at his best.
The War of the Roses, STC Actor’s Company: Benedict Andrews’ astounding reworking of Shakespeare’s History Plays: theatre of a rare and desolating beauty.
That’s the best of the best. I’ll put my extended best list at the bottom, for those who get that far.
As for the shows that made me lose faith and gave me colds (they do, bad art really does make you ill): the MTC features more than it should. The razzamatazz of the gorgeous new theatres hasn’t been matched by many of the productions. The whole was still an improvement on previous years, with the Lawler Studio giving the company a little wiggle-room in what is really subscriber-bullied programming. Low points for me were the MTC’s productions of Grace (theatre reduced to a school lesson), Andrew Bovell’s teeth-achingly saccharine When the Rain Stops Falling and Guy Rundle and Max Gillies’ flat satire Godzone.
The Malthouse gets a guernsey with an ill-considered production of David Harrower’s sublime play Knives in Hens, which was an expense of talent in a waste of shame. The visiting avant garde didn’t do too well either: Forced Entertainment’s Spectacular brought theatre to stunning new levels of patronising tedium. On the other hand, it was several hours shorter than the much-lauded and hugely pretentious Gatz, which came from the New York company Elevator Repair Service to the Sydney Opera House with a thin idea and even thinner performances.
Aside from those in the productions already listed, there were some notable performances. Simon Phillips’ excellent MTC production of August: Osage County featured two of them. The play itself failed to fire me with enthusiasm, but Robyn Nevin and Jane Menelaus showed how good acting can be. Pauline Whyman shone in an indifferent (and controversial) production of Pinter’s The Birthday Party. And it’s hard to hold a candle to the entire cast of Hayloft’s equally controversial production 3xSisters which, for all its lively division of audience response, had everyone united in their admiration of the actors.
Uschi Felix and Dion Mills both gave exemplary, disciplined performances in André Bastian’s fine production of five short Beckett plays at La Mama. And I’m prepared to be strung up for it: but it would be wrong of me not to mention Jan Friedl and Bruce Myles’ gut-wrenching performances in The Cove, a season of Daniel Keene’s plays that were directed at the Dog Theatre by Matt Scholten.
And I haven’t even mentioned dance. It’s been a rich part of my year: perhaps my favourite in a very distinguished bunch was Splintergroup’s Lawn, which was at the Malthouse as part of Dance Massive early this year. I also loved Meryl Tankard’s The Oracle (I fear I ran out of gas and didn’t write about this, despite the magnificence of Paul White’s solo performance), BalletLab’s Miracle, Michelle Heaven’s Disagreeable Object, and Lucy Guerin’s remarkable piece on the West Gate Bridge disaster, Structure and Sadness.
What else? I missed the Melbourne Festival and so have no magisterial opinion to opinionate, because to my surprise (and, it seems, to everyone else’s) I won the Australian Poetry Centre’s poetry tour prize, and was touring the British Isles with my lovely colleague, Robert Gray. I doubt this will happen next year, so I’ll get to see AD Brett Sheehy settling into his stride at MIAF. Reports reached me nevertheless: and it has to be said there was a palpable sense that the excitement that has sparked the past few years under Kristy Edmunds’ aegis was somewhat dimmer. Aside from the program, which seemed to strike more as a series of events than an integrated festival, people missed the Spiegeltent and, even more crucially, the delightfully democratic (anyone could go) and cheaply-priced artists bar.
Melburnians, after all, love to talk.
As for me, I got my share of brickbats. In the midst of what has undoubtably been the Issue of the Year – the lack of women in key creative positions – I got outed as a hairy-legged feminist. (I admit it, it’s true, especially when my razor is blunt and the boys have hidden theirs.) Earlier this year, Julian Meyrick got cross with me for being an aphasic racist, which was fun rather than otherwise; and then Neil Pigot attacked me with a blunt knife. This last depressed me so much – what’s the point of writing all these words if your critics don’t bother to read them? – that I thought of giving up the blog. But then, after a month of being rained on in England, I unthought it. The blog is too much fun, and I would miss the theatre terribly.
All the same, I am going to be a writer first and blogger second next year. Firstly because writing is how I make my living, and I need to live; and secondly, because that part of me that likes making things up has lain fallow long enough, and is getting bored with itself. That means that I’ll probably see less theatre, and won’t write about everything I see. Or at least, that’s the resolution. Such is my track record with resolutions that this remains to be seen: but I’ll definitely be putting my primary energy into novels next year.
As a postscript, you can don your quizzing glasses at the end of January to witness me in my guise as hapless reality tv poet. Some of you might remember I shot an episode of the series Bush Slam in March, going head-to-head with my dear friend John Kinsella. And yes, it’s finally making it to prime-time ABC-TV (in the silly season, of course). I doubt I’ll be watching, but I’ll make a brave face on any mockery. None could be crueller than that of my children.
All that remains is to thank you, my readers, for coming here. I owe thanks too to the theatres who have provided tickets, to the artists who bear with my opining, and to the countless people (You Know Who You Are) who have encouraged and supported me this year. I wish you all a happy Christmas and, despite the worst efforts of the world’s politicians, a healthy and enjoyable 2010.
The shows I loved in 2009
3xSisters, The Hayloft Project
Africa, My Darling Patricia, Malthouse Theatre
Beckett’s Shorts, La Mama
Care Instructions, Aphids/Malthouse Theatre
Disagreeable Object, Chunky Move Studio
Glasoon, Black Lung Theatre and Whaling Firm
Happy Days, Malthouse Theatre
Lawn, Splintergroup/Malthouse Theatre
Life is a Dream, Store Room
Miracle, BalletLab
Peer Gynt, VCA Drama School
Poppea, Sydney Opera House
The Apocalypse Bear Trilogy, Arena/MTC
The Man from Mukinupin, MTC/Belvoir St
Structure and Sadness, Lucy Guerin Inc/Malthouse
The Cove, Dog Theatre (no review)
The Oracle, Sydney Opera House/Malthouse Theatre (no review)
The War of the Roses, Sydney Theatre Company
Tom Fool, Hoy Polloy
Wretch, La Mama
Yuri Wells, The Hayloft Project
Picture: a touching domestic scene from the Croggon-Keene household, posted instead of production photos already published on the blog. The duck says Happy New Year.
theatre notes 