2015: Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey

Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.  Presented by Queanbeyan City Council.  Directed by Stephen Pike; Music Director: Jenny Tabur; Choreography by Jordan Kelly; Set Designer: Brian Sudding; Lighting / Video by Hamish McConchie; Sound by Chris Neal.  At The Q, Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, July 29 – August 15, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 29

Cast:

Sandy Dumbrowski – Rosanna Boyd
Danny Zuko – Marcus Hurley

Pink Ladies:
Betty Rizzo – Vanessa de Jager
Marty – Amelia Juniper-Grey
Frenchy – Risa Craig
Jan – Sophie Hopkins

T-Birds:
Kenickie – Liam Downing
Roger – Dave Collins
Doody – Tristan Davies
Sonny Latierri – Lachlan Agett

Eugene Florczyk – Hayden Crossweller; Patty Simcox – Ashley Di Berardino; Miss Lynch – Sue Richards; Teen Angel – Nick Valois; Johnny Casino – John Kelly; Vince Fontained – Jonathan Garland; Cha-Cha Digregorio – Amy Campbell; Radio Voice – Maddison Lymn

Girls Ensemble: Isabel Burton, Peita Chappell, Riley Gill, Jasmine Henkel, Maddison Lymn, Silvana Moro, Grace Mulders, Lara Niven

Boys Ensemble: Nicholas Friffin, Sam Jeacle, Robbie Lawrence, David Santolin, John Skelton, Mathew Tallarida-Lyons, Cameron Taylor

Band: Jacon Schmidt (Saxophone 1), Hannah Richardson (Saxophone 2), Kirsten Nilsson (Saxophone 2 on 8-9 August), Vince Tee (Keyboard), Sean Ladlow (Guitar 1), Maxim Korolev (Guitar 2), Gary Scott (Bass Guitar), Jenna Hinton (Drums)

Photos by Lauren Sadow

I can judge this production of Grease in two completely different ways: on its immediacy on opening night in Queanbeyan in 2015; and on its place in the history of this musical, which began as a local community show for young people in Chicago in 1971 “in an old trolley barn (now the site of a hospital parking garage)” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_%28musical%29] and went on to hold an amazing record in its day:  “At the time that it closed in 1980, Grease's 3,388-performance run was the longest yet in Broadway history....”

I simply had to list almost everybody involved here, because I’m sure that almost everybody had at least one family member in the audience.  The casting was terrific, the choreography and dance performances exciting, musically the band handled not only the 1950’s rock but all the other stylistic references in excellent fashion, the quality of all the singing matched the demands made by the show (including the very funny almost satirical high-pitched extenuating vocal flourishes by the men) – in other words Grease rocked along as it should.

There was no doubt about the enjoyment value on Wednesday’s opening night which will surely see Queanbeyan still rocking on August 15 for closing night.

I did find myself a little concerned about the balance between the singers’ voices and the band sound.  It was perhaps ironic that we critics had heard Chris Neal explain, when he spoke in our Canberra Critics’ Circle Conversation (Monday July 13, 2015), how difficult it is when everyone is miked individually to balance the sound across all the mikes while avoiding feedback.  I’m not sure how the band was miked on this occasion, but I’m sure even on Broadway, in the 1970s, microphones were fewer and farther between – and therefore easier to manage.

That was a segue to my other kind of question of judgement.  Rather than be critical of the show, this is a bit of critical writing about the show.  Whatever I say will not adversely affect your enjoyment, but may add something to the experience.

I was a bit surprised – not having been an aficionado of Grease – to see what seemed to be a switch from a light-hearted take, sometimes even a bit of a spoof, on conventional high-school romances into a not at all comfortable experience for Rizzo when it appears that she is pregnant and she can’t tell the would-be father, Kenickie.  The scene, leading as it does to Sandy becoming suddenly aware of the adult reality of sex, through Rizzo’s song “There Are Worse Things I Could Do”, is a turning point in the drama.  Sandy changes off-stage – mentally and literally – and reappears in sexy adult costume instead of the “litte girl” clothing she had worn up to this point.  What was happening here?

I wasn’t sure if the change in atmosphere was deliberate on the director’s part, in which case it seemed oddly out of place, something that couldn’t be avoided – since it was in the script – but could be quickly turned around back to the innocent fun of a whole company finale.  Somewhere in there I heard Rizzo say that it was a “false alarm”, so everything was now OK.  A bit of a cop-out, I wondered.

It was Wikipedia that sent me to http://www.newlinetheatre.com/greasechapter.html where I found an enormously useful essay, Inside Grease – background and analysis by Scott Miller (Copyright 2006. From Scott Miller's book, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musical Theatre). 

I meant enormous – like, 20 pages, and so full of stuff.  I hadn’t understood that Grease was written in 1971, looking back to a specific year when this group of working-class young people were in their final high school year: 1958.  Miller calculated that this group were born just before the people we now call baby-boomers.  In fact they were born in 1942.  I was born in 1941.  And my final year at high school was 1957!

So now I get it!  Grease is about the working-class teenagers at the end of the fifties as rock’n’roll changed the world for them, setting them free from the middle-class conventions which were the dream of their parents.  Grease "is really the story of America’s tumultuous crossing over from the 50s to the 60s, throwing over repression and tradition for freedom and adventure (and a generous helping of cultural chaos), a time when the styles and culture of the disengaged and disenfranchised became overpowering symbols of teenage power and autonomy. Originally a rowdy, dangerous, over-sexed, and insightful piece of alternative theatre, Grease was inspired by the rule-busting success of Hair and shows like it, rejecting the trappings of other Broadway musicals for a more authentic, more visceral, more radical theatre experience that revealed great cultural truths about America," writes Scott Miller.

And indeed I saw Hair, the original Australian production which premiered in Sydney on June 6, 1969, though I never saw Grease on stage.  After reading Miller I understood the ironic references to Sandra Dee and Doris Day.  And I remember, too, looking back from 1972 during the “It’s Time” election to see how much we had changed since my first year (and the first member of my family) at uni in 1958.  I see myself as running half a decade behind the kids of Grease’s Rydell High, but maybe that was just a matter of living in Australia compared with USA.

I discovered, too, that Stephen Pike seems to have been influenced by the 1978 movie of Grease with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, but Miller complains that the film bowdlerised the original script – “Watered-down,” he called it – and goes on to castigate the “revival of Grease [which] opened on Broadway in May 1994, painfully misdirected and misunderstood by Tommy Tune’s protégé, director-choreographer Jeff Calhoun....” 

For example, in Act II, when Sandy leaves Danny at the drive-in, Miller notes: “The replacement song in the film, "Sandy," isn’t a bad song, but it doesn’t achieve half of what "Alone at a Drive-In Movie" does, textually, thematically, or musically.”  I checked this out on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLuN96-e6NQ where you can see and hear the 1972 performances, and you can understand what Miller meant.  And perhaps why the film version was “watered-down”.

Finally, Miller writes “Like all the best theatre songs, Sandy makes a decision in the "Sandra Dee" reprise, and the plot takes a turn toward its final destination. Sandy must decide who she is herself and what she values; she must embrace all of who she is, including her sexuality. She now realizes that only when she is true to herself can she be happy with Danny, and this final revelation will lead us to the show’s rowdy, playful finale "All Choked Up" (sadly replaced in the film by the less carnal disco number "You're the One That I Want").

So I think it’s fair to conclude that Queanbeyan isn’t what Chicago was in 1958, or even Broadway in 1972, nor should it be.  We don’t need to re-create the raw beginnings of Grease because – as I’m sure Olivia Newton-John herself would agree – the revolution in the lives of women and men is a long way further on now than it was then.  I guess the revolution is nowhere complete, either, but the thorough enjoyment in the audience of mixed ages and sexes watching Stephen Pike’s production, and clearly in the cast performing the show, is its own recommendation.  And it still rocks, even if a little less hard than it needed to be back then.

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: Ladies in Lavender by Shaun McKenna

Ladies in Lavender by Shaun McKenna, adapted from the screenplay by Charles Dance, based on the short story by William J Locke.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, directed by Nicole Buffoni; designed by Anna Gardiner; wardrobe by Margaret Gill; lighting by Nicholas Higgins; sound by Daryl Wallis.  At Ensemble Theatre July 3 – August 15, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 11

This is a beautifully done production of what has turned out, for me at least, to be an intriguing play, of a movie, of a short story.

The sound of Arthur Askey on the ‘wireless’ (unfortunately not an original His Master’s Voice, but still...)  took me back to my very early English childhood; in fact a year or three earlier, since I was born in 1941.  His jokes, and singing, were always awful but still sort-of funny, in a non-PC kind of way.

On the other hand, the live violin playing by Benjamin Hoetjes as Andrea Marowski was anything but awful: entirely professional, especially compared to the deliberately rank-amateur playing by Daniel Mitchell as Dr Mead.

As the spinster sisters Widdington, Penny Cook (Janet, the elder) and Sharon Flanagan (Ursula – and apparently never-been-kissed) established their almost as-if-married relationship within the time it took to fade the lights up, and immediately took off as the thunder rolled and the near-direct-hit lightning struck fear into us as much as into uncertain Ursula.  We were all brought to our good senses by the practical calm and good order maintained by Janet, of course.

Dorcas, as played by Gael Ballantyne, was a wonder to behold – the worst and best of English comedy servants; while Lisa Gormley’s Olga Danilov was exactly the kind of self-assured independent woman to keep Dr Mead firmly in his place – where he thoroughly deserved to be.

Finally the play was about the sadness, even through gentle laughter, of Ursula’s near-breakdown when the ‘Greek God’ Andrea leaves, without having time to explain to the sisters who rescued him and loved him, to be taken up by the violin maestro Boris Danilov, Olga’s brother, to begin a magnificent musical career.

To some it might seem weird that, despite my 74 years, I had never heard of Ladies in Lavender and knew nothing of the play, the film or the story before Saturday.  It was odd, then, that though the production was excellent in every way, from the finesse of the acting to the sisters’ father’s neck-to-knee swimming costume, I kept feeling there was something not quite right about the play.

When was it written, I wondered?  After World War II, looking back to just before the war broke out finally in 1939?  After all, Dr Mead seemed concerned that they might be entertaining spies in their remote Cornish fishing village, since Andrea, who was apparently Polish, spoke German to Olga, who was probably Russian.  Was the play, then, not essentially about Ursula and Janet’s rivalry for Andrea’s affections, but some kind of allegory about the beginning of the War.  Perhaps Andrea represented Poland who was about to be invaded by Germany (that man with the moustache was mentioned in disgust by Janet at one point).  Did Olga, speaking German, entice Andrea away, but would later turn on him as Russia did?  It all seemed so complicated!

Did it even go so far, perhaps, that it was really a play about the naivety of the English in failing to admit the danger of German invasion – the sisters’ kindness to the stranger on their shore might parallel the appeasement political process?  Ursula says something about whether there might be another war, and Janet, whose boyfriend was killed in World War I, replies that it was possible, though she hoped not.  And the women work out that Andrea was “so young”, and could barely have been born when Janet’s love was taken away.

So then I thought, aha!  This play is being presented now as part of the commemoration of World War I – a follow-up to the Ensemble’s recent The Anzac Project (reviewed on this blog April 9, 2015).

Yet times, dates and ages still seemed out of kilter.  How old are these sisters?  If they were teenagers falling in love in 1916 and now it is, say, 1938, Janet might now be about 40, at most 45.  On stage Penny Cook’s make-up appeared to me much older than that, and so did Sharon Flanagan’s.  More confusion – because her dominance and title as “Miss Widdington” suggested that Janet was the elder, yet Miss Ursula looked older rather than younger.  But then, as a mere male, my judgement could not be trusted on such matters.  So how could I sort this all out?

The World Wide Web came galloping to the rescue.  There I found not only the 2004 movie starring Judi Dench as Ursula, Maggie Smith as Janet and Miriam Margolyes as Dorcas, but also the original short story.  Now I know that in some ways Shaun McKenna’s play is better than the movie because it is more in tune with William John Locke’s original intention.

The movie was, of course, post-World War II and made it very clear from background radio sound effects that Germany was already in the process of making lebensraum outside its borders, and implying that Poland was next.  This explains Andrea being on a ship to America to escape ahead of the Nazi invasion, having been washed off the deck in the opening storm, naively trying to find a boatman to take him to New York, and accepting Olga’s offer to go to London to meet her famous brother.

But what a surprise when I found that the short story, in which the title Ladies in Lavender is explained, was published by Locke in a collection of his stories called Far-Away Stories – in 1919, and that Ladies in Lavender was first published in 1908!

Intriguing indeed!  Locke himself died in 1930 at the age of 67, after a long career publishing novels, short stories and plays.  In effect he was a contemporary of my favourite, and much more famous playwright, George Bernard Shaw.

Locke wrote Ladies in Lavender as a rather whimsical story of exciting goings on in an English village, where “To that little stone weatherbeaten house their father, the white-whiskered gentleman of the portrait, had brought them [his daughters] quite young when he had retired from the navy with a pension and a grievance – an ungrateful country had not made him an admiral – and there, after his death, they had continued to lead their remote and gentle lives, untouched by the happenings of the great world.”

Even so “It was by no means the first dead man cast up by the waves that they had stumbled upon during their long sojourn on this wild coast, where wrecks and founderings and loss of men’s lives at sea were commonplace happenings.  They were dealing with the sadly familiar....”  Locke does not write with the wit of Bernard Shaw, but in this story writes with a touch of another contemporary, the Irish playwright J M Synge.  Synge’s final play, Deirdre of the Sorrows, was unfinished when he died at the age of only 37 in 1909, and was completed by W B Yeats and Molly Allgood for its first performance at the Abbey Theatre in 1910.

Locke’s story where  “indeed there lay sprawling anyhow in catlike grace beneath them the most romantic figure of a youth that the sight of maiden ladies ever rested on” with his “long black hair, a perfectly chiselled face, a preposterously feminine mouth which, partly open, showed white young teeth, and the most delicate, long-fingered hands in the world” brings something of the mythic sensibility surrounding the power of the sea to raise the dead, and take life away.  Locke may keep a certain humorous eye on his maiden ladies, quite unlike Synge’s chilling quality, but the rescue and inevitable loss of Miss Ursula’s “young Greek god” places Locke in the writing culture of his time.

Though Charles Dance was happy to set this story firmly into “the happenings of the great world”, and thereby lost in his film the faery nature which is the key to Locke’s original, fortunately Shaun McKenna (just the right Irish name, surely) understood Locke’s intention when he added in the Hans Christian Andersen story of The Little Mermaid, and made it so significant in the relationship between Ursula Widdington and Andrea Marowsky.

The play, then, though a little distracted by Arthur Askey and Herr Hitler, is better than the film.  I even felt that the performances of Penny Cook and Sharon Flanagan were more satisfactory than those of Maggie Smith and Judi Dench – not because they are better actors but because the playscript gave them more emotional quality to work with than the film screenplay.

The play also ends better than the film.

The movie ends with Janet and Ursula accepting the situation after the concert in London as Andrea is carted off to talk to Sir Charles Mackerras.  They walk away from us down a long cold corridor, and then are walking on the beach where the Greek god first appeared. 

The play ends, after Ursula’s breakdown at the loss of Andrea, with her more than acceptance – indeed, a new understanding – as Andrea appears like a mirage playing his violin.  This staging is more poetic in impact than showing the two of them at the concert in London at the end of the film, while Dorcas has the radio on at their house for the villagers to listen to hear him play.

Though Locke can never match the strength of Synge’s writing:  
Deirdre (in a high and quiet tone) – I have put away sorrow like a shoe that is worn out and muddy, for it is I have had a life that will be envied by great companies....It was sorrows were foretold, but great joys were my share always; yet it is a cold place I must go to....
Ursula’s story ends:  “For all those years she had waited for the prince who never came; and he had come at last out of fairyland, cast up by the sea.  She had had with him her brief season of tremulous happiness.  If he had been carried on, against his will, by a strange woman into the unknown whence he had emerged, it was only the inevitable ending of such a fairytale.

“Thus wisdom came to her from sea and sky, and made her strong.  She smiled through her tears, and she, the weaker, went forth for the first time in her life to comfort and direct her sister.”

In updating Ladies in Lavender, the ethereal quality of the original story was lost, in the film especially, but McKenna’s playscript, performed on stage, captured more of Locke’s feeling for his two maiden ladies.  But never quite the feeling they had when they first realised Andrea had gone when “They were left alone unheeded in the dry lavender of their lives.”

And, by the way, William J Locke specifies that Miss Widdington was precisely 48 and her sister, Miss Ursula Widdington, three years younger.  “She could, therefore, smile indulgently at the impetuosity of youth”... but “as behoved one who has the charge of an orphaned younger sister, did not allow the sentimental to weaken the practical.”

Janet (Penny Cook) and Ursula (Sharon Flanagan)
As the lightning was about to strike

Andrea (Benjamin Hoetjes) and Ursula (Sharon Flanagan)
Ursula helps Andrea recover by reading The Little Mermaid and teaching him to read English words.

Dr Mead (Daniel Mitchell) shows off his "musicianship".

Andrea (Benjamin Hoetjes) displays his musicianship.

Olga Danilov (Lisa Gormley) overhears Andrea playing, and writes to her maestro brother.

Andrea offers his gratitude equally to Janet and Ursula
Penny Cook, Benjamin Hoetjes, Sharon Flanagan

Dorcas (Gael Ballantyne), Ursula (Sharon Flanagan), Janet (Penny Cook), Dr Mead (Daniel Mitchell)
Dr Mead is concerned about informing the authorities and the possibility of spies.

Ursula 'mothers' Andrea
Sharon Flanagan and Benjamin Hoetjes

Andrea is amazed to hear the positive response from Olga's brother, Boris Danilov.
Benjamin Hoetjes and Lisa Gormley

Dorcas puts Ursula to practical work.
Sharon Flanagan and Gael Ballantyne

Janet and Ursula "left alone unheeded in the dry lavender of their lives".
Penny Cook and Sharon Flanagan

All photos by Clare Hawley



© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: LORE: I.B.I.S by Deborah Brown and Waangenga Blanco / SHEOAK by Frances Rings

LORE: I.B.I.S by Deborah Brown and Waangenga Blanco / SHEOAK by Frances Rings.  Bangarra Dance Theatre at Canberra Theatre Centre, July 9-11, 2015.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
July 9

After an opening season at Sydney Opera House, extended by public demand, Lore received rapturous applause for both dance works, each treating traditional lore underpinning modern life from different perspectives – geographical and emotional.

I.B.I.S is set in a fictional Island Board of Industry and Services supermarket, tiny by city expectations, on Mer, one of the smallest of the eastern Torres Strait islands.  Deborah Brown and Waangenga Blanco are descendants of the Meriam people, and their work entails Meriam Mer, Ka La Lagau Ya and Kir Kir Kaber dance styles and languages, spoken and sung.

I think I.B.I.S. must be the happiest and most triumphant dance story I can remember seeing on any stage, beginning in the morning (Debe Idim – Good Morning) with Elma Kris singing Ni Ngoe Dhe Goiga (You are my Sunshine) and concluding (Debe Ki – Good Night) with a magnificent full ensemble dance in traditional ceremonial costume and powerful singing in harmonies revealing the cultural connections of these islands with Polynesia, as well as with Papua and Australia.

Joy and a sense of wonderment accompanied us to Interval.  What success for Bangarra, whose dancers originate from such a multicultural mix, descended from Indigenous nations from all over Australia!

List the names and places in appreciation:

Nunukul, Munaldjali (Yugambeh) – artistic director Stephen Page, SE Queensland;
Kokatha / Germany – choreographer Frances Rings, Adelaide S.Australia;
Wakaid Clan, Badu (Meriam) / Scottish – choreographer Deborah Brown, Torres Strait;
Mer and Pajinka Wik – Waangenga Blanco, Cape York;
and dancers Elma Kris (Waiben, Thursday Island – Torres Strait);
Yolande Brown (Bidjara, Kunja nation – Central Queensland);
Tara Gower (Yawuru / Aboriginal, Filipino, Irish and Spanish – Broome, Western Australia);
Jasmin Sheppard (Tagalaka and Kurtijar / Irish, Chinese and Russian Jewish – Normanton, Gulf of Carpentaria);
Tara Robertson (Munaldjali – Logan River, Queensland);
Kaine Sultan-Babij (Arrente, Harts Range – Central Australia);
Luke Currie-Richardson (Kuku Yalanji, Djabugay, Munaldjali and Meriam – SE Queensland and Torres Strait);
Nicola Sabatino (Kaurareg and Meriam – Weipa, Cape York);
Beau Dean Riley Smith (Wiradjuri – Dubbo, Central New South Wales);
Rikki Mason (Kullili – Inverell, western NSW);
Yolanda Lowatta (Yam Island / Papua and Fiji);
Rika Hamaguchi (Yawrur, Bunaba, Bardi – Broome, WA);
Kyle Shilling (Widjubal, Bundjalung – Tweed Heads, north-east NSW);

then you understand the wonderment as Bangarra under Stephen Page’s direction, with his brother David Page (Head of Music), Steve Francis (Composer), Jacob Nash (Head Designer, Murri man from Brisbane), Jennifer Irwin (Costume Designer), Karen Norris (Lighting Designer) and Emily Amisano (Rehearsal Director) is able to bring together people of such a variety of backgrounds to perform a work so true to the culture of one small island off the far northern tip of Australia.

But that was just at Interval.  Then they take us to the dry inland of Australia, where Frances Rings’ story is about the sheoak tree:

Biological Name: Casuarina cristata
Common Name: Belah
Family: Casuarinaceae
Origin: Inland Australia
Exposure: Full Sun
Irrigation: Drought tolerant once established
Frost: Frost Tolerant 25F-18F (-8C)
Soil: Well-drained, alkaline, light to heavy
Flower Color: Red
Flower Time: Summer
Height: Variable 20-45'
Width: Variable

On stage we see only the bare timbers – no pine-type needle leaves, no seed cones for the black cockatoos, no red flowers.  This is not a story of joyous celebration, but of hope for the future despite the forces which have tried to destroy an ancient culture.  There are three parts, centred around the Keeper, danced by Elma Kris (from that place of water and sunshine, Thursday Island!) who began dancing with Bangarra in 1997, and won a Deadly Award for Dancer of the Year in 2007:

PLACE: The land of the old growth scar trees has fallen.  Its keeper mourns its loss.  The people must now adapt to a new way of life.

BODY: The seeds begin searching for new grounds.  A new generation faces the challenges of community life.  Restrictions to cultural practices create a cycle of dysfunction.

SPIRIT: The birth of a spirit as it embarks on its journey.  Its arrival brings hope for change and renewal.

To watch this work was not about toe-tapping to the rhythmic life of the islands in the sun.  Rings demands attention to the significance of the imagery.  She takes us to a dark place where the men almost literally fall apart as we watch, helpless to know what to do.  It is the woman, the keeper, who maintains the faith, engenders the spirit (Nicola Sabatino and Tara Robertson), and finally brings the community together in calling the ancestors.

In both works the people of today need to remember and learn from the past – this is the tradition, the Lore.  Though in Sheoak there is recognition of past failure, there is hope; from I.B.I.S. we see the success of hope – the joy of community achievement.

And Bangarra Dance Theatre itself shows how it can be done, for the joy and benefit of all of us.  The dancing, the sound, lighting and exciting costuming bring to life all our hopes and faith in the Spirit of Art.

Photos: Unknown

© Frank McKone, Canberra

2015: The National Program for Excellence in the Arts

DRAFT GUIDELINES: THE NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR EXCELLENCE IN THE ARTS
Australian Government Attorney-General's Department, Ministry for the Arts
To read the complete document, go to http://arts.gov.au/nationalexcellenceprogram

Commentary by Frank McKone
July 3, 2015

The Guidelines tell you what you need to do to ask for money. Like

 be an Australian organisation or entity
 have as its principal purpose the arts – this includes: the performing and visual arts, cross-artform and digital arts, arts training and collecting institutions whether at a national, regional or community level; (usually defined in the organisation’s Constitution or Articles of Association, and reflected in the Annual Report and Business Plans)
 have an active Australian Business Number (ABN)
 be registered for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), if required by the Australian Tax Office
 not have any outstanding reports, acquittals or serious breaches relating to any Australian Government funding

I think I fulfil these requirements.  So now I need to know who won’t get money:

What the Program will not fund:
 Business start-up costs
 Private tuition, training or study
 Work used for academic assessment
 Projects by individuals [my emphasis]
 Competitions and eisteddfods
 Awards and prizes
 Film and television production
 Interactive games
 Built or natural heritage projects
 Projects or components of projects that are also funded by other programs administered by the Ministry for the Arts.

But I’m an individual!  I’m a Freelance Writer with an annual turnover so small that I’m not required to be registered for GST (but I can if I want) and the Australian Tax Office (ATO) classes me as a Special Professional.  That means if I’m an artist, a writer, a performer, a sportsperson or an inventor I keep simple business records, work out if I’ve made a profit or a loss.  Then I can simply add my profit – or subtract my loss – from whatever other personal income I have on my annual tax return. 

Peter Costello did this for us soon after the GST started, so small scale artists didn’t go round the bend.

But I can’t ask for money from the National Program for Excellence in the Arts.  What if I happen to be a new and as yet not well-known but “excellent” artist?  I’d be in the same sort of position as a first-time house buyer, in the negative-gearing market.  Unless you’re already big, you’re not going to get a look-in.

I guess I can still ask the Australia Council for the Arts, can’t I?  But now that they’ve lost about a third of their money, my chances are so much less.

I guess I don’t really mind if the Attorney-General / Arts Minister (in itself a very odd combination of portfolios, I think) wants to boost the profile of Australian arts overseas – which the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) already does through its programs.  But what about the rest of his Objectives?

The Program will:
 Deliver a wide range of quality arts and cultural experiences that grow arts audiences, throughout Australia and internationally
 strengthen Australia’s reputation as a sophisticated and artistic nation with a confident, outward-focused arts sector
 encourage greater private sector support and partnership funding for the arts
 support collaborations to develop arts and culture initiatives including in specific regions or priority areas.

Sounds great.  Who wouldn’t want all this to happen?

But look at the process:

To achieve these objectives, the Program will offer funding for arts and cultural projects and initiatives through three streams:

1. Endowment Incentives
The endowment incentives stream will support organisations to realise medium to long term projects through financial partnerships and collaborations. Funding will be conditional on organisations leveraging funds from other sources to realise projects. Organisations will need to demonstrate evidence of financial, cash or in-kind support from sources other than the Australian Government. This stream will be open to a wide range of projects. Examples of the kind of activity which could be supported are:: co-investment through a Foundation or arts organisation to deliver a new initiative such as a fellowship program; a contribution to an infrastructure project that has other partners; and partnering in the development of new Australian works.

2. International and Cultural Diplomacy
The International and Cultural Diplomacy stream will support arts and cultural organisations to expand audiences for Australian artistic and creative works through international tours, exhibitions, partnerships and exchanges. It will also support Australian arts organisations to bring internationally significant art and artists to Australia, thus giving Australian audiences greater opportunities to experience the world’s finest performances and exhibitions.

3. Strategic Initiatives
The Strategic Initiatives stream will assist arts and cultural organisations to respond to new opportunities, challenges and issues. It will be flexible and responsive to enable organisations to maximise the potential outcomes of new opportunities. It will also support organisations to deliver outcomes against planned and developing priorities. It will support projects enabling regional and remote audiences, to have new opportunities for access to a wide range of art forms. It is from this stream that the Australian Government will directly fund appropriate major initiatives.

And how much money for all this?  $20 million “each financial year”!  WOW!

And what has happened to the just-developed 6-year funding program for which people already have on-going applications to the Arts Council?  Sorry, that’s all on hold.  After all you can’t expect any sympathy when the Arts Council knew nothing about losing $104 millions until the afternoon of Budget Day, even though Minister Brandis knew what programs were in train.

So, I say refund the Arts Council the untimely ripped off funds and tell it not to worry about the big established companies.  Just get on with the job of funding all the excellent individuals and small companies as judged by their peers and at arms length from political interference – as we have been doing for 40 years, but with the new 6-year funding program in place.  And add funding for start-ups, so the new artists can get a leg-up.

Then pay for the National Program for Excellence in the Arts - just call it the Great Australian Arts Support Program (GAASP) - from the Arts Ministry bucket, so that when artists and companies have proved themselves and grown through the Arts Council program, and become “established”, the Government of the day can claim all the kudos it wants by supporting them properly.

Then I would ask (because I’m a theatre reviewer) for what Julian Meyrick suggested a year or so ago: “An NTA [National Theatre of Australia] could base itself in Canberra and be federally funded, thereby avoiding the perception of Sydney/Melbourne bias and the fractious politicking that comes with variable state support.  It would unite three specialisms represented by three kinds of organisation.  It would be partly a playwright development agency, like Playwriting Australia or Playworks.  It would be partly a producing entity, like the state theatres and second-tier companies.  And it would be partly a touring intelligence, like Performing Lines and Playing Australia.  Again it would not supplant these bodies but add capacity as a partner organisation drawing on their separate spheres of operation.”

How about it, dear Minister?

© Frank McKone, Canberra