david chesworth ensemble: vanishing tekopia cd launch; review by malcolm hill

Enter an entrancing travelogue to a mythical island in the Pacific that is about to lose its innocence to global warming….

We are at the Famous Spiegletent for the launch of David Chesworth's new work and CD, ‘Vanishing Tekopia’. The ensemble is made up of what I consider to be ten of Melbourne’s musical gems, including  Adrian Sherriff and Helen Mountfort. Together they render a highly sensitive and consummate playing of Chesworth’s post modern imagining.

Coming from a post Glass style that is based around repetitive motifs, the David Chesworth Ensemble lure us into an imaginary world where western intellect – the classical tradition, the written score - meets the joyous sounds of other cultures. Chesworth has found a match between the simplicity of modern classical minimalism with the figures and textures of folk music that sound ‘Pacific’. This works together particularly well under the propelling idea of western tradition journeying to encounter a mysterious ‘foreign’ island culture.

Rather than a clash it is a delightful encounter where the two cultures entwine and find common ground. This is shown initially by the ‘classical’ strings driving the piece with variations of minimalist cyclic motifs. As our journey progresses the role of strings is gradually replaced by the vibraphone(s) which echoes simple Pacific island type voicings but then builds to drive the piece, climaxing in an interplay between the two vibraphones, splashing freely back and forth. It is as if the western sailors have been greeted by the island locals.

‘Vanishing Tekopia’  draws together these influences but presents them in a restrained way. The vocals are beautifully delivered by Joanne Kuluveoski and Melissa Webb but because Tekopia has its own language we can only enjoy the sweetness of these (sort of) hula girls without knowing what they are singing about; as Captain Cook probably once did.

The effect is to somewhat mute the experience, but as the travelogue continues the listener is increasingly lured into projecting his / her own cultural memory bank onto this mysterious isle. In this way we are all creating Tekopia.

Vanishing Tekopia is gently propelling and playful, building with curiousity as it explores its themes.

The playing on the day was faultless and brilliant. David Chesworth even did a little conducter dance looking like a lost explorer in tweed. He remarked that the capacity audience was very quiet but this is only because we had all been lulled into the imaginary world of Tekopia.

David Chesworth Ensemble 

Famous Spiegeltent

Sunday 19 March 2012

Vanishing Tekopia CD launch.

schism: installation of insanity

Schism is the type of show that audiences expect from a theatre such as La Mama. Contemporary in form and content, and with great care, thought and appreciation shown by its makers, we now expect that today's theatre should be prepared and ready to intervene in that which is often referred to as the 'Now'. Schism does this in spades. The show is not only a fine example of theatre as installation art, its conceptual framework explores mental illness, global ecology, radical environmentalism and the multiplicity of self. 

An anonymous woman who appears to be a scientist is trapped between two worlds. Apparently on the cusp of a miraculous scientific discovery, she is also obsessed by the thought of personal celebrity and the possible negative effect of her research. But the script is written and theatrically conceived in such a fashion that some doubt exists as to the identity and mental stability of the woman involved. It is also possible that she may have simply fantasised this entire scenario and that she is instead, tormented by a debilitating mental breakdown. That which unfolds is a powerful exploration of human frailty and also, an indictment of science and its capacity for superiority at the expense of ethics. The anonymous woman paces up and down a minimal set that adequately represents a personality in disintegration. She appears to be in dialogue with the recorded voice of a mysterious psychologist. But this could also be an aspect of her own personality; an inner-voice that questions and torments this woman, pushing her to perpetuate an extreme act of environmental "terrorism". Meanwhile, her dichotomous self, or the two aspects of one personality that remain in opposition to one another and which refuse to reconcile, prompts a descent into madness that can only have a singular and inevitable consequence.

I first saw this show during La Mama's Explorations season. Since that enjoyable incarnation, Schism has matured into a fully realised work. Its spatial configuration is wise and reflective. Its script has a recognisable rhythmical structure, and its design is a potent and clean interplay between set and sound. It was very satisfying to see the La Mama courthouse finally liberated from its usual seating arrangement and arranged in a manner that situated the audience as empirical observers; thereby placing the audience in the position of scientist and making the audience an implicit, yet active protagonist within the play. As all theatremakers should know, but also, as most theatremakers seem to readily forget, space is fundamental to drama. If you are not prepared to utilise space in new and exciting ways, or if you think it is too hard and too demanding on the rehearsal process, then the simple fact is your show will negate itself from opening night. Thankfully, Schism did not make this mistake. Furthermore, it is a show worth seeing because of its contemporaneous social concerns and its dissection of the malcontented human heart.

Schism

Writer: Melanie Bainbridge

Director: Suzie Hardgrave

Performer: Pippa Bainbridge

Set design: Casey Scott-Corless

Sound design: Skye Klein

Lighting design: Rebecca Etchell &

John McKissock

Voice coaching: Jennifer Innes

Stage Management: Sarah Grey

Production Management: Jessica

Gittel Corninsh

La Mama, February 9-19, Melb.

auditions: dirty pictures, a return season of a new australian play by tony reck

"A voice in the dark speaks of a crepuscular world, one in economic and ecological crisis. On a laneway wall an image of Michelangelo's Hand of God burns out;  over exposed, any chance at salvation has become a 30 second grab of melting celluloid. 4 anonymous characters engage one another in the endless repetitions of The Deal. Drugs and money, love, sex and the technofetish... You want it, then baby it's for sale. A shot rings out... then another... A cock crows and somewhere in the wilderness a wild dog howls. Lost inside the mountain a young man searches for his disintegrating self while a mother mourns the loss of her abandoned child. Whatever you desire... DIRTY PICTURES is multimedia performance of the streetwise kind. You will know what it's like to lose everything. Somehow, you will find the strength to move on... "

Reck's previous plays include The Great Divide, The Tar Machine, and The Antechamber. He is an unflinchingly honest writer-director, one unperturbed by demonstrating in the theatre the less savoury side of existence; as well as the human capacity for forgiveness and the trauma of lost love.

"The Great Divide & The Tar Machine have few parallels in Australian theatre today..." Jonathan Marshall, InPress.

"The best of times and the worst of times..." Ralph McLean, 3RRR

"Some very good in writing in The Great Divide, and some lovely performances..."   Geoffrey Milne - 774 ABC Melbourne

"Whatever you do don't eat the chicken... " Melynda Woodward, Artshub

"An uncannily rendered Aussie noir netherworld..." John Bailey, RealTime

Dirty Pictures promises to be a bold and uncompromising night in the theatre.

DIRTY PICTURES, a retrun season of a new play by Tony Reck

April 22 - May 6, 2012, Collingwood Underground Theatre, 44 Harmsworth St. Collingwood, 8.00 pm

MAN 1 is 18-35 years of age. He fancies himself as a bit of a high-flyer but is addicted to amphetamine. He likes to mix & match it with the heavies and consequently, finds himself completely out of his depth; particularly in relation to his drug dealer. His relationship with WOMAN 1 is characterised by dependence. MAN 1 is dependent upon WOMAN 2 for love, drugs, motherly affection, and sometimes, whatever his amphetamine-driven fantasies desire. He hates every minute of this, and himself. But he is so tempted by the criminal world that he cannot prevent his inevitable descent into an underworld of futility and emotional despair. Above all, MAN 1 is a survivor in an unforgiving world. He will do whatever he has to do to ensure that when the smoke has cleared, he is still standing. Obsessed, addicted, damaged and amoral he is nevertheless driven by a sense of moral servitude that is at once admirable, yet also, the height of hypocrisy. In this sense, MAN 1 is a character of our time.

WOMAN 1 is intimate with MAN 1. She has 2 children from a previous relationship and hopes her new man will provide the necessary stability for her to resume visiting her kids. Consequently, her expectations for this relationship only serve to alienate MAN 1. Aware of his drug problem but unaware he is seeing WOMAN 2, WOMAN 1 herself begins experimenting with drugs. She does this in the mistaken assumption that this will allow her to find common ground with MAN 1. Of course, she ends up addicted as well. She has found common ground with her new man but in doing so, has lost any chance of seeing her 2 children once again. Addicted, she immerses herself in the world of sexual promiscuity and 'The Deal' The anger and sorrow this experience causes her prompts repeated overdoses. But she is comforted by the fact that MAN 1 is always there to save her. At first believing that she will one day win MAN 1 back from the criminal world he inhabits, she slowly understands that he is a lost cause. If WOMAN 2 is to save herself and stabilise her relationship with her much loved children, she must crack her dependence on dope, and the unfortunate man she loves. The question is: will pursuing a lost cause into the criminal underworld result in herself becoming a lost cause as well? Unlike the other characters that inhabit her world. WOMAN 1 has the capacity to see beyond into a life well-lived. When all is said and done, WOMAN 1 rises above her circumstances and stands independent and alone.

WOMAN 2 is a prostitute who is addicted to amphetamine. Life on the street has hardened her resolve but she refuses to submit completely to a world that is cold, heartless and revolves around 'The Deal'. Her daily routine consists of administering drugs, meeting her dealer MAN 2, and working the beat. She believes that man 2 is the man for her. He acts as her pimp and provides protection. He supplies her with drugs to ease emotional pain and, she believes, he sometimes even loves her. Even so, WOMAN 2 hates MAN 2 with such a passion that she will deceive and manipulate him, rip him off, and when necessary, utilise her sexual relationship with MAN 1 to manipulate MAN 2's pathological need for power. This is a classic example of 'Bad Love' WOMAN 2 only feels wanted when she is being brutalised. Intergenerational in its emotional trajectory she nevertheless understands that there must be a better way. But she is so entrapped within a pattern of physical, emotional and self-abuse that she finds it impossible to escape this cycle of despair. Suicide by overdose constantly beckons but if she did initiate her own death, (she thinks), who would be there to look after, and torment, her drug dealing nemesis, MAN 2?

MAN 2 is 30-55 years of age and a drug dealer with psychopathic tendencies. Tormented by feelings of disempowerment he seeks to tyrannise others via the medium of drugs. His attitude toward his 'business' masks an insatiable desire for affection and intimacy. In his attempt to make others dependent upon his drug dealing he inadvertently becomes dependent upon them for a love that cannot be fulfilled. His response is one of violent eroticism. MAN 2 will take whatever he feels that he can't have. A drug dealer so tormented by his own actions that he seeks to sedate himself with his own product, MAN 2 and his psychopathy is heightened by the on-set of amphetamine psychosis. Powerless and off the leash in a world that demands conformity to strict protocols, his extreme consumerism is a reflection of a precarious balance that characterises today's corporate world; that of the relationship between a desire for economic power and its fulfillment via military means. Isolated and alone, MAN 2 will do whatever it takes to fulfill his seriously demented dreams.

If you would like to audition for these challenging parts then please email dirrtypictures.booking@gmail.com