Perth Festival Diary pt 3
Outside festival time, there's not much nightlife in Perth, but that all changes for three weeks in February. On Sunday night I finally made it to Beck's Veranda, the happening place to be under the stars, to hear American country goth couple, the Handsome Family. It was an evening of almost spooky stillness as storm clouds gathered overhead. The audience was a curious mix of family groups and individuals in studded cowboy shirts. On stage, things were a little weird too as Brett Sparks was suffering from a very bad cold and had medicated himself into a parallel universe, His wife Rennie's cheerful, kooky banter between songs made up for his erratic performance and some very off key riffs. But all the songs started to sound the same after a while, though I liked their strong dark narratives of murders, and love gone wrong in airports or shark-infested waters. The black humour reminded me of Coen Brothers movies like Fargo.
A fire alarm delayed the opening night of Keating!, the musical we had to have - Liberal sabotage perhaps? Gossip about WA Inc was buzzing around the audience, so no one minded. The show seemed to vibrate with extra energy, with Casey Benetto outdoing himself as Alexander Downer in fishnets, straddling a man in the audience for a long lascivious lap dancing episode. Home-grown talent Terry Serio got especially warm applause for his turn as Bob Hawke, making an impromptu comment on the late start as he entered: "I was just having a ciggie in the dunny when the alarm went of ..." This show just keeps getting better and better, and tighter and tighter. Later in the week, at a special pollies' night, the presence of Julian Grill added a special frisson to the show.
At every festival there's one show that gets anointed as the must-see event. In Perth, there were several to choose from, but Scott Rankin and Trevor Jamieson's Ngpartji Ngpartji was probably the winner for many people with its powerful telling of a tragic episode in the continuing dispossession of indigenous Australians. Here was a story about something terrible that happened in our backyard - the Cold War era testing of atomic bombs at Maralinga on an unsuspecting Aboriginal community - told with tremendous emotional impact and honesty, simplicity, humour and dignity. How do Rankin, our most original maker of community-based drama, and Jamieson, surely the most charismatic Aboriginal performer in the country, make audiences feel shame, sorrow and empathy without laying a heavy guilt trip on them? Sure the piece is flawed and too long, but it has such authenticity and heart that it overcomes its own weaknesses, transcends the conventional theatregoing experience and becomes something much greater. The work, and its many layers has haunted me for days, and just won't let go.
By way of complete contrast, The Gotan Project brought a slickness to the stage of the Concert Hall that reeked of French chic but was a little soulless in its clinical perfection. An ultra hip tango team, including some fabulous Argentinian musicians, performed dressed in sleek cream suits and Hollywood gowns, interacting with film footage projected on a giant screen behind their bank of turntables and computers. The whole thing was so flawless in its execution, so glossy in its sophistication and polish, that it felt as if we were watching a series of video clips art directed for an ad campaign.
The audience of clubbers and tango dancers, clearly familiar with every track of the band's best-selling album, went wild for it, baying for encores and turning the normally sedate venue into a swaying pulsating mass under the occasional burst of white disco light. Lindy Hume took note; her next opera production may well feature similar special effects. Why should popular culture keep these tricks to itself?
Meanwhile , more than 600 people gathered in the sunken garden of the University of Western Australia's beautiful campus to witness Ngaanyatjarra Turlku, an indigenous performance of music and dance by traditional custodians of the land on the tri-state border connecting the NT, WA and SA. It's a tribute to Hume's commitment to showcasing Noongar culture that audiences for such events have more than doubled during her festival tenure. That legacy will be hard to reverse and is a testament to her determination in the face of some pretty sustained scepticism and hostility. So far, Hume's successor, Shelagh Magadza, who was Hume's associate director and right hand woman for past festivals, has given little away about her plans for the future, except to say she will not program around a theme. But I am willing to bet that indigenous cultures will keep a high profile in her line-up.
Of the final week of festival talks, the meatiest and most thought provoking was the one given by American WA Art gallery director Alan Dodge, in which he expressed his frustration at the lack of vision for Perth's cultural identity despite its current prosperity. He mourned the notion that in this city and its current climate, success is its own morality.
The current explosion wealth that WA is enjoying is expected to last the next five years - then what? Wouldn't it be a good idea to think a little further ahead and leave something permanent as a monument to this era? Doesn't experience show that people flock to places that make bold civic decisions, turning previously lacklustre cities into world destinations - a la Bilbao? The word "boom" is much used in WA these days. But no one is talking about how some of the money being made needs to trickle into culture to make the city a more vibrant place to live for the 11 months of the year when the Perth International Arts Festival is not on.
Caroline Baum chairs the Perth Festival's "In conversation" series with visiting artists and performers.
