Short & Sweet
Eminent actor-producer Denise Roberts was a celebrity judge of the Short & Sweet finals and writes:
There I was sitting in the Seymour Centre's York theatre on Saturday night in amazement, wondering how Mark Cleary from the Newtown Theatre managed to pull this off.
Surrounded by a packed audience buzzing with excitement and anticipation at what's to come with the Movie Network cameras primed and ready to shoot what turned out to be a really fabulous night of short, (no more than 10 minutes) sharp entertainment.
At the climax of the evening, federal Minister for the Arts Peter Garrett handed out an award, as did I and Stephen Wallace from the AFC – donor of a $15,000 grant for one of the plays to be made into a short film. Before that we saw a lot of good theatre.
Terror on the North Side, a satire, directed by Boris Ivanoff and starring Brett Nevill, Beejan Olfat, Venetia Taylor and Helen Tonkin, was by far and away the best production of the evening. This was reflected in the four awards it received for Best Actress, Best Script, Best Overall Production and Best New Talent for its script writer Venetia Taylor.
Produced and presented by Rag and Bone Productions, this little satire was hysterically funny. When Annabel takes her boyfriend Mike home to meet her North Shore parents, she expects the worst. It turns out Harold and Marg are just fine with Mike's Muslim background, and to prove it mum’s wearing a scarf that resembles a burqa and insists on calling Mike by his real name ... Mohammed.
Another favourite of mine, awarded the People's Choice, was Drew Fairley's Bush Epic Stallion of Death with Kate Worsley and Gibson Nolte (wonder if he's any relation to Nick?). Both actors won Runner Up Best Actor and Actress, and Gibson blew us away when he thanked everyone for his award in an American accent!
Aaron Scully's play Perfect was another great piece. Beautifully directed by James Winter and perfectly (!) performed by the actors. This is the play that picked up the film grant from the AFC, which surprised me somewhat given the abstract nature of its content. And as the characters are continually traveling around the world, $15,000 won't get them too far – so I guess they'll be shooting most of it in front of a green screen.
Duet with a Dictionary from writer Noëlle Janaczewska, director Jessica Tuckwell and performed by Felicity Ward and Leah Astbury, won the Movie Extra Award (a premium Foxtel subscription package and installation).
All in all, there was some fine Aussie talent. Short and Sweet appears to be getting bigger and better every year and the support it has from the public is fantastic. There are a lot of non-theatre goers who particularly like this type of format. Sure there were a few teething problems on the night, but they’ll eventually be ironed out, and considering the festival is run on the smell of an oily rag and has to rely heavily on its sponsors and volunteers, I think Mark Cleary should be given an award for presenting young actors, directors and playwrights with incredible opportunities – just like the one they had last Saturday night.
