STC 2009
Don’t be fooled by the sober faces depicted here. Pages 32 and 33 of the 2009 STC brochure capture them as they really are: clown noses and all. Let’s face it, you can’t be really serious if you’re not prepared to be extremely silly too.
Fresh air, fresh attitudes, a fresh new look and the incredible lightness of being open, generous and unafraid characterise a reborn Sydney Theatre Company. Artistic directors Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton launched their first “owned” season on Monday (September 1, the first day of Spring and a sparkling gold and blue day in Sydney) with tall tumblers of chilled guava juice, fresh pineapple, orange and cranberry juices served alongside the usual mineral water, red and white and bubbly wines.
Fun and celebration are also bubbling with the new-look company website – elegant and simple – and signage and general look around the Wharf precinct – also elegant and simple. In playful and anachronistic contrast, the Wharf restaurant was emptied for the launch of the new season’s brochure with ornate Victorian chaises and armchairs, cunningly placed here and there.
These gave co-boss Blanchett the screaming heebies when she first saw them. “They’re recycled from the Hedda set,” she said of her foray into deepest darkest Ibsen. “When I spotted the arrangements of dried flowers I so wanted to grab them and start flinging them around. But I thought people might not get it. …”
Blanchett-Upton have rethought the way the Company functions in a basic way by focusing on each venue and its character and strengths. So the spaces Wharfs 1 and 2 are the core engine room along with the rehearsal studios, offices and workshops: all chugging under the one long roof. The first evidence of that thinking is the transfer and restaging of Wharf2Loud’s current production of the Tommy Murphy-David Berthold Saturn’s Return from Wharf 2, where it’s now playing, to Wharf 1, next July. The writer and director will take this opportunity to cut and polish and rethink aspects of the (already successful but minorly patchy) play in a development and support program of a kind that has already been pioneered by Company B and Griffin.
In their own view, B-U see the Sydney Theatre, over the road, as “the big night out” and the Drama Theatre as “the Opera House, major wow destination”. It gives a clear idea of the style of programming they envisage in the venues and also frees up the Wharf complex for another revolutionary notion: inviting the public in to participate with the Company to enjoy and interact, learn and be entertained ¬ often simultaneously.
As well as reaching out to the international world of theatre, B-U will again bring it to Sydney with an as-yet unnamed project to be devised and directed by Steven Soderbergh. One of the more interesting Hollywood successes (Sex, Lies and Videotape, Erin Brockovich and Che! for instance) it will mean the blessed unknown for actors and audiences alike.
Liv Ullman’s presence in Sydney was flagged some time ago on StageNoise and she will be directing A Streetcar Named Desire with Joel Edgerton and Ms Blanchett, who said of Ullman that the actor-director “opens the unknown door”. It was both poetic and easy to understand.
The Removalists and Travesties indicate that great modern plays are appreciated by the new regime: David Williamson’s classic will star Steve Bisley and be directed by Wayne Blair; and Tom Stoppard himself gave the big tick to Jonathan Biggins for the lead pompous poop in Travesties.
High calibre director Richard Cottrell returns for Travesties) with a super-comedy cast of Blazey Best, Robert Alexander, Peter Houghton, Leah Purcell, Wendy Strehlow and William Zappa.
Speaking of high-calibre, Gale Edwards is to direct Jeremy Sims in God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton. Barrie Kosky and his Vienna Schauspielhaus production of Poppea goes into the Drama Theatre under the auspices of the house’s Adventures banner. Marion Potts directs Justine Clarke in Anthony Neilson’s The Wonderful world of Dissocia.
STC ventures into the city and Carriageworks for an ambitious project titled The Mysteries: Genesis. Four directors will work with a new permanent grouping “The Residents” that will replace the STC Actors Company. What is exciting and promising about The Residents is that they will work on longer form projects and also work alongside other actors at STC in workshop and educational programs. Again, it seems to suggest openness, inclusion and a different approach. Let’s hope.
Melbourne Theatre Company and its director Simon Phillips co-produces the new seasons’s first production: Poor Boy, a “play with music” according to B-U and inspired by Tim Finn’s music: new and old. From Adelaide and the city’s last Festival comes Andrew Bovell’s brilliant When The Rain Stops Falling (see the review in the StageNoise theatre archive). It comes with the original cast and setting by Hossein Valamanesh and is a Must See.
Actors Company alumna Pamela Rabe gets another crack at the director’s role with Elling, in Wharf 1. Based on the Norwegian novel, then film by Ingvar Ambjornsen, Frank Whitten and Darren Gilshenan have signed up for the comedy that was a big hit in London in 2007. Given Rabe’s sure touch as a comedic actor, it’s another production to anticipate with pleasure. The same can be said for Belinda McClory teaming up with director Benedict Andrews for Martin Crimp’s The City, which has been described by one British critic as “deliciously wicked.”
There’ll be more, promise B-U, but for the time being, deliciously wicked could also describe their own claim on the new STC culture, which will also incorporate a Profan-o-Meter for the more sensitive patrons. Happy days.
