As reviews go, that one was certainly worth waiting for.

Hi Alison, I have watched both sessions so far. I agree with your critique of the second session. I personally find this a great way to experience monologues though. I have always struggled with appreciating monologues as live theatre. They never quite leave me feeling sated, but this hybrid presentation – living in a space somewhere between in person and in comfort – really works for me. As a ex-production specialist I can also see that as a mode this might actually be one of the most effective way to explore monologues more both as artists and audiences. I personally love what we are discovering about this limbo world and the skill of theatre makers is increasing exponentially with this new performance mode as it does with all technologies we import inappropriately into live theatre 😉 I can wait to see what the next integration iteration will be in the next limbo world of opening up but not yet in full operation!

Your words have captured the feeling that we are drowning, sinking slowly into the quicksand of ignorance and apathy, too exhausted even to struggle.

Thanks, Ian. Yes, the Australia Council continues to be in an impossible position, continually on the back foot trying to cope with the continual crisis. Interesting times! I hope we can rescue something good from this, but it is going to be so difficult. On the other hand, there is now very little to lose.

Three features distinguished the rump Parliament that sat to enact the regulations permitting the JobKeeper allowance. One was that the session seemed utterly farcical – the votes could have been counted at the Members’ entrance, long before anyone even took a seat. Another was Tony Bourke’s informed and eloquent speech in favour of amending the Bill to include arts workers, and the third was the Arts Minister voting against the interest of his own portfolio.
Funding has been found in other budgets, most recently Creative Victoria’s Minister Martin Foley has loosened the purse-strings by $16.8 million. Victoria’s creative community is grateful, of course, but as a fraction of the Andrews Government’s current expenditure commitments, it’s pocket-money – equivalent to about twelve metres of the Metro tunnel. Of course the money is welcome, the more so as La Mama was not overlooked, but the real need is for recognition, acknowledgement, plain acceptance of the fact that people in the Arts do real work. Paul Fletcher, the federal Arts Minister revealed last week that he believes a week’s work in the arts is work less than the JobSeeker payment – about $550.
That is the core of the problem.
Alison has reminded us (as if anyone likely to read this needs reminding) of the relative value, just in dollar terms, of arts work against aviation, tourism and mining. The fact that the comparison even needs to be made is shameful. So is the fact that money is its only measurement – think it through: if Virgin folds it will be disastrous for some Australians, inconvenient for more and irrelevant for many. If Australia stops painting and writing, making films, music, fashion – catastrophe for all of us.
The Arts has not had a strong voice in Canberra since Keating. Since then, the Arts portfolio has been at the bottom successive Prime Ministers’ in-trays or in the hands of a junior (someone will say, “What about Simon Crean?” yes, but how long did that last?). The only time I remember someone from a professional Arts practice winning a seat it was Peter Garrett. They gave him the Environment, and we remember how that turned out.
The Arts must become politically active and connected – and united. Our community has been split into fragments fighting each other for scraps, like baby birds stretching their necks for the worm in their mother’s beak, each desperately trying to gape wider and scream louder than its brothers and sisters. We are off the list of essential industries – below rugby league and Bunnings.
It will take a generation, but this must be the goal: for senior bureaucrats to come from an Arts background, giving sound advice to Ministers who respect it, and can actually kick arse in Cabinet.
That’s enough from me. For now.

Thanks for this article Alison, as well as the others, which I thought were equally excellent. Although I agree with Ian that the carnage should mostly be attributed to the Government, rather than the OzCo, they are not entirely blameless. Increasing the cap that companies could ask for to $500K per annum from $300K per annum, when there was no extra money in the budget, could only lead to more companies being de-funded. It was a conscious decision to prioritise the larger players in the small to medium sector.

Thanks Stephen

Thanks Alison: your review made me wish I’d gone to see it.
Words are like that, aren’t they. You gave me glimpses only of what I might feel. Language doesn’t transmit meaning, just nudges us towards it.
Keep nudging!
Peter

Hi – thanks for addressing The Nico Project so comprehensively. Totally agree with your thoughts having spent the morning pondering the show

Couldn’t agree more. What I objected to most was that it displayed all the shortcomings of commissioned Festival shows. I am heartily sick of “commissioned” shows for Arts festivals. Every one was clearly pitched as “We have (insert name here) lauded practitioner on board and we will be celebrating (x) and it is called “Evocative and catchy title”. They inevitably hit the stage half-baked at best and costing a fortune. Money that could be better spent on a dozen local independent shows.

You are absolutely right, Alison. I sprayed my vitriol a little wide.

Ps I often have a similar reaction to Adena Jacobs’ work – that she’s embarked on a project to forge a new female-centric – or at least ‘aware’ – aesthetic.

Hey Alison. I certainly know that you’re quite at home with obscurity (as opposed to some other critical voices)! In this case I was certainly very pleased that I read the program notes before the show! If I hadn’t read the background about Nico’s experience as a child during the war etc. the obscurity would have been impenetrable! But I did still enjoy it. Maxine Peake is such an utterly confident and present performer (Angela and I were very close to the front which may have helped with being held by simple ‘presence’ of her and the other performers) and I just went with the immersion. Is part of the problem with working in non-narrative abstract theatrical forms that the audience’s role is so much more central which means that the mood you’re in when you go has more impact? Hmmm.

Maybe? I mean, one brings one’s subjectivity to all art (or what’s the point?) but clearly others felt the same, so it wasn’t only me. (Not that that invalidates your own response at all.) Knowing the story made no difference for me, and the more I researched it the more I felt it was a missed opportunity, Also the text was for me utterly banal and that’s not to do with mood so much as aesthetic; my own reading of poetry and other non narrative forms made this seem very naive and superficial. I was really writhing. But now I’m repeating what I said above…

I think you shouldn’t avoid his work, I’ve really enjoyed a lot of it. The baffling thing about this play is why it was programmed. It’s not derivative of Copenhagen – which I didn’t like either, ftr! – but it draws on that metaphor. As do many many other works of art!

Alison can I just say how much I appreciate you contextualising references like Rimbaud, rather than just dropping them on the floor for us to pick up? I feel deeply inadequte sometimes when critics hurl around names with the expectation that everyone should just get it if they are similarly qualified to think about art.

Hi Ceridwen, many thanks for your comment. “Gender equity” is consciously used here, and therefore not at all misleading: at Witness we wish to include all women (including trans women, who are particularly marginalised) in the language we use. As modern science confirms, sex is by no means as binary as patriarchal tradition wishes us to believe, and the divisions between sex and gender as socially or biologically determined categories are by no means clear cut. I am as a woman entirely clear about how social structures are weighted to disadvantage and exclude those who don’t fit the standard of white, male, cis and abled, and how these things are deeply and complexly related to poverties of various kinds. And I’m equally clear that one of the major means used to police women of all kinds are patriarchal and colonialist binary categories. “Natural justice” requires justice for everybody.

Thanks for your writing on this show, I had very similar feelings. Thought is was an amazing text and would be very keen to see more of SL Park’s work. The production also made me realise how frustratingly rare it is to see big non-white-centric narratives like this staged in Australian institutions or on our main stages. Wonderful production by Candy & co. Hungry for more work like this… Malthouse? MTC?