Tuesday 30 June 2009

Radio-play airing this weekend on Radio National

Left Breathless A Question
Written by Catherine Zimdahl
ABC Radio Airplay
Sunday 5th July 3pm
Thursday 9th July 7pm (repeat)

Sometimes you are married to a stranger. Sometimes marriage is stranger than anything.

A barrister and his wife explore the complexities of a marriage from very different points of view. 'He' is dealing on a daily basis with relationships on the verge of collapse, seemingly unaware that his own marriage may also be vulnerable. 'She' hopes to find the answers to her endless questions by shopping.
Left Breathless A Question premiered at the Griffin Theatre in 2007. It was initiated as part of the 7-ON writers' collective project responding to Maslow's seven needs.

Written by Catherine Zimdahl
Featuring Peter Kowitz and Penne Hackforth Jones
Sound Engineer: Judy Rapley
Production: Michael Bates and Anna Messariti

Friday 19 June 2009

And check this out ...

Following on from the last post, check out this article from The Guardian: Leading Ladies Kept out of the Limelight: Conference hears of battle against ageism and sexism.
Only 9% of top films last year directed by women
.

On the up side however, another article from The Guardian: Female Playwrights Set to Take West End by Storm. The writers are all young, so let's hope they've got long careers ahead of them.

Wednesday 17 June 2009

What is going on here?

If like me, you’ve been following the fabulous Mad Men on SBS, which is set in the early 1960s, you can probably understand why feminism became such a force in the decade that followed. Yes, the men evaluate the female characters in terms of their appearance and sexual availability, but far more insidious is their assumption that women are no-go zones when it comes to the life of the mind.

That’s Mad Men, that’s the 1960s, This is Sydney in 2009, and I’m a tad troubled by something I and a few colleagues, including fellow 7-ONers, are observing. Today we did a bit of a gender audit on Belvoir B Sharp’s 2009 season, and found: Women writers = 0; women directors = 2. Then there was that recent article about Neil Armfield’s decision to leave his position as Artistic Director of Belvoir Street Theatre after some 15 years, in which the talent waiting in the wings just happened to be all male. Speaking for myself, I’ll believe we’ve achieved equality when I read about a twenty-something female wunderkind!

But it’s not only Belvoir. The Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece about the current popularity of Russian plays and adaptations. The journalist discussed this trend with a number of directors, all male, and although the production Ladybird was referred to, its (female) director Lee Lewis was not named.

Most of us in 7-ON have taught performance writing in various contexts, and in nearly every instance female students greatly outnumber men. So what happens to them? At what point in the process are they being passed over? Do they give up when the going gets tough? Are they perhaps less committed than their male counterparts? Or do they side-step more readily into admin and support roles? Should we be asking those who commission and program to explain their criteria and decision-making processes?

Look, this is a vexed issue. As writers we want to get gigs on the strength and qualities of our work, not because of our gender, cultural background, place of residence or whatever. And I’m personally not in favour of affirmative action initiatives, which despite the best intentions, often end up marginalising rather than opening doors. But isn’t it time we asked: what the hell is going on here?

Friday 12 June 2009

Mrs Macquarie's Cello goes to air

ABC Airplay will broadcast my latest radio piece on Sunday 14th June at 3pm. It can be listened to online for the month after. But don't read the introductory information on their webpage. I've complained, spoken to the EP, and even written them a blurb, but there it is still, misinforming listeners and mis-crediting me. God damn. Read the bit below instead.

Elizabeth Macquarie, and her husband Governor Lachlan Macquarie, are remembered by history for having changed the direction of a penal colony into a settlement based more or less on merit and the rule of law, rather than rum and racketeering. Not everyone was happy with this new direction, and sidelined military and aristocratic factions worked hard to turn London opinion against the Governor. Lachlan was ultimately denounced in a Royal Commission of 1819, however, after his death in 1824, Elizabeth successfully campaigned to clear her husband's name. The play is set on the day Elizabeth receives this news, and is inspired by a range of sources including diaries, reports, letters, manuals for conserving musical instruments, a Robert Burns poem and a recipe for roast swan.

Mrs Macquarie's Cello was a co-production between Airplay, the Song Company and ABC Classic FM. It was written by Donna Abela with music composed by Raffaelo Marcellino. It re-imagines an earlier concert version along similar themes
written by Lisa Morrisset and composed by Raffaelo Marcellino.

Donna

Thursday 11 June 2009

Hitchers of Oz

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. When I wrote it.
Then it arrived on the doorstep and I was excited. I flicked through the collection of short stories in The Hitchers of Oz and there it was. My first published short story. My heart swelled with pride. I went to the fridge, got myself a cold beer and sat down to read it. Apart from a few glaring grammatical errors, which I put down to "my wacky inarticulate style", it seemed ok.
Then.
A week ago.
But.. it's not a play. I can't point the finger at anyone else. I can't blame the actors or the director or the audience. I can't pretend it's not personal...'cause it is.
As the days go by and as I write this I'm not so sure what to think.
But it's there. It's in print.
So...if you wanna check it out...it's called The Hitchers of Oz and it's a whole lot of stories about hitchhiking in...Oz.
There you go.
Wasn't that hard.
Was it?
Ned Manning

Tuesday 2 June 2009

NOTES FROM A 7-ONer

This week I’ve been recovering from one of those weekends when too much theatre is not really enough. On the Friday night I went to a showing at the Fraser Studio OFF THE SHELF PROJECT (run by Queen Street Studios)

There were five shows of around 20 – 30 minutes each, of varying quality and ambition presented by a disparate group of mostly young and emerging writers, actors, directors. I hadn’t been to the Fraser Studio before (14 Kensington Street, Chippendale). It’s a fantastic space – big, barny rooms set up with basic theatrical facilities, plus even a small outside square of garden. It's always great to see what people are up to, but, apart from the specific personal connection that got me there in the first place, it wasn’t so much the shows themselves that I loved as the occasion...Persons collected together by a passion for expression that could only be fulfilled by – a space, some players and an audience. It’s the ambition, I think, of making something from nothing and then sharing the event. At whatever stage of your theatrical life you may be at – that’s the thing that first drew you in.

The next afternoon I went to the Patrick White Prize announcement, won by Nicki Bloom (with whom I also need to declare a connection), with the subsequent reading of her play, BLOODWOOD (commissioned by Griffin Theatre Company.) http://sydneytheatre.com.au/

Once again it was a combination of passion and ambition that got to me. The play we heard was a first draft, so it will change quite a lot before production I’m sure, but what impressed me – apart from the language, which is flexible, allusive and works on a number of levels - was that the play is wildly ambitious, particularly for someone’s second ever theatre piece.

That night I went to a bare bones performance of Maxim Gorky’s SUMMERFOLK, put on at the Belvoir Theatre Rehearsal space, directed by Eamon Flack, with a cast of seventeen (?) actors all performing for free. It is a monster of a piece – thoughtful, controlled, elegiac, passionate, a drama of lost dreams.

I was lucky enough to see the Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg’s production of Chekhov’s UNCLE VANYA a couple of Sydney Festival’s ago and then, last Sydney Festival, the Katona Jozef Theatre’s IVANOV followed this year by the fascinating Downstairs Belvoir production of Vassily Sigarev’s LADYBIRD, directed by Lee Lewis, where it seemed to me that the undercurrent running through was once again, as in Chekhov, as in Gorky, the monstrous, ongoing hibernation of the Russian bear, this fierce strange, unwieldy, unconscious ice-gripped society where passion and despair stumble hand in hand.

And again – even apart from the play - which it was a privilege, actually, to see – there was the feeling that here were a group of (this time) established artists who, for sheer passion for the medium had gathered together to mount a piece that should be seen every few years approached by a range of directors and actors and styles and companies but which, because of our shallow culture, we will not normally have access to. It was great, and liberating, too. Sometimes just the engagement with the material is enough.

Verity Laughton