Audiostage

Our first guests are playwrights Patricia Cornelius and Melissa Reeves. We talk about responsibility in playwrighting: the words we use, the stories we tell, the people we stage, and the playwrights we give money to.

"Drama is like the minute hand of the clock."

- Julian Meyrick

In episode 5, Julian Meyrick, theatre historian, cultural policy analyst, and Strategic Professor of Creative Arts at Flinders University, joins Fleur and Jana in the concluding conversation on theatre histories and documentation. We talk about his controversial essays on the history of independent theatre in Melbourne, his historical analyses of arts funding in Australia, and on what mistakes have been made, again and again.

This episode is our longest so far, and we still had to cut our conversation short (because minors in our custody were starving) without touching on everything we were planning to talk about.

We were really interested, right from the start, in talking with Julian, because we found his writings so useful in creating this season of talks. However, his new Platform Paper was published right as we were going into production, and then an unnecessary (and, in our opinion, somewhat dumb) controversy exploded around the margins of his argument. In this episode, we take time to talk about ideas, in this essay and in Julian's other writings, while trying to give as much room to nuance, as nuance needs.

"If we paid the true value for our cultural experiences, rather than the discounted value of buying American scripts and British scripts and doing those (because we don’t have to translate them and the fit is ‘good enough’, as it were, culturally speaking) [...] we would realise that we’re free-loading on global culture. We’re taking that hidden subsidy that Britain and America do invest in their work and we nick it. That allows us to under-invest in our own dramatic culture."

- Julian Meyrick

Discussed in this episode:

the comprehensive history of Australian theatre in one minute and a half according to Julian Meyrick; projectors in theatre (so important); Australia’s horror of its past; Are we dumber than we were forty-years ago?; the cultural hangover called J. C. Williamson; Louis Nowra's The Golden Age; Patricia Cornelius; cultural rights and cultural duties; should we be optimistic about careers in theatre?; and how in the world does a dramatic canon come about.

"I am absolutely sure – 100% sure – that it (the break down in the development of new Australian works) cannot be solved by just trying to pick winners. I don’t think that that is a viable strategy for horse racing let alone for playwriting. You need some deeper philosophical, political, social and artistic sense of what drama is if you’re going to encourage and develop Australian drama into its next diverse and myriad-formed existence."

- Julian Meyrick

With this concludes our first season, on remembering theatre. But stay tuned: we have more exciting and intellectually rigorous conversations to come. Next week, we will start talking about yet another big topic: responsibility.

Podcast bibliography:

Julian Meyrick: Trapped by the Past, Why Our Theatre is Facing Paralysis (Platform Papers, Quarterly essays on the performing atrs, No 3, January 2005)

Julian Meyrick: The Retreat of Our National Drama (Platform Paper n.39)

Julian Meyrick: The Logic of Culture: The Fate of Alternative Theatre in the Post-Whitlam Period (Australasian Drama Studies, April 2014, issue 64)

Sydney Morning Herald: 'Australian theatre exhausted and waning, claims director and academic Julian Meyrick' (Steve Dow, May 8, 2014)

Discussed in this episode: the first European play ever performed in Australia, Oriel Gray's The Torrents, the 'state of the nation' play, John Howard AND Paul Keating, setting Henry V in Gallipoli, watching theatre for information, Barrie Kosky and all our greatest theatre exports, being allowed to fail, generational warfare, Sisters Grimm and Declan Greene, killing art with egalitarianism, Lally Katz, and the theatre-enhancing properties of cheap airfares.

In episode three, the Artistic Director of Dancehouse, Melbourne's home of contemporary dance, Angela Conquet, joins hosts Jana Perkovic and Fleur Kilpatrick. We talk about contemporary dance in Australia, what makes it particular; about the urgency to preserve it, and whether Australia, being such a young country, is not aware of the forces of impermanence. Discussed in this episode:

Russell Dumas, how much space Australian pedestrians take, reinventing hot water, RoseLee Goldberg not getting Australian dance, what it means to have or not have a revolution, Merce Cunningham, the historical importance of being seen at Avignon, and much else.

In episode two poet, novelist, critic and commentator Alison Croggon, joins hosts Jana Perkovic and Fleur Kilpatrick. We talk about the place of the review in art documentation and how one balances the responsibilities that the critic has to the artist, the audience and to history. Discussed in this episode:

the mutual dependency of blogs and independent theatre, Robert Brustein, when reviewers are incorrect, Requiem for the 20th Century, internet trolls (all men!), and the cowardice of anonymity.

In our first episode artist, historian and prolific contributor to Australian theatre, Robert Reid, joins hosts Jana Perkovic and Fleur Kilpatrick. The conversation gives context to this moment in performance history whilst looking to the future of documentation. Discussed are: melodrama, vaginal knitting, "The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll," stage directions: yes or no?, improbable character descriptions, and the historical value of internet comments.