Sunday Arts Magazine

22 May 2016

Flesh Eating Tiger, 45downstairs, Jazzhead, E. Albee play,US Fest

Arts, History, Music, Performing Arts, Sexuality, TV & Film

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Flesh Eating Tiger, 45downstairs, Jazzhead, E. Albee play,US Fest

It’s the second anniversary of Sunday Arts Magazine next week!! i.e. 29May2015. The show will take a different format. Guests who have been on the show before will come in to talk about ‘What is art?’ and ‘What art do they love?’. Brendan reviews X Men Appocalypse, the 9^th instalment of the X Men franchise. Brendan enjoyed it because it’s set in the 1980s with lots of spandex and is very cartoonish. It also has high calibre actors such as James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender- 3.5 stars. Later our hosts talk briefly about singer and cabaret performer Ali McGregor and openly gay US singer John Grant.

Then it’s back to films with The Essential Independents: American Cinema, Now film festival on from 17 May-8 June 2016. Brendan saw the opening night film Time Out of Mind (2014) starring- an against type-Richard Gere who plays a recently homeless man. Many of the films areslower-paced and more character driven than their more commercial counterparts. It also includes classics like Midnight Cowboy. And for horror fan Brendan there’s Near Dark (1987)–an early film by Oscar winning director Kathryn Bigelow. Another favourite for Brendan is Sofia Coppola’s 1999 film The Virgin Suicides. Also there’s the very controversial film Cruising (1980), starring Al Pacino, which gays saw as an attack on the community at the time. Interestingly, a 40 minute film called Interior Leather Bar (by James Franco) is being shown along with Cruising, which is a re-enactment of the 40 mins cut and lost from the film. Other interesting films are I Smile Back with comic Sarah Silverman plays a dramatic role.

Special guests today are:

08:12 to 25:31 mins– Gabrielle Savrone is a director, performer and co-owner of the Owl and Cat Theatre and is here to talk about their latest show –Flesh Eating Tiger on from 31 May to 4 June at 34 Swan St Cremorne. Gabrielle got the acting bug at about 12 and got an agent at 14. She did bit parts on TV shows while at school but later followed a managerial/corporate path until a trip to New York brought her back to what she loved i.e.making theatre. She studied theatre-making at Deakin and wrote plays which were performed at Fringe shows. Also, via her acting coach, she got to go to a conference in Alaska where she did theatre workshops, readings and performances at night. Now she goes every year. She will be directing an Australian play there this year (written by Amy Tofte who won an award for it) and is taking her actors with her. Gabrielle and creative partner Thomas Ian Doyle took over the Owl and Cat Theatre in Richmond about 18 months ago. Amy Tofte’s play- Flesh Eating Tiger– is about a man addicted to alcohol and struggling with his sexual identity and a woman who is married but addicted to the man. It’s a play within a play which blurs the line between reality and theatre/fantasy. She talks about trying to be entrepreneurial due to funding cuts e.g. having a cocktail bar on Saturday night where people can chill and having a ‘pay what you want Wednesday’ for people short of funds for a play.

26:58 to 42:55 mins– Mary Lou Jelbart is the Artistic Director at fortyfivedownstairs–here to talk about upcoming events– Shorts@45 on 6 June and Resident Alien on 25 May to 12 June. She was a broadcaster at Radio National and at 774 where she reviewed theatre and visual arts and loved it. But she wanted a change so she took some time off and came across an empty gallery in Flinders Lane 14 years ago. They set it up as a gallery to alternate with performance for 6 to 7 years and then they took over the derelict floor below and turned it into an atmospheric theatre space. Mary Lou and David talk about a play he’d seen that had just finished there called Shit by Patricia Cornelius. Mary Lou then talks about Shorts@45 which started last year and came from a proposal -by playwright Dina Ross- that people loved hearing stories read to them. And in this case, the author reads it. Mary Lou talks about the 2 authors —Rod Jones and Arnold Zable–and their books, in this year’s first event on 6 June. The event is more intimate than a book-signing and the audience can talk with the author. At the same time as Shorts@45 there will be a play called Resident Alien about Quentin Crisp and in his apartment are shelves of books. This is a solo show with Paul Capsis playing Quentin who was an eccentric, ballsy, clever and very out gay man in the UK at a time when it was not accepted at all. Paul is a great performer and looks right for the role and is likely to put on a performance you’ll never forget.

55:11 to 1:11:57 mins–Andrew Walker from the record label Jazzhead tells how he started this company back in 1996 with Joe Camilleri from The Black Sorrows. Joe found that there was no outlet for Jazz musicians to release products. Andrew and our hosts chat about Jazz itself and also discuss the difficulties of running a label in today’s climate including piracy and also the poor sound quality of digital transmission especially for Jazz and Classical music. Streaming can be good because people experiment with music but the volume of it is not high. Our hosts play some unusual new jazz music from Peter Knight and his band Way Out West who are launching their album – – at The Malthouse on 11 June. Andrew talks about the band and the Japanese instrument they used on the piece. They meld the music with sounds of the streets and other elements and also use horns which have a jazzy sound. Also, longstanding Jazzhead contributor- saxophonist Rob Burke– has a project with an Italian guitarist, playing Sardinian folk songs. They’ll be launching their record on 3 June. Burke lectures at Monash Uni and has had some music projects under its banner. As as part of its teaching processes, Monash brings in some luminaries from overseas. Andrew talks about how many records they release each year, their availability, their music on TV, selling music overseas, touring and what’s next for him. To buy music go to their website–all the links are there.

1:13:12 to mins–Director and actor Denis Moore is directing the classic play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? –on from 14 June to 10 July at the Winterfall Theatre in Kew. Denis learnt production at NIDA and drama at Flinders Uni in SA. He joined the APG (Australian Performing Group) at the Pram Factory in Melbourne in 1979. He then freelanced from 1981 as an actor and director. He talks about NIDA and also his longevity in the industry. Denis describes the play as a marital war that goes on and on between a married couple and then also with a younger couple who come to visit. Denis has worked before with Michelle Williams who’s a co- founder of Winterfall Theatre, which is putting on the play, and is also starring in it. He’s also worked previously with another main actor–Chris Connelly. Denis talks about the playwright Edward Albee and his worry about giving rights to companies as he does not want the play to be modernised or radically re-interpreted. Denis sums up Albee’s view–‘He considers that once the play is written, the creative act has occurred.’ Denis sees himself as an ‘actor-director’ and has never been big on interpretive directing. He adds about Albee that he has been very generous to younger playwrights where he has converted one of his country homes into a retreat for playwrights and also teaches at one of the New York Unis. Denis then talks about the history of Winterfall.

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