Sunday Arts Magazine

23 Oct 2016

Linden Postcards, Archibald@Ballarat, Light in Piazza, AntiHamlet

Arts, Comedy, Design, Kids & Family, LGBTIQ, Literature, Music, Performing Arts, TV & Film, Visual Arts

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Linden Postcards, Archibald@Ballarat, Light in Piazza, AntiHamlet

Lucky Brendan is off on holiday after today– for a few weeks. So he tries to slip in as many film reviews as possible today. First up is Woody Allen’s Café Society which is set in 1930s Hollywood and New York. It is good light entertainment with a beautiful soundtrack-3.5 stars. Next is Australian film Boys in the Trees a Donnie Darko type film set in 1990s suburbia. The script lets it down–2 stars. Next is a film in limited release, The Neon Demon about an ingénue in the cut-throat world of modelling. Brendan enjoyed it but was uneasy about one particular aspect of it–4.5 stars. David saw the Viktor & Rolf Fashion Artists exhibition at the NGV on from 21 October to 26 February. He was most impressed, considering their creations to be exquisite and imaginative art pieces. Both our hosts saw Kinky Boots last night and loved it. They discuss various aspects of it.

Our special guests this week are:

17:05 to 29:57 mins–Melinda Martin is Director of Linden New Art gallery in St Kilda here to discuss the Linden Postcard Show 2016 on from 21 October 2016 to 29 January 2017. Melinda talks about her background and how Linden is a contemporary gallery that specialises predominantly in showing the work of mid-career artists. The Postcard Show in an annual event that is an open competition for any artist in Australia and has prizes for the best four. The only criterion is that the artwork must be 8 by 10 inches. The art is displayed in groups (e.g. faces, landscapes) and is for sale, with many being very affordable for first time buyers. Melinda also talks about upcoming exhibitions. The gallery is in a beautiful old Victorian building which does need occasional maintenance. Next year upgrade and maintenance work will be done between March and October but exhibitions will continue with staff and artwork temporarily relocating to Domain House, behind the shrine.

31:09 to 48:30 mins–Artist Heidi Yardley was one of the finalists in The Archibald Prize 2016 and has her painting showing with those of other finalists in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ballarat running until 27 November. Heidi was always drawing and painting and started exhibiting soon after finishing uni; supporting herself with casual jobs. She is now in her eighth year as a full-time artist but it was a long journey getting to this stage. She likes working with figures but ‘anonymous’ ones rather than a particular person. She only does one portrait a year and this year presented her third Archibald portrait. Not keen on the idea of celebrity, her first entry for the Archibald was a self-portrait– so she was very surprised it was accepted. Her next 2 portraits were of female artists who she admired and whose artwork was rather different from hers. She talks about how she worked with her subjects and also the experience of official functions with other finalists, their entries, and their famous sitters.

48:48 to 1:10:53 mins–Producer Luke Gallagher and Director Theresa Borg are her to discuss their production The Light in the Piazza on at the Arts Centre from 28 October to 6 November. Luke is also part of Joy! Both Luke and Theresa always sang and both studied music and theatre and performed in many musicals. Luke side-stepped into production and Theresa into directing. Theresa also started up a production company with her husband and brought Luke and other friends on board. It produces family and children’s entertainment which tour the world. Theresa and Luke talk about how it started and developed and how they’re also been doing contemporary musical theatre for adults too. The Light in the Piazza is one of many they have done. Unusually the central character is a 1950s wife and mother from an ultra- conservative US state who is a rebel of her context and a ‘champion for her daughter’s happiness’. They go to Florence and, when her daughter falls for an Italian man, she is reluctant to leave her there on her own… This musical has won Tony Awards (in the US), has beautiful songs, looks sumptuous, has clever and ‘bejewelled’ text and a multi-talented cast. There is also a dinner offered at a lovely Italian restaurant as part of a package.

1:11:53 to 1:24:57 mins–Mark Wilson is playwright, actor and director of Anti-Hamlet on at Theatre Works in St Kilda from 3 to 13 November. Mark always had the theatre bug and ended up studying it at uni and at a couple of other places in Australia and overseas (including a fellowship at The Globe). He’s been a Shakespeare fan for a long time and discusses the man and his plays with our hosts. This is the 3^rd Shakespeare play Mark has adapted. He’s always been interested in what Shakespeare doesn’t say in the plays. At the heart of Hamlet he thought what was missing was Australia itself and an explicit queer identity. These he has ‘shoved into Hamlet’. Also, as a writer, he cannot help being ‘autobiographical’. His Hamlet thinks about his queer identity and how he, as a prince, fits into the existing paradigm–such as inheritance and heirs. To help himself with this he seeks therapy from Freud! There is also the Australian context to the play where there is a tension between our desire for independence against our ‘lazy monarchism’. There are 7 in the cast with Mark playing Hamlet.