Sunday Arts Magazine

10 Jan 2016

Songs of Laura Nyro, Elegy, Seat of Narcissa, R.Stigwood tribute

Arts, Comedy, Music, Performing Arts, TV & Film

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All our trio is in and will be interviewing Midsumma Arts performers . Brendan and Daniel have seen a few films between them just before the Golden Globes telecast (11 January). They discuss The Revenant starring Leonardo Di Caprio and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu of Birdman fame. An epic western but too long. Despite his misgivings, Brendan gave it 4 stars. Daniel saw Nasty Baby which will be playing at ACMI from 5 February and found it to be very interesting; a conversation starter. It’s a queer film without focusing on the queerness and one that completely changes tone in the latter part. 3.5 stars. Brendan saw Sisters starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler with ‘muted expectations’ which it lived up to– 2.5 stars.

Special guests today are all involved in Midsumma shows:

15:51 to 29:52 mins–Hilary Watts and Aubrey Flood. They met when they both studied Musical Theatre at Ballarat Uni which has a great reputation for that. They’ve done a few shows together since leaving uni, including working and training with The Present Tense Ensemble. Hilary is doing Stoney End: The Songs of Laura Nyro on from 21 to 23 January at Ruby’s Music Room on the corner of Little Lonsdale Street and Bennetts Lane. It’s part of Midsumma. Hilary will be accompanied by musicians and 3 other singers including Aubrey. Hilary discovered Singer/Songwriter Laura Nyro (1947 to 1997)when looking for new Carole King demos on iTunes and loved her. She finds her music and storytelling evocative and compelling and wants to share it with everyone. Aubrey agrees, describing it as ‘rich’. Nyro didn’t get commercial success as a singer but many artists recorded her songs such as Barbra Streisand and the 5th Dimension. Hilary sees Nyro’s music fitting into the LGBTI spectrum as it’s all encompassing of all kinds of love.

30:05 to 43:31 mins–Director John Kachoyan talks about his play Elegy,a Midsumma premiere event, showing at Gasworks from 19 January to 6 February. John started as an actor and but wanted to try other roles in theatre. He directed in Sydney and then did his Masters in London which he regarded as a good place to start due to the amount of opportunities. His specialty was developing new plays. A pet project now is exploring neglected Aussie plays and our theatre history. He came back from London to be the director in residence for the Bell Shakespeare Co. He’s worked with Red Stitch, MTC and has his own company for 2 years. Lab Kelpie are the producers of the show Elegy and Gasworks is also supporting it. Elegy has played to European audiences to rave reviews and is based on interviews with 8 gay Iraqi asylum seekers who escaped through Europe. The text came from them and the show uses their words through one fictitious person. Many people don’t want to be confronted by this topic in Western countries generally but John want to lure them in because the work does have humour and is a beautiful lyrical story as well as confronting. John and our hosts discuss the importance of telling a story such as this to a Western audience as we get ‘broad narratives’ from the news. There are plans to tour the work.

David gives a heartfelt tribute to an expatriate Australian (from Adelaide) who worked and lived in the UK–Robert Stigwood (16/4/1934 to 05/01/2016). As well as being part of our community, he was an entrepreneur, artist manager and a producer of music, musical theatre and films and had his own record company. He was most famous for being involved with The Who, Cream, Eric Clapton, The Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita (stage and film) and Grease. Many Australians didn’t know about him or thought he wasn’t Australian most likely because he was a producer and not an artist. He also worked overseas. David and the others then discuss other behind-the-scenes Australians who many don’t know of.

Our trio then discuss a musical sensation from Texas called Leon Bridges, a 25 year old soul artist best known for his song ‘Coming Home’ which was a Top 10 most viral track on a Streaming service. David saw him at a concert this month and with his voice, songs and style, thinks he can become a superstar. He only recently put out his first album and may possibly been in contention for a Grammy.

David and Brendan discuss Elvis Presley due to a recent Top 10 album featuring Elvis’ voice over sublime re-recorded orchestral arrangements of his songs. Our trio then make recommendations for particular Midsumma theatre shows for a listener’s posh auntie!

59:52 to 1:18:09mins—Writer, Director and Musical Director Sofia Chapman and performer Kate Hosking are in to talk about Untitled, or The Seat of Narcissa on at La Mama in Carlton, from January 19 to 31 at various times. Apart from the 2 women there was ‘Bunny’ in the studio who was fascinated with Brendan! Sofia states that poetry came before this production where she and friends wrote poetry about randomly selected topics for fun. She found the Baroness of Inverness emerged and she started performing her poems in 2009ish and it developed into a lesbian romance and comedy with some tragic elements and some songs. This production is about the Baroness (played by Kate) desiring the attentions of the Viscountess Narcissa but finding she is just one in a queue. Sofia was into drama, literature and poetry at school. She did languages and discovered European playwrights. She also plays the accordion. She came back to poetry and found that performing them helps her to refine them and think of them theatrically. Kate’s father was an actor in the theatre and is still acting in Prague at present. Kate learnt dance, singing and the French horn as a child and later did theatre and choreography –which she’s now doing for this production as well as the role of Baroness of Inverness. She reads Sofia’s poem on air—as the Baroness.

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