1998

Magpie 2 – A Future or a Blown Youth ?

Murray Bramwell

Adelaide

It was only in July last year that I reported in these columns the arrival of a new funded company in Adelaide. Well, it was not so much a new company as a makeover of an existing operation. In an effort to rescue the long-term subscriber base for State Theatre, then Executive Director Chris Westwood grasped the nettle and changed the charter for Magpie, the young people’s wing of State’s operation, which had run almost as long as the parent company itself.

No more TIE activity, no more schools tours and theatre for littlies. Instead the rebadged Magpie 2 was to target the eighteen to twenty five age bracket in order to keep the flame of theatre burning long enough so that in a decade’s time there might still be an audience ambulant and sentient enough to come and see State’s work.

It was a brave move – part strategy, part desperation. The age group – late teens to early twenties- is, for most purposes, the demographic from hell. As a defined age group they are largely hostile to theatre, unless they or their friends are in it. And, generally, they are tribal, atavistic, volatile and justly suspicious of most of the usual attempts at niche marketing. So, for newly appointed Artistic Director, Benedict Andrews the Magpie job, if not a poisoned chalice, was certainly what the sports writers like to call a Big Ask.

Remarkably, with only two productions slated for the year, Andrews came very close to making his mark. Opening with Future Tense back in May last year he brought together a double bill –Mercedes by  German writer Thomas Brasch and In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields, a densely poetic dialogue by French writer Bernard-Marie Coltes. It was accomplished, bold work, well-performed with assured direction from Andrews and memorable design work from Imogen Thomas.

In December Benedict Andrews capped the year with Features of Blown Youth from the gifted Melbourne-based writer Raimondo Cortese. Having read his earlier work Lucrezia and Cesare the director had contacted the writer in 1996 when there were plans afoot for Andrews to work with the Red Shed collective. Then, when his appointment to Magpie was announced, the hunt was on for new, gritty and local work. Cortese and his new venture into naturalism, Features of Blown Youth was just what the director ordered.

As it happened, Features opened in Adelaide’s Queens Theatre only a few months after its Melbourne debut. Performed only weeks after Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking toured, the local work – with its narrative based around a  group of singles living, and partly living, in a run-down tenement – compared strongly. Some themes- like the systematic abuse and exploitation of the vulnerable young are even more graphically displayed in Cortese’s play. Performed in Justin Kurzel’s  dizzyingly high doll’s house-like set we peer into the besieged lives of Dove (Valerie Berry) Rot (Jed Kurzel) Isabella (Elena Carapetis) Oron (Richard Kelly) -among others – as they are preyed upon by the sinister new landlord, Strawberry- played with eerie energy by Syd Brisbane.

Features played for two weeks drawing late season houses that suggest a third would have sold out. As usual, combining performances with rave nights run by leading techno wizards Dirty House, Benedict Andrews believes his ventures were succeeding in creating a new and increasing loyal following – many of whom had never been to the theatre before.

Unfortunately, in that night of the Australia Council long knives late last year, Magpie, along with veteran company Red Shed, lost its financial support. “We didn’t expect triennial funding, ” notes Andrews ruefully, ” but neither the Shed nor us thought we’d be cut. In Magpie’s case we got cut before we were even walking. This experiment was unique in Australia. We had young actors, designers, lighting people. Where else would you find so many young artists- properly funded, not just working in a co-op- presenting material that they really believe in and love. The work was truly professional and audiences responded to that.”

As we go to press there are still prospects for an Arts SA initiative to fund a combined venture between Benedict Andrews and the Red Shed’s AD Tim Maddock. There is a new work slated for the Adelaide Festival, The Architect’s Walk,  which has Maddock continuing his fruitful partnership with playwright Daniel Keene. And hope persists that a four work season might still eventuate in 1998.

But it won’t be called Magpie 2, which despite a fine brace of productions has been permanently grounded. State Theatre, under new Artistic Director Rodney Fisher has other ideas about programming and that is fair enough – the flagship has a big job this year just keeping itself afloat. But Adelaide can’t afford to lose the likes of Andrews and Maddock- nor the circle of dedicated artists they continue to attract. It is in everybody’s interest that a revitalised third force emerges- and quickly.

Real Time, February, 1998.