2004

Murray Bramwell previews the State Theatre program for 2004.

There has never been a more important time for the State Theatre Company, and the responsibilities on Artistic Director Rosalba Clemente, now in her fourth year, are greater than ever. Much has been said in the past about flagship companies. Some have even speculated that we don’t need them any more. But that was in more buoyant times than these. Adelaide needs its flagship company – to show artistic leadership, and to provide a beacon, and a challenge, for the smaller craft who are presently bobbing about in the water without much purpose or much zip.

It hard to make good theatre, even in the best of times, and these are surely not those. For that reason Rosalba Clemente’s accomplishments have been all the more laudable. She has not only raised subscriber levels to the best in twelve years but she has gathered together a committed and enthusiastic creative team. Much of State’s profile is focused on Rosalba – whether cheerily leaping out of the pages of perky brochures or stepping out of an actual helicopter for the launch at the Adelaide Oval. She has also taken lead roles as both actor and director.

But, as they say in the sports pages, the captain can’t, and shouldn’t, always lead from the front. And in 2004 Clemente has recognised that fact by directing only two works and taking a rest from performing. But there are other restraints also evident – and that is in funding and the consequent amount of activity that is possible.

We have fallen a long way from the days – less than ten years ago – when State Theatre offered a program of ten works and the so-called World Theatre program from the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust produced a further eight or so. With a total of as many as sixteen productions, including new works from interstate companies as well some international items, audiences in Adelaide were able to see what was doing at Belvoir Street, Playbox and in the other state-funded companies.

But now for the second year running, State has cut back to eight productions, and several of them co-productions. If Adelaide is serious about claims to arts excellence it has to do better than this. Money has been coughed up for any number of other promotional ventures – we are tired of the endless claims of budget constraint. For one thing they make bad business sense. State Theatre needs more funding so it can make high quality works that can tour and show what we are achieving. This would also enable that essential flow of artists from elsewhere to enliven and lift quality. We are too small a centre to be entirely home-grown, and if we try, the result will be provincial mediocrity.

The 2003 season included some notable successes – Myth Propaganda and Disaster, a timely work from Stephen Sewell, a likeable production of Proof featuring local actors Amber McMahon and Nathaniel Davison, and a strong version of The Crucible featuring Nicholas Eadie. Other works fared less well – and they were ones tipped to be lighthearted in troubled times . Scapin was both overdone and under-imagined and the usually reliable Legs on the Wall’s Flying Blind proved to aptly named, it was an indulgent mess. Not enough of the program proved challenging, either to audiences or to the artists involved.

With a largely unadventurous and depleted second tier, an enthusiastic but ever-conventional amateur sector, and an undemanding Adelaide Festival theatre program, the pressure is all the greater on State to set some higher benchmarks and stretch the audience’s resolve. A coach would say we need more of a second effort.

There are signs of this in 2004 with A Number, a recent work from Caryl Churchill directed by Marion Potts, David Mamet’s Boston Marriage, featuring Amber McMahon and the modern classic Death of a Salesman, especially with William Zappa in the lead. The conspicuously dormant Brink Productions will collaborate for Marty Dennis’s The Duck Shooter, now a play after the film The Erskineville Kings and Windmill Performing Arts are partners for Afternoon of the Elves which will be directed by Seattle Children’s Theatre AD Linda Hartzell.

Night Letters based on the novel by Robert Dessaix will premiere for the Festival after a long time under the bunsen burners at State’s On Site Laboratory, Goodnight Desdemona, a Canadian play by Anne Marie McDonald opens in September and the season concludes late in November with Euripides’ The Trojan Woman in a new adaptation from Clemente and Dawn Langman.

These are robust choices and Rosalba Clemente has her carefully nurtured subscribers to think of. But with only eight productions and a dearth of other activity to provide contrast and context, State Theatre can’t afford an off night – when of course, they are inevitable. If theatre was infallible we would all be investing. Instead we have to give our companies the encouragement to chance their arm and follow their instincts and imaginations.

Now is the time for the Rann Government to show they are serious about rebuilding a first rate arts sector in Adelaide. Give Rosalba and her successors some serious money and watch State rebuild. After all – if we must always use the investment model – plenty of artists have made that funding worthwhile. Just ask (from among hundreds of the company’s alumni) Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sharman, Simon Phillips, Catherine McClements, John Gaden, John Wood, Edwin Hodgeman, Jane Menelaus, Benedict Andrews, Richard Piper, Don Barker, Syd Brisbane, Barbara West, Amber McMahon, Paul Blackwell and Rosalba herself.

“Stating the Obvious” The Adelaide Review, No.244, January, 2004, p.23.