Download bright shiny + Green night

presents
bright shiny
+
Green night
April 30 - May 10, 2015
La Mama Courthouse
Bright Shiny
The play is set in a future where all human needs are mediated by Bunnings. Four Bunnings
employees travel through a portal to discover remnants of the natural world, and encounter wild
animals. The activism of the humans is undermined by the intrusions of a Rubber Plug.
Green Night
Coral discovers the boundaries of her world are porous: tropical waters infiltrate her house and her
body; a passage opens between her workplace and her internal cavities; anaesthetic administered
in a research laboratory allows her to enter her mind; her abdominal cavity becomes a place of
sanctuary for self and others; an exit to another future opens.
Cast:
Glynis Angell Tom Considine Maude Davey Fanny Hanusin Nicholas Kato -
a Rubber Plug/ Coral
Dr Wilde and a Spotted Bower Bird/ Dreamer and Professor Vorcek
Ramona and a Whale / Dreamer, Nurse and Dr Lily
Hester and a Sumatran Rhino / Dreamer, Hester and Kelp
Moss and a Bat / Dreamer, Moss, Nautilus and Kelp
Vocal: ‘Shi Shang Zhiyou Mama Hao’ by Fanny Hanusin
Creative team:
Writer:
Kit Lazaroo
Director: Jane Woollard
Set & Costume Design: Kathryn Sproul
Lighting design: Richard Vabre
Music & Sound design (Green Night): Dougal James
Stage manager: Sarah McKenzie
Costume construction: Kathryn Sproul
Prop construction: Chris Bartlett, Seana and Kathryn Sproul
Production crew: Colin James, Tom Sutton, Shannah McDonald,
Jeffrey Miceli, Bec Etchell, Chris Molyneux
Graphic design: Ben Walsh & Kit Lazaroo
Photography: Mike Wilkins
Thanks to: David Miller at Malthouse, Christian Leavesley, Simon Abrahams and Arts Centre
Melbourne for their generous support of Bright Shiny in development; HaiHa Le, Jack Finsterer and
Mike McEvoy for their contribution to the development of Bright Shiny; Liz Symon, MTC Wardrobe;
Julie McKinnon, Brunswick Uniting Church; Melanie Beddie, Jason Lehane, Penelope Bartlau,
Bronwyn Pringle, Ben Walsh for publicity image, Sarah Walker for performance photography,
Dancehouse, Shannah McDonald, Colin James, Tom Sutton, Jeffrey Miceli, Bec Etchell, Chris
Molyneux, Mary Helen Sassman Hayley Fox, Liz Jones, Nedd Jones, Caitlin Dullard and La Mama
Staff.
Writer’s notes
In 2005 I had the good fortune to travel in East Timor, where swimming at a beach I heard the
tinkling underwater music made by broken pieces of coral. On my return home I wrote a few
fragmentary scenes about coral, trying to suggest the gulf to be crossed between capitalist and
animist relationships to the sea. These unfinished and seemingly unfinishable scenes lived in
my bottom drawer for nearly a decade, but I thought of them every time I read reports about the
increasing damage being done to coral reefs, and the consequences for ocean ecosystems.
Bright Shiny I started writing in 2012, as a piece to be performed in a proposed theatre to be
made of recycled materials. At that time, I was thinking of snowdomes – tacky little memorials to
worlds on the way to extinction. The dream-theatre was not built, but the characters of the Bird,
the Bat and the shrinking band of activists seemed able to adapt themselves to other venues.
When Jane and I began to talk about taking Bright Shiny to La Mama, we realised that here was
the opportunity to also present Green Night, and hopefully resolve the loops in its logic through
exploration on the rehearsal floor. So the two pieces were brought together as a double bill, with
La Mama’s generous support. They have grown through being in conversation with each other,
through the work and inventiveness of director and cast, and the play of design. While both pieces
of text seem to me like slender and precarious undertakings, it is in the weaving together of all
these elements that the tale is told of endangerment, and human consciousness.
Director’s Notes
‘In late August 2009 a tiny, solitary bat fluttered about in the rainforest near Australia’s infamous
Christmas Island detention camp. We don’t know precisely what happened to it. Perhaps it landed
on a leaf at dawn after a night feeding on moths and mosquitoes, and was torn to pieces by
invasive fire ants; perhaps it succumbed to a mounting toxic burden placed on its tiny body by
insecticide spraying. Or maybe it was simply worn out with age and ceaseless activity, and died
quietly in its tree hollow. But there is one important thing we do know: it was the very last Christmas
Island pipistrelle (Pipistrellus murrayi) on earth. With its passing, an entire species winked out of
existence.’
Tim Flannery, ‘After the future: Australia’s new extinction crisis’, Quarterly Essay 48, 2012.
‘How can we make the world a better place when our hearts are so heavy?’
Kit Lazaroo, Asylum, 2005.
It’s been a joy to bring these play scripts into being with such a rare and talented ensemble. Shared
work and aesthetic language developed over many years has supported us in our quest to realise
these two complex and elliptical texts. The French director Ariane Mnouchkine likens the director
to the midwife. l enjoy her analogy and the way it conveys the judicious aspect of the director’s
task:
‘A midwife is not somebody who just looks at the baby coming out easily. Sometimes she has to
shout at the woman, sometimes she says “Push”. Sometimes she says “Shut-up”. Sometimes she
says “Breathe”. Sometimes she says “Don’t do that”. Sometimes she says “Everything is alright.
Everything is alright. Go! Go!” It’s a struggle.’
Breathe everyone.
Love and thanks to our families and friends - we couldn’t have done it without your support.
Glynis Angell has been working in the performing arts industry for the past twenty years as a
theatre maker, performer, director and teacher. Acting roles for Here Theatre include Prophet
& Loss, Letters From Animals, Asylum and The Time is Not Yet Ripe (Winner Best Ensemble
Independent Theatre) Green Room Awards 2007. Glynis has devised many original theatre works
with companies including The Business (The Masters, Big Business, The Concert). Glynis co-wrote
and performed in her show Haul Away for which she received a nomination for Best New Australian
Play and won Best Female Performer (Independent Theatre) Green Room Awards 2006.
Tom Considine graduated from Flinders University Drama Centre in 1975. Since then he has Tom
Considine graduated from Flinders University Drama Centre in 1975. Since then he has appeared
with many companies including The Melbourne Theatre Company, Playbox, The Sydney Theatre
Company, The State Theatre of S.A., Anthill, The Mill Theatre, Eureka!, La Mama, Here Theatre,
Nothing But Roaring, The Eleventh Hour and Not Yet Its Difficult. He was a founding member of
The Mill Theatre Company and The Five Dollar Theatre Company and has also performed with The
Astra Choir and The Early Music Festival. He has worked as an assessor for the Australia Council
and as an actor for the Playwrights Conference, and has been a member of the Artistic Directorate
for Hothouse Theatre. His film and television credits include Deeper than Blue, Blue Heelers,
Stingers, Corelli, Man from Snowy River and The Heroes. In 2003 he received a Green Room award
for his performance in Stephen Sewell’s Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and
Contemporary America. In 2012 he was nominated for a Green Room award for his performance of
Falstaff in Henry 1V Part 1. In 2013 he toured Ireland with Eleventh Hour’s production of Endgame
by Beckett.
Maude Davey trained at the Victorian College of the Arts and has worked as an actor, director
and writer for more than twenty-five years, with her primary focus being the creation of new work.
Recent performing work includes The Trouble with Harry by Lachlan Philpott for Melbourne Festival
2014 (MKA) (nominated for a GRAA for Best Actress); My Life in the Nude, a retrospective of her
Burlesque career, for which she was also nominated GRAA Best Actress. She collaborates regularly
with Finucane & Smith in their celebrated provocative art salons (Burlesque Hour/Glory Box) and
was a member of a capella theatre group Crying in Public Places, which toured nationally and
internationally through the nineties. Film and television work includes: Offspring; My Year Without
Sex, by Sarah Watts, and Summer Heights High. She was Artistic Director of Vitalstatistix Theatre
Company in Adelaide between 2002 and 2007, and of Melbourne Workers Theatre, 2008/2009.
Fanny Hanusin is a regular collaborator of Here Theatre. Past productions include True Adventures
of a Soul Lost At Sea and Asylum. Fanny has an eclectic body of work ranging from MTC’s Happy
Ending and Beached to Serial Blogger (Green Room nominee - Alternative/Hybrid Production)
and Chinese Whispers (Best Live Art award & Innovation in Culturally Diverse Practice - 2014
Melbourne Fringe). She received Green Room Award for her performance in Hospital of the Lost
Coin and The Vanishing Box. Some of her TV credits include The Slap, Offspring, and a main cast
role in Bogan Pride. Fanny proudly supports new Australian work.
Dougal James is completing Year 12 at Eltham High School. He plays tuba in various school
ensembles, as well as lead vocals, bass guitar and keyboard in The Crunch, and bass in the
Jaron Natoli Band. Dougal enjoys composing works that explore the expressive range of the tuba,
utilising its sonic qualities in new musical contexts.
In 2013 Nicholas Kato completed a Bachelor of Dramatic Arts at the VCA. Nicholas’ theatre
credits include: Vince (Fortune 2014), Senor Wences (It’s an Earthquake in my Heart 2013), Pericles
(Pericles Punished 2013), Young Man (Attempts On Her Life 2012), Simon/Fool (The Ship of Fools
2012). His film and TV credits include Turkish Sergeant in Channel Nine TV series Gallipoli, directed
by Glendyn Ivin, and Jamie in Play It Safe, a debut feature film by writer and director Chris Pahlow.
In 2012 Nicholas was the recipient of the Richard Pratt Bursary for excellence. This is Nicholas’
first Here Theatre production.
Kit Lazaroo’s theatre credits include the following Here Theatre productions: True Adventures of a
Soul Lost at Sea (produced 2004 - a recipient of a RE Ross Award and nominated for Green Room
Award for writing), Asylum (produced in 2007 and 2007, winner of a Wal Cherry Play of the Year
Award and published by Currency Press), Letters from Animals (shortlisted for a Max Afford Award
and produced 2007 to critical acclaim), and Topsy (produced 2010 and a recipient of an RE Ross
Award). Kit is a collaborator on the Burnt Book project for Clune’s Book Town Fringe festival, which
underwent a development and showing in May 2014.
Sarah McKenzie is a currently completing her Diploma of Live Production, Theatre and Events
(Technical Production) at Melbourne Polytechnic. As a stage manager she has worked regularly at
La Mama Theatre including Closed for Maintenance, as part of the Celebrating Women Festival,
MotherF*cker for the Melbourne Fringe and recently, Since the Death of Sarah Kane, The Blueform
and Elizabeth Taylor is my Mother.
Kathryn Sproul’s recent projects include Muckheap (Polyglot Puppet Company, touring Shanghai
& Australia); The Flood (Finucane & Smith/Critical Stages national tour); Costume Designer for
Maria de Buenos Aires (Leigh Warren & Dancers/Vic Opera); Arden versus Arden & Punk Rock
(Flinders University SA, director: Tom Healey). Kathryn designs nationally for theatre, dance and
large arts events. A graduate in Stage Design from NIDA, Kathryn was Resident Designer for
Magpie Theatre and State Theatre Co of SA from 1988 – 1993. Other companies include: Playbox,
Chamber Made Opera, Hothouse, MTC & Red Stitch. Kathryn’s film & television credits includes
Set Design for Talking Heads ABC & Poh’s Kitchen ABC; SA’s Easter Appeal for Channel 9. Set
designs for The Production Company include 42nd Street, Damn Yankees, Crazy for You, The King
& I. Last design seen at The Courthouse Traitors (director Melanie Beddie).
Richard Vabre is a freelance lighting designer who has lit productions for MTC, STC, Malthouse
Theatre, Victorian Opera, Windmill Theatre, Arena Theatre Company, NICA, The Darwin Festival,
Stuck Pig’s Squealing, Chambermade, Rawcus, Red Stitch, Polyglot, Melbourne Worker’s Theatre,
Aphids and many many productions at La Mama Awards: Richard has won 4 Green Room Awards
including the Association’s John Truscott Prize for Excellence in Design (2004). He has also been
nominated for 7 other Green Room Awards.
Jane Woollard is a director and writer who has been creating new works in Melbourne since 1988.
She founded Here Theatre with Kit Lazaroo, Amanda Johnson and Colin James in 2003. Jane and
Kit have collaborated on The Vanishing Box (La Mama 2003), True Adventures of a Soul Lost at Sea
(Trades Hall 2005), Letters from Animals (Storeroom Theatre 2007), Asylum (La Mama 2006 & 08),
Topsy (fortyfive downstairs 2010), Burnt Book (with Blackhole Theatre for the Clunes Booktown
festival 2014). Jane is also a playwright whose works include The Hammer of Devotion (St Pauls
Cathedral Chapter House 1994) and Aelfgyva (Melbourne Autumn Music Festival 2003). Jane is
completing a PhD on 19th century performer Eliza Winstanley.
Office Phone: (03) 9347 6948
Office Hours: Mon – Fri
10:30am – 5:30pm
Level 1, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton VIC 3053
www.lamama.com.au
[email protected]
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Our sincerest thanks to the many volunteers who generously give their time in support of La Mama.
La Mama’s Committee of Management, staff and its wider theatrical community acknowledge
that our theatre is on traditional Wurundjeri land.
The La Mama community acknowledges the considerable support it has received in the past
decade from Jeannie Pratt and The Pratt Foundation.
La Mama is financially assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council – its
arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria - Department of
Premier and Cabinet, and the City of Melbourne through the Arts and Culture triennial funding
program.