AUSTRALIA Don Bridges
Movies:
Hugh Jackman (X-Men) is negotiating to play a paroled hacker in Swordfish which stars John Travolta.Filmmaker Bill Bennett’s “comedic fable” The Nugget, about three road
workers who stumble across the world’s largest gold nugget, is set to go into production in South Australia in March/April next year.
Television:
Glenn Close and Jack Thompson star in a $13M remake of South Pacific to be filmed in North Queensland. WHY???
Australia is being considered as the location for a major US television series entitled Spartacus. Robert L. Turner, former President and CEO of Pearson Television in North America, who now consults for Team Communications’ US distribution operations, has been in Australia with his colleague Neil Russell, President and CEO of Site 85 Productions. Turner and Russell have spent time in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast viewing sound stages, CGI companies and locations and meeting key personnel to investigate Australia as an option to shoot the series. “The producers are looking to shoot a 22-part series. This will be a major television event and a significant contribution to the Australian production industry,” says AusFILM Chief Executive Trisha Rothkrans. With the success of “The Gladiator” they probably believe that all the actors in this part of the world are suitable to be gladiators in the Russell Crowe vein. Oops…better rethink that!
A series based on the life and times of Lawrence Of Arabia looks set to shoot in Australia next year. It will be produced by the same team that has also committed to shooting the 22 -part Spartacus series over the same period.
Shooting on Mario Andreacchio’s feature Paradise Found—based on the life of French painter Paul Gaugin—has been delayed until at least March 2001.
The Patriot's Heath Ledger and The Wog Boy star Nick Giannopoulos have been named Australia's leading actors for 2000 by delegates at the 55th annual Australian International Movie Convention on the Gold Coast.
Keanu Reeves will live in Oz for the making of the Matrix sequels which will shoot from November for 13 months – The sequels will not be ready for the cinemas till 2002.
The Cubbyhouse filmmakers will pay 10c per 3cm cockroach – call 0417 790 938 That’s Australia folks.
After a record-breaking opening, Mushroom Pictures' "Chopper" is no.1 at the box office. It grossed $1,258,717 over the weekend, making it the biggest opening ever for any R rated film in Australia and one of the best opening weekends in recent years for any Australian film. Sounds small potatoes I know, but we only have 20 million people in this country.
Theatre: (all Melbourne)
Sex, Drugs and Walking Frames. Written by Kate Herbert. Directed by Nancy Black.
I saw this a couple of weeks ago and thoroughly enjoyed the evening. A La Mama production, (we have our own La Mama here) It was in the La Mama space which seats between 30 and 40 depending on how it is set up. The shows are profit share and the experience on the stage in this one was immense. Adding together the collective time these actors have been Equity members would bring up a figure of around 200 years. The play concerns four elderly men (Peter Sratford, Bruce Kerr, Barry Friedlander and Cliff Ellen) in a home where they have daily contact with the tea lady (Maureen Andrew). When she takes her holidays she is replaced by another lady (also Maureen Andrew) whose previous employment has been as a lady of the night. She entertains each of the gents over the tea trolley (unseen) and unfortunately they all contract a dose of the clap. The daughter of one of the men is a lawyer for the union movement (Jenny Lovell) and she and her advisor (Justin Lehmann) are having a long running battle with a journalist (Ezra Bix). She tries to have the tea lady fired thereby compromising her ethics, but the men stick by the friendly Tea Lady and go on a hunger strike. I thought the play was interesting and fun and explored the ethical problems that face us when the problems we confront day to day, come closer to home. The strongest performances were from Bruce Kerr, Cliff Ellen and Peter Stratford as the old men and between them they kept the audience chuckling.
Verdict: Worthy of a big clap!
East is East and West is Footscray. Written by Jim C Ewing Directed by Susan Pilbeam.
A very thought provoking play once again from la Mama, but this time at the Carlton Courthouse seating around 80. Kevin Summers plays Johnny Grogan (Groges), a beer swilling, and ex-boxing racist of epic proportions. He hates the Vietnamese who are taking over his area. Groges has despicable principles but in Kevin Summer’s playing of him we actually kind of like him. Not what he says but his larrikin approach to everything. He is a painter trying to sell a few of his awful nudes, but working on a piece entitled “How the West was Fucked.” This shows the immigration to the area, the industrial nature of Melbourne’s Western suburbs and even the near loss of the local football team to corporate interests. The rest of the world seems to be ganging up on Groges and his suburb (Footscray). Groge’s best mate beautifully played by John Flaus is an ex-boxer known as Big Bill and they spar together verbally and physically throughout the play and dring a great deal of beer from freshly opened cans. The tension in the play is realised when his daughter the hard drinking tough girl Gerri ( Germaine Wattis) brings her new boyfriend Eric Tran (Thanh Vu) to Groge’s 50th birthday party. Eric has been a soldier for the South Viets in the conflict but Groges can’t bring himself to accept him. A fight breaks out and the daughter is injured. Shirl, (Jackie Kerrin) Groge’s wife has a turn and Eric helps to save her life. At the end of the play, Groges is offered a great deal of money for his new painting, but destroys it, prefering to live his life as he always has, hand to mouth. This is a man who would be unhappy unless he had something to moan about. I found the production very thought provoking, stimulating and entertaining. Lots of good laughs at various times, but laughs that often made us stop and think about what we’d just been laughing at. Special mention to Nik Willmott who played two very different roles, unrecognizably. As Allegra the art gallery owner who wants to buy the painting, she was an awful cloying bitch, and as Jo the lesbian friend of Groge’s daughter, she was the tough, hard drinking, butch, woman who gave Groges another thing to be prejudiced about.
Verdict: A six can play!!
Best and Fairest. Two plays: Misdirected by Joe Borini and Reserved Seating Only by Peter B Sonenstein and adapted by David Paterson.
Before we start here I must confess to being a big fan of Aussie Rules Football and for those that haven’t caught it on your sports channels do yourself a favour. The evening started with Reserved Seating Only which started life in New York as a play about baseball. Originally called For Season Ticket Holders Only, it has been beautifully adapted to Aussie Rules by David Paterson who also plays the main Male role, Al. He turns up at the opening match of the season to find the seat next to him occupied not by the bloke he has sat next to for 10 years, but by his ex-wife played by Cecilia Specht, who has taken the ticket out of spite. During the course of the play we see them go from out and out antagonism to each other to something more than friendship. The performances are very crisp and direction by Richard Sarrell is extremely tight and concise. Paul Laverack delightfully plays a number of other crowd characters.
The second play directed by John Higginson is called Misdirected. The temptation of course would be to write that the play lived up to its title. However nothing could be further from the truth. Beautifully put together and once again transposed to an Australian landscape from its original US setting. Annie, Cecilia Specht arrives at the house of her future husband, a man she has yet to meet. However a mistake in the town name means she lands on the doorstep of Henry, David Paterson. During the next 25 minutes she manages to shoot him in the arm, causing him to fall from the roof, wounds his dog, panics his horse into disappearing, and gets bitten by a snake. The snake bite as luck would have it, is on the upper inside thigh. Well as anyone knows the poison must be sucked out or death could ensue. Ultimately, she decides to stay and what seemed to be a mismatch looks to have a happy ending ahead. Possibly a few more injuries and fights along the way however. Full marks to Cecilia and David for mounting the production themselves. If the work doesn’t come our way, we have to create our own. The evening under the banner of Best and Fairest is well worth a visit to the Old Council Chambers at Trades hall in Melbourne.
© 2000 Don Bridges ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
It’s been an a typical month in the SF Bay Area—we don’t usually advertise our hot summers... With California’s electricity rates soaring, time to indulge in the low tech outdoor theatre experience, ideally in the shade. SF’s notorious Mime Troupe offers “Eating It”, a musical examination of Frankenfoods & the ramifications of letting the multinationals feed us with their eye on the bottom line. The Troupe’s stalwarts, including Ed Holmes & Keiko Shimosato, Michael Gene Sullivan & relative newcomer Velina Brown have great fun, especially in an election year! Priceless bit with Ed as CEO of BOBCO & Michael as Gov. Witherspoon II striking their photo-op pose.
Women’s Will, an all female group sponsored by our local BRAVA! For Women in the Arts, tackles “Measure for Measure” with gusto: the genders are reversed throughout by the inclusion of a few “token” males. A strong show, but disappointingly unpolished, and loathe to say! stolen by the one Brit in the cast, a lissome Kevin Kelleher as Mistress Overdone, etc., giving us with one shrug of his lovely shoulders everything we wanted from the others.
Speaking of anatomy, not often are we treated to the sight of a giant blown-up penis complete with garbage bag condom. The up & coming (ouch) Shotgun Players present Four One Act Plays only two of which we saw, “The Winged Man” from the pen of Jose Rivera, mercifully brief, and “Dasvedanya Mama” by Ethyl Eichelberger, which made us so glad we didn’t leave at intermission. Director Mark Swetz stood in for an absent female cast member & the show, which seemed already to be bursting with potential for improvisational hijinks, really took off. It’s often said that comedy is more difficult than drama; as we left I had such a vivid picture of the cast’s onstage identities & lightness achieved through their combined confidence. My partner remarked that he’ll never be able to see Chekov the same again.
It was a rich month at the cinema: the Jewish Film Festival in full swing. One keeper in the bunch is a French import (English title) “Would I Lie to You?”, based loosely on the Parisian equivalent of our NY garment district, the romantic story of the rise of an ambitious , but not Jewish, young man. The shabbat scene is worth the admission. Apparently, this film outdid “Titanic” in France. We snuck out to see Mena Suvari’s pre-American Beauty flick “Live Virgin”: what a turkey! Truly horrible. Puts the lie to the idea that good acting might make up for a poor script. This has Sally Kellerman reduced to doing Katherine Helmond in “Brazil” and Bob Hoskins talking to his penis. From the bottom to the top: “The Interview”, with Hugo Weaving, the Aussies strike again. Of course it plays the independent houses & disappears. But we saw it ‘cause the Revolution is alive & well in San Francisco! Also worth checking out is the doc “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”. Fascinating & surprising for those whose minds, if not their faces, are already made up. Some local critics have come down hard on “The Five Senses”. I say ‘get a new job’ if you must trash something that is quiet & thoughtful. Notice I didn’t say ‘slow’ or ‘arty’. Many fine touches, except I would quibble with their choice of singer (which is a whole ‘nother can of worms.)
UP NEXT: “Rising Waters: Global Warming & the Fate of the Pacific Islands”; "The Specialist" A controversial new film documentary about the architect of the "final solution," Adolph Eichmann; and “Space Cowboys”; on stage: “R. Buckminster Fuller: the History (and Mystery of the Universe); Teatro ZinZanni, überdinnertheatre fresh from Belgium; “The Good Companions”, revival of 1974 Mercer & Previn musical about music hall entertainers; “Cleopatra, the Musical” by John Fisher, writer and director of long-running smash hit “Medea, the Musical” and last but certainly not even close to least, a new work by Howard D. Hain “N. A Play for None and All” concerning that old jokester, Friedrich Nietzsche.
A moment for the sudden loss of local director Albert Takazaukas in the midst of a very successful run of Henry IV Pt I; we should all go with success ringing in our ears. On the departure of Alec Guinness: the dear man’s gone where Star Wars can’t follow.
© 2000 Claudine Jones ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Don Bridges Australia
Claudine Jones San Francisco
Michael Bettencourt Boston
Jamie Zabairi London
Ren Powell Norway
Steve&Lucille Esquerre New Orleans
august 2000
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