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Category: Theatre

  • Tackling the undercurrents of coercive control on stage

    If you’re lucky enough to live in Canberra, there’s a new play you need to catch. It’s called, After Rebecca. Critics are describing the work – which tackles all the undercurrents and complexities of coercive control – as “Beautiful and raw and heartbreaking.” 

    The work tells the story of an unnamed woman who is swept away by handsome millionaire who stars in a reality TV show. He takes her to a remote outback property. It’s there she encounters an unsettling undercurrent of violence, gaslighting and complicit bystanders.

    I caught up with the play’s creator, Emma Gibson, to have a chat. 

    Firstly, tell us who you are.

    I’m a playwright, writer and dramaturg based in Melbourne now, but spent almost half my life living in Canberra. I moved to Canberra to study at ANU and then stayed. I fell into playwriting accidentally. I was a keen writer and an amateur actor and it took me an embarrassingly long time to combine the two.

    What inspired you to write “After Rebecca”? 

    I’m a big reader and was raised on the classics. Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca is (was?!) one of my favourite books, alongside Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre – so I am drawn to atmospheric, gothic novels.

    In 2020, I was working on a play that also draws heavily on the gothic and did a lot of reading. I re-read Rebecca and was really struck by how problematic the ending is – I won’t spoil it in case you haven’t read the book, and you don’t need to have read it to see the play. The hook for me though, was the idea that if the book had been written today, it could not have ended the same way.

    Indeed, Hitchcock did change the ending in his film adaptation. (Let’s not even go into the hugely problematic Netflix adaptation. The idea started brewing from there – what would a contemporary, Australian post #metoo version of that story look like? As it was 2020/2021 and I was living in Melbourne, I was initially thinking about developing an audio play or podcast, rather than live theatre. But as I got further into the story, I knew I wanted it to be a solo performance to allow the central character the space to speak – something she’s never had before in her own story, but also something that is often denied when women attempt to speak up.

    A mentor once said to me that all playwrights have one story that they keep telling over and over, trying to get right – and I think that’s true of me. Almost all of my plays could be described as being about a woman who is trapped in one way or another. Where they differ is what happens next.

    Sometimes it’s hard to keep the issue of domestic abuse on the agenda. Why did you want to tackle this issue in the form of a play?

    My day job is writing speeches on gender equality, so it’s a challenge that I grapple with regularly – how can we engage with people who may be resistant to these types of conversations? How can we educate without being didactic and bring people into these conversations?

    Storytelling is powerful here, and I wanted to consciously bring together my skills and knowledge from my creative and professional careers to use theatre for social change – or at least as a starting point for conversations in the foyer afterwards!

    Having a relatable character we connect with and who takes us on a journey provides an invitation for people to engage with this issue – in a way they may not otherwise.

    To outsiders, coercive control can be difficult to capture. Some people can’t understand why it’s so insidious and dangerous. How have you tried to depict it? 

    It’s absolutely insidious. I’d read Jess Hill’s book “See What You Made Me Do” and as part of the research for the play, I listened to her podcast, The Trap. That really made me think about how coercive control escalates. In drama, you also want escalating tension, so I wrote out a list for myself of red flags and how I could show them in the narrative in a way that built over time.

    Separately, I’d looked at the key plot points in the original novel, and realised there’s a clear story of coercion – beginning with love bombing and then isolation. My intention is that it works on two levels – that the plot is propelled forward, but also people can identify red flags, even if retrospectively. This helps to make it visible – I sometimes joke that we could do a show and give the audience actual red flags to wave when something coercive occurs.

    Why is your main character someone whose name no one remembers? Is this an attempt to convey “every woman?”

    Daphne Du Maurier’s book deliberately doesn’t name the narrator, which both conveys that she is an “every woman” character, but also strips her of her identity – she is inconsequential until she marries Maximillian De Winter and becomes the second Mrs De Winter (and even in wearing the same name, fears she will never live up to her predecessor, Rebecca, who died under mysterious circumstances). I could have given the Narrator a name, but her namelessness not only conjures the idea of the every woman, but also the way women have been historically (and still are) overlooked.

    In contrast, the man in this story is someone glamorous and larger than life. He partakes in love bombing. What does this show?

    Ultimately, this is about power and systems of oppression. The man in this story not only benefits from male privilege, but comes from a rich family, had a private education, and has influential connections. In contrast, the woman in the story was raised by a single mother in a low socioeconomic status environment, where no one in her family has gone on to higher education – which was my own background. There’s a sense sometimes that normal rules don’t apply for those with power – that they can escape accountability.

    I also really wanted to challenge the ‘happily ever after’ romance narratives, and for that reason, the play begins on the set of a reality TV show, where ‘Max’ is one of the eligible bachelors. While a guilty pleasure for some of my friends, I’ve never really been swept up in those types of reality TV shows – with grand romantic gestures that are selling a fantasy but are far from realistic. There’s also this sense of elevating the leading men to these idealised characters, where they are valorised for their success (usually being rich and/or good looking) and often fed lines (or roses) they wouldn’t come up with on their own.

    Tell us about the setting (the outback) and undercurrents in this play.

    I love writing about place and evoking place as a character – in fact, I have a MA in Place Writing, which is quite a niche degree. The original novel is set in a manor house in the English countryside. I wanted to amplify the idea of isolation – a tactic often employed by those who use abuse – and give it a uniquely Australian setting, so I chose a remote cattle station in the Australian outback.

    Not only is there a harsh landscape and extreme isolation (some cattle stations are bigger than European countries) but they can be quite unwelcoming environments for women, as they can often be heavily male dominated, and with outdated gender stereotypes around men’s work and women’s work. The setting is evoked through sound design by Daniel McCusker, which really creates a sense of place as another character. The score – and the use of silence at certain points – helps convey mood and at times, tension.

    What can you tell us about Michelle Cooper and how she handles this complex work? 

    Michelle Cooper is a Canberra born and bred actor and the solo performer of the show. She is an absolute powerhouse. I wrote this script with her in mind – she signed on to the project with just the first couple of pages and a pitch from me, which was a leap of faith I’m very grateful for. The show is a thriller, so it’s a high-octane show for Michelle and she holds the audience in rapt attention for 65 minutes, which is no mean feat. It’s also challenging content to work with every day.

    We were very intentional in taking a collaborative, feminist and trauma-informed approach to developing the show as it contains challenging content.

    As Michelle said early in the process, ‘the body doesn’t know the difference between performing trauma and actual trauma’ so at the end of the show she’s holding a lot of physical tension, which is why she usually dances it off at the curtain call. We’ve also made self care a priority. Rehearsals and producing a show can be exhausting or stressful, but we really focused on accessibility and accommodating our disability/health needs (I have Long Covid and we have neurodivergence in the team) so I’m really proud of our approach here.

    Michelle Cooper performing in After Rebecca.

    Michelle Cooper performing in After Rebecca. Picture: Supplied

    I also wanted us to have equal share in the creation, so Michelle and I co-direct the show. Daniel McCusker is our production designer and also provided additional perspective throughout rehearsals and is now keeping it all on track as stage manager too, including supporting Michelle (or as I like to call it, with tongue firmly in cheek ‘wrangling the talent’).

    What do you hope audiences take from the show? How has it been received so far?

    We really want this to be a starting point for conversations and for people to think about kinds of behaviour that they might observe in their own relationships and those of loved ones that could be red flags. As well as that, it’s just a powerful piece of theatre. I’ve been blown away with all the positive feedback we’ve received from audiences. On our opening night at Adelaide Fringe, we got a 5-star review, and it was so affirming to read the reviewer’s insights and see that he was clearly picking up on our intentions with the piece.

    As a reformed reviewer, I can tell you that’s a rare and special thing! We have also had a phenomenal response from audience members – many have stopped to chat afterwards, while others have posted on social media or the Adelaide Fringe feed. At a recent show, an older man came up to me afterwards to say ‘Bloody brilliant’. Then as he left the theatre, he turned to his companions and said ‘Wow.’ I wish I could have heard the conversation that followed. An audience member from our development season at La Mama Theatre also bumped into Michelle three months later and said they were still thinking about the show! You can see the ‘Fringe feed’ audience contributed reviews here. 

    Anything else you want to say? 

    When we discussed bringing Daniel on board as our designer, I had initially wanted an all-women team, but as Michelle rightly pointed out, we need men engaging with this content too. She said “Fundamentally, a man supporting women to tell this story has a beautiful echo of exactly how we need to work in this space, discussing these topics.”

    Some of the most insightful feedback we’ve received (and our best review) are from men too, which I think is really testament to the importance of bringing people of all genders into this space.

    While this particular story focuses on a woman’s experience of violence perpetrated by an intimate partner, we’ve been reminded all too recently that men are also at risk of violence or death at the hands of an intimate partner.

    After Rebecca is on in Canberra from March 19-23.

    • Picture at top: Michelle Cooper performing in After Rebecca. Image: Supplied

    The post Tackling the undercurrents of coercive control on stage appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Tattoo tribute to my suffragette heroine

    Commemorative tattoos | Fringe first | Bibby Stockholm | Sunak’s trousers

    I’m sorry that only those between 18 and 30 have been invited to apply to take part in the tattooing of all the letters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one letter at a time (Report, 6 August). A decade ago, in my late 60s, I got a tattoo on my wrist to commemorate my great-grandmother who was a suffragette, imprisoned in Holloway and awarded the Holloway brooch. My tattoo has the purple, white and green flashes of the brooch.
    Sally Smith
    Redruth, Corwall

    • Natalie Haynes advises fringe performers not to read reviews (Some people just won’t like you, but don’t take it personally: what surviving the fringe taught me about life, 7 August). Many years ago at the fringe I took part in a hastily put together and under-rehearsed first production of a play by a then unknown playwright. Only after we’d read the reviews did we realise what a theatrical masterpiece we’d been performing.
    Walter Merricks
    Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, 1966

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • New NZ theatre production highlights Fiji Girmityas’ struggles

    By Blessen Tom, RNZ journalist

    A new production called Coolie: The Story of the Girmityas is shedding light on the lesser-known history of the Indian indentured labourers.

    Poet and music producer Nadia Freeman’s latest work gives life to the hidden voice of her Indo-Fijian ancestors through electronic music and theatre.

    “I just felt like I was losing more of my ancestry and my ethnicity, and I wanted to look more into it to understand,” Freeman says.

    Nadia Freeman created Coolie: The Story of the Girmityas. Photo: Supplied
    Nadia Freeman . . . “I just felt like I was losing more of my ancestry and my ethnicity.” Image: RNZ

    The show opened on Thursday at the Kia Mau contemporary Māori, Pasifika and indigenous arts festival.

    “Coolie”, which is used in the production’s title, was a derogatory term used by British colonial supervisors when addressing the workers in Fiji.

    “I want people who are outside that community to know what happened, to know more about,” she said.

    Who were the Girmityas?
    The Indian workers were called the Girmityas, which in Hindi means “agreement”. The agreement was initially for five years, but it was extendable.

    On finishing five years abroad, they were permitted to return to India at their own expense or serve 10 more years and return at the expense of the British colonial government.

    Some workers returned home, but many could not afford the return journey and were stuck in Fiji.

    M.N. Naidu (sitting second from the left) with his family Photo: Courtesy of Nik Naidu
    M.N. Naidu (sitting second from the left) with his family . . . “We are still quite an angry community … angry because we haven’t healed.” Image: Nik Naidu/RNZ

    “We are still quite an angry community … angry because we haven’t healed,” says businessman and community advocate Nik Naidu.

    His grandfather, M.N. Naidu, was an indentured labourer who was on a ship to Fiji in the early 1900s.

    Like many Indians who were sent to Fiji, Naidu’s grandfather was also looking for a better life.

    “They were living in dire poverty and were looking for money to support their families, so that’s how my grandfather got on the ship,” Naidu says.

    Challenging life
    Life in Fiji was challenging.

    The journey took months, and many did not even make it to Fiji. That was not the end of their struggles.

    “There was hardship and there were difficulties,” Naidu says.

    “In the beginning, it was the harshness of plantation life, poor living conditions, you know, resettlement, displacement, realisation of not being able to return, inability to participate in their religion properly, and, you know, the caste system that existed, the difficulties and, of course, lack of women.”

    Finding a companion was a challenge for many young Girmits. The disproportionate sex ratio meant there were only 40 women for every 100 men.

    Journalist Sri Krishnamurthi has also heard many stories about the Girmityas from his grandparents.

    Sri Krishnamurthi Photo: Supplied
    Journalist Sri Krishnamurthi . . . “It was basically slavery in all but name.” Image: RNZ

    Working sugar canefields
    “My grandmother, Bonamma, came from India with my grandfather and came to work in the sugar canefields under the indentured system,” Krishnamurthi says.

    “They lived in ‘lines’ — a row of one-room houses. They worked the cane fields from 6am to 6pm largely without a break. It was basically slavery in all but name.”

    Krishnamurthi remembers the story about his grandfather, who was sent back to India, “because he thumped a coolumbar sahib” (a white man on horseback who made sure the work was done) who was whipping the workers.

    Naidu says: “I wasn’t fortunate enough to meet my grandfather. I was 2 years old when he passed away and he went back to India and passed away in India.”

    His family is now running the organisations that his father started, including schools.

    “The colonial administration at the time did not want to educate the Fijian Indians,” he says.

    “They wanted them to stay in servitude, as small farmers who were always dependent on the sugar cane plantations and uneducated.”

    Addressing new challenges
    A few weeks ago, the community celebrated the 144th Girmit Remembrance Day in New Zealand.

    “We remembered our forefathers, who had contributed towards this development of the Fiji Indian community,” says Krish Naidu, president of the Fiji Girmit Foundation.

    “It is a day where we honour and remember their struggles and sacrifices, but we also celebrate their resilience.

    “It’s important our young people in particular actually understand who we are, where we come from.”

    In 2023, a new challenge emerged for the Indo-Fijian community in New Zealand. The government’s decision to classify them as Asians rather than Pacific Islanders is stirring criticism within the community.

    “Because we, as people with Indian biological traits, are not considered by the Ministry of Pacific,” Naidu says.

    Naidu thinks that the government’s move is “unfair”.

    “We get emails and messages from students because they miss out on specific scholarships,” he says.

    However, he was delighted for the newly announced Girmit Day, a national holiday in Fiji.

    “We were the actual architects of it because we’ve been pushing for the holiday since 2015 in Fiji,” he says.

    “We are absolutely overjoyed.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Cracking ’em up: mature women in comedy

    In 2018 when my son and I were trying to cram as many shows as we could into our ten days at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, I had no idea that two years later I would be on the other side of the microphone. 

    Comedy came into my life by stealth. My daughter called to say that she had enrolled us in a comedy course and against the odds convinced me that I would be going to support her, a seasoned actress and performer, rather than the other way around.

    It seemed like a harmless bit of fun, but I had no intention of taking it any further. On the first night, I learned that at the end of the course each participant was to do a ‘set’ at a comedy room. I remember thinking, “Well, I just won’t do that”. But of course, decades of conditioning about playing well with others and not letting anyone down found me on the stage at the end of the course.

    I know it seems terrifying to get up on stage and try to make people laugh. It is. It’s a special form of self punishment. I’m yet to do a gig without worrying about the possibility that people may not laugh and I may need to leave Canberra forever to dodge the embarrassment. But it’s addictive.

    A large part of the high is knowing that people relate. Knowing that you aren’t alone, and showing other people that they aren’t alone. When it comes to women older than 40, I think our experiences become very private. What happens to us is something we are meant to keep to ourselves. I think a big part of being a comedian is making yourself uncomfortable so your audience can be comfortable. 

    Comedy is notorious for having a ‘type’. Cis white males of a certain age. There is a persistent cultural belief that ‘women just aren’t as funny as men’. In fact a US study found that 63% of American men believe that all men are funnier than the average woman. That’s reflected in their comedy scene where only 11% of the top comedians are women. 

    It’s hard to find the actual statistics on Australians because the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) groups comedians with buskers, circus clowns and magicians; but according to an Australian blog, of the top 25 Australian comedians, seven (28%) are women.

    So the stats might be a bit better here but the truth is, when people look at an older woman, they don’t think we are going to be funny. But at the end of the day comedy is a levelling force, you either get the laughs or you don’t. So when you are up on stage, whether you look like a comedian or not doesn’t matter so much.

    Jacqui performing on stage. She believes "a big part of being a comedian is making yourself uncomfortable so your audience can be comfortable." Picture: Mel Fernandez

    Jacqui performing on stage. She believes “a big part of being a comedian is making yourself uncomfortable so your audience can be comfortable.” Picture: Mel Fernandez.Posted with permission. 

    Throughout the world, it is an undeniable barrier when it comes to getting booked and getting an audience to take a chance on you. So how did FIVE women of a certain age become mainstays of the Canberra comedy scene? 

    Chris Ryan, a Canberra Comedian (now Sydney based) who has performed sold out solo shows since 2016, has gone out of her way to push for more diversity in the Australian comedy scene. It was her course where I got my start; her open mic rooms (which had a deliberate focus on gender parity) where I met the women with whom I perform.

    Chris’ willingness to mentor budding comedians and, using her contacts, to push for women in the scene to get a shot was integral in getting us all involved. If comedy has taught me anything, it’s the importance of women supporting other women. 

    Canberra, generally, has a very supportive comedy scene. The bookers are encouraging, as are the other comedians, even the young men! One of them commented recently that I reminded him of his mum, only funny. I’ve decided to take it as a compliment, but quietly dread the day I meet his mum just in case it’s not.

    Our show, the Women’s Room, sold out very quickly at last years Canberra Comedy Festival and we are looking to take it to the Sydney Comedy Festival.  We developed a show for women and the men they bring along. We joke about what we know, our experiences in life. Between the five of us we cover just about everything and nothing is off limits – the quirky, the embarrassing, the depressing and the tragic. We have very different styles of comedy, so it’s a bit of a rollercoaster. Sue describes us as “relatable mixed with ‘oh my god did she just say that?’”. And that pretty much sums it up.

    We all perform independently, and have done sets throughout the country and across the world. We feel lucky to have found an enduring passion in the afternoon tea phase of life. 

    • Our new show The Women’s Room 2 – Just Add Estrogen opens in six weeks at the Canberra Comedy Festival (and we’re still arguing about how to spell oestrogen).

     

    Picture at top shows the cast of The Women’s Room 2, including Jacqui (far right). Photo: Creswick Collective. Posted with permission. 

     

     

    The post Cracking ’em up: mature women in comedy appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • The ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets?

    Four hundred years ago Emilia Bassano raised her voice. The world didn’t listen. Who was Emilia? Was she the ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets? What of her own poems? And why was her story erased from history? Fierce and provocative, the play Emilia was written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and tells the story of a woman and her sisters who call out to us across the centuries with passion, fury, laughter, and song.

    The work is a mix of laughter and fury – a play that takes its audiences on an exuberant and moving journey though love, loss, identity, ambition, power, rebellion and what it is to be a woman in a man’s world. 

    With a cast of 13 incredible women and non-binary performers, this play – which will shortly be showing at Canberra Theatre Centre –  celebrates all voices through the trailblazing story of a woman who refused to take no for an answer. BroadAgenda editor Ginger Gorman speaks to director Petra Kalive.

    If you were explaining the show in a nutshell to someone who didn’t know anything about it, what would you say? 

    Emilia is the story a woman who lived in Shakespeare’s time and who many think was Shakespeare’s muse –  his ‘Dark Lady’ of the sonnets. But she was much more than that. A writer, poet, leader, mother and teacher. We are finally sharing her story and it is funny, powerful and inspiring.

    Like so many women, Emilia was erased from history. What can you tell us about her?

    Emilia was born in 1569 into a family of musicians. It is difficult to ascertain her heritage exactly, but she was definitely Italian, Jewish and likely of North African Descent. Her father died young and so she was placed in the care of Countess Susan Bertie, a noblewoman favoured of Queen Elizabeth.

    It was in Bertie’s care that Emilia was educated and introduced to court. Emilia became mistress to Lord Henry Carey, a very powerful nobleman and courtier and the patron of the Lord Chamberlin’s men (William Shakespeare’s company). Lord Carey provided Emilia with financial security, independence and literary connections including an introduction to Mary Sidney (a noble woman who developed and led the most important and influential literary circle in English history, now called Wilton Circle).

    Time as Carey’s mistress meant time to write but soon Emilia became pregnant and was married off to her cousin Alphonso Lanier. While married she continued to write and it was at this stage she met Shakespeare.

    It is suggested that they became lovers and there are many differing schools of thought about how much input Emilia had in Shakespeare’s works. In the first instance her knowledge of music seems to have been influential in Shakespeare’s works.

    Her name appears in multiple iterations across many of Shakespeare’s works, as does her home, Italy. It is interesting to note that Shakespeare wrote such rich female characters, with voice and agency and yet did not teach his own daughter to read. It begs the question, who else was urging supporting Shakespeare to realise these perspectives in his plays?We think Emilia.

    After the death of her daughter and multiple miscarriages, she goes to teach women ‘south of the river’ how to read and write. At the age of 42, Emilia published a collection of poetry called Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (Hail, God, King of the Jews).

    Emilia’s book was the first substantial, original book of poetry written by an Englishwoman. It was about the Crucifixion of Christ from a female perspective. It was revolutionary for its time and within the text were messages and radical ideas for women to stand up, have agency and a voice.

    While she was a product of her time, the writings reflect progressive ideas for a classless world where men and women were seen as equals. I like to think of it as one of the first feminist works, subversively buried in religion so as not to alert the censors. Emilia died in 1645.

    UK's Times newspaper said Emilia is a “fire-cracker production” with “a clever mix of history and revolution”. Picture: Supplied

    UK’s Times newspaper said Emilia is a “fire-cracker production” with “a clever mix of history and revolution”. Picture: Supplied

    This cast is extremely diverse. Why have you taken this approach? What does that bring to the stage? 

    The play was written to be performed by an all female cast of diverse women and non-binary performers. It would not be the same play if this was ignored. Morgan Lloyd Malcom also wrote Emilia to be played by three different actors, which challenges the idea that a play about a person needs to be a vehicle for one actor. It allows a depth of perspective as these three different performers bring their different lived experiences to the role and I feel provides the audience more entry points into the work.

    In a way we are all Emilia. Personally, I want to see work on our stages that reflects the world in which we live. I would not say that this cast is ‘extremely diverse’, it simply reflects the reality of the world.

    We have spent a lot of time in theatre excluding people for no good reason. The play is about a story erased from history – I was determined not to erase the intersection of multiple female and non-binary experiences from the rehearsal room conversation and I thought it exceedingly important for an audience to experience that intersection of feminisms/experiences as well.

    What’s your favourite quote or scene in the play and why? 

    There are so many moments in the play that are my favourites. I love the humour in the work – it’s so funny and subversive. But the monologue spoken by Emilia 3, always makes me tear up a bit. It may seem unremarkable to you, but I think it is a lived experience for so many women (and especially women of colour)

    It is a wondrous thing when someone instills their confidence in you. Offers you their hand. Believes you can do it and you alone. Sees you not as a risk or a trifle, sees you not to be patronised or dismissed. And I see through my many years now how valuable that is to any kind of creation. And how lucky some have been to have had that from birth. An assumption that ‘you will’, instead of one that says ‘you shouldn’t’. 

    The play is described as being both hilarious and furious. What can you tell us about the emotional landscape of the play? 

    What Morgan Lloyd Malcom balances brilliantly is the deep fury and injustice felt from the generational legacy that our society holds at its core from silencing, disempowering and hurting women while celebrating our strength, and fallibility and humanity.

    Morgan balances laughing at the absurdity of the patriarchy while acknowledging the very real impact that has on women’s lives and bodies. And this is one of the most brilliant things about the play, it simultaneously holds those two seemingly conflicting truths. It uses the form of theatre, in a very Shakespearean Globe way to allow these ideas to sit in opposition.

    Morgan (like Shakespeare) is using humour to talk to the many to get her audience breathing and enjoying the storytelling, and using poetry and drama to elevate the story of a forgotten woman. It’s been an absolute gift to direct, to be joyful and playful (there has been so much laughter), but we are never far from the truth of the experience and impact that inequality has had on women and still continues to have.

    It’s amazing that the issues women had 400 years ago are still relevant today. As a a feminist, how does that make you feel? How do you hold onto hope?

    Yes, there is still a long way to go and while we consistently take steps forward, we seem to take steps back and sideways along the way too. I think power and privilege is a difficult thing to acknowledge and relinquish.

    But more and more, I am seeing and experiencing a cultural shift. Some people are stepping aside – but more importantly, so many people are speaking out and stepping up. That gives me hope.

    There is serious scholarly work exploring whether Emilia was actually Shakespeare and that he published her work and another woman’s work under his name. Does the production challenge us to consider if Shakespeare was really a woman (or two)?

    No the production doesn’t ask us to consider whether Shakespeare was a woman. It gets us to think about the fact that maybe he wasn’t a solo genius. It challenges the idea of the wunderkind. That Emilia significantly contributed to his work and works and that had he been writing today, the credit line to his works may have read – by William Shakespeare & Emilia Lanier with the Lord Chamberlin’s men. I believe it was a collaborative act – like all good theatre making.

    • Picture at top: In Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s electrifying new play, Emilia and her sisters call out to us across the centuries with passion, fury, laughter, and song. Picture: Supplied 

     

     

    The post The ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets? appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Our children will ask, ‘What did you know’?

    This editorial is inspired by a new play that’s on in Melbourne called #NoExemptions, written by Angela Buckingham. In the not too distant future, global environmental collapse triggers wars, the movement of millions of people, failure of mass food production and the breakdown of democracies. The play focuses on one woman’s desperate struggle to survive. Maria lives in a city plagued by chronic food and water shortages. Now it is survival of the fittest and young people have the competitive advantage. Here Anglea reflect on its themes. 

    “You were for us, not for you. Before you were born we knew the world would not be good for you.” – Maria, #NoExemptions

    Children have been born into times of peril through-out our history. Through wars, plagues and famines, children have come. But in Australia today, we have greater choice to have or not to have children than ever before. This is not saying that all of us can have children or that all of us have children because we’ve made a conscious choice to do so but social mores, contraception and fertility technology have given more of our generation a greater degree of control than parents had in the past.

    This control, this capacity to choose, brings with it heavy obligation because children have no choice in being born.

    As parents we make that crucial decision for them. Therefore parents have responsibility for the world that we bring our children into. In light of climate change and predicted environmental realities, I’m not surprised when people tell me they are choosing not to have children. As a mother who already has children, this obligation, and our collective failure to meet it, causes deep anxiety.

    The climate threat that faces us is not just on graphs, in dire warnings from scientists, on some distant cracking ice shelf. It is not just in mega fires and unprecedented floods. It will face us in the accusations of our children. The school strikers are only the beginning of inter-generational reckoning.

    Angela writes: The school strikers are only the beginning of inter-generational reckoning. Our children will ask us what did you know, when did you know it and what did you do about it?

    Angela writes: The school strikers are only the beginning of inter-generational reckoning. Our children will ask us what did you know, when did you know it and what did you do about it? Picture: Stock image

    Our children will ask us what did you know, when did you know it and what did you do about it? The “what did you do about it” question causes me real heart ache because voting, changing our lifestyle and protesting on the streets have so far been inadequate in bringing necessary change.

    This anxiety is explored in #NoExemptions, a new theatrical work playing at La Mama Courthouse this week. Theatre creatives map out this emotional, philosophical and political territory in the context of inter-generational responsibility and climate change. On stage the director, Susie Dee, strips out all distractions, diversions, and sentiment from the story to give a direct, unadorned telling of truths – of the extremity of life that lies in wait. Our shared responsibility to the generations following us is made personal, within one family, between parents and their child. It is within our closest relationships we feel the true cost of social and environmental failure.

    This imagined future is shown with the bones of our world, the rubbish left once everything has broken down. Sound designer, Ian Moorhead, identifies that “Sound heightens the threat of the world that exists outside the apartment…a menace that is heard but never seen.”

    Production designer, Sophie Woodward, takes that threat and multiplies it, by “creating a neon box, echoed by the neon square behind it. Thus representing that this room is just one of many.” Imminent danger informs every aspect of this production as it should inform our current political debate.

    This is art dealing with the big political questions. Our creative motto has been “to change the future we must first imagine it.”

    This imagining, by #NoExemptions and other artistic projects, is crucial to stirring new political action because our democracy does not seem up to the challenge of addressing climate change. The timeline of this crisis, the need for rapid transformation, means incremental political action is now futile. Our current political system offers us an incumbent government with wholesale vandalism as environmental policy.

    Our other major party is deeply bruised by the rejection of a moderate policy to deal with climate change at the last election. After this last democratic exercise, too many commentators spouted the opinion that Labour lost in 2019 because of “rejecting coal” instead of interrogating the impact of 80 million dollars of corrupting, distorting and overwhelming political advertising. Today big mining funds political parties.

    Our media is overwhelmingly owned by one source. These political and systemic failures generate this urgent and desperate theatre because if the system fails – responsibility rests with us as individuals, and especially as parents.

    This failure of incremental action and moderation is a terrifying predicament. Revolutions are bloody, messy and often ineffectual. The problems that loom ahead of us are intense. This is not an abandoning of hope, rather an understanding that we must be the change we need.

    Theatre like #NoExemptions becomes a “help wanted” ad for passionate people, effective activists and change makers, understanding that we are the ones who need to step up to answer the urgent call for climate action. We need to do more, we need to do it now, before our children not only question our inaction but hold us to account for it.

     

     

    The post Our children will ask, ‘What did you know’? appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • Palestinian children and their global peers take centre stage on World Day of Social Justice

    It’s World Day of Social Justice on 20 February, an occasion the United Nations has marked since 2007. This year, a UK charity called the Hands Up Project is making sure that Palestinian children and their global peers take centre stage on the special day.

    International Lockdown Theatre competition

    As The Canary has previously reported, Nick Bilbrough started the Hands Up Project in 2016. It aims to connect “children around the world with young people in Palestine”. The initiative enables these connections through a variety of drama and storytelling activities and sessions. These happen online for the most part, in no small part due to the restrictions Israel imposes on Palestinians.

    The Hands Up Project is committed to social justice, global citizenship, and freedom of expression. And so, fittingly, it has recently coordinated a competition that celebrates all those things and will reach its zenith on the World Day of Social Justice.

    It partnered groups of two or three Palestinian children with similar numbers of their peers in other countries, along with their teachers, for the 2021 International Lockdown Remote Theatre Competition. In total, the children come from 15 countries, including Palestine, Argentina, Czechia, El Salvador, Germany, India, Mexico, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Venezuela.

    Each group has created an approximately five-minute long virtual production of a play. They chose from a published collection of plays written by children in Palestine, called Welcome to Earth and other plays. The Hands Up Project holds a playwriting competition each year and publishes a collection of the entries.

    Judges, including this writer, have evaluated the plays based on a range of criteria. These include performance, clarity, and creativity. The Hands Up Project will announce the winners in a special event at 4pm UK time on 20 February.

    World experts

    Bilbrough told The Canary that young people in Palestine are ‘world experts’ in remote theatre. The international competition has “given them the chance to share their skills” and build friendships, he said. For creators of the winning play, those friendships will be further cemented no doubt by the fact that the Hands Up Project is inviting them to come together in person in the UK next summer. They’ll work with a professional director to transform their remote production into one for live theatre. And the project will additionally offer a series of technical training sessions for groups involved in the top three plays.

    Bilbrough admits that the level of challenge in the competition was immense, saying:

    How do you create powerful theatre when all five actors and both teachers are in seven different locations, and there may be as much as 8 hours time difference between some of the actors?

    But he asserted that all of the groups “have risen to this challenge with incredible energy and creativity”.

    Not giving up

    Palestinian children are, of course, no strangers to challenges. As a recent Amnesty International report made clear, Israel’s apartheid regime “systemically” deprives Palestinians of their rights. Noting the “segregation, dispossession and exclusion” that all Palestinians face, whether “they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself”, the human rights group insisted that the international community “has an obligation to act”.

    Palestinians have shown incredible resilience through the many decades of Israel’s occupation. Children there are no exception. Indeed, as Israel was intensively bombing Gaza in May 2021, young people involved in the Hands Up Project continued to meet online. They came together for events and sessions to share their stories with people around the world during the assault.

    Bilbrough recently witnessed the aftermath of that assault, in his first visit to Gaza since the start of the pandemic. He said “alarming evidence” of that bombing campaign is “everywhere”, in the obliterated buildings, damaged roads, and more. However, he also described the visit as “heartening”, because:

    despite the blockade and the ongoing Israeli atrocities committed against them, the young people of Gaza are not giving up and will continue to use remote theatre as their window to the world

    Anyone wanting to stand in solidarity with young people from Palestine and elsewhere and listen to their stories on World Day of Social Justice is more than welcome to do so here. As a judge of the final and its phenomenal line-up of plays, this writer cannot recommend enough that everyone does so.

    Featured image via the Hands Up Project

    By Tracy Keeling

  • Ocen Ivan Kenneth from Uganda is Human Rights Defender of the Month

    Ocen Ivan Kenneth is a Program Director at Foundation for Development and Relief Africa (FIDRA), with more than 10 years of experience working in the human rights field. Ivan’s ambitions for change focus on building inner peace, defending human rights and empowering local communities using theatre and storytelling. He creates a space where people from the community share their personal stories of trauma and resilience as well as identify mechanisms of healing.

    “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to defend justice.” Ocen Ivan Kenneth Tweet

    As an activist, Ivan has faced several challenges including personal threats that sometimes extend to his family and colleagues. His work with victims of conflict related sexual violence also at times takes a toll on him.

    “I get moved when speaking to people whose human rights have been violated in some way, or those who have survived sexual violence, or those brutalised by militia. I can see the trauma in their eyes and hear it in their voices. It has always been the most difficult aspect of my job.”

    Just like many other human rights defenders, the lack of adequate equipment and limited resources coupled with limited capacity and skills, plus legal restrictions curtail his ability to efficiently execute his work. Despite all these challenges, Ivan’s commitment to keep protecting and promoting human rights remains unwavering.

    “After decades of armed conflict, now we are facing another attack, this time affecting our health and life. I am motivated because we are strong resilient workers. We keep resisting this new attack as we have always done by staying together, helping each other, and keeping our spirits high,” he says.

    He believes that there should be more work done to support human rights defenders through building their capacity and expertise, strengthening their recognition, and protecting them from threats, risks, and reprisals particularly those who are marginalised or most at risk.

    “I believe that current protection measures for human rights defenders in Uganda are insufficient. Particularly protection offered from the government mechanisms towards human right defenders is insufficient. A mechanism needs to be created and developed, and people working on other protection mechanisms for human rights defenders should truly address the different vulnerabilities for male and female human rights defenders.” Ocen Ivan Kenneth

    Human Rights Defender of the Month: Ocen Ivan Kenneth

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Single Asian Female: A reflection

    REVIEW: By Sherry Zhang

    Last week, writer Sherry Zhang was at the opening night of Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Single Asian Female. She’s waited to see it since 2019 and now, having finally seen it on New Zealand shores, she reflects on the play and what it means to her.

    I’ve been waiting for a while to see this show. I first heard about Single Asian Female in 2019 from a Sydney friend who told me I had to see it. “I’ll fly over from Auckland then,” I joked, but more than half-serious.

    So in 2021, when Kat Tsz Hung, who plays Chinese matriarch Pearl Wong, stared defiantly at me on a giant yellow post in Auckland Theatre Company’s Waterfront Theatre, I was beyond chuffed.

    I’ve waited so long because it’s about time.

    Single Asian Female premiered in Sydney years ago and only reached New Zealand shores in 2021.

    To be produced at ATC is as mainstream as you can get with theatre in New Zealand. It’s validating to have an Asian-centric story, directed and written, right at the Viaduct. I’ve been to a few ATC shows now, and the audience is generally a sea of white hair on white people.

    There’s been incredible mahi buzzing from Proudly Asian Theatre for the past few years, championing the community needs and interests. From producing works, supporting emerging artists, and calling out the lack of diversity in Aotearoa’s performance spaces for Asian creatives.

    Working with PAT on this project is smart for ATC, it provides them with some street cred for an institution that has otherwise been slow on the diversity and inclusion front.

    Just a few years ago, ATC was still pumping out predominantly all-white casts and all-white production teams. (The two actors of colour had fleeting, almost silent roles).

    Sacrifice of our parents
    Single Asian Female     is a thank you to the sacrifice our parents endure to bring up children in an Australasian space. As the character Pearl says, “food is the great equaliser, our stomachs are the same”.

    Our parents run restaurants or takeaways so we can have a chance at a better life. They cook because they can, and it pays.

    A scene familiar to me: older siblings running the tables while you sit in the corner finishing maths homework. Or being pulled in to do shift work even if you have prior commitments, because who else is going to run the family business?

    Playwright Michelle Law isn’t afraid to pick apart the “tiger mum”, parenting trope. Pearl has so much love for her daughters Zoe (Xana Tang) and Mei (Bridget Wong). She’s funny, supportive and would do anything to protect her children. But she’s also snappy, harsh and overbearing.

    Playwright Michelle Law
    Playwright Michelle Law … not afraid to pick apart the “tiger mum”, parenting trope. Image: Asia Media Centre

    It tapped into a fair amount of mother issues I’m still carrying. My friends and I all walked out of the theatre slightly dazed, because “I’m pretty sure line for line, that’s something my Mum has said”.

    I was pretty good at holding back the tears, until the final scenes when Zoe shares the songs Pearl would sing to calm her down when she has panic attacks. I sobbed a bit in the dark until the red lanterns and glitzy dance lights came on again for the karaoke finale spectacular.

    I see how Asian mothers talk about their duty to their children. This martyrdom of suffering, of keeping up a strong face, often translates into coldness. Pearl’s chants of “I am strong,” is both inspiring and heart-wrenching.

    Gorgeous one-liners
    The transition from the play’s original setting on the Gold Coast to Mt Maunganui provides some gorgeous one-liners about Winston Peters and L&P. But there are some awkward translations, with jokes about Penny Wong, openly queer Australian MP, not sitting as smoothly.

    It felt like a missed opportunity to flesh out queerness in Chinese culture.

    I understood the joke was in Pearl’s unexpected openness regarding sexuality (and her complete horror of Zoe’s unexpected pregnancy). But to use queerness as the punchline felt like a slap in the face as someone who’s continuing to unpack the trauma of being queer in a conservative Chinese family.

    Other moments that stung include the racist comments Mei endures from her Pākeha high school friends. The internalised racism and identity unravelling is a particular point of growing up Kiwi-Asian.

    But it frustrated me when on opening night, non-Asian audience members laughed at these comments. “Oi, it’s literally just our reality,” I wanted to shout.

    At first, I struggled to place how old Mei was. But through her growth, I found her characterisation to be realistically matched with the sophistication 17-year-old teenage girls deserve.

    Xana Tang’s performance as Zoe was particularly charming, while Kat Tsz Hung was flamboyant and unapologetic as Pearl. To see Asian women taking up space, loud and demanding attention is a necessary breakdown of the small, quiet and obedient stereotypes enforced upon us.

    Director Cassandre Tse expertly moves us from moments of immense heartache and grief to fits of laughter. A balance and lightness needed to transport us through a two and a half hour play that holds rather heavy traumatic themes.

    We’ve been waiting to hear our mothers, sisters and ourselves speak for so long, and now I just want even more.

    • Single Asian Female. By Michelle Law. ASB Waterfront Theatre, Auckland. 27 April– 15 May 2021. This review is republished from the Asia Media Centre under a Creative Commons licence.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • When Lighting the Voids

    An audio drama inspired by Reveal’s investigation into a deadly explosion at a Mississippi shipyard, produced by our partners at StoryWorks, a documentary theater company.

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    This post was originally published on Reveal.