Hello, My name is Ridiculous and I'm going to rant about things.
Before I begin this year, I'm going to start with my thoughts I had in December 2010, cos I can't remember the rest of the year.
1) Upstairs/Downstairs rant:
I like theatre, (I think?) I'm not sure. Lately I've been thinking I don't have a soul cos I never seem to like anything. Anyway, due to a collection of reasons, I go to the theatre a lot (and sometimes I feel those magic-theatre-buzz-shiver feelings, which are pretty cool when you feel them and when I do feel them, I like theatre a lot.) A great deal of the times I have felt theatre magic I've felt it at a little theatre called Belvoir, in Surry Hills. After a long, long, (all-my-life) relationship with Belvoir, I'm leaving its warm foyer, forever. See, I'm annoyed. Belvoir has gotten progressively crappier and crappier (soul-wise, arg, sorry, I will stop being hippy in a sec and explain myself) over the past few years, and then, this year, they announced that they were getting rid of B# and that they're reshuffling their cool commune-like system of payment... Okay, Let's start with a brief history of why Belvoir is(/was) completely, gorgeously, cute. (NB. This is a vague history-according-to-ridiculous, I'm sure you can find more accurate summaries of events elsewhere on the web) There was once this theatre company called Nimrod, that was originally housed at the Stables (now Griffin theatre) and it was pretty rad and all the cool Judy-and-Colin-et-al theatre myth shows that people still bang on about happened there. Martin Sharp did heaps of the art for the shows and his prints are pretty awesome and thus Nimrod is a tad immortalised in bright colours. Anyway, I'm not sure what happened but it moved to where Belvoir is now, (converted from an old salt factory) then it ran out of money and sort of died and moved briefly to the Seymour Centre where it died shortly after completely (cos that building is completely yuck and without any character and no one in their right mind wants to see shows there. Meanwhile, did you know the guy they named it after was called Everest York Seymour, or some combination of those three names? Seriously! What a wanker! Not only is the building named after him but the two theatres too! Who does that?) So when Nimrod died completely, the plan was to sell the Belvoir Street site to raise the money to cover the debts. This really stank, cos, apparently, the venue had basically been donated to "the greater artistic good" for a token price of a dollar and so selling the place to make money and end up without a cool edgy theatre venue to combat the boring-ness of the conservative main stages was not a happy prospect and the artistic community was in uproar about it. The way "they" (the angry artistic community) saw it, the donation of the building had been made to the whole of Australian theatre and it was bogus for one company to profit. So the angry artistic community all got together, and, anyone with any money emptied their pockets so they could save Australian theatre from greed and mediocrity. Everyone scraped together and they bought the theatre and called it Belvoir and cool theatre continued to be made. 12 years ago they turned the downstairs theatre into an independant stage called BSharp (B#), which was really cool, cos it meant that budding theatre-makers could apply to stage a show and develop new, exciting, work on a really lovely, intimate, stage at a really cool and well-loved venue. I worked on a show there with a friend and was also lucky enough to see lots of my friends stage or perform shows there. There is nothing like seeing something you have, or someone you love has; worked hard on, come to life. A feeling I doubt i'll feel again cos they've decided to kill B# and just have 2 normal, paid, Belvoir stages... On the surface, this sounds good right? Everyone getting paid? Sure, except it wont work the way it used to, and, well basically up-and-coming theatre-makers have lost a space. Paid shows means less (exciting) punts and risks, the stuff that theatre thrives on! The stuff that haunts that damn building! Only "names"
and kids in the Belvoir cool group are going to get jobs now. Bring on wank and same-ish-ness! Blerg. Don't tell me it won't happen. Remember what happened with Ruben Guthrie? A whole bunch of amazing theatre people staged a downstairs production. They donated their time, heart and talent to the co-op arangement and created a stunning rendition of Brendan Cowells play about the perils of booze. It was great theatre. I couldn't fault a thing about it, especially not the gorgeous performances, and, as the damn show sold out I bet I could find a bunch of punters who also thought the show rocked. Belvoir was doing this thing for a sec where successful downstairs shows, in the following season, got a run upstairs, which is cool, more space, more chance for people who missed it to see it again. This was on the cards for Ruben Guthrie (what with "names" like Cowell, Blair, and Shmidt attached) and the story I heard was the actors who donated their serivces to the first, B#, show were told/promised that they'd get a proper paid job the following year when the show moved upstairs. The show did move upstairs, and, for some reason, was almost entirely recast. I can't see the logic of recasting a sell out show, can you? The whole thing reeked, Shmidt (who retained his job cos he's a "name," and in the cool group) even came out and said so towards the end of the upstairs run. The tone was set. The line was drawn. There were upstairs actors and downstairs actors and only the privileged few were permitted and deemed to be both. This kind of defeats the purpose of independant theratre, instead of being a foot-up it bcame clear that B# was a foot rest. A stage where artists could play but weren't going to be taken seriously. (Meanwhile, for the sake of an arguement, the re-cast "name" version of Ruben Guthrie was utter rubbish, casting by "name" almost always leads to mis-casting and should be avoided, trust your audiences, good work will get bums on seats not just names, besides, names will bring them in but wont necessarily have them return, cos, you got to see "insert name," bum on seat achieved, punter watches show, show is rubbish cos the "name" wasn't really cast well, punter thinks theatre in Sydney is boring and doesn't go again.) So I've got the shits bout all this yuck and I've decided I'm not going to see plays at Belvoir anymore, what's the point? They're not about ideas and art anymore, They're about money. It's just another fucking business. Plus, Belvoir up-till-now did this thing whereby every employee got paid the same wage, regardless of "name," experience, or job. Super cute and awesome, and appreciative of the importance of every, single, person, right? Yeah well apparently that's naff and they need to start graduating wages, cos, you know, we can't really expect "names" to work for nothing right? Why the fuck not? It's worked thus far, and they've not exactly had trouble securing actors such as Geoffry Rush to perform have they? And seriously, it sounds like backwards logic to me, "we need to pay the rich people more!" Yuck. So while Belvoir is busy fixing what's not broken they've broken this theatre goer. I'll never set foot in their sponsored-by-Optus foyer again. Belvoir has turned its back on everything that made it special and so we must turn our back on it... and head to the Old Fitz... or Darlo... or somewhere...
2) The last two shows I saw at Belvoir before I tuned my back rant:
Anyway I saw the last B# Show (as well as a couple from this gorgeous last ever season, and I'll tell you Dirty Butterfly and The Suicide were way better than most of the main stage shit I saw in 2010) and It was so so so amazing and witty and wonderful. Kind of stand-up-theatre hybrid, A Distressing Scenario bid a fitting, ironic, fucking hilarious, farewell to the beautiful space that now wants to make money. And the kids that made the show, Post (or PostpresentsPost, I can't quite work out what they're called) are really exciting, watch them, they've got guts and imagination, and they're funny. I also saw the upstairs show, The Diary of a Madman, It reeked. Stupid and boring. Audience of stars-in-their-eyes sheep who gave it a standing ovation for no particular reason that I could see. In short, B# is magic and has passed away and mediocrity, once again has thrived! Fuck!
3)STC rant:
Different theatre, but on the topic of "NameStage" productions I also saw STC's Uncle Vanya in December. I had a seat in the very front row and I didn't dare look behind me to see if the audience was giving the thing a standing ovation cos I didn't want to vomit but they probably were. It was okay. I was mostly unmoved. I've got to stop buying tickets to these "must see" shows. It is kind of like a car crash for me though, I can't look away. I have to know what the "hot tickets" of the year are like, and they're mostly always watchable so it's not such a bad habit. I adequately enjoyed most of the "NameStage" shows I saw last year. I was even quite fond of Waiting for Godot brought out this year, so there you go.
4)Ruby Rose on the cover of FHM rant:
(Cos I'm not just here to rant about theatre, I'm going to rant about things generally, though, like I said, I see a bit of theatre so there'll be a bit of theatre rant... anyway) The way I see it there are three possibilities, Ruby Rose is broke, or completely stupid, or needs to fire her publicist. FHM, For Him Magazine, sports a cover adorned with Ruby Rose this month. This sucks. Note that the magazine's acronym stands for For Him Magazine. She floats some flimsy excuse of "When I was at school, If I got my hands on FHM I was a happy Chap" Okay, if you really want to swallow her flimsy qualification of this disgusting PR exercise then go right ahead, no, wait, don't! Sure, lesbians are going to buy copies now cos she's in it so in that way it's not entirely lebians-for-men-porn-fantasy-ified... But men are going to buy copies too... Straight men... The magazine is called fucking FOR HIM! The article tries to make noises of pro-gay-rights-wank "Doesn't it make you feel all kinds of awesome that the sacrifice Alec's mates made helped shape a world in which someone like Ruby is celebrated and beloved?" (NB. Alec = Rose's Gallipoli ver grandfather) ARG! So the slight noises made of isn't-it-nice-that-someone-gay-is-popular? provide a smokescreen for the fact that Ruby Rose participated in a lesbians-for-men-porn-fantasy photo spread. It is super sad. She doesn't get interviewed about her work or ideas, instead she titilates readers with explanations of lesbian sex, how to please women, how to buy sex toys for women and which men she'd turn straight for (soothing the male ego and assuring them they'd have a chance)... at one point it sounds like she says lesbians don't ever need a rest during sex (which I fear further spreads the idea lesbian sex isn't real sex)... apparently, what with our absent penis' that don't ejaculate and announce "forced breaks" lesbians can "keep on rolling"... cos we never cum and need a rest? anyway... blah blah blah... dumb shitty questions and answers... the pictures are super sexual and all posed with a straight girl... the article treads really carefully trying not to be too overtly objectifying lesbians-ish, but it is. The article and shoot is designed and written for straight men not for lesbians. It's worrying and annoying and Ruby should not be lauded or congratulated for this decision. I hope the money she was paid got her out of whatever debt was so urgent to pay, that, or the publicist, who convinced her to do the shoot, should be fired immediately, or Ruby's just a moron, whatever...
I think that's it for my rants for December.
Will rant again soon,
Ridiculous.
