CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT:
From a distance...

A performance exploring Australian identity as defined through sport

Stage 1: Creative Development, November 7-25, 2005 Rex Cramphorn Studio, Dept. of Performance Studies, University of Sydney.

"From a distance, all we can assume is Sally misjudged when she reached 100 per cent of her ability". Steve Lawrence, WAIS

"From a distance, to give up is almost very unaustralian" Cathy Freeman

In the 2004 Athens Olympic women's eight rowing final, Sally Robbins stopped rowing. The media frenzy, and the discussion of national identity that followed are the starting points for this new performance by acclaimed Sydney performance group version 1.0. This performance is not about Sally or her team-mates, but about the reaction to their story in the Australian media. Of particular interest to the performance is the notion of 'un Australian', a term repeatedly used to describe those involved in the 'no row' incident. What is it to be 'un Australian'? Using media transcripts and commentary on the 'no row incident', version 1.0 investigate Australian identity as defined through sport, probing the dark side of sport and nationalism with disturbing and frequently hilarious results.

PRODUCTION CREDITS:

Devisors and performers:
Nikki Heywood, Stephen Klinder, Jane McKernan, Jane Phegan, Elizabeth Ryan, Christopher Ryan, and Emma Saunders.

Director & Producer:
David Williams

Dramaturgy:
Dr Paul Dwyer

Consultant Director:
Yana Taylor

Video & Lighting Design:
Simon Wise

Sound Design:
Jason Sweeney

PRODUCTION:
The Wages of Spin

A performance about freedom, democracy and the War on Iraq

DESCRIPTION

With clever subversive wit, The Wages of Spin provokes a closer examination of the issues at the core of the controversy surrounding the "intelligence" reports that were the deciding factor in Australia's involvement in the war in Iraq. This is political theatre version 1.0 style - playful, surreal, visceral and tragic, with no easy answers. While the production's subject is serious, the treatment is often hilarious. version 1.0 have again produced a show that successfully subverts, whilst never ceasing to entertain.

Audiences can expect to be shocked and horrified at the reality of war and the manipulation of truth, and in the very next moment, laughing at the irony of the media's obsession with pop star Delta Goodrem's 'suffering' and 'trauma' caused by her relationship 'crisis'. The production's meticulously researched script re-examines Senate Committee proceedings, often cheekily using the Hansard transcript verbatim as a theatrical device that leaves audiences asking: What should we believe? Further provoking the audience to question the authenticity of information, and the 'word' of those in power, is the productions clever re-contextualization of official public documents, television interviews and even raves from columnists and webloggers. The Wages of Spin is designed to engage the audience critically with the issues and ask: "Does it matter that we went to war on a lie?"

Venue:
20 May – 5 June, Performance Space, Sydney
20-30 July, The Street Theatre, Canberra

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID ABOUT THE WAGES OF SPIN:

"If you value freedom and democracy, do not miss The Wages of Spin."
Peter Wilkins, The Canberra Times, 22/7/05

“As a reminder of how we’ve arrived at this most culpable of moments in our national history, where there are no excuses, and as a model of multimedia performance, The Wages of Spin is mandatory viewing”
Keith Gallasch, RealTime 68, August/September 2005

“Make no mistake about this production. It is a most divisive and revealing event … Version 1.0 make challenging theatre with an integrity that cuts across traditional left and right wing boundaries”
Joe Woodward, The Canberra Review, 28/7/05

"This is a great show: witty, clever, lively and provocative. ... Version 1.0 – whose CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident) last year was one of the most interesting and provocative responses to the Tampa and the sinking of SIEV X events - is doing a new type of political theatre that is based in serious research but is also mocking, subversive and fun."
John McCallum, The Australian, 23/5/05

PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Performer/devisors:
Stephen Klinder, Deborah Pollard & David Williams

Performer / Devisors:
Stephen Klinder, Deborah Pollard & David Williams

Dramaturgy:
Paul Dwyer

Outside Eye:
Yana Taylor

Lighting/Production:
Simon Wise

Video Artist:
Sean Bacon

Sound Artist:
Gail Priest

Producer:
Harley Stumm (Performing Lines)

Financial Administration:
Simon Wellington (Urban Theatre Projects)

Performing Crew:
Katy Green, Jane Grimly, Paul Morrison, Jacob Patterson (UWS secondments), Lara Lightfoot (Canberra Youth Theatre secondment)

Canberra operators:
Kaoru Alfonso (lighting) and Alex White (sound)

Publicity:
Harley Stumm (Sydney), Canberra Arts Marketing (Canberra)

PRODUCTION:
Unfinished Business: X Marks the Spot

A performance exploring Senate testimony around SIEV X

Venue:
21 March, A work in progress showing for Scratch Night #2 at The Studio, Sydney Opera House.

DIRECTORS' NOTE

Senator Mason: In the famous words of Jack Nicholson in the film A Few Good Men, `You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!'
SENATE Hansard, 23 October 2002, page 5773

SIEV X is the acronym for 'Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X' (the X stands for 'unknown'). It is the name given to the unknown the dilapidated, criminally overloaded Indonesian fishing boat that sank en route to Australia's Christmas Island on 19 October 2001 at the height of the massive Australian military border protection operation at the centre of the Federal Government’s re-election campaign. 353 people drowned – 146 children, 142 women and 65 men.

Four years after this disaster, the troubling circumstances surrounding the sinking remain unsolved, including the possibility of direct Australian involvement through ongoing ‘disruption activities’ that included sinking boats. These questions persist. New evidence, both through investigative journalism and answers to Senate Questions on Notice, have proved that significant parts of the evidence given to the CMI Senate inquiry were inaccurate or deliberately misleading, and several of the Senators have been agitating for a judicial inquiry to bring out the truth. But can we handle the truth?

This work-in-progress performance begins where version 1.0’s CMI (A Certain Maritime Incident) concludes, charting the unfinished business of Australia’s disastrous refugee policies. Australia has unfinished business with SIEV X. Unfinished, unwanted, and vitally important business. This performance uses edited proceedings of the Australian Senate pertaining to SIEV X as a springboard to investigate the act of public speech, and to interrogate the ways in which the language of power paralyses the body’s capacity for outrage. This project explores visceral and verbal acts – speech as acts and acts as speech, locating strategies to resist the exhaustion that politician-speak produces. Part epic tragedy, part documentary performance, and part civic archaeology, this is a deeply disturbing rollercoaster ride through the Australian body politic. We may not like what this public language tells us about ourselves.

This performance cannot encompass the range of disturbing questions and concerns surrounding SIEV X, nor is this performance a piece of investigative journalism. This performance instead aims to undertake memory work, to intervene into the consciousness of our audience and state unequivocally that this catastrophic happening must be remembered, despite its discomfort, despite our official record keepers’ desire to erase, or at least displace this story. In the end, this is the work that we made following this evidence. There are many other possible works that could be made, and we wait for these works with great anticipation. In these times of public forgetting and cultural amnesia, we need as remembering as possible.

Further reading and research:
www.sievx.com SIEV X online archive
www.aph.gov.au Australian Parliament House site, follow the links to Senate Hansard
Tony Kevin (2004) A Certain Maritime Incident: The Sinking of SIEV X. Melbourne: Scribe Publications.
David Marr and Marian Wilkinson (2003) Dark Victory. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.

PRODUCTION CREDITS:

Performed by:
Tony Clarke, Stephen Klinder, Jane Phegan, Noha Ramadan, Gareth Rickards, Leanne Ryan, Emma Saunders, Emma Tait, Claire Whyntie, and Kate Worsley

Text & Direction by:
David Williams

Music By:
Jason Sweeney

Stage Manager:
Brigid Collaery

Sound Operator:
Jeff Hardge

Lghting Operator:
Quenorie Napier

Produced by:
Sally Blackwood for the Sydney Opera House

Developed with the assistance of the School of Contemporary Arts, University of Western Sydney. Material for this performance was also developed by Patrick Dunn and Diedre Gatt.