Rusty Bugles

Rusty audiences. Whilst some would argue that professional theatre doesnÂ’t need support on this site, a broader perspective would take into account the reality that many actors in amateur theatre quietly hope one day, to cross over into the professional ranks.
Don’t despair, there’s even hope for middle aged absolute beginners. Why just the other day, no lesser person than Ray Omodei offered me a role … as a boab tree! “Just stand still for a couple of hours, looking fat in the middle with nuts hanging down! You’re a natural.” But I digress.
Rusty Bugles is bloody magnificent. Quintessentially Australian and as relevant now, as it was in the late 1940s. Jake NewbyÂ’s setting and set is a stroke of pure genius and realism. To an ex cattle train driver like me, itÂ’s an authentic bush camp.
The acting is superb, with an eclectic mob of blokes, some with vast professional theatre experience and some just starting out, but hell, all of them kicked off in amateur theatre, when a Jo Marsh, a Sue Lynch, or a Gemma Gurney took a chance on them.
Humour laced with pathos, exposes the larrikin spirit and the path to a concluding powerful sense of the history that has formed our national character. The blokes are so good, I vividly remembered every mining camp and stockyard IÂ’ve ever worked, lived and camped in.
However, in spite of attention from and a deservedly superb review by Ron Banks, audience numbers are down and they are struggling to find ways to bring people into the marquee. Sound familiar? And just as with amateur theatre, the cost of advertising has now reached a prohibitive stage (no pun intended).
TheyÂ’re half way through the season and need four or five capacity audience nights. But more importantly, anyone wishing to turn pro at some stage, needs productions like this to succeed. For the sake of your craft and possible career ambitions, seize the moment, go support them and take a few friends.
I did and IÂ’m going back for another look and to learn a touch more - the thin bloke playing the scraggly eucalypt is magnificent.
Greg Ross

Hi Everyone

I have to agree with Toby and Greg. I have just returned from seeing "Rusty Bugles" and this production does deserve to be seen.

The acting is excellent, the set design clever, functional and effective and the rapport between the actors /characters really is wonderful.

I must say that it is very disappointing to hear that audience numbers are down for most of the major productions at the moment. "Last Cab to Darwin", "Merry Widow" and "Rusty Bugles" are all suffering badly at the moment.

It is very disheartening to hear this, at any time, but when you consider that these numbers will be used by anyone who wants to attack arts funding, as evidence that WA just doesn't need or want professional theatre companies.

These productions deserve and need our support. As actors, you learn more about your craft by watching others and you are often inspired by seeing others perform.

"Rusty Bugles" finishes on the 26th April. I hope the theatre community makes a concerted effort to attend this excellent production. We cant hope to have any more like it, if we dont.

Kerri Hilton

Kerri wrote:
> I must say that it is very disappointing to hear that
> audience numbers are down for most of the major productions
> at the moment. "Last Cab to Darwin", "Merry Widow" and "Rusty
> Bugles" are all suffering badly at the moment.

Maybe they should consider taking advantage of the free event listings on this site?

Toby, Steve, Greg, Kerri? Care to retrieve a password for The Hole in the Wall and add Rusty Bugles so that it appears in the event listings?

Great to see The Hole in the Wall has a website, but a few minutes adding the event here will ensure the message about Rusty Bugles will reach many times more people than are likely to visit that site.

Remember event listings don't just appear on this site but on many others websites as well. Check out the Ticker for more info:

http://theatre.asn.au/ticker.php3

or visit

http://www.geoffrey.com.au/

for an example.

Give a man a fish....

Cheers
Grant

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Holidaying from Sydney, 3 of us turned up at the door at 7:15pm for Rusty Bugles last night (Wed Apr 17) and got the best tickets in the house (front row middle). All of us thoroughy enjoyed the performance for it's great script, acting & venue. It got a great response from the small audience. We were particularly impressed with the actors warmup which involved a very vocal jogging session around the Esplanade and Bell Tower just prior to the show.

Continuing on from Grants discussion.
I wonder why the Hole in the Wall did not use it?

Maybe their is the opportunity for this website to market itself more effectively on an ongoing basis to the Professional Theatre community.

It should be on the publicity list of every Australian Arts event organisation. Especially since advertising is free. Can this site be enhanced further in any way to help promote professional theatre in Perth since they both depend on each other to a certain extent.

Being a WAAPA graduate in Arts Management (1998 but not currently working in the Arts/Entertainment Industry) I wonder how many of the current Arts Mgt students and Graduates are aware of this site and use it in their marketing and other roles that they undertake during the course or in employment after the course. Is there a mailing list for Arts Workers/Managers/Organisations to subscribe to that can be used to ongoing communications about what this site has to offer to them as it evolves.

The relationship between community and professional theatre is an interesting one. With the dependence of professional theatre on community theatre possibly far greater than the dependence of community theatre on professional theatre.

The challenge is for professional theatre to harness the community theatre scene more. How about something like attempting to organise a community theatre night for a preview performance with a party on stage after the play?

From my experiences in community theatre in Perth last century many community theatre actors are time poor when it comes to finding time to go to professional events.

Sounds like an opportunity for an arts research grant if someone has not already researched this and made recommendations in recent times??

Maybe this or part of needs reposting in a different area for the discussion to continue

TEN-SHUN!! All able-bodied persons to report to BOCS office and be kitted out with tickets to this production...final duty roster this week.


Really interesting piece, both from a historical sense and a character sense. Written in 1948, there's a nostalgic feeling to the piece but at the same time it pretty well reflects Australian attitudes and conditions today and the depiction of the Northern Territory locale seems pretty accurate and familiar.
Although it's obviously about soldiers, and so there's a particular design and attitude to the story, there is really not much reference to "the war", apart from the documentary aspect of "this is where and when the events took place". Really it's about characters, and because there are so many men on stage, the interaction between them is what keeps our interest. Apart from small incidences, the overall plot is about characters waiting around for nothing to happen...so in that way it's like an Australian precursor to Waiting For Godot. And while the idioms and the technology place it in an era, it's surprising to note that the writing seems so modern when it was also written before Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll...it's virtually the first Australian classic play.

A pity that it is inevitably linked with war images, and that we are all consciously or unconciously totally sick to death of war images currently in the media, because that may be accounting for the low attendence, and it's not really about that.

I really liked the authenticity of the set, costumes (including the front of house staff), language, red dirt, and blokiness of the cast. Jake Newby's gigantic set (just one of the two sheds is wider than the Playhouse stage) worked really well. (although I wondered why the desk in the YMCA hut had 'Rusty Bugles' stencilled all over it....seemed a bit post-modernist, and out of place with all the other accurate detail).

The cast work really well together as a virtual ensemble...14 actors playing a wide range of different diggers, and there's not so much any lead characters as there are several main characters sharing their own takes on the same throughline. Because only a few were on stage almost the entire time, when each one entered for their particular scenes they brought a really good energy and focus to their part. And the crowd scenes worked well because there was literally a crowd!

I don't know whether it was the writing or the direction, but particularly in the first couple of scenes there was a strangely heightened quality, where some characters seemed too demonstrative, 'showing' us what they felt rather than actually 'feeling' it. But perhaps two reasons for this was to quickly establish the individual characters in the audience's mind (all in uniform, character differentiation was important); and the other being that perhaps that does reflect the 'locker room' kind of way that blokes do react with each other, not really letting feelings slip even when they're talking about feelings.

What this did though, was set up a bit of a style that really made the 'real' moments stand out. Rod Hall was terrific as the YMCA Sergeant, delightfully camp and effusive, but he didn't let the comedy take over his heartfelt reactions. Glenn Hall and Peter Docker have a touching character progression as they forge a mateship. And the 'news from home' scenes (Andrew Hale, Andy King) were poignant in how they affected the characters and revealed more than they had previously let slip.

Altogether, an enjoyable show worth checking out.



Daniel...you make great arguments, but despite the efforts of myself and a few notable others, there are still very few professional artists or companies that make effective use of this site's potential. I'm pretty sure most companies are aware of it, but getting them to participate is a different matter. So it's really up to individuals to promote the shows they're in or are connected with, and luckily Grant has made that pretty easy for responsible reps to post details on behalf of companies.



Grant...give a man in this production a fish, and I guess it would become a Rusty Trumpeter...



Cheers,
Craig

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Hey youse

You should get down to the tent on the Esplanade for a bonzer show, featuring 13 dinky-di West Aussie actors. It'll make you laugh, get a bit serious, and entertain you heaps. The red dust is authentic and so is the camaraderie and this mob deserves some decent size audiences.

Good on ya boys, you're all beaut!
Jenni