Harbour Lites

I managed to catch the last night of this collection of 3 one-act plays at Harbour last Saturday and I am glad I did. Apparently only 2 of the 3 will be going on to the ITA Dramafest. My frequent lament is that there just does not seem to be enough good quality Australian-written one-acters around and I applaud the efforts of those who take the bull by the horns and write their own. However, these 3 plays (which I believe were all English-written) were well chosen and the Aussie actors (and directors) did a good job on the English accents. Overall,I was impressed with the standard of these plays. One-act festivals can be an opportunity for experimentation with ideas and personnel. They are also a great opportunity to be 'noticed' if you are a talented young artist, working your way up in the theatrical world, thus not to be taken too lightly. Well done, all.

I think perhaps that everyone who has a comment to make about which plays Community Theatres should be performing should join a theatre committee and see which plays get "bums on seats". Getting people along to see One Act Play seasons is hard enough. You see, despite the fact that it is altruistic and patriotic to support Australian plays, theatres have rent to pay (some of them huge!). Having directed a lot of Australian full-length and one act plays I can say that they were very successful but no more so than any of the high quality English, American, Canadian plays that have been done. If English theatre had only performed English plays we would not have theatre as we know it today. Instead of being so parochial people should accept that there are good and bad plays no matter in which country they are written. The good ones become famous, the bad ones are consigned to obscurity. Let the professional companies "experiment" as they have bigger budgets and can afford the occasional financial flop. I know we can't!

Daniel's Outrage

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