Playspotting

The Playspotting season was an interesting experience for me, as someone who frequents the theatre regularly. Earlier this year, I returned from a wonderful theatre tour of Europe with my husband, where we saw some of the most astonishing work from so many gifted new writers, from all over the world. During the recent Melbourne, my husband and I went along to a couple of the Playspotting readings. We thought that it was a great opportunity for new writers, directors and actors, to take their first steps and bare themselves to an audience through the format of ten-minute plays. We also went to the recent performances of Playspotting and found the developments of the plays interesting. In response to the review (above), I agree that the set changes were very boring during the Playspotting nights, but I also felt that the use of the Safe Sex video failed in the way that it was used to cover up the long set changes. For a start, though I thought that the Safe Sex video was an unnecessary and ridiculous last minute addition to Playspotting, that never contributed to the evening of short plays. Every time the video came on, actors started moving props and furniture around in front of us, and I found myself looking at my watch, becoming even more aware that ‘I wasn’t supposed to look at the actors changing the set’. It would have been better to just show the video on its own, instead of using it as ‘commercial breaks’ in between each play. The fragmentation of the video killed the evening for me. The desperate attempt to cover up the boring set changes with the video, made the lagging atmosphere worse, and I could hear irritated audience members echoing my thoughts as I caught some of their neighbouring whispers around me in the auditorium. In theory, the Playspotting event promoted itself as informal and causal, but in practice, I found the evening mainly tense, pretentious, and full of distractions. The way in which the stage was designed and set up by the Playspotting team created this uncomfortable premise. Many of the actors had roles in other plays during the evening as well and were bombarded with too many things to do. The precense of the two red and black couches on the stage- were tokenistic and ostentatious- as they promised a ‘calmness’ that never evolved. Though these couches were meant to create an informal ‘New York style’ ambience, I felt that this desperate attempt to appear ‘international’ had an opposite effect on the whole- and made the organisers of Playspotting look like poor insecure ‘country cousins’ in a little town. I found that the ‘12th play’ Safe Sex (which was a video and not a ten minute play- in Playspotting’s competition) totally jarred the whole evening and dampened the magic that the actors had worked so hard at- to create on stage. I would have rather not have had any video at all, and focused on the theatrical experience alone- and then, even the set changes wouldn’t have been boring at all, but just a natural course of the evening. In response to the self congratulary review above (was this guy paid to write it?), both the Needle and the Damage Done, directed by Robert Chuter, and also the last play about Cate Blanchet on Facebook, directed by Lucian Savron, reminded me of second rate high school plays. These scripts were poorly written and used ‘zany’ literary tricks in order to appear clever. This ‘cleverness’ was so self conscious and not clever at all. To say that Robert Chuter's direction was akin to David Lynch is laughable. A bad out-take of Will and Grace on crystal would’ve been a more suitable description. And why does the reviewer bang on all throughout his report about Robert Chuter’s dodgy and questionable ‘talents’ when his play was certainly one of the less accomplished pieces of the night? Alex Broun’s play also does not even deserve a mention. On the world stage of theatre- both of these ‘artists’ would be laughed out of the room. I met Lucien Savron after the show briefly through a friend, and later overheard him talking and boasting about his amateur efforts as well. Mr Savron is under the impression that he is a master of the theatre, as he kept bragging about himself and about the ‘greatness’ of his direction (which was never there- and only in his own mind). The review above casts these three people, Robert Chuter, Alex Broun and Lucien Savron, as the best thing since slice bread. This childish comment about these three men, reminded me of the fairytale, The Emperors New Clothes. The second half of the Playspotting night was totally embarrassing and so bad that I wondered why these plays weren’t all placed in the first half, as a warm up. In contrast, the first half of the evening held more promise and energy, and the consensus amongst the audience, after the show had ended; was that The Trick, was the only play that not only shone throughout the night, but also the only play that had something valuable to say, without the self-consciousness and unbelievable non-sense that made up 90% of the evening. I saw the Trick during the winter readings and though I thought it was well directed and presented- it had improved immensely thanks to the sensitive and outstanding direction from Lynne Ellis. To say that The Trick was (quote) ‘the only disappointment of the evening’- is a lie. There were many other plays (especially Chuter's, Savron’s and Broun’s) that were way way below the level of even average in terms of quality. Since moving to Melbourne with my husband fifteen years ago, I have found Melbourne a minefield of creative talent. But certain areas of the creative landscape of Melbourne (like the Playspotting team)- also suffer from an inferiority complex that makes them ‘try too hard’ to appear greater and more ‘international’ than what they actually are. This pompousness does not exist in the European theatres, where theatre has blossomed throughout history. Playspottings self important attitudes, in turn have an adverse effect- which ultimately destroys their pretentious aspirations, and reveals them as ‘small town amateur wannabes’- all pissing in each other’s pockets. It is a shame, but the one saving grace is that there are also hundreds of genuinely talented Melbourne artists, but unfortunately we don’t always hear or know about them, as they are all too busy doing great work- rather than blowing their own trumpets. Rosemary Scholar