Thanks for a great year AC! It's been a thoroughly enjoyable year as always... reading your thoughts... watching the fray.

And as always - thanks for the support.

Nick

Absolutely my pleasure, Nick! Prost!

It's great to have you and your site!

Enjoy the festive days and all the best for next year.

André

'How many plays have been written in French?' he asked.
'About five or six thousand,' replied the abbe.
'That's a lot,' he remarked; 'how many are good?'
'Fifteen or sixteen,' replied the other.
'That's a lot,' said Martin. (Candide).

I'm with Hugh.

On the question of plays or of productions, as a matter of interest?

Well both. The distinction being obvious - there is a correlation nonetheless.

It just made me reflect that of my top 5 shows, only one is a new play.

...and that if I were to list top 5 plays, it would be a different list.

Great as always, Allison.

For those interested, I've picked my top picks for the Brisbane theatre scene. See: http://importanceofideas.com/2009/12/27/my-year-of-magical-theatre-the-top-five/

Thanks Jason. Yes, good theatre needs good writing. (And direction. And performance. And design.) No wonder it's such a frustrating and beautiful artform!

Hi Alison,

Thanks for a great year of reviews. It's so great to have a place like this where productions and issues can be discussed so openly.

Enjoyed your list and wrap-up. Although I have to disagree with a few- 3xSisters, africa, care instructions, Mukinupin, the cove.

My top ten for 2009 (Alphabetical order)-

- Apocalypse Bear Trilogy (Stuck Pigs/ Mtc/ MIAF)
- Glasoon (Black Lung)
- Happy Days (Malthouse)
- Lawn (Malthouse)
- Life is a Dream (Store Room Theatre)
- Once and For All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen (Ontroerend Goed)
- Optimism (Malthouse)
- Peer Gynt (VCA)
- Red Sky Morning (Red Stitch)
- Shamelessly Glitzy Work (Post)


Also, not really trying to make a statement here, but just a bit of statistical analysis of your list in regards to the "issue of the year".

- All of your top 5 productions were directed by men.
- Of the extended list of 21 productions, 14 had male directors/ choreographers (including 1 dance piece).
- 6 had female directors/ choreographers (including 3 dance pieces).
- I left Lawn neutral as it was choreographed by the three male dancers but had a female rehearsal director.
- That leaves 3 theatre pieces on your list directed by women- Africa, Care Instuctions and Yuri Wells.

Again, I'm not trying to say anything, everything I just listed is pure observation. Whether that is any indication of anything else is up to everyone else.

Happy new year.

Hi Gilligan - thanks for that. And also for your contributions to this site's liveliness! (Speaking of which, I would have been astonished had you agreed with my listing of 3xSisters - for my part, a work's vitality will often trump its imperfections...) Just as an aside, I missed this year's production of Red Sky Morning, although it made my list last year. And I missed others too, like Moira Finacune's The Flood at La Mama, which might have been on that list. I can't pretend to an omnipresence here; and it would be great if others could list other shows.

And now, loins girded, to the gender question, which I (couldn't but) notice. One correction: you missed Susie Dee's direction of Wretch, although I guess it was more properly co-directed and so neutral, like Lawn. Which still leaves three listed women directors, if you don't count the choreographers.

I admit, the top five testosterone quotient gave me pause. But I'm not going to reshuffle it just to make it easier on myself. Those were the productions I saw this year that I liked best.

I do think it illustrates something about the mentorship and nurturance of emerging directors. Of the five directors, three - Barrie Kosky, Benedict Andrews and, to a lesser extent, Michael Kantor - have been richly nurtured. Kosky was picked up at - was it 20? to direct Michael Tippet at the Melbourne Festival by John Truscott, and afterwards was directing at the MTC and AO from a precocious age, before he went off and made Gilgul. Andrews was nurtured by Robyn Nevin over many years, even if the productions tanked at the box office. The current equivalent golden boy is probably Matt Lutton.

This doesn't take away from their talent, but I don't know of many women theatre directors who have had the same kind of nurturance through their younger years, and I know of none who are anointed as young geniuses, even if their work is prize winning and exciting. This is definitely gendered, and it creates a feedback situation in terms of an artist's confidence and boldness: which loops back to my comments a few months back about how gender expectations can be internalised. And that's deeply complex.

Black Lung are a bit sui generis; I think their work really does step outside these structures in fruitful ways. And Daniel Schlusser was able to make his impressive VCA trilogy in the shelter of that institution, with all its resources (If I had been in the country for Tanya Gerstle's end of year VCAM production Invisible Stains, there might have been a feminine rhyme there).

For my part, I'm going to attempt to be a little more gender conscious about the shows that I choose to see next year; ie, try to make the quota a little more equal. I don't doubt that I saw many more shows directed by men than women this year, although I don't have the wherewithal to go and count up the figures. I don't actually believe there is such a thing as a "feminine" aesthetic (although I do know there are realities that [some] women are more likely to explore than [some] men) so I think it is unlikely that there is a gendered bias in terms of how I respond. Always possible, I guess; but I can at least say honestly that my qualitative judgments are self-questioning.

One thing that these - very wobbly - figures do reveal is that dance is way ahead of theatre on this issue. It might well be worth asking why, and perhaps taking a few leaves from that book.

Speaking of dance- worst dance piece of 2009 was Chunky Move's 'Black Marrow'; an over-long, turgid, regressive crawl back to primordial ooze.
Too much contemporary dance resists uprightness- 'Black Marrow' wallowed around in ideas now hackneyed and largely irrelevant.
Let's hope more at the front line can embrace the challenges and complexity of the times, rather than continue to draw from the 20th century.
Thanks Alison and Happy NY.

Thanks Alison,

Although I hated 3 x Sisters, I still think it was an important production in terms of asking questions about certain things. I really liked Yuri Wells, so it's nothing against Hayloft.

The mentorship question is an interesting one. But that doesn't really explain the gap in the longer list, which included plenty of indi shows. I just noticed my list was even more male dominated than yours.

It does seem that male directors seem to be the ones exploring a certain style and aesthetic at the moment, which is proving to be more popular. You can easily see certain links between directors like Kantor, Andrews, Kosky, Schlusser, Henning, Stone etc. I can't think of many/any female directors doing this kind of work. That's not to say that female directors aren't doing good work, but perhaps it's not as fashionable/contemporary/interesting at the moment. If this isn't the case, I can't really see any other reason for the gaps in both our lists. Whether that kind of work relates to gender or not I'm not sure.

One thing that I pointed out a little while back, which didn't get a mention, was Red Stitch's fully female directed season 1 next year. Step in the right direction I think. May provide an opportunity for those directors to step to the main stages. Sam Strong is the only new director at MTC next year, and he clearly got that gig after Red Sky Morning. Red Stitch could be very important.

Quite right, Gilligan. I'm personally excited to see that Marcelle Schmitz is one of the directors working there - she's been over in Perth and I haven't had a chance to see her work, although I've long been aware of it.

The only way to really see clearly what might be going on would be to analyse every production on in Melbourne, indie and main stage. And then see what percentage of those we choose to see (to check bias in the initial choices, which for me might be a major issue: although I'm obliged to see the main stage shows, which buuilds a bias in from the beginning).

If the total amount of productions on show a gender bias, then the issue is wholly endemic. (There's a whole thesis in there, theatre academics...and it would be very useful research).

Re style: there are women in Melbourne with precisely that kind of flair and ambition. I mentioned Tanya Gerstle; Kirsten von Bibra is another, her VCA production of Helene Cixous's The Perjured Cty a few years back was mindblowing. You could add Mary Sitarenos, although she doesn't have access to the same kind of ensemble acting that VCAM offers. Kate Davis and Emma Valente (who have mainly worked in Sydney with their company The Rabble) are others. The women in My Darling Patricia another example still. They're around and working.

Ah yer someone else will have to do the research...

In regards to those particular directors, I don't think their individual styles really fit in with the group I mentioned. Gerstle's work is much more physical than any of the artists I mentioned. And Von Bibra's work is much more interested in language than aesthetic or style, although I didn't see Perjured City.

Sitarenos actually directed a show at VCA this year. It was a second year production of Jenny Kemp's Black Sequin Dress. Again though, I don't think she really fits with the others I mentioned. Her work is great (I was suprised Oedipus didn't make your list) but I think its much more intimate and language based than that wave of male directors.

I haven't seen any work by The Rabble but photo's and descriptions suggest they are probably the closest of the ones you suggested. I've only seen Africa by M.D.P, and I was pretty dissapointed.

I think the thing with those male directors I mentioned is they all have a similar focus- classical works most of the time, post-modern approach, a certain flashyness to the work, a certain energy and intensity. There just seems to be something very contemporary about their work that audiences are responding too, as reflected in your list, and for some reason it just seems that this work is really only coming from men.

I'm just wondering whether there's anything about this particular style of work that is based in a male mentality? Or is it a product of something else- like opportunity or training or culture? Or just coincidence?

Ouch. This is getting a little close to gendered essentialism for my liking... Do you think those differences might be as much in the perceiving: that you filter the work through glasses conditioned by gender, picking up vibes you think of as "masculine" whether or not they might be?

All the directors I mentioned employ spectacle, for instance... Perjured City was huge on spectacle. And although you can trace relationships between Kosky and Kantor, including a pool of common collaborators, and at more of a stretch (through a European influence) Andrews, that too easily glosses their differences from each other, which are considerable. Kosky's music-based practice, eg, compared to Andrews' text-focused approach, or Kantor's on rough/popular theatre.

Gender counts for Black Lung, because to my mind it's a large part of what they are exploring. Kosky uses it to subvert its expectations - there's always a lot of gender bending in his shows. I notice that you didn't care for Care Instructions and Africa, both shows which foregrounded feminine concerns (I loved them), although I'd hesitate for a long time before I'd say they employed a "feminine" aesthetic, in the same way I'd hesitate to say that Black Lung employ a "male" aesthetic. That's entering dodgy ground imho, placing a too-generalised grid on what are detailed and specific practices that are particular to those artists, irrespective of gender.

Does her employment of spectacle make Mnouchkine a "masculine" director (given her collaboration, say, with one of the most famous feminist theorists in the world, in Helene Cixous)? If a woman had directed Life is a Dream, would you have characterised that as intimate and language based, say? It was certainly both of those, and also un-spectacular...

I feel I should clarify what I'm getting at a little. I'm certainly not trying to suggest there is a male and female theatre. However, I have noticed that currently there is a style of theatre, or an approach to theatre, that is very popular. I have also noticed that when you look at these productions, nearly all of them are being directed by men. I'm not suggesting that women can't do this sort of work, but it seems that they're not really interested.

When you look at your list, and mine, and you see Happy Days, Peer Gynt, Poppea, War of The Roses, 3xSisters, Beckets Shorts, Life is a Dream, Glasoon, Optimism etc. There's a pretty distinct line there. And when you look at the three theatre pieces directed by women on your list- Care Instructions, Africa and Yuri Wells- none of them really fit with that list of male directed productions.

I think we're all pretty aware of the popularity of post-modern interpretations of classical texts in Melbourne at the moment, and they dominate both our lists. All I'm wondering if there is perhaps something that is causing this specific style of work to be coming from men rather than women.

In regards to Von Bibra, as I said I didn't see Perjured City, so I can't really comment on that. However, of the work of hers I've seen, which I wasn't very impressed by, it wasn't at all of the nature we're talking about- much more a physical approach to text, but very minimal in aesthetic. Again, I don't think there is a masuclin and feminine aesthetic. Gerstle's approach again is more of what she calls "a text based physical theatre", and like Von Bibra is usually quite minimal, focusing rather on the physicality of the actors. But I didn't see Invisible Stains.

In regards to Care Instructions, I didn't hate it. It certainly was exploring something about a feminine mentality or existence. I thought there was something very interesting about the use of language in it, but I didn't really feel they got where they were trying to go. The woman I saw it with completely hated it.

I had high expectations for Africa, and it fell well short. I thought what you said at the time about it being an exploration, in part, about feminism was interesting. However, I thought it's exploration of the suburban existence, even in regards to feminism, was very shallow. It's a rich and complex subject matter, which has always been explored better by visual artists such as Brack, Arkley, Watson etc.

I see what you mean about both these works being somewhat feminine in nature, I certianly don't think that affected how I viewed the work. But I didn't think they were great pieces. I also don't think they are at all close to that group of male directors in terms of style.

I don't think spectacle is exclusively male, but in Melbourne at the moment I think it is being used by male directors more than women. Life is a Dream was intimate, but i think it certainly had an energy and intensity about it that is similar to Schlusser's other work, and the work of those other directors- eg walking into that room and walking into Glasoon.

Do you think there is something about the post-modern approach to classical texts, using that spectacle and energy and intensity that has something to do with masculinity? Otherwise I don't really know how to explain that group of productions I named above from your list. This, I suspect, has something to do with Simon Phillips comment about peacocks and male directors coming to the top.

I suppose the question really is- and I'm not suggesting this is the case- but could part of the lack of female directors getting gigs at the moment be in part due to audiences current preference for a particular style of theatre at present? Your list would certainly suggest that we do.

I'm only one audient. You're only another. It's not audiences who decide what goes into theatres; they only decide what they want to see.

I'm not denying the gender-specific nature of the directors my Top 5 Gigs (although maybe it's worth pointing out here that women featured in all of them). And those are straight qualitative judgments - I picked those as productions in which all the aspects worked together to make an experience of TOTAL THEATRE. Meaning, highly developed skills at all levels of collaboration.

I'm just signaling that to deduce -as some do - that this signals something essential about Man and Woman and differences thereof is reductive. And that this might - speculation of course - have more to do with gendered structures of nurturance/mentoring etc within, god help us, the "industry".

A personal segue to perhaps illustrate why this kind of gender essentialism makes me so uncomfortable: in my younger days, older men often used to "compliment" me by saying that I wrote "like a man". I didn't know what it meant (I wasn't a man, after all) and moreover, it suggested that even though I was visibly female, the writing I did couldn't - clearly - come from a woman. I had to be a pretend-man to be any good. Even though I was - clearly - a woman. Confused? I was. And eventually angry.

I write like an eagle.

A tiercel or a falcon-gentle?

A bald eagle. I have a spare and noble prose.

Admittedly a little heavy-handedly, my quaint jest was an attempt to establish your gender (falconry is full of temptingly gorgeous archaic terms)... On the one hand, "spare and noble" are qualities usually filed, not necessarily with any justification, under "masculine". In raptor-land, on the other, the female is generally bigger and swifter than the male. Which may or may not confuse things.

But perhaps, in the world of imagination, one's sex doesn't determine anything.

In any case, it seems the fumes of Christmas brandy are fogging my brain.

Is a falcon an eagle?

No. I admit I cheated; I couldn't find a cute word for female eagle. Although falcon-gentle is an archaic term for a female raptor. Or so I read in some falconry dictionary.

Oh man, that Telegraph article is a shocker.

You have been appropriated, Ms Croggon.
Do you feel violated?

I'm kind of used to being either misquoted or quoted out of context (Andrew Bolt is a master of the dark arts). To be fair, the Telegraph "staff writer" didn't misquote me. Just welded me to a diatribe full of the usual lying shit about wanka artists.

I of course posted a comment that politely corrected some misconceptions at the bottom of the story this morning. No sign yet of it seeing the light of day... maybe the subs are down at the pub.

Hi Alison,

Yes that whole "you write like a man" thing is obviously complete bullshit. No wonder you got angry.

Again, I'm not suggesting that one makes theatre like a man or a woman. What I'm talking about is a specific style of theatre that could be done by both, but is seemingly only being done by one at the moment, in Melbourne at least.

I'm not really sure if one can answer the question I presented. Or at least not very easily. I think it's worth some thought from "the industry" though, especially those trying to nut out why there aren't more women getting gigs.

Anyway, that will do for this year. Thanks again. Hope you have a good New Years, don't drink too much cask wine now Ms TN.

TTFN

Gilligan

Thanks Gilligan - I suppose the obvious thing to point out is that spectacular, large scale theatre requires quite a lot of money and other resources. You can't just do it on your own. And that is a social/institutional issue, rather than a question of the inclinations etc of different genders.