La Mama

This is number one hundred and seventy-four

in the second numbered series of

the Miegunyah Volumes

made possible by the

Miegunyah Fund

established by bequests

under the wills of

Sir Russell and Lady Grimwade.

‘Miegunyah’ was the home

of Mab and Russell Grimwade

from 1911 to 1955.

THE MIEGUNYAH PRESS

An imprint of Melbourne University

Publishing Limited

Level 1, 715 Swanston Street,

Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

mup-info@unimelb.edu.au

www.mup.com.au

First published 2017

Text © Adam Cass 2017

Design and typography © Melbourne

University Publishing Ltd 2017

This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.

Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.

Edited by Sarina Rowell Designed by Pfisterer + Freeman Printed in China by 1010 Printing

National Library of Australia Cataloguing -in-Publication entry

Cass, Adam J.A., author. La Mama/Adam J.A. Cass 9780522871562 (paperback) 9780522871579 (ebook) Includes index.

La Mama Theatre—History.

Theatre—Victoria—Melbourne—History.

Performing arts—Victoria—Melbourne.

Note: Play titles and the names of playwrights listed at the start of each playwrights listed at the start of each part are transcribed from La Mama’s annual reports.

contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Liz Jones

A note on navigating the book

Adam Cass

1967–1976

The artistic director

Liz Jones

The downtown intellect

Malcolm Robertson, with Liz Jones and Roisin Lynagh

The poet

Bill Beard

Notes from my travels

Meg Clancy

The philosopher improviser

Bill Garner

The radical feminist

Alison Richards

La Mama forever young at 50. Some musings on what it means to me

MaryAnne Caleo

1977–1986

A small history of 205 Faraday Street, Carlton

Liz Jones

The publicist

Maureen Hartley

Notes from my travels

Judith Buckrich (Judy Raphael)

The explorer of the possibilities of the form

Richard Murphet

The son of La Mama

Nedd Jones

The tough egg

Carmelina Di Guglielmo

A little bit of La Mama’s history

Mary Duckworth

The trailblazer

Tes Lyssiotis

My La Mama

Stella Pulo

The whistler

Tom Gutteridge

La Mama and me

Merrilee Moss

1987–1996

A little letter from

Catherine Hill

The quintessential collaborators

Caroline Lee and Laurence Strangio

The performance maker

Bagryana Popov

The midwife

Susan Bamford Caleo

For around twenty years, I’ve worked on and off at La Mama

Stephen House

The work experience person who never left

Fiona Wiseman

The rowdy gathering

James Clayden, Patricia Cornelius, Susie Dee, Barry Dickins, Jill O’Callaghan (Buckler) and Daniel Schlusser, with Lloyd Jones, Fiona Wiseman, Caitlin Dullard and Mathilde Broudic

An audience account and an upside-down flag

Jean Taylor

The illuminators

Bronwyn Pringle and Richard Vabre

2 a.m. the day after Mother’s Day 2015

Jane Woollard

The rabble

Mary Helen Sassman, Emma Valente and Kate Davis

The meaning of exile and writing on the fringe of the cities

Mammad Aidani

1997–2006

Explorations

Abe Pogos

Notes from my travels

Noel Tovey

The director

Peta Hanrahan

No place like home—a tribute to La Mama

Gayelene Carbis

Fragmentary responses to provocations—How did your La Mama story begin? What is your La Mama?

Mic Smith

The adventurer into the spoken word

Sandra Long

Making and unmaking myself in space

Scott Welsh

A brief guide to Musica

Annabel Warmington (with a cameo by Penny Baron)

The beekeeper

Tim Stitz

A short play

Kit Lazaroo

The writer for performance

Cynthia Troup

A sort of joyful manifesto

James Hazelden

Notes from my travels

Robert Reid

2007–2016

The artists upstairs—four short monologues by La Mama staffers

Amber Hart, Elena Larkin, Stefania Di Gennaro and Zachary Kazepis

Notes from my travels

Darren Vizer with Caitlin Dullard

The pathmaker

Monica McDonald

The excavator of magical spaces

Cera Maree Brown

Notes from my travels

Sofia Chapman

Memories of doing shows at La Mama (1970–2014)

Don Mackay

The debutante

Sandra Chui

The painter

Lloyd Jones

Some text

Elnaz Sheshgelani

Vale Betty Burstall (1926–2013)

Malcolm Robertson and Liz Jones

Dreaming into the future

Caitlin Dullard

Photogaph credits

La Mama staff 1967–2016

Index

Acknowledgements

Thank you to all of the interviewees, storytellers and other contributors.

Thank you to all the photographers, especially Sarah Walker, Darren Gill and Lloyd Carrick, whose image archives have been invaluable.

Thank you, Barry Dickins, for your beautiful pencil drawings and your enormous contribution to La Mama over many decades.

Thank you to Fiona Wiseman for all your assistance with the archives, the chronology, for your ideas and various other contributions.

Thank you to Nedd Jones for curating the visual presentation.

An enormous thank you to Mathilde Broudic and Darren Vizer for your enormous assistance in sourcing the visual material.

Thank you to Sam Lipski and the Pratt Foundation, Carillo Gantner and the Myer Foundation, and the Max Chapman Bequest, for providing much-needed funds towards the creation of this book, and for the many other contributions that you have made to La Mama.

Thank you to all of the funding bodies that keep La Mama alive—the Australia Council for the Arts, Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, and all of our private donors and supporters.

Apologies to all the thousands of La Mama artists whose individual stories have not been told in this book. Please keep coming back to La Mama to share your stories in the flesh.

Thank you, Roisin Lynagh, for your ideas and intelligence, and offers at the beginning stages of research; your contribution was invaluable in framing my approach to the book, and my interview questions.

Thank you, Cathryn Lea Smith, and all at Melbourne University Publishing. Thanks also to Pfisterer + Freeman for the wonderful book design and page layout.

Thank you to Dianne Stubbings, who volunteered her time to work on the chronological lists.

Thank you to the University of Melbourne Archives for giving a home to all our treasured artefacts and helping us access them.

Thank you to our audiences, without whom there would be no La Mama, and no book.

Most of all, thank you to Liz Jones and Caitlin Dullard for believing in me enough to let me be the one to tell La Mama’s story.

Betty Burstall and Liz Jones, 1988

Pencil drawings by Barry Dickins, 2016

La Mama interior, circa 1976–77

Pauline Whyman, Jack Charles and Glenn Shea in

Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country, 2016

La Mama, circa 1976–77

Winter Launch, 2016

Foreword Liz Jones

A healthy artistic climate does not depend solely on the work of a handful of supremely gifted individuals. It demands the cultivation of talent and ability at all levels. It demands that everyday work, run-of-the-mill work, esoteric and unpopular work should he given a chance; not so much in the hope that one day genius may spring from it, but because, for those who make the arts their life and work, even modest accomplishment is an end in itself and a value worth encouraging. The pursuit of excellence is a proper goal, but it is not the race itself—Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia 1973–74 and forever inspirational

I have worked at La Mama both as an artist and staff member since 1973 and became artistic director in 1976.

And I have never been bored.

Every day at La Mama there is a fresh challenge.

Nearly every week there is a new production.

Every day there are new faces with fresh ideas and enthusiasm.

The jaded, the cynical and the world-weary tend to stay away.

So do the greedy.

Old faces come back regularly to refuel.

Crises occur and people rush to help. To reassure.

The late, revered Syd Clayton said, ‘For me, La Mama means freedom.’ It means that for me too.

No year has ever passed without my involvement as an artist at La Mama. I encourage all staff to work as artists, as well as office workers; it keeps them fresh, and reminds them of the excitement and fulfilment lying on the other side of the footlights. It avoids any ‘us and them’ syndrome developing.

I have also made it part of my life at La Mama to constantly challenge myself with new ideas and new tasks … and constantly redefine my role, with new, exciting projects.

It has also been very important to create La Mama as a warm and welcoming place to be for artists, staff, audience and drop-ins alike. Jeanne Pratt and Sam Lipski have been so generous in helping us achieve this.

Since 2000 Adam Cass has been a very important part of my La Mama: as a very charismatic performer; as a highly original and talented playwright; as a devoted champion of the work of other artists; and as an inspiration and constant mentor to younger artists. To me, he seemed the obvious choice to be editor of our fiftieth-anniversary book.

I love what he has done. He has based his work on the assumption that each and every person who comes here, in whatever capacity, has ‘their own La Mama’. Every one is different.

When asked, I always say there is no such thing as a La Mama house style, other than the response to the intimacy and opportunity presented by the modest building itself. This, I think, is reflected in the beautiful evocation of La Mama that Adam has created, with his collage of interviews, reflections and photographs.

So, do enjoy the diversity of the many voices and views that make up this book, and continue to partake of our exciting theatrical fare as we journey on to our 100th birthday!

A note on navigating the book Adam Cass

As a text to be performed

As the book has gradually taken shape, I’ve realised that it’s impossible for me to create something about La Mama without imagining that what I’m creating is, in fact, a kind of play to be performed there. The best way to experience La Mama is at La Mama, and the best way to celebrate its history, its stories, its secrets, is to see them shared between a bunch of people crammed into a small space. Some of them are performers, some of them are the audience, but only a really keen eye would be able to tell them apart.

Picture this: you’ve come to La Mama on a beautiful night. The courtyard is so packed that people are spilling out through the gates; it’s one of those nights when there’s a real buzz in the air. You don’t really know what you’ve come along to see, but after the acknowledgement of indigenous elders past and present, and after the famous La Mama raffle, you’re told that you’re ‘free to roam’.

There are performances all over the place, inside the theatre and out, upstairs and downstairs, in the alleys and where the bins are kept. Someone grabs you and starts telling you a story, and you’re aware that, just over there, someone else has been grabbed and another story is being told. The whole place is filling up with stories, and you’re drawn from one to the other, and you realise, gradually, that all those stories being told that night are about the stories that have been told there on other nights, and about the people who’ve told those stories, and about nights like this, when other weird performances have woven together lives and secrets and all the threads of the fabric that make the storytellers who they are, and that make this magic, beautiful place, La Mama, all the things that it is.

As a history

La Mama has been made by thousands of artists and others, and for every one of them who’s mentioned or who gets to speak in this book, there are a hundred or more who might have, who should and would have, if time and word limits knew no bounds. For every story told in these pages, there are countless more untold.

Somebody will come along one day and put together a really smart, academic history of the place, but the true story of La Mama, and one that can never be fully captured in any book, is that of what happens inside the infinite collection of creative expressions and impressions, which exist for just a breath or two, and then are gone forever. The aim of the chaotic history you’re reading is to capture the barest suggestion of those moments, so that, hopefully, one or two of them will resonate strongly enough to remind you (whether you are mentioned or not) of your own La Mama story, if you have one. If you don’t, what you find in here may inspire you to come and make your own.

So, approach this book as a flawed fragment of an incomplete oral history. It’s more yarn-spun-by-many-spinners than history; it’s full of repetition, misremembered anecdotes, skewed perspectives, factual flaws, contradictions, and all sorts of other things that are essential to any truly cracking tale.

La Mama, 2016

Selected season brochures, 2007–16

The Well (Redux), 2013

Season Launch, 2014

Rod Moore and Jacinta Cronin in Looking Radiant, 1974

1967 Three Old Friends Jack Hibberd Witzenhausen Where Are You? Barry Oakley An Hairy Man Frank Bren Just Before the Honeymoon Jack Hibberd O Jack Hibberd A Cup of Tea with Mrs Groom Jon Dawson This Great Gap of Time Jack Hibberd The Blind Kris Hemensley 1968 The Titillators Helmut Bakaitis An Evening with the North Carlton Bicycle Club Syd Clayton The Work Syd Clayton Sonic Boom Frank Bren The Journey Peter Schumann Pieces Bill Beard, Kris Hemensley and Paul Abelman Six Pieces Barry McKimm Flags Syd Clayton Yehudi Syd Clayton Music for Saxophone, Brass and Percussion Barry McKimm Second Landscape for Instruments Robert Rooney The Soul Seekers Kris Hemensley The Man on the Left is Joe Bigger from Topeka Syd Clayton One of Nature’s Gentlemen Jack Hibberd Experimental Music of Barry McKimm Barry McKimm The Audience’s Audience Bill Garner The Rise and Fall of Archie Jones Frank Bren Stephany Kris Hemensley Commitment Jack Hibberd La Streega Syd Clayton A Nameless Concern John Romeril One of Nature’s Gentlemen Jack Hibberd Uncle Ben Michael Thomas An Evening with Marcel Du Champs Syd Clayton 1969 Orison Arrabal Scene One John Romeril and David Minter O Jack Hibberd Who? Jack Hibberd Escape William Wood Calm Down Mother Megan Terry Keep Tightly Closed Megan Terry Saturday Barry McKimm Three Pieces Barry McKimm A-Z Barry McKimm Procession for Brass and Percussion Robert Rooney Trio Robert Rooney Have You Noticed Your Leg is Missing? Frank Bren Music by Keith Humble Keith Humble One of Nature’s Gentlemen Jack Hibberd The Elephant Calf Bertolt Brecht The Exception and the Rule Bertolt Brecht Mr Big the Big Big Pig John Romeril The Birth of Space Clem Gorman’s Sydney Group and the members of the La Mama Company The Nature of Love Ernest Bunbury Um Jum Kun Aum Jum Syd Clayton Norm and Ahmed Alex Buzo Programme A Doug Anders The English Lesson Barry Oakley Programme B Doug Anders Dimboola Jack Hibberd The Little Lady Steps Out Helmut Bakaitis The Man From Chicago John Romeril The People Season John McLeod Red Cross Sam Shepard Comings and Goings Megan Terry The Kitchen Table John Romeril How to Write a Chinese Poem Syd Clayton I Don’t Know Who To Feel Sorry For John Romeril The Abdication Kris Hemensley Stephany Kris Hemensley Whatever Happened to Realism John Romeril The Serpent Jean-Claude van Itallie Mushroom Barry McKimm Saturday Barry McKimm 1970 Odyssey of a Bald Man Frank Bren White with Wire Wheels Jack Hibberd The Man From Chicago John Romeril The Front Room Boys Alex Buzo Tell Basta Bubastis Syd Clayton Thoughts on the Instance of Greeting a Friend in the Street Sharon Thie and Jean-Claude van Itallie The Unexpected Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler Jules Feiffer Chicago Sam Shepard Forensic and the Navigators Sam Shepard Customs and Excise Jack Hibberd You’ve Gotta Get On, Jack David Williamson Sexual Follies David Williamson Great World Syd Clayton The Hieronymous Bosch Hour Kris Hemensley The Coming of Stork David Williamson Weena Does Not Know Syd Clayton If Not Sex What Is It? David Williamson Go For Baroque Michael Brooks 1971 It’s a Chocolate World Barry Oakley Golden Banana David Williamson Pieces Tribe Party Games John Smythe Repeat Ritual Nicholas Mont The Birthday Present Devised by Algis Butavicius Hands Down Gourds Syd Clayton Halloween Leonard Melfi First Quarter Report Kris Hemensley The Train Daryl Wilkinson Gethsemene Noel Fox The Removalists David Williamson The Gooseberry Moth Frank Starr A Last Look at Sadness Alan Robertson Structured Improvisations by Twenty Actors Arranged by Peter Cummins I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight Syd Clayton You’ve Gotta Get On Jack David Williamson Five Pages of Yapp Barry McKimm Doctor Kheal María Irene Fornés The Drapes Come Charles Dizenza The Indian Wants the Bronx Israel Horowitz ‘Interview’ from America Hurrah Jean- Claude van Itallie A Night of Fairy Ballads Danny Spooner Three New Australian Plays: The Sacrifice; OHM; An Advertisement Graham Simmonds; Graham Simmonds; Don Battye Lord Halewyn Michael de Ghelderode Night Harold Pinter Thoughts on the Instance of Greeting a Friend in the Street Jean-Claude van Itallie and Sharon Thie Does It Make Your Cheeks Ache? Henry Livings 1972 Nothing Like Jesus Christ Superstar Devised by Bob Thorneycroft and Doug Anders Links Norman Thompson Birthrite Conceived by Daryl Wilkinson Passion Edward Bond Our Dick Bob Daly Love Play Max Richards Sadie and Neco Max Richards The Queue Max Richards My Foot, My Tutor Peter Handke Regret Vanishes Ron Nagorcka Gone to See a Man About a Dog Peter Lillie and Cosmo Topper Punch and Judy Dame Sybil Thorndyke Three Clowns in Town Syd Clayton Spider Rabbit Michael McClure The War is Over Kris Hemensley Mirrors Max Richards 1973 Night Flowers Max Richards An Evening in an Empty Room Daryl Wilkinson Film and the Female Wolfgang Bauer The Weight Phil Motherwell Kiss the One Eyed Priest Louis Nowra The Garden Lloyd Jones A Case for Freeways Devised by Lloyd Jones, with Kate O’Brien, Graham Parker and Liz Jones The Babysitter Ross Reading Antimacassar Show Devised by the performers Is Mimicry for Territorial Defence? James Clayden Cripple Play Max Richards Bones Roger Pulvers 1974 The Sail and the Beard Michael McClure Ice Roger Pulvers Words and Music Samuel Beckett Lady Lazarus Sylvia Plath Marmalamur Valerie Kirwan Trapped Projectionist Rivka Hartman and Greg Mullin The Psychiatrist Rivka Hartman Looking Radiant Peter Carmody The Year of Lacertis Adapted by Phil Motherwell The Four Leave Clover Lloyd Jones Mog and Wog Denis Conroy Sand Max Richards Tree Max Richards Tombstone Max Richards 1975 Train Charles Bendrups For Love of Fogs James Clayden Othello William Shakespeare You Want It, Don’t You, Billy? Bill Reed Wednesday 31st Jill Dwyer Dream Girl Rivka Hartman Ghost Barry Dickins Hamjamb and the Gigolo Valerie Kirwan Blueheavensispider James Clayden Tent Lloyd Jones Mishka and Nomagava Graham Simmonds 1976 The Maids Jean Genet Gargoyle Cartoons Michael McClure Obsessive Behaviour in Small Spaces Robert Lang and Ian Stocks Hello and Goodbye Athol Fugard Mr Black Goes Solo Mark Gillespie Endgame Samuel Beckett Play Strindberg F Durremmatt Spider Rabbit Michael McClure Bananas Richard Bradshaw Albert Names Edward Louis Nowra Finger to the Trigger Devised by the director (James McCaughey) and the performers Cascando Val Kirwan, based on the play by Samuel Beckett Still Life—A State at Least James Clayden

Alan Finney, David Kendall, Lindy Davies, Geoffrey Gardiner, Bill Garner, Meg Clancy, Anna Carmody and Peter Cummins take part in a La Mama workshop, 1968–69

Liz Jones in A Waiting Game, 1977

THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Liz Jones

I have known Liz since 2000, and she has been as instrumental in the making of me as an artist as she has for all the others you will find speaking about her so warmly and gratefully throughout the pages of this book. I talked to her at the home she shares with another of La Mama’s elders and most prolific makers, her husband Lloyd, in Newport, on a sunny day, 25 October 2016.

Liz Jones in The Four Leave Clover, 1974

I’d always acted in theatre pieces right through school, and through university, so I’d always loved performing. I think what happened was that I, once I’d done my Dip Ed, and married my first husband, lost interest in theatre because I saw it as frivolous, by and large. Largely, I’d done things like big productions of Aristophanes plays and university revues, that sort of thing. I went off to Indonesia to be a volunteer.

I got involved in theatre again when I came back to Melbourne in my twenties, such as on projects with Lloyd Jones and Brian Hogan at University High School. Brian had this wonderful ethic of trying to involve as many kids as possible in their theatrical productions at Uni High. So, we did Aristophanes’ The Birds, you know, and every Year 7 was a bird, a little bird in a plastic suit.

Just before I went away to England, I went to a conference, and I started having an argument with this very feisty, strong, redheaded woman, about the pastoral care of Turkish girls, and how much you facilitated their entry into our society, and how much you respected their parents’ mores, et cetera. This was Betty Burstall, and we really enjoyed each other’s company, and so we were at this workshop probably for about a week, and we ended up having coffee together a couple of times. Then she ended up by saying, ‘My husband’s got a film opening at the Palais; would you like to come to it?’ And I thought it would be great, and it was The Coming of Stork, but by then it was called Stork. I just have this wonderful vision of Betty presiding over the opening of Stork in this extraordinary sort of Greek goddess costume, that had just a strap across one shoulder, and Betty, at that point in her life, never wore bras, and she was to me this picture of strength and liberation. Lloyd came to that with me, and he said, ‘I think she’s the woman who started that little theatre in Carlton, La Mama,’ and I didn’t even know it existed.

‘Would you like to run La Mama? Because I’m really thinking of giving it away’

Then we went off to England and really got back into theatre, really started going to theatre other than the West End—Edward Bond, and, you know, whatever we could get to, and film. We came back and a job came up at Brunswick Girls’, where Betty taught, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’d love to teach with Betty, she’s so lively,’ and she had so much to say about Brunswick Girls’. So, I started teaching with Betty on the same team, and I thought, ‘I must go to this little place, La Mama, and see this space of hers, and what it’s like.’

I went, and I think the first play I went to see was called Night Flowers, by Max Richards [this is all in 1973]; at that point, Betty was really fostering his plays. He’d come over from New Zealand—I think he was staying at her house, actually—a wonderful playwright, a very controversial production. Betty was absolutely exhausted because the playwright disagreed with the production, and she felt that she therefore should facilitate a discussion every night after the performance. So, she was very exhausted, and I think I helped her out one night because of that.

Then Lloyd and I went on to do our play, The Garden—it wasn’t a play, it was an installation in the garden—which was very successful, and Betty really loved it, and we did it over a Saturday. Then she encouraged us to do a little performance every night before Kiss The One Eyed Priest, by Louis Nowra, so we were performing at that; and my friend Katie O’Brien was involved with it, and David Brennan, her husband, and I was talking to Betty and saying how lost Katie was feeling at that point in her life, because she really wanted to be a creative artist, and she was hating teaching. Betty said, ‘Maybe Katie could come and help me occasionally do front of house,’ and I put that to Katie, who said, ‘I’d hate that,’ so I went back to

Betty and said, ‘Katie doesn’t want to do it,’ and she said, ‘Oh, well, that’s fine,’ and I said, ‘But I do.’ She said, ‘Oh! Really?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I’d love to do front of house at La Mama,’ and Betty said, ‘Okay, well, why don’t you do Sundays, and give me Sunday off?’

So,