Wake in Fright // Program (2019)

21 JUN – 14 JUL

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21 JUN – 14 JUL BE C K E T T T H E AT R E

IF YOU’RE A GOOD BLOKE, YOU’LL BE ALL RIGHT. RIGHT? A N E W P L AY / Adapted from Kenneth Cook’s novel

by Declan Greene C O M P O S I T I O N & M U LT I M E D I A D E S I G N / friendships C A S T & C O - C R E AT O R / Zahra Newman SOUND DESIGN / James Paul LIGHTING & PROJECTION DESIGN / Verity Hampson S TA G E M A N A G E R / Cecily Rabey MONASH PLACEMENT / Tove Due

A Malthouse Theatre production. #WAKEINFRIGHTMALTHOUSE

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Declan So, the first question is ‘Why did you want to adapt Wake in Fright in 2019?’. Should I start, seeing as I picked it?

Zahra Why not?

Declan I think the novel is incredibly relevant in 2019, because as soon as you look at Bundanyabba as a microcosm for Australia you start to see a clear line of questioning about Australia’s hospitality to outsiders, and the contract Australia seeks to establish with people who come to this country. And, not just people who come to this country but people who would be considered outsiders within Australian society itself. Which is to say, ‘what customs does mainstream Australia expect people to adopt or abandon, in order to fit in?’. There’s a line of inquiry about assimilation there, which is particularly relevant.

Zahra Also, an interrogation of what I would say, as an immigrant to this country, is Australia’s uncomfortable relationship with its own identity. I question ‘what does it mean to be Australian?’ or ‘what does that look like, what does it feel like?’. There can be defensive positions to those

questions when you pose them to people in Australia.

I think that rings true now, as it did when the novel was written.

Zahra Particularly given the current social-political landscape as it relates to the representation of women, parity, and the #MeToo movement. The questions that are raised about masculinity and what it means to be a good bloke, which is inside of the novel.

They’re all a part of the zeitgeist now.

Declan One of my favourite stories about the myth of Wake in Fright is how during one of its early screenings in Australia, at the end, someone in the audience stood up and shouted out, ‘That’s not us’. I think Wake in Fright was a film that was deeply critical of a particular model of Australian masculinity and national identity. Certain people really struggled with that—just as they do now.

Declan And with that, the idea that a classic Australian good bloke is someone who’s cynical, speaks truth to power, is good to his mates, and he’s a knockabout fellow who enjoys a good drink and a gamble. Which are unquestioningly #WAKEINFRIGHTMALTHOUSE

A NOTE FROM DECLAN GREENE & ZAHRA NEWMAN

IN CONVERSATION WITH DECLAN GREENE & ZAHRA NEWMAN

embedded in mainstream Australian culture as positive values. I think what Wake in Fright does is hold the contradictions inside Australian identity under monstrous pressure, particularly in terms of hospitality, like how Australia thinks of itself as a very generous nation.

Zahra Very benevolent.

Declan Yeah, very benevolent, very generous nation.

Zahra And fair.

Declan While at the same time we see things happening offshore in our country’s name that holds a very clear contradiction to that.

But those things are still allowed to coexist in our national identity, and that’s something that Wake in Fright has shown Australians are very good at doing.

Declan We should talk about how the composition was developed. How did you find that process, with all the improvisation you did early on?

Zahra From day one, we were working with Nic Brown from friendships, who’s the composer. He was in the room responding and playing with provocations that I was doing on the floor.

And, having that relationship made the creative process Page 4—5

more fluid and surprising. As opposed to what normally happens, where a composer might go away, do their own work, and then we only hear it when we get into the theatre in tech week.

Zahra It opened up what Declan wanted from very early on, which was that the sound would function almost as another character in the space. And in order for that to feel embedded in the work, it was necessary to have Nic there from the start.

Declan One of the provocations that Nic responded to, in an incredible way, was the idea that the presence of his sound was the Yabba. Almost like his sound is taking on the character of the Yabba.

We wanted to have an active relationship with the various characters Zahra plays, in particular, the character of John Grant.

Declan Nic developed active choices designed to push the character in particular ways and follow particular actions. There was the idea that at some points the Yabba should be attacking Grant, and at some points the Yabba should be seducing Grant. It was about trying to elicit a response or shape something that happened on the floor in a way that was more active than the way sound is used a lot of the time in theatre.

Zahra Often in theatre, sound is used as a dressing for a show. It is something that tells the audience how they should feel. It is a nice curtain on a window.

Declan Yeah, we really went into this going, ‘This is mainly about sound and mainly about one actor’.

Declan One of the cool things about having Nic score Wake in Fright is that it’s not at all how you would expect Wake in Fright to sound. Because if you imagine there was going to be a sound design to Wake in Fright, you’d imagine it would sound like corrugated iron being scraped and slide guitars.

And that’s not what this sounds like at all.

Declan It allows you to see the text through new eyes.

And not just receive it, weighed down with the clichés we associate with this kind of story.

Declan Is there anything else that you would like to say?

Zahra There will be a roo shoot.

Declan There will.

Zahra It will not be what you expect.

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CAST & CREATIVE BIOS

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DECL AN GREENE DIRECTOR & WRITER

ZAHRA NEWMAN CAST & CO-CREATOR

Declan is a theatre-maker and Resident Artist at Malthouse Theatre. As a playwright, his work includes Melancholia, Moth, Pompeii, L.A., Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography, I Am a Miracle, and The Homosexuals, or ‘Faggots’, which have been produced across Australia, Europe, the US, and the UK. Awards include the Malcolm Robertson Prize, the Max Afford Playwrights’ Award, the AWGIE for Theatre for Young Audiences, and the Green Room Award for Best Original Writing. As a director and dramaturg, works include Zoey Dawson’s The Unspoken Word Is ‘Joe’ (MKA/ La Mama) and Conviction (ZLMD Shakespeare), Nakkiah Lui’s Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death and The Listies’ Hamlet: Prince of Skidmark (STC). Alongside Ash Flanders, Declan co-runs queer independent theatre company Sisters Grimm. He has directed and co-created all their shows to date including Summertime in the Garden of Eden (Theatre Works/Griffin Independent), Calpurnia Descending (Malthouse Theatre/STC) and Lilith: The Jungle Girl (MTC).

Credits for Malthouse Theatre include Love and Information (and STC) and The Government Inspector (and Belvoir). Other select stage credits include Miss Julie, The Effect, The Mountaintop, The Cherry Orchard, Menagerie, Clybourne Park, Random, The Drowsy Chaperone, Richard III, Rockabye (Melbourne Theatre Company), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Sydney Theatre Company), Random, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Ivanov, Private Lives (Belvoir), As You Like It (Bell Shakespeare), An Officer and A Gentleman and The Book of Mormon (GFO), for which Zahra was nominated as Best Actress in a Musical at the Helpmann Awards. Film credits include I Met a Girl and Truth.

Television credits include Sisters (Network Ten), Wentworth (Foxtel), Childhood’s End (SyFy), Rush (Network Ten) and the forthcoming Diary of an Uber Driver (ABC).

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FRIENDSHIPS COMPOSITION & MULTIMEDIA DESIGN friendships was created with the intention to disrupt. Nicholas James Brown (sound artist) and Misha Grace (visual artist) came together in 2013 to combine their respective mediums and construct a world of their own.

An onslaught of audio and visual stimuli, friendships demands your attention and keeps it, ‘we observe, absorb, pull apart then rebuild’. Drawing on themes of dystopian Australiana, friendships released the audio/ visual concept album, ‘Nullarbor 1988-1989’ in September 2016 via Remote Control Records.

The release received Album of the Week from RRR, PBS, 4ZZZ, FBi Click & Edge Radio. In 2017, ‘Nullarbor 1988-1989’ received an Australian Independent Record Labels Association Award for Best Electronic/ Dance Album of the year.

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CAST & CREATIVE BIOS

JAMES PAUL SOUND DESIGN James is a composer; multimedia artist; sound, video, system and automation designer. James’ work is research oriented, exploring perception, semiotics, cognition, and multimodal experience. Select Malthouse Theatre credits include Little Emperors and Australian Realness. Recent works include They Divided the Sky (Daniel Schlusser Ensemble), Number of the Machine (Antony Hamilton Projects), The Collected Works of Victor Bergman (The Family), Conviction (Zoey Louise Moonbeam Dawson Shakespeare Co.) and blue|red2: VIMS\SIMS (Scienceworks). James shares a Green Room Award for Sound and Composition for Daniel Schlusser Ensemble’s M+M.

VERIT Y HAMPSON LIGHTING & PROJECTION DESIGN Verity Hampson is an awardwinning lighting and projection designer. Since graduating from NIDA, she has designed over 120 productions, working with many of Australia’s leading directors and choreographers.

Design credits include: Winyanboga Yurringa, An Enemy of the People, Sami in Paradise, Faith Healer, The Drover’s Wife, Ruby’s Wish, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Ivanov (Belvoir), Blackie Blackie Brown: The Traditional Owner of Death (Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Theatre Company), Hamlet: Prince of Skidmark, Machinal, Little Mercy (Sydney Theatre Company), Death of a Salesman (Queensland Theatre), One the Bear, Blackrock (La Boite), Julius Caesar, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Literati (Bell Shakespeare), The Bleeding Tree, The Boys, The Floating World (Griffin), Fly Away Peter (Sydney Chamber Opera), Orpheus and Eurydice (Spectrum Now Festival), New Breed and Woof (Sydney Dance Company).

Awards include a Mike Walsh Fellowship, a Green Room Award and three Sydney Theatre Awards.

CECILY RABEY STAGE MANAGER Cecily is a graduate from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

She has recently relocated to Melbourne and Wake in Fright is her first production at Malthouse Theatre. Cecily has worked nationally and internationally as a stage manager and production manager. Select credits include Daddy (Arts House), FLIGHT (Darkfield, Realscape Productions), Angelo (Little Angel Theatre), Lost Lending Library (Punchdrunk) and Running Wild (UK Tour).

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ABOUT MALTHOUSE THEATRE

YOUR JOURNEY WITH MALTHOUSE THEATRE AWAITS. At Malthouse Theatre we collaborate with local and international artists to create inventive performances that cut to the core of the human experience. Theatre has the power to interrogate, disrupt and to be an agent of change— and we think it always should. At Malthouse Theatre, the work we produce explores the world personally, socially and politically. Based in a dedicated venue, The Coopers Malthouse in Melbourne, we are a home for live experiences that entertain and provoke a dialogue with and within audiences.

Welcome to Malthouse Theatre.

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ARTISTIC & PROGRAMMING

TICKETING & BOX OFFICE

VENUE MANAGEMENT

Artistic Director & CO-CEO / Matthew Lutton

CRM & Ticketing Manager / Prue Sutherland

Venue Manager / Simon Moss

Executive Producer & CO-CEO / Sarah Neal

Box Office Manager / Allie Stapleton

Events Manager / Anita Posterino

New Work Manager / Mark Pritchard

Box Office Team Leader / Fiona Wiseman

Front of House Manager / Lara Kerestes

Resident Artist / Declan Greene

Box Office Staff / Claire Bornhoffen, Simon Braxton, Paul Buckley, Emily Burke, Harry Diviny, Bronya Doyle, Lachlan Hywood, Mellita Ilich, Nicola James, Min Kingham, Lucy Kingsley, Emma Whitby, Liz White

Front of House Staff / Gianni Agostinoni, Ben Anderson, Mitchell Brotz, Kate Calton, Georgia Cam, Jai Cameron, Emma Corbett, Alice Dixon, Amy Dowd, Sophia D’urso, Mark Hoffman, Dirk Hoult, Ryan Jones, Kathryn Joy, Tom Kantor, Mick Klepner Roe, Bear Loren, Nicole Mckenzie, Hannah Mckittrick, Georgia Mein, Abi Murray, Hayley Newman, Sanne Rodenstein, Gretel Sharp, Dom Simonelli, Lee Threadgold, Kenny Waite, Leonie Whyman

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For partnership or donation enquiries, please call our Development Manager on (03) 9685 5162 or email development@malthousetheatre.com.au Page 12—13

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Michael Kingston, Alison & Peter Mitchell, Sue Prestney & Paul Glen, Dr Jenny Schwarz, Robert Sessions & Christina Fitzgerald, Kate & Stephen Shelmerdine, Fiona Sweet & Paul Newcombe, Leonard Vary & Dr Matt Collins QC, Jon Webster, Jan Williams, Dr Terry Wu & Dr Melinda Tee, Anonymous (1) EUTERPE—MUSE OF MUSIC—$1,000+ Marc Besen AC & Eva Besen AO, Sally Browne, Ingrid & Per Carlsen, Ros Casey, Tim & Rachel Cecil, Min Li Chong, Jason Craig, Andrew Curtis, Susanne Dahn, Mark & Jo Davey, Roger Donazzan, Brian Goddard, David Geoffrey Hall, Jordana Hunter & Jacob Varghese, Michael Jankie & Vivienne Poznanski, Val Johnstone, Fiona Kelly, Carman’s Kitchen, Julie & Michael Landvogt, Craig Lynch & Luis Ibaceta, David Marr, Susan Nathan, Rosemary & Roger Redston, Mike & Jane Rikard-Bell, Viorica Samson, Carol & Alan Schwartz AM, Lynne Sherwood & the late Tim Sherwood, Maria Solà, Rosemary Walls, Pinky Watson, Anonymous (4) TERPSICHORE—MUSE OF DANCE—$500+ Frankie Airey & Steve Solly, Graham & Anita Anderson, Greg Andrews, Michael Arnold, Rowland Ball OAM, Sandra Beanham, David & Rhonda Black, Annie Bourke & Darren Clyne, Nan Brown, Dr Rob Brown & Dr Lynne Millar, Priscilla Bryans, Bruce R Butler, MaryAnne Carroll, Chris Clough, Georgie Coleman, Dr Ross Coller, Alan Connolly, Prof John Daley & Dr Rebecca Coates, Dr Bronwen Evans, Peter & Roxane Fearnside, Taleen Gaidzkar, Mary Garcia,

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WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

MYSTERIOUS PLANET. INCOMPREHENSIBLE INTELLIGENCE. GHOSTS OF REGRET.

SOL ARIS

ON A S2019 E S —— —

28 JUN – 21 JUL On the other side of the galaxy, an uninhabitable world is possessed by a powerful intelligence. A crew of scientists are lost and cannot escape their past, could the planet itself be to blame? In a world premiere, Matthew Lutton and David Greig bring Stanisław Lem’s sci-fi thriller to life on stage.

A NEW PLAY BY / David Greig adapted from Stanisław Lem’s novel DIRECTION / Matthew Lutton

CAST INCLUDES / Leeanna Walsman Keegan Joyce Jade Ogugua Fode Simbo

FEATURING / Hugo Weaving as Gibarian (video)

Malthouse Theatre, The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and the Lyric Hammersmith present Solaris.

& NE D E R SC EA H

During Wake in Fright rehearsals, Zahra was performing in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof every night. She learned her lines during Act Two when she wasn’t on stage.

MalthouseTheatre MalthouseMelb MalthouseTheatre #MalthouseTheatre malthousetheatre.com.au Š Malthouse Theatre, the artists, designers, photographers, collaborators and contributors. All rights reserved, 2019.