Revolutionary theatre is a risk worth taking

Bright pink poster with white outlines of people protesting, some are holding up placards. Orange "La Mama Company" written at top of poster
‘La Mama Company’ poster, 1969, designed by Ian McClausand, La Mama Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1977.0109.00049

Looking back at La Mamas’ 50-year history, from inception in 1967 when Betty Burstall created an ‘immediate’ theatre space in Melbourne inspired by New York’s La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, reveals not only the rise of an Australian theatre nurtured by local talent, but a larger portrait of Australian society and culture. As challenges to cultural and social norms reverberated around the globe, alternative voices in the arts were becoming a powerful form of political and social engagement. Burstall was confident that, just like in New York, Melbourne performers and audiences wanted and needed a place for avant-garde theatre, progressive music, poetry and screenings of alternative film. She wanted audiences to feel that every time they descended the stairs to the stage, that it was “a risk worth taking”.[1]

In a company newsletter from October 1969 this vision was expanded: La Mama would be a theatre to make possible “a new audience-actor relationship. It was informal, direct, immediate. It was also a playwrights’ theatre…where you could hear what people now were thinking and feeling”.[2]   With a policy to present new Australian work, the move was financially risky in an arts scene dominated by the mainstream canon of mainly American and English work. “Revolutionary things are happening in theatre today and I want them here”.[3]  Burstall’s ambitions for La Mama were grand, but almost immediately the revolution began, namely in the form of pushing the boundaries of the Summary Offenses Act 1966.

Photograph of actors in an alley changing dialogue for the play "Whatever Happened to Realism"
‘Obscenity charges over new play’ The Australian, 22/12/69, La Mama collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1977.0109.00019

The earliest offender was the 1968 production of Alex Buzo’s Norm and Ahmed. The final line of dialogue “fucking boongs” is delivered by Norm to Ahmed, a Pakistani student, and saw actor Lindsey Smith arrested for using obscene language, and the play’s producer Graeme Blundell charged with aiding and abetting Smith.[4] Some five decades on and the play is perhaps even more relevant because of the offensive racial slur.

A year later, John Romeril’s Whatever Happened to Realism resulted in the conviction of nine actors for using obscene language in a public place. After a private viewing of the play, magistrate H. Bennet conceded that they were sincere in their protest against censorship, “The play, as far as I can follow, intends to show that actors and playwrights are restricted in portraying life by censorship, because of words deemed to be offensive or obscene. However, the play can be enacted just as forcibly without the singing or use of the words in question”.[5] The audience expressed their disagreement with the magistrate, following the arrested to the police station, chanting the offensive four letter word, amongst others.

Blue and white poster for Greek music night at La Mama. The performers were Tassos and Ionnidis Christos.
“Neo Kyma” poster, 1977, La Mama Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1977.0109.00050

Still, La Mama continued supporting Australian writers, actors and directors, providing a place where collaboration was centre-stage. Stalwarts of the Australian theatre scene like Jack Hibberd, David Williamson and Graeme Blundell, were given the chance to practice and develop their craft, as were other performance artists, such as filmmakers Corinne and Arthur Cantrill.

In the decades following the ‘obscenity trials’, La Mama continued pushing audiences, exploring concepts of identity, and elevating voices of the silenced. Playwrights such as Mammad Aidani and Tes Lyssiotis used this platform to chronicle the variety of the migrant experience, whilst in 1990, Aboriginal actor comedian Gnarnayarrahe Immurry Waitairie and director Ray Mooney explored the relationship between black and white Australian cultures in their play Pundulumura: Two Trees Together.

The onstage events however are only part of what the La Mama archive preserves. Over 100 boxes of material spanning 1967-2006 was listed during a three-year project with volunteers from La Mama, culminating in detailed lists of records available via the University of Melbourne Archive’s online catalogue. These records represent the important narrative of women in leadership roles in the arts, Liz Jones took over as artistic director in 1977, and the story of a business not obsessed with profit survived, and thrived, for 50 years.

Local issues such as the inner-city property market boom forcing the 2008 Save La Mama Campaign, the relentless struggle to find funding, and formal recognition as a place of significant Victorian heritage, are played out through business and administrative records. A collection of theatre posters illustrates trends in art and printing, featuring lino cuts by Tim Burstall amongst a wild variety of style and quality, some still with holes left by the staples used to distribute them on light poles.

The archive also sheds light on the suburb of Carlton and La Mama’s historic role as a place for its diverse residents to express themselves. Migrant Greek and Italian communities found a home for weekly music and poetry gatherings and Burstall and Jones gave neighbouring student populations a forum to experiment with new ideas.

From the first donation of records in 1977, UMA has seen its relationship with La Mama as a valuable one, not only for volunteer projects and exhibitions but in maintaining a comprehensive record of Melbourne’s theatre history. The La Mama archive complements that of the Union Theatre Repertory Company which evolved into Melbourne Theatre Company, as well as smaller collections of ephemera from the late 19th century to the 1960s.

A selection of records and production posters from the La Mama archive is currently displayed on the ground floor of Arts West at the University of Melbourne.

 

[1] Liz Jones; with Betty Burstall and Helen Garner, La Mama: the story of a theatre (Fitzroy: McPhee Gribble, 1988), 2.

[2] La Mama newsletter, October 1969, La Mama Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1977.0109, Unit 1, Item 1

[3] Handwritten notes by Liz Jones for “La Mama: the story of a theatre”, 1988, La Mama Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1998.0110, Unit 19, Item 110.

[4] “Magistrate goes to see play”, The Australian, 24 July 1969, La Mama Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1977.0109, Unit 3, Item 19.

[5] “Actors were obscene, but sincere says SM” The Australian, 3 December 1969, La Mama Collection, University of Melbourne Archives, 1977.0109, Unit 3, Item 19.

From beauty to war: reproducing The Judgement of Paris

The Judgement of Paris (1510-20) is an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (c. 1470-1482 – c. 1534) after a drawing by Raphael (1483–1520). It elicited many keen glances and enthusiastic comments from audiences when it was brought out for both public programs and classes at the Baillieu Library. It also proved to be a popular image during and after it was made in the 16th century; some scholars claim that it is the most famous engraving of the Renaissance. It was also sought out by collectors and the Print Collection holds three different copies of this one image.

When it emerges from the safety of its storage box, it is typically examined in the context of two key questions: what is it depicting, and what is its significance? One academic recently described it as the forerunner to the Trojan War: a startling contrast to its main subject of a beauty contest. Many of the great ancient world figures are gathered in this scene; the title role plays out at left where the Trojan Paris judges the beauty of the goddesses Athena (Minerva), Hera (Juno) and Aphrodite (Venus). Aphrodite emerges the winner because she offers the most desirable bribe, promising Paris the most beautiful mortal in the world, Helen of Troy, wife of Menelaos, King of Sparta. The union of Paris and Helen is the event which sets the Trojan War in motion. The figures at left are derived from a Hellenistic sarcophagus. [1.] The river gods depicted at right also strike a familiar chord in the canon of Western imagery, as Manet borrowed its composition for his painting Luncheon on the grass (1863).

Not only was the engraving a success for its composition and subjects, it also represents a change to the traditional role of printmaking. This print is classified as a reproductive print, or one that ‘copies’ another work of art, in this case a design by Raphael that has subsequently been lost. Before Marcantonio entered the printmaking arena, artists were often producing prints as original, albeit multiple works of art. The collaboration between Marcantonio and Raphael opened up a new dimension: the art of reproduction. They embarked upon the business of reproduction, and the repercussions of this intellectual property war are still at the front line of creative practices today.

 Raphael by Marcantonio Raimondi, (1517-20)

According to Giorgio Vasari, after seeing the prints of Albrecht Dürer, Raphael was inspired to set about his own printmaking venture. Raphael established a printmaking business with Marcantonio producing engravings after his paintings. Some, including The Judgement of Paris, were designed especially to be made into an engraving. Their enterprise gave rise to the long history of the reproductive print and the print selling trade. Marcantonio’s chief protégés were Marco Dente (Marco da Ravenna) and Agostino Musi (Agostino Veneziano) who also made reproductive prints, sometimes after their own master Marcantonio. When comparing impressions of The Judgement of Paris from the Baillieu’s Print Collection, subtle differences may be found. The darker impression has been identified as an early impression by Marcantonio, whereas the two lighter versions are careful later copies made by his student Marco Dente.[2] Images such as The Judgement of Paris convey a rich and complex lineage of production and reproduction.

 

The Judgement of Paris is on display in the Arts West lab during semester two.

 

 

Kerrianne Stone Curator, Prints

References

[1] Lisa Pon, Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi : copying and the Italian Renaissance print, New Haven: Yale University Press, c2004, p. 1

[2] Susan Lambert, The image multiplied: five centuries of printed reproductions of paintings and drawings, London: Trefoil Publications, 1987, p. 65

Philip Sousa marches out of town

Blue Art Nouveau design of a women holding a lute, surrounded by birds.
Cover of Sousa and his band, programmes 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, University of Melbourne Archives, Alex Whitmore collection, 1975.0065

In 1911 Australian music lovers were treated to a lengthy tour by American composer and conductor Philip Sousa, along with his 55 piece band.  The band toured the world for 352 days, and was at that time, the most extensive tour made by such a large band.

Most have likely heard Sousa’s distinctive style; mostly military and patriotic marches, although could not name him as composer. The official march of the United States of America, “Stars and Stripes For Ever” will have you marching with vigour, and was likely a stirring piece for Australian audiences.

Found in the Alex Whitmore collection are the 12 programs for concerts held in Australia. Melbourne’s July concerts in the Royal Exhibition Building were sell outs and the band played two concerts in Ballarat, before heading to the rest of the eastern cities and continuing to New Zealand. Sousa, ever the crowd pleaser and passionate composer, premiered a new march, “The Federal” on this tour, dedicating it to all ‘Australasians’.

Black and white, head and shoulders portrait of John Philip Sousa in military attire.
Portrait of John Philip Sousa, from programmes 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, University of Melbourne Archives, Alex Whitmore collection, 1975.0065

Occupying an entire page in the program is a list of “Sousa Sayings”. Reinforcing his reputation as the most famous American composer of the Romantic –era these sayings include such gems as “A musical instrument is a good deal like a gun – much depends on the man behind it”, “Music, mathematics and babies are the only original packages”, and “The music of the future? To the man who writes there is no such thing; it is the music of the now”.

References: Sousa and his band, bound programs, c.1911, University of Melbourne, Alex Whitmore Collection, 1975.0065, Unit 1

Microtonal piano sounds: a 1930s audio recording and a unique score of Ivan Wyschnegradsky’s Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra in Rare Music

Percy Grainger’s interest in microtones—notes closer together than the semi- (or half-) tone that is standard in western “classical” music—is well known. In order to realise microtones, right through to imperceptibly “sliding” tones, Grainger was very “hands-on”. He designed and fabricated new instruments or modified existing ones that are part of the Grainger Museum’s collection here at the University. Grainger’s Butterfly piano (1952) illustrates the latter. He re-tuned and otherwise modified a very small, white “student piano”, manufactured by Wurlitzer in the late 1930s, so the notes were a sixth of a tone apart, not a half tone. Instead of a span of around 3½ octaves, his microtonally modified piano covered only a little more than one octave. After Grainger’s experiments, incidentally, the “butterfly” aspect of the piano—a patented winged lid, hinged down the middle—in itself a Wurlitzer innovation—was no longer in evidence.

Russian émigré composer, Ivan Wyschnegradsky (1893–1979) was also drawn to microtones and is represented by one work in the Rare Music collection. 1) This composition, Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra: symphonie en quarts de ton (Thus spoke Zarathustra: symphony in quarter tones), was inspired by a 4-paragraph sketch Nietzsche made in 1881 for his philosophical novel. 2)

In the version of Zarathoustra in Rare Music, the composer’s own arrangement for four pianos (1936), Wyschnegradsky employs an ingenious solution to creating microtones that doesn’t require anything of the composer more radical than engaging an obliging piano tuner. By tuning two of the pianos at concert pitch (originally diapason normal, A = 435 HZ) and the other two a quarter tone higher, microtonal sounds can be easily realised. Within the musical texture, each concert pitch-tuned piano is paired with a differently tuned piano, enabling the microtonality to be clearly audible both melodically and harmonically.

You can hear the full microtonal effect in this recording of the 3rd (slow) movement of the work. I am indebted to Peter Adamson (St Andrews, UK) for allowing me to make his digital transfer of 78 rpm Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre disc (OL 70; ca 1938) available here.

 

Rare Music, in the archive of Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre (a music press established by Australian, Louise Hanson-Dyer), holds the composer’s manuscript score and two sets of parts of this work plus six scores from the hire library, reproduced from a different manuscript (1938). 3) The two pages from the earlier manuscript score reproduced here correspond with the very start of the recording.

Wyschnegradsky took a circuitous route to arrive at this arrangement and these particular sounds. He relates that he began work on Zarathoustra in November 1918, sketching out the first bars of each of the four movements in quarter tones. With no means of ever making the large-scale microtonal work he had in mind audible, Wyschnegradsky spent much of the 1920s looking into how a piano (and other instruments) capable of playing microtonally could be designed and fabricated: an interesting intersection with Percy Grainger and the Butterfly piano. Wyschnegradsky met and worked with Czech composer, Alois Hába, who had similar pre-occupations. By 1929, Wyschnegradsky had his very own monumental quarter tone upright piano in Paris (see below) and he could return to composing Zarathoustra. 4)

Wyschnegradsky scored the work for what he later described as a “not very practical” ensemble of quarter-tone piano (6 hands); quarter-tone harmonium (4 hands); quarter-tone clarinet; a “traditional” string ensemble; and percussion, but he could see no prospect of securing a performance. It was not until 1936 that he re-wrote it for 4 pianos, recasting the 2nd and 4th movements, and Zarathoustra was premiered in this form at the Salle Chopin-Pleyel in Paris on 25 January 1937. The four pianists who played are the same as those on the recording: Monique Haas, Ina Marika, Edward Staempfli and Max Vredenburg, under the direction of the composer.

By making Zarathoustra available for hire through Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre, and commercially as a sound recording, Louise Hanson-Dyer demonstrated her unflinching support of 20th century music, particularly in the years before World War II. 5) Rare Music is proud to house the archive of a woman who, like Ivan Wyschnegradsky and Percy Grainger, made an exceptional contribution to the music of her time.

Jen Hill, Curator, Rare Music

1) There are many variant transliterations of Wyschnegradsky; this version is the one the composer used in his correspondence with Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre. Grove music online favours Vyschnegradsky or Vischnegradsky. For more information and a wealth of images (including the one of Wyschnegradsky with his quarter tone piano in 1935, above), see the comprehensive Association Ivan Wyschnegradsky website.

2) Much of the information here is taken from an undated typescript “Notice” by the composer (in French), housed with the scores in the Editions de l’Oiseau-Lyre archive.

3) The manuscript score (part of EOLA MU094) is heavily annotated; intriguingly the score includes a legible part for percussion struck through with red pencil.

4) Wyschnegradsky’s piano was made by August Förster, a piano manufacturer in the Czech Republic.

5) For more information on Hanson-Dyer and Wyschnegradsky see Jim Davidson, Lyrebird Rising (Carlton, 1994) p. 317. Correspondence in the archive indicates that the first formal meeting between the two was in May 1938; British composer and pianist Alan Bush had suggested to Wyschnegradsky in 1937 that he get in touch.

Beaming a parable to European Renaissance art classes

Of the many classes utilising the Print Collection during semester one, European Renaissance Art receive the gold star for the most visits and for some very engaging interactions with the collection.

With a fly on the wall vantage onto the classes, it is intriguing to view one of the prints selected for their seminar topic: The Print Revolution, which was Daniel Hopfer’s Interior of the Church with the Parable of the Mote and the Beam (c.1520). Students commenced their study of the print with some close visual examination and this produced some confused expressions as well as some muffled laughter. For central to the image is a figure with plank of wood protruding out of his eye.

This is a very literal rendering of the proverbial saying of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew: ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye’. This warning against judgment may not be in 21st century parlance but it is just one of the many insights offered by this etching.

Geographically this image is categorised as art of the Northern European Renaissance, rather than the more familiar Italian, and stylistically these works of art have different characteristics to Italian. Daniel Hopfer (1471 – 1536) as a trained armourer is perhaps best known for his contributions to adapt the metalworking process of etching on iron, to printmaking. The link to metalwork designing is most apparent in the intricate vault decoration in the print. Another innovation which can be seen developing through the image is perspective. The church, identified as St Catherine’s in Hopfer’s hometown of Augsburg, employs newly outlined mathematical principles in its execution of depth and scale.

Like many students of print culture, an essential method to appreciate prints such as Hopfer’s in context as they do, is to read them alongside Peter Parshall’s influential article: Imago contrafacta: Images and facts in the Northern Renaissance.

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