Image © Peter WhyteSend four playwrights to the corners of Tasmania, ask them to spend one week as a guest of a town, and then write a short play out of that experience.
The result is Two Pairs of Shorts; a collaboration between the Tasmanian Theatre Company (TTC) and the Australian Script Centre (ASC) in celebration of the ACS’s thirty years of supporting and promoting the work of Australian playwrights. Tasmanian Finegan Kruckenmeyer, Debra Oswald, Adam Grossetti and Sue Smith (whose extensive television credits include Bastard Boys) have turned their hands to capturing a little of the essence of regional Tasmania in twenty minute plays with two to three actors.
Following the residencies, the plays were workshopped between the TTC and the writers, emerged slightly tweaked and then they received a reading. A second reading of the plays as works-in-progress took place in the Backspace Theatre as part of the Ten Days on the Island programme.
It is unusual for an audience to be invited into the development process of a work in this way, but incredibly interesting for the crowd who get to focus on the dialogue and direction without the ‘distraction’ of costumes, lighting design, actors’ movements and the set. With just five actors in street clothes (Guy Hooper, Jane Johnson, Steven Jones, Carrie McLean and Fiona Stewart) relying on their skill as performers and the strength of the script, it is great test of the works to see if they will stand on their own. It is a valuable exercise for the company and playwrights (some of whom were in the audience), to measure the response to silences, humour, or the sadness of the story.
It was not expected that the plays be specifically about the very place that hosted the writer, but not surprisingly, the towns were clearly at the centre of the stories set in Zeehan, Swansea, King Island and Miena. The natural environment and its effect on characters and the events of the play spoke clearly through the dialogues. The language of the town was woven into the plays; the mining lingo of Zeehan, the coastal influences of Swansea and King Island, the fishing culture of the lakes. Love, loss, departure and return, and the search for place were common throughout all four plays, but all told in markedly different fashions.
The plays will be read in the towns in which the authors resided, and the locals will be given the chance to respond, possibly influencing the further development of the plays. The works will be programmed for performance in 2010 by the Tasmanian Theatre Company.
Often these towns only make the news following tragedies, job lay-offs or whale strandings, so it is beautiful to see them being represented as places of life, in these vivid snapshots Tasmania’s people, their language and ways.
The Australian Script Centre and Tasmanian Theatre Company present
TWO PAIRS OF SHORTS
Playwrights Adam Grossetti, Finnegan Kruckemeyer, Debra Oswald and Sue Smith
SWANSEA
Swansea Town Hall, 17 Franklin Street - 28 March at 6pm
HOBART
Backspace, Sackville Street - 29 March at 4pm & 5 April at 4pm
KING ISLAND
Currie Town Hall, Meech Street - 1 April at 6pm
ZEEHAN
Gaiety Theatre, Main Street - 3 April at 6pm
MIENA
Miena Community Centre, Cider Gum Road - 4 April at 6pm
Duration: 2 hours (interval)
Tickets: $10 (Door sales only)
www.tendaysontheisland.com
Stephenie Cahalan is a Hobart-based writer and editor.
This review is part of arts@work’s Critical Acclaim program, designed to increase critical analysis of the arts.