| Love in season |
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| Written by Richard Watts |
| Wednesday, 13 May 2009 07:25 |
 Richard Watts speaks with the Malthouse Theatre’s Michael Kantor about their Season Two 2009.“Our first season [this year] was all about optimism, and in some ways we’re continuing that, but I think we now add the element of love,” says Michael Kantor, Artistic Director of the Malthouse Theatre, describing his second season for 2009. “And it’s not just romantic love that we’re referring to, but the love of mother to child, the love between grandparents, the love of loss, the pain of love, that kind of desperate desire to keep love going, even when it’s fading; the way that love binds us together in all ways.” For season two, Kantor has constructed a theatrical program which draws from the classical western canon – such as Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, starring Julie Forsyth (pictured) – as well as from contemporary works. Linking the eight productions which make up the season – including three world premieres, three new commissions, and two Melbourne premieres – is the theme of love. “The love of a hopeless, disastrous relationship plays out in Happy Days between Winnie and Willy; this impossibility that they can carry on, but yet they do carry on in the most appalling kind of marriage,” Kantor says of the play that some have described as Beckett’s most pessimistic work, but which is also an exploration of the human spirit’s capacity for flexibility and resourcefulness in the face of hopelessness. “It’s a happy season full of sadness. This is kind of like the dark half of the year.” On the subject of darkness, Kantor says that, thankfully, the financial shadow of the global economic crisis has yet to cast a pall over the Malthouse. “I have no idea how long that will continue, so I’m nervous about it because I think that theatre is a dispensable item for most people; and if things get really tough and if you’re losing your job or there’s pressures coming down to you from the bank or wherever, it’s quite easy to pull back on something like going to the theatre.” That said, Kantor is at pains to explain that financial concerns have not shaped the program for season two, “aside from our general belief that in leaner times we want to come together and feel something emotionally; and certainly the pieces are very emotional, so we’re responding in that way, but we haven’t curtailed our program or somehow cut back or anything like that.” Highlights of the program include the world premiere of One Night the Moon, an exploration of the Australian Gothic adapted by John Romeril from the film of the same name; and Structure and Sadness, a remounting of a dance work by Lucy Guerin about the 1970 collapse of the West Gate Bridge, a disaster which killed 35 people. “We see this building [the Malthouse] as just one of the best places for Melbourne audiences to access contemporary Australian dance … and I have a fundamental belief that dance is part of the theatrical world. Just because they’re not speaking, we’re still hearing stories, and we’re still feeling stories.” www.malthousetheatre.com.au |
| Last Updated on Friday, 12 June 2009 01:49 |