A Meeting of Minds as Two Companies Amalgamate
By Philip O’Brien

In a tight fiscal climate it’s not just football teams and financial institutions that have to consider economies of scale. This year’s ‘Season at the Street’ and ‘New EreKtions’ season at the Currong have proved that theatre companies can benefit from shared resources without losing individuality. The Southern Cross Players and Canberra Rep Fringe are currently co-presenting the Alan Ayckbourn play Season’s Greetings and now two of the city’s smaller theatre companies have decided to merge.

Free-Rain Theatre Company and Radical Theatre Company will be marking their union with performances at the Belconnen Community Theatre of two one-act plays, The Stripper and The War in Heaven. The season promises to be the first of many by a company keen to pursue experimental, adventurous work with a strong focus on youth.

The two ensembles comprised mostly students of Anne Somes and George Huitker, drama teachers at Marist and Radford Colleges respectively. When Somes directed Huitker in a performance of the Louis Nowra play Cosi for Free-Rain earlier this year, they realised they shared a similar vision. “We both liked working with young people,” she says, “and we both had the same professional approach. Two heads seemed better than one, so we thought, ‘why not?’”

While Free-Rain seeks the flexibility that its name suggests, Somes says that the company is interested in building up a repertoire of Australian plays, both new and revivals. She and Huitker are also interested in addressing the perennial problem of attracting younger audiences away from television and computer games.

Both are keen to encourage young talent, not only in acting and directing but also in writing for theatre. They don’t feel that they are competing with the work of Canberra Youth Theatre. Rather, they see their work as complementing it. “We see ourselves as a stepping-stone for young actors and directors, particularly in the outer suburbs.”

The Stripper, written by NIDA student Liza-Mare Syron and directed by Somes’ daughter Kelly, is set in a small Australian country town. A young man, running from the law and in need of money, is engaged as a stripper for a 40th birthday party. We follow his relationship with an older woman and with his former accomplice-in-crime who is now out of jail and seeking revenge.

The War in Heaven, by American playwright Sam Shepard, is being directed by Huitker. “It’s about an angel sent down to earth to escort the soul of a soldier to a higher plain,” he says. “The only problem is that the soldier has no soul and so the angel is trapped on earth in a human state.” He admits that the work is rather more obscure but is treating it as a “movement piece, a very disciplined group response.”

It’s an interesting pairing, both plays and personnel. Somes is an enthusiastic teacher but less flamboyant than Huitker. His is an engaging style, somewhere between Robin Williams in Dead Poets’ Society and Curly from the Three Stooges. He is equivocal about what his students make of it all. “It probably only confuses them because I can switch to dull adult just as quickly.”

Isn’t he concerned that the choice of plays may be too challenging, particularly for the younger audiences they are hoping to attract? “It will certainly be challenging for those expecting Home and Away on Ice,” he says. “But I disagree that younger people don’t like to be stretched. They don’t like shoddy stuff and are a much more critical audience than was our generation.”

The season is being presented in the newly-renovated theatre of the Belconnen Community Centre. Somes says that the Centre is keen to see the theatre develop as an affordable space for local groups.

“While we need a base to work from and are starting to get a following out there I don’t see us as a one-theatre group. We will continue to work in a variety of spaces.” This they did earlier this year when their season of Cosi played to near-full houses at the Currong before transferring to Belconnen.

“It’s a new phase for the company,” she adds. “We’re moving in new directions, promoting young actors and directors as well as young writers. I would welcome my mailbox being loaded up with scripts from emerging playwrights.”

The Stripper and the War in Heaven will be presented by Free-Rain Theatre Company at the Belconnen Community Theatre from 23 to 25 July and July 30 to August 1 at 8 pm.

The Canberra Times 21/7/98

---

Somewhere in Heaven is a place for small-scale serious theatre by and for young adults. Though I wouldn’t normally call Belconnen Community Centre, up the hill between the Mall and the Labor Club, a theatrical heaven, that’s where there’s a sparkling little Cloud 9 formed by the merger of Free Rain and Radical Theatre. I suppose Free radical is the obvious name for the new quantum...

We were transported to an expressionistic world of angels: “I died when I was born, and became an angel” is the theme played upon in many variations by Sam Shepard. George Huitker has cleverly picked up on Shepard’s cynical intentions, working with a kind of science fiction soundtrack, strobe and ultra-violet light to produce something akin to the black theatre beloved of puppet companies.

It was exciting to see a group of 14 lithe young men and women working with real commitment in all the theatrical elements: voice and silence; light and darkness; movement and stillness. They have truly done the right thing by Sam Shepard, one of the keenest dramatists of modern America.

Huitker’s choreography develops the theme dramatically - a crystallization of the words of the script, focussed on the Earth as a ball into which we stare and hope and see the future.

These young performers deserve recognition and are well worth your support.

Frank McKone, The Canberra Times

*

Sam Shepard is a difficult playwright to tackle, but young director George Huitker has pulled his young, fresh and considerably large cast into tight and original portrayal of The War In Heaven. The splitting of ‘The Angel’s Monologue’ into over ten intertwining parts, with plenty of chorus work and and physicality, presented an engaging multifaceted voice in a piece that could easily have been talking heads. The use of simple yet effective lighting and costumes (the suits were a great idea) and the various religious images and associations shown throughout revealed that a lot of thought has been put into this show...

Keep an eye on Radical and Free Rain - they seem to have a lot up their sleeves.

Telia Nevile, BMA

*

The War in Heaven, with its spiritualistic undertones, sent strong messages about our ephemeral existence on earth. It centred around the confusion of a group of angels who suddenly found themselves newborn into a realm which we assume to have been heaven. Here they began their questioning of life on earth, and their yearning to return emerged through the frequent mantra of “take me back!”. One effective mind-expanding study was the concept of what earth actually is in relation to the hugeness of the universe which left the audience to wonder how life could exist on earth, and why?

The War in Heaven was originally a monologue. The director, George Huitker, chose to present Sam Shepard’s play with 14 actors from the Radical Theatre/Free Rain Company. Using a group of angels in place of a one-actor monologue, delivered a strong notion to ‘group mind’. The actors were intrinsically interconnected and moved as one throughout which is a credit to their training in this production and to the choreography. Individualism was delivered as though one was merely presenting the thoughts of all the others.

The costume design by Matthew McCarran-Benson was simple yet spectacular with its particular usage of ultra-violet light to depict large luminous wings on the back of each player. It gave us the notion of a non-place or an ethereal place. I thought this play was both moving and beautiful and the Radical Theatre/Free Rain Company presented it in a professional and intelligent way.

Naomi Black, MUSE