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Australian Theatre continues to suffer a Brain Drain

By Kevin Summers - posted Wednesday, 15 May 2002


It may come as a surprise to many Australians that Vienna's foremost Aussie actress at present is not Ms Kidman or Ms Blanchett. Certainly not Rachel Griffiths. It is Melita Jurisic.

Hello? Melita who? Who is this woman, now the toast of Austria's famed centre of culture? How did she acquire this status? Well, not through starring in some Hollywood blockbuster but through her deeds on the Viennese stage.

While Jurisic has appeared in film and television - a decade ago she won the best actress award at the Venice Film Festival for her work in the Tale of Ruby Rose - she is happiest treading the boards. But lack of decent work in Melbourne last year saw her accept an invitation from the self-exiled whiz-kid director, Barrie Kosky, to play Medea at the Schauspielhaus theatre where the production and her performance were exuberantly praised.

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When the actress returned to Melbourne earlier this year to visit her father we found time to lunch over noodles and a cheap bottle of white. Back in Vienna she was to appear in five plays, the highlight being Macbeth.

"You'll be great as Lady Macbeth," I innocently declared. She responded with a slight rise of the left eyebrow.  "I'm Macbeth."

I was sufficiently chided. This was, of course, a Kosky production. The cast was all female. "You'll be great as Macbeth."

Then my rather slow mind clicked into gear. "In what language might you be doing it?" "German, of course." "Melita, you don't speak German." "I'll learn it phonetically."

"Hang on, you're not content with crossing genders but you're crossing tongues, too?" The imagery was ordinary but she understood the intent. "It's a bit of a stretch."

She said this without artifice for it is not in her nature. It was her job, the job she loved, and she would do it. There is little doubt that she will once again be the talk of Vienna for her work.

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All this raises the question: why is Melita Jurisic not stretching her talent in Melbourne? Or Sydney? Or anywhere in this wide, brown land? And why has Kosky decided that Vienna is a better bet than Oz?

The answer may lie in a Jurisic aside: "There is just so much theatre in Vienna. It's part of their culture." As a result of this mindset, the arts community is nurtured and encouraged through generous subsidies. In Vienna, scores of theatre groups receive sufficient funding to, at the very least, ensure their survival.

In all our major cities the government dollar for theatre support is increasingly an endangered species. What money exists flows to a few large, well established but increasingly bureaucratic companies. This is in keeping with the recommendations of the 2000 Nugent Enquiry into arts funding. Other tyro groups (often the most innovative and dynamic) remain outside the money loop and struggle to receive decent funding.

The stark reality is that every arts company now has to find sponsorship to maintain a flow of productivity. This, of course, can lead to some tricky outcomes.

When the Melbourne Theatre Company programs a Steven Sondheim musical starring a popular television actress, then the corporate sponsors stand in line. They won't - and who can blame them - put their money into a Stephen Sewell piece deriding capitalist excess.

Yet the lavish Sondheim, or a revival of The Sound of Music, is exactly the show that doesn't need the sponsor's money. A much loved piece of middle-brow musicana featuring recognisable faces will invariably pay its way.

The airing of new and challenging material, by its very nature, won't attract the corporate dollar. Can one imagine the conservative radio station, 3AW, which has backed numerous mainstream shows, throwing capital behind the Melbourne Workers Theatre?

The result is a form of cultural constipation. The major companies offer comfortable theatre in comfortable surrounds. The arts media dutifully publicise and meekly critique these offerings. Those practitioners who continue to push the form and content of theatre - often erroneously referred to as fringe-dwellers - are by and large ignored. Many interesting pieces and many fine and brave performances spring forth, only to disappear into a morass of apathy and conservatism.

So we lose a Kosky and a Jurisic and many others who simply throw up their hands and give it away. The passionate and innovative director, Nico Lathouris, with no work offers in Melbourne, ended up as dramaturge on the Sydney ABC's Wildside, where his influence was observed in the many brilliant semi-improvisational performances. This was television with a hard edge and it is justly celebrated but it was theatre's loss.

Might some lessons be drawn from this brain drain? Of course, more money would be welcome - at least to lessen the reliance upon sponsorship – but that alone would not solve the problem. The major companies have no divine right to public funds. If they lack energy, imagination and courage then they must lose out to groups that don't. What money there is needs to spread more equitably among the performing groups.

Arts Ministers and their advisers need to be acquainted with the breadth of theatrical activity in our cities. They need to get their hands dirty; that' s part of the job description, or ought to be.

While it may be too much to think in terms of the Viennese tradition of a challenging, diverse and assisted theatre community, there remains the hope that we may move away from the suffocatingly snug and perhaps retain our bravest practitioners.

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About the Author

Kevin Summers is a Melbourne actor, playwright and freelance writer.

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