The final year RMIT Fine Art Photography class will be exhibiting at fortyfivedownstairs from 7 – 18 December 2010.
Exhibition Openings: James Yuncken + Lena Torikov
Photos of last Tuesday’s exhibition openings are below. All photos by the generous Marcus Bunyan.
Opening of Lena Torikov’s Subtractions, Tuesday 31 August 2010
Opening of Lena Torikov’s Subtractions, Tuesday 31 August 2010
New content on our website
I have just added some extra content to our website, in a continued effort to make things easier and more transparent for our hirers. You can now download our logos directly from our ‘logos’ page, in both .jpeg and .eps formats.
You can also see FAQs for hirers (and potential hirers) of our gallery and of our theatre on the dedicated pages for each space.
Nadja Kostich discusses Bare Witness on Australian Stage Online
And interview with Nadja Kostich, director of upcoming play Bare Witness. Interview by Paul Andrew, published on Australian Stage Online. See the interview in its original context here.
Bare Witness by Mari Lourey draws on the real life experiences of photo journalists and foreign correspondents in the Balkans, East Timor and Iraq, roles which have become increasingly dangerous, while their moral validity is increasingly questioned.
Australian Stage’s Paul Andrew speaks to Director Nadja Kostich ahead of the show’s Melbourne season.
Bare Witness on Theatre People
An article about Bare Witness from Theatre People. See it in its original context here.
Without realising, I pass into the zone of a dangerous place…
Bare Witness, a new Australian play by Mari Lourey (Dirty Angels, The Bridge, Digging Into The Green Mountain, ) and directed by Nadja Kostich, will premiere at fortyfivedownstairs, as a special La Mama presentation, featuring a stellar cast including Isaac Drandic, Daniela Farinacci, Todd MacDonald, Adam McConvell and Maria Theodorakis.
Set in the Balkans, East Timor and Iraq, against the complex terrain of contemporary photojournalism, Bare Witness scrutinises the way we view our humanity – through the fragmenting lens of the media. Photographs, memories and dreams collide in a physical multi-media performance that follows a pack of complicated flawed characters who share the unbreakable bond of war journalists. Searching for the pieces of herself lost to years in the field, a young Australian woman is at a point when thrusting the camera between herself and her subjects ceases to protect her.
Review: Do not go gentle… on Foyer Talk
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Trevar Alan Chilver for his blog Foyer Talk See it in it’s original context here.
Seeing Do Not Go Gentle was an experience. Not just because it’s a great show, but because I got the opportunity to meet Patricia Cornelius, the play’s writer, before the show opened. That, and the fact that fortyfivedownstairs is a fantastic venue with more character than a Shakespearean king.
Equally admirable were the performances of a fantastic cast, admirably lead by Rhys McConnochie, all bringing their characters to life in a way that should connect with audiences of all ages.
Freezing my way through a show is not normally my idea of fun, but it’s highly appropriate for Do Not Go Gentle, which focuses on Scott’s unsuccessful attempt to plant an Australian flag at the South Pole before the Norwegians got theirs there. And while fortyfivedownstairs may have been a bit of a cold place on the night, the lives of its characters are just as cold, but with a warmth that makes it all worthwhile.
The thing I enjoyed most about this play was its insistence that life is for living, a thesis well worth remembering on a cold Winter’s night in Melbourne.
Review: Do not go gentle… on Sometimes Melbourne
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Anne Marie Peard for her blog Sometimes Melbourne and for AussieTheatre.com. See it in it’s original context here.
In 2006 Melbourne playwright Patricia Cornelius won the Patrick White Playwrights’ Award and the RE Ross Trust Playwrights award for Do not go gentle… Finally, we get to see a production (thank you fortyfivedownstairs) and the full theatre, longish run and sold out nights are proving that award-winning plays aren’t real until they are produced and shared with an audience.
Cornelius uses the metaphor of Scott’s Antarctic expedition (yep, the one that didn’t end well) to tell the story of six people dealing with the consequences of aging. They trudge through the frozen world and are in a “home”. Some fight their pasts and disappointments at not having fulfilled a single dream, others find happiness and total acceptance, and some struggle with their own brains and memories that won’t let them understand.
Told with delicious humour, Do not go gentle… takes the rage that Dylan Thomas speaks of in his famous poem and makes it palpable. The experienced cast (Paul English, Jan Friedl, Rhys McConnochie, Terry Norris, Anne Phelan, Pamela Rabe and Malcolm Robertson) prove the value of experience and bring a personal element to their characters. Rabe is especially powerful as a woman facing early onset Alzheimer’s and Phelan wins every heart as she loses her inhibitions and finally feels loved.
Marg Horwell’s design, Irine Vela’s sound and Richard Vabre’s lighting use the vastness of fortyfivedownstairs beautifully, letting the emptiness and the collapsed roof infuse the world with unspoken emotion and gave the script room to fill in the spaces with humour or poignancy. And, under Julian Meyrick’s clear direction, this is the production that Cornelius must have dreamt about.
But for all it’s goodness, I was left as cold as Scott’s team – and I so wanted to warm to it. Cornelius language brings stunning images to the stage, but I felt that the metaphors were overused and that issues were leading the story rather than the characters. With so much time spent telling us about each character’s old-age problem, there was little space to start loving the person. Instead of dispelling myths about age, they almost confirmed the stereotypes they were trying to liberate from assumptions.
But this show is enthralling and talking to its audience, who will happily rage, rage against any dissenting opinions.
X-Field exhibition opening
Photos of the opening night of X-Field are below.
X-Field are a collaborative group who work across the disciplines of art, architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism. The exhibition features work by Charles Anderson, Richard Black, Mel Dodd, Sand Helsel, Andrea Mina and SueAnne Ware.
X-Field runs in the fortyfivedownstairs galleries until the 28th of August 2010.
Moonee Valley Leader: Kensington actress stars in Do Not Go Gentle…
Article by Mark Smith for the Moonee Valley Leader. See it in its original context here.
Jan Friedl is ready for her role in the award-winning Melbourne production Do Not Go Gentle. TONY GOUGH N07MV602
KENSINGTON actress Jan Friedl has been a star in some of theatre’s biggest touring stage productions, but she says there is no better feeling than being a part of a quality home-grown production.
The film, TV and theatre actress is happy to forgo the big stage spotlight of past productions such as Romeo and Juliet or Great Expectations to bring to life the vision of smaller award-winning Melbourne production Do Not Go Gentle.
The production, written by Patricia Cornelius, tells the story of seven residents of an aged care centre who deal with the realities of death by believing they are on an exhibition in the Antarctic.
Friedl says that despite the wacky premise, the production is a moving and funny portrayal of human character that explores questions of love, death, happiness and loss.
Friedl’s own character Maria is a refugee from a wartorn country who does not feel at home in Australia. Her journey was one of searching for her true home, Friedl said.
The production is being held at the fortyfivedownstairs theatre in Flinders Lane throughout August.
Friedl said it was an intimate venue that had challenged the cast to new heights.
“We are going to use every nook and crannie of the venue,” she said.
“We are all doing it (this production) for the love.
“I think this makes it a more powerful production. When you love it, you share more and work harder together.”
Review: Do not go gentle… on Theatre People
This review of Do not go gentle… was written byNatasha Boyd for Theatre People. See it in it’s original context here.
Submitted by K.E. Weber on Tuesday, 10th Aug 2010
Do not go gentle…grapples with existential questions of love, death, loss, happiness and the lust to live life to its fullest.
The intention of former arts broadcaster and writer, Mary Lou Jelbart, who is the founder of fortyfivedownstairs, has been successfully realised in a short space of time and obtained a well deserved reputation as creating a venue that produces a varied range of independent theatre and art space. And it was this that created much enthusiasm amongst the packed audience which greeted opening night of Patricia Cornelius’ avant-garde piece “Do not go gentle….” this weekend.
Cornelius, after all, has been working on this script for six years, including being rewarded as the proud recipient of both the Patrick White playwright’s award and RE Ross Trust Playwright script development award. Cornelius surely felt her work was in safe hands as good friend and experienced director, Julian Meyrick, who has brought two of her pieces to life previously, as well as other works for MTC, STC, and State Theatre of South Australia, was at its creative helm. Not to mention the high calibre and experienced cast that were attracted to this piece and on hand to bring this piece to life.Review: Do not go gentle… on ArtsHub
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Paul Knox for ArtsHub. See it in it’s original context here.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The inspiration for Do Not Go Gentle is Dylan Thomas’ well known poem about the fierce and desperate longing for life that accompanies our last days. Patricia Cornelius has written an examination of the twilight years of five nursing home residents and unexpectedly woven it through the story of Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition with surprising success.
The result is a moving piece that draws us into the fractured mind of Scott (Rhys McConnochie), a nursing home resident obsessed with the 1912 expedition to the point of recasting those around him into the roles of R. F. Scott’s party. Each is given the opportunity through this conceit to gradually reveal their afflictions, ranging from deep regret, dislocation and uselessness to a tragic loss of memory from Bowers (Pamela Rabe), a younger woman suffering what seems to be a premature form of dementia. [more]
Review: Do not go gentle… on the ABC
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Prue Bentley for 774 ABC Melbourne. See it in it’s original context here.
Pamela Rabe as Bowen in Patricia Cornelius’ Do Not Go Gentle. Photo by Jeff Busby.
We fear the unfulfilled life.
In the world as we know it, full of aspiration and glamour, there is something monstrous about coming to our end full of regret.
In Do Not Go Gentle, the latest work from Patricia Cornelius puts a group of ageing characters out on the ice to face their lives, their choices and their challenges. And they do it through the goggles of the ill-fated antarctic explorer Robert Scott. [more]
Review: Do not go gentle… in The Age
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Martin Ball for The Age. See it in it’s original context here.
Do Not Go Gentle
REVIEWED BY MARTIN BALL
August 9, 2010
An extraordinary cast
Reviewer rating:
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
By Patricia Cornelius
45 Downstairs, 45 Flinders Lane. Until August 29.
DYLAN Thomas’s famous poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is a passionate clarion call to live life to its utmost, even into old age. Such a philosophy of not going quietly – spelled out in the poem’s refrain, to ”Rage, rage against the dying of the light” – provides the starting point for Do Not Go Gentle, Patricia Cornelius’s wonderful new play about a group of characters in a nursing home, facing the trials and tribulations of old age.
The genius of Do Not Go Gentle, however, is that the characters double their roles in telling the parallel story of Scott of the Antarctic’s doomed expedition to the south pole and this astounding leap of poetic imagination sets up abundant connections between the image of Scott’s men trudging wearily one foot after another into blinding snow, and the creeping onset of senescence that dims the light for so many of our older folk. [more]
Review: Do not go gentle… in The Australian
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Alison Croggon for The Australian. See it in it’s original context here.
The poetry of age in an uncertain world
- Alison Croggan
- From: The Australian
- August 09, 2010 12:00AM
PATRICIA Cornelius’s award-winning play borrows its title from Dylan Thomas’s poem Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night. Perhaps the most beautiful villanelle written in English, Thomas’s poem celebrates the vivid life of old age, pressed hard up against death: “Old age should burn and rave at close of day”.
Likewise, Do Not Go Gentle . . . explores the flare of vitality that reaches a desperate intensity in the face of death, through seven characters who live in an old people’s home.
The central character, Scott (Rhys McConnochie), is obsessed with the tragic heroism of Robert Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, a race he lost to Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, and that ultimately cost him his life. [more]
Review: Do not go gentle… on Crikey
This review of Do not go gentle… was written by Andrew Fuhrmann for Crikey. See it in it’s original context here.
Photo by Jeff Busby: Malcolm Robertson, Pamela Rabe, Terry Norris and Anne Phelan
Dylan Thomas’ famous exhortation that old age should burn and rage at close of day is here filled out with a specific and passionate argument by playwright Patricia Cornelius: the rage against the dying of the light is the rage of memory, of memory projected forward into action, into the renewal or reconsideration of old convictions, into reconciliations, into fresh desires, into affirmations, and into new adventures.
This is the much-anticipated premiere production of 2006’s Patrick White Award winner, Do Not Go Gentle. It’s an unflinching, imaginatively drawn, life-and-death scenario, similar in the directness and ardency of its argument to Cornelius’s work with the Melbourne Worker’s Theatre and related in its arrangement to her contribution to Who’s Afraid of the Working Class? [more]
Independent and “Unrepresented”
From the Walk to Art blog. Read this post in it’s original context here.
I feel very fortunate to be given the opportunity to curate a show at fortyfivedownstairs, in Melbourne. “Unrepresented”, with artworks by Nicholas Jones, Christopher Koller, Ted McKinlay, Chloe Vallance and Ben Walsh, opens on Tuesday 3 August 2010 (5pm to 7pm).
Mary Lou Jelbart, artistic director of fortyfivedownstairs, describes the show: “‘Unrepresented’ responds to the vagaries and minefields of the art world that contemporary artists encounter. Curator Bernadette Alibrando, who delves beneath the surface of Melbourne’s commercial gallery scene and spreads her network far and wide, has selected five artists who have chosen to remain independent. While most artists see representation by a gallery as the best possible situation, others deliberately remain outside the accepted system.” [more]
Do not go gentle: Australian Stage Online review
Read the review of Do not go gentle… on Australian Stage Online below. See it in its original context here.
Written by Liza Dezfouli
Saturday, 07 August 2010 15:20
Left – Terry Norris, Anne Phelan and Rhys McConnochie. Cover – Pamela Rabe and Rhys McConnochie. Photos – Jeff Busby
Inspired by those famous words of Dylan Thomas and the story of Captain Scott’s trek to Antarctica in the early 1900s, Do Not Go Gentle by Patricia Cornelius is a beautifully rendered theatre piece. With a variety of dramatic responses to its themes this play gives a lovely sense of what’s possible on stage: images, music, opera, and simple poetic language; there is much to love about Do Not Go Gentle.
[more]
Interview: “I know some really stupid old people”
See the below interview by John Bailey with some three of the Do not go gentle… cast and the director. See the interview in it’s original context on Bailey’s blog, Capital Idea, here.
Do not go gentle…is written by Patricia Cornelius, directed by Julian Meyrick and produced by fortyfivedownstairs. The play runs from 6 – 29 August.
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A few weeks ago I sat down with director Julian Meyrick and some of the cast of Do not go gentle…, opening tomorrow at fortyfivedownstairs. At the table were:
Rhys McConnochie, 73
Malcolm Robertson, 77
Terry Norris, 80
And Mr. Meyrick.
Unrepresented Exhibition Opening
Opening of the exhibition Unrepresented, presented by fortyfivedownstairs and curated by Bernadette Alibrando.
Featured artists are: Ted McKinlay, Chloe Vallance, Nicholas Jones, Ben V Walsh and Christopher Koller.
