The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 17

WEDNESDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 1993 THE AQC 17 by SHMITH Arts Diverse, obscure songs Dance work well received but sterile lL3gll Television give musical an edge The twins say their work is experimental and therefore more realistic. Starn twins to test artistic judgment ITS A LONG way left of '42nd Street and a long way right of Stephen Sondheim," says Caro line Gillmer of her new show 'Simply Irresistible'. Although she is the writer, creator, and one half of the performing duo In this Melbourne International Festival show, Ms Gillmer cringes when she hears it described as a musical. "With all these revivals "Cats', '42nd 'South Pacific' I think people groan at the thought of a musical," she says. "I know I'm bored with the idea of frothy, musical theatre but this has a feeling of a new musical." 'Simply Irresistible' uses songs Ms Gillmer calls diverse and obscure "Everything from vaudeville to Terence Trent D'Arby" but It's what she and co-performer, Judl Connelli, say, dance and joke In between songs, that gives this show an edge missing from the imported, soft-centred musicals.

Against a set decorated with giant red lips, and wearing costumes designed by Angus 'Strictly Ballroom' Strathie, Ms Gillmer and Ms Connelli will humorously discuss female relationships, the longing for and losing of love, men, and the notion of the "Beauty "At the end of the show we'll leave the audience with (projected) Images RAYMOND GILL of Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bar-dot women who have chosen to age gracefully and didn't inject collagen or have surgery as a way of staying young and delaying the ageing process," Ms Gillmer says. She stresses however that this is not a feminist show. "I am not standing on a soapbox. My Job Is to entertain, not preach. We take a few subjects and address them light-heartedly.

I certainly don't want to alienate half our audience." In fact last weekend at a sell-out preview at the Sydney Opera House, Ms Gillmer says she was approached after the show by a man. He told her he felt empowered by the performance. As an actor, Ms Gillmer says she knows too well the pressures demanded of women to appear ever-youthful. "I'd like to break stereotyped casting. I am always 'mother earth' I always have six children and am ironing school uniforms in the suburbs and it's because I have extra pounds around the hips." Ms Gillmer Is now appearing in episodes of the television series 'Neighbours' and yes, as a housewife.

How ever she says there is a twist. She hopes she will serve as a role model to women "trapped In the suburbs" because her character, after winning a lottery, decides to live the life she always wanted. "I hope this can tell women that they can take control of their lives," she says. "When Wayne Harrison (the director) asked me what I wanted to say with 'Simply Irresistible' I said I wanted to empower women." As well as songs from the Broadway shows 'Dream Girls' and 'Ballroom' (by Michael Bennett), eight costume changes, and dancing (choreographed by her husband, Tony Bartucclo), Ms Gillmer will perform a monologue on lost love, and Ms Connelli will talk about ageing. This is not the first musical show Ms Gillmer has devised.

In the late 1970s she performed 'The '20s and All That Jazz' and later 'Bosom Buddies' at the Last Laugh. She says she asked Judi Connelli to perform with her because "she's a talent I have always "I wrote the show with her in mind. Her talents are very attractive to a Melbourne audience, and I think we haven't seen enough of her down here." 'Simply Irresistible' is at the Malt-house until Saturday. ner who Is. The two women know the problem too, but only at secondhand.

The men are variously confused, angry, grief-stricken and edgy. One pretends that he is not about to die and that drugs will be found in time to save him. Another (Ron Challinor) tries to make light of his situation. The note of humor is welcome, forced and artificial though it is. Even so, there Is nothing that offers unexpected insights or catches its audience unawares.

The reunion at the end between Louise (Penelope Stewart), who has come back from America to be with her AIDS-afflicted brother (Fred Whltlock), might have provided such a moment. All we get, however, is a gesture. The play, sympathetically directed by Bruce Myles, seeks to enlist support and understanding for HIV-AIDS sufferers from the general community. That is a worthy aim. However, 'Desire Lines' has to be judged as theatre and not as propaganda.

And as theatre, it is underpowered. It takes a highly emotional subject and makes low-voltage drama out of it. 'Sadness' did It so much better. Worthy aim but AIDS play falls short Photography Mike Doug Starn National Gallery of Victoria, until 31 October GREG NEVILLE limits and some people find an impressive beauty in It. However, they are breaking rules that are already broken, specifically by such '70s photographers as Thomas Barrow and Robert Heinemman.

One work in the show, 'Chihuahua', consists of a panel of white photographic prints on which there is no image at all. This could be a radical breakthrough of photography Into the flatness of Color Field painting of the '60s, or else really the logical extension of the vacuousness of the rest of the work, where the content of the Images does not signify anything beyond the obvious. The brothers do not seem to be interested In content and messages, yet their subject matter includes Jesus, Mary, Rembrandt, the 'Mona Lisa', even the Sun. With such culturally loaded imagery, it would be hard not to get something startling. Dealing as they do with such noble visual material, it Is surprising that their musical taste runs to hard rock'n'roll.

We like our art as we like our music loud, they say, and play Guns'n'Roses while they work. Thus, an important connection Is made. The Starns's work has that same veneer of stylish gloom one sees on album covers and rock videos where the band members wear designer versions of op shop overcoats and perform in burnt-out factories recession chic. The twins fill a gap In New York that hasn't been occupied since Basquiet, that young painter whose sudden success ended with his death from drugs. This is the myth of the beautiful young genius who doesn't play by the rules the rebel.

ARRIVING amid some of the most philistlne PR hype since the days of P. T. Barnum, the Starn twins and their exhibition will be an Interesting test of local artistic Judgment and our ability to resist this bandwagon from the provincial New York art scene. Favorably compared to Picasso and Rauschenberg among others, and unquestionably the toast of the US art world, the work of these hip and handsome identical twins from New Jersey has a lot to live up to. It falls.

While the Impact of the show Is one of imposing scale mixed with a radical eclecticism of materials, the result is a dull superficiality rather than transcendentalism that is often claimed. The Starn's formula consists of photographing works of art and blowing them up Into large composite images made of photographic materials that have been toned, scraped and generally abused before being joined together with sticky tape. Hence a typical image in the show, 'Crucifixion 198586', has a Renaissance painting of the dead Christ printed and stuck on to a plank and propped against the wall together with a coil of wire for the crown of thorns. The twins say the work is experimental and therefore more realistic; that is, the art is in the making. They say it is tactile and anti-stasis, that unlike traditional photographs, the surface is the thing and the works may eventually change and even fall apart.

That while they have a genuine fondness for the medium of photography, they feel that "art photography" specifically the fine print, Is "rigid, jusc So their fame is based largely on their attack upon the normally intact print surface; cracking, staining, multiplying the images and combining them with wood, plastic and other materials. But isn't this "Just Their work is undoubtedly eccentric and courageous in Its pushing of formal MICHAEL Gurr's 'Desire Lines' Is a play on the theme of AIDS. It was initiated by a community group, People Living With Aids, and written following a series of workshops with AIDS sufferers and with HIV-positive individuals. Gurr says that what he has written is dramatic fiction. In a sense, it probably is.

However the problem with the piece is not that It is unrepresentative, as some of those Involved In the workshops claim. Rather, it is that It does little more than touch the surface of the subject. I might have thought otherwise had I not seen William Yang's 'Sadness' a couple of nights before. 'Sadness' Is about the search for identity. For Yang, a key element in that search is the recognition of his homosexuality.

Far from skirting round the subject, he confronts it head-on: not just as it affects himself but also his friends, many of whom are gay and a number of whom have succumbed to AIDS. 'Sadness' Is a pictorial record of their lives, with commentary supplied by Yang himself. In the course of it, bis camera captures several of his Brodskys begin on a humorous note Dance Naked City, Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company State Theatre NEIL JILLETT IT IS quite an achievement to stage a dance work that lasts 80 minutes and contains only one interesting idea. That is what this Israeli company Is presenting as its opening program for the Melbourne Festival. The near-barren offering was enthusiastically received by Monday's first-night audience.

The choreographer, Rami Be'er, explains that rather than "tell a particular story" he creates "momentary pictures moods and contrasts that come from the character and atmosphere of the music the Impression' of the lack of order and the abrupt changes between the Individual In practical terms, this means that 'Naked City' is a series of fragments performed to a recorded medley that ranges from Bach to lugubrious monologues, with the usual load of over-amplified heavy metal In between. Most of the pieces end, more or less arbitrarily, with a soloist caught In a fading spotlight. There is little sense of ensemble, although unity Is provided by having the dancers clad most of the time in black gym boots and unflattering black mini-tunics. The emphasis is on solos a woman pays homage to a pot plant, a man does an acrobatic drunk act, and so forth. When there are more than three dancers on stage, the work lacks focus.

The dancers Just seem to be doing their own thing, without much concern for what is happening around them. The effect is of a disorderly aerobics class. There are some modestly Inventive pieces for couples and trios. Otherwise, although the dancers are willingly energetic and skilful, the choreography does not provide them with much to do except wave their arms, jump around, and dash about shrugging their shoulders (a routine comedians use to imitate headless chooks). Nissan Gelbard's strong, dramatic lighting is the show's best feature.

It regularly conjures up black-cabinet effects in which people and objects bang, apparently unsupported. In space. Overuse rather diminishes the force of this lonely good idea, but it works spectacularly In a sequence in which four men "swim" through the air above seven women. 'Naked City' also contains some limp attempts at surrealistic humor that suggest Be'er admires the more tiresome manifestations of butoh. for Finance iMVim UllD PHILIPPA HAWKER Nowhere to run, the force is there NOWHERE to run, nowhere to bide the force is with us, everywhere and 'The Feds' (Channel 9, 8.30 pm) Is the latest member of the team, a two-hour TV movie about the work of the Australian Federal Police.

It begins with a shot of Canberra bills In the misty blue of early morning a peaceful sight interrupted by a disturbing surge of music and the click of a shotgun being loaded. Then there's a flurry of images: police cars, dogs, guns, and the sound of the police radio: "Delta Two, now In vicinity of target premises." These are the familiar sights and sounds to a TV viewer of a police raid. A fair-headed man, casually dressed but clearly an authority figure, waves aside the offer of one of the brightly-colored vests the team members are wearing. "It's your raid, Nugget," he says. "I'll talk to Domenico after we've woken him up." And so to the target 'premises, an overdressed and palatial house in the suburbs whose veranda is now swarming with Day-Glo-vested Federal Police.

"Bring the key," goes the cry sardonic police humor, because what Is produced is one of the most sophisticated sledgehammers you'll ever see. A chrome-plated multi-purpose device, it looks as if it has been designed by Alessl. It's about to be used when our fair-haired hero steps in and takes decisive action and It turns out that it's just as well he did. Cut to operation two: surveillance. The scene switches from Canberra to Hong Kong.

It's a completely different type of operation several people are shadowing a smartly-dressed man as he makes his way to his hotel. This Is our fair-haired hero's other target a famous surgeon who has become involved with organised crime. Our hero Is Superintendent Dave Griffin (Robert Taylor) young, smart and hot-headed, who's determined to nail the enigmatic surgeon. But the doctor has a hotshot lawyer, Christine McQuillan (Sigrid Thornton), who Is a formidable opponent with a particular power over Griffin. And Griffin also must contend with hostility from other officers.

It's an almost Inevitable part of the job description for a TV cop these days "must be able to withstand pressure and animosity from TV police officers spend as much time battling other members of the force as they put Into fighting crime. The supporting cast Includes a couple of tough and capable female police officers. Young Detective Sergeant May -Po Holland (Stephanie Chen) must be one of the fittest members of the force, judging from the energy (and mileage) she puts into the pursuit of her targets, and Superintendent Angela Braglla (Rachel Griffiths) radiates hard-headed efficiency. There are a few parallels with tomorrow episode or the abl spy series, 'Secrets', apart from the presence of Griffiths in both. They are stylistically very different, but there are themes in common, related to internal Insecurity and a senior officer's relationship with a contact.

There are occasional Implausible moments in the plot, some slightly awkward resolutions and revelations, and a certain amount of unfinished business at the end presumably to allow a series of spin-offs from this TV movie. The relationship between Griffin and McQuillan has its problems: Thornton and Taylor give strong performances, but their scenes together suffer from an unfortunate succession of Most elements of the story are established swiftlv. but the tensions between these two are spelt out with unnecessary emphasis. TWO 6am Open Learning: Australian Studies Images Of Australia. S.

6.30 ATVlNews. R. 7.01st Edition. News. 7.30 Open Learning: Spanish Destinos.

8.0 Statistics Against All Odds. S. 8.30 Children's Programs. 12.0 The World at Noon. 12.30pm Lateline.

R. I. 0 National Press Club Luncheon, With sports commentator Max Walker. R. 2.0 Children's Programs.

5.0 The Afternoon Show, inc 5.02 Captain Planet And The Planeteers. 5.30 Press Gang. British drama. R. 6.0 The Goodies.

G. 6.30 TVTV. TV news, reviews. 7.0 News, Sport, Weather. 7.30 The 7.30 Report 8.0 Quantum.

Science and technology series. 8.28 New (also at 9.28). 8.30 World Series Debating: That Football la Stupid. With Wendy Harmer, Edmond Capon and Lex Marinos for the affirmative. They are opposed by Andrew Denton, H.G.

Nelson and Laurie Lawrence. 9.45 Attitude: Sexual Etiquette in the '90s. 10.30 Lateline. With Kerry O'Brien, inc news (S) if II. 05 Cardiff Singer Of The World.

12.0 Freddie And Max. PG. 12.30am ATVI New. 1.0 Minder. PG, S.

2.0 Adventure Of Rocky And Bullwinkle. G. 2.30 Film: A Cuckoo In The Nest 1933 comedy starring Ralph Lynn. G. 4.0 1 Love Lucy.

G. 4.30 Doctor Who. G. 5.0 Open Learning: Australian Studies. 5.30 Statistics.

S. SEVEN 6am 6.30 Connection. Place. Infotainment Mangos 10.30 AM. News 12.0 Film: Be.

1983 Brooks PG. 2.30pm drama 3.30 My 4.0 Disney 4.30 Now 5.0 Family 5.30 6.0 News, 6.30 Real with 7.0 Home can't generous 7.30 Hey comedy as Miss comes 8.0 comedy Peter Roberts flat is Annie 8.30 Com Marshall 10.30 by 11.30 series M. 12.30am 2.30 Film: Wolves. starring and 4.15 5.30 Son Australian erosity of timbre and phrasing, but otherwise were unremarkable representatives of the composer's talent. Shostakovich's quartet No.

in flat is also a telling piece of undoubted interest for its constructional details and It Is grounded In composer's unmistakable voice; depression, aggressiveness, self-mockery and anguish oscillate a predictable gallimaufry. The Brodsky players' reading was hard fault, despite what struck me as undue weight given to the two low-, parts. The final work, Ravel's major quartet, gave the Brodskys a relatively easy finale. They handled fluid, urbane work with few of stress, negotiating the flashes of demanding virtuosity aplomb. The reading did not succeed in blending the four movements' segments into unified constructs, but very few groups achieve this.

Diary will reappear THIS well-known British string quartet opened their Sunday afternoon recital in a novel manner by walking on stage while playing a Stravinsky fragment, then moving to a moto perpetuo bagatelle by the group's first violin, Michael Thomas, called 'Harold in Islington' a touch twee, but it served as a reassurance that the group was capable of humor, something that might have been doubted, given the rest of the music played. The scheduled program began with George Crumb's 'Black Angels' for electric string quartet, which is a fairly all-embracing compendium of compositional devices current In the '60s. The work was given with obvious commitment and familiarity, although the final impression was of a collage of effects, melancholy and strident in its emotional language, more interesting to watch than to hear. Schubert's minor quartet followed. Apart from cellist Jacqueline Thomas, the Brodsky Quartet Theatre Desire Lines TheatreWorks, St Kilda LEONARD RADIC close friends, first in the bloom of youth and healthy masculinity, then In a state of decline, and finally on their death-bed, shrunken, comatose, their bodies covered with sarcomas.

This is the reality of AIDS that it Is a killer virus, and that its victims In the great majority of cases are homosexuals. How then do gays live with that reality: that sex for them can be, and often is, a slow-motion encounter with death? 'Sadness' faced up to that agonising reality, and made affecting theatre of H. 'Desire Lines' is more modest in its ambitions and less dramatically effective. Essentially a consciousness-raising exercise, it presents Its audience with eight characters six men and two women in a loose non-representational setting symbolised by a set of railings and by hanging plastic screens. The men are either diagnosed AIDS sufferers or HIV-positive, or like Carl (Robert Essex) they have a part Music Brodsky Quartet Concert Hall, Sunday and Monday CLIVE O'CONNELL stands while performing, which might have been one of the reasons behind the generally fast speeds taken throughout this lengthy work, climaxing In a vehemently articulated and rapid presto that left little room for acceleration in the prestissimo coda.

The following evening, the quartet played works by Bridge, Shostakovich and Ravel. The quartet played with just as much zeal and, although their performances were clean and fastidiously prepared, there was not much to generate whole-hearted enthusiasm. "The Three Idylls' by Frank Bridge are craftsmanly, generously lucid in their Intermeshing of lines. They provided a clear exhibition of the Brodsky players' gen NINE 6am Bill Cosby' You Bet Your Life. G.

6.30 ITN World News. G. 6.55 Business Today. G. 7.0 Today.

G. 9.0 Here's Humphrey. P. 9.30 Emie And Denise. G.

10.30 News. 11.0 What' Cooking. G. 11.30 Entertainment Tonight PG. 12.00 Ray Martin At Midday.

Infotainment. PG. 1.30pm Day Of Our Lives. PG. 2.30 The Young And The Restless.

PG. 3.30 Supermarket Sweep. G. 4.0 Parker Lewis Can't Lose. G.

4.30 Wonder Worldl C. 5.0 Paradise Beach. S. 5.30 The Cosby Show. G.

6.0 News, Sport, Weather. 6.30 A Current Affair. 7.0 Sale Of The Century. With Glenn Ridge. S.

7.29 Keno. 7.30 Our House. Series dealing with all aspects of home-making. G. 8.0 Money.

Series dealing with personal finance. G. 8.30 Film: The Fed. 1993 Australian drama starring Robert Taylor and Sigrid Thornton. The Australian Federal Police set out to crack an international drug ring Involving some of Australia's most senior public figures.

S. it 10.35 Nlghtllne. News. G. 11.05 Street Justice.

US drama series. M. 12.05am Entertainment Tonight PG. 12.35 Photoplay. G.

1.05 Film: Oklahoma Crude. 1973 adventure starring Faye Dunaway and George C. Scott. PG. 3.10 Film: Young Winston.

1972 drama starring Simon Ward and Anne Bancroft. PG. 5.30 The Sullivan. G. the In to er this signs with can Arts If your financier doesn't recognise your sales growth as an asset, you need a new financier.

SBS m. Aerobics Oz Style. G. Agra' Cartoon G. 9.0 The Book P.

9.30 At Home. with John and Sharon Dale. PG. News. 11.0 Eleven program.

To Be Or Not To comedy starring Mel and Anne Bancroft. Perry Mason. US series. PG. Three Son.

G. Adventures. G. You See It C. Feud.

G. Wheel of Fortune. G. Sport Weather. Life.

Public affairs Stan Grant. And Away. Shane explain Kevin's behavior. S. Dad.

I Australian series. Sam's reign Lemon Tree Mall to an end. G. Newlyweds. Australian series.

Allle and move Into the house while their being painted. With Jones. PG. Predictions, Premonition And Dream True. Host Bryan explores psychic phenomena.

PG. Tonight Live. Hosted Steve Vizard. M. Paradise.

US western with Sigrid Thornton. NBC Today Show. The Company Of 1984 fantasy Angela Lansbury David Warner. M. ir Shaggy Chimp.

G. And Daughter. drama. G. TEN 6am Sports Tonight R.

6.30 Neighbours. G. 7.0 Bionic Six. G. 7.30 Transformers Generation 2.

G. 8.0 Speedracer. G. 8.30 Mulligrubs. P.

9.0 Good Morning Australia. G. 11.0 Sally Jessy Raphael. I Fell In Love With Sally's Guest. PG.

12.0 Santa Barbara. PG. 1pm The Bold And The Beautiful. PG. 1.30 Donahue.

US chat show: Phil Faces Christian Crusaders Who Hate Donahue. PG. 2.30 The Oprah Winfrey Show. Why Am I So Jealous? PG. 3.30 Live It Up.

PG. 4.0 Lassie. G. 4.30 Totally Wild. C.

5.0 News, Sport, Weather. 6.0 The Simpsons. G. 6.30 Neighbours. Word spreads about the free food at the coffee shop.

S. 7.0 Hinch. Current affairs. 7.30 Class Of 96. US drama series about a group of college freshmen.

Antonio Is discouraged from tackling a challenging academic workload. PG. 8.30 Hard Copy. Public affairs with Gordon Elliott. 9.30 Picket Fence.

US comedy-drama series. Max and Kenny arrest a physician after Howard spots him moving a dead body into his house. With Tom Skerrltt. M. 10.30 New.

11.0 Sport Tonight 11.30 Let The Blood Run Free. Comedy. PG. 12.0 Front Row. Religion.

G. 1am TroDical Heat. PG. 2.0 Film: Madonna Of The Seven Moon. 1946 drama starring Phyllis Calvert.

4.0 Prisoner. M. 5.0 War And Remembrance. US drama series. M.

Here's how AGC can help. We can turn your debtors' invoices into cash within 48 hours. We can tailor funding to your needs by lending against the value of stock and debtors. Phone AGC now about funding your growth. BUSINESS FINANCE HOTLINE 008 011 023 Foot and mouth: Lex Marinos argues that football is stupid in 'World Series Debating' (Channel 2.

8.30pm). 7am WorldWatch, inc 7.01 The Journal. 7.30 Dateline. R. 8.0 Le Journal.

8.30 Chinese New. 9.0 Novosti. 9.30 Business Report. 10.0 The MacNeilLehrer Newshour. it 11.0 Da Journal.

11.30 Weatherwatch and Music. 4.15pm TV Ed. 4.45 English At Work. R. 5.15 Little Missy.

G. 5.50 FYI (in Polish). 6.0 World Sports. 6.30 World News. 7.0 Dateline.

7.30 The Movie Show. 8.0 Face The Press. With Peruvian writer and former presidential candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa. 8.30 Derrick. German detective series.

The development of a lucrative optical fibres system leads to murder. PG. 9.30 Film: Avanti Popolo. 1986 Israeli comedy about two Egyptian soldiers making their way home after the Six Day War. 11.0 The Noble Conflict.

11.50 The Betrothed. Italian drama series. M. 1.15am Close. A rise in sales usually coincides with a need for more working capital.

Yet many financiers are reluctant to provide additional funding without more bricks and mortar security. Which means just at the very time you need their support, you are held back. At AGC we have a progressive approach. We specialise in financing expanding companies and your past performance and future prospects are our major consideration. We don't usually require property security.

It's Australian Worth considering Excellent Not to be missed.