TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Richard talks with Vanessa Pigrum about an edgy new season of work being launched at the Arts Centre.

As anyone with an interest in the arts has known for several years, the most exciting new theatre in Melbourne today is being made by small independent companies such as Stuck Pigs Squealing and Theatre In Decay; and is being staged in the most unlikely venues, from dark cellars to parked cars. The big companies such as the MTC, and the established venues, have been left behind.

Now the Arts Centre, long considered the home of the safe and the comfortable, is gambling that its traditional audience might also want a taste of such edgy new fair. Following the success of a short experimental season as part of last year’s Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Arts Centre recently launched TILT, a new program curated by Artistic Director Vanessa Pigrum.

“We’re setting up a welcoming and safe environment in which to see edgy work,” Pigrum says of the project, which will allow artists the luxury of re-staging existing work with access to the kind of resources that fringe theatre can usually only dream of.

TILT will also present entirely new work never before seen by Melbourne audiences, following a call for expressions of interest in a creative development program that resulted in over 100 applications.

Given that Arts Centre audiences have previously lived off a diet of Shakespeare and David Williamson, Pigrum (a former Artistic Director of the Melbourne Fringe Festival) seems remarkably confident that its patrons are ready for a program of this nature.

“I’ve got great faith that a large proportion of the existing Arts Centre audience do have a sense of adventure, and will come along and check TILT out,” she laughs. “At this moment admittedly I understand independent artists more. The Arts Centre has many and varied audience groupings, and it will take a little while for me to get to know which of those existing audiences are going to come across to TILT. I’ll really only know that after the first season has finished.”

That season, which opens at the Arts Centre’s Fairfax Studio on April 19, features two works: Moira Finucane’s Gotharama, and Angus Cerini’s Saving Henry (version 5). Neither production is exactly comfortable theatre, with Gotharama a macabre cabaret, and Saving Henry an exploration of the impact of abuse on a young boy.

“Gotharama is kind of about the monstrous feminine, and Saving Henry is more about the vulnerable male,’ Pigrum explains.

Both productions are written and staged by their performers, and are, in essence, solo shows, a deliberate programming choice on Pigrum’s behalf.

“This first TILT season is very much about the creator-performer, celebrating the performer who writes their own work rather than the focus being on performing known texts, or on larger ensembles. Luckily both Moira and Angus were available and could do it, as they’re absolutely my ideal combination.”

Gotharama: 19 April - 12 May.
Saving Henry (version 5): 21 April - 14 May.
Both at the Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio. Bookings through Ticketmaster on 1300 136 166.

This article originally appeared in MCV #273.