Dead or dormant?

Richard Watts explores the state of Melbourne's independent theatre scene

A few years ago, things suddenly started happening in Melbourne’s previously-moribund theatre scene.

A rash of new independent companies formed – including Theatre in Decay (established in 2000), The Eleventh Hour (2001), Stuck Pigs Squealing (2001), and Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre (2002) – presenting exciting new work and rapidly winning both critical and popular acclaim. New productions were being staged in inventive locations – cramped basements beneath inner city homes, and in the front seats of parked cars – or in brand new venues, such as The Storeroom in North Fitzroy and Fitzroy’s The Eleventh Hour Theatre.

Today, however, The Storeroom stands empty; and many of the companies who were part of Melbourne theatre’s new wave, including Theatre @ Risk and Theatre in Decay, have either folded or are on indefinite hiatus.

What went wrong? And where are the new theatre-makers of today?

Michael Kantor, the Malthouse Theatre’s Artistic Director, concedes that Melbourne’s “vibrant theatre scene” has “rested on its laurels that were established about five years ago”.

“Everyone’s been trying to, as much as they can, make more opportunities for those [independent] artists; but fundamentally it’s hit a bit of…” Kantor trails off, sighing.

“It either needs new people to come in now, into the independent scene; or it needs, I don’t know. It needs a kick, doesn’t it?”

Kantor’s programming approach has seen some of the best independent productions of recent years re-staged in the Malthouse’s Tower Theatre; an approach echoed by The Arts Centre, where the Full Tilt program was established in 2006 in order to support independent theatre artists and expose their work to a wider audience.

Vanessa Pigrum, who manages Full Tilt, points out that the so-called “explosion” in Melbourne’s independent theatre sector a few years ago was a response to events occurring a decade earlier.

“That explosion … in many ways was a reaction going back to the demise of Anthill, Woolly Jumpers, all those mid-level, medium-sized companies back in the early 90s,” she explains. “There was this vacuum of mid-range companies for young graduates to get their apprenticeships in, so my experience was that many of the young graduates coming out of the VCA, or young theatre-makers around the mid to late 90s went, ‘Ok, there are no companies to aspire to work with, so we’ll create our own’.”

It was this ‘do it yourself’ ethic which fuelled the much-vaunted creativity of Melbourne’s independent theatre scene over the last few years, but as Pigrum points out, such independence comes at a cost.

“When you talk about Theatre @ Risk and Theatre in Decay and Stuck Pigs changing, or going quiet, a lot of that has to do with the personal choices of the individuals involved, the driving forces behind the companies,” she says.

“By this stage, six to ten years down the track, people are in their mid-to-late 30s; they have different priorities and different needs in terms of finances and security. Perhaps for once they want to actually get paid for the work that they do. So then what happens to the company that’s potentially operating in name only, because the initial driving forces behind it have moved on to other pursuits?”

What happens, of course, is that such companies close down or change tack, as do the people running them.

Writer and director Chris Kohn is best known for his work with the independent company Stuck Pigs Squealing, including the acclaimed productions The Black Swan of Trespass and The Eisteddfod. Today he works as the Artistic Director of the well-established and government funded Arena Theatre Company.

“I certainly wouldn’t say that there’s more opportunity now in Melbourne compared to when I was … starting up a company and trying to make some independent work,” Kohn tells CANVAS.

But it wasn’t just opportunity that fuelled that creative boom, Kohn believes. There were other factors at play.

“Probably also around the same time there was a bit of a boom in making work in unusual spaces, in houses and shopfronts, as with Uncle Semolina and Friends and their shopfront, and Stuck Pigs with the basement we had; and our first shows in Melbourne were at Bar Open and Pony Bar.”

While such creativity is still evident in Melbourne today, the nature of making theatre has changed, Vanessa Pigrum believes.

“What I have noticed – and you’re right, I don’t see a lot of new independent companies coming through in that [early noughties] model, but what’s happening is this explosion of work that is in a different, shorter, more transportable form; that sits within a club setting, or an installation setting…

“It’s like there’s a lot of activity on the independent performance scene, rather than independent theatre; independent performance is flourishing, but the form is changing, to more bite-sized, free or short shows that you do six times in one night. It appears to be the generation that’s in their mid-20s that are doing that, so I’m really curious to know, in a way, what happens to that work now?”

Next issue: the future of independent theatre in Melbourne.

This article first appeared in issue #03 of CANVAS magazine.