Archive | February, 2024

Grain in the Blood

29 Feb

Sacrifice is no longer fashionable. Our post-Christian society rejects it. To us, it has the whiff of exploitation, the distasteful scent of individuality burnt as an offering to duty, a duty perceived as limiting, dehumanising, imposed.

But sacrifice has been valorised by cultures long before the Christian behemoth.

Rob Drummond’s superb play Grain in the Blood explores the concept of sacrifice. Initially, it does this via a modern farming family’s connection with the tradition of the Grain Mother. This ancient pastoral deity requires a sacrifice to ensure the wellbeing of the community. Weave a Grain Dolly, fill its stomach with blood, leave it in the fields. The Mother is appeased …. and so all remains right with the world. (Jam can substitute for blood, if you’re a squeamish modern snowflake.)

The family continues the tradition in the way you might leave out a carrot for Santa’s reindeer; enjoying the ritual, but never believing in it. Or, at least, that’s what they thought they were doing, until one terrible night twelve years ago….

This tight 80 minute play creates suspense by making us wait for answers. What happened on that fateful night? And what exactly is wrong now with twelve year old Autumn? And how is it that her recently returned father has the potential to save her?

This saving has to do with (you guessed it) sacrifice, but not the magical kind exemplified by the Grain Doll ritual. Instead it’s sacrifice as our small, disenchanted world envisions it: a utilitarian* ethic that posits pointy questions, ones like Would you sacrifice one bad man to save one good one? What if it were ten bad men? Would you sacrifice one stranger to save one person you love? These questions are hypothetical, of course. Until they’re not.

Despite its conceit of withholding information, the play is predominantly presented in a naturalistic style. I say despite, because by making us wait for answers, we’re constantly pulled out of the immediacy of the moment, constantly invited to ask things like Why did she say that? What dark event is she referring to? It’s not an uncommon trick in modern theatre, though it’s a difficult one to pull off, and one that puts pressure on the actors to play the moment while trusting the whole.

Drummond’s rich and clever script most definitely pulls it off, and guided by director Victor Kalka, the cast rise to the challenge. Siobhan Lawless powerfully plays the matriarch driven by a steely determination. Ciarán O’Riordan as the returning father offers a poignant portrait of a man buckling under the weight of his past. Genevieve Muratore as Violet delivers a fascinating balance between the warmth of flirtation and the chill of vengeance. Nick Curnow as Bert, an outsider to this clan, an official on business, movingly portrays the dislocation experienced when procedure offers no guide to the wilderness that is reality. And Kim Clifton gives a wonderful performance as twelve year old Autumn, infusing the play’s few moments of theatrical monologue with a marvellous transcendence, only to return to the naturalistic scenes an angry teenager, bewildered by pain and breaking out, because she can, because it’s time to do so, because it can’t matter anymore. Her swearing is hilarious, but in her profanity is also deep pathos.

This brilliant production asks us to think about sacrifice, its nature, its value. And in a most aesthetically provocative manner, it does this through sacrifice – the ancient type. By initially sacrificing full disclosure, by asking us to go without answers, magic happens on stage.

Paul Gilchrist

Grain in the Blood by Rob Drummond

at KXT on Broadway until March 9

www.kingsxtheatre.com/

Image by Clare Hawley

*I acknowledge that my use of this adjective is not technically correct. I’m simply using it to denote any system that reduces ethics to a tallying of figures.

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Everything is Sh*t

28 Feb

I have to admit, I was excited about this show because of its title. After all, who doesn’t like a guessing game?

Taking my seat in the theatre, I entertained the possibilities. Could the mystery phrase be Everything is Shut, and we were about to be treated to a story of arriving in a small country town on a Sunday afternoon?

Or perhaps the secret phrase was Everything is Shot, and in store for us tonight was a re-creation of a wrap party, that wild celebration that marks the finalisation of filming, when it’s all in the can?

Lost in anticipation as I was, you can imagine my utter shock when I learned that the missing word was Shit!

Everything is Shit!!!

Some people might be comfortable with scatological language, and perhaps even enjoy it (like pigs in shit, as the saying goes.) But even the faecally tolerant might object to the gross generalisation in the title.

After all, everything is not shit.

As an indisputable piece of evidence, I offer this show.

It’s decidedly not shit.

This rock cabaret is terrific.

Writer and performer Andy Freeborn has a glorious stage presence. Freeborn’s songs are amusing and poignant. The band is magnificent. Outrageous metaphor warning: the band is a boa constrictor – steel-tight but very much alive. It’s an absolute delight to hear Freeborn on the keyboards jam with this team, making magic before our ears. I especially enjoyed Austin Hal on drums and Alec Steedman on violin, as they respond to Freeborn’s choices with lightning speed, or when they send down a few electrifying bolts of their own. (Snakes, and now lightning; my figurative language is clearly struggling to capture the energy on stage.) Creating a wonderful texture, Ren McMeiken takes lead vocals for a few of Freeborn’s songs, and displays a voice that’s pure gold. (Reptiles, climatic events and now metallurgy.)     

So, back to that title. It refers to the trauma that Freeborn’s family suffered because of their parent’s marriage breakdown.

The show is a sharing.

I’ve mention before the preponderance of sharings currently on our stages. Perhaps this genre has always overlapped with the genre of cabaret.

I’m not a huge fan of either genre. As a lover of language, cabaret often doesn’t do it for me. Despite the potential beauty of the lyrics, they’re often so difficult to catch on first hearing. And the banter between songs leaves me cold. (If Life is a cabaret, it’s because so much of it is either incomprehensible or superficial.) And I don’t usually warm to sharings because I chose to attend a theatre not a support group.  

As a sharing, this work values honesty and openness. Freeborn appears utterly committed to honesty; for example, they admit their banter is entirely unscripted, a totally unnecessary confession. At other times they appear more reticent, leaving us to guess at their experiences. I have no problem with this; a catalogue of traumatic events is rarely entertaining. And, anyway, in the titular song, Freeborn sings Everything is Shit, but that’s Ok. They’ve found a way out of the darkness.

Freeborn calls the show a healing through song. I’m glad it is, for the artist. For us, the show’s simply an absolutely joyous paean to resilience and transformation.

Veronica Kaye

Everything is Sh*t by Andy Freeborn

At Old Fitzroy Theatre until March 1

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/

Image by HollyMae Steane Price

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Kalat Claimed

25 Feb

This is an absolutely terrific play. Written in 1982 by Iranian playwright Bahram Beyzai, it’s grand storytelling at its best.

It’s thrilling to see such a work on the Australian stage. It’s also a delight to have it performed entirely in the original Farsi, with English surtitles. Director Hamed Janali deserves hearty congratulations.

Set in ancient Iran, Kalat Claimed presents the rivalry between two great warriors, Tuqai Khan and Tuy Khan.

In the initial moments, each of the warriors assert that they alone have slain the dead man who now lies between them. The play’s uncompromising interrogation of martial values is perfectly introduced by this argument over a corpse.

Later, to lay claim to the city of Kalat, Tuqai Khan betrays the Machiavellian Tuy Khan in the most Machiavellian of ways. Then, before he is to be executed, Tuy Khan is dressed as a whore and paraded through the city. The male characters tell us that this is perhaps the greatest of disgraces.

But Beyzai has more to say about this myopic misogyny. In magnificent counterpoint to the warrior rivals is Ay Banu, wife of Tuy Khan, but seemingly desired by all. In order to build a force to reclaim Kalat, she exploits her sexual appeal. Her behaviour borrows from the whore’s repertoire. Is this, for her, a disgrace?

But still that’s not the end of Beyzai’s interrogation. Tuqai Khan struggles to defend the city because he’s a warrior of the desert. The symbolism is clear: the world he represents is not the civilized one. Though Ay Banu leads an army, she doesn’t glory in violence. And, in her final action of the drama, she imposes on her enemies not women’s dress, but what these warriors now perceive as truly the greatest of all disgraces.

Can you guess what that supposed disgrace is?

Even though this play is a classic of Iranian theatre, I feel the spoiler rule prevents me from saying more. But what Ay Banu imposes, or I should say, what she offers, is the most beautiful, most potent subversion of violent selfish egoism.

Janali’s cast do good work. Afshin Safari as Tuy Khan, Ghazal Ghazanfari as Ay Banu, and Janali himself as Tuqai Khan are especially engaging. Equally captivating is Mohamad Janfada. As Dinkiz, his persistent and fearless questioning of his warrior leader positions us to realise that though a better world will entail the rejection of certain values that are stereotypically masculine, individual men are more than capable of the moral maturity required.

The production is visually spectacular, thanks to a wonderful set and lighting design by Janali, and by his clever use of movement pieces to evoke both the fascination and terror of violence. Costume design by Atefeh Saniee, Vida Afshari, Mitra Amiri and Ghazanfari is excellent, suggesting an ancient world but with touches of modernity that keep in mind the play’s ongoing relevance.

And finally, the sound. At the theatre entrance, we were issued foam earplugs. Though fear inducing, the plugs proved unnecessary. Musicians Reza Jafari and Shervin Mirzeinali create an emotionally moving soundtrack. Drummers Sohrab Kolahdooz, Sara Panahi and Amirsalar Makhzani, onstage at all times, effectively build and maintain tension.  It’s all a fitting addition to a production that uses multiple theatrical elements to powerfully present a brilliant play.

Paul Gilchrist

Kalat Claimed by Bahram Beyzai

at Playhouse Theatre NIDA

until 25 Feb

premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=KALAT24

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Low Level Panic 

13 Feb

This is such a good production that I was bitterly disappointed when I finally realised it wasn’t new work. (Before I go to a show I don’t read the press release or indeed any of the marketing; I simply check the date on the invitation, and if I can go, I go.)   

Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 1988, but coming out of KXT on Sunday evening I didn’t know that. What I did know was that I’d just seen an extraordinary piece of theatre.

Set in the bathroom of a share house, it presents three women in their early twenties. Suiting the setting, the focus is on body image and sexuality. But most excitingly, it’s about thoughts and their awkward relation to reality.

The play is so powerful, so poignant, because it captures perfectly the way young adults have to navigate, for the first time, the tension between their rich, burgeoning inner-lives and the frustrating, frightening outside world.

Sometimes this tension is expressed in the frustration that reality doesn’t match our sexual fantasies. But as Jo says, played with gleeful and totally relatable honesty by Charlotte De Wit, thank God no one knows your thoughts.

Sometimes this tension is expressed in the terrifying awareness that you have no influence over other people’s thoughts, and that it’s not only your thoughts but theirs that create the world in which you must live. This is explored brilliantly by Marigold Pazar in the role of Mary.

Sometimes this tension is expressed in the desire to control, and Megan Kennedy gives a hilarious performance as uptight Celia.

Director Maike Strichow achieves a wonderfully thrilling texture through the juxtaposition of performance styles, giving Kennedy permission to create a gloriously larger-than-life Celia and allowing Pazar and De Wit to present a simple, raw truthfulness.

I recognise these women. Considering the age of the play, you could say I grew up with them. But the fact that HER Productions has been drawn back to this play highlights its enormous and ongoing relevance.

McIntyre writes absolutely superb dialogue. And one of its splendours is that its fad-free. Too often contemporary plays about these type of issues slip into theoretical language, and I’ll be direct: I don’t think that sort of language belongs in theatre. Don’t just throw around theoretical terms like the male gaze or the patriarchy. Show me how they operate. Leave lazy abstract words to reviewers, and do what the artform does best: show Life as it’s actually lived. Show me the women who suffer, and show me their extraordinary vitality, for in these beating hearts, strong and true, we’re offered a vision of a better world and how it will come.  

And that’s what this magnificent production of this beautiful play does.

Paul Gilchrist

Low Level Panic by Clare McIntyre

At KXT on Broadway until 17 Feb

kingsxcrosstheatre.com

Image by Georgia Jane Griffiths

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Homos, or Everyone in America

12 Feb

I’d be terrified to direct this one. It runs 105 minutes straight through. It’s made up of an enormous number of rather short scenes. The majority of these scenes are played solely by the same two actors. The scenes are not in chronological order. They’re set in a small number of locations (which might appear to make things easier, but actually robs you of the opportunity for variety). And it being New York 2016, it’s all played in accent. Oh, and there’s sizable chunks of overlapping dialogue. It’s a director and performer’s nightmare.

Director Alex Kendall Robson and his cast are to be congratulated for making it work, creating an engaging evening of theatre.

Homos, or Everyone in America by Jordan Seavey presents the relationship between a “Writer” and an “Academic” over a handful of years. But by referencing events both from their childhood and before, and events contemporary to the writing of the play, their relationship evokes the gay male experience in America over the last fifty years.

Except for an absolutely show stealing scene in which Sonya Kerr creates both humour and pathos as a sale assistant at Lush, the play revolves entirely around the discussions between the two gay male lovers, and with their gay male single friend, Dan. Reuben Solomon as “The Writer” and Eddie O’Leary as “The Academic” are on stage for an extraordinary amount of time and they’re gloriously vibrant. With a performance that effectively suggests both the desire for inclusion and the awareness of exclusion, and as such is less vocally intense, Axel Berecry’s Dan gives the production a pleasing texture.

The lovers either flirt or bicker. You might think that a depressing image of romance. But is it actually possible to present the reality of romance on stage? Can romance, in itself, in its odd smallness, in its reduction of the wide world to one person, be the stuff of drama? We like to say Love is blind, but it’s actually just myopic. Romcoms employ humour because without the laughs, and the predictable beauty of the youthful characters, no one would be interested.

Perhaps we avoid a realistic portrayal of romance in theatre because, understandably, the audience thinks they already know enough about it. It is, after all, a rather garden variety human experience. When some Shakespearean character says nonsense like “The sun doth rule the heavens”, the rest of the cast don’t point flaming torches at the stage in the hope of suggesting something about the nature of sunshine. The audience knows what it is – and so the play gets on with its real business.

So what is actually happening when we purport to put romance on stage? What is the real business? Plays that represent gay romances tend to do so for two reasons.

Firstly, they remind us that they’re an everyday occurrence. And, yes, in a heteronormative society, that’s still desperately needed.

Secondly, they present the gay political experience. (Any decent play about heterosexual romance is also about politics. Name one well known play that’s actually about the romance itself, the personal experience of the lovers? To clarify, let me shift focus to another artform. All those nineteenth century novels ending with Dear Reader, I married him are bildungsromans, stories of young people growing up and either accepting their role in society or actively challenging it. They’re about politics.)

In this play, politics are particularly highlighted because that’s what the lovers bicker about. They fight about whether closet gays should be outed, about the gendering of language, about intersectionality and objectification, about the perpetuation of stereotypes, about homophobic violence, about the gay community. (What exactly is a community? There’s an entire play just in that. And like all good plays, it wouldn’t give an answer, only elucidate how complex is the issue.)

It’s a modern day cliché that the personal is the political, and the phrase’s popularity can be partly attributed to its nebulous nature, to the ambiguity of its terms. Many people use the phrase to express nothing more than their refusal to be alienated from sources of power: I will not be told that my actions are without influence. Other people use it to police the lives of those closest to them: You will behave this way because your actions have an impact you can’t see (though I can.)

Of course, the phrase the personal is the political could be simply read as what rhetorically it is: a paradox constructed from the juxtaposition of opposites. The personal is what we can do alone. The political is what we can do together. Viewed this way, every relationship belongs in the political sphere, and the much quoted phrase is, in effect, the denial of the very existence of the personal sphere.

This denial serves theatre well. As an artistic form, it’s never been particularly good at representing the personal sphere of life. That’s why it naturally privileges the presentation of individuals in their dealings with other individuals. It struggles to show us the inner world.

Perhaps that’s why Homos, or Everyone in America is fascinating. It’s very lack of ambition, its focus on a single romantic relationship, might be its strength. Theatre might glory in representing relationships, but what if romance is the most personal of relationships? Might we be getting somewhere new?

Or perhaps, as a cynic might say, romance is actually the least personal of relationships. It’s just blind biology that drives us together, rather indiscriminately, and the most positive thing we can say is that desire unconsciously creates one of the great glues that holds together …. community. Ah, that word again.

Homos, or Everyone in America is a beautiful acknowledgement of the experience of romance, and a teasing invitation to thought.

Paul Gilchrist

Homos, or Everyone in America by Jordan Seavey

At New Theatre until 9 March

newtheatre.org.au

Image by Chris Lundie

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Tiny Beautiful Things

6 Feb

This wonderful piece brims with wisdom. There are deeply moving exhortations to forgiveness, acceptance, love and personal empowerment. (I’m uncomfortable with the last member of that list; I’ll get back to it.)

Tiny Beautiful Things is an adaption by Nia Vardalos of a book by Cheryl Strayed. Strayed wrote an advice column, anonymously fielding questions from those who anonymously asked them.

The piece attempts no standard narrative. It simply consists of three actors (Stephen Geronimos, Nic Prior and Angela Nica Sullen) presenting the letters sent to the column and Strayed (Mandy McElhinney) giving her answers. She does this as she tidies her house late at night.

This tidying of the house is a beautiful touch; having problems and seeking solutions is not some sort of aberration – it’s the very stuff of everyday Life.  There’s no need to go to the mountain top for enlightenment. Tiny beautiful things are all around us. As the Zen koan says: Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Director Lee Lewis elicits magnificent performances from the cast. Playing multiple characters, Geronimos, Prior and Nica Sullen capture brilliantly the bewilderment of uncertainty, the agony of its opposite, and the delight of being heard. McElhinney plays Strayed with an absolutely charming combination of good sense and humour, vulnerability and strength.

As her pseudonym, Sugar, Strayed fields questions about friendship, marriage, sex, grief…. anything and everything, and answers them with heartwarming anecdotes and electrifying figurative language. She claims no expertise, except what she’s learnt from her own mistakes and from the love of her mother.

Here’s an abbreviated example of the sort of thing we get (but I emphasise, this one I made up myself):

Dear Sugar, I’ve been happily married to a wonderful man for ten years but now etc …. Signed Confused.

Dear Confused, It’s no wonder you’re confused. It’s easy for us to imagine that things will stay as they have been, especially when they’ve been so good. When I was first married etc… Signed Sugar.

This question/answer structure may not seem like the material of theatre, but I was utterly mesmerised for the entire 95 minutes.

And, of course, despite its oddness, its uniqueness, Tiny Beautiful Things does what all good theatre does. Theatre artists always present a vision of Life, and we as the audience are in the business of deciding if that vision can help us in some way. Perhaps the show is simply good fun, and so it reminds us we can let go of the worries of the day. Perhaps the show represents an aspect of our experience we feel has been previously unacknowledged, and so it reminds us we’re not alone. Perhaps the show models behaviour to which we aspire, and so we leave the theatre determined to be more kind or more courageous. Regardless of the vision of Life offered, we respond to it as a type of advice.

Let me come back to personal empowerment, that term I stumbled over initially. Strayed never uses the term. (Perhaps, like me, she feels it has an unpleasant odour, something suggestive of real estate agents beating their chests as they gee themselves up for the next big sale.) But both Strayed and the play explore something important here.

It’s worth noting that Tiny Beautiful Things never shows us whether the advice Strayed offers is any good. She’s clearly loved by her readers, but we don’t know if any individual who asks for advice ever acts on it, or if they do, whether it makes any positive impact on their lives. It’s we, the audience, who must judge if what Strayed says is of any value.

It’s a funny phenomenon, advice. In Australia, it’s unfashionable. These days, if we’re bothered at all, we’re more likely to tell someone exactly what they should do, rather than offer them a suggestion. But this show, this beautiful thing, reminds us that it’s always a suggestion, that it’s you as an individual who always has agency. It is you who chooses to ask for advice, you who chooses to see its value, you who chooses to act on it, or not. You. And that’s a good thing.    

Asking for advice is not a relinquishing of responsibility, and giving advice is not a form of coercion. The giving and taking of advice is an acceptance that all of us are neck deep in this mysterious muddle called Life.

This show is a gloriously humane reminder, that faced with Life’s challenges, no one has the answers, but we do have each other. And one thing we do for each other – in conversation, in theatre – is make real the magic of choice.  

Paul Gilchrist

Tiny Beautiful Things by Nia Vardalos (adapted from a book by Cheryl Strayed, co-conceived by Marshall Heyman, Thomas Kail and Nia Vardalos)

At Belvoir until 2 March

belvoir.com.au

Image by Brett Boardman

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Mad for You

4 Feb

Old age is not for sissies. This crack, with its whip sting, is usually attributed to Bette Davis.

Whatever the case, ageing ain’t going to be easy. And, in our secular world, ageing is an illness from which no one recovers.

Mad for You, written and directed by David Allen, presents the challenges faced by an ageing Janet (Alice Livingstone) as she loses her mental abilities. It also presents the challenges experienced by her family. Her husband, Brian (Andrew James) has promised to never put Janet in care, but her daughter (Emma Louise) sees little other option.

For the most part, Allen employs an almost TV style realism, but this realism is textured by flashbacks to better times, when Janet had all her faculties, and by brief scenes in which we witness her delusion that she’s still a working performer. Janet’s former career facilitates references to famous dramatic characters who’ve suffered madness, like Lear and Ophelia. (There’s also an odd scene in which Brian breaks the fourth wall and unfavourably compares Australia’s aged health care system to that of Holland or Denmark, I don’t remember which.)

In some ways, Allen presents us a scenario, rather than a story. Janet’s dilemma can have no satisfying solution. All roads ultimately lead to the same destination. Yes, the choice of route is debated, but the play doesn’t take us far down either dismal track.

Instead, we get a deeply moving portrait of suffering. Livingstone gives an extraordinary performance, powerfully juxtaposing the terror and bewilderment of dementia with poignant reminders of the vivacious, intelligent woman Janet once was. It’s the storm’s dark chaos, made all the more terrible by being broken by the fitful lucidity of lightning.

It’s great to see new Australian work in a wonderful little venue like this.

Paul Gilchrist

Mad for You by David Allen

Produced by ADHOC Theatre

at Sydney Acting Studio to 11 Feb

www.sydneyactingstudio.com/in-production

Image by Nick Walker

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Alone it Stands

1 Feb

Claim a sportsperson has made History and you’re probably hoping to forget the horrors of which History usually consists.

In 1978, the Irish provincial team of Munster played the touring All Blacks. For many people, it’s a game to forever remember.   

For those ignorant of rugby, this might seem a little odd. But to appreciate this as a mouse-that-roared story you need to be aware, that on football pitches around the globe and for some time, little New Zealand had themselves been displaying decidedly un-rodentlike behaviour.     

You might also think it sounds a little sentimental. And when one of the characters lists by name each of the Munster men who played on that famous day, I couldn’t help recollect Yeats’ roll call in “Easter, 1916” – though the events that poet memorialises are far more terrible.

Perhaps Alone it Stands is a slight story. Perhaps.

It’s certainly a terrific evening’s entertainment. Under the expert and endlessly inventive direction of Janine Watson, we’re treated to absolutely brilliant comic performances.

All six cast members play both Irish and Kiwi characters, and one of the piece’s many charms is the juxtaposition of accents. The skill with which this is presented is a tribute to dialect coach Linda Nicholls-Gidley.

The physical performances are also marvellous, and credit should go to the actors and Watson, but also to the support team of fight director Tim Dashwood and intimacy coordinator Chloë Dallimore.

The program suggests the cast play sixty roles in all. To give a taste of this amazing feast of physicality, let me pick out a few faves.

Alex King as All Black Stu Wilson magnificently embodies the extraordinary confidence and agility of a world class athlete, and she also displays true comic genius as Sinbad (and, no, Wikipedia won’t reveal who that is. Go see yourself!) Tristan Black as the Kiwi manager hilariously encapsulates the absurdly confrontational hypermasculinity of the middle-aged sporting official. Briallen Clarke is glorious in the range suggested by the portrayals of a tense expectant mother to that of perfectly assured All Black Gary Knight. Skyler Ellis presents a beautiful contrast with his suave BBC commentator and his bewildered everyman Munster fan.  Anthony Taufa’s sheepish soon-to-be father, struggling to balance new responsibilities with his passion for the game, is wonderful, as is Ray Chong Nee’s young mischief-making urchin, a boy with more on his mind than football.

And these last examples hint at the glory of the piece. Yes, it’s about a football game. And, yes, a dramatist inventing the whole thing from scratch would most likely have chosen a different scoreline.

But, apart from providing an opportunity for talented comedians to show off their stuff, what playwright John Breen does so well is to create a truly Bruegelesque world.

Auden wrote in his famous commentary on Bruegel “About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood….”

It’s this Master status that Breen achieves, not by what he says about suffering, but by what he says about joy. It need not be grand or otherworldly. Rather it hides, amongst all the business of Life, waiting in surprise.  

Paul Gilchrist

Alone it Stands by John Breen

at Ensemble until 2 March

ensemble.com.au

Image by Prudence Upton

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