The one sector in Australia not getting back to business as usual, and with no hint of imminent resuscitation, continues to be the performing arts.
Many museums and galleries are reopening from June, but the music and theatre worlds have no idea on just how many more months they will be completely shuttered.
Recognising the need to be visible, some of the major theatre companies like Belvoir and the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) are offering a flurry of livestreaming events this weekend.
But it was the tiny and more nimble local company Redline Productions which was first to do a full live play-reading back in early April — featuring no less than Alex Baldwin from home in the US.
Darlinghurst Theatre came up with an innovative idea to provide personalised cabaret to 10 people in its theatre restaurant, and other smaller companies are informally discussing an alliance to further their cause.
Like top restaurants reluctant to sully themselves with takeaway at the outset of the pandemic, needs must.
The sector has rightly been screaming for more support from the start but it has mostly been in vain; in large part blamed on the lack of lobbying power compared with the likes of mining, fossil fuel, and sports.
It must be galling for the most frequented and beloved of all industries — the one to which most people turned to get them through the lockdown.
Perhaps the name “arts” is part of the problem, given the elitist connotations, and it should simply be called the entertainment industry — which in total has more customers than all the sports codes combined.
The lack of political sway is notable given the corporate heavyweights that have overtaken the boards of most major arts companies in recent years, ostensibly because of their great networking abilities.
But some like Opera Australia Chair David Mortimer are at the end of their long careers while others like STC Chair Ian Narev and Australia Ballet Chair Craig Dunn had theirs cut short by the Hayne Royal Commission.
Sydney’s independent Carriageworks precinct, which went into voluntary administration last month, had seen board bailouts even before the pandemic exacerbated the financial issues.
And let’s not forget the performance of former STC Chair David Gonski when George Brandis began the destruction of the sector in 2015 with the appropriately named “Catalyst” policy.
Gonski agreed not to publicly criticise the government, and even encouraged fellow arts companies to follow his damaging public silence.
That working-behind-the-scenes strategy, as they are now discovering, is often far less effective than using public figures to garner support. It’s not like the entertainment industry is short of high profile names to make its case.
You know, actual stars.
So where are the big international names leading the campaign to win over the public to then pressure the pollies?
What a shame Cate Blanchett is no longer artistic director of the STC. Who can forget how enamoured of her former PM Kevin Rudd was during the Australia 2020 Summit.
We are well aware that we don’t have an arts-loving Labor government in power, but surely it can’t be that hard to find some star power to hammer home the cause.
A Hemsworth is always popular (just ask Julie Bishop). Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman or Margot Robbie could be part of a campaign by those here who make world class content.
Sure, we have plenty of fine, well loved artists at home who are avidly mounting the case, but the sad fact is no one has the cut-through of a big Hollywood name.
The luvvies who criticise the PM for being a footy-loving bogan who will never understand their plight might wish they had someone who could get through to him as well as the general public.
We need a star who could possibly have any NRL credentials, who is equally at home at a footy game as on the big screen, who could push the case for his fellow actors and creatives…
What’s that bloke Russell Crowe doing at the moment?
It would be interesting to look at examples of countries which provide NOTHING in the way of financial support for the performing Yarts.
Do those places exist, and what sort of Yarts exist there under those conditions, in our times?
Back in the day is was Kings and Queens, very rich private patrons (AKA robber barons) and Popes (God’s tax collectors) who financed a large chunk of Western Art and Music….much of which we still revere today.
In Soviet times every Yartist was employed by the State (Guy Rundle would approve) – funnily we don’t seem to revere Soviet Art and architecture, and we only seem to know Soviet music which was written by closet dissenters, or Ballet dancers who defected to the West with a repertoire from pre-Soviet times.
The big stars don’t seem short of a quid in their capitalist world of pay per view, and the little guys might get better (even world class) if they have to attract more citizens who want to pay to hear or see their work.
So maybe its time to let the market decide who to make rich, and those rich Yarties can then act as old fashioned Patrons and finance the strugglers who have been on the taxpayer’s teat.
How about an old fashioned Tithe (10%) on all the Yarty luvvies (the Cate Blanchets, the Gonskys, Philip Adam’s etc etc etc) to finance the Yarts.
It would be ironic if Margot Robbie or Nicole Kidman fronted a successful lobbying campaign for the Australian theatre sector, given that they became stars by entertaining people. Entertainment is a word not to be found on any list of criteria for Oz Council theatre funding. Perhaps that’s why carriageworks and its ilk are disappearing.
Nicole Kidman is a product of Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Just one of its many distinguished alumni. Cate Blanchett taught there in the brief interval between her graduation and fame. It’s the grass-roots theatre groups – including ATYP – who have been hardest hit by this myopic government’s anti-arts policies, well before Covid-19’s final blow. The success of all our international stars is the long term result of many decades of investment in those grass-roots. The full impact of what is happening now will be felt for decades to come. 2040’s Nicole Kidman might not get that school holiday theatre class because of our government’s 2020 anti-arts policies. And we will all be the poorer for it.
Yes Joanna it’s so true about the role of youth theatre for many of our successful performers. I’d forgotten about that sub category of arts funding. Schools are a start but those who want to investigate making a life of performing need more.
I have my doubts about enlisting stars. Yes they’d be advocating for something they actually know about. However they have a fairly mixed record elsewhere.
ignorant narrow ideologues -who ignored their personal but implied solemn, public duty to their Government portfolio- Acting as cultural Philistines; decimating Australian modern theatre and Arts, and public Artistic sectors; in a word vandalism….like that perpetrated by totalitarian regimes throughout history… BUT history will uncover the morons and corrupt fools as they stand and fall.
I suspect that this is payback time in the culture wars. Conservatives by definition don’t like criticism of the status quo. I suspect that they do not see that some of the canonical creatives of the past that they insist be taught in schools and universities would have been thought culturally subversive in their day.
I suspect that this is payback time in the culture wars. Conservatives by definition don’t like criticism of the status quo. I suspect that they do not see that some of the canonical creatives of the past that they insist be taught in schools and universities would have been thought culturally subversive in their day.