The ‘Everyone’s A Critic’ program has bolted out of the starting gates with two class groups initiated and one complete. In Wynyard, where the show premiered, we had a lively mixed group aged between 15 and 83. Keeping this diversity of ‘living’ experience in mind, I put an idea to the group that they choose to write their reviews from a variety of formats from ‘a drawing’ (an opportunity taken up by Big hART Artistic Director Scott Rankin’s son, Darcy Rankin) to Janet Sell’s ‘letter to a friend’, to variations of other more conventional formats.

The ‘lessons’, if that’s not too formal a word, break into two formats. The first meeting involves an idea of exploring what might lie at the core of the ‘idea of theatre’ as an art form. The second, after seeing This is Living, involves a group discussion about the show itself; followed by a exploration at the white board of what a well put together review might involve.

The second group, who came to see the show in Latrobe, was mostly comprised of year 12 students from Devonport’s Don Academy. This is a very go-ahead school with drama as a subject on the curriculum. The students are bright and engaging, but no more than the three ‘adults’ in the class. This group included three lively ‘grown-ups, including 80-something Mrs Curtis, a retired librarian who ‘had trod the boards’ in her heyday, who brought great vigour and fresh insights to the discussion.  Angela McDermott, previously editor for Rubicon River Arts, who was keen to learn more about writing about the arts.  And Mary Kille, who was part of the Wynyard cast and is a talented poet.

Below are some contributions from the Wynyard group participants. But to start with, here is Mary Kille’s magnificent poem capturing a special moment while performing on stage with lead actor Anne Grigg. 

James Waites

Missed cue

I was transfixed by transient beauty,

as you descended that extraordinary stage,

and all your words and all your song

flowed like the river

where once you had swam

naked and glistening as a fish,

secretive,

in dark water.

You spoke and sang of love and loss,

and yearning for the joy you’d known,

which now was gone for ever.

And I, a novice, bit-part player wept,

as those pedestrian, banal, intruding words

which I was meant to speak,

died in my throat;

and the guitarist, with his thrumming chords,

covered my lapse.

‘twixt audience and actor,

as from a spangled dew-dropped spider’s web,

the thread shone,

jewelled

and unbroken.

Mary Kille