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Sidetrack: Discovering the Theatricality of Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Tom Burvill
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Abstract

In the interview above, Malcolm Blaylock referred to Sidetrack, a community theatre company in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, as ‘arguably the best company in Australia’. Here, Tom Burvill examines some of the company's recent work, and sets it in the context of an understanding of community theatre which he traces back to Brecht and Walter Benjamin. Tom Burvill, who has himself acted as a dramaturg for Sidetrack, lectures in English and linguistics at Macquarie University.

Type
New Developments in Australian Theatre
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 2 , Issue 5 , February 1986 , pp. 80 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

Notes and References

1. Title of opening chapter in Baxandall, Lee, ed., Radical Perspectives in the Arts (pelican, 1972).Google Scholar

2. Meanjin, III (1983).

3. I have left out some appropriately comic examples of ‘taking Culture to the masses’. See the Report of the first national Community Theatre Conference, issued by the Association of Community Theatres, Carclew, Jeffcott St, Adelaide. Dr. Hibberd judged there are 14 professional community theatre companies in Australia. A more expansive definition might yield as many as 30.

4. Archer, Robyn, ‘The Politics of the Musical’, Australasian Drama Studies Journal, 1, 2 (04 1983).Google Scholar

5. Benjamin, Walter, Understanding Brecht, trans. Bostock, Anna (New Left Books, 1973).Google Scholar

6. Benjamin, Walter, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in Illuminations (Fontana, 1973).Google Scholar

7. See Moran, Albert, Images and Industry: Australian Television Drama Production (Currency Press, 1985), esp. Part Two, Chap. 9.Google Scholar

8. Other Sidetrack workplace plays are Mesh and Memo by Graham Pitts, co-founder of Sidetrack (1979–80); Day to Day, set in a Public Service office; and The No. 1 Thing, on industrial democracy, made with the co-operation of the Trade Union Training Authority, both group-devised. (1983–84). In late 1984 to early 1985 the company also made Sparrow. Zac and Ellie and Silver Street Kids (for senior primary childern) about racism, kids' rights, and growing up; and The Bang – an Atomic Musical for thirteen year-olds and up, about the absurdity of blowing ourselves up. The Bang had the distinction of being denounced by commercial radio commentators and the (conservative) Federal Opposition Shadow Minister for Education for ‘taking political propaganda into schools’. The current production (made Feb–April 1985, touring now) is a two-hour show with eight actors about oppression, political awareness, and liberation in a fictional country based on El Salvador, Chile, and the Philippines (amongst others), again collectively written. This show is called Adios Cha Cha and is discussed by me in an article in the next number of the periodical Aspects – Art and Literature, Winter 1985.

9. John Berger and Jean Mohr, A Fourtunate Man (Writers and Readers Publishing Co-operative, n.d.).