SYDNEY — Formed by a group of committed lefties in 1932, during a severe economic depression, the New Theatre is Australia's oldest continuously performing theatre, professional or amateur. Since then, New Theatre has mounted more than 400 productions, including 113 Australian plays, and has become a landmark of progressive theatre.
It began as the Sydney Workers' Art Club in Pitt Street, some members of which performed locally written agit-prop shows at union, Labor and Communist Party meetings in opposition to the rise of fascism. Soon they were staging more popular plays by Bernard Shaw and Upton Sinclair.
During the Cold War only Tribune (the Communist Party's weekly) and some trade union papers would review New Theatre productions of plays by Sean O'Casey, Brecht, Arthur Miller and Brendan Behan. In 1952, New Theatre performed in an underground mine shaft in support of the striking Glen Davis miners.
After the huge popular success of Reedy River in 1960, the theatre's fortunes changed, and from the '60s onwards, even plays like On Stage Vietnam and America Hurrah, a segment of which had been banned, were reviewed.
In 1973, the theatre moved to its current premises in King Street, Newtown, in a building owned by New Theatre.
Over recent years, while commercial and subsidised theatre has been losing audiences, the New has gone from strength to strength. Many theatre professionals gladly tread the boards of the New while waiting for the next elusive paid job, and artistic standards are consistently high.
Catching New Theatre's administrator GEORGE HOAD and artistic director GILL FALSON only slightly hung over after the 65th birthday bash, BRENDAN DOYLE interviewed them for Green Left Weekly about the reasons for the survival and recent resurgence of New Theatre, how they see the theatre's social role and where it's heading.
Question: How is New Theatre organised?
Hoad: It's always been a totally democratic structure. That's a tradition going back to 1932. From our 400 members, every position is elected — from the play reading committee to the theatre manager to the artistic director to the person who changes light bulbs.
Question: How do you choose plays that fit the New's criteria of "socially relevant drama"?
Falson: It gets harder and harder to find modern political plays because there are so few written that don't go straight into the mainstream theatres. In the past, there was no competition for those plays.
Belvoir Street, the Stables and the Sydney Theatre Company are all looking for them. We wanted to do Nick Enright's Mongrels, but STC got it because it paid professional rights. We can only pay amateur rights. But we can do bigger cast plays, such as A Season at Sarsaparilla this year, and we've got a big stage too.
Question: What's your policy on Australian content?
Hoad: We average two Australian plays a year. This year we did a White and a Williamson. And we can still program new Australian plays that are a risk, as long as we keep getting hits as well.
Falson: Like the new Alex Buzo play next year, Pacific Union, which is about Doc Evatt and his association with the United Nations.
Question: Your booklet The New Years says: "Australian plays generally suffer from poor craftsmanship and dramatic quality, combined with often insignificant and insubstantial themes". That was written five years ago.
Falson: It hasn't changed. We get a deluge of plays here and they are on the whole very badly written.
Hoad: We get 100 or so plays sent to us each year, and for 80% of them it's someone's first play and often the first draft. Also, we don't have the resources to workshop many new plays. If we reject a promising script, we refer the writer to the National Playwrights Centre.
On the other hand, we had a great success with a new play, The Death of Peter Pan by Barry Lowe, two years ago, which was first read and workshopped here.
Falson: We have a workshop program that runs parallel to our main production schedule: at least six readings a year of a new Australian script.
Question: How do you see the New's charter statement about being a "committed theatre"?
Hoad: We're committed to plays that explore the deepest problems confronting humanity.
Falson: But also personal and social relationships. Also, we can't keep doing things from the past.
Question: Not another Reedy River next year?
Falson: That's right. This theatre needs to make itself available to the writers and thinkers of the new generation.
Hoad: Last night Tom Uren said one of the reasons we've survived for 65 years is that we've been able to adapt to changing times. And that's what we're doing now. We have to keep the doors open without compromising our integrity.
Question: Have you ever been tempted to go professional?
Falson: Then we'd be down to four-hander plays and couldn't use big casts.
Hoad: I'm the only paid employee. I think one of the only reasons NT has survived is that it has remained a voluntary theatre. Also because of our philosophy: it's a workers' theatre — an art workers' theatre.
People do their day job and come here because of their commitment to theatre and their political ideals. People can be artists and still contribute to larger political goals.
Question: Do you think of yourselves as a community theatre?
Hoad: Yes, because we try to relate to the local community. We will contribute a musical to the 1998 Mardi Gras showing how community attitudes to homosexuals have changed.
Falson: Also because New Theatre is a great community resource. We're always looking for opportunities to help young people to get experience right across the board. NIDA graduates come here too to get hands-on experience. Also later this year we have the "Boarding House Project", where local disabled people will perform.
Hoad: Some of these boarding houses are pretty grim places. This is a chance for some of the residents to come out ...
Falson: And be part of a bigger world.
Question: How do you explain the resurgence of the New in the last five years, when a lot of theatres have closed and audiences have gone down?
Falson: We all suffered from what I call the POO factor, (Phantom Of the Opera), those hugely promoted musical extravaganzas. They affected everyone. So we had to work harder if we wanted to stay alive. Also, George has been a terrific front person.
Hoad: Whatever hits that stage has to be of an acceptable quality. In the old days, all parts would have been cast from the membership, irrespective of quality. We still have members-only auditions, but then we look elsewhere if they don't meet the standards. The calibre of directors, actors and crew is now very high.
Falson: A lot of professional theatre people see us as a viable place to work. They choose to work here for nothing.
Hoad: A lot of agents tell new actors to join New Theatre.
Falson: They're not necessarily socially committed, however. That's our problem. The committee has to be really strong in sticking to the principles of the theatre.
Hoad: One of our biggest aims is to be socially relevant. If you're not socially relevant, you're a dinosaur. Also there's the educational objective. With entertainment it always has to be like a sugar-coated pill.
There's no point going "Ra ra ra" if no-one's going to come and see the play. As long as we can get people in here, we can still get NT's political message across.
Question: Has the theatre's political philosophy changed since the early CP days?
Falson: Even back in the '30s, we never had more than one in six who were CP members.
Hoad: The political climate in the 1930s was much more live or die. There was 37% unemployment. In those days we were known as very red, because you couldn't be grey and wishy-washy like today, when you don't see a big difference between the two major parties.
Now, we're still to the left; we still agitate where possible, but it's a totally different climate out there. One of the reasons we had Merry Xmas Pauline Hanson here last year was in opposition to that extreme right element. We want to express the other side.
Falson: Just keeping this place going is a big political statement. To keep a stage free for anything to be said on it. If you wanted to put your "Piss Christ" up on our stage and we decided it's politically right for this theatre, we wouldn't close it down.
Hoad: We've had sponsors approach us because of our success, but we've said no thank you, because we want to be in charge of our destiny.