Category: General news

The immediacy of theatre gives it the capacity to draw you into the personal space of a good actor, and the great actors make that space unbelievably rich, complex and large.

Two actors in the single act Mountain Top take us on three separate journeys with an elegant simplicity that allows the audience to laugh, squirm and shout Amen with the direct engagement of a family dinner table.

The play by Memphis writer Katori Hall, launched in London in 2009 and surprised, impressed and moved audiences so it moved from a small playhouse to West End for a sell-out season. It subsequently picked up a swag of awards and a Broadway opening in 2011. Last year saw it play across America, including Memphis, where it is set.

Candy Bowers and Pacharo Mzembe play a maid and Martin Luther King Jr, spending the last night his life together at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The delightful, gritty characterisation of a weary Baptist preacher on the road with a pretty, naive girl in his motel room is funny, challenging and endearing.

Bowers plays the not-so-naïve maid with stunning finesse; deftly moving between flirtation, chaste admiration and womanly admonition. They discuss politics, sex, fidelity and smelly feet. She delivers a powerful footnote to history as a monologue that Martin Luther King Jr might have given had he the benefit of our hindsight.

And then the action changes pace remarkably. It would spoil your enjoyment to give away the detail, so I will keep my observations general.

In a virtual second act, King finds himself in serious trouble and their relationship moves to an altogether different level that confronts the big issues of mortality, purpose and achievement. The dialogue continues to flit between humour and philosophical depth with both actors finding their edge, and the audience’s, at different times.

The final section connects the ill-fated night in 1968 to our present, in a surreal journey which Candy Bowers carries with a simple but powerful rant that hovers somewhere between song, monologue and rap. The delicate staging unhinges our sense of space as the script telescopes time, reminding us how recent and connected that history is.

The play is clever, powerful and enjoyable. It’s central surprise annoyed some New York critics and excited others, but it was the performances that made this show for me.

Candy Bowers has complete command of her character and can turn from vamp to angel so subtly and simply you are simply connecting with a real human being. The play gives her some of the best lines and keeps her upstage of Pacharo Mzembe’s King for a surprisingly large chunk of the action.

Pacharo renders a very human but impressive King and carries the two components of his character comfortably. He is immensely likeable and calls up strong chemistry with Bowers in all the right places.

The production is seamless, with some simple but powerful effects used sparingly to drive home some of the more esoteric elements of the second part. The more dramatic effects of the final scene do a brilliant job of taken us on the journey into the mind of Preacher King. Not having seen the other productions I can only speculate on what the local production brings to the play, but that final scene has elements that resonate with other Honey Production performances and bring extra depth to that rendition of historical reality.

Given the significance and renewed relevance of King’s message, which is ultimately the plays’, it is unfortunate that it will mostly be seen by middle-class, middle-aged, white theatre goers, who are already largely sympathetic to the content and immune to its urgency.

In an attempt to redress this, QPAC is offering $40 tickets this Friday 7^th March along with a free drink with Pach and Candy the Russell St bar after the show. Tell your friends to drop the codeword #THELATESHIFT when booking tix.

Rev Hellfire of the Kurilpa Poets has adjudged Scott Parsons the winner of the March Bent Books Poetry Prize.

According to the Rev: “Call me old-fashioned, but I like a well constructed poem. It doesn’t have to rhyme of course, but it should show signs of craftsmanship. And I like a poem that tells me a story or works though an idea, rather than gives just a pretty description.

“But I really like a sneaky poem that starts you thinking it’s about one thing, but then it takes you somewhere else, like this month’s winner, SEEKERS SONNET by Scott Parsons. {Ed: It’s also a fine example of that disappearing artform the iamic pentameter]

“Runners up were Paul Sherman’s fine poem Boy cries on the front page (like a grainy B&W photo from TimeLife Magazine in the sixties) and Tony Kneipp’s whimsical This poem is full of butterflies (Where would satire be without the rhyming couplet?)”

Honourable mentions:

Anthony J Longford- more poems but shorter please

I’m a winter person but Lisa Chin’s “Homesick” made me wish I was a mango

Marjorie Lewis-Jones’ “Pain is a Robber”and its chilling personification of pain impressed me

Thanks also for Andrew Coes’ mystic delvings into the Archetype and Debra Stars’ ethereal contributions like windchimes of words.

If you didn’t win or get mentioned this month don’t be disheartened; There were many poems I liked but I can only pick one winner a month and I don’t get enough space to mention everyone. So keep sending your poems in folks. Next month could be your month!

Big thanks to Bent Books and the Westender for supporting the Muse!

Bread, Roses and Poetry!

The Reverend Hellfire

 

SEEKERS SONNET

By Scott Parsons

Somewhere awash in oceans and beyond
Gathers the garbage drifting from our drains
Shifting snug in some smuggled nonchalance
Forming nation in its benign remains

Their vessel is of little consequence
Merely means of moving the problem on
Yet the ending is always tidal, thence
Cleansing the mind of morals, long since gone

Now waste extends to that of the person
Plunging policies see the seekers float
Slogans only make the debris worsen
No use, the refuse when stopping the boat

For when each carriage meets its fatal crash
They are people taken out with the trash

Amid a spate of press releases today – all announcing the manifold benefits of having millions of dollars dropped on us by world leaders attending the G20 Summit in November, Brisbane Marketing included an update on the new hotel rooms being created in River City. The press release carefully avoids pointing out that the headline development by Fraser’s Group will not be open in time for G20. But you get the general drift – Brisbane is open for business as Australia’s New World City.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has announced that Singaporean group Frasers Hospitality has been given development approval to convert a CBD office tower into a 239 room hotel.

The property, at 80 Albert St, was purchased mid last year and is the first Brisbane asset for Frasers Hospitality, which has 86 properties in 45 key gateway cities and more than 15,000 rooms worldwide.

Brisbane Marketing’s investment attraction team worked closely with Frasers Hospitality to develop a business case for converting the office tower into hotel accommodation.

“The project is another exciting development for our city and we expect it will help to transform a major stretch of Albert Street into a more vibrant environment,” Cr Quirk said.

“The 239 room project represents a major investment in our city and is a big vote of confidence in Brisbane’s booming business landscape.

“More hotels will increase Brisbane’s capacity to improve the city’s tourism potential and attract more major events and business conventions to the city- both of which bring us enormous economic benefits.

“Brisbane is a destination of choice for business, investment and major events.”

The existing 19-storey office building will be converted into a four or five star hotel, featuring a restaurant on the ground level and function rooms on the podium levels.

New hotel room supply and the upcoming G20 Leadership Summit in November is expected to further enhance Brisbane’s growing reputation as a tourism and convention destination and attract visitors from emerging markets, such as China.

Frasers Hospitality CEO Mr Choe Peng Sum said Capri by Fraser would be open in early 2015.

“Located right in the heart of the CBD, the design-led Capri by Fraser is aimed at the e-generation and we hope it will add to the colour and vibrancy of the city,” he said.

“We have to thank the Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, Councillor Amanda Cooper, Councillor Adrian Schrinner and CEO of Brisbane Marketing, Mr John Aitken, whose team provided us with much assistance from the time we started to look for a property in Brisbane, right through to the present renovation.”

Brisbane Marketing CEO John Aitken said Brisbane was a tightly-held market and Frasers were very keen to establish a presence in the city.

“This is a key win for Brisbane Marketing’s hotel investment team and we continue to work hard to promote the city as an attractive proposition for potential investors,” Mr Aitken said.

“We are currently collating updated data for the next edition of our Hotel Investment Guide, which we launched last year to show international investors the opportunities available in Brisbane.

“We are also very focused on the demand side of the equation, generating business events, conventions and growing our major events calendar.”

Hotel projects currently under construction in Brisbane include:

• ·         SilverNeedle Hospitality is refurbishing and extending Brisbane’s Chifley Hotel, converting it from a 150 room to a 300 room hotel – one of the largest, recent hotel repositioning projects in Australia.
• ·         The Wyndham Hotel Group’s TRYP hotel in Fortitude Valley will add a further 65 rooms to supply.
• ·         Gambaro Hotel will open in May 2014, offering 69 rooms on Caxton Street.
• ·         Another 48 rooms will be available at Mosaic Hotel in Fortitude Valley, when it opens towards the middle of the year.
• ·         Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Felicity Hotel opened a 246 room Four Points by Sheraton hotel in the Brisbane CBD on March 4, 2014.

 

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has made a high profile television splash in China, appearing this week on Talk to Lei, where he was interviewed by the so-called ‘Oprah Winfrey’ of China, Chen Lei.

It’s a promotion money can’t buy in a country of more than 1.35 billion people.

Cr Quirk said the hour-long program highlighted the city’s many attractions and why it was chosen to hostthe upcoming G20 Leaders Summit 2014.

“Brisbane is fast becoming a rising star in the Asia Pacific and this was an incredible opportunity to showcase the city ahead of one of the biggest international events we have ever hosted,” he said.

“Talk to Lei airs on ICS, which is the only English television channel in East China and is broadcast to almost five million homes across Shanghai.

“It’s also aired on cable channel IPTV, which has a viewing audience of a further four million homes, and available online to a global audience as well.”

Chen Lei became a Brisbane ambassador when she hosted the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for the third time last December.

Established in 2007, the awards are now managed by economic development board Brisbane Marketing in a unique collaboration with Paris-based UNESCO and FIAPF-International Federation of Film Producers Associations.

During her week-long visit Ms Chen asked to film a series of interviews with the Lord Mayor and other local business leaders and innovators.

Cr Quirk said the savvy TV host knew exactly what sort of exposure the G20 event could generate for Brisbane.

“Chen Lei is an accomplished television presenter who is very highly regarded in her home country and she has interviewed many business and government leaders, and global celebrities for a variety of programs,” he said.

“She knows Brisbane is a city on the move and understands the sorts of economic, tourism and international study opportunities that could flow from hosting the Leaders’ Summit.

“This was a marvellous opportunity to promote Brisbane to the many millions of viewers throughout Asia, with the potential to generate further tourism and business opportunities in the year of the G20.”

The future of Australia depends on our ability to nurture and create the next generation of entrepreneurs, says start-up expert and author Adrian Turner.

In Brisbane as part of Digital Brisbane’s Visiting Entrepreneurs Program, Mr Turner, one of Silicon Valley’s most respected experts on mobile, internet security and entrepreneurship, will meet with local entrepreneurs, business leaders and university students on his six-day trip starting on Wednesday.

Adrian Turner is the author of Blue Sky Mining named, of course, after the Midnight Oil Song. Blue Sky Mining is a “confronting and compelling” book that demystifies the underlying structures and principles that make Silicon Valley so successful in repeatedly spawning new billion dollar industries. Written from the perspective of an Australian entrepreneur who has spent the last 12 years there, the book explains why innovation has been and will always be the most important unit of economic growth. With this baseline, Blue Sky Mining contrasts Silicon Valley with Australia’s commercialisation ecosystem, concluding that Australia’s is on the brink of collapse with devastating consequences.

“By offering the Visiting Entrepreneurs Program, Brisbane is demonstrating it is serious about being Australia’s leading digital city with a global outlook, fuelled by entrepreneurs,” he said.

“From my own experiences, I cannot overstate the importance of being able to interact with entrepreneurs and leaders who have lived it from the trenches.

“Starting any business is hard – in Silicon Valley there is a robust support network for the entrepreneur made up of entrepreneur practitioners.  The Visiting Entrepreneurs Program is an important step in establishing that support network in Brisbane.”

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the program was just one in a series of initiatives within Brisbane Marketing’s Digital Brisbane strategy to encourage and foster high-growth start-up companies.

“These companies are the ones that have the potential to reach global markets and bring billions of dollars into the Brisbane economy,” Cr Quirk said.

“As a city, we need to support this sector and put Brisbane on the front foot to make the most of the opportunities start-ups present.

“Adrian Turner is a great advocate of the entrepreneurial culture we’re building in Brisbane and I hope the members of Brisbane’s start-up sector, the business leaders and the students that meet with him are inspired by his visit.”

Mr Turner, author of the book BlueSky Mining, which looks at reasons behind Silicon Valley’s success in spawning new billion-dollar industries, is founder of mobile and smart device security company Mocana.

When I read in Foreign Policy that Kremlin has stated, “Vladimir Putin stressed that in case of any further spread of violence to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Russia retains the right to protect its interests and the Russian-speaking population of those areas,” it sent chills down my spine.

It might sound a bit dramatic to say we might be on the brink of World War 3, but if you have any knowledge in history, it is difficult to avoid noticing some similarities to what happened in World War 2.

What Kremlin has stated is basically a paraphrase of the justification Hitler used to invade Poland in 1939. To protect German-speaking people who live in Poland due to the loss of land after Germany being punished for what they did during World War 1.

Which raises the question, are we now seeing history repeating itself before our very own eyes?

To be honest, I really hope not. Then again, we humans seem to be incapable of learning from our mistakes — so buckle up.

Even Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems to be shaking in his budgie smugglers over this. So much he has told Russia to “back off” from invading Ukraine.

Which is a bit of fresh air. Suddenly the government cares about what is happening abroad. Instead of being frightened by those boat people (most democratic countries refer to them as refugees).

But maybe that is why he is so concerned. If another war erupts, Australia might have to deal with more refugees — and we know how the current government feels about them.

Not to mention that this might be a resurrection of the good old Red Scare which made Australia believe that the Vietnam war (a civil war turned into a proxy war), if not stopped, would turn Australia into some kind of communist hellhole.

But the sincerity of his concern falls short, even though it seems well-meaning.

“You cannot just cross the border of another country with military force,” Tony Abbott said on Bolt Report Sunday morning.

“This is not the kind of action of a friend and neighbour.”

Seemingly forgetting that the [Australian Navy breached Indonesian waters six times][4]. After such an act I find it difficult to believe Tony Abbott is in any position to criticise another country breaching a neighbouring country’s border.

With that said, maybe this can be a lesson our government can learn from, that breaching another country’s border, a neighbour and friend, can never be excused or tolerated.

We can only hope that [Ukraine is left alone][5]. They have endured enough. Nor do the world need to experience yet another war that might be devastating. Even though if some of our younger generations do seem to need to experience a world at war to appreciate what they have — which is what happened after World War 2.

Image source: Geysar Gurbanov