It has been another busy year for Playwriting Australia (PWA), the national organisation that seeks out, develops and champions new Australian stories for the stage.

Its role is to work with playwrights and theatre artists of all backgrounds and at all levels of their careers.

One of its primary roles is to bring the new work by playwrights around the country up to a standard where theatre companies and independent producers will back them and put their work on stage.

This organisation is usually busily working away in the background and going mainly unnoticed. Last month however the PWA went public with CHAIN  PLAY, a one-off gala event/initiative ( on Thursday 19th November) thought up  by current Artistic Director Tim Roseman. The event took place at the Bangarra Studio Theatre, Wharf 3 of the Sydney Theatre Company complex, with the dual purpose of encouraging creativity and as a fund raiser to bring in some shekles into the organisations’ coffers.

Roseman invited many of Australia’s leading playwrights to participate in the group project.  A selected  playwright was given the opening scene to complete and then the play was given to the next playwright in time to complete their scene and then the play was passed on, much in the style of a chain letter, till the final playwright was given the task of writing the closing scene and  signing off.

How is this for a who’s who list of some of Australia’s finest playwrights who contributed  to this project?!- Just to name a few…David Williamson, Joanna Murray- Smith, Andrew Bovell, Lally Katz, Hannie Rayson, John Romeril, Jane Bodie, and Kate Mulvany..

Roseman’s venture into the group play brought back memories of my own University days as a Creative Arts student at Wollongong University. In our final year we playwriting students were tasked by our tutor to write a group play which ended up being called ‘The Divorce Party’- similar in style/vein as the Chain Play – which was then to be performed by students from the acting strand. Interdisciplinary projects (between the different creative art strands)were very much the  ‘flavour of the month’ at the time.

Let it just be said that ‘The Divorce Party’ did not result in a genius work. It was just a mish-mash of writing styles. My strong suspicion is that this was the Faculty’s first and last dalliance with the group play.

With this experience in the back of my mind I attended the gala night at the Bangarra Studio with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation. There was plenty of buzz as a good, youngish crowd gathered and chatted away  on the pier as we waited for the studio doors to open. I had a brief chat with one of the guest writers, Andrew Bovell, who spoke animatedly about the project and the upcoming return season of his adaptation of Kate Grenville’s My Secret River which is coming back to the Ros Packer theatre in the New Year.

Soon some very enthusiatic and helpful PWA volunteers summoned us to go into the Bangarra  Studio,  a Sydney theatre space regretfully not used very often.

Roseman came on stage, giving a brief introduction as to the ‘process’ and then   introduced the very fine cast who sat, book in hand, in  fold-up chairs across the stage. Roseman  advised us that that he would be reading out the stage directions and  for us to keep in mind that the cast had only had the morning to rehearse the show .

It was on with the show! As each scene was performed, the playwright’s name was projected onto a multi-media screen.

Readers I am here to say that this latest variation on the group play genre was again a disappointment even with such a talented troupe of writers…

There were some interesting angles, David Williamson, for one, choose to kill off a few of his characters. Another playwright choose to abandon the entire script up until his turn, and started again! Anarchy rules!

The most interesting scenes were where the writers just had some  fun…Did the play come together, by the end? Not really. What was it about? Well I couldn’t really tell you.. The acting troupe gave it their all and there was some spunky, nicely crafted  performances.

We all drifted out of the theatre and climbed up some stairs to the party venue. Everybody was in good spirits….clearly no-one had taken the performance  too seriously.

Playwriting Australia went on to put on one great party with plenty of food and grog. There was a good vibe with young people just starting out in the industry joined in conversation with some legendary professionals like Hugo Weaving. I exited stage left with the party still in full swing.

So, bringing it all together…Best to view the Chain Play as a fun, left of centre event that drew plenty of interest and has given the PWA a good cash boost as it continues to play its important role within our vibrant theatre community.

Credits–

Written  by (in alphabetical order)

Angela Betzien, Jane Bodie, Andrew Bovell, Mary Rachel Brown, Angus Cerini, Declan Greene, Lally Katz, Phillip Kavanagh, Michele Lee, Nakkiah Lui, Suzie Miller, David Millroy, Ross Mueller, Kate Mulvany, Tommy Murphy, Joanna Murray-Smith, Lachlan Philpott, Hannie Rayson, John Romeril, David Williamson.

Director- Tim Roseman, Dramaturg- Iain Sinclair, Assistant Director- Rachel Chant.

Cast- Roy Billing, Luke Carroll, Jaenette Cronin, Ashleigh Cummings, Guy Edmonds, Harry Greenwood, Haiha Le, Claire Lovering, Mandy McElhinney, Damien Ryan, Harry Tseng, Sara West.