PNG 5 - New Ireland part 1

7am. Boarded John Lau's boat, "Stephanie" bound for the southern tip of New Ireland, home of the French/Italian colony of 1880 - 1882. Took my kwell tablet and held on tight.

John likes speed and he has a fishing boat that behaves like a missile. 150 metres from shore he gunned the 1500hp twin engines and we were almost tossed out the back (stern - boat terms now that we're heading into St George's Channel).

Port Breton, our destination (not called that now - or ever by the locals), lay two hours away. New Ireland was just a hazy undulating line on the horizon. I almost succumbed to  the lumpy, thumping ride but the kwells did the job and we were greeted by a pod of thirty spinner dolphin performing a welcome dance for us as we approached Lombon, the community of two thousand who live on the island at the entrance to the bay.

First impressions: tiny inlet; hardly worthy of the title "port"; dense jungle tumbling from steep slopes to the shoreline; no sign of arable land or a likely site for 300 settlers. What were they thinking? We seemed to be surrounded by a range of preferable options on East New Britain and north of this point on New Ireland. Even on Lambom Island which we now approached. John sounded our horn as we glided past the settlement, trying to attract someone who might be able to assist us; someone to act as our guides for the day. Immediately two canoes appeared from the sandy beach and approached us.

John invited three men on board and after an explanation of our needs, their spokesman, Digel, offered to accompany us. He proceeded to guide us to nearby English Cove (the south arm of a twin cove inlet) where he negotiated a powered "banana boat" and crew for us. Minutes later we stepped ashore at Irish Cove, the main site of the colony.

We were joined  by the traditional owner of Irish Cove and a retired teacher from English Cove who confounded all presumptions about traditional village life by sharing with us his knowledge of national politics, history and the local environment. Remember we were in a remote location accessible only by boat and four hours (by banana boat) from the nearest shop or service.

What did we find? A collection of 19th century bricks intended for the promised church; a foreshore skirted by a rough retaining wall (the Italians were dry stone wall masons) ; a fresh water spring which had been given a stone treatment to create a shallow resevoir;  a clearing containing a scattering of bricks in a format suggesting a couple of buildings had occupied the space; a large cast iron cylinder - probably part of a grinding mill for grain and the odd ceramic shard, a remnant of a water container or similar.

For the next two hours we were given a tour of the site. TBC

PNG 4 - Rabaul Museum

At Rabaul we met Mundon Bray, a Canadian who described himself as of mixed race - part eskimo (Inuit) he insisted. He was introduced to us as the man who ran the Rabaul Museum set in the building which had formerly been the Rabaul Club, now a shabby hulk housing an eclectic collection of war and historical memorabilia.  He and a few eccentric old stagers are working to keep it running and in reasonable condition. It gets no funding so it struggles but at least someone loves it, which is more than you can say about the Kokopo Museum which is open on request but appears to have been abandoned immediately after WWII. It's just a collection of rusting pieces of war machinery and smaller objects with illegible descriptions (or none) and a room largely devoted to Queen Emma.

Mundon was sitting hunched over a bowl of noodles at his desk/table as I approached him. He stood and greeted me enthusiastically shaking my hand and mentioning his Inuit heritage. He looks late 60s maybe early 70s and is wearing boxer shorts and thongs and nothing else, his chest and stomach white and soft. It's a little off-putting in a museum manager but it quickly seems normal and I can see he is in pretty good shape for his age. He has an soft accent modified perhaps by 40 years in the tropics surrounded by Australians and international missionaries and tok pisin speakers. His head is like a bowling ball with stubble.

'Do you believe in God?'  he asks me within the first few minutes of our conversation. 'I was brought up Catholic' I tell him and he corrects me - 'Roman CathoIic,' he says. I don't argue. 'And you?' I ask. It's a game I'm amused to play. 'Church of England', he says. 'Anglican,' I reply. 'No Church of England,' he corrects me. I ask the difference half knowing the answer will be part of a new riddle and we segue into conversations about Rabaul and the war and why PNG would have been better off being retained bt the Germans after WWI rather than being handed to the Australians. 'Australia has been lazy' he says. 'Germans get things done,' he says. I'm tempted to defend my Australian compatriots but hold my tongue.

We get back to religion. I promise him I'll ask the Anglican Bishop ('Church of England,' he corrects me) in Brisbane to consider funding the restoration of the Rabaul Anglican Church.

'What do you believe in?' he asks me before I leave. 'Me, the universe,' I reply.
'Maybe as you get older you'll find the need to believe in a god of some kind,' he says, suddenly looking as though there's something in him that needs this escape route from life. It feels like he's trapped here in this dying town. It once had a population of 40 000 and is now 4000. At some point he knows he'll be going and it will be 3999.

PNG 3 - Queen Emma

Kokopo has seen its characters. 

    It was the mainland base of the 19th century American Samoan trader Emma Coe and her copra empire (she had begun her PNG empire on nearby Duke of York island). She became known as Queen Emma and her sprawling Kokopo mansion and gardens are now the site of the Gazelle International Hotel. Only the concrete front steps of her residence Gunantabu, survive.
    Australian writer Geoffrey Dutton has written "Queen Emma of the South Seas", an entertaining account of her exploits. She was beautiful, wealthy, ruthless and independent. She had lovers and a series of husbands and when she finally sold her business holdings in the early 20th century (perhaps sensing the approaching calamatous world war and being intimately connected to German Nue Guinea), she retired to Melbourne and later Europe (where she died), a millionaire. 

The main restaurant at the Gazelle International in named after her.

PNG 2 - RABAUL

It's the 8th of July. Day one of our trip to PNG. Weirdly that is the exact date 136 years ago on which the Italians boarded the steam barquentine, the "India", in Barcelona to begin their adventure.
    Kokopo, our base on New Britain is a dusty, run down coastal town a 25 minute drive from the  old capital Rabaul. Rabaul sits on an impressive harbour (Simpson's Harbour) with the quietly rumbling Mt Tavurvur close by. All that changed in 1994 when the volcano chose to remind the world of its latent power. Rabaul was wiped out, its houses and its array of impressive colonial buildings, links to its  past. Collaped sunder the weight of volcanic ash.

    Kokopo was the beneficiary of its demise. Overnight it became the new centre of business and government for east New Britain.
    Kokopo, largely lacks charm. As well as having lost its beautiful old colonial buildings through neglect or misfortune or redevelopment, it lacks a harbour and a genuine centre. Rabaul, though generally regarded as a ghost of its previous self by those in Kokopo, retains an impressive main street, a wide boulevard lined with frangapani trees. Its harbour has allowed it to survive as the import/export centre of east New Britain. It's a designed town;  designed by the Germans in the late 19th century as the capital of German New Guinea. Kokopo by contrast has grown around an access road which skirts a foreshore with no shelter. One long street with no plan. Since 1994 there has been money spent upgrading it to the standard of a provincial capital, with a new market, roundabouts and government offices but its never going to be a silk purse, always destined to be the sow's ear.

PNG 1 -

On Friday I head off to PNG for two weeks with brother Mick and friend Gabrielle Samson.

The first week will be in New Britain exploring the remnant history of the Nouvelle France colony and my Italian heritage. We
ll travel by boat to the southern tip of New Ireland to spend a day in the same jungle that Lorenzo and the Italians struggled to survive for three months in 1880.
The second week Gabrielle and I head to the Highlands, Mt Hagen, to explore her history. She lived there for a time in the 70s where her daughter was born. Were a little nervous but excited by the prospect of seeing the central highlands up close.. For Gabrielle it will be familiar but much changed. Hagen has gone from a village with one street to a town of 40 thousand. For me it will be an adventure into the unknown. A country so close and yet so little visited by us, Australians obsessed with Europe and central Asia.

Language in historical novels - Paradiso, Paradìxo, Paradise

Language in historical novels.

What possessed me to include Italian language dialogue in my novel? Authenticity? A fascination with language? Embedding the story in a culture other than my own? 

All true and manageable until I realised that the characters would not have spoken Italian but Venetian in 1879/80. More to the point they would have spoken a regional dialect of Venetian. How was I to respond to that challenge?

Three ways
1. I discovered an Italian/Venetian/English dictionary on-line which I used to do a rough version.
2. I asked Claire Kennedy and the Brisbane Dante Alighieri Society for assistance.
3. I sent a call for help to Marina Battistuzzi in Orsago (my great g'mothers village) in Veneto, Italy (I first met Marina in 1988 - a remarkable tale of three meetings over 28 years). Marina informed me that Orsago and the surrounding villages speak a Trevigiano dialect (Treviso is the capital of this province) rather than a Venice based dialect. She offered to help.Today I received back six pages of translation and notes from her (I had sent her a cut and past version of all the Venetian passages in the novel - more than she expected I suspect). 

There are some subtle differences: papa is Italian pupa is Trevigiano; thank-you is gràsie not grazie; Paradiso is Paradìxo etc Some words have clear roots common to English 'commode' is 'còmoda' for example and some words are spelt quite differently. Imbecile is 'inbezhilàt' in Trevigiano and 'imbecille' in Italian etc etc.I also discovered that the Italians and Venetians have a fabulous range of insults in their languages.

It has been a rewarding but tedious word by word process.

Brisbane’s Radical Theatre History 1965-1985

In 2006 I was involved in a project with the Museum of Brisbane (MoB) where I was asked to develop material for the exhibition "Taking to the Streets - Two decades that changed Brisbane 1965-1985." I found this on my computer and as there is a growing interest in local arts history below are my notes from that time. Apologies for any omissions or inaccuracies. I acknowledge Deanna Borland-Sentinella for her work in helping compile this material.

Chronology of Brisbane’s Radical Theatre History 1965-1985

1967       Yeti Theatre group formed from the Kedron State High past pupils association, with Paul Richards as the driving force behind the collective, with other members including the former Qld Premier Wayne Goss. The group were not in theatre to be professionals, but rather to express themselves and make social and political commentary.

University of Queensland Architecture Student Revues, with involvement of William Yang, Ralph Tyrrell, Max Bannah and others, were first performed at the Avalon Theatre, Sir Fred Schonell Drive. They created original sketches that reflected suburban life, content was comical, satirical and often political.

1968    Foco Club (1968/69) was a short lived but seminal initiative which brought political activists together with trade unionists and artists (musicians, theatre performers, visual artists...) to create a memorable period of political and cultural expression in this performance venue. Paralleling the turbulent student uprisings which erupted across the western world at this time it was subsequently dubbed 'Brisbane's 1968' by some. It was located on the third floor of the old Trades Hall (a magnificant building since demolished) at the corner of Turbot and Edward Street.
       
            The alternative theatre collective group called "Tribe" performed fringe theatre at the Foco Club as an attempt to link student theatre to Trades Hall.

Doug Anders' production of Van Italie's "Motel" (the last part of "America Hurrah") was presented by Dramsoc, the UQ student drama group, in what was then the relaxation block on the St Lucia campus (now where student support services is).  In "Motel" the word "Fuck" was written on the motel wall - causing the police to move in with the intention of arresting the actors but the audience through passive resistance allowed them time to escape.

1969       Twelfth Night Theatre at Gowrie Hall staged Norm and Ahmed, a performance which had police dragging actor, Norman Staines off the stage to arrest him for saying ‘Fuckin Boong’. “Boong” apparently was fine with the arresting officers but “Fuckin” remained an intolerable public obscenity.

1970       The Yeti Theatre group moved into a house at 146 LaTrobe Tce, Paddington.  The Aboriginal Tribal Council moved in next door and the young indigenous kids started to do theatre with Paul Richards about their own stories and suffering.  This prompted Paul Richards to work to establish the Aboriginal Legal Service in 1971.

As part of the Architecture Reviews, a sketch called ‘Zelmo’ was developed around the then vice-chancellor of UQ Zelman Cowen (who went on to become Govenor General of Qld), which played on the Hollywood icon Zorro.  After seeing this performance Errol O’Neil produced a comic strip with the same character of ‘Zelmo’ for almost three years for the student magazine Semper.

1971          Queensland Theatre Company staged the political theatre shows Oh What a Lovely War (an anti-war satire developed by Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop company in the UK in 1963) and Legend of King O’Malley by Australian playrights Michael Boddy and Bob Ellis.

Paul Richards set up the Black Theatre for indigenous people and their stories, performed at a church hall in Leichhart St, Spring Hill.

Ian Reece and CAG (Children’s Activity Group – subsequently Hands on Art) began the earliest form of community art in Brisbane when his band of artsworkers took to the streets and parks to offer ‘art’ to everyone.  Many community arts activists were formed through their link to this work.

1972       The international rock musical “Hair” was performed at Her Majesties Theatre after being refused by QPAC because of its nudity and progressive ideas.

1973       Establishment of a team who worked on the 1974 Queensland Festival of the Arts - a fringe arts component of the highly commercialised Warana Festival. Lesley Gotto, invited Albert Hunt out from the Bradford College of Art to assemble a team (including Richard Fotheringham), which later became the Popular Theatre Troupe.

1974          The first Festival of the Arts was held. Two plays written by Richard Fotheringham that commented on the federal election, “Startrick” and for children “The Clean Air Factory,” were performed as part of the event.  There was also an evening event held in King George Square with outdoor performances of these shows and a guided tour of the then ASIO offices in the Commonwealth Bank building opposite.

The Yeti Theatre group was asked by the event organisers to do some kind of performance to ‘cause an interval’ for the rock concert of iconic early Brisbane band Railroad Gin at Mayne Hall, UQ.  The group staged a mock police scene where they interrupted the concert to arrest  planted actors in the audience without laying any charges or giving their identity to see what people’s reactions would be.  The incident made the newspapers reporting that  the Special Branch of the Qld police had caused the disturbance and the actors never told the newspapers otherwise!

1975          Popular Theatre Troupe became formally established emerging from the Festival of the Arts initiative.  In its first year the PTT performed the shows Puny Little Life Show, Red Cross followed by The White Man’s Mission written by Richard Fotheringham and Yorkshire writer/director Albert Hunt . The National Times compared the show to the best work of the country’s leading alternative theatre group, the Pram Factory,.  In this year the troupe received funding from the Community Arts and Theatre Boards of Australia Council.  Unlike theatre groups from other states the PTT did not receive joint funding from State Government. Far from supporting the troupe, the Qld Cabinet of the time (lead by Joh Bjelke-Petersen) directed the Division of Cultural Activities to never fund the group.  The Queensland Police Force, Special Branch, also kept surveillance on the activities of the company and its members.

8 December 1975: 4ZZZ goes to air. Brings together an impresive array of creative artists and presenters including the individuals who later went on to form ToadShow, a company who produced a series of memorable musical political satires.

1976          During a La Boite Theatre performance of Nick Enright’s production of Edward Bond’s Saved, about 150 people walked out during a violent scene in the play in which a baby in a pram is stoned by a group of youths. The walkout was led by a group of fifty Lions Club members who had a group booking for that performance. The play set in London in the 1960s is about cultural poverty and disenfranchised youth. Around this time La Boite earned a reputation for being alternative, left-wing and, in theatre critic Katharine Brisbane’s words, “the place to go to see the red meat of theatre”.

1977       La Boite Theatre’s production of  Happy Birthday East Timor was instigated by La Boite’s artistic director Rick Billinghurst as a documentary theatre project. John O’Toole co-scripted and co-directed Happy Birthday East Timor with Richard Fotheringham, John Bradley and Lorna Bol. Its dramatic content included a highly critical interpretation of Indonesia’s recent invasion of East Timor plus television footage shot by the group of Australian journalists who were later murdered.

1978    The Popular Theatre Troupe found a permanent home in the hall attached to St Barnabas’ Church at 60 Waterworks Rd, Red Hill which became known as the Community Arts Centre.  Prior to this the troupe had rehearsed at various halls and stored sets, props and costumes across different member’s homes.

1979       Happy Birthday East Timor was re-written and developed by Richard Fotheringham and the PTT under the (ironic) title of Viva Indonesia, a show which the PTT toured nationally.

1980    La Boite’s artistic director Malcolm Blaylock favoured Australian plays with strong political messages. Over a two year period productions such as Stephen Sewell’s Traitors, David Allen’s Dickinson, and Graznya Monvid’s The Enemy Within attracted the attention of the Queensland Police Force Special Branch who attended performances but took no action.

1981    Crook Shop by the Popular Theatre Troupe was banned and declared unfit to tour government schools. The Queensland Education Department said it “did not encourage respect for law and order” 

Mad Hatters (1981-1984) collective is formed by. John Haag, Peter Callinan, Mufrida Hayes, Janelle Skinner, Chris Anderson, Michael Golick, Allison……). This collective of musicians and theatre artists based themselves in Spring Hill and created street theatre often focussed on environmental issues.  The core group also lived together and converted under their house into a local cabaret and children’s activity venue.

The Queensland Community Arts Network was founded and acted as an important advocate for community arts.

1982          Street Arts Community Theatre Company was formed by Pauline and Denis Peel, Steve Capelin and Andrea Lynch. The company operated from 1982 - 1995 and was involved in 28 projects, including short residencies, company shows, Theatre-in-Education pieces and large-scale community productions. Political theatre for Street Arts was based on community participation. They established a venue, The Paint Factory (1987-1991), in a warehouse at Donkin Street West End. It hosted a diverse range of events including theatre, music, circus, dance parties, benefit concerts and community events. It became the defacto Community Centre for West End and attracted alternative arts practitioners from across the city and from interstate.

Queensland’s first Multicultural Fiesta was held in Musgrave Park, South Brisbane.

A second Popular Theatre Troupe show, The State We’re In (A Revue of the Commonwealth Games), was banned from government schools, also for the reason that it “did not encourage respect for law and order”. .   

1983          The Popular Theatre Troupe lost funding for this year and soldiered on with four shows: Limited Life written by Kerry O’Rourke, Wage Invaders, As The Crow Flies written by Michael Cummings and Glenn Perry and There’s More to Life than Snogging Barry directed by Dee Martin and written by Hugh Watson and cast.  After trying to live off door-takings for a year the troupe disbanded due to the lack of core funding after producing 25 shows over their 10 years.

Queensland’s first Community Circus Festival held in Musgrave Park as a culmination of Street Arts’ inaugural community project, funded by the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council.  Emerging from this was the Thrills’n’Spills Community Circus troupe, which lasted for 3 years and devised 5 shows. This troupe finally transformed itself into the Rock N Roll Circus Troupe in 1987.Its legacy lives on in the form of Brisbane based international touring circus company Circa.

 Street Arts also ran a major project in Inala, a Housing Commission suburb, called Inala In Cabaret in this year.  The project included  the community in the development and performance of the work and, following a larger community production, Once Upon Inala, staged in 1984 and follow-up work by members of the company, a number of women from Inala founded Icy Tea (ICT – Inala Community Theatre), a professional women’s Community Theatre Company.

Once Upon Inala was embraced by the Australia Council’s Community Arts Board as a model of community participation and was influential in shifting  Community Theatre practitioners and Australia Council funding guidelines in this direction.

            Errol O’Neill’s new political work Faces in the Street directed by Andrew Ross (Artistic Director) at La Boite and commissioned by the Warana Festival, dramatised the Brisbane General Strike of 1912 and featured Matt Foley as Harry Coyne, MLA, leader of the strike committee. 

1984    Her Majesty’s Theatre was demolished. The last show was a 4ZZZ promotion organised by David Pyle. It featured Norman Gunston and the Fabulous Dingo Family – a precursor to ToadShow bands.

    

1985       The Queensland Performing Arts Complex, was officially opened by His Royal Highness, the Duke of Kent in 1985.

         Unemployed People’s Umbrella (UP. U. 1985 - 1987). Ironically, in a very conservative political   environment a team of artists (Vicki Stark, Donna Graham, ………..) was  funded through the  Arts Office within the Bjelke-Petersen Government to work with a group of unemployed young people to produce a performance to coincide with the opening of QPAC. The resulting show, “Crystal Gutters” caused a degree of discomfort for the conservative politicians.

Order By Numbers, a collective of theatre workers (many from the Popular Theatre Troupe), founded by Dee Martin, Penny Glass, Gavan Fenelon and Nat Trimarchi staged and toured three shows to the end of 1986: A Few Short Wicks in Paradise, Tall Tales From the Altered State and Casualties.  The style was a cross between theatre and political cabaret.

ToadShow’s The Paisley Pirates of Penzance plays @ LaBoite Theatre in protest to (& at the same time as) QPAC’s first musical theatre production Pirates of Penzance - an interstate production. The ToadShow production satirised Queensland politics with the Major-General played by Gerry Connolly in caricature as Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The show also satirised corrupt Queensland police.  The second production by Toadshow this year was Conway Christ: Redneck Superstar @ LaBoite Theatre, a satirised story of Jesus.

Acknowledgments:

Bannah, M. (2005) Personal contributions

Batchelor, D. ed. (1986) Twelfth Night The Morning After, Boolarong Publications, p.21.

Capelin, S. (2005) Personal contributions

Capelin, S. ed. (1995) Challenging the Centre: Two Decades of Political Theatre, Playlab Press: Brisbane.

Comans, C. (2005) Personal contributions on LaBoite

Evans, R. and Ferrier, C. eds. (2004) Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History, Vulgar Press: Victoria.

Fotheringham, R. (2005) Personal contributions

Jones, A. (2005) Personal contributions on ToadShow

O’Neil, E. (2005) Personal contributions

Richards, P. (2005) Personal contributions