The lack of comments on some posts and heated discussion on others has been put down by at least one reader as due to Brisbane’s parochialism.
My initial reaction was to feel defensive. I wrote back saying that readers only comment on issues they feel passionately about and that posts that haven’t attracted comments obviously aren’t controversial enough to spark debate.
But something rankled and I got to thinking about the issue.
Parochialism
Parochialism means having narrow views and interests; in other words only being interested in the things that happen in your own parish (in this case, Brisbane). Could there be some truth to the accusation?
For a long time now, Brisbane has seen a regular exodus of its performers and creatives as people realise they can’t get enough work here to make a living from their craft. Each year, more and more of our talented artists make the move to Sydney and Melbourne or, in some cases, overseas.
I have commented in the past on interstate artists being brought to Brisbane and paid living away from home allowances to do jobs that locals could do just as well. (I’m not talking about co-productions here as they are a different case. A co-production will normally have half its personnel from each of the producing cities, giving the artists involved the chance to tour their work and be seen by new audiences.)
I’ve heard people saying that the downside of safe-guarding jobs for locals is that audiences can get tired of seeing the same faces time and time again. There are a few main reasons I disagree with this:
- We have a huge pool of talented creatives here and a tiny amount of professional work, so no one’s in danger of being over exposed.
- Other cities manage to fund ensembles, where part of the joy of attending a season is knowing that you’ll see the best performers, transforming themselves as they work on different projects.
- We have many new artists coming into the industry each year, as well as the many established artists who rarely get a look in at the big companies. Giving a few of them a chance each year would mean there’d always be new people on stage or lighting/composing/designing/directing.
Brisbane gets many international and national productions brought into venues like The Powerhouse and the Judith Wright Centre. These give theatre-goers the chance to see outside faces and styles. Our professional companies are doing more and more co-productions. Is it fair to ask them to try to keep the money and the work local in the remaining shows that aren’t co-productions? (Look at the audience response to seeing 19 local actors on stage in The Crucible as a gauge.)
What do you think? Are we parochial and, if so, is it a bad thing? Should we be encouraging our creatives to stay in Brisbane? If the answer is yes, how do you suggest we do so?
This is such a complex issue.
I would be all for our bigger companies hiring interstate artists in a perfect world where it would be reciprocal, but alas, it rarely is so.
Yes, there's the long-standing problem of our artists needing to go south to forge a viable career and there has recently been a push by Arts Queensland to identify ways in which the local scene might be made a sounder long-term investment in artists' time and effort... followed by policies that almost guarantee us the need to move anywhere else or give up and take a day-job. There is also a perception elsewhere that if you are a Brisbane-based artist you can't be very good because if you were, you'd have left Brisbane.
I was annoyed at some of the recent comments posted regarding 'The Crucible' which complained that it was a cast of the same old faces and nepotism had prevailed.
The truth is that for artists to live and practise their craft in Queensland means a very tough road indeed. Few of us do it in the pursuit of fame, because if that were our goal, we would certainly move to Sydney or Melbourne.
Only the certifiably insane do it for the money. I cringe when I hear that we do it for the love, because although there is undoubtedly some truth in that opinion, I fear it misses the conviction that what we do is important and suggests artists thrive on all the fun and attention. You have to believe you are making an important contribution to the cultural life of your community to continue in this industry, because all other reasons will more than likely see you disappointed.
If our seasoned professionals cannot rely on being cast among nineteen, we really ought to close up shop and just present buy-ins, because it would mean no one has a chance of practising their craft here as anything but a casual hobby. The Brisbane theatre-going public deserves better than that scenario and so do its artists.
Over the past decade there has been a culture of emerging young artists, seemingly for the purpose of then submerging them. Established artists in Queensland do it tougher than our southern counterparts, increasingly so. It is incredibly difficult, for instance, for a Queensland-based writer to be seen as an Australian writer and to gain a significant national profile without moving South, West or actually, even North. As a Queensland-based playwright I've had my work produced Off-Broadway, but never in Melbourne and only once in Sydney.
All my work, bar one musical, is Queensland-centric. I've lost track of the number of times I've been advised by the wise to get my stories out of Queensland, set them in Sydney, or better still, New York. If I do that, I actually remove the one remaining passionate motivation I have to keep working in the industry: to significantly contribute to the cultural life of my community. Whether I actually manage to achieve that is for others to judge.
I strongly believe we are terribly parochial, but I think it's a strange, almost inverted parochialism - a self-conscious cultural cringe.
I once had a student in a writing-for-performance class at QUT despair at locally written plays needing to name local places and landmarks. Do we cringe at hearing the Brooklyn Bridge referred to in American plays? Do we sink in our seats when a British character mentions the High Street, as they invariably do?
Queensland-based plays will either touch the universal nerve or not. Setting them in King's Cross or Derbyshire won't help. But they can only touch the universal nerve if they are seen. Unfortunately most Queensland-written plays that have been programmed at our major companies over the last five years have not had what it takes to do that, and so parochialism deepens.
Arts Queensland's two most vital criteria for funding independent productions are that it should be toured to the regions, with regional presenting partners secured, and that the primary artist must be attempting something completely different to that which they have ever done before. Great. This can only lead to more inverted parochialism. We haven't the confidence to say "We have a wealth of fantastic artists in Queensland and it's imperative they hone their craft towards mastery." Instead, regional venues are expected to commit to an experiment that is unlikely to be anywhere near as good as the unmolested work of a serious, inspired local artist.
Yes... we're parochial.