For a number of years now the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), based in Sydney, have run a program called Intersection culminating in the Intersection Festival.
ATYP commission 20 emerging playwrights to write a 15 minute play for students 14-17 years of age. The short list then consists of what are considered the 10 best of these short plays and are then performed by high schools at the Intersection Festival. This competition is usually only open to Sydney high schools, but this year ATYP have opened it up to Perth and Adelaide. Concordia College was invited to be part of the program and accepted.
Under Year 11 Drama Teacher Daniel Lynch’s Artistic Direction, the Concordia College’s collection is entitled “Orbit” and is entirely student driven. They chose the three plays to perform, directed them, designed them and acted in them. It’s absolutely wonderful to see young talent being nurtured in this manner.
The three plays performed were “Driving Everywhere And Nowhere At Once” by Sean Larry Mudariki, “What Would Brian Cox Do?” by Diya Goswami and “Begin To Glow” by Nic Davidson.
Memory can be a very fractured entity – it sees what it wants to see, not necessarily what happened. Many witnesses to something, even only two, can remember past events totally differently: this is the premise of “Driving Everywhere And Nowhere At Once”. A teenage male has just got his Driver’s Licence and is driving his friend to the shops when reality breaks hard. Zoe Kimber’s direction plays to the comedy and drama of this piece extremely well. She directs her two actors, Jem Cliff and Lani Rangai in such a way that the audience is lulled into a false sense of security. Both actors are extremely natural and don’t come across as ‘acting’ but rather just telling a story to the best that their memories will allow. Ethan Bickley’s design is simple but very effective allowing the story and actors to be the centre of attention.
For the uninitiated who don’t know who Brian Cox is (no, not the actor who plays Logan Roy in “Succession” – right name, wrong person), he is an English physicist highly respected in the field of Physics. “What Would Brian Cox Do?” examines how a group of teenage Science students might handle what could be a very apocalyptic event. Talia Byrne’s direction has humour and well planned chaos truly planted into this piece – the harmonising of the actors chanting ‘Brian Cox’ to a candle lit life size effigy of their hero from time to time is particularly hilarious. She also handles physical business well, demonstrated by the well choreographed, very busy montages. Although playing ‘geeks’ or ‘nerds’ the cast of Rex Broomhall, Zac Byas, Hannah Gooley, Alex Lind and Nick Reuter each demonstrate very different types of ‘science nerd’ behaviour and distinguish their individual characters distinctly. Byas in particular shows us that he is probably the definitive ‘Head Science Nerd’ with the great touch of having the bridge of his black rimmed glasses taped up. Josie Belcher and James Thomas’s design is cleverly chaotic and very usable.
The last presentation of the evening really did take us into orbit with the beautifully surreal “Begin To Glow”. Broken into two parts by a wonderfully fluid piece of dance choreographed and beautifully performed by Ava Heath and Annie Sanders, this play looks at Love and Astronomy. The first part takes the audience into Space to discover two stars orbiting around one another – one seemingly dying. The second part is back on Earth with two teenage amateur astronomers on what might possibly be a first date under the stars. As directed by Neeka Prideaux, this was a beautifully sensitive piece of theatre. Keziah Cheng and Max Green obviously took direction extremely well and added their own interpretations wisely. Green in particular impressed this reviewer by how his manner changed from the uprightness and seriousness of his Star to his delightful gawkiness and awkwardness as a teenager. Nice performances from both actors. The overall design from Rebecca Millhouse and Holly Winwood allowed the actors and dancers to shine by having minimal props and atmospheric lighting.
Congratulations to Concordia College for being invited to participate in Intersection and for doing it in such an excellent manner. All Year 11 Drama students and Daniel lynch should be very proud.
Here’s hoping one of their plays will be selected for the Festival!
