I remember in the early Eighties going on a trip to Indonesia and seeing a performance where the entire proscenium was constructed out of banners and signs of the sponsoring corporations — I thought at the time how bizarre that was. I went to America, to Nashville, and saw much the same thing at the Grand 0l’ Opry and the constant refrain of Goo-goo candy clusters: ‘Go for a Goo-Goo. It’s good!’ and I thought ‘how crass’ But, you know, America puh.

Well, I’ve just directed The Marriage of Figaro to open the Optus Playhouse which was one of the major events of the Energex Brisbane Festival and I thought — enough’s enough, Energex was always capitalised, what’s more, so whenever you read it you got this kind of jumping shudder and an image of sparks and electrocution and confusion. Is this how it was meant to be? I think not. It’s like those stickers they put on apples and bananas and oranges now. Tomatoes even. World capitalism — nothing can be itself any more — it has to be owned, it has to declare its brand.

And speaking of world capitalism, I think we should be very careful of all those cloned productions that are dropping in. I have some ambivalence here, because of course we get to see fabulous productions, of course our actors and technicians are given sure-fire successful work but I sat in Her Majesty’s in Melbourne watching Chicago knowing that it was a carbon copy of the New York original — where originally highly creative decisions like telling the cast to dress themselves — just wear something black and sexy — had now slavishly become the show, reproduced in every town along with every moment of choreography, every look, every apparently spontaneous joke. I wished I was in New York or better still back at the opening of Richard Wherrett’s wonderful STC production in 1980. The lead man in Rent in every production subsequent to the original, I believe is given red hair and glasses because that’s what the original had. There is a generation of dancers whose bodies have been ruined because of the cloning and reproducing of the original choreography of Cats — ‘Cats knees’ it’s called — the imposition of choreography onto bodies for whom it was not developed and whom it does not suit. But each of these shows comes with its own in-built success, the multi-million dollar marketing, the proven images, the pre-written reviews where basically the old names get taken out and the new ones typed in.

This is finally pernicious, I believe, because a production can only be truly great if it is an expression of all of its participants, if it is owned by its performers. Halleluiah and thank God for The Boy From Oz, is all I can say, for at last we have broken the curse of the unattainable ‘Great Australian Musical’.

And theatre doesn’t belong in casinos. For the auspicious opening of Kennett’s Temple of Doom where the torches fired and turned thousands of pigeons into scorching fireballs of pain, to our own watery version, where you pick your way through the rows of lost souls in the gaudy aquarium, past rows of machines swallowing next week’s food budget for a family — and you reach the theatre and sit in the darkening velvet hush sucking on chocolate to disguise the taste of blood in your mouth.

No, Mr Premiers, its not a healthy way to fund a State’s treasury, and in any case, Packer still seems to control the bank.

And while the pressure of staying alive might force us to some extreme jokes, theatre is not fashion. Fashion, with a few exceptions, is inane, elitist, mindless and exploitative, and in Australia it’s always six months behind London and New York. Our theatre should be the opposite of that. I had an interview last week with Stuart Hawkins who revealed something to me about myself and my work for which I am very grateful. I realised that the thing I am drawn to dramatise is the moment of passing from isolation to community, and when I think of the images of my work and others that I remember and treasure most, that is the drama that is being enacted, the story that is being told.

And so I remember Geoffrey Rush’s mad Poproshin screaming from the comer of this theatre for his mother; Kerry Walker and Catherine McClements reaching across the gap of age and class and religion in that most brilliant of scenes in the silent kitchen of Stephen Sewell’s The Blind Giant is Dancing; Carole Skinner’s Goat Lady and Gillian Jones’s alcoholic wife finding peace together in some cheap Australian whisky in Patrick White’s Night on Bald Mountain; Robyn Nevin struggling against the wind, clinging to her hat as the world tries to tear the flesh from her bones in Jim Sharman’s version of White’s A Cheery Soul; David Field’s loving, lost soul sitting outside the circle of family and connection in Jack Davis’ No Sugar; Julie Forsyth’s heartbreaking Grusha reaching for Mikael in Michael Kantor’s brilliant Caucasian Chalk Circle; Daniel Wyllie’s Fish Lamb silently farewelling his family at the end of Cloudstreet...

There is a line in that movie not known for its good lines, Elizabeth, a film saved I should add, by the performances of our Geoffrey and our Cate, but this line sang out: ‘we need to touch the divine, here on earth’.

It seems to me that is what theatre can do. And in so doing it can reconcile, and teach, and bind and transport, and give us great pleasure. I fear we have rather tough times ahead. We must keep our faith and keep working.

I want to finish with something for Philip, that last speech from Patrick’s Tempest, The Shepherd on the Rocks:

Are you for magic? I am. Inadmissible when we are taught to believe in science or nothing. Nothing is better. Science may explode in our faces. So I am for magic. For dream. For love. The pervasive dream which becomes more real than reality if we have faith in it. If we can resist abusing them, all out dreams can amount to a world faith. If we can pursue our dream of faith to the end, to the death if necessary. Whatever death it remains to be seen. Another facet of life? Not — I refuse to believe — what certain scientists, academics, and a variety of non-human beings try to persuade me — I should say — US — because you are part of ME — and we are all part of one another. At the gates of death — which is not hell, as Church voices have so often promised, I hope to shed my doubts, fears, obstinacy, lust. I do not expect an easy transition. I believe that renewal can only be reached through blood and ash. While many of us will continue pursuing false dreams, worshipping sun, yachts, monuments, money, and beaches — that’s where the votes are to be caught (all you need is a shrimping net and a fair measure of hypocrisy). I pray for grace — for the deceived shrimps — the monsters of power — and the least deserving creature — myself.

Thank you

Neil Armfield