演员的诞生（四）For the love of the stage（4）

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本期的节目让我们一起来听听，在澳大利亚的舞台上，演员是如何诞生的。

演员的诞生（四）For the love of the stage（4）

Steve Grimwade 
I think these things are local; they're also general. I mean really that's thehuman experience I find most of the time, and maybe we need to go really localand really particular. I think I need to hear the story about a bit of garbageand The Last Laugh.

Rinske Ginsberg 
No. Okay, alright. Two visionary entrepreneurs, John Pinder - extraordinary NewZealand-born amazing, amazing man. He really loved rock and roll. He started TFMuch Ballroom, I don't know, back in the day and he started this little theatrerestaurant, The Flying Trapeze, which was a shopfront in Brunswick Street. 

Then he palled up with a guycalled Roger Evans, and Roger Evans was a graduate from the London School ofEconomics, and so together they created The Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant whichwas at the corner of Gertrude and Smith. It was a big institution. Anyway, soRoger was the man, the business manager who enabled everything to happen andJohn was the dreamy programmer, but that was a marriage made in heaven. Theywere incredible together. Roger was probably more - what would you call it -bohemian and adventurous in some ways than John.

I remember we used to work - itwas a big - we used to have these long tables of people, big groups of people,and I remember coming up - there was 10 of us on the floor, waiters - but Iremember once I had this table and one of the customers on the table was -imagine that it was a restaurant. It was just a theatre restaurant. People hadrubber gloves plonking the chicken marylands on plates. There was no finesse toit and you didn't come for the food. You came for the fabulous entertainment.Circus Oz or - it was just like - we had amazing entertainment. It was justextraordinary.

Anyway, so I go out to Roger andhe's in the booth and I'm saying "oh my god, Rog, I've got this client,this customer, and he's saying 'have you got horseradish here, could I haveEnglish mustard [blah, blah, blah] and it's driving me nuts.' He said'okay'." Came out behind the booth and he said who is it and I pointed tothis guy. He said right come with me and he got another waiter and the three ofus took out two of these - where we used to scrape off the plates in thekitchen - we took out these huge rubbish bins and Roger stood on the table,walked over and put both of these rubbish bins on the table in the middle ofthe auditorium and said "right, here's everything we've got in therestaurant, help yourself". The guy walked out and everybody cheered. 

He was so cool like that. It wasjust great. We could just do anything we liked - well within reason - but theywere great bosses. We just made that place our own. We used to have nightswhere we'd decide - on the Saturday night in between shows Rog and John wouldget takeaway Chinese for - there'd be 15 of us - and we'd have 40 minutesbecause shows - and so we'd be - and during that time we'd all be talking aboutwhat we wanted to do. So some nights we'd have wedding nights where we all camedressed up as brides, or pyjama parties or something. We used to just - wecarried customers in, we played with them. It was just a wonderful job. I lovedit. I was there for a long time.

Steve Grimwade 
So what seemed possible in that time that wasn't previously possible?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Look, that was in the days before insurance and being able to sue people.OH&S wasn't a major issue, but that apart it was a very adventurous time interms of innovating in performance really. They were movers and shakers. PinderI think was a remarkable person and spawned - and came at the same time as awhole lot of other people really.

Circus Oz was born out ofMatchbox and the Pram Factory. The Pram Factory was a seething hotbed ofradical politics and radical performance. It was like - it was the - if youlike, the cleaving of Australia as a colony. We were coming into our own. Wewere making - and it wasn't just in Melbourne, it was everywhere. People werepushing boundaries on performance in terms of writing scripts. Just think aboutwhat was happening and Aunty Jack and Steve Spears. It was just all over theplace; this radicalisation and taking back of the vernacular, our idiom, ourmanners, our ways. The Pram Factory - I just remember Marvellous Melbourne. Itwas an adventurous time.

Steve Grimwade 
Are we still as radical?

Rinske Ginsberg 
No. I don't think we're politically motivated. We are in pockets but because wenow can select our tribes in a way we can stay - we've got our genres sorted.We've got our little ghettos everywhere you go now so you belong to groups,whether or not you recognise that, that are more homogenous than diverse. So weactually have to bring back diversity; whereas once upon a time you had aneighbourhood, you had three generations of people living in a house. It's allchanged. Those sorts of things have changed.

Steve Grimwade 
I mean that's society but has the motivation of theatre changed or is theatrejust a reflection of who we are anyway?

Rinske Ginsberg 
It's differently expressed now. I guess what are the new frontiers these days -and I might have gone off a little bit half-cocked there because I guess whatis radical in performance now in a way is the interdisciplinarity of form; therise of colonising different venues; whether those venues are open-air. There'sa whole range of places now in which theatre can take place. The the live artwork, which is an extrapolation from performance art in some ways, that's Iguess where the frontier is now. That's the new way in which the body can beengaged in provocations really where theatre and art - where film and art,where voice and the body - it's a great time for those - for that - what Iwould say interdisciplinarity.

Steve Grimwade 
You spoke earlier about John Pinder and Roger Evans, but is the age of theimpresario dead? Do we need them more than ever?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Absolutely, and I don't think it's dead, no. I think the impresario is nowembedded in different institutions, and again expressing - the expression ofthe impresario is different. So now there are producers really who foster andanimate work in the same way - or not in the same ways but in similar ways - tothe impresario. 

Venues are too expensive to rununsupported, but there are - some of the state venues really, like the ArtCentre or City of Melbourne venues, even Malthouse, they all have componentswhere they are generating new work, whether that's Darebin or Malthouse or MTC.Also within the institutions where people are being able to - smalllaboratories are operating.

Steve Grimwade 
Is it a case that the individual is now their own impresario?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Yes, absolutely.

Steve Grimwade 
We've had a DIY culture since the '60s, '70s, probably forever, but I mean it'sbeen more pronounced, but I suspect now more than ever the business of theartist is owned by the artist.

Rinske Ginsberg 
Absolutely. You have to be digitally savvy. You've got to be - social mediaacross all kinds of platforms of ways in which you can communicate what you'redoing.

Steve Grimwade 
I guess - was there any advice that was given to you when you began on yourpath?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Just don't do it [laughs]. I don't think - look that's not altogether true, butcertainly - actually it is true. It is true. Everybody tried to talk me out ofit and really I wish I'd listened [laughs].

Steve Grimwade 
So given that we've now reaching towards inspiration, is there any advice you'dhave for other performers and actors starting on their path?

Rinske Ginsberg 
You want to make sure this is your thing because it's completely consuming. Youwant to work out whether you are called to do this as a vocation because it'sheartbreaking if it isn't. I know that sounds terrible but if you love theexpressivity, the possibility of expressing yourself on stage, there are manyways to do it without devoting your whole life to it. That's what I would say. 

You want to think because it's abeautiful, rewarding, incredibly rich, life. It's amazing on that level, butyou might not make any money. But it is, it's an amazing - I was talking theother day about what the actor or the theatre graduate from here comes outwith, and really they come out with such a really humanitarian education. Weeducate the whole person in a way and that is the metaphysics if you like, orthe metaphor, for acting training - is that it educates you to the universalityof our lives in a way.

Steve Grimwade 
So next time I walk onto a darkened stage up to the microphone and there are200 people looking at me what do you want me to think about?

Rinske Ginsberg 
Think about them, not yourself.

Steve Grimwade 
That's going to be quite hard.

Rinske Ginsberg 
Well I think that's the definition of stage fright - is when people get just -it's like it's all about how nauseous you're feeling, how sweaty. Yourawareness is all tuned in and if you can tune it out then it's all about howyou get across to them what you believe in and then they'll get you.

Steve Grimwade 
Rinske Ginsberg, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Rinske Ginsberg 
Thank you Steve.

Chris Hatzis 
Thanks to Rinske Ginsberg, academic and lecturer at the Victorian College ofthe Arts. And thanks to our reporter Steve Grimwade.

Eavesdrop on Experts - storiesof inspiration and insights - was made possible by the University of Melbourne. 

This episode was recorded onDecember 8, 2017. 

You'll find a full transcript onthe Pursuit website. 

Audio engineering by ArchCuthbertson, co-production by Dr Andi Horvath and Silvi Van-Wall. 

Eavesdrop on Experts is licensedunder Creative Commons, copyright 2018, the University of Melbourne. I'm ChrisHatzis, producer and editor. Join us again next time for another Eavesdrop onExperts.

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