DPJ Gallery
May 25th 2010 01:59
Original Creative Writing:
DavidPJ
An expanding gallery providing rare insights into the career of an actor, writer and director.
The first try was The Last Unicorn; an attempt to write something inspired by a novel by Peter S. Beagle from 1968. It was really just an opportunity to write and direct something at the Sheriden Theatre for the Adelaide Theatre Group, at that time being run by Doug Leonard. There was a large group of people into performance, we had already done a few plays and I asked if it would be possible for me to do a kids play for the school holidays. They said yes, so off we went with a mad cap strange and wonderful play that featured Rosalba Clemente and Doug Leonard among others. It did quite well and encouraged me to continue.
I was working as an actor for a theatre in education (TIE) company of actors called The Acting Company and had been performing in theatre in schools, on tour around South Australian country towns as well as metropolitan schools. There were productions in theatre also - the one I was in, The Caretaker, was quite a challenge for me. A lot of lines to learn in an environment of sneering competition from fellow actors, and the brief to play a character fourty years my senior, a sixty-something year old. Phew, I got a fair review although the production was not lauded.
Prior to this in the 1970's I had acted in a few plays here and there around Adelaide, in local theatre companies either at Port Noarlunga or Christies Beach. I really enjoyed acting, learning lines, remembering the moves. I did a play called The Crimson Coconut as simulated live dinner theatre, that was fun. It was very silly. I was a genie in Aladdin, an elderly father in Jabberwocky, a very camp brother in Bell Book and Candle probably others I'd need to check.
I was in shows with the Therry Dramatic Society including Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, The Shadow of St Pat's, They Don't Grow on Trees and Antigone all in the late 1970's. I was also involved in street theatre directed by Bruno Knez from La Mama Theatre in Hindmarsh. I had worked even before this at The Cottage Theatre doing a show called Camelot, and another puppetry show called Alice in Wonderland, both directed by Ric Marshall, although Murray George was the original director of Camelot at The Cottage.
It was the early 1970's when I was being paid about fifteen dollars a week or so to be performing every night bar Monday with an afternoon show on the weekend, in one of Adelaide's smallest venues, The Cottage. It was indeed an old cottage that had been converted. It was the only stage I had ever worked on that had a revolve. A large circular area that turned the whole stage around. Rotated. So you could be standing on stage facing the audience one moment, and then be backstage the next facing the back stage wall of the theatre, which was an expansion at the back of the cottage structure itself.
The big thing in those days from an actors point of view, well, from my point of view, was coverage. It was really significnt and exciting to get my face out there. Now how egotistical does that actually sound? Probably very. But I had an ambition in me to be a good actor and to make a career for myself. I think I had been reading too many biographies of Hollywood stars. Who knows? But I was bitten by the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd, as they once said - which was infact mockery of the actual saying which is reversed.
Even at Christies Beach High School we were encouraged by Ian Mortlock, Terri Marsh and Greg Temple among other drama teachers to develop our skills. I was very interested in drama. I had been involved at Port Noarlunga Primatry School, as a student, in creating radio programs for the school, a fun sort of thing, something to give the class something to do I suppose. It was never a big thing as such, but we would do 'drama' and really, it was what I enjoyed the most.
1982
Davies in The Caretaker
Prior to this in the 1970's I had acted in a few plays here and there around Adelaide, in local theatre companies either at Port Noarlunga or Christies Beach. I really enjoyed acting, learning lines, remembering the moves. I did a play called The Crimson Coconut as simulated live dinner theatre, that was fun. It was very silly. I was a genie in Aladdin, an elderly father in Jabberwocky, a very camp brother in Bell Book and Candle probably others I'd need to check.
Therry Dramatic Society 1978
It was the early 1970's when I was being paid about fifteen dollars a week or so to be performing every night bar Monday with an afternoon show on the weekend, in one of Adelaide's smallest venues, The Cottage. It was indeed an old cottage that had been converted. It was the only stage I had ever worked on that had a revolve. A large circular area that turned the whole stage around. Rotated. So you could be standing on stage facing the audience one moment, and then be backstage the next facing the back stage wall of the theatre, which was an expansion at the back of the cottage structure itself.
1974
1975/6
Even at Christies Beach High School we were encouraged by Ian Mortlock, Terri Marsh and Greg Temple among other drama teachers to develop our skills. I was very interested in drama. I had been involved at Port Noarlunga Primatry School, as a student, in creating radio programs for the school, a fun sort of thing, something to give the class something to do I suppose. It was never a big thing as such, but we would do 'drama' and really, it was what I enjoyed the most.
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David Jobling
