Pierrot at the Show

(By August Macke)

[In the fashion of online construction, transient and elusive as painting fresco – see The Faerie Queen of Estonia – we offer our arts wrap ups in the Great Poet‘s invention, terza rima]

Dear Calliope, I am not all that keen

To finish up this long account

And serve as a meal not fit for a queen.

So from my high horse I dismount

And warily survey the scene,

An open mind is paramount,

And hopefully, a brain washed clean

(Not confused with an empty mind)

To precisely process the heard and seen

—

Within the Kingdom of the Blind,

Where prejudice wears its dark niqab,

To seek and strive to know and find

—

And learn to understand the drab

Along with the decorous gem –

So come on, then: let’s have a stab.

Before we set out to condemn,

Congratulate ourselves for good,

Gloom is not our stratagem

—

And Gusto is our neighbourhood.

We reject Favour; laugh at Fear,

But flee from the misunderstood.

So Melpomene, start with King Lear;

With Geoffrey Rush as the senile King,

Playing in Sydney at New Year.

Rush is a star but the play’s the thing

And we will be there, upon the Eve

When mummers aren’t delivering

—

For, you wouldn’t just believe,

They cancelled the performance

On New Years; the party’s not to leave.

—

‘Tis probably against romance –

To stage this bleak and chilly tale

Mid the happy harbour’s elegance.

While the yachts enjoy full sail

And the pyrotechnics flare

Shakespeare has the World bewail.

—

We’ll leave our views up in the air

And evaluate the recent past,

If you disagree, then please still share.

—

Terpsichore, be not aghast,

Dance is not  our strongest suit,

In fact, our ignorance is vast.

So we’re slow to start dispute

With physical theatre’s opaque charm

And kindergarten overshoot.

—

“A blindfold and a broken arm”,

Writhing – shrieking – furious grins,

None strong theme shall come to harm.

—

Take the Seven Deadly Sins,

(Brisbane Playhouse, Expressions Dance)

No theme for these disciplines

—

Of sin and drama, circumstance,

Air-chopping ‘Greed’ and Sinuous ‘Lust’,

Can only resonate by chance.

—

All other tropes fast turn to dust,

In NYX a big children’s tantrum

Leaves the onlookers nonplussed.

—

So it goes, from High to Humdrum

Despite Cry Jailolo and the like

We’re served an array to benumb.

—

There’s something, now, of a gallery spike

Which we honour, and applaud,

From MONA to Albury, lots to like

Or not but it must needs be explored.

Whether Russell Drysdale or a poo machine,

If you’re live you are never bored.

 

 

 

 

 

We won’t touch on, to vent our spleen

The art market and its gnostic laws.

It is a Tad too easy to demean –

—

Robert Hughes exposed the flaws

In the market’s taste, where a flashy nude

Will see gnashed teeth and nibbled paws.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From painted greed to Opera. Rude

Are we to again slam E.N.O

But they ask for it, in their grim and lewd

—

Renderings.  Now they’ve Mimi on the Blow

And to make Euterpe yet more sick,

They give strong hints they do not know

—

That magic realism does the trick

Only when some humour’s planned

Or a Book of Sand‘s not worth a lick.

Time to set upon a stand

The bust of departed Keith Michell,

Whose work in theatre nicely spanned

—

The post-war decades, and full well.

His Henry VIII was miraculous,

Suggesting ‘mid domestic pell-mell

—

His clear vision and unscrupulous

Deploying power of a haughty King,

and a high-mind, yet scrofulous

—

As his well-worn, shrivelled ding-a-ling.

He seemed as if a bag of wine

About to burst, spate covering

—

Every tortured line.

Degas was, equally, a scoffer

Of women; but his work was fine,

—

Albeit unwholesome to proffer,

Little girls in their tutus,

Gorgeous but not apt to offer

To a mind that often skews.

Ask Bill Henson – show the young

And reputation fast unscrews.

—

Hanged, he is and thus well-hung,

With bulging eyes and blackened tongue,

Will he miss the paint pot flung?