In June 1977 “National U”, the newspaper of the National Union of Australian University Students, published an interview with Ponch Hawkes and Mick (Microphone) Conway of Soapbox Circus (later to become Circus Oz). Much of the interview was about the record album that had just been released, “Matchbox and the APG – The Great Stumble Forward”. L 36245, Festival Records.
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It’s fair to say that Melbourne theatre critics, Leonard Radic and Neil Jillet, did not like the APG’s “Smack in the Dacks”. Below are copies of their reviews: Leonard Radic in The Age (Nov ’77) and Neil Jillett in The Herald (21/11/77).
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Contents:
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 1
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 2
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 3
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 4
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 5
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 6
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 7
APG newsletter, National Campus Tour, 1976, Winter/Spring, page 8
Soapbox Circus and the Matchbox band performed “Smackin The Dacks” at the front theatre of the Pram Factory from 17 November to 24 December 1977. Below is a copy of the brochure/programme for that season (including advertisements), plus copies of two APG PR papers. (Updated 11/10/2021)
Leading performers: Alan Robertson, Jon Hawkes, Robin Laurie, Laurel Frank, Helen Sky, and Michael Price. Band: Tony Burkys, Jim Conway, Mick Conway, Rick Ludbrook, Gordon MacLean, Peter Muhleisen, and Colin Stevens. Credits also are given to Bob Daly, Richard Murphet, Carol Porter, Rose Chong, Margot Lindsay, Kelvin Gedye, Ponch Hawkes, Tim Caldwell, Sue Broadway, Chips Mackinolty, Richard East, Mary Duggan, Fay Mokotow ” and an antfarm of friends and helpers” including: Charlie Aarons, Sally Clifton, Eve Glenn, Ursula Harrison, John Konig, Bayne Laurie, Esther Naylor, Shuvus and Mark Tanner.
Continue readingPosted in Alternative theatre, APG, Australian Performing Group, Australian theatre, Circus Oz, Pram Factory Theatre
Tagged 1977, APG, Bob Daly, Carol Porter, Chips Mackinolty, Christmas Show, dacks, Fay Mokotow, Front Theatre, Kelvin Gedye, Margot Lindsay, Mary Duggan, Matchbox, Ponch Hawkes, Richard East, Richard Murphet, Rose Chong, smack, Smakin The Dacks, soapbox circus, Sue Broadway, Tim Caldwell
From 14 March to 19 March, 1978 the Australian Performing Group (APG) offshoot Circus Oz gave 12 performances at Bonython Park, Adelaide, as part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts.
“Circus Oz was the amalgamation of two already well known groups—Soapbox Circus, a roadshow set up by the Australian Performing Group (APG) in 1976, and the New Ensemble Circus, a continuation of the New Circus, established in Adelaide in 1974.” – Jon Hawkes, circopedia.org
The following photographs and text are from the Circus Oz brochure which was prepared for distribution at the festival. (Advertisements have been not been copied.) (The photographer/s is/are not credited in the publication. The performers who appear in the photos are:
Sue Broadway, Tony Burkys, Tim Coldwell, Jim Conway, Mick Conway, Jack Daniels, Laurel Frank, Kelvin Gedye, Jon Hawkes, Ponch Hawkes, Robin Laurie, Ric Ludbrook, Gordon McLean, Peter Muhleisen, Michael Price, Jim Robertson, Pixi Robertson and Helen Sky.
Posted in Alternative theatre, APG, Australian Performing Group, Australian theatre, Circus Oz, Pram Factory Theatre, Theatre History
Tagged 1978, Adelaide Arts Festival, Captain Matchbox band, circus oz, Gordon McLean, Helen Sky, Jack Daniels, Jim Conway, Jim Robertson, Jon Hawkes, Kelvin Gedye, Laurel Frank, Michael Price, Mick Conway, Peter Muhleisen, Pixi Robertson, Ponch Hawkes, Ric Ludbrook, Robin Laurie, soapbox circus, Sue Broadway, Tim Coldwell, Tony Burkys
John Timlin, pictured with son, Michael, in September 2007. Photo by Craig Sillitoe. The Age, 2/9/2007.
For most of the 1970s, John Timlin was the APG’s publicist and quasi administrator. He also acted as agent for several writers, including Jack Hibberd and John Romeril.
“Pramocracy” (as it has become known) appears to have been written a few months after the Federal Election held in May 1974, for Timlin refers to that election as if it had occurred fairly recently. (At that election Gough Whitlam’s Labor Party was returned to Government following a double dissolution.) At the time the APG was, according to Timlin, suffering an “identity crisis”.
The document published below in its entirety is a dog-eared draft of “Pramocracy” with John’s handwritten heading and alterations on it.
(added to this blog on 28/8/2013)
A least one other version of this paper – with additional paragraphs and with paragraphs deleted – has been published elsewhere. The version published on the Pram Factory website (developed by Sue Ingleton) and published in The Way Out magazine (which now appears on its website), has the following additional paragraphs appearing at the end:
“This seeming masochism is, however, germane to democratic participation; workers’ control of the theatre. The fact of stardom, fame etc. cannot entitle one person to have a vote affecting the lives of others whilst they are, possibly, so distant from the theatre as to be ignorant of the issues, arguments and personalities.
The Collective has, in this respect, tightened somewhat – if a member is absent from four consecutive monthly Collective meetings, membership (subject to appeal) lapses and the privilege of priority for employment disappears. This, of course, allows us to change;; those who opt for the security and comparatively high pecuniary rewards of lengthy film, television or theatre contracts are exercising their choice and, by so doing, effectively resigning and creating space for others, thus injecting new blood and, potentially a new theatricality into the Group.
Somehow, for journalists, Arts Council people and theatre workers outside, there is something difficult about accepting the actuality of democratic control in the APG. They want to believe in leaders, authority figures, etc. They find the oppositionist stridency of the APG somewhat uncomfortable, the postures that emerge from its moral well-spring difficult to live with. Doubtless, its stance on many issues can transmute into image-making rhetoric but there is a certain purity of intention, not yet fully articulated theatrically, which may enable the group to persist and withstand the fiscal and critical difficulties which always are at the jugular of innovative, anti-establishment theatre groups. In March 1972, in a letter to the Group, sometime member, Margaret Williams, now a critic and academic at the University of NSW, wrote:
‘… I think that what is in many ways the Group’s strongest quality is also its least endearing quality – at least to those outside it – namely, a kind of (dare I say it?) arrogance; a messianic certainty of its anointed role as custodian of the Australian drama … I think that quality is an asset, and it may well be that that is the magic talisman which will keep the APG alive and kicking where so many other groups, equally committed, have failed …’.
Drama is a communal art. It needs writers and actors and technicians and ticket sellers and designers and painters of walls. Without each other, not one of these people would be meaningful. In so far as the APG is an alternative, it is so because its political form is such as to give each person a share in deciding what affects another. It is frightening to each of us at different levels, for different reasons but, for those of us who choose to remain, it is the best way to work; trust is the only way in which the theatre can take those risks necessary to create something new.”
On the other hand, the following parts from the original scanned document appearing on this blog do not appear in the other version just mentioned:
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The then unnamed Australian Performing Group (APG) from Melbourne started out in 1967 as a group of writers and actors working together at La Mama theatre in Carlton. In 1970 the APG was officially formed and then set up a theatre in a former pram factory in Drummond Street, Carlton. Here, and in other venues throughout Melbourne and other parts of Australia, the ensemble presented alternative, experimental, avant-garde and radical plays, musical comedies, vaudeville, stage shows, street theatre and circus acts, using comedy, drama, music and dance to entertain and, in some cases, to turn the spotlight on its concerns about social, political and feminist issues. The ensemble also produced a record album (“The Great Stumble Forward: Matchbox and the APG at the Pram”) and a feature length movie (“Dimboola”). Quite a few of the hundred-plus works performed by the APG between 1970 and 1979 received critical and popular acclaim. APG actors, writers and performers had a major impact on the nature and content of live theatre in Australia. Their government-subsidized organisation provided acting, designing, and play-writing opportunities to many people who might not otherwise have had the chance to create.
But by 1981 the group had disintegrated. The only surviving part is “Circus Oz”, an APG off-shoot formed in 1978 when the APG’s Soapbox Circus and The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band joined with the New Ensemble Circus of Adelaide. It continues to perform in Australia and internationally to this day (July 2013).
Listed below are writers, actors, directors, artists and others who were part of the APG and/or its Soapbox Circus during its heyday, and whose names may be well known to “mature-age” lovers of Australian alternative theatre, circus, film and television. As others have said, “some (of these people) had a brief connection with the APG; others were there for a long time and were instrumental in its success”.
Blundall, Graeme
Bolza, Joe
Broadway, Sue
Buzo, Alex
Chapman, Eileen
Chong, Rose
Clemson, Helen
Clifton, Jane
Coldwell, Tim
Conway, Mick
Corrigan, Peter
Costelloe, Rose
Cummins, Peter
Daly, Bob
Davies, Lindy
de Winter, Roz
Dickins, Barry
Dobbin, Claire
Dreyfus, George
Duigan, John
Dwyer, Kerry
Finlay, Peter
Frank, Laurel
Friedel, Jan
Friedel, Martin
Garner, Bill
Gedye, Kelvin
Giles, Neil
Gillies, Max
Green, Peter
Hampton, Paul
Hannan, Bill
Hannan, Lorna
Harrison, Ursula
Hawkes, Jon
Hawkes, Ponch
Hibberd, Jack
Ingelton, Sue
Isaac, Graeme
Johnson, Michele
Kemp, Jenny
Kendall, David
Koenig, John
Krape, Evelyn
Last, Wilfred
Laurie, Robin
Ley, John
Long, Ursula
Ludrook, Ric
Maddison, Ruth
Marini, Yvonne
Meldrum, Robert
Meltzer, Larry
Mokotow, Fay
Molan, Phil
Motherwell, Phil
Mullett, Jane
Murphet, Richard
Oakley, Barry
Pickhaver, Greig
Potter, Susy
Porter, Carol
Price, Michael
Richards, Alison
Robertson, Alan
Robertson, Tim
Romeril, John
Shuv’us, James
Sky, Hellen
Smith, Lindzee
Spears, Steve
Spence, Bruce
Taylor, Tony
Thorneycroft, Bob
Underwood, Naomi
Waddell, Gary
Weiner, Jack
Weiss, Bob
Williamson, David
(As I think of/become aware of others I will add them to the list.)
Like most of its productions, management at the APG was also radically different. Instead of a conventional, hierarchical structure, the APG was run as a self-managed collective. Nevertheless, the roles played by John Timlin (publicity and administration) and Jon Hawkes (acting and administration) at times approximated that of manager or overseer. Phil Molan was the sometime lawyer.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, management became somewhat chaotic as the APG grew and conflicts between sub-groups arose. Several influential members departed, some because they became tired of attending the many committee and group meetings held.
It has been estimated that the APG performed/staged up to 150 theatrical productions. Of those the following are probably the best known from the group’s heyday (alphabetically):
A Stretch of the Imagination
A Toast to Melba
At the Feet of Daniel Mannix
Back to Bourke Street
Bedfellows
Betty Can Jump
Beware of Imitations
Carboni
Chicago Chicago
Chris Langham’s One Man Show
Diary of a Madman
Dimboola
Domestic Contradictions – Socialism in One Room
Don’s Party
Dreamers of the Absolute
Floating World
How Grey Was My Nurse
It’s a Mad World, My Masters
Knuckle
Marvellous Melbourne
Mary Shelley and the Monsters
Mickey’s Moomba
My Foot, My Tutor
On Yer Marx
Pecking Orders
Peggy Sue
Phar Lap – It’s Cingalese for Lightning, Y’know
Radio Active Horror Show
Sisters
Smak’in The Daks
Soabox Circus
Stasis
The Bob and Joe Show
The Dudders
The Floating World
The Golden Holden
The Hills Family Show
The Overcoat
The Ship’s Whistle
Traitors
White With Wire Wheels
Yesterday’s News
Yours for the Masking
Thousands of words have been written about the Australian Performing Group and the Pram Factory Theatre. The best that I have read are:
