THEATRE-GOING WHEN YOUNG – PART 1 of 8

My Uncle Alan Camm, to say the least, was a “character.”  There were those, I imagine, who would have called him a scoundrel; but my impression is that he was merely one who was a little too ready to let opportunism come before prudence; and, as a bank manager, prudence should have been his credo.  He was apparently notorious around the Commercial Bank (and Westpac after the merger) as one who “took risks” with borrowers – risking the bank’s money, that is.  He was not a favourite with the inspectorial staff and senior management.  He was tolerated, though, because he wrote a lot of profitable business.  Alan had trained, and had gained responsibility, when systems were less controlled; and although the systems changed he never did. 

Alan’s early banking career was in rural areas – at bank branches in Chinkapook, Nhill and Colac, and then his first branch managership at Neerim South in Gippsland.  Although I spent a number of school holidays at Neerim South (my Aunt Lillian and my mother were sisters), it wasn’t until Alan was posted to the Commercial Bank in Bridge Road Richmond in the late 1950s that he and I became close.   The bond strengthened when my father died in 1960; and, despite his foibles, I was happy to call Alan my friend until his death in November 1996 aged 91.

The bank’s customer profile in inner-suburban Richmond was quite different from the graziers and townsfolk of Gippsland, and business customers in particular provided opportunities for creative banking.  As a consequence, Alan’s below-stairs cupboard was an Aladdin’s cave of whiskies, replenished each Christmas by a brace of bottles from grateful clients.

Alan had one client par excellence whose business was simple but extraordinarily profitable: the man had an arrangement with the breweries to relieve them of the problem of disposing of the huge amounts of mash left over from the brewing process - by generously trucking the stuff away.  He then sold it as stock feed to pig farmers.  There must have been some banking favour at one stage (possibly continuous!), because this client provided Alan with two tickets to every performance staged by the major theatres in Melbourne – typically two aisle seats, about seven rows from the front of the stalls.   Aunt Lillian was interested only in the ballet, so Alan had a spare ticket for all the plays and the musical comedies.  I was the beneficiary of this situation.  It was helpful that I lived about 300 metres away from Alan’s bank, further along Bridge Road.  (There was a residence for the manager’s family at the Commercial Bank premises.)  And so began my serious theatre-going.  For a number of years from my late teens through my early twenties I saw them all. 

In those days the purchase of a programme was almost obligatory, certainly knee-jerk, and the habit continued until more recent years when I decided that theatre programmes were definitely not value for money.  In the meantime, however, there had been an accumulation of programmes post the Alan Camm days, including years of attending Melbourne Theatre Company productions.    Uncharacteristically, I recently acknowledged to myself that the hundreds of programmes boxed in the garage were of sentimental value only, and that it was time to shed them - hopefully not into the recycling bin; so would any institution be interested?  The Arts Centre Melbourne was not interested for its Performing Arts Collection; but the State Library of Victoria was happy to have them.  The Library already had years of Melbourne Theatre Company programmes, though, and didn’t want to take duplicates.  I said it was all or nothing, but that they were free to cull whatever they didn’t want; and, in any case, I had many 1950s’ programmes of the MTC’s predecessor, the Union Theatre Repertory Company, which may well pre-date the Library’s present arrangement to receive a copy from each MTC production.

It was only when the courier was due to arrive the next day, and when I had a quick nostalgic rummage, that I had a sense – these 50-plus years on – of how extraordinarily privileged I had been as a young man, and what a huge amount of theatre I had seen.  So I selected a number of the programmes that I thought might be the most interesting, made some notes, and what follows is the result.

But first, something about Melbourne theatre in the 1950s and 1960s.

I don’t know whether it’s true to say that Melbourne has “always” had a strong small theatre scene, but that was certainly the case in the 1950s and 1960s, possibly more so than today.  Quite aside from my Uncle Alan’s benevolence I was familiar with the St. Martin’s Theatre in South Yarra (formerly the Little Theatre) [the St. Martin’s folded in 1973]; with the Melbourne New Theatre in Flinders Street [long gone], perennial presenter of the Australian musical Reedy River; with the National Theatre [then at Eastern Hill, now in St. Kilda]; with the Plaza Theatre in Northcote [closed in 1957], where as a family we had occasional exposure to vaudeville; and with the Tin Alley Players [long defunct] and the Union Theatre Repertory Company [since 1968, the Melbourne Theatre Company], both based at the University of Melbourne’s Union Theatre, from my campus days.  And with La Mama in Carlton from its foundation in 1967.

Notwithstanding all this theatrical activity the theatre scene at the time was dominated by three theatrical enterprises, that is, the “theatre scene” as understood by what has been described as largely unadventurous middle-class audiences. 

The Tivoli Circuit had been a centrepiece of Australian theatre entertainment from its foundation by an English music hall comedian in 1893.  It was Australia’s foremost provider of vaudeville and variety theatre, and presented its shows in Tivoli theatres in the capital cities.  The Melbourne Tivoli was in Bourke Street.  On occasions, management presented musical comedies and other non-vaudeville shows, sometimes in conjunction with other entrepreneurs.  This became more common as the taste for jugglers, stand-up comedians, lion tamers, semi-naked chorus girls (“Tivoli tappers”) and the like waned.  Changing tastes, and the arrival of television in 1956 – light entertainment in your living room, on demand – brought an end to this class of “live theatre”.  The final Tivoli show was staged in 1966.

There were two “legitimate” theatre operators – J.C. Williamson Theatres and the Carroll organisation.  Williamsons pre-dated Tivoli by some years, founded by American actor James Cassius Williamson.  Having in 1879 secured the Australian rights to present Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore, Williamson formed a touring company; then leased his first theatre, the Theatre Royal in Sydney, in 1881.  The Princess’s Theatre Melbourne was opened by Williamson in 1886 with a production of The Mikado.  Williamson became the consummate theatrical entrepreneur, and – unbelievably - at one time J.C. Williamson Theatres was the largest theatrical firm in the world.  After Williamson’s death in 1913, the management (and, later, ownership) of the business passed to the Tait brothers, the last of whom, Sir Frank Tait, was still involved in the early ‘60s.  The company was wound up in 1976.  Over the years the production of Gilbert & Sullivan operas was a staple, with touring groups being organised every few years from 1914 to 1956 (when, while a schoolboy, I saw each of the productions on offer – paying my own way for a change!); while the intervening years saw Williamsons presenting present-day musicals “direct from Broadway” or “direct from the West End”.

The Carroll organisation was the creature of Garnet H. Carroll, born at Singleton, NSW, in 1902.       From menswear shop assistant, to amateur thespian, to song-and-dance man, to theatre manager, Carroll was versatile and persistent.  Later he worked for theatrical entrepreneur Sir Ben Fuller and, in 1946, with Fuller as his business partner, purchased the Princess’s Theatre.  Fuller died in 1952, and the 12 years until Carroll’s death in 1964 saw a constant parade of dramas and musical comedies……….most of which I saw.

My re-acquaintance with the theatre programmes has triggered the following ruminations:  

1.   Paint Your Wagon

Alan Jay Lerner, lyricist, and Frederick “Fritz” Loewe, composer,  were one of Broadway’s most successful musical comedy teams.  There were three early endeavours, not much heard of today, then Brigadoon in 1947.  Later, in 1958, there was My Fair Lady, one of the most popular shows ever; and sandwiched between the two came Paint Your Wagon (1951).  Paint Your Wagon took three years to trundle into Her Majesty’s Theatre, staged by Williamsons from 27 November 1954.   [Had it arrived in 1951 it would have hitched to His Majesty’s.]  The show has 16 musical numbers including Wandering Star, They Call the Wind Maria, What’s Goin’ on Here?, There’s a Coach Comin’ In, I Talk to the Trees, and I Still See Elisa,  the latter two certainly deserving of places in the Great American Song Book had that compilation not ended at 1950.

The programme includes an advertisement for Australian National Airways, spruiking  “Australia’s only PRESSURISED Super DC6 Fleet”.  Imagine, 315 miles an hour-PLUS, at 8000 feet.

       2.     How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Frank Loesser was one of the most accomplished twentieth century writers of popular music – not front rank, but well up there.  Aside from his theatrical compositions, his best-known songs are Baby It’s Cold Outside, On a Slow Boat to China, I Don’t Want to Walk Without You, Heart and Soul and Once in Love With Amy.  And for the movie Hans Christian Andersen he scored the lovely Inchworm and Anywhere I Wander.  He wrote the not-so-memorable stage musical The Most Happy Fella (but it did feature Standing on the Corner), and the ever-so-memorable Guys and Dolls with its swag of show-stopping tunes.   With this latter, although Loesser wrote both the music and lyrics the “book” was written by Abe Burrows - with suitable acknowledgement to the infectious Damon Runyan stories of New York low life.  Burrows also provided the “book” for the Loesser musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

The Melbourne season of How to Succeed played at Her Majesty’s from August 1963.  It is a paeon to success through brown nosing, or through “getting something” on the boss, or both.  The principal songs are The Company Way, The Brotherhood of Man and I Believe in You (sung by the upwardly mobile leading character to himself.).  That leading part of J. Pierpont Finch was played by one Len Gochman who had been the understudy for the original 1961 Broadway production.  In the subsequent movie the Finch part was played by Robert Morse, with Rudy Vallee as Finch’s boss, both reprising their Broadway roles.  Sadly, Vallee was not in the Melbourne cast.

The programme reminded us that Cattanach’s, the jewellers, had been in business since 1878, and that Abbots stout was good for us.  And that if we joined the Concert Hall Record Club we could buy our first three LPs for nine shillings (90 cents).  There was an announcement of the forthcoming tour of English comedienne Joyce Grenfell.

       3.    The Reluctant Debutante

William Douglas-Home wrote some 50 plays, typically comedies with an upper-class setting – not surprising, perhaps, given Douglas-Home’s aristocratic lineage and his Eton/Oxford education.  His brother Alec was British Prime Minister, one of the first members of the peerage to renounce his title in order to contest a seat in the House of Commons.  The Reluctant Debutante is generally regarded as William Douglas-Home’s most successful play…….which is rather fortunate for Melbourne audiences who were spared from seeing one of his 49 less successful efforts.

The play, which debuted in the West End in 1955, was brought to Melbourne by Williamsons in 1956.   Roger Livesey and Ursula Jeans had the leads, supported by John Meillon and Diana Perryman.  On the evidence of the story line the play was mostly froth, and whether it was also bubble I have no recollection.  Hollywood thought sufficient of its potential to film it in 1958, with Rex Harrison, and Kay Kendall.

       4.   King Lear

Of the four great Shakespearian tragedies, King Lear is the one that evokes the most sympathy for its protagonist.  Macbeth is really a nasty piece, driven to murder by lust for the crown, and by a singularly ambitious wife; Hamlet is a dreamer, a loner, misunderstood, who makes for himself a bloodbath of revenge; Othello, while deserving of some sympathy, is essentially a dill driven to kill his beloved through uncontrolled jealousy.  But Lear is just a foolish old man whose error of judgement triggers the most dire consequences.  And as the action proceeds our initial annoyance at Lear’s stupidity in rejecting the daughter who declines to flatter him turns to pity at what has been wrought.  King Lear brings you to tears in a way the other three tragedies cannot.  Mind you, the tears are assisted by the parallel story and fate of Gloucester, also foolish, who rejects his faithful son after believing the calumnies spread by the usurping son.  We know that Lear and Gloucester have “brought it on themselves”, but still we care.

I studied King Lear in my school literature class and, indeed, played the part of Gloucester in our classroom reading.  The fact that Gloucester has his eyes ripped out is not, I trust, symbolic of…………..

Australian theatre has had a rich history of companies touring from the “centres of world theatre”, and Shakespearian groups have been prominent among them:  not necessarily permanent companies by the way (from Stratford, say), but often pick-up groups put together by Australian entrepreneurs.  Thus in 1959 the J.C. Williamson Shakespeare Company was invented for an Australian tour, a tour of three Shakespearian plays.  The “all star local cast” was headed by Peter O’Shaughnessy, “the brilliant Melbourne Shakespearean actor”, and John Alden “Australia’s leading Shakespearean actor”.  For international flavour there was  Scottish actor, John Laurie, who alternated with Alden as Lear.

Laurie played Lear the night I attended.  He had a long acting career, much of it Shakespearian, and his spare physique, wild eyes, and unruly hair gave some substance to his portrayal of the 80-plus-year-old Lear; but, sadly, the performance hasn’t stayed with me.   

In addition to his work in the theatre John Laurie appeared in more than 60 films.  It is somewhat ironical that he is today best remembered for his part as Private Frazer in the television series Dad’s Army.  Laurie has been quoted, late in his life, as saying :  “I’ve played every part in Shakespeare.  I was considered to be the finest Hamlet of the twenties and I had retired, and now I’m famous for doing this crap.”   But the same source suggests that Laurie, himself, was being ironic, and that “he was a wicked and impish man and he didn’t really think it was rubbish at all.”

      5.   The Pajama Game

Williamsons brought The Pajama Game to Her Majesty’s in February 1957.  The musical, by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, was a Broadway success from 1954, running for more than 1000 performances.  In its Australian season it starred Tiki Taylor, Bill Newman, Jill Perryman, and Toni Lamond.  Its more memorable songs were and are Hey There, Hernando’s Hideaway, Small Talk, Seven and a Half Cents and I’m Not at all in Love.

The programme announced the outstanding coming attraction, the 1957 concert tour of Jan Peerce the Famous American Tenor - at the Melbourne Town Hall, from 11 June.  And it also announced the Astor Concertmaster radiogram, with 9 valves, 3 separate speakers, separate bass and treble controls, a Collaro 3-speed intermixing record changer - all this in a “piano finish” cabinet by Gainsborough; and a steal at 199 guineas ($417.90).

Can you bear to wait for Part 2?

Gary Andrews

SATURDAY BREAKFAST #29: MAIN STREET, MORNINGTON

Visited 19 February, 2012 (between The Esplanade and Barkly Street)

Visited 24 November, 2012 (between Barkly and Cromwell Streets)

I think of myself as a “Mallee boy”.  This is because I was born in the Mallee region of Victoria, lived my early life there, had both maternal and paternal ancestors there, and have maintained an on-going connection.  But I lived in the Mallee for my first six years only, so I am really a city person.   I should probably think of myself as a “Richmond boy”, because it is in suburban Richmond that I spent my growing-up years, from six to twenty-one.

My folks ran a retail business in Bridge Road, opposite the Post Office, almost opposite the Town Hall.  The business was situated in a double premises, comprising a delicatessen (number 294 Bridge Road) and a cake shop (number 296).  My mother tended counter, and my father was a pastry-cook.  There were a number of other staff - counterhands and bakehouse workers.  My family lived above the shops.

Next door, at number 298, was a ladies’ clothing shop, operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Moffatt.  The merchandise was stylish - one would have thought too stylish for working-class Richmond (as it then was) – yet the Moffatt business was seemingly prosperous.  The Moffatts were stylish too, impeccably clothed and groomed, both of them.  They drove a stylish Wolseley saloon.

The Moffatt shop was in a single-storey building occupying the whole site, from Bridge Road through to the back lane.  Our premises next-door were double-storey, and from the upstairs quarters the Andrews could look down on the dress-shop roof.  While my parents never became intimate friends of the Moffatts, there was an amicable neighbourliness between them, and – for our part - an unexpressed vigilance over the unoccupied Moffatt shop outside business hours.  On one occasion we reported burglars trying to gain access through the roof.

This all came to mind as son, Dan, and I traversed Main Street, Mornington, in search of Saturday adventure and grub.  It came to mind because the Moffatts had lived at Mornington.

Imagine the grind of travelling the 55-odd kilometres from Mornington to Richmond six days a week – opening the shop doors each morning before nine, and not able to get away until after 5.30 on weekdays and 12 o’clock on Saturday.   On reflection, though, the poorer roads of the 1940s and 1950s, but with less traffic, may have made for a journey no longer in duration than today – with today’s better roads and freeways, but more suburban traffic lights and many more vehicles.  There is probably an answer to the question buried in the traffic survey files of the roads authority; and there may even be some Mornington old-timers who have been around long enough to remember how long the journey used to take.  The Moffatts themselves can be of no assistance, having surely retired to that great car park in the sky many years ago.

The Gary and Dan Saturday walks are habitually along or around shopping precincts of Melbourne, but in Mornington we were 60 kilometres from the city centre, and hardly in Melbourne still.  But were we?  It depends on one’s definition.  There is the “city” of Melbourne, the inner part of the metropolis, a discrete local government region, collecting rates from its inhabitants, with its own Mayor and Council.  Then there is the Melbourne “metropolitan area”, that embraces all the contiguous suburbs and the many local government districts that they occupy.  This is what most people would regard as “Melbourne”, that is, the metropolis that stops at the edge of settlement, continually growing none-the-less.  Finally, there is “greater” Melbourne; and this seems to include all points south-west to Werribee,  west to Melton, north to Craigieburn and Whittlesea, east to Lilydale, south-east to Packenham, and most of the Mornington Peninsula.  And, as if to put the matter beyond doubt, there is no town map of Mornington in the RACV Vicroads Country Street Directory; and, as if to complement that apparent oversight, full detail of Mornington is included in the Melways Melbourne street directory.  On this authority, breakfast at Mornington was not an aberrant escape to the country.  Moreover, so extensive was Main Street that we split it in two and visited it twice; and so affable was it that we were happy to do so.  Indeed Main Street, Mornington, is one of the most alive and prosperous-feeling strips we’ve visited.

This Mornington blog has had a long gestation, and at a remove of three years there’s no chance that I can recall the fare in detail.  But I do recall the Bircher muesli served at the Biscottini Café, and offer a rare rebuke.  The mixture contained macadamias, strawberries, blueberries and an oh so sweet syrup.  It was topped with vanilla yoghurt, and on the side was a whole poached pear, attractively served – peeled, with stalk intact.  So what’s to complain?   Birchers sometimes come with their dry mixture lubricated with fruit juice, although they’re better when stirred through with yoghurt.  Where the serve is sweet, that sweetness is typically neutralized by a topping of unsweetened yoghurt and/or shaved green apple.   Anyway, that’s my preference.  The Mornington dish, despite the yoghurt on top, was just too sweet.  Perhaps they thought we would move on to bacon and eggs for contrast, but they were wrong – we don’t do that any more!  In any case, the Bircher serving was huge, leaving no room for a second course.

There’s much of interest in Main Street.  For the length of the shopping strip there is attractive landscaping and paving, made possible for a later generation by the original town planning that provided the legacy of a wide thoroughfare.  Today’s pavements have ample room for the numerous eating places to have outdoor seating, adding to the amenity and the bustle both.  There is a substantial building, The Bay Hotel, with an interesting sign out front. 

The sign says that the building was “built in 1880 to house the Commerce Bank,” that in 1986 the then National Bank moved to new premises, and that the building was later “transformed into a hotel”.  The sign (which isn’t a bronze plaque) is a tad inaccurate.  The building was built for The Commercial Bank of Australia (as the faded lettering on its façade attests), not for the Commerce Bank.   And there’s an unexplained conundrum.  The Commercial Bank was taken over by the Westpac bank in 1982, so how come the occupants of the building in 1986 were the National Bank and not Westpac?   I’m not pursuing this any further, but suggest the proprietors of The Bay Hotel might spend more time on signage - and image generally: it wasn’t until I read the sign that I realized I was standing in front of an hotel.  It presents to the street as a coffee shop.

By contrast, there is no difficulty in identifying The Grand Hotel.  

Grand it is, with its imposing tower.  It dates from the 1890s boom times, and began its existence as a temperance hotel, the Grand Coffee Palace.  Its importance, then and now, is enhanced by it being a work of architect, William Pitt.  Pitt was one of Melbourne’s, indeed Australia’s, greatest architects, responsible for the Windsor Hotel, the Olderfleet Building, the Rialto Building, the Bryant and May building, the Federal Coffee Palace, the Princess’ Theatre, and numerous others.  The Grand remained temperance for barely a year: built in 1892, in 1893 it took over the business of the next-door Cricketer’s Arms hotel, thus acquiring a liquor licence.

Main Street is also the location of a peculiar and unique monument, the Westminster Bollard.  

This stone bollard dwarfs any functioning bollard seen today on the wharves around Melbourne.  It was given by the City of Westminster to the Mornington Shire in 1993, to mark the centenary of the Shire.  It was originally located on the River Thames opposite Millbank Prison from whence – up to 1868 - many convicts were transported to Australia.  Historically, though, the State of Victoria (and therefore Mornington) was settled by free colonists, not by convicts.  Perhaps the burghers of Mornington were so impressed by the monumental size of the bollard that they neglected to point out this anomaly to their Westminster counterparts.  The Millbank Prison is long gone, and the Tate Gallery occupies the site.  As an aside:  during a recent visit to London I encountered the sister bollard to the Mornington one – still opposite the Tate, and also with a plaque commemorating its convict history.

The Westminster Bollard sits on the footpath in front of the former Mechanics’ Institute, now occupied by Shire offices.  The Mechanics’ Institute building, financed by public subscription, was built in 1885, and was the community’s cultural and entertainment focus for more than 70 years.  It had a public library and reading room, and a hall with seating for 300 people.  It was used for concerts, dances, theatre, and public meetings.  For some years it was the town’s cinema.   The Institute closed in the 1950s, but the building has been incorporated into the municipal offices because it backs on to them.  So the structure, at least, has been preserved.

By way of postscript, the image that forms the backdrop to the Pieces to Share blogsite is a reasonably recent photo of Theobald’s Buildings, where the Andrews family resided and worked in Richmond, from 1946 to 1960.  The present-day Heritage report, accessible on the net, advises that the buildings were “built in 1909 by the distinguished Richmond builder Clements Langford for Richmond Theobald, tea merchant.”  The report continues: “A most unusual pair of Edwardian shops designed in a Flemish baroque style.  Notable features are the parapets, bartizans, art nouveau sign and rococo shells above the windows.  No. 296 has its original shopfront.  The original post-supported cast iron verandah and shopfronts (sic) have been removed.  Significance:  An outstanding pair of Edwardian shops, intact above verandah level.” 

I can attest that the original cast iron verandahs, and their fluted pillars, were removed by edict of the Richmond City Council early in the 1950s……on the grounds that they were a hazard lest some errant motorist mounted the footpath!  This vandalizing of the streetscapes swept all of Melbourne, with – from memory – only the ornate Oggs Pharmacy in Collins Street in the city escaping the wreckers.   When the Ogg’s business later relocated to South Yarra the verandah was saved by gracing the entrance to University House at the University of Melbourne, where it stands today thumbing its nose at mindless bureaucracy, and reminding us of how much of Melbourne’s Victorian-era elegance has been lost to “progress”.

In Bridge Road, the hundreds of cast iron shop verandahs were replaced with a hotchpotch of cantilevered ones. 

The accompanying Bridge Road streetscape photo shows the upper grandeur of Theobald’s Buildings, with the Moffatt shop premises adjacent to the left, the narrow one with the scalloped upper façade.  All traces of the Moffats are gone from Richmond, the Andrews too for that matter.

Gary Andrews