| Culture: A TOUCH OF ARTS WITH MORESBY ARTS THEATRE |
Bringing live theatre to the public
Diana McManus
Nestled behind the National Parliament in Waigani and next door to the New Zealand High Commission is the Moresby Arts Theatre (MAT).
Founded in 1914, it has provided a range of cultural activities for lovers of the arts over the years and is branching out in the services it offers the public.
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Cosmopolitan concern... MAT performing for the public.
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It first operated at the former Library Institute Hall in Douglas St, Port Moresby, where Delloitte Towers now stands, Port Moresby’s highest office block, and was once the social centre of the town’s expatriate population.
Today, it has become very much more a cosmopolitan concern. The current theatre opened in 1974 with a Gala Opening Festival which began with The Threepenny Opera.
Early on in its inception it focused mainly on bringing live theatre to the public and this has continued to be the main focus of MAT.
The custom built theatre seats approximately 156 people and the company usually stages two major productions each year, as well as a few smaller productions.
Between these, the first Thursday night of each month sees a Members’ Club Night where ad-hoc readings, works in progress, skits and unpublished works are on for entertainment.
The 2006 line-up saw a night of three Chekhov one Act plays and the debut of Black Angels from Heaven, a Kokoda drama from a local perspective, written by Steven Kelly Pagasa, winner of the 2005 National Cultural Commission’s Literature Prize for Playscripts.
Other major productions were Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and a narrated version of Les Miserables, with its wonderful repertoire of songs.
MAT has also played host to a number of stylish school musicals including West Side Story, Friday Knight Fever, When the West Was Warped and Jungle Fantasy.
Fawlty Towers along with Dad’s Army and Mr. Bean are always great favourites with the public and an episode or two of these hilarious British comedies are staged annually. Absolutely Fabulous has recently joined the comedy basket.
These shorter pieces have been received so well that the theatre has been working to bring them out to the public with performances at the Royal Papua Yacht Club, the Crowne Plaza for entertainment at balls and at Red Cross/Salvation Army fundraising functions.
More recently diners have been delighted with variations of Theatre Restaurant.
Who could forget when the nutty Basil and his entourage transformed the Palazzo Restaurant at Lamana into Fawlty Towers during a Theatre Restaurant Luncheon and diners enjoyed their meal whilst madness and mayhem raged around them.
Theatre in the round had nothing on this 3D production where the whole restaurant became a stage.
An ideal setting for Theatre Restaurant with its little alcove which transforms into a stage is Jepello’s Italian restaurant.
It has variously become the interior of a Roman Las Vegas casino and a bit of vaudeville, vice and voluptuous dancing, scene of spaghetti westerns with a difference, forum for locally written skit When the Buai Falls.
This is a seduction comedy based on the Roman occupation of PNG, and other snippets of escapist fantasy.
The theatre encourages talented young performers to study abroad.
A case in question is vibrant young talent Tidman Ikosi, a primary school teacher with an enormous repertoire of personas. He has delighted Port Moresby audiences with his stage performances over the past few years.
MAT provided Ikosi with a scholarship to attend a summer school at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) and would like to extend such opportunities to other budding young talent.
As a ‘patron’ of the arts, the theatre also runs a number of programmes to support and encourage arts in the community.
For example PRIDE is a five-week expressive arts programme for Year 9 and 10 public school students from around the National Capital District.
Held in the final school term each year, PRIDE uses music, dance, drama and visual arts to promote education, awareness and public confidence.
A working pottery is part of the MAT arts complex and potters may be seen there at any time throwing, turning and firing their pots.
Workshops are sometimes available to the public.
Painting is supported and recently MAT was a temporary home to Lee-Anne Hampson, a visiting United Kingdom artist whose visit to PNG was part of her Commonwealth Foundation prize for artistic excellence.
She donated her six-part painting—Tanuatu—based on a PNG legend to MAT for auction to help support the theatre.
Today, MAT has also become Port Moresby’s only movie theatre, showing art house movies on most Thursday nights, children’s movies on Saturday lunchtimes, and popular movies for the general public during Saturday afternoons.
While this is going on the lobby and the grounds abound with people, young and old come to take advantage of the free music tuition which local artists offer in keyboard, percussion, strings and brass.
MAT is also the venue for Ice Discovered, PNG’s answer to the World Music Idol series. During these sessions the theatre literally becomes a television studio and the images are broadcast nationally.
MAT Inc. is a non-profit organisation whose aim is to entertain and promote artistic and cultural endeavours.
Without official funding, it relies solely on the goodwill of sponsors in the business community and the revenue it raises through its shows, or through the hire of the grounds, or parts thereof, for official functions.
All the actors give their time freely, but props, lighting, electricity bills, building maintenance and bursaries all cost money, not to mention the salary of an office manager.
It’s a great little company and deserves some accolades for encouraging the burgeoning modern arts in PNG.
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