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Talks from BMC's 2012 National Folk Festival Themed Workshop on BMC's First 10 years.
In 1947 my father took me,
a child of 12, to see my first play at the New Theatre - then at 167
Castlereagh Street, Sydney. This was a small amateur group performing
plays on a repertory basis since 1932, covering a wide range of plays
from Shaw to Shakespeare, Cliff Odets to Arthur Miller, topical
political revues, parodied versions of Gilbert and Sullivan, plays
with a political or social theme or “message”, plays with a
working class bias, plays dealing with racism, social justice and
peace in the world.
They encouraged and
supported Australian playwrights.
In 1952, as a starry-eyed
teenager I joined the New Theatre and was keen for any ‘walk-on’
part. Then in 1953, there was a buzz in the theatre. They were going
to do a production of REEDY RIVER by Dick Diamond. This had been done
earlier in the year by Melbourne New Theatre to great success.
This musical, based around
the shearers’ strike of 1891, used Australian folksongs, bush songs
and songs composed in the bush tradition and was the right play at
the right time. There was an awakening of interest in our past,
particularly the rural life of Australian workers, and the songs of
the show expressed and captured that life so genuinely.
(1953 production of Reedy River, BMC archives)
REEDY RIVER required many
actors, singers, dancers and a new type of ‘orchestra’. This was
supplied by the Bushwhackers Band with it's lagerphone and bush bass. I do not know whether Reedy River made the Bushwhackers Band or the other way around, but I do know that my love of
Australian bush songs started with being in that first production of
Reedy River.
1964 production (Silvia and Tom Salisbury collection)
I was a city/suburban girl
from a Celtic/Anglo background singing the English and Irish songs
of my parents with no knowledge that there were any ‘Australian’
songs except for the occasional radio broadcasts of songs from the
war, such as There’s a brown slouch hat with the sides turned
up or The Road to Gundagai etc. So these bush songs from
Reedy River grounded my youthful psyche to Australia and not to the
strong but nevertheless second-hand, distant culture of my parents.
1964 production (Silvia and Tom Salisbury collection)
The opening night of Reedy
River was abuzz with excitement, not nerves, for we knew we had a
success on our hands. The foyer was decorated with the wonderful
reproductions of the Holterman photos of the goldfields of the 1870’s
whose negatives on glass had recently been discovered. The usual run
of a show at New Theatre in those days was 8 - 10 weeks but Reedy
River, with its theme and songs, struck such a chord in the people
who came to see it, and the strength of ‘word-of-mouth’
publicity, that the season was extended to nine months with changes
of cast and extra performances added. Even when the season ended at
the New, the cast and crew were kept busy taking the show to school
halls and out to suburban areas. I graduated from chorus singer to
playing the female lead of Mary opposite Milton Moore’s Joe
Collins.
1964 production (Silvia and Tom Salisbury collection)
Ten years later I again
played Mary opposite Pat Barnett in a new production of Reedy River
and I think I brought deeper understanding to the role and the songs
as, in the intervening years, my husband and I joined the Bush Music
Club and often performed at their Singabout nights.
BMC Newsletter, March 1964, p.2 (BMC Archives)
BMC Newsletter, March 1964, p.2 (BMC Archives)
Here I also worked with
Chris Kempster who set the Lawson poem Reedy River to music when he
was only 16 and who played the part of Snowy in that 1953/54
production.
It was at the Bush Music
Club that I learnt more Australian bush songs and came to appreciate
the great work done by John Meredith and Duke Tritton in collecting
and saving from oblivion the songs from shearers and drovers. There
weren’t many songs from a woman’s point of view, but young men
such as Chris Kempster and Mike Leydon were setting the poems of
Lawson and other poets to music and John Dengate was writing his own
satirical words to traditional tunes and, although not truly ‘bush’
songs, they were great songs and great to sing.
By 1964 I had three
children and it was great to be able to bring them to Singabout
nights held in the Building Workers’ Industrial Union’s building
in George Street, Sydney. I remember hot summer evenings with the
upstairs windows open and hoping if I was singing a quiet, sad song
that the orange-clad Hari Krishna group would not go banging and
jingling their way up George Street on a noisy Saturday night. Those
nights of singing and dancing were great. We could take the kids with
us (no need to organize baby-sitters) and they could join in the
dances with the kindly teenagers and older people helping them to
learn the steps and guiding them down the line of dancers.
Arising out of these
Singabout nights, one could learn how to become a performer and try
out new songs to an understanding audience. Through this experience I
teamed up with Chris Kempster and we sang anti-war songs at Save Our
Sons rallies during the Vietnam War. We sang at folk clubs, Lawson
festivals and peace rallies. One memorable night we performed
Australian songs to a huge crowd at the Rushcutters Bay Stadium to
visiting Chinese officials (long before China was recognised by our
government) where a very youthful David Gulpillil performed an
amazing kangaroo dance. We sang at the unfinished Chalwin Castle in
Cremorne for Pete Seeger on his first visit to Australia to give him
a taste of Australian songs. It was here that a young Jeannie Lewis
sang the Queensland version of Waltzing Matilda.
(Anne and Frank Maher collection)
Through my background of
Reedy River and the Bush Music Club I was part of a series of short
films being made by the film makers of the Waterside Workers’
Federation - Keith Gow, Jock Levy and Norma Disher. Keith Gow was
co-director of the 1953/54 production of Reedy River and Norma was
the costume maker for both the productions of Reedy River I was in.
These short films used Australian songs sung by Alex Hood as a
background to the film version of the songs. The films were screened
on the ABC as fillers when programmes finished early due to the ABC
not having ads. These films were also shown at film festivals.
ABC films Reedy River songs (Silvia and Tom Salisbury collection)
Now in my late 70’s some
things have come full circle. With an aging voice, but my love of
songs and singing still intact, choral singing suits me perfectly,
and with my New Theatre philosophy from my youth of art being used
for a wider purpose than just self-expression, I joined the Sydney
Trade Union Choir. Who should be there but Paula Bloch, a founding
member of the choir and a singer in that 1953/54 Reedy River. And who
should be the Musical Director for the choir but Tom Bridges, the son
of Doreen Bridges who wrote the music for The Ballad of 1891, one of
the most stirring songs from Reedy River. Tom also played the violin
in one of the productions of Reedy River. Now our present Musical
Director is Margot McLaughlin, the daughter of Cedric McLaughlin who
played the swaggie in Reedy River and whose moving singing of My Old
Black Billy still rings in my memory. One of the STUC’s favourite
songs, Four Strong Women, about four British peace activists, was
written by Maurie Mulheron, the nephew of Pat Barnett who played Joe
Collins in the 1964 Reedy River with me.
Sydney Trade Union Choir singing Ballad of 1891 at the 2012 National Folk Festival
(photo - Sandra Nixon)
Silvia presenting her memories , 2012 National Folk Festival (photo - Sandra Nixon)
It is not only the times
spent in Reedy River and the learning and performing songs for the
Bush Music Club’s Singabouts that one remembers but the almost 60
years of pleasure and purpose which sprang out of that twin birth of
New Theatre’s Reedy River and the Bush Music Club and for this I
owe them my heartfelt thanks, my well-being and my best wishes for
the future of both of them.
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