Bernard Caleo's Paper Theatre

Last week it was my birthday and I turned 45.  Last night I was at the parental home, where my family gathers every Monday night for a meal. Parents, brothers, sister, spouses, children, cousins gathered as usual. And then, unexpectedly, my friends began to arrive. And arrive. And arrive. WHAT was going on?

 Candles were lit, the song was sung, cakes were cut.

I was delighted.

And then Part Two began.

The wonderful Fleur and her bloke Marcus got up (other suggestions: 'Male and Female', 'Marxist and Free Market', 'Mongrel and Flaneur') and Fleur explained that maybe just maybe it stood for 'Fantasist (or Fabulist) and Maker' and suggested that those two titles could be applied to me and that if they could, both roles could probably do with

a kamishibai box of their very own.

I was something flabbergasted, alright. Oh boy. I have been borrowing fellow kamishibaya Jackie Kerin's beautiful kamishibox, or K-box, designed and built by Ted Smith, for the last couple of years. This beautiful new one looked very like, very like.

And not without reason - Fleur had got onto Jackie and placed Ted's plans in the hands of Marcus, who as it turns out is a master wood artist. The timbers in this case are meranti and red gum, making it a darker, redder K-box than the one that Ted made for Jackie.

Fleur then performed a lovely kamishibai tale about the genesis of her idea to make this box for me - a plan hatched two years ago - and a vision of its use

Well, as you can well imagine.  I was staggered and astonished and absolutely delighted. The box was placed on Leopold, my bike, wheeled in for the occasion, and I managed to blather a few words about sophrosyne and poiesis and the Ancient Greeks before just saying, thanks.

And again, thanks. To my family, to my friends, to Jackie Kerin, for smuggling the plans across the border, and for the photos in this post, to my wife Susan for her part in all this wonderful skulduggery, and to Fleur and to Marcus, builders of dreams.

Well.

It's time to get writing and drawing and performing.

The Nun's Priest's Kamishibai

So, a month ago, on May 6 2012, as part of the Williamstown Literary Festival, a group calling ourselves the 'Canterbury Tales Book Club Project' put on an afternoon of performance, song, dance and talk about Geoffrey Chaucer's great bunch of stories written in Middle English at the end of the 1300s.  Above, pre-show, Jackie Kerin (the owner of the kamishibike) and I work out how it's all going to get set up for me to do my bit after the interval. Jackie performed a hilarious 'Pardoner's Tale' in the first half. Jackie also took all of the photos in this blog post - except, of course, this one!

Above, Catherine Ryan, in a wimple of her own design, gives us the 'Canterbury 101' talk.

Author Claire Saxby, our Middle English MC.

Simon Leverton on guitar was the musical director (a lot of bawdiness going down in them thar lyrics it must be said) and behind him?  Yes, absolutely.  Morris dancers.  They got bells that jingle jangle.

This was the first time I'd ever done the kamishibai box + simultaneous projection, and apparently it worked pretty well.  I must say I'd like to see it myself, to be sure.   For my part I had adapted 'The Nun's Priest's Tale', which I studied way back in the Middle Ages of 1984, taught by my beloved HSC English Literature teacher, Marisa Spiller.

Above, my first image of the tale, depicting the 'narwe cottage' in which lives the widow who owns the rooster

called ('cleped') Chaunticleer.  'He was a real cock', as I say in my translation. And of course if there's chickens then there's gotta be a

fox.  Let me hasten to add, it all works out okay, but there's some tense moments along the way, ohhh yes.

..............................

It's good to have another story in my kamishibai repertoire, and I'm thinking that I will deliver the 'G' rated version of the tale this Saturday 9 June up at Woodend library where I am giving a kamishibai storytelling session as part of the Woodend Winter Arts Festival.

After me came Daniel O'Connell, with a filthy, funny version of the Miller's Tale.  Brilliant.

Highlights of the afternoon for me were certainly the other performances, and also seeing Robin Grove, a remarkable English Literature lecturer (more like 'inspirer') from my university days, and meeting Ted Smith, the builder of the beautiful kamishibai box that I borrow off Jackie whenever I need to tell 'paper theatre' stories.

'What It Is?' #3 - What a Thing It Was!

So, last night Monday 27 June 2011, at Readings bookshop in Carlton, we delivered the third show in the category-busting series that IS, 'What It Is?'

In this case, the 'we' was me and

Alex McDermott, whose latest book

got published recently. So we launched it, there and then, with the three 'Huzzahs' normally reserved for the launch of a comic book (if you'd been there, you'd know why I consider Alex's weighty yet extremely toothsome tome to be an honorary comic book) and then we got into the show, kicking off with a kamishibai about the Australian career of the 19th century natural historian Wilhelm von Blandowski (yes, THAT Wilhelm von Blandowski - the one who I took on a Victorian roadtrip last year - read all about that here)

The kamishibai WAS to have been 'narrated' by a song called 'The Curious Man', by calypso artist 'The Death Adder', of Berlin, but various technological barriers meant that the recording could not be played, so I ended up speaking the story.  The song however is magnificent, a sprawling calypso epic of high romance and utter desolation, and I will find a way of posting it.

Wilhelm at the Port of Adelaide in 1849.

He loves it here.

But 7 years later, 200 miles up the Darling River, he has an experience of the sublime.  And from that point, his career in Australia starts to unravel.  Our argument was, he SEES something out there...

Something...

oooooooo000000000000000ooooooooo

We then went onto the story of Redmond Barry, a big statue of whom stands outside of the State Library of Victoria:

Our proposition was, you can't really understand Redmond (or Melbourne) without the vital piece of information that he was actually a

centaur.  And, as a centaur, it is unsurprising that he spends quite a bit of time on his 1839 voyage over from Ireland

amidships, as it were, with one Mrs Scott, which Mr Scott, and eventually the entirety of the rest of the passengers, finds quite off-putting (thank you to the puppetteering hands of Stephen Mushin (Barry the centaur and Mrs Scott and ocean) and Colleen Burke (boat and ocean).  When they get to Sydney?  He's really frozen out of the social scene there.

Anyway he eventually makes it to Melbourne and makes it in Melbourne and, in the end, makes Melbourne (State Library, Melbourne University, Art Gallery).  Well, you know:

he's a centaur.

ooooooo000000000000000ooooooo

Our coda to the night was an imagined 1859 meeting

between Blandowski (me) and Barry (Alex), in which Barry identifies what it is that has followed Wilhelm back from the interior, and indeed what it is which will tail him all the way back to Silesia.  All the way back to his death.

And you too can see it, here.

THE NEXT 'What It Is?' (and final in this series): songster Marin Martini and I will puzzle over, sing about, and draw about, the mysterious and ancient connection between comics and songs.  Monday 25 July. 8pm. Readings Carlton. See you there!

THANK YOU: to Jackie Kerin again for the loan of her kamishibai box, and for all the photos dotting this post.  Soon I will post the youtube episode of last night's 'What it Is?', which, as with the other two, was shot and is presently being edited by the skilful Dan Hayward.

May 'What It Is?' - comics from Bordeaux to Broome

Well what a month May was! I did one show for the Clean Energy Council about renewable energy, did another show about the humble candle as the great scientist Michael Faraday at St Paul's Cathedral, spoke about Australian graphic novels to the Graphic Narratives class at Melbourne University and then about comic book editing to the Society of Editors (Victoria). I also managed to turn 43 somewhere in there.

And at the end of the month was 'What It Is? no. 2, The Town that Comics Built'.  Above is the youtube episode, shot and edited by Dan Hayward - great work Dan!  And below is a DC10 flying the very tall Mike Shuttleworth into France.

There was a kamishibai titled 'Sous les paves, la planche' - 'Under the paving stones, the comics'.

It starred

Jean-Paul Sartre and

Simone de Beauvoir, who

argued and

made up.

We travelled with Mike to Angouleme, the great comics festival held every January in the freezing cold south-west of France.

Then we came back to the hot north-west of Australia, and I spoke with Brenton McKenna, the author of 'Ubbys Underdogs: The Legend of the Phoenix Dragon'

a way-cool graphic novels for kids, first of a trilogy, from Magabala Books. It was great to meet Brenton, who we also interviewed on The Comic Spot, where you can listen to that interview. Brenton even drew a picture of Ubby for us!

It was another great fun 'What It Is?' - the which question remains pertinent, as I am still not quite sure what indeed 'What It Is?' is, but I'm going to press on with another couple, at least.

Next 'What It Is?' will be a historical fairy tale for adults with the remarkable Alex McDermott, poet/historian, centaur laureate, and bike rider extraordinaire.  Monday June 27 at 8pm at Readings Carlton: details (and a drawing) on the Readings website. We will also launch Alex's latest book, 'Australian History for Dummies'.  Come along!

And massive thanks to storyteller Jackie Kerin for all the photos in this post, for the lend (again!) of her beautiful kamishibai box, and for writing about the May 'What It Is?' so beautifully here.

What It Is? show #1: Eisenstein and Comics

Above, Michael Camilleri and I starting our 'What It Is?' show at Readings bookshop in Carlton on Monday 28 March 2011. It was a show about Sergei Eisenstein, the great Soviet film director, and his approach to montage (a way of editing film, a way of presenting film stories), and the ways that this might apply to comics.

Here's me presenting 'Sergei's Pram', a kamishibai which imagined Eisenstein and fellow filmmaker Lev Kuleshov discussing the filming of the famous Odessa steps sequence from 'Battleship Potemkin'.

For this, I was lucky enough to borrow this amazing kamishibai box from Jackie Kerin (for the tale of its construction by Ted, go to Jackie's blog entry here).

Michael and I also wanted to look at mise-en-scene (another, complementary, sometimes oppositional - thanks, Andre Bazin - way of considering film editing), so we enlisted friends Fleur, Mark and Bruce (in the hat) to help us present a scene from 'Citizen Kane' by Orson Welles. With hilarious results.

Finally, Michael presented his epic homage to Soviet-style montage, 'The Two Podlokovs' which may be viewed in all its glory on his website, here.

A remarkable night - thanks to Christine Gordon of Readings for asking for a series of nights looking at the art of comic books. Oh yes folks, there's going to be more What It Is...

Also thanks to Dan Hayward of The Video Factory for the photos in this post, and for shooting and editing together a great video of the night, to be found on youtube here. And thanks to Oliver Montagnat for additional camerawork.

NEXT 'What It Is' show: Monday 30 May, 8pm at Readings Carlton - Mike Shuttleworth and I will build Angouleme, city of comics, out of paper, live on stage (with music too!), and then we'll speak to Brenton McKenna, of Broome, about his new graphic novel for kids, Ubby's Underdogs.

What a night it promises to be...