Review: Class Act is an acting class in acting your class
Led by Mish Grigor, directed by Zoey Dawson, presented by APHIDS
Review by Martha ‘MJ’ Latham
Australian theatre has a class problem. I mean whether we're talking about the champagne crowd or the hobo-chic crowd, you could still make a pretty safe bet most regular theatre-goers and creators went to a private school of some kind (Yes, your catholic school education is still a private school education. “But it wasn’t like rich rich?” I hear you say; okay, but it also wasn't poor poor). It’s an issue we’re happy to point at. But is pointing at it enough? We seem to point at it all the time? Is Class Act by Mish Grigor and APHIDS just another example of us pointing, or is it something more?
For those that didn't get to see Class Act, it is a two-person (Mish Grigor and Alice Dixon) re-telling of the musical masterpiece My Fair Lady. For those that haven't seen My Fair Lady, it is itself a re-telling of Pygmalion. For those that haven't read or seen Pygmalion, you'll know the story from Pretty Woman, Trading Places, Educating Rita, She's All That or the gender-flipped He's All That, The Duff, either episode of The Simpsons ‘My Fair Laddy’ or ‘Pygmoelion’, or the episode of Will and Grace hilariously titled ‘Fagmalion’.
Maybe Class Act was intended as a timely reminder to the theatrical community of its financial wall that prevents lower class stories from reaching our stages? This would probably be a good argument. We still see the biggest funding allotments hitting the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Opera Australia. These organisations are largely attended by, and beholden to, the wealthiest members of our society, evidenced most clearly by their ticket prices. Despite this, Australian theatre companies have been more than happy to capitalise on working class stories on their stages with classics like The Removalists, Diving for Pearls, Gary’s House, and even Cosi at a stretch.
But who made these works? Was it labourers who felt emboldened by the megaphone that a stage offers? Was it public housing and welfare recipients who felt a need to ensure that their stories aren’t ignored and forgotten? No. It wasn’t. It was wealthy, white culturalites who thought they were representing “our culture”. When you ask artists in Australia why they make theatre, they’ll stumble a little and eventually settle on “because theatre is important”. Theatre is important to the elite, but it really isn't that important to the rest of us. Marvel movies are much more important to my cousins than anything I've ever put on the stage.
How do we fix this, then? Director of Class Act, Zoey Dawson, recommends funding, in which case we’re on the right track. Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) just announced almost $900,000 in scholarships, we’re seeing a new national cultural policy and 1.4 billion dollars is being injected into NSW arts and culture by a conservative government. But is money really the problem?
At about the midpoint of Class Act, Grigor reflects on a question asked by her brother in relation to her chosen field of work: “why would you choose to be poor?” The moment was powerful, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether he would have asked that question if Mish had been working in retail, or as a teacher? I don’t believe Australian theatre’s class problem is solely attributable to a lack of funding. It’s something much more insidious, and something Class Act exposes in a way that feels far more important than pointing at it.
The gist of the story retold in Class Act is this: one person is "out". Another person is "in". The "in" person teaches the "out" person to be "in". Hilarity and tension ensues.
In the case of My Fair Lady, what's "in" is wealth. What ensues is our lead (Audrey Hepburn) being weirdly adopted by one Dr Higgins (Rex Harrison), learning how to successfully act wealthy, and eventually falling in love with the good doctor (gross). What's remarkable is that the work, adapted countless times from it’s 1913 source material, throws into question the essentialism that sits at the heart of classism. Essentialism is the idea that members of the lower class are there because of some intrinsic value that disables them from achieving fame, status and wealth, and not because of the system that keeps them there.
My Fair Lady subverts this idea by taking a poor person and making her indistinguishable from a rich one. In fact, by the end of the film Eliza Doolittle is so well put together that she’s welcomed with open arms by high society. The problem with this subversion is that it doesn’t go much further than that. Ms. Heppy is in, but the door remains shut to her family, her friends and her community. The creators justify this as: Ms. Heppy has learned the rules, and in order to teach everyone else the rules you’d need a hell of a lot more Dr. Higginses.
Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady (1964)
What’s interesting here is that our leading lady hasn’t gotten any richer. The amount of money in her pocket is the same at the start of the movie as it is at the end. And yet, she is decidedly upper class. This is what I mean when I say that money isn’t the problem; putting more money into the sector won’t enable poor artists to make work that hits Australia's largest stages, because poor artists don’t know the rules.
I was one of those artists that didn't know the rules. Whether I have any right to call myself poor is another question. My Mum works at Woolies but my Dad is an electrical engineer. He started that job without a uni degree, but his bosses paid for him to get one along the way. We don't have a holiday house in Queensland, but I did have a Wii?
Either way, I managed to shell out a $90 application fee for a Masters in Directing at NIDA. I had a Bachelor of Arts with Majors in Science and Technology Studies and Mandarin, because I’m a human mess. I had directed exactly one (1) play in my life at this point. But, I wanted to make theatre. I thought it was important, as a budding trans woman, to ensure our stages had diverse stories and diverse leaders. Somehow, I got in.
Before NIDA, I thought I knew what a director did. A director is a manager, an artist responsible for ensuring a cohesive and clear vision. They act as an outside eye, directing the audience's experience. Right? Well, once at NIDA, my first two weeks were spent learning how to talk like a director. I learned that a director didn’t say “um” or “just”. I learned that if a director doesn't like an offer, they don’t make one, they say: “show me something else”. I learned that a director doesn’t say things like “terrific” or “fantastic”, they say “good work”. I learned directors don’t take notes on their phone, regardless of whether they can read their own handwriting. I learned directors dont say “go”, they say “when you’re ready”. Directors stand up straight. Directors put pictures around the rehearsal room. Directors are engaging, but serious. Directors play music when actors enter a room.
In the course that I did, you didn’t get taught how to direct, you got taught how to act like a director. Being a good director isn't about making good plays, if it were then why would you pay to go to NIDA? Anyone from any background could pick up Katie Mitchell’s The Director’s Craft and be on their way, signing contracts all over the place. No, being a good director is about knowing the rules.
This is what Class Act is really about. Theatre doesn’t have a money problem. Theatre has a class problem. Mish, like many artists before her, has successfully learned the rules and she employs them on stage extremely well. Within the first ten minutes of the performance the audience learns “Aha! She is one of us. She has a minimalist set! She engages with the audience in a way that doesn’t ask too much of them! She’s not afraid to get naked! She employs post-dramatic techniques! Mish knows what good art is!”. But by the end, as she lay tired on the steps of the auditorium and we heard about her brothers methadone clinic, her formal dress that broke the bank, her time working as a show girl in a mall, and her family asking her why she’d ever choose to be an artist, Mish is telling the audience she’s not one of them. Mish isn’t the auteur theatre-maker they want her to be. She’s just a really good actor who’s been taught to wear a mask well. But at the end of the day, it will always be a mask.
This year, I made the decision to quit making theatre. I found that when I tried to make plays that spoke to my community, to my family, to my friends, they weren’t really respected by the Australian theatre community. I had to work so hard to get the funding and support I needed. When I made plays that were respected, that received funding, that received support, I didn’t feel like it was the kind of work that struck a chord with my community. It didn’t feel like when I would tell stories to my family, late at night around a green metal and glass outdoor table, Tooheys in hand.
If we only increase funding in Australian theatre we’ll only see more Eliza Doolittles: talented individuals forced to bend and break their very nature to fit in with the Dr Henry Higginses. Money will help, don’t get me wrong, but targeted funding can’t be all that we do.
Class Act played at the Substation from 27 September to 1 October 2022. Find more information here.
Images by Theresa Harrison, film still sourced from Film Affinity
Martha Latham hates art and thinks it should be defunded. She also thinks Myki inspectors should have guns. We really didn’t want her but we needed to hit our gender equity quotas. Find out which of those things are true @sad_goldfish.
This article has been generously donated by Martha.
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