Tegan Jones, our actor and singer in the ACT showcase is starring in a leading role as part of Boutique Theatre’s Australian premiere of The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. A three week season as part of the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Tegan has just returned from New York after studying at a six week Summer intensive focusing on the Meisner technique and is excited to return to Melbourne to play Jennifer Marcus.

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow centres around Jennifer Marcus; a modern-day genius, who designs rockets for the US government from her bedroom in Calabasas California. And, as it happens, an obsessive-compulsive agoraphobic. Stuck in her bedroom, she builds a robot replica of herself to do the one thing she can’t: travel across the world in search of her biological parents.

Come and support the Independent Arts Industry and see this funny and heart-breaking story.

THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN OF JENNY CHOW
by Rolin Jones
Presented by BOUTIQUE THEATRE
17th September – 3rd October 2015

PERFORMANCES
Tuesday – Saturday, 8pm

TICKETS
Full $28 | Concession $25 | Preview $19 | Cheap Tuesday $19

VENUE
Brunswick Arts Space
Little Breese Street (off Hope Street)
Brunswick VIC 3056

Purchase tickets by visiting here

The ACT are incredibly excited about supporting some new original works, Hyperreality and A Wife’s Revenge. Check out some rehearsal photos from our latest rehearsal.

More info on dates to come!

As a “stage hand” on tour with the intercultural play Our Man in Beijing by Moni Storz, I learnt many things…

The plane, an Air Asia “Firefly”, touched down on the tarmac of Langkawi Airport, Malaysia, at 4.40pm on Thursday 23 May 2013. The flight had taken a mere 22 minutes from Penang.

Moni was at the airport to meet me. After the customary hug she led me to a hired car and drove me to Sugar Restaurant where Our Man in Beijing was to be performed. There I met the first cast member David Lih who was sunbathing on a lounger. I went off to have a coconut and sat on a lounger to enjoy the sight and sound of the waves lapping against the shore. Later that evening I met the other cast members and crew. We walked from Sugar Restaurant to Fat Cupid Restaurant for dinner. There I met Phil Trainer, the composer and singer of You Know, the theme song of Our Man in Beijing.

Earlier in the car, Moni, who was the producer as well as the playwright, had mentioned to me the shortage of a stage hand and hinted I might be able to help them out. I had never been a stagehand before so I thought it might be fun and agreed. At this juncture, I must say the nearest I have been to a play was walking past the theater in Windsor, England, and walking along Shaftsbury Avenue in London.

After dinner Phil gave me a lift back to Sugar on a motorbike. That was fun and a relief as I had sprained my ankle prior to my arrival in Langkawi. I was soon to be the one and only limping instant stagehand in Langkawi!

I had never seen the script so I had to work closely with Wolf, the director who doubled up as the other stagehand. So not only was I limping, but I was also working as a stagehand, “blind”. Wolf taught me how, where and when to put up the big prop, “Beijing International Airport” and the small props, and just as importantly, when to take them off. Not being fully familiar with the play, sometimes I had to rely on a signal or gesture from Wolf. So I learnt to work closely with him.

The next day the cast members, Richard and I went up a mountain by cable car. The scenery was breath taking. Then we went to a nearby waterfall by taxi. During this excursion we did a lot of walking and climbing up and down many steps. Enjoyable though the day was, it was probably not the best preparation for opening night. I did not feel guilty because officially I was on holiday and just helping out as a stagehand. I thought it was probably better for the cast to rest and relax.

Generally speaking, the cast and crew worked well as a group. There were no “prima donnas” among them. In fact, they were a friendly, easy-going bunch of people. I noticed before rehearsals began they each went their separate ways clutching their scripts and mumbling to themselves while Wolf, the director, and I got the stage ready for the opening scene. Occasionally they stopped to consult Wolf on certain points. He was a very experienced director and explained the points to them clearly and concisely. Sometimes two of them would go to him to ask him to clarify certain parts of the script, for example, Ashley, the male lead and Siew Yong, the female lead, would ask Wolf how they should interact with each other in certain scenes. He would instruct them with great authority. He always spoke very clearly. Sometimes he would shout at the cast to restore order. Apart from that, he would leave them to revise their scripts and get themselves mentally ready in their own way. As rehearsal time approached Wolf would call them back. During rehearsals sometimes he would stop them at certain scenes and explain the finer points of the script to them and ask them to start again from certain points. As a result, some rehearsals seemed to drag on and on. However, there were a couple of interesting moments.

On one occasion, I overheard Siew Yong saying, “I am not kissing him.” She was referring to the last scene where the female lead had to kiss the male lead. It was not clear whether they took the matter to the director, but they resolved this matter by doing a “pretend” kiss at the end of the play behind a hat held by Siew Yong to hide it from the audience.

Sometimes a cast member would forget his or her lines but covered this up very cleverly by improvising. In the final show in Kuala Lumpur, Ashley could not open his brief case. In a blind panic or a flash of quick thinking or both, he rushed off the stage to as if to chase the taxi driver for the combination code of the briefcase. He re- appeared on stage, calm and composed to carry on with the show!

Perhaps the most encouraging lesson I have learnt is: you can lose your briefcase and your job and still get the girl. I certainly realised it took a lot of hard work, time and money to produce a play and even more dedication and effort to get it performed. Would I like to write a play, produce it or act in it? The answer is “No” to all three questions. I would rather write about it.

Action, adventure, the trip of a lifetime! That is what I thought when I was told that I was to be traveling overseas to play the lead role in the intercultural play by Moni Storz, Our Man in Beijing. I was not disappointed. However, I feel I should start where all odysseys start, at the beginning.

I was told by my lovely girlfriend Tegan soon after we started dating that I “…have to meet Auntie Moni.” This in itself confused me, as Tegan told me that Moni was not actually her auntie, as there is no blood tie between them. This was the first of many cultural differences I was to experience but more on that later. So to Auntie Moni’s place we went. Whatever expectations I might have cultivated leading to this meeting with this woman could not have been more wrong. This unassuming 60+ little Chinese Malaysian woman had more energy and spirit than most people I have ever met.

Tegan and I upon arriving at Moni’s house (in Melbourne) were told that there was going to be a reading of her play Our Man in Beijing and almost immediately I met Wolf Heidecker, the director. His first words to me were to ask if I could read the part of the male lead as the actor playing the role could not come that day. Needless to say I obliged. Little did I know at that moment, both Moni and Wolf had pegged me to take on the role later to tour in Malaysia!

It wasn’t long before we were rehearsing, getting ready for scheduled performances. They were “warm-ups” (for lack of a better term) before the big overseas tour. One warm-up performance was held at the Sandy Point café/bistro where optional donations for bushfire victims. At this point I was still in disbelief thinking about our planned journey to Malaysia, even when Moni asked for my passport! Before long the time approached for our flight to Kuala Lumpur and as I was packing, it hit me. I was getting the opportunity to tour another country, one much different from my own, as an actor!

Landing in Kuala Lumpur and stepping off the plane to feel that humidity was like walking into a brick wall. Trying to negotiate our way through customs, securing our ride to the hotel and going to get dinner for the first time, I couldn’t have been more excited to experience the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of a new country! It was almost a sensory overload to be in this place and to see so many cross cultural differences and similarities amongst the ethnic groups who call themselves Malaysians. It didn’t take long for me to realise that here, I was the minority member. Despite being in the minority, in almost every instance I found that people would go out of their way to help and be hospitable to my companions and me. Even then I quickly noticed the three distinct cultures within Malaysia, being the Malay, the Chinese and the Indian. I heard many different stories about how these people interacted with each other and their government.

Malaysians have their own problems with their government as I heard about the instances of corruption that many citizens shared with me. Bribing government officials and police officers were common knowledge and regularly practised. One told me that due to a national holiday coming up, police would pull vehicles over more frequently to collect bribes so that they could afford to take their own families on holiday. While on the topic of road issues, the stereotype of Asian drivers is somewhat perpetuated out here. I saw traffic accidents and some Malaysians’ complete disregard for road rules. Every road displayed this intricate ballet of everyone driving their own way and taking no notice of anyone else. The danger was more evident on highways in which this mentality continued, albeit at higher speeds. In one instance, I saw a truck burnt to the ground, its occupants’ fate unknown. Even one of my fellow actors was nearly ran over by a truck driver who by all intents and purposes looked as though he was planning to drive through him.

I digress. This was not a holiday and I had to work. Immediately we were surveying the theatre we would be using in Kuala Lumpur. I also got to meet my co-star, Siew Yong, and other support staff of the show, so without delay we commenced rehearsing. We had less than a week to go from our first meeting to putting together a cohesive show, a difficult task, but one I rose to. The rehearsals also revealed a cultural difference to me: Wolf, with his western style of directing the actor to bring forth their own meaning from the character was leagues different to how Siew Yong had been trained for the theatre. She informed me that actors are more or less puppets that just do what they’re told. Regardless, we rehearsed hard and soon found ourselves flying to Langkawi, having met up with the rest of the actors that hadn’t been able to come from Australia earlier.

Langkawi is very beautiful, a tropical island paradise, save for the litter problem, another culture shock that I suffered. In Langkawi we performed in a restaurant called ‘Sugar’. I was surprised to see how well the very same play was performed in Melbourne was received in Malaysia, the same jokes made the locals in this country laugh wildly. I was starting to realise what the term intercultural theatre meant. This was a play that transcends seas and countries. It was designed to mingle the two. I already knew that I had many similarities with my character John Williams, in the sense that John and I are both from country towns, had troubled upbringing and both had little knowledge of cultures other than our own. I found this evident when we reached Penang and I was to meet Tegan’s Chinese Malaysian side of her family. So many uncles and aunties, cousins and second cousins did I meet that I was bowled over by names that were so different from western culture, not to mention that in Hokkien (the family’s native dialect) each uncle and auntie has a different title that I was to call them. Being the younger person, out of respect, I am meant to call them uncle and auntie, but according to the kinship hierarchy where Tegan is positioned. For example, Tegan’s mum’s eldest younger brother is called Tua-Ku, which is roughly translated into first uncle in the Hokkien dialect. This title would change depending on what position in the family hierarchy you were, as for example, a child of a different uncle would call Tua-Ku a different title. Needless to say this confused me no end, exacerbated as Tegan’s mother was one of six children. It only got worse the more family members I met. In any case, this culture had blended into Australian culture with Moni being called Auntie when there was no blood relation. It was indeed just a sign of respect and affection to an elder in the community.

I made an attempt to observe and replicate as many local customs as I could, from the Malay modified handshake in which your right hand is just held and then upon release placed across your heart or to not cooking pork/ham products in one of our hosts’ houses due to their maid being Muslim. On the point of religion there were a plethora of different worship centers! In my rural region the most I had seen was the random church. But in Malaysia there were places of worship for all faiths: Hindu, Buddhism, Christianity, Muslim and I believe the list continues. These worship places varied from small plinths to temples built into the side and caverns of mountains. In Langkawi I was woken many times by the Mosque’s 5am call to prayers that were broadcast over loudspeakers to the surrounding areas.

At the end of this journey I find myself writing this article. It is impossible to sum up a country, its people and the experience of working internationally in a few paragraphs. But maybe that’s the point, this snapshot of an adventure is to pique your interest. Maybe one day you’ll ask me about my trip and I’ll regale you with how I accidentally destroyed the water pipes in a Langkawi hostel or maybe the heart stopping moment when there was a critical prop failure on the last show of the tour. Either way I am thankful for the chance to learn about other cultures and perform for an appreciative crowd and I look forward to what else the Australasian Chinese Theatre company will do in the future.

With a thankful bow, I am Ashley Macklin.

Langkawi is an island and to have three performances there to much applause is great! It was hot, steamy and crowded but the cast was superb. Thanks to Sugar restaurant which feted all of us and to Wijay’s & Brigit’s Sarong guesthouse, we had a great rest and saw a lot of Langkawi. Four of us flew to Penang for a press conference leaving the rest to bring the props in a ferry.

In Penang we had 2 rehearsals and three performances. Our first rehearsal was not a dress rehearsal but because professional photographers Peter Ho & Chua who were donating their services were only available for that particular time slot, we had to quickly don our costumes so pandemonium broke loose in the dressing room. That was a moment of high stress for the cast and crew of Our Man in Beijing in Penang. Well, more or less!

The audience loved the play and laughed and laughed! I was stunned. I never expected a predominantly Chinese audience to react so enthusiastically. One Malaysian Chinese couple said: “We had lived in Melbourne for many years so we know both sides and understand the jokes on both sides.” They thanked me for bringing Our Man in Beijing to Penang. That gave me a nice feeling. That was opening night in Penangpac. The next night the cast suffered a little from “second night blues” but they still gave a good performance to the audience. By the time the last show came for our Sunday matinee, the cast gave a sterling performance and once again the audience loved it.
To celebrate a successful run in Penang, we went off to have a Chinese banquet!Without chopsticks gymnastics!