Scotch College

Visions Through Time

Visions Through Time: A Coloured Perspective

National Theatre, 2, 3 and 4 August

During the closing moments of the recent Drama Department production, Visions Through Time: A Coloured Perspective, the three School colours look back upon the past 150 years of the school's history that have just paraded before their eyes. Figure Red (Scotch Cardinal) is deeply impressed. Yet, he wants it to mean more - he wants the celebration to go on forever…

 

Figure Gold:	It's special you know . . .
Figure Blue:	Something to really build on!
Figure Red:	To build? To build on what?
Figure Blue:	Haven't you been watching?
Figure Red:	Oh yes, I've been totally absorbed.
Figure Gold:	(climbing down the ladder, packing up and heading offstage)
	Well, that's the 'here' and the 'now'. I'm off then.
Figure Red:	What do you mean you're off? Isn't there more?
Figure Blue:	(climbing down the ladder, packing up and heading offstage)
	More? What more? That's it!
Figure Red:	But what does it all mean?
Blue/Gold:	Just go home.
Figure Red:	It's not the end! Surely there's more to it than that. What about the celebration? What about James Forbes?
Figure Gold:	Don't get too carried away.
Figure Blue:	We've celebrated. It's time to press on.

And so, we celebrated. Visions Through Time was, in itself, an eclectic celebration.

As the title suggests, the show transcended one hundred and fifty years of Australian history - exploiting much dramatic licence along the way. Beginning before the goldrush, the show depicted the original vision through the eyes of the founder, James Forbes and then transported the audience into the school's earliest makeshift classrooms under the astute tutelage of Mr Lawson. From there, we experienced the firm discipline metered out by Dr Morrison and his tawse, through the years of growth under Dr Littlejohn, before facing the realities of nationhood and the calamity of the First World War.

And that only brought us to the interval.

Conceptually, the show's intentions from the outset had been to steer away from the obligation to tell the history of the school in one hundred and thirty minutes. There was the better-endowed and newly published

A Deepening Roar on sale in the foyer to do that job. Rather, the task was to initially portray some of the formative moments in the nation's history and to then illustrate how Scotch responded to these challenges.

This mission was laden with a dilemma: which events to include, which to omit.

A rather game group of nine staff was assembled and each member elected to research a given event or period in the school's development. Contributions varied from short and descriptive theatrical concepts to scripted scenes. During terms three and four in 2000 the material started to emerge in its many forms. Over the holidays, the directors (Stephen Ritchie and David Mustafa) then placed the sum total in its chronological order to reveal an early glimpse of the show's possible structure.

There was plenty to celebrate, both in material and content; however, we were keenly aware that all retelling of history - whether in formal print or on the stage - is very much a coloured perspective. Is our school's history predominantly an objective chronicle of past events or should it also attempt to decode the language of myth, tradition and other more colloquial expressions that have been generated over time? For example, reactions to the Second World War are just as well illustrated within the imagery of the boys' poetry and art as by any other means. The development of an Australian consciousness and of political and social awareness is as well illustrated by the Collegian editorials of the '30s, '40s and '50s as by any other record. Similarly, a student view of the rapid social change during the '60s finds vivid expression in the perceptive (often psychedelic) poetry of that era - often at odds with the more conservative values prevailing at that time. So often in our research, we found that the clearest litmus test of prevailing attitudes was to be found by reading between the lines. For the directors, illustrating these complexities became the challenge, just as much as it was to celebrate one hundred and fifty years.

Visions Through Time was entirely acted and operated by current students of the school, with some involvement from St Catherine's girls. The combined impact of forty cast members playing multiple roles, coupled with complex lighting and flown sets was in itself a celebration.

For us, 2001 has been a year to look back upon our school's past. How does our vision, looking back at past events, reconcile with the forward vision of our founders? Is the 'celebration' of a particular moment in time a meaningful preoccupation? Once we have celebrated, what then? The answers were all in the show.

As Blue exclaims to Red (newly dubbed 'Cardinal'):

'We've celebrated. It's time to press on.'

Mr Stephen Ritchie