'Die for Art? You may as well.' — Barry Dickens, Rentokil

As the city gears up for its annual Fringe Festival, Melbourne’s theatre-makers are preparing to tackle some Herculan challenges – the least of which is getting noticed (and covering costs) in a fiercely-contested marketplace where only the strongest (or the richest) survive. The ‘nothing to lose’ mindset that has long fuelled the key players in Melbourne’s creative democracy is possibly no more in evidence at this time of year than during a sit-down with Peta Hanrahan – the Artistic Director of the celebrated The Dog Theatre.

Built from the ground up by Ms Hanrahan, The Dog Theatre defied the naysayers and doom merchants by rising to spectacular prominence in a café in Albert Street, Footscray. Yes, Footscray – where theatre-making angels (and the attendant luvvie brigade) might once have feared to tread.

But smashing through preconceptions about the value, role and place of her theatre craft is something Hanrahan has been making something of a life’s work out of. Long regarded as one of Melbourne’s finest and most adventurous young directors (she was seconded as Director in observation to Gale Edwards for the short-lived Eureka at Her Majesties Theatre, Melbourne and Assistant Director to Julian Meyrick for the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2005), Hanrahan has become increasingly determined to change the landscape of the independent theatre community in the city she has lived and worked in for a career spanning some 30 years.

The watershed year for The Dog Theatre was 2009, when Hanrahan won Best Venue at the Melbourne Fringe Festival Awards and stormed off with the Best New Venue Award at Victoria’s prestigious Green Room Awards. But awards were not an unknown quantity to Hanrahan. Melbourne’s La Mama theatre honoured her in 2006 with the LSG Award for contribution to theatre, and in 2007 she produced, dramaturged and directed Shrimp, winning the 2007 Drama Victoria Award for ‘Best Performance for Young People’. She was also co-recipient of the 2005 Antenna Award for 'Best Drama' for YARTZ and National Community Television (Channel 31).

A self-confessed Elizabeth Taylor devotee and “a theatrical dreamer”, the theatre bug bit Hanrahan hard when she was 9 nine years old. “When I was 9 years old, an artist from Arena Theatre came to my primary school. He told a story through movement, creating windows and doors with his body, not a set or props. Thus the theatrical dreaming,” she recalls.

“I am one of the NOT educated few that didn’t go away – which was perhaps not very bright,” she laughs. “I decided after Year 12 Drama classes that I did not believe in the institutionalised outcomes of arts culture. I found a teacher who inspired me and spent three years full time learning from him. He was a master from the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. The vocabulary I received from this chosen education has served me with grace and flexibility throughout my 30-year career and I am still overwhelmingly grateful I had the very great luck to find him.”

Moving out of what had become The Dog Theatre’s physical, if not spiritual, home in Albert Street Footscray last year, Hanrahan packed her gear into a truck and moved on. Bumping in to the Footscray Town Hall where the company will reside for the Fringe Festival this year has been an astonishing feat of logistics. Quaintly referred to as her “pop-up theatre” actually significantly understates The Dog Theatre’s creative prowess – that of actually making a Theatre where one has never existed before; and re-writing the rule book about the very essence of ‘taking theatre to the people’.

It is a significant coup for the City of Maribyrnong – who should be seriously congratulated for their support of groundbreaking theatrical enterprise and creativity where there is extraordinary potential for cultural and creative engagement. Now literally only minutes from Melbourne’s CBD, the City of Maribyrnong looks set to raise the bar by supporting The Dog Theatre as it makes its mark throughout the western suburbs instead of sitting steadfastly in a building somewhere else that people have to make the effort to travel to. It’s visionary support – and evidence of just how artistically destitute other local government areas are becoming by comparison.

“The Dog is just what it sounds like its going to be,” says Ms Hanrahan, “the snapper at your heels, reminding you, or anyone who has chanced the terrifying prospect of theatre patronage in the last 10 years, that Art is, at its best, something that you experience.

Going to the theatre is an event in one’s life. It doesn't take fur and pearls, but it does take guts! And not because you are afraid you are going to see something you don't understand, bores you witless or the self-indulgence that actually threatens never to end. Theatre is the place we have that has not yet hit the politically correct, you can smell the blood and see the blue of the bruising.”

Staring at the portraits of Coral Browne, “a luscious, rude and notorious actress, born and bred in Footscray, and who made it big on the West End of London in the 1930s” that are being displayed in the ‘foyer’ of The Dog Theatre in situ at the Footscray Town Hall for this year’s Fringe Festival, it is impossible to deny the power and influence of the ghosts of the city’s past association with the arts – an association the current caretakers of the city are ambitiously determined to realign through their support of Ms Hanrahan and her dedicated team of risk-taking Theatre Makers.

The Dog Theatre’s Fringe Festival program (which opens this Friday 23 September) boasts some iconic offerings including Barry Dickins’ Rentokil, Andrea Powell’s gob-smacking Ethel Chop, and Geoff Paine (yes Clive from Neighbours) with his play about not being such a ‘good Neighbour’. In 2008, Paine made headlines when he assaulted his neighbour (you can imagine the headlines!). Mr Paine was ordered by the Magistrates Court to attend a One Day Anger Management Course. He took notes – and Unpack This! is the result. Written by Paine and starring Paine, Michelle Nussey, Syd Brisbane and Ross Daniels, this comedy about two social workers showing six men how to manage their anger promises “pain, regret and tears – and that’s just the counsellors!”

To go some way towards recovering the costs of their bold theatrical adventurousness, The Dog Theatre will be hosting a Gala on Friday 7 October, 2011 at the Footscray Town Hall. The $70 per head Gala package includes a special performance of Unpack This!, a selection of wines from the ground-breaking new winery Enigma Variations and selected cheeses to accompany the wine. After the performance, guests will have the opportunity to meet and mingle with the cast, with all profits from the evening going to support The Dog Theatre.

Geoffrey Williams

What: The Dog Theatre Gala

When: Friday 7 October, 2011

Time: 6.00pm

Where: Footscray Town Hall, cnr Hyde and Napier Streets, Footscray

For bookings and more information about The Dog Theatre’s Melbourne Fringe Festival offerings, visit www.thedogtheatre.com

Image: Geoff Paine and Ross Daniels star in Unpack This!

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