Iwas never in any doubt. As a child, I wanted, when I grew-up, to be one of only two-things: a teacher, or to talk on the wireless.
Often, I am asked, incredulously: “I read your book! How ever did you come to end-up in the theatre?” While, parenthetically, it might seem an implausible notion, it was written in the stars! Seminal moments are nebulous. They occur imperceptibly. It is only in the remembrance we recognise the magnitude of a specific moment, or action. With the passage-of-time, fact and fiction become clouded. Ultimately, we are the sum total of our experiences. I have, consciously, transmogrified into the person I wanted to be—albeit an extension of the child. We are, what we are, by performance. There is no doubt, the ethos, and the circumstantial aggregate of my youth were decidedly imbalanced in favour of a creative career.
The first 13-years of my life were lived in Gwalia—a shanty, goldmining town in the North-eastern goldfields of Western Australia—147-miles north-east of Kalgoorlie. The population of about 500, was 60% Italian, 20% Yugoslav and other nationalities, and 20% British. When I wrote my childhood memoir, And Home Before Dark—a childhood on the edge of nowhere, I said of the little white-haired boy: “If I were to meet him today, I would recognise him, instantly, but I doubt he would recognise me.” I have returned many times to Gwalia, and Ronnie is still there—watching everyone, and listening.
Now a living ghost-town, Gwalia was a time-and-a-place, the like of which the world will never know again. As I wandered the town, the phonological variations of 28-lingoes rang-in-my-ears! The food, and the zeitgeist, was European. Spaghetti out of a can, on toast, and for breakfast, was a heresy! Mazza’s mini-Emporium had a European delicatessen; legs of ham and goat’s milk cheese, pasta, risotto, and Baccalà, were common fare. The music was cosmopolitan. Like the Welsh, the Italian miners sat outside their camps in the evening and sang the songs of their youth. The soulful, button accordion version of ‘Va, pensiero’ was as instantly recognisable as Ketèlbey’s evocative, ‘Bells Across The Meadows’. The Italian newspapers, la Fiamma and Il Globo, sold more copies than the Kalgoorlie Miner. Children switching between English and a parental mother tongue was not unusual. The Roman Catholic Mass was in the Latin—my spirit soared at Christmas midnight Mass when the Italian women’s choir—led by soprano Giulia Tagliaferri, sang the ‘Missa Angelorum’. The sisters at the Dominican priory rang the Angelus at midday. Its tintinnabulation pierced the deafening silence and was heard across the town. Its clangour lingered in the air long after it was heard no more. It imbued me with a life-long love of bell-ringing.
Gwalia
Mazza’s mini-Emporium
Herbert Hoover’s Italian immigration program made Gwalia quite unlike any other town in the Nation. Independently, the kaleidoscopic swirl of the multifarious ethnicities was inconspicuous; however, collectively decanted into the cultural cauldron of inculcation, they were an intensely overwhelmingly, creative influence. It was a culturally supercharged childhood. Subconsciously, it moulded the little white-haired boy; determined his destiny.
Radio first took me on the journey of make-believe. Like Alice in Wonderland, I stepped through the looking-glass into the magical Bakelite world of words and music. It was mesmeric. The first and third networks of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) radio 6WN WF, on relay through 6GF Kalgoorlie, were comprehensive; 1950s ABC radio schools’ programs and educational publications were, unapologetically, Anglo-Saxon traditional. The names of Tito, Mussolini, Stalin, and President Nasser, were bandied with familiarity; the Hungarian Uprising, 1956, was a palpable event in the town. The 1954 horror film, Creature From The Black Lagoon, was too scary to contemplate. The wireless, books, and music, were my solace. They were the world into which I retreated to escape the isolation of the landscape, and dreadfulness of recidivistic, domestic assault.
Roland aged 4. Photo by York Studios.
Roland playing dress-ups
I was a solitary child. I was not enamoured of others kids, and besides, they were not interested in playing schools with me teaching them their times-tables. Consequently, my parents, Beria and Ginger (they separated when I was two) showered me with books. I read Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven, Famous Five, Noddy, Malory Towers, and St Clare’s. The illustrated, colour Classic Comics introduced me to all the great writers, including H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Charles Dickens. My father placed a permanent newsagency order for the British children’s publications, Jack and Jill and Playhour. My mother bought School Friend, Girls’ Crystal, and The Lion. Leslie Rees’ Digit Dick series and Shy the Platypus, and Grimms’ Fairy Tales, were well thumbed. Often, and encouraged by mother, I played dress-ups on my own.
From the about the age of four I was infatuated with the wireless. The opening, haunting notes of the Ronald Hanmer’s ‘Pastorale’, the signature tune for the ABC’s radio serial, Blue Hills, sent me running to locate Beria: “Quick, Mum. Gwen Meredith’s on!” Anne Haddy, with whom I later came to work in repertory at the former Community Theatre, Killara, played Elizabeth Ross-Ingham for 20-years plus. I listened, devotedly, to the red and white, Bakelite wireless which sat atop the kitchenette and played all day—tuned almost exclusively to the ABC, and which, in the 1950s, was at its broadcasting zenith. It would be impossible to over-estimate the influence and importance of the ‘wireless’ before the advent of television. It was my window to the world. The essential 25-foot aerial was attached to the side of the galvanised iron, Hessian and plasterboard-lined, four-roomed house. The signal came-and-went dependent on the existing atmospheric conditions.
Village Glee Club
In the first-half of the 1950s, The Village Glee Club was my favourite radio program. With the theme song, ‘A Voice in the Old Village Choir’, it was broadcast nationally on the ABC. An original program idea of the prolific, Light Entertainment Department scriptwriter, Philip Darbyshire, who worked for 3LO Melbourne, the music variety program had an unmistakeably British flavour, and presented old songs and mild comedy set in an Australian country choir. The singers and actors were supported by the ABC’s Wireless Chorus, and regular singers included Lauris Elms, Kathleen Goodall, Sylvia Fisher, and Lorenzo Nolan. Local actor Colin Crane (Mr. Crump, the conductor) was also a writer and producer. The program’s combination of genteel comedy, and sentimental music, survived the vicissitudes of radio entertainment. It became one of the longest-running, weekly Australian radio shows. Recorded in 1938 by the American singing cowboy, Gene Autrey, ‘There’s A Goldmine in The Sky’, was featured regularly on the program. Years later, every performance of Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was a reminder. It is the same song Ma plays on the piano for Olive, Roo, Barney, and Pearl’s, disastrous sing-along.
The detective serial, Inspector West, starring Douglas Kelly, was based on John Creasey best-selling thriller novels and narrated by Roland Strong. Sponsored by MacRobertson’s confectionery it was Crawford’s longest-running radio serial. I was terrified of the dark, and the production’s style, timbre, and the blood-curdling sound-effects, set my nerves jangling! It was heightened drama.
The ABC broadcast the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11, 1953. It was my first encounter with unmitigated, dramatic theatre. I remember with clarity. Beria was ironing on the kitchen table. The organ and choir performing the coronation anthem, ‘Zadok the Priest’, rendered me motionless. Still, the hypnotic opening 22-bars of semi-quaver arpeggios takes me instantly to an epoch which ended with the death of Her late Majesty. I had a collection of coronation books.
I was obsessed with the piano. I sang like a bird. Laurette Chamberlain was a gifted pianist. She played with the local dance band. She heard me singing, ‘Oh! My PaPa’, and said, as if to nobody in particular: “This little boy really can sing!” When the Dominican sisters declined to teach me piano because Beria refused to send me back to the convent: “They don’t teach you fast enough!” she said. I was devastated. Frantic to find someone in the town, I approached Kay Quarti. Serendipitously, she had returned home from boarding school in Perth with an Honours pass in Leaving Certificate music. She agreed. I ran home, crying with joy. Kay’s generosity-of-spirit marked a pivotal change in my life. It was the beginning of my career. Subsequently, I spent hours at the keyboard. “He’s got the gift,” I heard them say.
AWU Hall in Gwalia
Brides and wedding cakes triggered my fertile imagination. I loitered outside the church. I studied every detail of the bride’s dress. Nothing escaped my attention. I made exact line-drawings in a large Spirax sketchbook. Mrs. Chamberlain and Dot Matthews were skilled cake decorators. Square, round, or heart-shaped fruitcakes, the two-and-three-tiered visual extravaganzas were encased in a thick layer of marzipan, coated with gleaming, white royal icing, and painstakingly festooned with swags, swirls, tiny rosette peaks crowned with a silver cashous, trailing hand-made sugar-flowers and leaves, and panels of piped and latticed icing. The garlanding was done in the hours after midnight and before sunrise. The heat of desert day, and perspiring hands, made it impossible to fashion the icing sugar. The nuptial creations were veritable works-of-art! I needed to know. I knocked at Mrs. Chamberlain’s door and asked if she would explain the intricacies of her aluminium cake-decorating set. I stared in wonderment.
On holiday in Perth, Beria chose, rather than drag me around Boan’s department store while she shopped, to leave me in the ladies’ wear section: “You can roam around and look at all the dresses, but don’t touch anything; and don’t wander! I’ll come back and collect you when I’m finished.” Duchess satin, embroidered voile, and water-wave taffeta and tulle ballgowns in the palest of hues, were a source of infinite allure. Out of curiosity, I lifted the skirt of a display mannequin. I was astonished. I called across the lunch-time crowded department to Beria: “Mum, she’s go no pants on!” It was my first big laugh.
Ginger took me to Cottesloe beach on my first seaside holiday. Someone suggested we see Jack and the Beanstalk at His Majesty’s Theatre. Apart from Franquin, the Hypnotist, at the AWU Hall in Gwalia, this was my first encounter with live-theatre. I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the production. I burst into tears when I was invited to join with half-a-dozen other children to be part of the on-stage, apple-eating competition. My father was bewildered by my reaction.
Boarding School, 1963
In 1960, having sold his only asset—a house worth 250-pounds, my father sent me away to boarding school. Excepting for my birth, it was, and remains, the single, most important event in my life. It marked the FINIS of my life in Gwalia. A door, which I did not know existed, was about to open. In a matter of weeks I was involved in Latin, French, and Art classes; weekly piano lessons; comprehensive English and history courses; and Speech and Drama, with an emphasis on poetry performance. I was gifted a whole new, magical world! I was a duck to water.
Eyeing me suspiciously, the manual arts master (wood and metal work/technical drawing), said: “Boy, it’s obvious you’re never going to earn your living from a trade. You’re wasting your time coming here. Go to the art room!”
On Sunday night, we lay in the darkened dormitory listening to a radio play: ‘More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of …’ Regular visits to the erstwhile Playhouse in Pier Street stirred a yearning which I did not appreciate, or immediately understand. The revered Speech and Drama examiner and accomplished actress, Anita le Tessier, wrote of my 6th grade examination: “Not without taste and talent for this work.” I wondered, but never thought about earning-a-living working in the theatre. It seemed too preposterous an aspiration. I left school not knowing. My brother badgered and poured scorn when I refused to apply for a job at a suburban supermarket: “It’s a good job. You could end-up the manager.”
In 1966, having passed the ABC’s rigorous audition, I was employed as a cadet in the children’s department under the supervision of actress/producer Nancy Nunn—mother of the actress and writer, Judy Nunn. Nancy was an actress of considerable talent, and an audience favourite at the Perth Playhouse, the home of the National Theatre—a professional repertory company.
Roland in 1965
The Playhouse, Perth
The artistic director, English-born/Australian naturalised, Edgar Metcalfe AM, led a monthly repertory company of actors including Peter Collingwood, Rosemary Barr, Jennifer West, Margaret Ford, Eileen Colocott, Joan Bruce, Frank Baden-Powell, James Beattie, Harriet Craig, Judy Wilson, Peter Morris, Alfred Hurstfield, Neville Teede, Cliff Holden, Peter Rowley, Alan Lander, James Bailey, John Orcsik, Leonie Martin-Smith, Gerry Atkinson, Frederic Lees, and Chris Pendlebury; with stage managers, Ken Gregory, Greg Tepper, Colin Griffith, and Jan Kenny; costume and set designer, Edward (Ted) Dembowski; musical director, Harry Bluck; head electrician, Mal Hough; wardrobe mistress, Betty Pearson; mechanist, Robert(Bob) Staples; accountant, Lila Woodall; and box office supervisor, Ivy Atkinson. Under Edgar’s dazzling stewardship The Playhouse was a well-oiled shop-of-magic.
Nancy Nunn suggested I audition for Edgar Metcalfe who was about to direct a production of the Marat/Sade. She felt sure, with such a large cast, there would be something for me. It was arranged. The meeting with Edgar was the most exhilarating experience. He talked with me about the play. I was too excited and heard little of what he was saying. Much of the Marat/Sade is written in rhyming couplets. I recall him being complimentary at my ability to handle the text. While a theatre career was not something I had contemplated—‘I wanted only to be on the wireless’—standing on-stage at The Playhouse seemed extraordinarily natural; afterall, I had, over the years, seen many productions, and the auditorium was familiar. Even the abstract amoebic shapes painted onto the auditorium walls were like old acquaintances.
Marat/Sade is a play within a play. I was cast as the French writer, Voltaire, and a patient. Set in the asylum of Charenton, I broke a toe as Ken Gregory and I scampered-up, and precariously dangled from, a wall of Ted’s magnificent set. It was a painful beginning to my life in the theatre. In English repertory tradition, rehearsals started at 10.10, and finished at 2 o’clock. Edgar worked at a pace, and without hesitation. He knew precisely what he wanted and was detailed in his direction. He wasted little time. “Rehearsals,” he reminded the company, “are not for learning your lines! You do that at home!”
Axiomatically, the Christmas pantomimes were strictly traditional. Edgar wrote the scripts and was the consummate Dame. In a slinky backless, halter-neck, silver lame creation, he was full bosomed long before Dolly Parton. The pantos opened on Boxing Day and played six-matinees and two-nights to full-houses. At the evening performances Edgar transmogrified into an hilarious amalgam of Dick Emery and Benny Hill. The double entendres landed with machinegun rapidity. Audiences squealed! He was a masterclass to watch. Dick Whittington and His Cat starred Jennifer West as principal boy, and Rosemary Barr as principal girl, together with local television star and pop-singer, Johnny Young, and his band, The Strangers. Ken Gregory was the cat. Rosemary Barr was the Prince Siegfried in Goldilocks and The Three Bears at the Circus. Edgar was Dame Dolly Dishwater, and Pixie Hale was Goldilocks. One irate child scoffed at Pixie: “You’re not Goldilocks. You’re Alice In Wonderland. Mum took me to see you at Boan’s store yesterday!” I was the front-end, and Greg Tepper the back-end, of Mavis, the dancing horse. She was a triumph and on her first entrance executed the most brilliant Charleston!!! One occasion the audience cheered so loudly at Mavis’s prowess, Dame Dolly asked if they wanted her to “do it again?” The second entrance from upstage prompt was cheered even more loudly. Edgar was delighted.
Edgar Metcalfe, artistic director of the National Theatre Company of WA at The Playhouse, 1963-1984
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Edgar Metcalfe (top left) with Peter Collingwood, Chris Johnson, Peter Morris and James Beattie
Edgar Metcalfe was a legitimate man of the theatre! Of all the artistic directors with whom I have worked, he is—and I have, by good fortune worked with some of the best, the one whom most I admired. It was Mr. Metcalfe who sensed there might be something worth nurturing. I never ceased to marvel at his capacity; his comedy timing. I created opportunities to seek-out his company. In 1966, Edgar directed and starred as Pseudolus in a superb production of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. He was, simply, quite brilliant. It was a genre with which he was particularly comfortable. During Henry 1V, Parts 1 and 11, I stood every performance, in the dark of the wings, and watched perfection as his King Henry delivered the ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’ speech.
I have worked on a string of Ibsen, Shaw, Chekhov, and Shakespeare plays; and others that have long since disappeared from the performance cannon. Who, today, would consider mounting Hugh and Margaret Williams’ The Irregular Verb To Love, or Plaintiff in a Pretty Hat?; Captain Carvallo, Getting Gertie’s Garter, or The House On The Cliff? Edgar’s production of Arnold Ridley’s comedy-thriller, The Ghost Train, was incomparable. Whether it was Oh! What A Lovely War, or John Chapman’s farce, Brides of March, Edgar brought a gravitas. He loved actors. He started-out in weekly repertory in England; consequently, he was possessed of an encyclopaedic knowledge of plays, and was a master of on-stage, comedy business; equally, he understood the power of the dramatic effect. Like John Sumner and George Ogilvie, he understood repertory theatre, intimately. He moved between periods and genres with ease and assurance. He was not an academic, but he knew his stuff! To the end, I remained in awe. He gave generously of his time and experience. He encouraged, and occasionally, disapproved. He taught me about the theatre; how to behave; to respect the audience; and to honour the text. I strove, always, for Mr. Metcalfe’s approval. I am a product of the repertory system, and like many, I lament, profoundly, its demise.
Sydney calling: Roland in 1969
Roland in 2008 at the launch of And Be Home Before Dark
Years later, when Paul Dainty, Kenn Brodziak (Aztec Services), and Garry Van Egmond (Garry Van Egmond Promotions), were mounting a production of Doctor in Love with Robin Nedwell, Geoffrey Davies, Lyndel Rowe, James Beattie, Kerry Armstrong, Suzanne Dudley, David Allshorn, Michael Haeburn, Sue Jones, and David Nettheim, I was able to repay Edgar’s kindness. I engaged him as director. The production toured Australia playing to capacity houses. Doctor in Love was an amusing but inconsequential piece. Its artistic and box-office success was testament to Edgar Metcalfe’s directorial brilliance!
In mid-1967 Edgar, Ken Greogry, and Rosemary Barr sailed for England. For me, it marked the end-of-the-golden-weather at The Playhouse, and the beginning of a new chapter in my theatrical life. Jim Sharman—with whom I later worked on HAIR; King Lear at the Melbourne Theatre Company; and the Rocky Horror Show for Harry M. Miller, came to direct a production of the J.B. Fagan musical, And So To Bed. Miraculously, March 1968, I left for Sydney to start a life which was totally unimaginable in the Western Australian goldfields of my childhood.
Gwalia was, ostensibly, an Italian community transplanted into the Australian outback. It takes a village to raise a child—and Gwalia was a unique village. On the balance of probability, it is not so extraordinary I ended-up in the theatre!
