Track 8: The Australian Performing Group

In 1970 a new group of theatre performers, the Australian Performing Group, sprang out of the wellspring of the La Mama theatre. The group (often referred to as the APG) focused on the creation of home-grown theatre. Their very first production, and the pamphlet shown here, drew inspiration from a nineteenth-century melodrama, Marvellous Melbourne, staged in 1888 by Alfred Dampier. Dampier's production featured Australian characters and settings, and celebrated the people and its city. The APG's production recreated events in Melbourne from 1888 to Federation in 1901, and borrowed the title of Dampier's production.

The show was developed through a four-month period of workshops that were subsidised by a grant from the Australia Council. Early in the process the group listened to talks on nineteenth-century melodramas, folk music, and social and political history by Margaret Williams, Glen Tomasetti and Ian Turner. Therese Radic also acted as a consultant. Jack Hibberd and John Romeril created the plot, writing the equivalent of at least four full-length play scripts in the process. Taking a satirical and burlesque look at the seedier side of Marvellous Melbourne, the production comprised short sketches, songs, photographs, caricatures and cartoons.

The philosophy of the APG was to collaborate on the production of plays, giving actors, designers and writers an equal footing in the creation of productions. Despite the difficulty of maintaining a collective approach, the APG became the most important Australian theatre group at this time, bringing together artists such as David Williamson, Graeme Blundell, Max Gillies, Robyn Archer, Jane Clifton, Evelyn Krape and Red Symons.