Our History
La Bamba
Conway Christ Redneck Superstar, La Bamba 1985.
La Bamba
Begun in 1982, La Bamba was run exclusively by volunteers and provided the most exciting space in Brisbane for young artists to experiment with new material, often with outrageous outcomes but always hugely entertaining. It played host to groups such as Grin & Tonic, Sugar and Spite, Fluba Troupe,Street Arts Community Theatre, Geoff the Band and Theatresports.
Bryan Nason recalled the very first La Bamba performance:
The actual first performance was given by Robert Arthur, Ros Vidgen, Kenneth McLeod, Victoria Arthur and myself, Bryan Nason, in 1982. Robert Arthur was the director of the Grin & Tonic Theatre Troupe at the time. The presentation at that first La Bamba was Savage Cabaret, directed and devised by Robert Arthur, an hour-long program of the poetry and the songs of Bertolt Brecht which we had first presented in 1979 in Cardwell in North Queensland, together with an hour of clowning, Right on the Night, at a time when the Grin & Tonic shows were directed by Robert Arthur and Geoffrey Rush. Prue Gibbs and Chrissie Mildren were two of the fab first four in Savage Cabaret, but those two were travelling far abroad by 1982. However Robert Arthur reinvented the show for La Bamba in 1982, and it was a runaway success and a delight in old La Boite. We played a Friday night (as later La Bambas continued to do) and from this first wonderful night, I clearly remember some remarkable moments including Ros Vidgen's singing of Pirate Jenny (myself at the piano) and of course Robert Arthur's stunning comic subtlety and brilliance.
Savage Cabaret, in 1982, was such a high, that we and everyone around La Boite's essence on that night, felt that it must be organised to become a regular Friday night event for young and/or bright Brisbane, and so it did, before people lost their faith in old La Boite. So that was the start of La Bamba during one of those times when Brisbane experienced a flush of its own creative life. I can't remember whether the name La Bamba was used at Savage Cabaret, but there is no doubt that we who brought early La Bamba's energies to life in its earliest days knew well that that was where it began.[i]
Errol O’Neill recalled another– and very eclectic – early La Bamba program:
I think I read a short story and someone else played some music … Frank Millwood played something odd on the piano. And there was this long haired blond Ursula Andress type woman who did something in a catsuit. And there was this young man in a powder blue suit with an open neck shirt with a gold chain and he sang New York New York, that Frank Sinatra song. It was so kind of un-the audience. The audience was laughing. He was absolutely straight. At interval he came down and he said “Why were they laughing during my song?” I remember thinking at the time “Oh, yes, they’re the La Boite audience, a bit on the left, ready for a bit of cultural mayhem, social critique, a bit of satire”, and they must have either thought this guy was being satirical or they were laughing out of embarrassment. It was an odd moment that stands in my memory because it said something about how to pitch your stuff to a La Boite audience. [ii]
When John Stanwell was producing La Bamba in early 1984, a typical late Friday night show might include impressionist Gerry Connelly introducing characters such as Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Queen Elizabeth, Viva La Burt (Bacharach) with Anna Macrossan, Leah Cotterell and Maria Cleary, The Modern Appliances which featured contemporary electronic music, and The Stampede of the Tippie Toe Babies, a collection of skits, music, visual effects and dance. [iii]
A particularly successful La Bamba event was a two night season of The Paisley Pirates of Penzance directed by David Pyle and Sean Mee in 1985 with a cast and crew of 45 and starring Leah Cotterell, Justine Anderson, Pat Leo, Sean Mee, Gerry Connolly and Brian Cavanagh. By then La Bamba was officially regarded as part of La Boite’s Youth Theatre activities and was included in the Theatre Board submission as “an ongoing late night theatre and cabaret program aimed at encouraging and developing young local performing artists and a young audience”. [iv]
Another popular success in 1985 was Conway Christ, Redneck Superstar again directed by Sean Mee and David Pyle with a cast and crew of over 120. Many from these productions were by now emerging professionals developing their skills and building careers, including Justine Anderson, Andrew Blackman, Andrew Buchanan, Brian Cavanagh, Gerry Connolly, Leah Cotterell, Adam Couper, Annette Kerwitz, Sean Mee, Toni Mott, David Pyle, Andrew Raymond and Scott Witt. These 1985 La Bamba productions were the beginnings of a Brisbane phenomenon that evolved into Toadshow, a collective of creative people which did much to develop Brisbane’s semi-professional and professional theatre scene.
Writer: Christine Comans
#Gallery
Courtesy QPAC Museum.
Courtesy QPAC Museum.
Courtesy QPAC Museum
Courtesy QPAC Museum
Courtesy QPAC Museum
Poster from the early 1990s
Courtesy Gerowyn Lacaze
Poster from the early 90s
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#Tell us your story
I was in a couple of the early La Bambas, definitely the first one because I felt really sorry for the guy who sang "New York New York". I can't actually remember what I did except it involved outfits made of garbage bags. In the other one I was in I played a character called Ma Deen in a sari, matriarch of the Ma Baker type , with my boys the Deen Brothers. I think we were some sort of running gag through the show, and at the end we showed video of the bulldozers arriving to demolish the theatre. I'd love to have photos of either of them.
—Joy Hinckley
It is nice to hear a good story, and far be it from me to hold any difference of opinion with the astonishing and unique Errol O'Neill, who I will always admire, as I do Sean Mee, David Pyle, wonder-voice Cavanagh, and many of that lot, Nettie of course, but Errol was not in what was the first of the La Bamba nights, the one well-acknowledged to be so at the time. He came a little later, in fact on the back of the actual first performance which was given by Robert Arthur, Ros Vidgen, Kenneth McLeod, Victoria 'Arthur and myself, Bryan Nason, in 1982. Robert Arthur was the director of the Grin & Tonic Theatre Troupe at the time (not Grin and Tonic of which Jason Klarwein is now the Artistic Director). The presentation at that first La Bamba was SAVAGE CABARET, directed and devised by Robert Arthur, an hour-long program of the poetry and the songs of BERTOLT BRECHT, which we had first presented in 1979 in Cardwell in North Queensland, together with an hour of clowning, RIGHT ON THE NIGHT, at a time when the Grin & Tonic shows were directed by Robert Arthur and Geoffrey Rush. Prue Gibbs and Chrissie Mildren were two of the fab first four in SAVAGE CABARET, but those two were travelling far abroad by 1982. However Robert Arthur reinvented the show for la Bamba in 1982, and it was a runaway success and a delight in old La Boite. We played a Friday night (as later La Bambas continued to do) and from this first wonderful night, I clearly remember some remarkable moments including Ros Vidgen's singing of Pirate Jenny (myself at the piano) and of course Robert Arthur's stunning comic subtelty and brilliance.
I don't like disagreeing with Erroll, with whom I have had a long and loving friendship (we first played together in AS YOU LIKE IT, two brothers, a baddie and a goodie, he was the baddie) in 1976 in what was the first public presentation in the venue of the entity that has transmogrified into QUT's acting 'school'. Errol's and my paths have interacted many times, and his ever-constant friendship is one of my treasures; our next interaction was in MOTHER COURAGE in the same venue in 1981, then later variously, including in a MACBETH in Roma Street, and most recently, he in the audience and myself as actor, in our production of MONTAIGNE's one-person-show, VIEW FROM A HIGH HILLTOP, for which Errol wrote to me a vivid and deeply rich response, a most favourable one, based on his feeling that we, separately and together, had achieved what life theatre occasionally reaches for.
And in Queensland.
However the La Bamba that Errol speaks of was not the first. Perhaps the first La Bamba, SAVAGE CABARET, is to suffer a fate similar to the first production of the Queensland Theatre Company, an organisation which recently has had its second name change, a name still not suited to what in essence it is, a subsidised theatre-management-that-puts-on-plays, which is nothing like a real theatre COMPANY, an on-going grouping of professional actors who work together over time, together with their collaborating theatre-artists. Perhaps we will get one at some time in the future, as we did in the past in the 1920's with Alan Wilkie's professional touring company, and as we nearly did in 1969, in 1974 and '76, and with The Popular Theatre Troupe, Matrix, La Boite, Fractal, and numerous other creative attempts, including Brisbane's theatre restaurants. The true history of the energetic attempts to create a real theatre COMPANY for our State has yet to be written, because it hasn't been achieved since Wilkie 90 years ago, and our times, in essence (sorry bob), aren't really changing.
They may appear to be, if you like skipping around on the surface like water-spiders on the Bungil.
SAVAGE CABARET, in 1982, was such a high, that we and everyone around La Boite's essence on that night, felt that it must be organised to become a regular Friday night event for young and/or bright Brisbane, and so it did, before people lost their faith in old La Boite. (You may be interested to know that flourishing cities, including London and Paris have a great many fully professional theatres seating fewer than 200 nightly, just check Spectacle for instance, but those venues choose not to have performances on Lang Park nights, dates well advertised or easily guessed at long in advance.) So that was the start of La Bamba during one of those times when Brisbane experienced a flush of its own creative life. I can't remember whether the name La Bamba was used at SAVAGE CABARET, but there is no doubt that we who brought early La Bamba's energies to life in its earliest days knew well that that was where it began.
That was when La Bamba was acknowledged to have breathed its first and squealed with delight, though perhaps it may have been christened a little later. I don't remember that detail.
Perhaps SAVAGE CABARET will go down invisible into non-history as THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN had become invisible by 'Our First Ten Years,' a booklet which was regarded by a few involved as the first 'history' of QTC, but the case of the then-named QTC was put right later by Artistic Director AUBREY MELLER and more recently by Governor PENNY WENSLEY, though I am sorry to have to say that the admired, in most respects, former Premier ANNA BLIGH said not long ago in public that the matter of who got QTC going, whether it was the 'quirky' Mister Nason or someone else, was left in question.
Not to me.
BRYAN NASON
—Bryan Nason
La Bamba was colourful, zany and wonderful. Studying drama in the 90's at QUT and then exploring my comedy skills /writing and solo performances in this fabulous venue was a highlight. Some crazy performance up a ladder in retro bathers?...It was a time of collaboration with other women to shape and explore our craft. The lovely Barb Fordham was one of those women. Can we bring La Bamba back?- love to be involved- assist to run it? Happy to help. Tee hee.... Lisa Smith.
MA ( Research QUT)