Chalkface

A zany new comedy about teaching in a primary school had its debut in Adelaide ahead of seasons in Sydney, Parramatta and Canberra. Jude Hines speaks to the writer and creatives of the play, described as a tribute to teachers dealing with a screwdriver and a hurricane.

Multi-award-winning Australian writer Angela Betzien, now a parent herself, grew up as a child of two teachers. They shared stories of notorious students like one who the family referred to as Scewdriver, because he brought one to school to use as a weapon.

New to writing pure comedy, Angela is clear that this witty, biting, ‘laugh out loud’ play represents the humour of so many of the teachers who she spoke to whilst developing the script.

“Teachers’ black humour comes through; it’s the ‘if you don’t laugh, you cry’ way of looking at their immensely challenging work,” said Angela.

Home schooling during the bleak Covid pandemic days made her appreciate teachers’ skills.

“It reminded me that the miracle of teachers teaching my child to read was so, so special”.

Angela is passionate that this play is written for the teachers, who, as caretakers of the future, face burnout but are still committed to teaching children how to think critically, accept and care about their peers, and how to discern and act upon the truth. She loves looking at ‘communities’, and this school community gave her the opportunity to create a unique, zany and somewhat representative group at West Vale Primary.

The design elements of Chalkface vividly reflect the themes. Set and Costume Designer Ailsa Paterson created the staffroom, a naturalistic room that is drab, grubby and clichéd. An array of strategically chosen, mismatched furniture and equipment, that was old in the 1990’s, recreates a desperately under-resourced government school. Bereft of modern technology, the blackboard from decades ago is prominent in sharing messages.

The hot water heater on the wall is already broken at the start of the term and the battle with cockroaches in the kettle and an uncatchable rat provides rib-tickling laughs to break the tension.

Whilst it is a space for what Director Jess Arthur describes as a ‘playground for teachers’ that constantly delivers surprises, there is a sense that the aftermath of Chernobyl looked ‘well heeled’ by comparison. The mood is deliberately bleak.

Catherine Mc Clements, as jaded, cynical Pat Novitsky, a 50 something career teacher, is relishing a gift of a role. She comments that Pat “can’t stop caring about these kids, no matter how many wisecracks or cold water she pours on the profession.” It is these lightning-fast barbs that have the audience understanding, captivated, on side and chortling.

The other teacher, Anna Park, played by Stephanie Somerville, a proud Martu woman and graduate of WAAPA’s Indigenous Program, reminds us of the energy and optimism of early career teachers who currently, on average, abandon teaching after just a few years.  

Stephanie described two teachers who she drew upon to create Anna. She fondly acknowledges the dedication of her Mum and best friend, who are teachers, and commented that, “My young new Year 7 teacher made me feel special. She was a teacher who really believed in me and helped me to believe that I was good enough. She saw my potential and helped me to realise it.”

We meet Anna as a newly minted graduate, earnest and energetic, having a master’s degree in Neuroscience that results in others referring to as a ‘child whisperer’.

To everyone’s surprise, Anna volunteers to work with, and turn around the life of, the school’s most feared and famous ‘lost cause’, Hurricane. OK, so encouraging him to build a small nuclear reactor may have been a little extreme. Stephanie said, “I love that she believes that one person can make a difference.”

Stephanie, as Anna, who has the post it ‘Every child has incalculable value’ on her bathroom mirror, comes to Book Week, resplendent as Dr Seuss’s Lorax, brandishing the quote “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better, it’s NOT!” Unsurprisingly, Pat comes as the venomous Ms Trunchball, the anti-hero from Roald Dahl’s novel Matilda.

Angela immersed herself in research about the Australian education system, the underfunding of the public system and what she calls ‘the global obsession with testing and measuring’.

She chuckled and said, “I love the line that a teacher gave me, that I included in the play, that says ‘you don’t fatten a pig by measuring it’.”

This testing and measuring obsession is personified in the character of Douglas Houston, played ingratiatingly by State Theatre SA regular performer Nathan O’Keefe. He is a classroom avoiding, slogan spewing Principal, driven by Education Department KPI’s and corporate regulations, who cares about his image rather than the students who he refers to as ‘human capital’. For Douglas, the dollar is king.

Schools are arguably controlled by their Office Manager, who balances the budget, opens and shuts the collective school ‘purse’, and manages the resources. Not able to resist a great pun, Angela has created Cheryl Filch, played by stage and screen actor Michelle Ny - a failed banker who doesn’t like students, teachers or parents, and guards the ultimate power in the school as holder of the Stationery Cupboard key, from which the coloured paper is rationed and grudgingly doled out.

Stephanie said, “The comedy in this play comes from the truth of it,” and we see it subtly and patently woven in through the dialogue and the production elements. For anyone who needed therapy to survive primary school music lessons, so did the character of unassertive, softly spoken, Kindy music teacher Denise Hart. Fresh from summer in a psychiatric ward, she’s portrayed by Susan Prior, recently seen as Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, who revels in outrageous physical comedy.

Composer and Sound Designer Jess Dunn has helped her by cleverly including both the sounds that we hear in the world of play and the much loved or hated sounds of primary school instruments, including the ubiquitous recorders, glockenspiels, ukuleles and toy percussion that create many of our memories of early schooling.

Angela Betzein believes “Education is at a ‘where to now’ juncture.” Lost children are a well-known theme in her work and she is passionate about kids like Hurricane, and other kids like him, who are ‘square pegs in round holes’.

“These are kids who need properly funded specialist education to flourish,” she says.

Angela is interested in the kids who may be wild, may be rebels, and believes that it is them who are often our future leaders. She is clear that it is the great teachers who really teach, that take students to a place where dreams reside.

Angela, like many of the Chalkface team, had teachers who, with their words of wisdom, have awoken the spirit within us and led us down many paths of life. This play is a poignant, funny, nuanced new Australian comedy. It is also a plea to support the teachers who, despite it all, believe in Hurricane and Screwdriver.

Sydney Theatre Company - September 16 until October 29, 2022.

Parramatta Riverside Theatre - November 3 – 5.

Canberra Theatre – November 9 – 12.

Photographer: Matt Byrne