Brand Bellingen

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BRAND BELLINGEN
A Cool Music Production
We gratefully acknowledge the Gumbaingeri people, traditional owners of this beautiful valley and its environs.

Written by Pip Wilson from an idea conceived by Barry Hood

Directed by Alice Moseby with assistance from Cherie Pugh

Co-produced by Pip Wilson and Misty Hanley
Musical Director: Josee Hennequin

‘Bellingen Song’, lyrics by Pip Wilson; music by Josee Hennequin
‘Hyperreality (The BRAND BELLINGEN Song)’, lyrics by Pip Wilson; music by Josee Hennequin; arranged by Elisabeth Jurans

CAST: Alf Kershaw: Phil Monaghan; Wallaby: Graham Weekes; Nicola Rawley: Deborah Becker; Wayne Morrison: Craig Nelson; Rachelle: Lisa Rae

SUPPORTING CAST: Karen Overton (Mrs Kershaw); Peter Murphy (Security Guard); Mark Pisk (Security Guard); Steve Grey (Davo); Leo Bradney-George (Doctor and The Man); Sean Bradney-George; Douglas Easterbrook; Julia Wilson; David Lomas; Fiona Kendall; Greg Auert; Brian Carter

AUDIO: Annie Arnold
LIGHTING: Mark Willis, Luke Rhodes

FINALE DANCERS: Thank you to Peter Stock and Rivers Dance Studio. Senior Dancers: Tehani Vicario, Freyja Carl-Crooks, Megan Telford and Amelia Bowsie.

GRATITUDE: Barry Hood; Marti Guy (BellaBOOKafe); Lucy Nation; Damon Ormsby; Max Thrower; Amargi Wolf; David Lomas; Mark Bergin; Max Francis; Peter Geddes; Tos Garrad; Norman Heywood; Brian Semple; Sasha Shapievsky; Leonie Watson; Barry Simiana; Kirstie Frederiksen; Will Douglas; Faerie Laura and Friends; Bob White; David Perry; Anthony Falconer; Robert Stockton and Bellingen High School; Ian Gilmore; Sienna Wilson; Sarah Hanley; Russell Pugh; Michael Hanley; Kiara Pugh; Adele Barnett; Diana Schuetz; Greg and Brad at the The Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun, and Community Radio 2bbb-fm.

BRAND BELLINGEN BANNER: Graeme Dunstan (www.peacebus.com) and Vernon Treweeke

IN MEMORIAM: In memory of the late Ida Francis, so closely associated with the Bellingen Memorial Hall over decades.

The premise of the play

Thirty years ago, Bellingen was seen by the rest of the nation as a town in crisis.

On March 19, 1978, the banner headline on The Sun-Herald’s front page screamed ‘TOWN SPLIT OVER HIPPIES’, and a special two-page report followed.

On November 4, The National Times ran a double-page spread entitled, ‘BELLINGEN ’78: A CLASH OF CULTURES’.

The feature stories explored a deep conflict that had been brewing for several years amongst many ‘locals’ and ‘new settlers’. One aspect of that conflict – the one that had drawn the attention of national media – had been a public meeting held in late-1977 in the Bellingen Memorial Hall. The passionate meeting was attended by many hundreds of adult residents, at a time when the population, men, women and children, was less than 1,400.

Bellingen author, Pip Wilson, who was in a front row of the meeting, has revisited the turmoil of the district.

“What I remember most about that meeting is the noise of the crowd, and people expressing fear that violence would break out,” Pip recalls. “I remember women with babies and toddlers rushing outside for safety. In my research for the play, I have asked others what they remember, and the most common memory seems to be a fear of violence, which, thankfully, never eventuated.”

There were many issues that led to media focusing on conflict in Bellingen, and these are explored in Wilson’s play. Set at that time in history, the play rushes into 2008 and suddenly the argument shifts to current Bellingen issues.
 

BRAND BELLINGEN proudly supported by

BellaBOOKafe
Vegetarian fare & fine coffee
Fine/rare books & Monthly Group Meeting Place
7 Church St Bellingen
0413 707 775

Bellingen Records
Max Thrower
Recording * mixing & editing * media transfers
email: max [at] bellingenrecords.com.au
0408 877 268


DVDs of the show ($10) available from
Cross The Line Video Productions
Brian Semple
Editor * cameraman * producer * director
email: brian [at] crosstheline.com.au
(02) 6655 0593

CDs of songs (only $5) available from BellaBOOKafe and

Studio 3 Coffs Coast
Josee Hennequin
Singing * drama * music * speech
3/20 Lawson Cr. Coffs Harbour
0428 306 097

Photos available from BellaBOOKafe and

LightMaster Photography
Norman Heywood
PO Box 40 Urunga NSW 2455
(02) 6655 5785
www.lightmaster.com.au

For the documentary DVD
'The Making of BRAND BELLINGEN'
By Peter Geddes
 email: petersummertime [at] gmail.com

For further info, contact Pip Wilson at pipwilson [at] bigpond.com

MacBRAND BELLINGEN

Did someone say ‘Macbeth’ in the Memorial Hall? The fact that BRAND BELLINGEN was a 270-seat sellout, with another estimated 300 people scrambling for seats, belies the fact that for months the colourful show was dogged by setbacks. Yet Bello district people overcame myriad problems with customary good-humoured tenacity.

An old theatrical superstition has it that the word ‘Macbeth’ must not be uttered inside a theatre unless that particular play is on stage, so players and crew traditionally refer to ‘the Scottish play’ to avoid bad luck. The team joke around this ambitious 90-minute musical comedy, was that someone broke the taboo. However, laughter and loud applause overwhelmingly said that the curse was annulled by sheer Bello toughness.

Writer, Pip Wilson, searched without success from December 2007 for a producer and director, and reluctantly decided to produce it himself, with Misty Hanley – both without production experience. Esteemed director Alice Moseby, who came on board in June, had to go to England for the last three weeks of production due to a death in the family, returning jetlagged 54 hours before curtain to take the reins from interim director Cherie Pugh. Winter illnesses plagued producers, cast, crew and their families. The lead singer’s daughter caught pneumonia, and dancers – Julia Wilson and friends, and Peter Stock’s Rivers Dance Studio – stepped into the breach at the 11th hour.

The death during rehearsal-time of the wife of the official who books the hall, led to some confusion. A death associated with another planned but postponed production meant that the preferred showtime, pre-elections, could have been booked after all, giving an extra fortnight for rehearsals, but by then it was too late to change dated publicity. Just hours before curtain, an Apple ate the graphic designer’s 8-page artwork, and non-artist Wilson had to create a 4-page illustrated program in MS Publisher, which crashed. He did it in Photoshop. Bellingen mechanic Carl Foster NRMA’d a stranded actor. The hall offices were burgled after the show.

Macbeth? It looks like Bellingen people broke the theatrical curse!

Alf (Phillip Monaghan) and Mrs Kershaw (Karen Overton)
 

The songs

Bellingen Song

Lyrics © Pip Wilson, 2008
Music © Josee Hennequin, 2008

Flow down the river,
Hmm, hmm, purple haze.
Flow down the river.
Here is where I’ll spend my days.

The rockets’ red glare
Will not touch me,
And I will become
Pure and free.

I will kiss this green
Land as my country
An ancestor,
I will be.

And the sting of the city won’t hurt me
I will fly with the black cockatoo
And the song of my youth won’t desert me
And my vision will stay strong and true.

I’m in Bellingen
I’m in Bellingen
I’m an ancestor
Strong and true.

In the flood,
And in the bright dawning
Around my strong fire
And the dew

I will breathe in the mist
Of the morning
And my vision will stay
Strong and true.

And the sting of the city won’t hurt me
I will fly with the black cockatoo
And the song of my youth won’t desert me
And my vision will stay strong and true.

I am Bellingen
I am Bellingen
I’m an ancestor
Strong and true.

I am Bellingen
I am Bellingen
I’m an ancestor
Strong and true.
 

Hyperreality (The Brand Bellingen Song)

Lyrics © Pip Wilson, 2008
Music © Josee Hennequin, 2008
Arranged by Elisabeth Jurans

<Chorus/dancing girls to be included.>
- - -
(Wallaby, brightly and loudly:) Promised Land!!!
(Alf, brightly:) Diehappy!!!
(Nicola, darkly, shaking her head:) Never Never!
(Wayne, brightly:) Sunny Corner!
(Rachelle, darkly:) Darkwood!
(Wallaby, brightly:) Shambhalla!
(Nicola, confusedly:) Ummm … McGrath’s Hump?!
(Wayne: basso) And Tucker’s … Tucker’s Nob!

(Alf:) This is the place that’s in our genes,
Only Bello people know what it means.
(Wallaby, arguing against Alf:) This is the best, the best locality,
Where there’s blue skies, green grass …
(Nicola:) We’ll keep them there for …
(Wayne and Nicola:) Hyper-reality!

(Wallaby:) We come from all points, all points of the compass
From every known nationality.
You can’t lump us into silly chump-us.
We got sensuality and theatricality.
(Nicola, Rachelle and Wayne:) And we gonna raise a rumpus!! …
We got hyper … reality!

<Bridge>

(Nicola:) We got cows that moooo and vegetarians too
Vegans, freegans, Presbyterians,
(Rachelle:) Breathairians, libertarians,
Octogenarians, egalitarians …
(Wayne:) And in actuality … loads of –
(Wayne basso:) Hyper … hyperreality!

<End bridge>

(Nicola:) We’ll paint the town like it’s 1850,
The days when folks were strong and thrifty.
(Alf:) Hey, that’s kinda nifty!
(Wallaby, questioning:) And full of frugality??!!
(Nicola:) Cause we’re selling …
(Wayne basso:) Hyper … reality!

(Rachelle:) Or, we’ll paint the town up like the ’60s,
Fill the shop windows with Disney hippies!
Lots of sexuality and liberality,
To bring the tourists … from every city,
To buy our subdivisions as a formality, for
(Wayne basso:) Hyper … reality!

(Wayne:) We’ll make it look just like a bro-chure,
And bring in all the entrepreneurs!
Come see our postcard municipality.
Coffs Harbour’s suburb of spirituality.
(Nicola:) Smile for the nice man with the camera.
Give us geniality! It ain’t no triviality!
Cause we got hyper …
(All:) Hyper … REALITY!!!

(All:) Let’s hear it for BRAND … BRAND BELLINGEN!!
 

Hyperreality

From Wikipedia: In semiotics and postmodern philosophy, the term hyperreality characterizes the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures. Hyperreality is a means to characterise the way consciousness defines what is actually "real" in a world where a multitude of media can radically shape and filter the original event or experience being depicted. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.

Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." For example, a viewer watching pornography begins to live in the non-existent world of the pornography, and even though pornography is not an accurate depiction of sex, for the viewer, the reality of "sex" becomes something non-existent. Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite nor food.

Baudrillard in particular suggests that the world we live in has been replaced by a copy world, where we seek simulated stimuli and nothing more. Baudrillard borrows, from Jorge Luis Borges (who already borrowed from Lewis Carroll), the example of a society whose cartographers create a map so detailed that it covers the very things it was designed to represent. When the empire declines, the map fades into the landscape and there is neither the representation nor the real remaining – just the hyperreal.

Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality was heavily influenced by phenomenology, semiotics, and Marshall McLuhan.

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