Godot's not coming
Don't bother waiting for Godot; he's not coming. The Regent Theatre is back in the news today, with the Courier-Mail's Tonya Turner revealing that an acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot starring Sir Ian McKellen won't be coming to Brisbane due to the lack of a suitable venue. The story quotes me saying that the Regent could be restored into a theatre much more cost-effectively than building a new venue from scratch. Godot is one of many productions that haven't found their way to Brisbane because of scheduling conflicts at QPAC. Godot producer Liza McLean says: "Commercially, everybody would love for there to be another venue in Brisbane". Lyndon Terracini, the former Brisbane Festival boss who now runs Opera Australia, agrees. With the city growing at the rate it is, we absolutely need another new venue as soon as possible or risk becoming seen as a cultural backwater. Restoring the original Regent auditorium as part of the current office-tower project for the site would be an efficient way to give our city a versatile theatre/concert/cinema space while protecting Brisbane's last remaining Hollywood-style picture palace for future generations. Anna Bligh, it's not too late to make this happen.
Cross-posted from debritz.net
Update: There's a great comment from Bille Brown here.
Comments
If only Brisbane would learn
How amazing would it be if we actually took the opportunity to restore such a theatre space that would inspire a little bit of historic magic that Brisbane clearly lacks. We have so many amazing modern buildings featuring beautiful architecture that compliments Brisbane as a world class stylish contemporary city but as a community we don't seem to appreciate that we are growing our history every day, and some things should be cherished. The Regent, with it's head on the chopping block, needs to be fully appreciated as an opportunity to take advantage of, not a replacement area for a money making highrise that will simply form just another bump in the city's skyline. The Regent offers something more that should be sacred to Brisbane but somehow we have lost our belief in what is important and what values we need to keep in our memories.
Brisbane tries to be 'world class' and modern... but we already are. We've done it.... Brisbane is an amazing city and I think that we should be looking at what is special, not how do we make yet another glass and steel structure.
Just walk into the Regent and see the difference between how it feels to walk in there compared with any of the new high rises.... it offers so much more.
I hope that Anna Bligh and the great City of Brisbane can learn for past mistakes and save the Regent from the same fate other great venues have suffered.
Claire
Our Brisbane
The Regent, like all of Brisbane historic sites, is a part of who we are. Too many colonial and federation landmarks have already been torn down over the decades. This has to stop! It's an insult to our great city's inhabitants and a loss of identity for Brisbane!