This year’s Short Play Festival in Port Fairy had more than 60 plays to choose from, all written by locals or those with a connection to the town.
The upsurge of writing was fostered by local resident Paul Bucci a decade ago and daughter-in-law Alex Mawson, today. Plays that were submitted years ago are now getting an airing as attitudes in the village change.
Bucci’s play Saturation is set in a railway station where a homeless man takes up residence much to the annoyance of officialdom. The play was rejected six years ago when not everyone was into his brand of dark humour.
Warren Easley, who played the homeless man, said he got into the part by imagining he had just hit the streets two days before.
This detail works well to demonstrate the difference between style and content. “I live here. I just moved in,” he says with all the confidence of a home-owner.
The clash between values and belonging was at the heart of this year’s mix of plays as the town showed what it could do with complex themes.
“The short play festival is our signature,” one long-time theatre group member told AAR. Portland has copied and Warrnambool is also looking at the one act play phenomenon.
The format allows for a cross-section of issues with Spirit this year taking a brave look at the clash between the hype of the “seaside settler” market and more complex First Nations history.
In 1842, hundreds of sheep were taken in First Nations raids on properties, as well as double-barrel guns. These facts made an arresting intrusion into a sales pitch to city slickers wanting downtime for their busy families.
Along the coast of this popular fishing village, tracts of intact reserve have heritage value for local First Nations people and are probably more of a selling point these days than colonial architecture.
Port Fairy’s maritime history still makes for rich pickings and Alex Mawson and partner Woody Bucci are the next generation of actors dealing with these issues.
Their performances in The Lights Go Out in Belfast, a story about a lighthouse keeper and his wife, were sentimental and The Golfer and the Tree was a monument to old-time values.
Jelena Lockett gave a lively performance in Fundraising Committee with her slightly deranged rendition of a committee member bored to the teeth by yet another meeting.
Bucci has moved on from his days as a member of the Port Fairy Theatre Group to setting up a short play festival in Geelong.
Writers and humourists are finding plenty of material in the south-west, where history can be more visible than it is in the city.
This year’s festival mix of sentimentality, politics and dark humour was well-received with full houses over four performances.
The Port Fairy Short Play Festival took place 23 – 25 May 2025. For more information, visit: www.portfairytheatre.com.au for details.
Image: Playwright Paul Bucci and actor Alex Mawson – photo by Rhonda Dredge
Words: Rhonda Dredge