I do, as you know dear reader, attend the theatre on a regular basis. I have for many years now and I look forward to every show. Even if there is a show I didn't especially respond to or like, I always expect to learn something from it, to take away something I didn't see previously. Like my appreciation of music and the orchestra, so too you come to feel like you are a part of a larger family, a community of people prepared to support and appreciate the arts--performing, visual, all--and what it can say about our human condition, our humanness and otherwise.
You see the same actors in different roles, admire their work, their endeavour, their skill, their craft. You go back for more.
Carol Burns.
Carol Burns has been for me, among Queensland Theatre Company actors, an essential part of the company. Each new season announcement, I'd look forward to seeing what, when and who she was playing. I've watched her on stage for years, I learnt I used to watch her in Prisoner with my nan for some years...she's been in all sorts of roles on stage, TV and in film.
In December last year, her sudden (for us) death from cancer came as a shock, too premature--I had not long seen her in a stunning performance of Happy Days...initial shock followed by a dammit, cancer, dammit.
Today, the Company and QPAC held a tribute for her, in The Playhouse, as was appropriate. I went, not because I knew her personally, but because I 'knew' her on the stage. (As it happened, I have also attended her partner of 36 years, Alan Lawrence's music premieres. I didn't know of the connection until recently.)
Anyway, many from the arts community spoke, film clips were shown, laughs were had, a few years and finally a standing ovation.
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| A tribute |
And afterwards, I walked back along South Bank, took the long way back to a distant bus stop. I went looking for a seagull, you see. Not Chekhov's seagull, but a seagull that Kate Wilson told us about.
Turns out, it was a bit late to get a picture of a seagull, so I caught the remains of the day as I walked along the promenade.
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| Catching the twilight |
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| A different catch of light |
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| Our wheel |
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| Lights, camera...all the world's a stage of sorts |
Perhaps the seagulls had turned to home to rest, and I wondered where seagulls go at night...
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| In her roles |
Vale Carol Burns, actor, director, activist: you will be missed but revered as one of our community's elders, as the speakers today asked of us. But they didn't really need to ask.
Vale. ~.~;)
[Camera : Canon EOS60D, 70-300mm, 6.46pm-6.52pm, 7.39pm, 8 February 2016]
