‘The Seagull 3’: The backstage drama engulfing the STC

When three young actors stepped forward to take their curtain calls at the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Seagull last month, not even Russian playwright Anton Chekhov could have dreamt up the drama that would follow.

The big plot twist was that Harry Greenwood, Mabel Li and Megan Wilding took their bows wearing keffiyeh scarves signifying solidarity with the Palestinians caught up in the Israeli war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The audience at the Roslyn Packer Theatre that night was the customary opening-night crowd. There was a sprinkling of high-profile arts and entertainment names: STC foundation board members and performers Heather Mitchell and Tim Minchin, STC artistic director Kip Williams, actor Paul Capsis and broadcaster Indira Naidoo. The standard mix of actors young and old, friends and family of the cast, and journalists. No-one seemed perturbed by the protest during the three curtain calls.

Later, at the after-party in the foyer, waiters circulated with stodgy arancini balls, while the crowd lapped up the free champagne and chardonnay and nibbled on cheese and breadsticks. Lord of the Rings star Hugo Weaving, also a foundation board member, was seen in close conversation with his son Greenwood. But there was no sense any among the audience might have been irked by the actors’ actions.

The play itself was well received. Although only one person in the front row gave the actors, including Sigrid Thornton, a standing ovation, Sydney Morning Herald chief reviewer John Shand awarded it four stars as did The Guardian’s critic.

However, cast and management at the STC had little time to bask in the glow of critical acclaim. The following day the performers posted on Instagram calling out the “occupation” of Gaza and the “genocide” being perpetrated by Israel. Then, on the Monday, an incendiary story appeared in The Australian newspaper, launching a storm of angry debate that has roiled around the theatre industry ever since and is showing no signs of abating.

Israel unleashed its military campaign in response to an attack on October 7 by Hamas terrorists who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israel’s tally. The Gaza health ministry said 17,177 Palestinians had been killed and 46,000 wounded since October 7.

The ongoing controversy has revealed a lack of a substantive response from the company’s board, which includes some of Australia’s richest arts benefactors, including Gretel Packer and Anita Belgiorno-Nettis.

In the days that followed, leading Jewish figures both from within the arts community and further afield, lined up to condemn the actors’ “stunt”, and two foundation board members – the fundraising arm of the company – quit in protest. More than a thousand patrons signed a petition calling on the STC to prevent any similar protests in future and to consider sacking the three actors.

The company’s immediate response was to say it was neither aware of the planned protest nor did it condone the actors’ actions.

Then, as patrons reportedly cancelled subscriptions and wealthy donors threatened to close their wallets, a more full-throated apology came.

“We understand the actions at the curtain call and our immediate response has hurt many in our community. For this, we are deeply sorry,” it read.

“We support individual freedom of expression but believe that the right to free speech does not supersede our responsibility to create safe workplaces and theatres.”

Chief executive Anne Dunn confirmed the company was “seeking assurances” from the actors – presumably that they not repeat their actions. Then, in an approach that has raised eyebrows in some quarters of the theatrical community, Dunn said they were approaching the issue from a human resources angle.

“Our approach really comes from a perspective of an employment duty of care position in terms of both our artists that are employed at the company as well as the rest of the staff, but also duty of care to our audiences,” she said. “It’s not about not upsetting people, it’s about that we have in place a respectful workplace policy that’s there to ensure that all people in the workplace feel safe and feel comfortable to be in their workplace. And it is a policy that we take seriously.”

“Weak and woke,” is how former STC subscriber of 35 years Daniel Grynberg described the company’s response. Echoing a sentiment from many in the Jewish community, who are generally not the company’s major donors, but consistent subscribers, with many making annual donations of around $5000 to $10,000.

The chaos continued.

On the Wednesday of the first week, less than an hour before the curtain rose, the performance was cancelled, when Wilding and Li were spooked by a photographer who snapped a picture backstage at the loading dock. Performances have been interrupted at times, with one patron yelling “Hamas Harry” when Greenwood appeared on stage.

Insiders say box office staff have received a constant stream of angry and abusive calls in the hundreds daily, most from people who had not seen the show or who were even STC patrons. Frontline staff were so upset a counsellor was brought in.

Although there has been no public comment from the actors, this masthead understands their protest was not just political. It was personal.

Also at the after party that night were members of the cast of Oil, playing at the STC’s Wharf 1 Theatre at the same time as The Seagull.

Among the Oil cast is Violette Ayad, an Australian-born actor with parents from Lebanon and Palestine. Some of her Christian Palestinian relatives have been killed and others are still missing in the conflict in Gaza.

Sources close to the trio, known in theatre circles as “The Seagull Three”, say they were acting in solidarity with and compassion for Ayad. However, none of the three would comment either individually or via their agents or the theatre company, despite repeated attempts.

Four nights before The Seagull’s opening night, Ayad had worn a keffiyeh during the curtain call at Oil, on November 21, without any public criticism or comment from anyone in the company or audience. This week, Ayad, who plays three characters in Oil, also donned a keffiyeh during the curtain call of the play, in solidarity with her family in Gaza. She vows to continue to do so for the play’s entire season until December 16.

Confusingly, this time the company sanctioned her actions – a dramatic about-face from the approach The Seagull performers received the previous week.

“The Palestinian keffiyeh has cultural significance to Violette, who has family caught in the current conflict in Gaza and STC respects her choice,” a statement from the company said.

Ayad, a Perth-born NIDA graduate, said it was her duty to use her platform as an actor – the stage – to call for a ceasefire in the Middle East.

“We put on plays, and bring audiences into other worlds, in order to better understand our own. Otherwise, what’s the point? If you come to our show, and it makes you think, and you engage with my performance, I want to remind you that I am who I am as an artist, because of who I am as a person, and my cultural identity is inextricably linked to that. Artists bring their whole self to their work; they must,” Ayad said.

In response to Ayad’s actions, Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein said: “We share Ms Ayad’s sorrow for all innocent lives lost in the current conflict in and around Gaza, but her anger is misdirected and should focus on Hamas’ brutality.

“Her family members, like every life lost in this conflict, have been the victims of Hamas, which not only set out to slaughter hundreds of Israeli civilians on October 7, but has knowingly and deliberately put the lives of every Gaza resident at risk.”

Meanwhile, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s Peter Wertheim said: “The issue is not whether artists and performers have the right to express their political opinions. The issue is whether it is appropriate for artists to exploit a theatre performance that has nothing to do with the current war between Israel and Hamas as an opportunity to impose their opinions about that war on an unsuspecting audience.”

Sydney Theatre Company has refused all requests for access to board members. Questions have also been asked about the absence of regular board chair, former Qantas boss Alan Joyce, who along with husband Shane Lloyd has long been a supporter of the theatre company. Appointed chair of the board in March this year, he is believed to be still overseas and has made no public comment on the furore.

Since Joyce’s departure from the STC board in September, Point Piper philanthropist Ann Johnson has been acting chair. Johnson, a lawyer married to fund manager Warwick Johnson has been silent.

That silence was at the heart of the resignation letter of Judi Hausmann, the first of two STC Foundation directors to quit in protest at the actors’ actions. She wrote it to board members Gretel Packer, Johnson and philanthropy director Danielle Heidbrink.

The PR veteran castigated them for their response.

“What hurts most is that I love the STC and all of the people I’ve worked alongside, especially the three of you. But as I’ve told you all, I need allyship as well as friendship at a time when my Jewish community is under serious threat, and I’m beyond disappointed that you didn’t feel able to speak up.”

Next to go from the foundation board was fellow director Alex Schuman, son of fashion designer Carla Zampatti. With no public comment.

The imbroglio has raised fundamental questions about the line between stage artists and activists.

Legendary theatre director Neil Armfield said curtain calls were the appropriate time for actors to make a statement if they felt strongly enough.

“The curtain call is the actors being themselves with the audience,” he said. “I believe they do have the right [to make a statement] but I think it’s a right that needs to be taken responsibly. And with sensitivity.

“I think curtain calls do require direction. They are the kind of completion of the evening, but they do belong to the actors. And anything that can be found for actors to express their individuality in that space, I think is arguably quite legitimate.”

He took issue with donors backing away from STC because they took offence.

“You would hope donors don’t support theatre or support the arts in order to only support a partisan position,” he said. “I think it’s incredibly awkward that people have been offended. I think it would be great for everyone to step back and take a breath and try and react with empathy for the horrors that have happened in Israel and the horrors that have happened in Gaza.”

Former publisher and director of Adelaide Writers’ Week Louise Adler appeared on 7.30 this week to speak frankly about her own experiences of being silenced by the Jewish lobby.

As a Jew, she copped criticism earlier this year for including two international Palestinian authors, Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd, on the roster of guests.

“I’m mystified. When arts organisations across the country declared their support for Ukraine when Russia invaded, why is this any different?” she told this masthead.

“The consequences of speaking out are serious and significant in the arts world. The Israel lobby is powerful. Its ability to micromanage the profile of Israel is impressive. There’s a record number of arts organisations in Australia where artists are now asking their boards to take a position on the Israel/Palestine war.

“Public statements by the STC did not support the artists’ right to don keffiyehs during their curtain call. One would expect an arts organisation to stand with their artists. Donors, of course, have a right to take their chequebooks and walk away from arts organisations whose values they don’t share.”

But John Bell, veteran actor and founder of Bell Shakespeare, called the protesters “naive”.

“If you’ve signed a contract to work for that company, you have to play by the company’s rules,” he said.

“And if the company says you cannot do certain things, you either go with that or you resign.

“You don’t sabotage the company from within. The company stands to lose a lot by that sort of unheralded protest. And I think it’s all too simplistic. This issue in Gaza is far more complex. Sure, these actors’ hearts were in the right place. But I think it was naive to stage the protest, and I think it was also naive to do it without informing the management.”

Bell also disagreed that different rules apply to the curtain call.

“The curtain call is technically still part of the production. It has been choreographed, it’s been staged as part of the production. I think you are somewhat subverting the director’s intention by doing that.”

Bell said he had only once in his career made a similar statement from the stage. The occasion was a 2019 Bell Shakespeare production of The Miser in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack on a Christchurch mosque.

“Before the show, we made a speech saying, we dedicate this performance to the memory of the people who were killed in a terrorist attack. It was not part of the show – it was before the show, and it wasn’t provocative. It was just remembering people who had been killed.

“There’s a clear-cut case there, but if they consider something that’s much more contentious and very, very complicated – the Gaza Israeli-Palestinian issue – you can’t just boil it down to a gesture.”