Be Warned: This Show Is Special

The Age

Monday December 8, 2008

LAWRENCE MONEY

As that cricket comedy bowls into the Athenaeum, Lawrence Money pauses to reflect on the history of one of this city's oldest venues.

TO FIND the remote connection between cricketing maverick Shane Warne and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll playwright Ray Lawler you have to go back 72 years, to when Lawler was a teenage factory worker from Footscray and a fan of British movies.

Back then, the main venue in Melbourne for such cinematic fare was the Athenaeum in Collins Street, a unique combination of cultural offerings: cinema, library, art gallery. In fact, it was in the Athenaeum's hall in 1896 that the first moving pictures shown in Australia were screened on Edison's Vitascope for a one-week season. A permanent projection box was installed two decades later.

One day in 1936, the then 15-year-old Lawler, a regular patron, realised he had misplaced his booked ticket. More in hope than expectation, he turned up anyway, to explain the problem to the box office. He was told to wait; they would call the manager.

"I was very conscious of myself as a scruffy teenager," says Lawler and, despite being able to remember the seat and aisle number, was "sure I'd be asked to leave and warned against pulling such tricks on a Saturday night again".

Instead, the manager, Frank Talbot, listened attentively, nodded, and personally escorted Lawler to his seat. "I could hardly believe my luck," says Lawler. "But my stammered thanks were lost in the chatter of the audience and the playing of Cecil Parkes and the Strad Orchestra."

That night Lawler became a lifelong devotee of the Athenaeum. Three years ago, he returned the favour by donating an original program from his Doll Trilogy to the Athenaeum library's 165th Book Project, launched in 2005 to celebrate the Athenaeum's 165th birthday.

But, you may ask, where does Shane Warne fit in? Well, next Wednesday this same ancient Melbourne venue will host the premiere of Shane Warne the Musical, adding another familiar name to an extraordinary list that includes Sir Laurence Olivier and Dame Nellie Melba.

That typifies the cultural diversity that has marked this often-overlooked Melbourne gem. Today, for instance, even as the theatre prepares for the premiere, there is a book launch in the library.

The seed for the Athenaeum's expansion into live entertainment was sown in 1910 when the Victorian Government first granted a licence to "perform any interlude, tragedy, opera, comedy, stage play, farce, burletta, melodrama, pantomime or any major stage dancing, tumbling or feats of horsemanship" in its hall. In 1933, the interior was renovated to produce the theatre we know today.

However, the Athenaeum stretches back a lot further than that. Founded in 1839 as a mechanics' institute "for the promotion of science in this rising colony", it can claim to be Victoria's oldest cultural institution. The library opened in 1840, just five years after the founding of Melbourne, when the first secretary, the Reverend Thomas Osborne, began collecting books for his organisation. A smart operator, that Osborne: when the government auctioned town land on August 13 that year, he lobbied potential buyers not to bid against the institute so it could buy two adjoining blocks. He then sold one of them at a handsome profit, setting up the Athenaeum financially for years to come.

Today you will find an old brass plaque on the wall of the library offering subscription for "one guinea per annum". Library chief Sophie Arnold says that if anyone can produce that sum (one pound one shilling), they can still have a year's membership for that rate.

The library members' Christmas bash is on the same day as the Shane Warne premiere, December 10. "Some of our members have no family and this is the only Christmas thing they go to," says librarian Jill Bartholomeusz.

It's a lovely sanctuary, there on the first floor. The thick walls and sturdy windows block out the noise in Collins Street, the upper branches of the street trees give a leafy view. A blissful sanctuary? Well, not always. Staff recently enforced the first ban on a member that anyone could recall. "He was harassing people over spelling mistakes," said Jill Bartholomeusz. "But one of our casual staff members also works at Yarra library and says that almost every day they ask someone never to come back."

Not all perusing and snoozing, it seems. Years ago the library featured a reading room and a men's smoking room with an open fire, but that's when they had fewer books. Now the library is stacked with volumes.

"We've got just under 800 members at the moment," says Sophie Arnold. "It peaked at around 7500 in the 1950s. That was before public libraries where people could join for free."

At the Athenaeum you are entitled to borrow one book per visit for the basic $65 annual membership (concession $59), and up to 10 books for a $200 full membership (concession $180).

It is only recently that the library has introduced laminated membership cards. "Before that," says Jill Bartholomeusz, librarian for the past four years, "you just came to the desk and said your name".

Yes, those membership cards are in operation for the first time in 165 years. The Melbourne Athenaeum does not like to rush things.

The show goes on

1840: First annual meeting of what later becomes the Athenaeum.

1842: Athenaeum building erected in Collins Street.

1848: With 379 members, the Athenaeum starts music and drawing classes.

1873: Name changed from Mechanics Institute to the Melbourne Athenaeum.

1929: Becomes first Australian theatre to screen "talkies". The Jazz Singer runs for a year.

1950: Membership of the library reaches 7579.

1976: Melbourne Theatre Company sets up home, stays for nine years.

1991: $2million renewal.

2008: 168th birthday.

© 2008 The Age

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