Ross Mueller's Office Comedy 'A Strategic Plan' Takes Aim At Admin Overload

2016 was, by almost every measure, a terrible year. Icons died, buffoons became world leaders, terrorists triumphed while refugees were refused. We even shot a gorilla (RIP Harambe); this was a year of new lows. For Australian artists, one day in particular, of all the many bad days the world was bludgeoned with last year, likely stands out: Black Friday. This was the grim title given to Friday 13 of May, when bad luck befell dozens of Aussie arts organisations, given the news that their Australia Council issued operational funding had been cut. Hundreds of artists were left facing a very bleak future.

The events of that infamous day were put into motion by the former Arts Minister George Brandis and his wildly unpopular and now defunct National Programme for Excellence in the Arts, otherwise known as the NPEA. A bungled rollout, inexplicably obtuse guidelines and a complete lack of consultation provoked protests and outcry on an unparalleled scale across Australia's arts sector. But despite petitions, marches and appeals to the Senate, much of this outrage fell on Senator Brandis' deaf ears.

While those working in the arts will be fully versed in the complex ins and outs of this devastating rationing of much-needed Government cash, it's unlikely to be a familiar tale of woe for many. Playwright Ross Mueller is hoping to change that with his latest play, A Strategic Plan, receiving its premiere season at Sydney's Griffin Theatre. Taking its inspiration from Australia's arts funding crisis, this black comedy is a story of head versus heart, examining the difficult relationship between the right-brained blue-sky thinking of creatives and the officious, knotty bureaucracy of grant applications, set against the familiar backdrop of an office.

"I wanted to look at the tensions between our emotional and professional lives," Mueller explains. "This play is set in a not-for-profit arts organisation, which is managed by volunteers - hobbyists essentially. These are people who have great intentions and a lot of goodwill, but sometimes their ideas just don't tally with the realities. On the flipside, you have these administrators, whose job it is to follow these protocols to the letter, which is basically the opposite of creativity. They are professionals who are playing out their careers, the irony being that these rigid guidelines they adhere to don't allow for creativity or innovation at all. It actually encourages people to try and colour within the lines, rather than stepping outside of them."

"Art is the thing that survives. History tells us that's probably going to be true, no matter what the funding landscape is."

The office environment has long proven to be a fruitful setting for comedy, as fans of Ricky Gervais will be well aware. Mueller's take on the classic office comedy of manners, however, exploits a particular dynamic unique to arts organisations and other not-for-profit outfits: "Any office where you've got a group of individuals who've got competing agendas is fantastic for comedy, but when you involve the hobbyist with the professional, and in this case the hobbyists are actually employing the professionals, then it makes for an even riper field."

While Mueller's quarry is quite specifically the turgid, exhausting rules and regulations of arts funding applications, A Strategic Plan's depiction of office life will be familiar to most, he insists. "It's a typical office of the 21st century. It doesn't matter whether it's a grant application or whether it's working with the local council, the degree of paperwork inside the so-called "paperless office" is just out of control. The degree of overregulation, the degree of evaluation and acquittal, the having to justify your own purpose for existence, seems to multiply each year."

While this laborious cycle of form-filling and box-ticking is part and parcel of a modern day administrator's job, it's a side of the creative professions that few artists know intimately, Mueller observes. "We had an interesting moment in rehearsals. The characters are living in this administration-centric world, so they are comfortable talking about mission statements and value adding and all those kinds of cliched buzzwords," he recalls. "One of the actors suggested that a section with a lot of this shop talk was overwritten. Chris Mead [the director] opened up his bag full of research and showed the actors that this was actually the reality - this is the level of absurd language that is in common parlance for the sole purpose of filling out forms. I think they were quite shocked by that."

It's perhaps unsurprising that Griffin Theatre has chosen to make this production its 2017 season opener, given that it suffered slashed funding which resulted in a scaling down of this year's program. Despite this financial blow, however, the company has remained true to its values, steadfastly committed to championing new work. Similarly, Mueller's skewering of administration overload is an openly biting piece of satire. But like Griffin and many others in Australia's arts community, who in the face of crippling hardship have shown resilience and resourcefulness, there is still a reassuring infusion of hope and integrity underpinning this text.

"There's a connection between two characters that go through this journey, which is really important to the message of this play," Mueller shares. "They're different generations, but they're connected through their shared love of music. By the end of the story, there is hope in this connection that we didn't expect in the first place, because art is the thing that survives. History tells us that's probably going to be true, no matter what the funding landscape is. Art is still going to get made. It gets made under a different type of pressure and it gets produced for different reasons, but it's still going to be necessary for us to interpret our culture. It's still going to be necessary for us to provide ourselves with reason and purpose."

Griffin Theatre presents A Strategic Plan, 27 Jan — 11 Mar.