Spring has come to Canberra and with it the annual Floriade Festival. Commonwealth Park, on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin bursts into a vivid display of flowers during a festival renowned for its floral delights and open air performances. I follow a path through the thronging admirers of the park in bloom, past hyacinths, irises, daffodils and tulips until I reach a bed of bright orange poppies.

It is there that I see it—a large circular, rubber water tank, bearing the sign, Museum of Water. Designer, Imogen Keen’s ingeniously conceived mobile theatre, structurally designed by Geoff Farquhar-Still, contains the performance space for Canberra Youth Theatre’s (CYT) specially commissioned work, Tank, performed during Floriade by Canberra Youth Theatre’s 2009 Actors Ensemble under the direction of CYT’s Artistic Director, Pip Buining.

Appropriately concerned with the vital issue of water usage and conversation, and devised for performance at a festival, reliant on water for its success, Tank was devised in 2008 by a workshop group of 7-12 year olds under the tutelage of playwright, Adam Hadley. The ideas reflect both the ages of the young people and their serious concern for the preservation of Australia’s most precious natural resource, at a time of severe drought and peril to the nation’s river systems.

Hadley has shaped the burgeoning imaginations of the workshop participants into a series of six, short six-minute scenes. Each scene is presented in a cycle to a maximum audience of six at any one time within the intimate Museum of Water. The final work, incorporating the ideas of the younger, mini ensemble, has then been given to the 17-25 year old Actors Ensemble to perform for visitors to Floriade during the weekends of the festival.

Tank tells the story of Francis (Ethan Gibson) and Charlie (Sarah Thomson) and their journey through the Museum of Water. Each journey represents a scene in the play’s cycle during which the two young visitors confront a weird and wonderful array of characters and adventures that teach them important lessons about the use and abuse of water.

The audience, seated on six stools and within touching distance of the performers are guided through their journey by Historians, Gwendolen (Alison McCarthy) and Geoffrey (Callum Doyle-Scott). At the entrance to the museum, they converse with the waiting audience and take a poll to determine their attitudes towards the issue.

Nearby, under the direction of Hadley, members of the 2009, mini ensemble, regaled in period costumes entertain passers by with songs, commentary, debates and quack sales routines that lend a festive carnival air. Lacking a certain bombastic bravura of the brash spruikers of bygone eras, these novice street performers exuded a charm and novelty that would obviously develop as they grew more accustomed to the street theatre style of performance.

Each section of the museum tells its own story; sometimes ridiculous – water evolved from a failed experiment in the search for petrol as expounded by glove puppets, Professor Hans Scolding (Melissa Veamaathau) and Dr. Donaldine Logan Bridgeworthy (Amelia Hewett); sometimes fantastical – water was stolen and sold by the nefarious bushranger, Captain Max Kadoo; occasionally bizarre – water turns into rats, and Martian Zombies (Alison McGregor and Amelia Hewitt) threaten our water supply; at times didactic – Francis and Charlie launch an attack on bottled water, mount a plea for responsible recycling and encounter a Polar Bear, forced to sell water in a supermarket as the ice caps melt; not surprisingly environmental – the effect of shrinking water levels on sea life; and finally prophetic – the drought is over and Water (Alison McGregor) appears to persuade people to learn the lessons of water conservation. With the help of dinghy sailing, fishing Gramps (a feisty performance from Jessica Chambers), Francis and Charlie learn the value of water and their responsibility to build a water conserved future.

Humourous, instructive, entertaining and played with enthusiasm and panache, Tank, provides an ideal opportunity for members of Canberra Youth Theatre to explore their craft in a different performance venue, develop new skills in acting, improvisation and interactive techniques, develop skills in puppetry with the assistance of tutors and puppeteers, Hilary Talbot and Cathy Mann and raise awareness of an important social, political and economic issue in an unique and relevant theatre experience.

If the function of youth theatre is to create innovative opportunities for young people to develop their craft, then Tank is another example of Canberra Youth Theatre’s ingenious and imaginative contribution to its members and the community it serves. Theatrically, Tank still reflects a somewhat simplistic approach to its scripting and exposition. It’s somewhat confused and fragmented narrative still needs to discover reason in its zaniness and a spine to its structure that will give clearer meaning to its imaginative and significant concept. There is little opportunity to plunge the depths of this important issue, and many of the ideas are diluted by the picaresque nature of its episodic structure.

Nonetheless, in the tradition of good youth theatre and with the voice of a concerned and future generation, its message flows easily enough into our reservoir of thoughts and gives us cause to contemplate the future.

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