The Schonell Theatre

The Schonell is a Brisbane theatre, and one of its few great art cinemas. It's in the middle of the University of Queensland St Lucia campus, the product of a confused but surprisingly functional moment of seventies architecture. A distinctive feature is the internal brick cloisters enclosing the stairs descending past tiers of seats: cinema as church. The Schonell stopped trading as a cinema tonight .

By coincidence I was there: I knew it was coming, but not that it was so soon. Voluntary Student Unionism is blamed for its closing, and though that certainly seems to have brought it to a head, other factors are at work :

"The Liberal Party actually voted to keep the Schonell open! They're claiming the financial loss the Labor Party says the Schonell was running at isn't accurate, and that the financial records actually show the Schonell breaking even."
As the Time Off article mentions, the cinema cohabits with the finest pizza cafe in Brisbane. Just as Manchester United is a clothing company with a marketing department that also happens to be a football team, the Schonell is a cafe with a marketing department that also happens to be a cinema. And that cinema is situated slap bang in the middle of the one of the key art cinema demographics - students. On the other hand the union ties the cinema's hands by preventing it from running ads before the movies, following an vague anti-corporate aesthetic. Alert readers will note that falling down dead is a great way of sticking it to the man.

So at this stage I'm unsure if the UQ Union is, characteristically, unable to organise a pissup in a brewery, or whether this is a first step in a more complicated plan to offload the building.

Either way, I'm saddened. Farewell, Schonell, but I hope it's see you later.
Permalink, The Schonell Theatre, Jun 2006, adam

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