Tuesday 26 June 2012

This Big Wide World


Hello from wintry Adelaide! 7-ON is spreading its geographical wings. Last year Ned Manning moved himself and his incredible energy to Melbourne (that dust storm you’ve noted rising out of the cold south is the remains of his bike tires as he vrooms around the city); this year Vanessa moved back to her home town, Newcastle, a place which has birthed the careers of so many notable practitioners, a place where an artist can still buy a house, and where there is a thriving community of working artists; and I (Verity here) have moved back to Adelaide, where I’d lived for all of my life before a 12 year stint in sunny, glamorous Sydney.

Adelaide is a great town to live in, a great town to get stuff done in because the mechanics of living are straightforward. It’s a well-structured, well-resourced place where you feel as if, if you bring some thought and energy to the job, you might be able to make a difference. There’s a definite mood of upswing here. I came to adulthood in Don Dunstan’s time, and I remember what a buzzy place it was then, what an intoxicating sense of possibility it carried. I’ve noted what warmth there is within the community here towards each other and each other’s work. Respect, as they say. So I’m hoping that the Dunstan years were not an anomaly, but a template for the place that can emerge – or, even better – is emerging - again.

The 7s are facing the question of how to keep in touch and alert to each other’s work over this vast landscape we all inhabit. I’ve missed Noelle’s recent reading of Good With Maps and I’ll miss Vanessa’s new production of porn.cake at the Griffin. I still haven’t read Ned’s recent book, Playground Duty. (I have bought it!). And none of the rest of us saw Hilary’s production, The White Divers of Broome or Vanessa’s production of The Magic Hour, both on show in Perth.

It’s a problem common to the whole community of Australian artists – how do we stay across the exceptional work that is done in each of the diverse major locations? How do we avoid parochialism or being sidelined if we are living in what is seen as a more regional place? If we’re working on the Eastern seaboard - how do we avoid the inverse parochialism of assuming that because something occurs in one of the two major Australian cities it is automatically better, sharper, more interesting or more edgy?

A self-help book I once read (I know, I know…tragic…) suggested that one should make a point of attending at least two conferences or industry get-togethers per year in one’s chosen field. In other words – go somewhere else, immerse yourself in what’s going on in that other place in a spirit of free enquiry. We’re most of us either time or resources poor, but it’s not a bad aim.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

A Tuesday grab-bag

First up, a bit of shameless promotion: A reading of Good With Maps on 24 June at 5:00 pm at the Griffin Theatre.


Good With Maps at is one of my monologues-cum-performance essays. I wrote it for myself to present—which I have done, and will continue to do. But I'm also interested in exploring the possibility of the piece having a double life, hence this Parnassus Den reading, directed by Kate Gaul, with actor Heather Mitchell reading the work. Here’s some info about the piece:

When the world map was full of gaps, the Amazon topped the list of places unknown to western explorers. In 2012 are there any ‘unknowns’ left? On a trip to the Amazon, the writer ponders this and other questions as she struggles to deal with her father’s journey through Parkinson’s disease towards what is perhaps our last great unknown. If that makes Good with Maps sound grim, it’s not. Yes, it’s sad and confronting in parts, but it’s also funny and thoughtful and celebrates the power of reading and literature to transport us to places both real and imagined.

Moving on … yes, they’ve shifted them to the State Library, but the only real change I could see in the allegedly revamped NSW Premier’s Literary Awards was that the price tag had jumped to $100 per entry. In many, maybe most cases, this fee will be paid by the writers. Sigh. Also on the matter of revamped awards, this time the Richard Burton Award. I’ve been thinking about this full-length play produced in the last 3 years to be eligible thing, and what it says. And I think it says: hey, we’re sticking with the status quo, we’re happy with the status quo; we’re only interested in the same writers as everyone else, the writers other companies are already programming and producing. Not only that, but if you unpack that requirement a bit more, it gets worse. Given all the current discussion about the under-representation of women playwrights and how hard it is for them to get their work on (not to mention other 'diversities' we see far too little of on our stages), then to have this last 3-years thing is not only going along with the status quo, but actually compounding it!

On a happier note, I saw Lachlan Philpott’s Truck Stop the other week. What a great piece of writing it is. (I really liked the direction too.) Tight, terse, deftly structured, it mashes down-to-earth teenage sound-bytes with the poetry of theatre. If I were a judge, I’d have given it a playwriting prize, no question.
Noëlle

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Hi there and Happy Tuesday for such it is.

Actually, it's not, it's rubbish but I'm trying to pull myself up and put on the proverbial "happy face".

In fact there's probably some form of emoticon for just such an occasion but naturally I can't find it. This is inevitable when one feels down and blue with the world in general and ones writing in particular - one also becomes very very bad at technology for instance or finishing off your 5 year old son's "habitat" project.

 Writers are sensitive creatures, are we not?, and seemingly small things can tip one over the edge a bit.

Discovering you don't seem to have any money to live on for instance or having your "tree" made of toilet roll fall off your cardboard "remote Chinese mountain". The solution to the second problem is a lot more sticky-tape but the first problem is a little more complex. It's not really about money, it's about you becoming fearful that you actually can't make a living as a writer and just maybe your dad was right, all those years ago, when he asked when you were getting a "proper job."

But this is not about me having a moan about how hard it is to be a playwright (boo hoo) it is more about what can one do when one feels so utterly crap. GIVE US SENSIBLE IDEAS I hear you shout in my mind. I can hear you say other things too so just watch it.

Here is Vanessa's Tiny List Of  3 Things To Make Writers Feel Better.

1. Eat chocolate. 
No this is serious. Dark chocolate, that stuff that is 70% plus is choc-full(ho ho ho) of goodness and muchos antioxidents and also Magic Playwriting Qualities.

Ok, yes, I may have exaggerated about the antioxidents.

2. Consider dropping the coffee and the vino. 
Sounds counterproductive I know but the thing is after the initial buzz, coffee can increase anxiety and wine can be more of a depressant. Look, just think about it alright. I said 'consider'. I know lots of writers who have given up one or the other or both and they all swear by it.  God knows I think about it all the time.

3.Write or Don't Write
Ok that's a wee tad Yoda but the point here is not to waiver pathetically from one side to another but to say decisively: Today I Will Write or Today I will Not Write. And then stick to that.

So if you decide to write, try an easy gentle sort of exercise. One of my faves is to write a monologue starting with an overheard line (from anywhere) or an image of someone or a story that someone told you and then toot toot pip pip off you go for 15 minutes say. When you are finished file it under A Monologue A Day and then go and have either a coffee or a non-caffeinated hot beverage for being clever.
The next day, write another monologue, file. And so on for a week or 10 days. That's a load of monologues you have just written. In fact, in some people's view THAT'S A WHOLE PLAY.

Yes yes (you people shouting in my head - quite the opinionated folk aren't you?) you are right and perhaps most of those monologues are as rubbish as, well recent weather conditions say in the NSW Hunter region. Does not matter. Keep writing. One or two monologues may seem destined to go together and be the basis of a play. Others may stand alone as small pieces. Others will be chucked except for a line or a phrase, and they will go into something else. It's all good my friends. The point is, you will be writing. And don't you feel a bit better as a result?

If you decide it is a Non Writing Day then GET UP FROM THE COMPUTER. Do not sit there and feel guilty and tweet and facebook and weep and blo yer noz like a pathetik weedy gurl (sorry, suddenly channelled Nigel Molesworth for a sec) go for a BIKE RIDE. Or see a movie. Or go to the art gallery. Or, if you are Edward Albee, listen to some Bach and/or Mozart. Actually, you can do that even if you are not Edward Albee and it will be almost as good. You will be, as certain writerly folk like to say, replenishing the well of your subconscious. If you make muffins you will be replenishing the well of muffins. Also good.

But, my writing pals who feel sad or blue on this Tuesday. Hang in there. I felt really crap this morning and I feel a bit better now because I wrote this. And I recognise that I regularly feel like this and it is part of this road I chose.  In fact, the sun has come out here so I might have a quick bike ride and then write a monologue.

And just to pay off the "habitat" project - we managed to get it to school with all the bits attached. That's cave, waterfall, tree (for climbing) and recycled cereal pack bamboo.

I mean we may think being a writer's a tough gig but let me tell you, as I have recently discovered, being a Giant Panda is no walk in the park either.




Wednesday 6 June 2012

A Cyber Treat

This is Donna crawling out of the sludge, surveying the domestic carnage that is wrought when one has to cancel one's life and Get That Play Done. Jump For Jordan did get done, as of yesterday, a full length black comedy about arranged marriage suspicions within a Jordanian-Australian family. Before I fall into a heap, and because my life of late has been entirely lived through the computer screen, I just want to acknowledge a cyber treat from down south, Tom Healy's monthly missives from the Australian Script Centre. They come in threes, recommending plays suitable for community, school or tertiary audiences. They are quite a distraction, because I usually want to find out about that play I saw, missed, must read. Advocacy and promotion with heart. (And another imminent production of my Tales From The Arabian Nights because of their invaluable catalogue). Top job Tom and team.