An actor's diary part 1

Darcy Brown, one of the actors in We are the Ghosts of the Future has very generously shared some of his research and done this fantasic guest blog post for us. It's in 3 parts, here's the first:

Scene: BRIDGET’S ROOM

For my little corner of We are the Ghosts of the Future, I get to work with Emily Eskell and our director Harriet Gillies on a strange, beautiful, playful scene written by Catherine Zimdahl. Tommy, a young man with an intellectual disability, and Bridget, a young artist, while away the time playing, drawing, constructing, building art out of the mess in Bridget’s room; ‘clearly the room of an artist, full of all sorts of projects and a fair degree of mess.’

Approaching any piece of work is usually eclectic, messy, and tangential, but I’ve found this even more so given the unusual structure and sense of independent environments playing out ‘on loop’ throughout the house. Here, then, are a few of the thoughts, discoveries, and inspirations I’ve accumulated over the last few weeks. A bit of a truncated (and potentially incoherent) scrapbook ...

THE ROCKS

The Rocks, the boarding house, the ‘artist’s room’, feel intensely like other characters ... Photographs of the Rocks, c. 1935. (https://pimpmybricks.wordpress.com/2011/06/)

Cuban-American photographer, Abelardo Morell; some gorgeous photos of rooms using a pinhole camera/camera obscura. Not necessarily of the right period, but they give an idea of the 'upside down!' nature of the image, and are quite haunting: (http://www.abelardomorell.net/photography/cameraobsc_01/cameraobsc_12.html)

The 2 images below are from http://blogs.hht.net.au/cook/cheap-cash-grocer/

Cash Grocer, Susannah Place, The Rocks

Hugo Youngein outside his Cash Grocer, Susannah Place, The Rocks

Detective at the foot of the Argyle Steps, The Rocks, late 1930s

(http://collection.hht.net.au/firsthhtpictures/fullRecordPicture.jsp?recnoListAttr=recnoList&recno=31215)

MUSIC RESOURCES

From the National Film & Sound Archive: Our Heroes of the Air—

Len Maurice, performing Kingsford-Smith, Aussie is Proud of You, and Smithy; Fred Moore, performing Smithy, and Heroes of the Air; Clement Williams, with Smithy the King of the Air, and The Southern Cross Monologue.

(http://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/sound/sounds-australia/our-heroes-air/)

To be continued ...