Atlantis

Of course it has a quirky and adorable set. It’s L Katz! Black glass floor, pastel walls giant round bed and window not sure what the crucifix is about can’t wait!

The show picks up where we last saw Lally. Onstage talking to NY psychics and drops us into the reason the show was so late. It opens up a whole world of emotions in me I’m 35. I don’t have kids and I want them. I’ve got Gav at least and thank God I lack her onstage naivety. 

She wonders after the break up spinning back to psychics and pseudo spiritualism in New York, running to Kansas to freeze eggs and holding the idea of a perfect Miami childhood deep beneath the waves submerged like Atlantis. 

Actors are superb. I can remember first seeing ‘Electra’ as Portia in Julia Caesar and loving her outside of all reason in an otherwise lacklustre show. In Atlantis her brilliance really shines through, each character distinct and clearly drawn. 

The Father

Running late doesn’t set you up for a great experience. I arrived red and puffing with my left calf threaten to cramp up, my seat was right in the back corner as close to the ushers as could be but luckily it’s previews so won’t be starting in time and Wharf 1 doesn’t have a bad seat in the house! 

Australian Grafitti

I really wanted to see this show. I’m always fascinated by the glimpse through other eyes in Theatre not made by or about white people but  I’ve found it difficult to collect my thoughts on this play. Still I’ll loose it to memory if I don’t write something down.

Wharf 2 is a really small space but it also isn’t. You can feel close to the actors but there is really quite a lot of us in here. The set is one long room. A high window on the left lets in dawn. A door bolted shut is set beneath it. Banquet chairs stacked against the wall. A few are set around a family table. A small cot in one corner beneath a small photo of someone the Thai king maybe. I can't make it out from where I am. Sitting at the table in one chair is a man. His head on the table. Asleep? Dead. He's the chef the head of the kitchen and the primary reason the restaurant, the family has been kept alive in Australia. Now he's dead. He caught something. Coughed and choked and died. No one knows what it was they couldn't take him to the doctor. No time. No papers.

We are far out west in a country town. The only non-whites here and unwelcome for it. The boy is a teenager and young still, this is for him. This slaving in a restaurant. For his future. This is for her. This slaving in a restaurant in a foreign land, sending money home, never seeing her. The mother, the owner is ridgid and stiff in all her movements. The couple who work in the kitchen are flightly and panicked. They fight and love and regret their daughter who they have not seen in so many years. He desperately wants to return to her. She does not.

Then it starts.

Someone has written a big black letter in paint on the wall of the church. A thai letter. The local police burst in. Aggressive and racist enough. The town already suspicious and unwelcoming, turn hostile. Throwing glances and bricks.

The mother pushes them all each night to prepare for a restaurant full of customers who never come. They rage against the futility but she pushes.

The dead chef, concealed in the family room throughout all of this, cajoles and whispers and instructs the young boy in life, cooking, family and the impossibility of escape.

There is a riot. They town comes to throw them all out and the young woman who has realised now that she is sick with whatever killed the chef leaves with them. A sacrifice. The burn the boy of the chef for they are Thai and escape into the night. To the next place. Or maybe to home. They lie to the man about where his wife has gone. The young boy meets the girl by the waterhole again. The girl who is the policeman's daughter. The girl who didn't want to be part of the riot but was. The girl who can't look at her village as beautiful anymore because she can't unsee what was always there but hidden. She will leave. She loves it but will leave it one day because she can't unsee the ugliness that was always there.

This play is so sinister in an almost supernatural way. It feels like racism is a malevolent spirit hovering over all of them. Igniting the town against them. Pushing them to turn on each other. The kindness of the dead chef in sharp contrast to the supernatural summoning of black paint on a church wall that everyone claims they aren't writing.

You do it all for your kids and then what? What do the kids do? All for theirs? Or does it stop here with this first generation? You give your life so theirs will be better but the same but a better same because you won't let them flex or change or leave. 

Mine

He's sleeping right now. I watched for a while. That's probably creepy. He's worked 13 days straight. Warehouse on week days then at the stall over Supanova then down to Zedtown Melbourne. 

I really love this man. 

11yearsin he looks different than when he was first acquired.  His hair is a bit longer and thinner, his beard is fuller, he's got lines around his eyes and his frame has acquired a pleasing squishyness. He credits me with his increased social abilities and confidence. Changes he made within himself that are for the better. But the heart of him is still the steady same. That is what I love. 

He has such capacity for love. Warts and all. He wants to know everything about what he loves, the good, the bad, the terribly gross and then he goes on to love it just the same as before. Not inspite of it's flaws or blind to its faults but completely as a whole flawed thing. Whether that's Star Wars, The Ramones, his somewhat alcoholic father or me. It's amazing the space he holds inside him for this love and the space he makes each time someone/thing new earns his love. 

He's so great at Change. Do you know anyone else on earth who being made aware/seeing their own faults would work to change them? 

Cloud 9

I love previews! The fresh feel of a piece as it unfurls itself for the first time, it's quivering hopeful face turned towards us begging for acceptance, love, understanding. I love when the director stands diffidently in front of us and begs our indulgance with any technical issues, offering their new baby to the light tender touch of its first audience. 

I'm not in love with the play. It's bleakly comic farce of Victoria's sexually repressed colonialism just makes me uncomfortable rather than amused or titilated. The actors are working up a sweat trying to keep the pacing going but it flags in places. the crashing blackness of scene changes are awkward, they merely highlight the difficult exits some characters must make. The difficult entrances of others and given the deftness of some of the changes with light (particularly 'boys best friend is his Mother') it leaves me wondering if some of the staging is still very much in flux at this point. Oh to have the funds to come back in the middle of the run and see it in full flight!

Act Two awaits! 

Also what's so awesome about glass boxes? I've yet to see one do anything. 

Better in act two. The box gave us some vignettes to setup characters and show us these actors we've come to know as new people. The blackouts while still as stark felt more in tune with this act. 

Victoria is my real problem in act two, it still feels like she's not acting for gelded but being pulled but others. 

Possibly overcommitted

Note: Do not do three shows at once.

Treehouse takes up plenty of time even when we aren't rehearsing on Sundays. Reedy River is going to be fairly bad and you knew that up front so why did you say yes to auditioning and then get sucked into the show and then further into the production team? Stupid. Must learn to say no. Now The 39 Steps. Yes you wanted to do this one a lot and were really hoping to get Clown 1 and it's a full month after RR performs that this is one but now they are adding in extra rehearsals and your life is already crammed full. Something's gotta give sometime soon and what if it is Gavin?

Shape up!

To the skies, sisters!

It seems that I must write down my thoughts and feelings about this weekend to properly process it all.

Red Sisters, Black Skies
It's funny how different but no less affecting my experience of this game was to other players. As the captain I deliberately kept myself aloof from everyone including my own section. I would walk through the base fretting about keeping our planes in the sky with so few resources and hear the others singing happy birthday to their comrades or scratching up a soccer game to keep their spirits up. I tore strips off Section C commander, R for allowing her section to take so much risks that they crashed a plan and nearly killed two of their best and secretly applauded her for inspiring Section C to carry on and complete all their missions without a full compliment of aircraft. I arranged missions and repairs, flew into the night, delivered good news and bad but I was never fully one of them. Still I ended up with tears streaming down my cheeks as I welcomed them all at the end of the game, I felt tied to their fates and responsible for their lives. I've been thinking about the game a lot over the last two day and I know it was the best LARP I have ever played in. I rarely experience bleed, something I attribute to my theatre background but I cannot stop considering what I might have done differently so that Section C weren't down a plane, so that my heartbreaking. brilliant and brave women didn't have to take to the skies during daylight, so that Regina wasn't lost, so that my Senior Lieutenants would never be burdens with the list of names I kept in my top drawer... To be honest I'm still thinking about it now.

I desperately want the game to run again and I want to die earlier. The interactions I had with players after my death when you are only a memory and can't directly answer questions only respond with a "scene" still play in my head. I  want more time with that mechanic and I want to know how the game would go if the situation got more darker and desperate and haunted. 

The Fall of House Atreus. 
GREEK TRAGEDY! I love it. Staring into Elektra's eyes not knowing if she still loved me, if she forgave me for marrying her sister and going to the front lines but desperately hoping she'd ask me for something, anything that I could do for her, anything that would keep us close for one moment more and being crushed when she asked for my sanity. Well really for Andromache who was helping me keep my sanity with haunting of my father Achilles getting worse everyday but you know in general still my sanity. But how could I refuse her?  So tragic, so tingly! Still I was determined to make my wife happy and so had decided that with my... issues I would encourage her to take a lover or perhaps because GREEK TRAGEDY I could trick her into sleeping with a man she thought was me and so she could be fulfilled with children and happiness in this way. Perhaps my old friends Orestes or Aegisthus could be so persuaded. That was the plan until I arrived home and my lovely wife began begging me to be more like Orestes and my dour Father-in-Law began demanding that I please her. Wasn't it enough that I was the manliest of men? Wasn't it enough that I lead my father's Myrmidons to countless victories? Wasn't it enough that I couldn't have the women I loved? When could I ever have what I wanted? When could I ever be whom I wanted?! But how could I betray that family that raised me? The man who avenged my Father's shade (probably)? Electra would never forgive me if I ruined her sister by putting her aside! So tragic, so tingly! Gods! And when the GMs start circling you as the ghost of Achilles when you are trying to have a pleasant conversation with your Mother-in-law...

Such a good game. I had a wonderful time playing with everyone, being manipulated and learning to do it myself, (At one point after I'd agreed to kill Menelaus, I was conversing with him and when I told him of something that could make his lady wife happy he asked me to do whatever I could, poor man couldn't know that he'd given me his permission to kill him!) and finally in the end somehow still a man and still trapped and still tragically alone. Brilliance! The fact that I keep replaying some of the conversations from this game and being thrilled by them is a total testament to the GMs and players.

I played other games this weekend and enjoyed myself in all of them but these two have really stayed with me.

Everyone's got their strengths

Our leading man got stuck at work last night so Clown 2 and I were on our own with management. It was actually great. We had so much blocking to just work through on stage so the director could see how it was going to play out and I think we made good progress with our final scenes. I'm not yet completely happy with all my characters. I need to delve into the physicality of each a little more and give them even more distinct voices.

There is an very elderly character that we've decided to do without teeth. I can clearly remember how Granny use to push her tongue against her slack lower lip as she got older and became less patient with her dentures. So I'm remembering her a lot today and missing her. I don't normally do that. Gran didn't enjoy life and especially not her last years when she was forced to interact with so many people and so little in control on her own body and daily life. That being the case I don't like to think about her at that time even though it's probably the most of Gran that I can remember.  I tend to forget things after a while. I think it must be a consequence of being an in-the-moment type person.

We keep trying out the parts during rehearsal. Clown 2 wanted to be the bad guy and her German accent is better so I was happy enough even if it means I loose my glorious compere part. I was even more happy to realise that I don't have to run through three characters in that scene in that case! So best of luck to Clown 2 with sprinting through three costume changes in 3 minutes every night for a month *cackles*

Paint it red

Bled through a skirt yesterday. Didn't really feel humiliated or anything. Felt defiant mostly? I mean it's a lady problem that happens to us all. It's not dirty and sometimes it can't be helped. I cleaned myself and the chair and changed my clothes and then continued on with my day.  Mind you this period is also a week early which is odd for me. It hit during Pheno and thank goodness during a LARP so I was on my feet and the blood couldn't pool anywhere and ruin my white Russian outfit. It does mean that we still aren't pregnant. Maybe I'd be less upset by that if my periods didn't come with such excruciating pain that I was crying as we drove to find a chemist or perhaps I'd still be as upset.

I really want kids. Not babies necessarily but children to raise, love and mold. I mean I love babies don't get me wrong, playing with other peoples is fun but I've never been sure I want to squeeze one out personally. Still with the law as it stands having our own is the only way to guarantee I get to raise, love and mold the tiny ones forever. I'm getting older and every time I bleed I remember that. Husband would be such a great father. He's got so much love to give and likes nothing more than to look after me and share things with people. He's patient and kind and our kids would be so polite and creative if they took after him. 

So today I'm back on the Optifast because the Doctor won't even look at my fertility til I'm not obese.  Guess we will see how it does. 

Memories from Storm 2017

Being handed the award by the Fall of House Atreus GM who whispers "You were so good"

Ours is the last plane home and the GM narrates a landing that mirrors the C Section crash from the first night out. Only we land smooth and safe cause we are undamaged and there is a shout of joy from the assembled squad. "Captain could land a log!" Yulia* shouts before tackling me in a hug. Vodka is offered and it feels for a moment like I am one of them, not responsible for their very lives, not worn down by an unwinnable battle for recognition and supplies but merely one of the girls. I feel young. 

Being pulled aside by assistant GM for Red Sisters who wanted to express his admiration for my Captain. You see they were aiming for a high body count - 50% he said -  but the first session's squad had only 3 deaths so for our session they'd upped the difficulty on all missions and taken away the extra planes and supplies.  He just wanted to let me know that we had less and did better and that he attributed that to my Captains leadership and skills. 

The GM sinking his head into his hands while Husband beamed "I'm sure he's somebody's reason to masturbate" - picture of Max Shrek in Nosferatu. Tina's unmitigated delight in shoving a silver golf club into a werewolf and sprinting down the ballroom to fight off an army for France! Climbing the balcony with the princess in my arms, getting slapped back to normal after witnessing my father being killed in front of me. 

Pacing alongside Agamemnon (Dan) expounding on my unhappy jealousy of Orestes and having him say that it made him feel much better to hear of it. 

The delight taken by the player of Clytemnestra** at manipulating me and us both coming out on top and single regardless of every scheme. 

The happy waves exchanged with the 'Sydney Witches'  as we realised we were in another freeform together and were glad of it. 

The warm glow of husbands approval of our trophy haul. I love that he loves that I love this as he does. Having our own after party in the car on the drive back, hashing out his next musketeers game. 

*Louise - must find her on Facebook. She is a Sydney Witch.

** must learn her name. She is another Witch. Must lure them all to SydCon!

A Murder is Announced

We all went to see Emma. Sister asked me to take RJ for the day so she had to come the show with us. It was pretty good and RJ liked it! She kept repeating lines and talking about the characters and reveals during the whole drive home. I must take her to more shows and properly convert her into a theater groupie. 

I don't think it is one of the better Agatha Christie plays but certainly the printed set was reasonably impressive until the cast interacted with it and it rippled like water and until the two printed on light fixtures didn't get 'lit' when all the other lamps came on.  The costumes were spot on for the the period by looking sadly wrinkled with wear by the time act two came along. 

I thought the two detectives were the weakest performers, just sort of rambling over the stage. The brother character was very campy but I didn't feel it out of place with the period or the character. Our Em was a delight in her role, showing up some of her scene partners a little but perhaps I am biased. Letty really carried the show well and I was impressed by the depiction of Miss Marple. 

I'd give it a solid 4 out of 5 community stars. 

Black is the New White

I love new Australian works. It is why I'm such a big Belvoir and Lally Katz fan so I was thrilled to see two new Australian works in the list for Sydney Theatre Company this year.

This was a fascinating play. I felt inside and outside of understanding at so many times. I could see my family in there but also not. I could feel the love and joy and frustration of a life lived not quite to expectations. Some scenes worked brilliantly like dinner dissolving into a food fight and the confession of attraction for the mothers but others felt rushed. The breakup between our protagonists felt a bit left field but then so did their affection for each other. Perhaps that was the plays weakest point. The lynch pin that would bring all the families together didn't feel quite strong or stable enough to warrant the risk.

I liked it. I would give 3/5.

Talk

I'm so angry right now. I feel like I could vibrate with rage right through this reality and into one that is less infuriating! This play is the Fourth Estate from every angle in the new digital age of talk show hosts and law and order politics. So good and so vociferously upsetting. I can't even discuss it right now!

Chimerica

 Wow. A more beautifully staged production I have not seen in some time. The depth of the Ros Packer stage was really well put to use especially during the Tinnamen Square scenes. The haze and endless screaming running cast was heart wrenching and the opening plastic bags of 30 'Tankman' all moving in unison was visually stunning. It's rare to see a show with a cast this large and the ensemble were used with such perfect precision to set each scene and bring atmosphere. I must figure out how they managed to never make the enourous space feel empty even when thee were only two people on stage - feel like we could use that in Treehouse...

The cast were fantastic. Rebecca Massey's many faces were always something of a scene stealer but that might just be my fangirling giving her added weight. I still remember her being the most transcendent thing about Belvoir's It Just Stopped and then falling completely in love with her in every way during Perplex at STC back in 2014. I'm willing to admit my bias but never to overcome it!

The story was a little weak or perhaps I'm just not that interested in a bloke trying to recapture the single defining moment of his career at the expense of EVERYTHING and EVERYONE around him. I was far more interested in the journey of Geraldine Hakewill's character from corporate drone to activist and the melt down during her presentation was one of the most evocative political and economic monologues I've ever seen. 

Still it's definitely a 5/5 show and you should get along to see it. 

Going to theatre alone

I booked my STC subscription late and alone this year. So I'm going to write up my reactions when I have them. Cause my memory is not the most reliable and there won't be anyone to back it up this time! If you stumble upon this know that this is my memory collection so don't shake the jars too much.