So you know how I said it was hot?
About an hour ago, there was a refreshing cool breeze of NINE TRILLION DEGREES as opposed to the previous nine thousand trillion.
It is seriously the kind of weather that makes you burst into tears in a crowded tram. Not that I did that. But it was touch and go.
If you study Literature at some point in your life you will discover this: existentialism is a movement in literature most ably demonstrated by a book called, in English, The Outsider. You will, if you study Literature, learn this maybe 12 or 13 times. You cannot, apparently, know it enough.
In one of the 12 or 13 essays I wrote about The Outsider, in one of which I seem to recall I claimed that existentialism was a state of being usually only experienced by male protagonists in rich white countries (I did an arts degree) I focused on a segment in the book where the protagonist shoots somebody. In this segment of the book, pretty much the entire point of the narrative so I hope you enjoyed the spoiler, our protagonist pulls the trigger because of a number of factors, none of which has to do with morality. It's noisy, he's uncomfortable, and most of all: it's hot.
As we enter our second day of record hot temperatures in Melbourne today (the hottest in over 100 years) it strikes me that an unexamined element in The Outsider is that it's actually an ecological horror novel before its time. Heat killed a man dead. Heat can do that.
Heat stops trains - anyone 5ks out of Melbourne knows that. It also stops brains. Dear everyone I have to submit something to this week: please be thankful I haven't killed anyone and let me off the hook. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to stick my head in the freezer.
A little something about the Standing There Productions trip to Sydney.
Firstly, you know those brain scans they do to trace activity in the brain after certain stimuli? You know? Colour photographs. The brain is this big blue blob with tiny orange spots on it when the person's trying to find their car keys, but then, when the person is trying to find their way out of a maze or something, there's warm orange everywhere.
After Standing There Productions meetings, I am convinced of this, our brains must look like the warm glowing embers of magma.
So. We had a few of those meetings. Some of them involved other people, some of them involved us. Most of them ended with the three of us leaping through the surf screaming at each other that we're all moving to Sydney, our brains turning a deep, happy blue.
We saw five shows at the Sydney Festival. They were all good. Three of them were excellent. I'd say the best shows I've ever seen. They were more experimental, which is perhaps why The Gate Theatre (a beautiful Irish theatre company I've always loved) didn't come off as well as they usually do. They were performing Brian Friel plays (including this one and this one), which were written with that gorgeous precision, but perhaps it was the direction - I felt it would have been just as good to be at a reading.
Stew and I saw Smile Off Your Face, which was theatre that took you out of yourself: you're put in a wheelchair, your wrists are bound, you're blindfolded, and they wheel you away from everyone else to a show you experience mostly in darkness. It's phenomenal. Liberating. It sends you out into the world with a new face on, asking lots of questions of yourself. Also, for a show the majority of which you are blindfolded, some of the images are very striking.
We wriggled into the final three seats of a show called No Dice, which is still my favourite festival show, including the astonishing Lepage show. No Dice was a 4 hour long performance using transcripts from telephone conversations, performed in an almost pantomime style by brilliant performers using physical gesture, repetition, sensual cues (they made the room hot, they made the room cold, they gave you a sandwich and a Dr Pepper, they used sound and dance and screen and voice). For the first half, Rita and I had no idea the script was based on phone conversations, which made its madness even more surreal and which changed the second half of the show for us, making the experience (I think) even better. Speaking of surreal. Their motto? "Putting the W in mellowdrama since 1995". Read more about them. They are brilliant. I hope they take over the world. A world run by them - funny, weird, sincere, suggestive - would indeed be a fine place to live.
We then saw the Robert Lepage show I mentioned above; Lipsynch. The word for that show is: phenomenal. It went for 8.5 hours, had 5 intervals, involved 9 performers but seemed like it had a cast of maybe fifty, used the crew, the astonishing sets, the screen, opera, sound, words, language (everyone was bilingual) and perception to follow an intriguing story that everyone talked about - predicting the ending and all of us getting it wrong - during the intervals. It was like a film, like a novel, like a painting. It showed you its mechanics, too - it reminded you of construct. I won't describe it in my own words. They're not good enough. Robert Lepage is here. He can do it for you.
Other fun things by this year's festival director (for whom, virtually, I ovate) include Play Me I'm Yours (pianos throughout the streets of Sydney - play them if you want to) and, apparently, La Clique, although I didn't see that.
Aaaaanyhoo. Deadlines, now. Lots of them. Read about those shows, see them if you can. I'll have my eye out for them wherever I am in the world, that's for sure.
Now, to the beach.
So Stewart and Rita and I had a big week in Sydney this past week, seeing some of the best theatre we've ever seen, having some very productive meetings, and instituting a new policy.
I shall tell you about the Sydney Festival when I have more time, but in the meantime, let me just introduce you to our new policy:
Wherever possible (and this contingency should be maximised whenever the opportunity arises) Standing There Productions meetings should conclude with a swim, a surf, and/or a beer with a harbour view.
I know. We're so Hollywood. It used to be about the art.
Now. Somebody hand me my snorkel.
Hey so if you're in the mood for reading stuff, check this baby out.
Stew and Rita and I are in Sydney tomorrow, so I've been AWOL almost consistently, for which I can only apologise (see below for my history in this regard).
I'll try and update everyone on Standing There's movements in Sydney, which should include the odd festival show, if we play our cards right.
That is, if I get my work done. Ever.
You know when deadlines are better?
When they're past.
And it is time for a celebratory swim.
Huzzah!
Deadlines suck.
That is all.
Happy New Year everybody.
You know, there are some people who write diaries. Not "STAFF MEETING AT 2PM" diaries but proper, descriptive diaries full of thoughts and ideas and observations that often prove to be witty and cutting and, to paraphrase our good friend Mr Wilde, excellent reading while traveling on the train.
I am not one of these people. My grandmother is one of these people. She was in the New Zealand army during World War II and she kept an immaculate, dramatic, hilarious page-turner of a diary which I have read several times from cover to cover in its original type-writer font with whited-out bits and corrections in black pen. One of my favourite English playwrights, Alan Bennett, writes hilarious diaries, some lines in which are so brilliant I have to read them several times to make the words aware of their impact on my brain. Words know these things, you see.
Anyway, the diary is an interesting form of writing, like the letter. Personal and performative but also somehow private and deprived of context. The reason I don't write a personal diary is because, frankly, I suck at it. All my diary entries when I was a kid started with "sorry I haven't written" (see, the words, they know) and attempted to fit the entire day's goings on into a couple of pages of scribble. It's a shame, really, that this is a form lost to me, but it's also easy. I don't do diaries. Just like I don't do poetry. Best to just put a line through these things sometimes.
This diary, the Standing There Productions Diary, is an exception, because it's cheating. It's actually a blog, if you must know. It's on the internet. There are stories I won't tell here, like the one about the friend of mine who... no, never mind... point is, it's a slightly different concept but you know what I still do?
I have diary guilt. When I don't write here, I am aware of my lack of commitment to reportage. I am conscious of my responsibilities in relation to... what? reporting on the world of emerging production companies in Melbourne? Telling people how hard it is to write without getting distracted by YouTube videos of animals falling asleep? Linking to videos of animals falling asleep so that others may benefiit from my tireless research in this area?
Well for whatever reason, here I am. 2009 and I'm starting anew. I even have new year's resolutions, none of which is remotely interesting but one of which involves working like a trojan (they worked mega hard) in the hopes of getting Standing There Productions producing something new and exciting and extremely lucrative across international markets with ancilliary marketing opportunities that do not in any way indicate that we have sold out or lack any of our original indie credibility, of which, naturally enough, we have oodles.
There is a trip to Sydney next week for Stew and myself, where we shall be meeting the very busy and important Rita Walsh and will also possibly be seeing a few Arts Festival shows with the money our grandmas gave us for Christmas. I wish I was being funny. Oh how I wish.
In other news, I have now seen: Frost/Nixon, Bolt 3D, Australia, and Slumdog Millionaire. I might share my thoughts on these in greater detail once I have actually done some writing, but here is a thumnail:
Frost/Nixon: makes you want to go home and see the original Frost/Nixon tapes.
Bolt 3D: makes you wonder if you're being filmed on Candid Camera wearing dumb glasses and looking like a prize douchebag. Also generates prepared lecture from Stew on 3D being the future of film, which is fascinating if a little baffling (the screen is silver? Something about an optimiser? You what?). Other than that, it's not the best plot in the world, but the characters and voices are good.
Slumdog Millionaire: makes you want to go to India. Highly recommend this one actually, if you like a feel-good huzzah.
Australia: makes you want to move to New Zealand.
That's it for today. Happy new year.