spring at Artplay

This morning we are at Artplay. It’s a whole set transporting extravaganza. I meet them at Pigeon Hole and we drive to Westside to pack the set and then through the city in rush hour traffic. We find the confusing back entrance to Artplay and have to tell the security dude that we have no hazard lights. Christy and I get out and walk alongside Nona through the playground and past the Yarra. Eelin waves and welcomes us and Kate arrives just as we have finished unloading the set and bumping it in.
Artplay is wide with polished floorboards and big windows that light pours through, even on grey days like today.
Christy says “I think I’d like to try being called ‘Dodge’ today” We all like it. We play a little on the set. We talk about the imaginary friend idea. Kate runs an impro where we are superheros being interviewed about our daily lives one at a time.
We sit for a long time and Christy pulls out snacks. Humous, wraps, nuts. We talk and talk and talk. I go and get a tea tray from upstairs and we all sit on the floor drinking tea and trying to solve the problem of the journey.
We want Dodge to be overcoming something and we write a list of the big things that happen to little children. Moving house, starting school, having a teacher who doesn’t like them, their parents fighting or splitting up, someone dying. Nothing seems quite right. We come back to the controlling idea, ‘we are more powerful than we think we are’ someone says, “Maybe it’s a scary neighbour” “maybe something goes over the fence and we don’t know what is over there” We like it. We like that it is overcoming a fear of the unknown. We like that it means we aren’t dealing with greif which is a whole other show, or bullying which is a whole other show. We run with it.
The sun comes in in bright gold squares on the polished floor and heats the astroturf amazingly. We shuffle into the sunny patches and keep talking. Later it rains buckets and torrents and we sit and look up at it gushing past the windows. Melbourne spring at Artplay.
Kate writes things down in her little book in scrawling biro full of crossings out and arrows and added words on top. There is a sudden sense that we have a narrative. Christy says, “this is like the moment by the Vic Markets for Bubblewrap” and there is definitely a sense of discovery and a sense of realisation. Something has coalesced today.
Then we try an impro of the show from the start. It’s funny because we can’t remember our choreography and it feels pretty loose and messy, but we get to a point where we are imagining the garden fence and the good things that might be on the other side. This is gold. Dodge is totally random like, “maybe its just all sparkly” Terry’s is crazy philosophical “maybe when we get to the other side of the fence we aren’t us anymore, but we’re still there” I am just all on about the dogs which is pretty fun.
At one point Kate says, “In my head, Natalie is a girl, but she just really wants to be a dog.” And later “but if she’s a dog…?” The identity crisis is hilarious and makes me giggle, we keep coming back to “maybe she is a dog?” “maybe she’s an imaginary friend and she’s both?” “Maybe she’s a girl?” “Oh no, I think she has to be a dog.”
We realise Christy’s character can’t be called Dodge because it sounds so much like Dog.
After Kate leaves we run newspapers and the bunkbed play and then race the pack down because I have a meeting to get to. I leave them with the set in pieces on the floor and run for a tram.