Where next?

At the moment I'm not keeping this blog.

Asking for Trouble continues to rock my world. We took Kapow! on tour round regional Victoria in September 2012 and will do so again at least a couple of times next year.

I have also been experimenting with short creative non-fiction, writing a novel and working on a solo roving character. 

I'm in the process of deciding how to blog about my various creative projects. When I do decide, I'll post about it here, and possibly move this blog across to the new project.

In the mean time...

Swamp Juice

little review moment from last saturday...

Swamp Juice is on at 2:30 on the weekends and Jeff-Canadian-Jeff (as we so often say after someone asks 'Jeff who?') bumps in as we are bumping out Kapow.

I saw his show Sticks Stones Broken Bones a few years ago and I have a single vivid happy memory of a shadow horse running on shadow grass. Me laughing as it galloped.

Mr Bunk (Jeff) shows you everything he’s doing, holds up the puppet to demonstrate before he turns it into a shadow. Silly voice, gruff sound effects into his lapel mike. Such an appealing, ridiculous character of a man pointing things out, proud and amused by what he’s done, and occasionally cranky when the audience doesn’t do their job right.

Each image is lovely. The curious snail taking great mouthfuls of a tuft of grass – the shadow of Jeff’s balding head. The tiny rodenty creature with delicate paws and a dot of a nose that snuffles the air.

But (SPOILER ALERT) nothing is as fabulous as the end. Jeff hands out a bunch of cardboard boxes – “Take one, take one, pass on, take one” When the box arrives on my lap I realize that we are being given 3D glasses.

There is a long shuffling moment of pause while the audience each deal with their specs. I am one of the last and I miss the opening moment of 3D – instead a blur of red and blue on the screen. Then I have it.

Jeff has made 3D shadows.

A bird flies out towards our faces and all the children reach up to grab on it’s intangible way past.

A tiny man in a gorgeous flying machine: a skeleton frame with propeller and square wings zooms over our heads. I can’t help saying, “Ooooh” out loud.

Each shadow has become an object – only in black, but clear edged and perfect. Such a stunning combination of ancient and new technology.

My insides are sweet with how clever it is.

Jeff's website...

Raoul

All my friends are performing in the evenings so tonight I take myself out to the theatre. The show in the International Festival that I really want to see is Raoul, by James Thiérrée, grandson of Charlie Chaplin, amongst many other things.

I deck myself in a polka dot dress and high heels, tie up my skirts and swing my leg over my bike. Cycle in to town readjusting my cleavage. Lock up my bikes on the Adelaide Festival Centre stair-rails and find my seat between strangers.

Massive white-patched curtains that have been repaired and repaired. They hang criss-crossing the stage like a cubby house, like a ship after a storm, like drunken washing lines. Brown stains settle into them illuminated by the yellow light behind. Mist rises smokily.

There is a sudden sweeping lift as unseen machinery pulls the curtains up, they hoist and billow and settle into place to frame the stage – a drift wood teepee of netting and poles.

The man, like a WWII pilot lost in the desert, swings his coat wide out behind him. He is dirty and beautiful and he knows it, holding his shoulders like a dancer, like a soldier, like a man who is angry and entitled to the thing he wants.

He calls himself out. “Raoul! Raoul!”

But Raoul doesn’t want to be found.

The duality of Raoul. The appearance from no-where, the double behind the curtain, the mirror where his hands meet palm to palm.

It is so bitsy. “French” Christy says; that’s what the French do – create a series of beautiful images. I am almost desolate as an image disappears, never to be returned to – so many resources have been used to create each and I feel like you could build a show around every one.

The pleasure of watching a body that is so highly trained. The unexpected flight that I wish would go on and on. I watch so many circus shows and I am hideously jaded about aerial acts. Things don’t catch my breath anymore and I am usually bored of them before they finish. Not this. Not him. I want him to fly forever.

I shuffle out of the theatre with the crowd, walking carefully in my absurd shoes. I’m not left with a feeling, like sadness or hope, or a particular idea that he was trying to tell me, but with memories of beauty that I want to capture and visit again and again. Like a painting I can hang in my heart. 

stupid-happy-doggy-happy

This week we get the best review so far. My new friend Max is ten years old, the son of one of the other performers in the Garden. He finds me at my window in the box office and hands this over to me.

the best kind of review

Saturday morning. It’s the Clipsal 500. The world has gone mad with men wearing Holden merchandise and the air is a constant whine of V8 supercar engines that aren’t far enough away.

In the dark before the show I sit stretching on the astroturf listening to the engines and feeling a little sad. Bubblewrap and Boxes did much better than this in terms of ticket sales last year. We think the reason is that previously the Garden put out a “Kids in the Garden” guide and the program itself was arranged so that it had a family section. Finding us is much harder now. We have had more promo and done more work flyering than ever before. But it does feel a little bit hopeless.

As Alison opens the house and our little audience enters through the tent flap the Australian Defense Force Air Show (highlight of the Clipsal) begins above our heads. The booming roar of a plane flying so close it shakes the tent walls, so loud you couldn’t hear your own voice screaming over the top.

Then it’s gone and the children are crying.

There’s another plane. And another. Each one feels as though its about to crash land on top of us it’s so loud.

I feel as though there’s no point going on. I hope and hope and hope and then thank all the gods of circuses and clowns and aeroplanes when they stop, just as the lights come up on the start of the show. 

The Beyond the Wall crew are there, in one corner, eyes smiling. It’s so nice to run out onto stage and look them in the eye – I know that I show all the stupid-happy-happy-doggy-happy I am aiming for because of how pleased they are to see me. Throughout the show, they laugh so much louder than everyone else in the audience.

At the end, after we bow, we kneel by the exit path so people can talk to us on the way out. A child totters up to me (they’re so tiny and wide eyed these children, it breaks my heart) She stands for a moment looking straight into my eyes and then says: “I love you.”

Nothing beats it. 

39 degrees

It’s like a desert. It’s like an oven. Our changerooms have airconditioning and when you step outside the air hits you like a wall of hot water.

Luckily (or was it planning?) someone left the Umbrella air conditioning on all night. There’s something awful about all that energy pumping cold air into a tent for hours. An empty tent with no insulation and gaps all over the place. But it’s such a relief to be doing a show in a slightly cool venue – after the sweltering cycle into town at 8:30am.

Luke’s back is not 100% so Christy and I are on all the heavy lifting. Despite the heat I like it. Christy and I are good at the job. Efficient. Hoiking the bunkbeds between us round the obstacle course of cables and props and shipping containers behind the Umbrella. Taking regular water breaks. I like that Luke is resting, not muscling on. It makes me feel like we are getting better at looking after ourselves and each other.

Once we’re bumped in we all stretch slowly in the heat. Not much running or strength work for me in this heat, but lots of checking in with my body, gently pulling on my muscles.

The audience is beautiful. Small, maybe 40 people in the tent, but responsive. There are a couple of parents with massive smiles and a lot of sweet interaction. They clap and oooh and laugh in all the right places.

I decide not to try to look like I’m enjoying Terry’s dancing, but to actually enjoy it. It’s not hard and I like the feel of the real smile on my face. I enjoy my own superhero moment more too: the big stupid happiness of pulling that costume on.

A woman in the front row fans herself continuously with her hat. Luke’s brow is washing with shiny sweat beads, Christy is red under her makeup. At ¾ of the way through I feel the headache arrive. I breath through it as I fight with Terry.

As soon as we finish talking with our audience, Jeff arrives to bump in Swamp Juice and Alison tells us he needs the floor sooner than usual. Christy and I do a ninja pack down and we head out to hand out free tix to tomorrows show as the audience exits the Kids Comedy Gala. We’ve only sold 20 tickets to tomorrow.

By the time I take panadol I’m on the pounding edge of a migraine and I sit in Cibo upstairs, swallowing my nausea and rubbing my temples while Christy and Luke look cute and worried. Christy pulls out our review in Rip it Up – Adelaide street press, and I read it slowly.

Now the painkillers have worked and I’m tired and sweet. Luke and Christy have gone to set up for Porcelain Punch. It’s 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon and I’m not going in to the carnival. I’m going home to write the three grant submissions that are due in the next five days.

Because artists should get PAID!!!!

showmaker-homemaker

Sunday morning. Same lugging. Same warming up, Same skanky changerooms. We know the drill and we have plenty of time. But then 15 minutes before we open, Front of House come in and tell us we’ve sold 213 tickets. Suddenly Christy is sharp, onstage, running her lines, Luke is tying his shoelaces fast and my skin feels fresh.

I sit backstage waiting for my cue smiling at the dark.

The show is more fun, more relaxed and the audience feels like they are with us all the way. At the end Christy hands out flyers and I have my fingers crossed for audiences next week.

This evening I sang Odette to sleep, cooked myself dinner and handwashed my costumes. Any minute now I’m going to eat chocolate and read my novel. Peep is about to go up for its second set, out there in the Garden and I will go to bed and listen for a baby who's mama wears amazing costumes in a candy-striped tent.

Kapow! Begins!

Saturday morning we lug all our props in from the container. Several of us carry the bunkbeds together, round the corner where the tent slopes almost too low to allow us in and we have to step up because the ramp angle doesn’t work for us. It’s muggy in the tent and burning outside and Christy and I work quietly together with the lifting and arranging while Luke does the knot tying. 

The fence solution complete

Our changeroom is skanky. 

Dear other-performers-who-share-the-Umbrella-Revolution-changeroom, 

You should know that Christy picks up your rubbish and tidies away your makeup so there is room for other people. 

Love from me.

The thing that tipped the skanky over to hilarious was this:

Suspicious yellow ‘specimen sample’ containers on the changeroom bench.

We get into costumes, do make up, run the hard tricks. Front of House say it’s time to open. The moment before we are ready, we stand holding hands and look hard into each other’s eyes, making contact, committing to working together, to being safe, to looking after each other. Then its time and I jog backstage to sit alone, listening to the feet on the seating bank and the children talking as they arrive. Trying to imagine Christy out there playing with Rosie, being quiet and awkward but present with the crowd.

The show is a little bit wild. Nat gets a few of the sound cues hilariously out but we work to the wrong music or to silence and its ok really. Christy forgets lines and that’s fine too. I feel like I know the shape of the show and that between us we can drive it to the end in spite of hiccoughs. The Porcelain Punch crew are in the crowd leading the laughter which is lovely.

During the show I feel a little un-funny and a little like I am not ‘showing my pleasure to be with the audience.’ Like maybe the only people who really love us are our friends who are the ones I can hear laughing. But at the end as we kneel on the grass by the entry and say hello to the kids, the parents are bright-faced and complimentary. I remember that it is a good show.

I hang with the Punchies while they prep for their show and they are gorgeous about Kapow which is lovely.

A bit of backstage Punch

The thing is, we have only sold three tickets out of 250 for Sunday. After my box office shift, I pump the Garden, handing out 50 complimentary tickets and making friends with the small people again.

Cycle home in the dark, appreciating the flatness of Adelaide.

Bedtime nerves

The satisfaction of handing a flyer over to someone who says “Oh good, I’ll come tomorrow. Thankyou”

I gave out a hundred of these today to people with children. My eyes learned to spot the short person really fast and I darted through the Garden making friends with shy, upturned faces until nearly 9pm.

The weird feeling when all your besties are in another show so you go to see something alone. 

Cantina. 

All that skin and muscle and skill and of course the thing I find utterly compelling is a face. The absolute presence in a quiet face. It makes me think of Gaulier saying “Do not show us your grimace.” One act furious the next the next submissive and watchful; yet the eyes and lips barely change shape. This is the skill I am most interested in watching.

Tomorrow we open Kapow and we haven’t sold many tickets. I am bedtime nervous, bag already packed so I don’t forget anything…

The Garden Opens

An hour of standing on the soft grass with a script. Running lines, Running the bunk-bed routine without bunkbeds. The hilarious moment where Luke thinks Rosie Bear is in his hand but Christy missed him mime-snatching her. Christy waving her empty hand at Luke, “I’ve still got Rosie!” Luke’s confused face. Me clutching my laughing tummy and trying to translate.

We have an hour in the Umbrella Revolution to try to sort out about the fence, but Barry Morgan and his world of Organs are running a little over time. We rush up to the Peep tent to do what we can of the finishing touches in the down time.

Peep – so pretty

Back in the Umbrella, the fence solution is 16 metres of black fabric and a whole load of safety pins. The techs have closed faces today – they have had a day of problem solving logistics and are polite but a little less relaxed. Luke is precise and thoughtful, judging aesthetics and angles. By the time we leave there is a plan, even if we haven’t tried it completely.

I head off to my first box office shift – to what is widely pegged to be the most highly photographed box office in history. 

It’s the opening night launch party for the garden but there’s only one show selling tickets so Box Office is empty. I sit from 4pm to 10pm behind my computer and watch the people. The VIP media launch is at six and even 15 minutes beforehand there are still fluorescent vests and hammers and star-pickets.

A troupe of Front of House staff arrive in sequins and bow-ties and lycra and tails. They gather by the gate with programs and a doorlist, ready to face the VIPs. I watch the fireworks reflected in the city buildings and listen to the echo of the speeches through the PA. At 9pm the general public arrive and for half an hour they are queueing round the block. I read the program cover to cover, waiting for my shift to be over and deal with about seven customers total. At 10pm I cycle straight home in the cool night air to my tiny bed in my tiny room. Read Howl's Moving Castle by lamplight.

a small room and a small fence

I spend the morning moving into the accommodation Joh and Odette and I will share with two new friends we found on gumtree. It’s two bedrooms and the plan was that I live in the sunroom. But disaster struck yesterday when I spoke to the landlord. I texted Joh: “THERE IS NO SUNROOM!!! Arghh! we are losers! There is a pergola so maybe I get a mozzie net and sleep in the backyard…” We talked hilariously on the phone, laughing about me making a bed behind the couch or sleeping in the outside toilet.

But there is something a little like a sunroom – maybe more like a lighting well.

The Ailsa-bed.

Inspired by the tiny house movement. I like the process of making a small space mine.

We bump in and tech Kapow this afternoon. We’re performing in the Umbrella Revolution, a 250 seater venue. 

Kapow’s home for the next 5 weeks

Our techs, Alison and Nat are the kind of ladies who don’t think anything is too hard. Alison sees me struggling from across the tent and runs to help. Nat shrugs and says, "no problem." Eyes on the ball.

The one issue is the fence. The plot of Kapow really requires us to have a fence that we can’t get over or go around. We have never performed the show in a venue this large without wings. Our fence which looms and blocks our way fabulously on a small stage is kind of like a joke in the Umbrella Revolution.

How do we get our bear from the other side??

Luke is full of enormous schemes: “We’ll buy 5x2 meters of fabric and paint a fence on it tomorrow. Or I’ll build a whole second section so this fence is a corner and looks more like you can't get round it.” I think about how many hours, how many big missions and how many late nights Luke has done to get this thing happening. I think about him saying, “maybe on Friday we can just chill.” It makes my insides sink thinking about him having to do another big job to make it work.

Plus we are running out of time to plot the lights and make sure we’ve done a cue to cue before 5pm.

Luke measures the space we somehow need to fill and Christy sits with Alison at the lighting desk bringing up colours and checking heights of lights. I sit on the grass pumping up beach balls and moving where Christy needs me to so she can check lights.

The cue to cue is a winner because our techs are awesome and we pedal home past the traffic jams. Home to my new house where Odette is on a crawling adventure down the corridor with her bright smile and Joh looks has been arranging toys and a cot in her new room.

Tomorrow we find a fence solution (eee!) and try to remember the show…

Valentines day in the Garden of Unearthy Delights

Cycled into town for one o’clock through the baking Adelaide sun. It was the kind of heat that smells like hot earth and blackberries and heats inside your nostrils. Box office training lasted a long two and a half hours and was sound-tracked by some serious circular saw and hammering action. My favourite moment was when Cara, in charge of health and safety (after saying we have to wear closed toed shoes and pick up any glass we found) told us, “and if you want to come and have a cup of tea and a cry, that’s my job too.”

After the computery bit we met the front of house crew and trooped in and out of all the venues.

 FoH and Box Office crew trooping

FoH are all a bit more flamboyant and carnie and rockabilly than the box office lot and the first thing they did together was go op shopping for costumes to wear on the job. “Do you wish you were doing that?” Christy asked. And actually I don’t, but it makes me very happy that other people are.

Ditched the end of the site tour to find the Porcelain Punch crew sorting their set out so it fit their tiny venue – the already A4 sized stage shrunk significantly by two big speakers squatting on it. They’d been working for hours already. Luke a little sad and making things happen. Christy staying up-beat and making things happen. 

EJ, creative English language moment: “we’re making the Fff…the fff… ferulier”. Festoon. She meant festoon.

We pitched the Peep tent together. Me holding the centre pole while the other two worked their way round the edges, hooking eyelets and tightening ropes. Gorgeous cotton ropes sliding up on a rolling hitch. Making friends with the folks across the way who were also bumping in a show.

 rolling hitch in use

A caravan towed past with rows of old fashioned bed heads attached to its roof. I love living in a world where people make these things.

Left Luke and Christy to dress the tent and cycled home through evening streets. People sitting out on footpath tables, wine and pretty dresses, making it look confusingly like the weekend. I only just realised now that of course, it’s valentines day. That’s why the streets looked like a festival.

Lay on the truck couch watching the sunset on the street.

Made Luke and Christy little love-heart letters and left them on their pillows.

Tomorrow we bump in and tech Kapow and Porcelain Punch…

Radelaide...

I'm sitting in the truck on a suburban Adelaide street.

The back door is open and the sun is still sweet-morning warm but heading for pounding-sticky-hot by this afternoon. Last night I sat on this doorstep and swung my feet above the bitumen, brushing my teeth and looking out at the dark and the streetlights.

Christy, curled up on her bed, said, “I like you sitting there.”

We drove here yesterday. Luke and Christy have been planning and packing the truck for a week and Saturday night the back door was closed and the four bikes stacked on the back

Three shows, including a mini circus tent, a set of bunk beds and a freestanding spinning stripper pole; all of it packed into what is usually Luke and Christy’s bedroom.

We left Melbourne at six in the morning and drove all day. The bouncing old truck-cabin seats, the rattle of the windows, the v8 engine rolling us away.

We pulled over near Murray Bridge. 2 weeks ago Juchie drove into a b-double semi trailor there. I sat on the aluminium bench looking at the highway trying to capture for a moment that this is where he stopped.

me with Juchie who I was saying goodbye to

Cried. Sat silent. Cried again while Luke and Christy stayed with me. That last 70 ks to Adelaide I curled into Christy in the truck cabin looking out at the road and there was a silence that ignored the bumble of the engine.

We arrived in the late afternoon: The Garden of Unearthly Delights, still under construction. High viz vests, stacks of chairs, bright tents reaching up through curling, pale barked gum trees. A massive ferris wheel in pieces on a semi, paint being rolled onto pieces of staging, tattoos and biceps and complicit smiles.

We checked out the venues for the various shows, measuring stages with our eyes, looking at entry points for props and talking with techies. Unloaded everything into a storage container, ducking poles and the huge ratchet straps that hold up our tent as we lugged all our props from the truck.

And then we found our street. Outside Marion’s house where Dogalogue the jack russell lives and the rainwater is sweet in the back of my throat.