The play-in-progress preview reading

After I visited the Pyjama Girl at the cemetery in Melbourne, I jumped on a train and napped all the way to Albury. Then, it was straight to rehearsals in preparation for the staged reading that was happening two days later. Being in the theatre, and seeing the immense amount of work that the director, Travis, and cast had done while I’d been away in Italy was really exciting, not in the least because I’d made some script revisions before I left Australia and this was my first opportunity to see the changes. 

On Thursday 5 September HotHouse presented a public staged reading as part of the Write Around the Murray festival. This was followed by a Q and A session. I, of course, was still jet-lagged, and arrived at the theatre an hour and a half before the actor’s call, because I got the time wrong. Continuing my habit of sleeping in things that are not beds: planes, trains, my Mum’s Winnebago, I had a kip on a couch in the dressing rooms, which as it turns out, is an excellent place for napping, especially when the delightful production manager turned off the lights and put on the gentle blue backstage lights instead. 

Everything moved quickly after that and before I knew it, audience members were appearing in the foyer. My Mum and sister came along, as did my Dad, who by amazing coincidence was in Albury that week. That was an exciting moment for me personally, as he has never seen a play I’ve written because he doesn’t live near me. (And also, he’s not really a theatre type. When I was 18 and told him I was going to university to study a Bachelor of Arts he said, ‘Why Emma? You can’t draw.’) 

The reading went very well—except for a technical hiccup. 

While the first reading held in December last year had been quite static, with actors sitting or standing in a row and reading from a script, this time, movement was included, and even live music. Travis read a few stage directions as needed, for example, when scenes hadn’t yet been fully choreographed, or set pieces (like a magician’s box) weren’t on stage. A few songs were even performed live, and keyboard and drums were used to underscore parts of the performance. 

The keyboard, which had worked in rehearsal and when it was tested 10 minutes before the performance, stopped working. The actors, kept going, as good actors should, and the MC even began singing the first song a capella before the technical director called a halt to the show. 

The pianist brought out a second keyboard—but this one didn’t connect to the same power supply. Rapidly, another keyboard was brought out (I think it might have been the first one coming back again) and there was some amusing slapstick as the two keyboards were swapped around) and then finally, a third, much smaller keyboard came out, which had the audience in hysterics. A lady sitting behind me whispered to her friend ‘Oh, I think this is part of the show.’

Finally the keyboard was connected, and technical director Rob took a bow to uproarious laughter and applause.

(As we all know, techs usually spent their time sitting in confined spaces in the dark, so I think Rob enjoyed his moment on stage).

The MC made a few jokes as laughter subsided and the show resumed from the start of the song. 

From there on in, everything went smoothly. Pleasingly, some audience members even joined in singing an old musical hall sing-a-long called ‘Oh Oh Antonio’ (link), which was exactly what I’d hoped for. People laughed in places we hadn’t expected, as well as places we had expected.

After this, I joined Travis, HotHouse Artistic Direct Jon, local historian Bruce, and some cast members on stage for a Q and A facilitated by Jenni Munday. We spoke about the development process and got some good feedback from the audience. We were even able to ask a few of our own questions to see what worked for the audience.

My Dad had asked me, the day before, why I was writing the play, and I said that I had remembered hearing him and Mum talk about it in the car when we were driving along the Howlong road when I was a small child. He said he didn’t think so. 

So either I misremember, or he does, but my Dad doesn’t think he was ever aware of the spot on the road where the Pyjama Girl was found. 

This means that much-used answer I give when people ask me while I’m writing this play may not be true after all. This is strangely fitting in a play that throughout its development, has led me to observe how our memories are so vulnerable to being eroded by mythology.

A video blog

 

Turns out I'm hopeless at keeping up a blog, so here's a video of me talking about where I'm up to with this project. I've just finished another wonderful creative development with the HotHouse ensemble, and after a research binge, handed in a fresh draft of the script.

While driving back from Albury I had an unfortunate side adventure when my car ran out of petrol because a major service station on the Hume Highway, which shall remain nameless, was already closed at 10 pm. As someone who regularly travels the highway, this was a surprise to me.

As someone who has completely memorised the statement of Antonio Agostini, the man who confessed to murdering the Pyjama Girl, who details how he had taken a tin of petrol with him when he drove the body from Melbourne to Albury because he knew he wouldn't be able to get petrol overnight, the irony wasn't lost on me. Also, because y'know, it's not the 1930s any more. Luckily we have mobile phones, so I was able to phone a friend to rescue me.

Nontheless, I spent some post-midnight hours in my car, on a lonely, pitch black country road (to Binalong, not Howlong, as in the Pyjama Girl case) I decided to use my time sensibly by taking in script revision while I waited for assistance. After I got my car started again I discovered I had been parked on a culvert (a drain under a road).

The Pyjama Girl was found in a culvert on the Howlong Road, and I can now imagine, much more clearly, just how lonely that place must have been and the sheer luck that the body was discovered as soon as it was.

What I'm doing now...

No, this blog hasn’t gone dark. I’ve come to the end of my Jump Mentorship, so have been allowing the dust to settle post-acquittal.

Thus I reach the end of phase 1 of this project. More on that later.
First, I want to acknowledge the great support I got throughout the Jump mentorship process, particularly from Jan and David at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, and of course, my mentor Colette, who warned me of the Dark Side but then trusted I had enough of the Force to be able to decide myself whether or not to cross over. She’ll shortly be rewarded with an utterly heinous Scandinavian snow globe, which I expect will take pride of place on her mantelpiece.

Not this snowglobe though, sorry Coda.

Here’s what I’ve learnt:
• Dream big
• Work hard
• Have integrity
• Take up every opportunity you can
• You can’t please everyone all the time (so instead: write a good play).

Yes, they’re all platitudes and yes they’re things I already knew. Not to sound like a know-it-all. I think they’re things most of us know—but putting them into practice is often a different story.

The biggest accomplishment for me this year is the way I view my craft. I still want to be more disciplined and structured. I keep telling myself that I want to write for at least an hour a day—but that often doesn’t happen. Instead, I’ll spend hours on the laptop researching, editing, planning —because often, those types of things consume more of your time.

So I’ve learnt to write when and where I can. I’m very fond of 30-minute creative bursts. In fact, on my lunchbreak today I jotted out an early draft of a scene in my notebook sitting in the grass at the park across the road from work.

I also feel like I’m getting more involved in the arts community, and I’m definitely spending a lot more time at the theatre. That’s where I’m headed tonight.

So I no longer view myself as a hum-drum dabbler. I don’t think I’ll be getting Nobel prizes anytime soon either, but I do feel like I’m slowing clawing my way out of the metaphorical womb to one day become an ‘emerged’ (past tense) playwright. Though I don’t think the development journey is ever really done.
So, where to from here?

I’m still researching and am meeting an interview subject this weekend. Following a successful reading in Albury in October, and good feedback from actors and audience members, I’m working on the third draft as we speak.

I’ll be workshopping that with some actors and a director and then we’ll be having a reading at the Street Theatre in Canberra, in front of an invited audience.
From that—well, I’ll then start work on draft 4.

Early next year, I’ll start development activities with HotHouse Theatre, which will produce the pyjama girl play almost exactly 12 months from today.

It seems like a long way off, but part of the beauty of writing plays is the collaborative aspects and partly because of this, the development process can take time. For me, the average length of time I spend writing a script is a year on average. The last one was closer to 2.5 years. It was an epic though, to be fair, and what I’m terming my ‘apprenticescript’.

I learnt a stack from that. I’m learning a stack more from this one, and I know there’s more exciting stuff waiting for me next year.

Verbatim theatre and the road to the truth

Now, as we all know, we often find ourselves on unfamiliar roads. Not sure how we got there, but fairly sure it will still take us to where we want to go.

I set out out on a journey to write a play about an event I think has played an important part in the consciousness of the community.

I thought the best way to do that was through an on-stage documentary, and I chose Verbatim Theatre as my form.

Verbatim Theatre is a specific type of theatre that involves interview people connected to a particular event, and then using those transcripts (and other ‘found’ materials like newspaper articles or court transcripts) to fashion a script. It’s an area that has long fascinated me, but I’ve never written a script before, so this has been a great opportunity to learn about it for me.

But here’s what I’ve discovered: the pyjama girl—the story I think needs to be told—is perhaps not best suited to the verbatim form. 

This is, in its simplest way, because verbatim depends on getting the words from people who experienced the event. This of course, is challenging because a) not many of the people who lived in the area at the time are still alive and b) how connected to the pyjama girl—the actual girl—are the residents of the Albury area anyway? It’s argued often that she wasn’t a local, and that the killer can’t have been a local, otherwise he would’ve known about the apparently bottomless pool of water a bit further down the road. A much better place to dispose of a body.

So what I’ve got is second hand information. It’s important to note that rumours were flying thick and fast and we, as human creatures, are all biased—even me, as a playwright.

One of the things Verbatim Theatre seeks to do (something that current affairs journalism often fails at) is to present information in a way that allows audience members to take away the truth.

But you’re seeing that through my filter.

So, what I’ve figured out is that this story needs a little bit of fiction in the way it is presented. I haven’t altered any facts about the pyjama girl, but I have invented a character to give us an idea of what the pyjama girl, whoever she was, might have been like. After all, she could have been anyone—and that’s one of the points I make in the current script.

My mentor, Colette, explained that in Verbatim Theatre, the playwright speaks ‘with’ not ‘for’ the characters.

But by creating a character, and constructing a voice for her (based on research), I am in fact, speaking ‘for’ the character.

Which means this play is not what we would strictly term Verbatim Theatre. It is, however, still research informed.

And I don’t mean this in the way Hollywood movies claim to be ‘based on a true story’.

The shape will change as I work with HotHouse to develop the play, but all the interviews I conducted with people in Albury and elsewhere, and extensive research I’ve undertaken, in libraries, museums—and of course, the Albury LibraryMuseum—have played a part in building the current script.

Ultimately, I want to use theatre as a way of getting to something truthful. But it’s unlikely there is anyone living who knows that full truth of the pyjama girl mystery. 

ANOTHER overdue blog: Stockholm

And another international excuse.

I'm sure I project an image of a glamorous jet set life style, but I assure you this is absolutely not the case. In fact, I'm typing this from my couch with a snuggie blanket over my knees and my cat at my feet.

In August, I went to Sweden for the Women Playwrights International Conference. It was awesome. It was utterly inspirational, and in has indirectly changed the direction of this play. More about that next time.

Personally, I reckon I’m pretty terrible at networking. The very word terrifies me. Standing around in a theatre foyer gossiping or discussing the show I’ve just seen comes naturally, but tell me to sell myself or my work – in the same theatre foyer with the same people standing around – and I discover my gob suddenly glued shut.

In Stockholm though, I gained confidence in talking about myself and my work. Suddenly it was okay, because by being at WPIC, I felt I deserved to call myself a playwright. For me there are two reasons a) I realised how important it is to me and b) I felt my writing must be a little bit okay given my script was one of 100 selected from around the world to be presented there, though I was absolutely in awe of the people around me, particularly the enormously talented Australian contingent.

Swedish actors perform my play (not the pyjama girl)

Speaking of, I'm going to defer further description of Stockholm adventures to two other lady playwrights of my acquaintance, Zoe and Jenny, with whom I shared a squealing reunion on a cobblestone street in Stockholm)--go on, read their delightful blogs. 

Taking on my identity as playwright was a big breakthrough. Second major breakthrough was the realisation that we’re lucky in Australia. Sure, European countries have fabulously structured theatre industries, where actors have wages mandated by experience and in some places working in theatre is the type of career choice that won’t break your parents’ hearts. Necessarily.

BUT I realise how lucky I am to be able to create work just because I want to create it. Not because it needs to be created out of protest. Not because it is the only way to have an issue heard. Not even because it is a tool for education and community building. But simply because I have something I want to say.

Theatre is a wonderful tool for all of those things. Of course I can still write political theatre. But I can also write a romantic comedy if I want to. The freedom to be purely creative is not a luxury enjoyed by playwrights the world over, particularly female playwrights. Freedom of expression is another issue entirely.

We all know the power of theatre, and the conference theme, the Democratic Stage was apt.

As an emerging playwright from a non-metro city, I felt like a grade 6 moving to the big school—there is so much out there that I don’t know about the industry, both in Australia and overseas.

In Egypt, where theatre is telling the stories of revolution that journalism failed to tell; In India, where theatre teaches people that it’s okay to have a daughter, in the ten countries across the world participating in an international theatre project built around the shocking fact that domestic violence kills more women worldwide than cancer.

And this made me realise just how important it is to tell the story of the Pyjama Girl. 

I was lucky enough to attend a research-informed theatre workshop run by some wonderful Canadian playwrights. One of them, Tara Goldstein has written a book on it Staging Harriet's House: Writing and Producing Research-Informed Theatre. Now, back in Australia, nearing the end of the JUMP project, I've been reading this book as I redrafted the script and have come to an important realisation. The play I'm writing is not verbatim at all. It cannot be. 

And on that cliffhanger... I'll leave you until next time.

Overdue blog part 3: Bathurst

Yet again we can take it as a sign that I've been too busy working on the project to blog. So what have I been busy doing? Assembling, editing and working on the first version of the script.

This process began with a trip to Bathurst a few weekends ago, where I worked with my mentor Colette.

I'd already compiled the transcripts of the interviews I'd conducted, along with "found" materials--court transcripts, newspaper articles, a letter, and so on. I'd put together chunks of text divided into different key themes and sent them through to Colette. So armed with all of this printed on a small forest of paper, we locked ourselves in a room (in fact, it was an observation room in the psychology department at the university; only towards the end of the day did we notice the two cameras in the room observing us and realised what the sign on the door said) and began shuffling pages.

The method, which we've now christened 'paper on the ground' (also known as POG!) is just as sophisticated as it sounds.

Rather than culling from an enormous amount of text, we instead selected key bits and laid those down on the floor, moving, chopping, and swapping text until we arrived at some sort of structure. 

This took a very intense four hours. Then we painstakingly collected all of it and photocopied it in order, just to be doubly safe.

Then we headed out to a bar for some wood-fired pizza and wine as a reward.

The next step was assembling this all on my computer to get a first cut. This was quite easy, as it was simply a case of cutting and pasting for a few hours. I expected a first draft wouldn't be far off. Now I realise I'm going to have to take my time with it. Once I had the first cut on my computer, I started making small edits and moving things around. Then I remembered some additional content I wanted to include and had to find where to add that. Now, the balance of the structure had been thrown off, so more changes might be needed. This is before I get to the point of line by line edits. This is also before I get to the point of assigning/creating characters--but I need to have a clearer direction in terms of content before I can begin shaping to that level.

So while I'm calling this the first draft, it's already had multiple revisions--before any actor even sees it. I want to make sure I've done as much as I can before I get some actors to workshop a reading with me.

At the same time, one of the great traps of this story is the extraordinary level of details so I must always be aware of an audience that is new to the case and the story. Will they follow the story? What level of detail is necessary? What is the best way to link these two things, while working within the constraints of verbatim?

I'll have answers to some of those questions next time.