Last week was the start of the mid-point showings for ArtsLab. Hannah and Pippa’s work and my own were the first ones to be presented. Initially the showing felt like an annoying formality and I didn’t know exactly what I would present. I decided that since I have a Mentor and a Dramaturge would be coming on board soon that I’d rather work on the writing side of things with them. That left a very important part to explore, the audiences experience. This was something I hadn’t had a chance to put in to practise other than reading some things I’d written out loud to people. I decided I wanted to get audience feedback on a few things that would be important in making a comfortable and engaging environment for them. One thing was the general seating arrangement, including the style of seating. I find that seating can make a big difference to my enjoyment of anything really so I wanted to try and understand what might work best for a situation where people are being asked to listen for long periods of time. I also wanted to test the seating formation since there’s no physical action (except sound coming from the speakers which is probably worth counting as physical action) to align people towards. Another important thing I wanted feedback on was how many performers were necessary and whether or not they had to be live. This is because simplicity was something I was really interested in when first approaching this form so if it turned out I could get by with one performer instead of a full cast then I would do it. Likewise, if it turned out that pre-recording worked just as well as live audio then I would definitely try and incorporate it as much as possible.

I know this seems to work for some people but vague showings are something I find really annoying. To avoid being in this situation I decided to go to the other extreme, lots and lots of structure. I decided that people tend to think more about what they’re communicating when they are writing it down so I wanted the feedback to be mostly written and I knew that there were specific areas I wanted feedback on. So, I decided to make the feedback in the form of a questionnaire that corresponded to specific things I was presenting in the showing.

To keep things focused I decided to only show two different pieces of text as I thought they would give the clearest idea of what the work was so far and make it easier to demonstrate the technical aspects I wanted feedback on without getting too caught up in what the text was actually about.

Post Showing

There were definitely one or two questions I realised might have been useful to ask but other than that I found the showing really useful. It was a really nice reminder that this will be performed for a live audience and that I need to keep that in mind while writing. It also gave me a number of ideas for how to keep adding to the performance.

A particular idea that was brought up by someone at the showing was the possibility of using binaural sound. I hadn’t heard the term before but after a bit of research the idea of trying to experiment with it really excited me. I’ve actually spent that last few days building my own DIY binaural microphone since the professional ones are so expensive and it would be a shame to drop a bunch of money on something and realise I don’t want to use it. Luckily enough it’s quite a simple circuit to make and plenty of people on the internet have made their own and shared the details. It was also a nice excuse to do a cool little electronics project. Here are some photos of me making it:

Some parts

Messy soldering

Housing everything in an old geometry set tin

Mostly finished

It was really cool to mostly finish it off today. The only thing I’m waiting on is a wig display head I ordered to mount the microphone capsules in. Hopefully it will be 100% done by the end of this week. I did some test recording around shopfront today and it was really cool.

So, to wrap this up, showing was good. Lots of ideas now but maybe not enough time to put them into practise. Need to make some more decisions soon. Lots of work to be done. Binaural sound is cool and maybe only a semi-productive procrastination.

Here is the first test audio I did today. It was just me walking around Shopfront and at one point you’ll hear me say “I’ll explain” because Chris Dunstan gave me a confused look when he saw me walking around with audio gear and a chunk of foam. Make sure you wear headphones to get the full effect.

I’ll do a quick recap of the things I should have blogged about

AUDITIONS – Amazing bunch of people auditioned. Amazing talented female energy. Sad to see them go.

CAST ANNOUNCEMENT – Got some Rad/talented/average heighted actors named Alex Francis and Tash O’brien to play Jamie and Christa.

CRACK FESTIVAL – We did a reading of The Carousel’s 2nd draft at Crack theatre Festival in Newcastle. We all drove down. We be heaps cute. Bonus: we took the rad picture you will see at the bottom of this post which accumulated over 70 likes on facebook without a single bit of indecent exposure.

REHEARSALS – In the midst of rehearsals and currently preparing for our November showing. Editing is real tricky but I’m getting better at it. Kill your darlings or rather ‘cut that line because you’ve said it before and it’s pointless and only YOU like it because YOU wrote it’. It’s really interesting to see the actors play with different actions on the floor and start fleshing out my script. Also Dramaturgy is hard. I have as much trouble explaining my play as I do explaining why I am indecently tall. Does it have to be explained just watch, experience and know that I am tall. But I should most defz work on being able to explain my play…

Dramaturgy matters. just not at 8:30am on a Thursday which is when that lecture used to be. Who knew such Time tabling would cause such grief in the future?

The Carousel Team L-R Hannah Goodwin, Pippa Ellams, Alex Francis, Tash O’Brien

How’s it all been going?

Not too badly but I am starting to feel like I’m stagnating due to a lack of progress. I think I’ve reached a point where I really need to commit to some bigger decisions about the plot and themes of my story. This can be hard to do, especially if you’re not entire sure what it is you’re even talking about. However, my process so far has been based on committing to ideas for the sake of getting words on paper and seeing what happens. I think it’s been a really useful way to explore ideas that I might have otherwise dismissed. It also adds a more natural quality to the story because I’m not following a set of rigid plans. Instead I find myself following an idea that gives way to new ideas I hadn’t expected. I’ve already learnt a lot of things about some of my characters by being open to these surprises and some of my plans about the plot and themes have changed as a result.

About this stagnation. At the moment I’m at a fork in the road. So far, I’ve understood the main beats of the section I’ve been working on. This has been great because it has provided a loose structure for me to explore through writing, as I mentioned above. Now that I’m near the end of that section, I really need to figure out where to next and, as I see it, I have two main options.

 
It probably seems clear from my descriptions that I’m more interested  in option #1, which is true. It’s likely that part of what is causing my current stagnation (other than my incredibly important life outside of ArtsLab where my main function is to feed a cat and allow it to bite my hands) is that I’m resisting the very thing I mentioned at the start of this post: following the ideas by writing them. As I start to get more time conscious, I worry a lot about the prospect of following a dead end. But, in writing this post, I’ve realised that if I took the time I’m wasting worrying about the outcome of the things I write and invested it into writing and seeing what happens I could probably have written a first draft of both versions by now. I think this comes back to a mentality that I’m slowly moving away from with my writing. This is a mentality where, instead of viewing my writing as something I’m slowly figuring out and piecing together, I treat what I’m working on as though it is going to be the final, published version. I think that creates a lot of unnecessary stress around a process that I think could (and probably should) feel as exciting as when I used to jump on a trampoline as a child and pretend things were exploding everywhere. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have some exploding to do (Hello ASIO, don’t worry).

A Useful Exercise

As a small aside, my Mentor, Miles, gave me an exercise to do after I sent him what I’d been working on. I had been writing in 3rd person and he suggested I try rewriting it in 1st person to see what happens. This was partially for reasons specific to my project but I found it really awesome for reasons beyond that. I think I figured out a lot of things about the characters that will further enrich the story. So, if you’re someone who writes, I’d really recommend trying to rewrite things from different perspectives even if you don’t want to use that style in your final version. I’m sure there are equivalent ways to do this with different mediums as well.

Here’s another clip of prose being read. This time it’s chapter one of “Moby Dick” read by Tilda Swinton. Enjoy.

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I have fed your saintly light my body over and over, till it becomes so bright it blocks out the sun. But soon the artifacts of me, my life, have run dry and there is neither you or the sun I scorned for its apathetic distance.

You have filled me with nothing but hot air and plunged me into darkness.

It is familiar. No shadows fall here. It swallows everything with wieght, flattens it out and slips it away through cracks in the floor.

• I rememer now, this is the place you were born; divine beings in touch with that ancient magic used to put stars in the sky and fill vessels with a binding faith (so bright it sears away peripheral vision).

Complete dark is akin to non-existence; light creates mass and mass becomes the rolling mounds of flesh that are the self. The self is thinking, breathing, no longer clay, no longer paper wadded between the table leg and the foorboards.

From here some people pull God. They still suffer for mysterious reasons in mysterious ways but know it will make sense in the next life and there it will be ripe with purpose.

The more I look the darker it becomes.

Every-other living thing in the universe accelerates away from me at an increasing rate, the path taken extending like a corridor to the very end.

At the very end there is my own face

(which I can’t quite see)

and it looks at me, smiling. She knows we could be here for a while.

I pull her out. I raise her up. I feel like a narcissit but it doesn’t matter.

We accelerate at an increaing rate towards something else and

I feel Divine.

I feel like a powerful woman.

I feel I may burst into flame.

I look at her face.

It is undeniably foreign, but I am learning to recognise myself.

The features must exist without hyperbole:

A nose

A stomach

Eyes

Etc.

It is not so bad and not as frightful as the demon that was tall, dark and omminious, hunched despite brushing against the ceiling.

I am open to feeling now; not just abstractions.

I feel good, I am trying to feel good – trying makes it real if not natrual.

Feeling, I know, is the only thing, the only way we stumble through the world. We donot create, only feel when we let ourselves.

I am letting myself feel along every neural passage. I let it burn and burn, branding me with the sensation

(what a joy!)

I cry, I scream in pleasure, in anguish (the eyes roll back in my skull) and I let it wash over me like some great tidal wave, swallowed by feeling and what it is to be alive. I look back at myself with colour in her face, in her eyes and –

–  I am learning to listen and to nurture. I feed her fresh fruit and let her soak in the bath as long as she needs.

She can have as long as she needs.

(I do not want to be left alone

(Please do n t

let me be alone)

).

• Aren’t you ashamed that you’re giving up on yourself?
• This is not what giving up looks like, I am not squandering myself any longer.

I would love it if you called, it would really make my day.

You cannot imagine how your voice makes me feel

as it twists in talking to me, a cognitive function you

conceive.

You, like God, can give me light and you, like God, can take all from me knowing that

I will allow it for the chance to be cleansed and filled with something new.

If you hold me in your mind tight enough I might just have a teather

(always fading why do you fade so much? Tired at noon)

to this life

to this place

but you have to reel me in and I cannot ask

It does not count if I ask.

Always.

(separating me from what I hold dear; you call it elitist, trivial, make me feel like it hurts you that I have hobbies, interests, friends)

You must have caught me with some sweet honey or nectar when I was still a girl, young, alone and thirsty for the world. People are saying that I have become a shell, saying ‘we’ instead of ‘I,’ with ‘you’ hanging off ‘me’ like a lecherous growth.

But I just cant cut you off like a rotting branch as I spread my roots in this tender life. I do not want to be involved in a murderous proposition – this life has grown out of control, I believe it was once mine. It is its own beast now and I cannot stomach hoisting it up and hanging it by the neck. What if nothing were to take its place? It has already eaten all my dreams.

I want to be violently ill when I look at you or you greet me with an embrace. I want to worm away in the most cowardly manner. I feel trapped and cannot breath against your huge heaving chest. I push my arms against you but it is misread as affection, your kiss is long and full of saliva, obtrusive and forceful. You do not stop or wait or listen.

These thoughts make me feel like a bad person

I will still say I love you because the words flow so easily from you that I get caught in them and carried downstream, not knowing how to place my hands as my mind wanders elsewhere.

And as it wanders I rest on a recurring dream of mine; a nightmarish vision of us morphing, melding into a huge, heaving organism with half an eye and fourteen toes protruding from every purulent limb. In my dream I cut each of them off at the knuckle with bolt cutters and they fall like autumn leaves, leaving me to bleed for a little while. I pull away and I pull in, applying pressure to the wound.

Part of these exercises was also creating ‘mood poems’ as abstractions of each act of the play. They are quite rough but I think they are letting me get closer to what it would feel like to live in the world of the characters I am creating. Rather than distract myself by reworking these drafts I think I’ll just post them and get on with things for once hey?

Realisations so far:
I don’t actually know what my own choreographic practice is (huge thanks to Shopfront for giving me the space to figure it out). There’s A LOT I can’t do that I wish I could. Working by yourself, on yourself is REALLY hard – distractions are everywhere. I need to be really specific with myself. Having a dedicated space that is not somewhere in your house is very helpful. My mentor, Sara Black, is every part as cool as I hoped she would be. The new kitchen at Shopfront is so good. And maybe, just maybe, I can actually use this prop in the work.

Writing.

Mostly.

To be more specific, I’ve been dividing my time between shopfront, a few libraries and a small room in a shed in my backyard trying to get some things down on paper. I’ve got a few larger abstract ideas and one or two tangible ones I’m trying to work with so far. I don’t want to disclose those ideas yet just to keep things a surprise if you happen to come to my show. What I will say is that I’ve been very very inspired by Virginia Wolfe and her ability to write the internal lives of her characters in such an engaging way that even mundane, upper class British life can seem riveting. So I guess I’m trying to tap into that and find ways to make my use of language interesting enough that exploring ordinary situations will still feel engaging. I’ve also been fighting my ongoing urge to turn everything into some kind of sci-fi or supernatural tale. We’ll see how that progresses over the next few weeks.

It has been really cool working on this project so far. It’s been a good opportunity to try and establish my writing process and develop some of that much needed discipline. Although I’ve still given in to plenty of time wasters so far, I feel like I’m slowly flushing out my desire to procrastinate 90% of the time. If I can get it down to 80-85% I’ll be super happy. The most useful thing so far has been scheduling time as though it’s rostered work hours and leaving the house and going somewhere else to write for that time period.

Today I also got to meet with Miles Merrill, who has agreed to be my ArtsLab mentor which is very exciting. It will be great having his guidance while trying to figure this thing out.

That’s all for now. More to come later. Until then, here’s something that will, hopefully, get you in the mood to hear more prose being read: Kurt Vonnegut reading from “Breakfast of Champions.”