You’ve Just Got to Laugh | Tipping Points at The Emerging Writers’ Festival 2017

In June this year I Skyped in to Melbourne from New York City to participate in a 24-hour playwriting event, which was part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Four writers, four actors a director and a producer were involved. The four writers had 12 hours to write a piece (given a brief at the start of the time) and then the actors and director had 12 hours to prepare them to be presented at a reading the following evening.

The theme, broadly speaking, was our changing climate. More specifically, we were given a “collective reality” with a series of facts about Australia in the year 2030.

The following is my piece:

A Response: Triumph | The New Working Group at fortyfivedownstairs

Part one.

When the lights come up—harsh florescent ones—the actors begin to set up some stools in a circle. They work in silence, arranging. Then there is a cry; a young girl has cut, or otherwise injured, her finger on the underside of a stool. A man—one who seems to be in charge—comes to her aide and holds her hand. He places pressure on it. He counts. There are others—two women, an older man—they go about their business, making tea over beside the snacks table and what have you. The counting continues: “sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three…” He stops and she walks away. He checks the underside of the stool, nothing. An accident? A miracle? Something else…?

Triumph, by Louris van de Geer, and produced by the New Working Group, is “inspired by real stories of fake victims”. This tag line sets the audience up immediately to expect deception and lies, fused with an undercurrent of truth — unless of course an audience member missed the advertising, which is entirely possible; although, considering the company included the line in their material we can assume they wanted people to know. And perhaps the notion of truth is superfluous (erroneous?) to level at a piece of theatre.

We’re introduced to these real story and fake victims via a support group: the chairs, snacks and councillor are here to help people discuss their trauma. They come together to speak. But we’re here watching, listening, silent. Are we going to hear their confessions, their secrets, and or shames? One can only hope so. We are voyeurs after all. One woman gets up and as she opens her mouth the stage darkens and two screens, suspended over the action, plays footage of the twin towers collapsing, September 11. She sits down. The rest of the circle is moved, affected, sharing in her grief. Only, we can’t help thinking, is she telling the truth?

A Community Challenge

Given the current political climate and the necessity of decentralising the main stages as the be all and end all of theatrical endeavours, I believe that it is essential for amateur theatres to engage more with new writing and utilise their existing infrastructure to support developing artists.

It’s safe to say that today’s politics leaves the arts in a fairly precarious position. In addition, the funding of such an industry is rarely deemed worthy of the national conversation, despite the number of people employed in the struggling sector exceeding 200,000 – a figure that disguises the reality, which is that there are also many, many unemployed people looking for work in the arts.