Week 50/2024: Acting and art

Week of 9 December 2024

This was a much better week than the last two weeks have been. My sore back has settled, and I saw some wonderful art and some amazing theatre.

Oh yeah, and I was in a play.

Acting and art

Uncensored

I must start with the best part of the week!

Last year I started acting classes, after not having done any drama since year 12 (last century . . . ). I did a year of classes with a very small group, performing in Hobart’s one-act play festival (OneFest) and the drama school’s end of year showcase.

This year due to a lack of numbers, the class didn’t go ahead and I was unsure about what to do. I wanted to keep acting. I had actors all around me, both at home and in my weekly Alexander Technique classes, and I was working on improving my voice projection and clarity—the very reasons I was advised to take acting classes in the first place.

But I waited around, uncertain.

Finally, just before term three this year, one of my acting classmates said they were going to join a new class, and that was enough to motivate me to sign up too.

I was a little nervous about starting over and meeting new people, and it was a very different experience to my previous class. It was a much bigger class for a start, but everyone was very welcoming and didn’t take long for me to settle in.

Term 3 was a lot of fun, learning new techniques and playing games.

Term 4’s play

In term 4, we stated work on a play for the acting school’s end-of-year showcase. This was exciting and extremely challenging.

The play was Uncensored by Andrew Bovell, who I knew as the writer of the movie Lantana (which Paul Kelly did the soundtrack for). As I understand it, this is one of five plays set in and around trains and train stations, which can be performed as stand-alone pieces or can be stitched together to form a larger body of work called Anthem. (This is an overview.)

It was unlike plays I’ve been in previously, in that most of the lines are delivered not by individual characters but as random thoughts said out loud: people are thinking or describing what’s going on around them on the train or outside.

And so they were on their phones
And some were just staring
Out the window
At the passing suburbs, I suppose
At the houses
And the streets
And the people
Just staring really

The play is an exploration of issues like racism and classism, as seen through the eyes of everyday commuters who really don’t like being packed into a train on their way to and from work.

The only named characters are the three people in a scene that centres on a struggling young mother trying to return her son to his father. She is “clearly not okay” when she gets involved in a conflict with a ticket inspector. Apart from the three characters telling the story in this scene, the lines are designated ‘chorus’, so any one of the passengers on the train could say any of the lines.

Over the course of the term, we allocated lines to passengers on the train, and our teacher, Andrew, invited us to build a character based on the lines we had. Background, type of person, why they were on the train . . . that kind of thing. I’d settled on a character that I thought would be fun to explore, when, due to someone else’s circumstances changing, I got reassigned to one of the three characters in the conflict scene. I was to be ‘the other mother’, which brought to mind . . .

The book Coraline is sitting on top of a play script with the lines from a character called The Other Mother highlighted
Coraline!

And, as my character was reading a book in the first scene, it made sense that this would be the book.

Rehearsals

We had ten weeks to put the play together and I really struggled with the ‘chorus’ lines. I’d never done a play like this, and having to say lines that weren’t in direct response to other lines as part of a conversation was particularly challenging. My brain didn’t help by telling me I didn’t need to know the lines yet, I still had four weeks left. Three weeks. Two weeks. One week . . . three days . . . ohhhh shit!

I’d been practising the other mother’s scene in my Alexander Technique classes each week, getting my sense of character and place, breathing, and trying to be present with the child I was talking to—who wasn’t actually there. Those lines were a lot easier to learn than the chorus lines, and I really appreciated the opportunity to practice them in front of a supportive audience.

Performance

We had a rehearsal in the theatre the week before the performance, and a final class two days before. I was a little worried about how it was all going to turn out but Andrew was chill about it and he told us to just go there out and have fun.

And we did, and it was fantastic!

I am so proud of myself, and so happy for my classmates for all of our performances. It felt wonderful.

Huge thanks to Andrew for his brilliant classes over the year and to my amazing classmates who welcomed me into the class in term 3. Andrew and his team did a magnificent job putting the end of year show on. There were eleven (I think) performances over the weekend, and the ones I saw were great. I feel super inspired to go back to class next year and learn more.

I also have to thank Penny and Jacob for working with me in our Alexander group class and helping me feel grounded and present during the show, and to my fellow class attendees for their support.

On Cue

The play wasn’t the only acting I experienced this week. It was the end of year performances for Kramstable’s drama class too, and this was particularly poignant because it was his final performance with his drama school after 13 years.

I’ve already reflected on Kramstable finishing school, and this was another final moment for him.

I went to see his show twice. Once on Saturday and again for his last show on Sunday. He received his 13-year achievement award, and I’m sure I had something in my eye when his teacher presented him with his trophy.

I’m grateful for all the opportunities Kramstable has had during his 13 years of drama, and I thank everyone who has supported him over this time, especially his teachers Belinda, Chris and Heather. I hope he continues with acting in some form as he moves into the next stage of his life.

The Fan

Rounding off the eight plays I saw this weekend (four with Kramstable’s drama performances, three from my acting school and this one) was The Fan, by PLoT Theatre.

A light blue tile with the words "THE FAN" in yellow text. The image features an electric fan standing within piles of garbage bags
The Fan

This was a play written by Joshua Scott and featured two actors who had been in Twelve Angry Jurors earlier this year, Benedicta McGeown and Laura White.

What can I say about this? It was amazing!

We are in a theatre with rows of red seats. A hand is holding an A4 sheet of paper that is describing the play that is about to start
Waiting for the play to start

I absolutely loved it and I think it was my favourite piece of theatre I’ve seen this year (excluding those featuring family members, of course . . . ). It was a Saturday matinee (I LOVE Saturday matinees, all shows should have them). The audience was very small, which felt odd but also a bit more intimate. But without any cues from the rest of the audience, I didn’t know whether to laugh at some points or whether it was deep tragedy. I felt bad laughing . . . yet it was funny.

And let’s not talk about the cats.

But, wow!

The performers were brilliant, the story compelling, the whole production was superbly staged, the costumes were magnificent, and I loved it.

Combined with seeing the performances from the other classes at the acting school, this has left me so inspired to continue with acting next year. I can’t wait!

Art

I wrote so much about acting I’ve run out of time to talk about art.

But I saw a lot of it this week too.

Salamanca Arts Centre

Tasmanian University Student Association (TUSA) Painting Society exhibition at the Long Gallery.

A mixed collage of different shapes and size in predominantly blue and orange
Mark Buckland: Rough Edges

Magie Khameneh: “Rebel”. “She stares into the eyes of life, and sees the dancing colours of a peacock. A spark of courage tears apart the casting guilt.”

A digital painting featuing a close up of the right side of a girl's face. Her eye is brown, as is her hair There is a blue peacock leaning into her
Magie Khameneh: Rebel (Jasmine in Her Hair exhibition)

Land Bridge by Peta Cross. “An enquiry into The Bassian Plain or isthmus that is now submerged between Southern Victoria, (Cape Otway to Wilsons Promontory) and Northern Tasmania (Mussleroe Bay to Cape Grim).”

An image of a seascape oil painting to promote an exhibition called Land Bridge by Peta Cross
Land Bridge by Peta Cross

Work at the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery that caught my eye

Memories through sea stories by Rex Greeno. This is “a collection of drawings that feature life on and by the sea, Rex’s passion for traditional watercraft, and the sharing of Ancestral knowledge and skills passed through generations”.

A painting of Aboriginal people gathering eggs from a nest that is surrounded by grass. There is a blue sky
Rex Greeno: Gathering swan eggs

Neil Haddon: “We will bring our own views (and our own plans)”, a collaboration with architect Leigh Woolley. This piece was part of a bigger exhibition called Disappearing, shown in the Bett Gallery a few years ago.

A collaged landscape
Neil Haddon: We will bring our own views (and our own plans)

Pat Brassington: Cambridge Road. “A house in Hobart’s suburban fringe has been almost completely stripped of personal belongings, suggesting a deceased estate or a crime scene. In the absence of the previous occupant, strange presences emerge in the form of shadows, flares, masked figures, and toys.”

A series of framed photos of abandoned rooms on white wall
Pat Brassington: Cambridge Road

And finally, on Sunday evening, The Temporality of Being by Andy Hatton.

a light beam shines across an image of a house surrounded by trees and shrubs
Andy Hatton from the Temporality of Being

You can read about this image and Moonrise on the River on my photoblog here.

Week 50 summary

Habit tracker

I was still getting over the injury I sustained a couple of weeks ago and wasn’t very committed to my exercise program this week.

I went to the physio on Wednesday and he told me it’s better to make a small effort to do the exercise than stop altogether. Go the place, get out the equipment, whatever, even just one rep, to reinforce to my brain that I do this thing.

I know he’s right. I will do better next week!

  • 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
  • Hip exercises (5 days): 3/5
  • Go outside before 8 am (7 days): 7/7
  • 2 walks or bike rides or a combination (6 days): 4/6
  • Long walk (1 day): 0/1
  • Walk 8,000 steps (7 days): 7/7
  • Evening exercise sequence (7 days): 5/7
  • 9.00 shutdown (3 days): 3/3

What was the best thing about this week?

There were so many wonderful moments this week. But being in the play has to be it!

What did I notice this week?

Many things, but the favourite thing I noticed is when I was riding into town and I saw some baby native hens (aka turbochooks). I only recall ever having seen babies once before.

A fluffy small brown bird on some green grass. Another baby bird is in the background
Baby turbochooks!

They were so cute!

What did I learn this week?

There is a little switch on my work laptop camera that you can flick over the camera lens to close it over, and if that’s half-way across the lens when you’re on a Zoom call, it makes you look like you’re a crescent moon or something.

I also learned about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

What am I reading?

  • Your Time Your Way by Carl Pullein
  • The script of my play for my acting class (Uncensored by Andrew Bovell)
  • Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year by Allie Esiri.
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