Writings belong of David Finnigan

Finnigan and Brother live on FBI Radio Sydney

Important news to begin with, then my own guff:

Ira Gamerman writes good things which you ought read.

First of all, American comrade-playwright Ira Gamerman has launched his own website, featuring a battery of information and background on his work. What you need to do is contact Ira to request a copy of his full-length SPLIT, which he brought to the World Interplay festival in Cairns last year. It’s one of my favourite playscripts of ever, and as far as I know it’s never been produced outside the US and don’t you see this is your chance? Also bug him for a copy of Dated: A Cautionary Tale for Facebook Users (because you’ve seen enough embarrassing attempts at exploring social networking in live performance, you may as well see it done right) and Play (by play by play by play by play by play by play), because it’s drawn from Samuel Beckett’s stunning Play and it features me as a lecherous douche. Well worthwhile.

Secondly, Melbourne comrade-playwrights Tobias Manderson-Galvin and Glyn Roberts have launched their own Writers Theatre. Based on the Royal Court Theatre in London and Griffin Theatre in Sydney, the MKA Richmond is intended to showcase the best emerging playwrights and scripts. The MKA launches this November with a month of back-to-back play readings, before kicking off its 2011 season with Vedrana Klepica’s JATO. To which I say: fuck yeah.

Jen Williams (right) and sisters in Illyria Productions’ Bronte. Image by Rosie Woodford.

Lastly, Sydney comrade-playwright Jen Williams and her company Illyria Productions opened their production of Bronte at the ATYP Theatre on the Wharf last week. Polly Teale’s script tells the tale of Emily, Charlotte and Anne Bronte, their lives and how they came to be such renowned literary figures in our culture, but really the show is an exploration of how many fucking fly things you can do when your set is made entirely out of books. It’s on until August 7 - go see go see go see.

Alright, now to the selfish me-related news.

thank you, Sydney heatwave that forced us to go shirtless and thereby look like a pair of horrible fratboys
about to pour beer on each other in a Hilltop Hoods moshpit

Finnigan and Brother, the duo of my brother Chris (guitar/FX) and my self (words/handheld radio) is presenting a live set on FBI Radio in Sydney this Sunday 1 August. We’re featuring on Sunday Night at the Movies, FBI’s ‘weekly journey into the nether regions of sound’ from 9-10pm, hosted by Brooke Olsen. We’re premiering a new work we’ve been devising entitled Solar System, as well as our re-enactment of the loveable Kings of Leon’s onstage meltdown at the Reading Festival last year. Bless them for their commitment to their craft, their devotion to one another and their endless ability to humiliate themselves for my amusement (see pigeons shitting in Jared’s mouth incident).

Solar System features abstract sound poetry (thank you Steve Reich’s Come Out), real-life science history (the story of how the moon came to orbit the earth, to be precise) and high-octane action sequences (punching stingrays and fly-kicking a swarm of bees), with just enough room left over to abuse Rage guest-programmers for their unimaginative music video selections. A brief sample to whet your appetite:

This is a prison-break story in which the earth tries to break free from the sun and run from the solar system into the dark. It starts the night that each of the planets gets a new guitar.

Venus says ‘I want to form a White Stripes covers band and play Seven Nation Army at every school assembly.‘

Mars says ‘I want the 12-string shaped like a crocodile so I can play planet blues.‘

The sun says ‘The Earth doesn’t get one.‘

The sun yells all the time: ‘Scrape me clean, Mercury! Venus, recite Springsteen lyrics to me! Mars, kidnap children from their parents at Disneyland!‘

Chris: ‘These photos mean that I can never run for prime minister.‘

We’ll be on-air from 9.10pm - 9.40pm EST. If you’re interested, tune in to 94.5 FM if you’re in Sydney, or stream the show via the internet if y’re not. If you’re curious about this whole Finnigan and Brother thing, you can read the whole story, listen to tunes and check out our videos here - do it.

True Logic of the Future reviews

The last two weeks were spent almost entirely in the Dance Studio of the Belconnen Arts Centre. In a 19th century study, in a computer, in a tent. Specifically, in the extraordinary set designed by Gillian Schwab for Boho’s True Logic of the Future.

image by ‘pling

Science-theatre ensemble Boho Interactive is the company I co-run (with fellow deviants Mick Bailey and Jack Lloyd), and True Logic is the show we have been developing for the last nine months, along with Gillian Schwab, director barb barnett and performer Cathy Petocz. For a good background on the play (and an awesome retrospective on the company), check out Na Milthorpe’s article in the July issue of Exhibitionist.

The Canberra season of the show finished last night, with a short break before we take it on tour to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney as part of the Ultimo Science Festival. It were an intense, exhausting and exhilarating week, with packed houses and audiences testing every aspect of the play’s interactive components, but the responses from punters have been really encouraging. Initial reviews have been grand, too - here are a smattering:

Cathy Petocz as Jen Howe. Image by ‘pling.

Trevar Chilvar, Australian Stage Online

Nothing pleases me more than to have my ideas of what constitutes good theatre challenged, and the talented and immensely clever cast and crew of True Logic of the Future have done just that. This is a creative and intricately constructed performance that presents many challenges for the reviewer, not least of which is the question of whether it should be reviewed at all.

The work is driven by the ideas of William Stanley Jevons, a nineteenth century philosopher whose work had substantial impact across a number of fields. While this is a potentially didactic and dry theme for a play, it is nonetheless a fascinating experiment when it is turned on its head to be about the audients’ capacity for rationality. And so rather than emotive elements like character and plot providing the work’s movement, this is provided by the audience’s interaction. The play insists that the audience, wherever they’ve come from, is capable not only of understanding Jevons’ ideas, but of constructing them. A far more interesting proposition than the story of a dead man’s life.

And far more interesting than the portrayal of dead man, the three onstage writer/performers; David Finnigan, Jack Lloyd and Cathy Petocz are simply remarkable. With a script that can change direction at a moment’s notice, depending on audience interaction, and clearly defined objectives, their professionalism is of the highest standard. They are likewise supported by musician Michael Bailey, without whose sense of the moment their performances would fall flat.

Some might argue that True Logic of the Future, as a production developed in conjunction with a museum, isn’t really theatre; but I think it rather challenges us to define what theatre really is. At the end of the day (or the performance), what really matters is the nature of the experience and how, as a member of an audience, you’ve related to it. True Logic of the Future takes ideas that are philosophically dense, and not only presents them in a narrative that’s easy to relate to, but also provides engaging experiences that illustrate their point. While this may not suit fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber, it is nonetheless the heart of theatre; it’s what keeps theatre alive.

As theatrical experiences go, this is among the most enjoyable I have ever had. The way in which the performers draw the audience into participation so effortlessly ignited a sense of playfulness and wonder most commonly associated with childhood, and while other experiences may impress with language, skill and profundity (as this one does), I simply found myself incredibly grateful for the awakening of my sense of wonder.

image by ‘pling.

Cris Kennedy, The Canberra Times

Locally-based video artist Jack Lloyd, musician Michael Bailey and writer David Finnigan work together as a collective, calling themselves Boho Interactive, and explore science through performance. Their 2007 work A Prisoner’s Dilemma looked at the science of game theory, while their 2009 installation Food for the Great Hungers was informed by complex systems science as it re-imagined 20th-century Australian history.

Their new show, True Logic of the Future, is the result of a residence at Belconnen Arts Centre and a partnership with the Powerhouse Museum. The Powerhouse has contributed a reproduction of the Logic Piano, something of a Jules Verne-era computer, designed and built by the great 19th-century thinker William Stanley Jevons, and through the narrative the Boho Team explore the life and scientific and economic theories of Jevons.

Before I enter the performance space, purpose-built in austere timber and calico by show designer Gillian Schwab, the usher warns of the interactive nature of the show, but reassures audiences participation isn’t mandatory. The set is a Victorian-era drawing room, complete with performer David Finnigan silently encouraging the crowd to search among the set to uncover key props whose relevance will become apparent during the show.

Finnigan is joined on stage by Cathy Petocz and Jack Lloyd, playing, respectively, journalist Jen Howe and statistician Alex Moore. The three characters come to realise they are avatars working within a computer environment, in reality the scanned consciousnesses of real citizens at some point in our not-to-distant future, and their role is to help calibrate the computer’s settings of a new Big Brother entity who will control government decision- making.

All of the backstory to Boho’s research for this show the work of Jevons, the plausibility of their future scenario constructs, the wonderful period reproductions by the Powerhouse gives you a richer experience as a viewer (or, if you get involved with the interactives, a participant). But you don’t really need to know any of this going in: the team don’t wear their intellectualism on their sleeves. Instead, under director Barb Barnett, they have simply produced a fine piece of drama that explores some of our bigger challenges as a society the loss of anonymity, of power, and control of our environment.

The actors are terrific, there are some nice little conceits possible in a sci-fi show, like the characters playing against their own inner monologues, and Michael Bailey sits obscured among the audience, pressing the buttons and pulling the switches like a soulful trombone-playing Wizard of Oz.

image by ‘pling.

In addition to these sanctioned efforts, there have been some insightful discussions of the play on various blogs. Check out Michael Sollis’ Island Universe, Tom Worthington’s Net Traveller and Ross Hamilton’s Wordsmiff.

Lastly, thanks to everyone that came to the show, for taking a risk on what is easily one of the weirdest performances I’ve ever been involved with. For anyone in Sydney this August, the season runs Saturday 21 - 28 (yes, opening on election day - the stars have totally aligned for us), Bookings through the Powerhouse Museum.

A parable for the Anthropocene: True Logic of the Future

Boho Interactive’s new interactive performance True Logic of the Future opens on July 13 at the Belconnen Arts Centre in Canberra.

‘Campbell’s Wharf’. Pictorialisation courtesy: Mr William Stanley Jevons (deceased)

Since September 2009, Boho (myself, Jack Lloyd and Mick Bailey) have been in residence at the Belconnen Arts Centre researching and devising this new work. True Logic combines narrative theatre, game-based interactive sequences and a live soundtrack of trombone / electronica into a taut science-fiction thriller.

The play takes place in the near future, in a city on the brink of collapse. Refugees fleeing rising sea levels and coastal floods fill the city, while drought is turning the farmland into desert and crops are failing. As the city’s infrastructure buckles under the strain of the added population, food, water and medicine are growing scarce. Demonstrations turn into protests, protests turn into riots, and the desperate population prepares for violence and looting.

Battling crisis after crisis, the government are losing their grip even as the city crumbles beneath them. In the face of mounting emergency, the city’s leaders propose a drastic solution to the city’s problems; a last-ditch alternative to disaster. But even while the government’s last-ditch plan provides an escape route from the city’s spiral into chaos, the cost of carrying it out is desperately high.

Finding themselves in a 19th century study laden with bizarre artifacts, three strangers - radical journalist Jen Howe (Cathy Petocz), idealistic bureaucrat Alex Moore (Jack Lloyd) and assayer Will Sands (David Finnigan) - are asked to help activate a computer program.

An illustration of the cloud chamber devised and constructed by Mr William Stanley Jevons

As Jen, Alex and Will grapple with Victorian-era scientific instruments such as the Logic Piano and the Cloud Chamber, they begin to unravel the mystery behind the strange glitches affecting their environment and their selves. Willingly and unwillingly, each character reveals secrets about their lives and provide glimpses of the city’s descent into chaos. As the significance of their task becomes clear, the trio are forced to make a desperate decision which will shape the future of their society.

What is your freedom worth? What would you sacrifice to be safe?

Boho is David Finig, Mick Bailey and Jack Lloyd. image by ‘pling.

Created in partnership with the Powerhouse Museum, and featuring director barb barnett, designer Gillian Schwab and performer Cathy Petocz, True Logic will premiere at the Belconnen Arts Centre from July 13-18 before touring to Sydney for a season at the Powerhouse Museum as part of the Ultimo Science Festival from August 21-28.

Visit bohointeractive.com for more information and booking details.

Omar Musa and World Creates Itself

So then, something from the distant dim horizons of 20,008. In that year, I was one of three ACT poets to make it to the grand finals of the Australian National Poetry Slam, along with Hadley and Omar Musa. Technically it should have been just Hadley and Omar representing, since each state was only supposed to send two competitors, but somehow in the second heat of the state finals, I managed to fluke my way into a tie with Omar.

my self. image by deye aus.

First of all, I performed my poem Who are you standing at the microphone talking to the people anyway? which I went on to perform at the finals in the Sydney Opera House - check out the video of that performance. Omar performed his poem Visions -

How can I tell my baby boy to learn Malay,
but when I call up my grandma, I have nothing to say?

By mad fortune, at the end of the night Omar and I were tying in first place. We had to each perform another poem as a tie-breaker. Omar performed his post-Cronulla-riots piece Open Your Eyes, which opens with a quote from Dr Dre’s post-LA-riots track The Day the Niggaz Took Over:

Sitting in my living room, calm and collected,
feeling mad, I’ve gotta get mine respected.

I didn’t have a second poem prepared, so I was scrambling madly through my notebooks for something that might work. Finally I tore two pages out of my book and stumbled up on stage already reading from them. My nervous performance, a high-speed summary of the Earth’s early years, somehow scored enough points for Omar and I to tie again - at which point the judges said fuck it, and sent us both to the Opera House.

what you can’t see in this image is the wreckage of the Opera House which Omar was laying to waste

At the finals, of course, Omar calmly and coolly blitzed the event, scoring first place and taking off to perform at the 2009 Ubud Writers Festival in Bali. It was an extraordinary performance by a blisteringly skilled artist, one of my favourite poets both written and live. Omar has spent the last eighteen months floating around the planet writing, recording and if I’m not mistaken, producing a new record - to be released on July 6 before he goes on tour supporting Gil Scott-Heron in Germany. Just… extraordinary.

Back on my own nostalgia trip: the tiebreaker poem which fluked me a spot in the Australian Finals was retrospectively titled World Creates Itself, and I have reproduced it below in all its informative glory. Dig!

world creates itself

All right then, let’s get to grips with the reality of time a-passing - time a-passing - time a-passing - and time’s a-passing -

First of all you have a sun - a star - somewhere in the outer fringes of the galaxy, spinning around in a wheel that turns once every 250,000 years - and round that star is spinning a great wheel of gas, dust, rock, ice and grit -

With your excellent eyes you can see it spinning, with your excellent eyes you can see it spinning -

Now all these specks of dust and ice and grit are whirling together at high speeds in great curves around the sun and ever so slowly, ever so gently, the force that is gravity draws two of them together - two particles flying alongside fly closer and closer until they stick together - and this is the inception of a planet - because now over many years that tiny ball of grit attracts other specks and spots to it, and all those little flecks of gas and rock swooping together around the sun begin to conglomerate -

- do you know that word - conglomerate? -

- into loose clusters of metal gas and rock - into a rough sphere -

First Jupiter, separating itself out of the whirling mess, then Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - and then much later, the high speed spittle flicking right around the sun - Mars, Earth, Venus, fucking Mercury -

So the Earth conglomerates - do you know what that means? - and the heavier fragments, the iron and the nickel, they sink right to the heart of it and the rock and the mud, that bulges around the outer edge, and the lighter stuff still - the gas and the H 2 O - floats around the shell in a huge cloud of vapour.

Oh the moon, you’re right, the moon! But not that I forgot, just that the moon hits… now.

A huge flying rock one third the size of the forming earth careens somewhere out of the solar system and slams into the earth, but right now there’s no surface, you know what I mean, there’s no crust, so it just bombs into this bubbling ball of molten magma and splashes -

- up sprays this spurt of splashed up lava into orbit which rolls up into a ball - that ball is the moon - so what you’ve got to remember is that the moon is not a meteor that came out of space - the meteor that came out of space went into the earth and the moon is the liquid rock that got splashed up out of its way -

You understand, of course, that this world doesn’t need someone like god to make it happen, and it doesn’t need you as the ghost in its fucking shell. The world creates itself, it is tough like that.

image from ‘Astro 1: Slides for Class 1‘

Sex scenes

Some thoughts inspired by the Street Theatre production of Underage House Party Play.

image by frosty

Through the rehearsal process, director Steve Barker, performer Matt Kelly and stage manager Natalia Thomas workshopped and fine-tuned the Underage House Party Play script. The result is a far more effective and well-structured play, with my stream of consciousness ramblings fitted to a tight theatrical frame. Unfortunately, the short rehearsal period and my working schedule meant that I was unable to attend or participate in these workshops. For that reason, when a scene or a set of lines didn’t work, I was not on hand to edit and redraft.

In almost every instance, Steve’s edits accorded exactly with my vision - he understood what I was trying to convey, and conveyed it better than I had. Only once did a script alteration jar with me, and the reasons for and against the change are I think interesting and worth discussing.

The scene in question is the sex scene: 4.30am at the house party, Manson Lane and Gwen Malkin are getting it on for the first time in their host’s bedroom. Lane briefly lost his erection while putting on a condom, but a few gentle strokes and he’s ready to go. This is the original version of the scene:

Gwen - Are you all right?
Lane - Yeah, I’m good, it’s - I just need a second -

Alright, partial success - now Lane goes in to penetrate, but he can’t find the entrance to Gwen’s vagina. This is something porn has not taught Lane - where exactly in the slit is the vaginal opening? And while Lane’s struggling, Gwen’s lying back feeling awkward, not wanting to take the lead but after feeling his dick push all the way from her clitoral hood down to her asshole, Gwen finally reaches down and takes hold.

Gwen - Hold on, hold on - there you are, push in now. Push. That’s right. Oh, ow - slower, slower, please stop -
Lane - Sorry, sorry, is that okay?
Gwen - That’s alright. You can go a bit deeper, just be slow.

Gwen’s clenching her teeth, tensing up against the foreign object intruding into her and flinching when it pushes in deeper. Lane’s concentrating so hard on figuring out how to move in Gwen’s he’s barely aware of the vagina clenching against his cock. Lane’s penis is used to the relaxed hands-on sensation of masturbation, and it responds to the intense, stressful situation by starting to go soft. Lane keeps carefully thrusting, but both of them can feel his cock shrinking inside Gwen.

Gwen - Are you okay? Am I doing something wrong?
Lane - Sorry, I’m losing it. Hang on a second.

Lane pulls out out of Gwen and crouches over his wang anxiously.

Lane - I’m sorry, I’m turned on, it’s just feels weird.
Gwen - Where’s the condom?
Lane - It’s… it’s come off.
Gwen - Where is it? It was on when you went into me. Is it on the bed?
Lane - It’s not on the bed. I think it must have come off when I was in you.
Gwen - Shit. Can you see it? Is it hanging out?
Lane - I can’t see it. Um, do you want me to reach in and get it?
Gwen - I’ll do it, it’s okay. Maybe - can you not look while I do this? Give me just a minute. Can you grab another condom?

That was the original text of the scene. This is the edited version:

Gwen - Are you all right?
Lane - Yeah, I’m good, it’s… I just need a second…

Alright, partial success. Now, something porn has not taught Lane is where exactly it goes. And while Lane’s struggling, Gwen’s lying back feeling awkward, not wanting to take the lead but after feeling his dick pushing everywhere but where it needs to go, Gwen finally reaches down and takes hold.

Lane – Aaaahhhh. It’s alright, I can go again.

Two changes were made from the original: 1. The description of Lane’s penis entering Gwen is much shorter and less explicit. 2. Instead of losing a condom during intercourse, Lane prematurely ejaculates.

Let me be clear - I’m not debating the director’s choice in making those changes, and I don’t dispute that they were necessary, at least for this production. The director’s explanation was that the language used in those lines is quite distinct from the other voices in the script. Fair enough, but I can’t help the feeling that future versions of that scene will look more like the original than the edit.

My reasoning is something along these lines: sex is incredibly complex. Getting it on with someone else is a physically, mentally and emotionally challenging activity, and the consequences of sex bleed out to almost every other part of our lives. (It’s also heaps of fun.) I strongly feel that the public discourse around sex should be far more intelligent, informed and yes, explicit. If you’re a curious young person (or curious any person) who wants to learn about sex, you need to sift through a mountain of disinformation intended to promote certain political/religious agendas, and another mountain of unpleasant, misogynistic portrayals of sex provided by exploitative commercial pornography. Even if you knew which sources were bullshit and could easily ignore them, accessing informed and intelligent opinions about sex is needle in haystick-like.

(As an important aside, I can’t talk about informed and intelligent opinions about sex without mentioning Scarleteen, the sex education website which has provided me with inspiration, solid facts and a really mature outlook on a whole range of sex, youth and related issues.)

Go visit Scarleteen. Seriously.

I’m not a sex educator, nor am I claiming to have any particular informed insight into topics around sex, but I can talk from my own experience (direct experience, and the knowledge I’ve picked up like we all pick up through living in the world); and when I do, I want to speak as plainly and clearly as I can.

Of course the scene quoted above is awkward and cringe-worthy, which was completely my intention in writing it. A lot of the comedy in Underage House Party Play is derived from the characters’ embarrassment at their situation. In the original text, the action moves away from Gwen and Lane’s condom predicament for several minutes, then concludes with the following lines:

Just after 5am. For the last few minutes, Gwen Malkin has been lying under the cover of Mott’s bed with one hand groping in her vajay. There’s something undefinably creepy about having a little plastic sock floating freely inside you. Gwen was happy to slide it into her vagina when it was attached to Lane’s penis, but now Lane’s gone it’s like there’s an alien object loose in her guts. When at last the tips of her fingers brush latex, Gwen stops for a second. She takes her time, carefully grips it between her fingers and draws it out. Long, long sigh of relief. Then the distant sound of glass shattering.

I think that this scene is awkward, cringeworthy - and yet hopefully at the same time, funny. I know that this kind of material is offensive to a certain demographic, and that’s not something I’m pleased about - I’m not setting out to offend - but as long as people are offended by the mere mention of penetrative sex, I’m afraid offensive is unavoidable. What I don’t want to do is be insensitive or insulting in my portrayal of these  situations, either by being crass and stupid for easy laughs, or by speaking on behalf of people whose experiences I have no insight into without proper consultation.

For example: for me to write a scene from the perspective of a girl trying to extricate a condom from her vagina is fraught, because I’ve never had that happen to me. I might completely misrepresent the experience, or I might say something which people who’ve had that experience find offensive. The solution (I think) is not to avoid writing from those other perspectives, but to research and consult with relevant people before writing. Also: to be ready at any time to listen if someone whose perspective I’m purporting to write from is upset or offended by my depiction of their experiences, willing to cop to any errors in judgment and to make amends where possible.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to apologise and make changes whenever anyone dislikes or is appalled by the content or language in my playscripts. If a man tells me that a particular line of dialogue from a female character is offensive to women, I will smile politely and completely ignore them. If a woman tells me the same thing, I will acknowledge their more in-depth knowledge of what offends women and talk it out with them.

are you a lady? what do you reckon?

In this instance: I am here and now laying this out for your thoughts and opinions. A large part of the sex scene in Underage House Party Play is from the perspective of teenage girls, and before I do any more editing I would be grateful for your input if you are or ever have been a teenage girl. I have the following questions:

1. Have you ever lost a condom during intercourse? If so, what was that like for you?
2. Did the sex scene seem realistic? Did it resonate with experiences you’ve had personally, or was it completely alien?
3. Do you find the language in the scene offensive? Why/why not?

Email me at blind_dragonfly at uymail dot com and I will be one thousand times grateful. Much love!

Declan Greene ‘Moth’, Hadley ‘Misery at Pumper House’

The important news of the week is not what I did but what I read: specifically, Declan Greene’s Moth and Hadley’s MISERY AT PUMPER HOUSE.

Declan Greene and Ash Flanders are Sisters Grimm. image by Claryssa Humenyj-Jameson.

Declan Greene is one half of faggot theatre duo Sisters Grimm and an accomplished writer in Melbourne’s trash theatre scene. I met Declan in 2009 at the World Interplay Festival in Cairns, where we shared a room in renowned backpacker’s hostel GILLIGANS. I managed to scam a copy of Declan’s blistering epic POMPEII LA, reviewed elsewhere on this site.

This year, Sisters Grimm will headline the performance showcase at the Crack Theatre Festival in Newcastle with their new show The Rimming Club (so new it won’t get written until 24 hours before the performance). They have also been hard at work creating the action-packed claymation saga Gingo, featuring adorable orange blob Gingo and his friend the purple blob. And on top of this, Arena Theatre and the Malthouse Theatre Company recently produced Declan’s script Moth.

Gingo the orange blob and his mother, the larger orange blob in an apron.

Other reviewers (such as Alison Croggan, whose back catalogue of reviews provides a good overview of Declan’s CV if yr interested) are better qualified than me to comment on the Malthouse/Arena production, because they saw it and I didn’t. I just want to talk about the script, which is fucking great. Moth’s plot is nothing out of the ordinary - teenage outcasts Sebastian and Claryssa find comfort in their friendship while Sebastian deals with mental health issues - but you can more or less forget the plot and just get washed away on the dazzling dialogue. I have no idea how teenagers actually talk, but every bone in my body is telling me Declan’s captured it.

CLARYSSA: Can you do me a favour and not talk to anyone tonight.”
SEBASTIAN: “Oh yeah. Cos emos are so cool.”
CLARYSSA: “They’re not emos. They’re Wiccans, fuckhead.”
SEBASTIAN: “‘‘Hey everyone! Lets get high and pretend to be witches.”
CLARYSSA: “I am a witch, fuckhead.”
SEBASTIAN: “‘Lets listen to Marilyn Manson and touch each other’s boobies!’”
CLARYSSA: “You know what? Fuck you. You’re banned from the coven.”
SEBASTIAN: “You don’t have that power.”

teenagers should how Declan wants them to talk.

In the last third of the play, as both characters begin to unravel, Declan’s language shifts into a kind of weird lyricism. Sebastian’s moth-inspired visions  J.G. Ballard at his most apocalyptic, mediated through the scorched noise assaults of Burned Mind-era Wolf Eyes. I’m not going to quote any specific lines because I don’t want them to lose their impact out of context. Instead, let me quote a different highlight: the exchange between Claryssa and her art teacher.

SEBASTIAN: “Blood. And wasn’t the assignment, Claryssa − wasn’t the actual assignment to
draw someone else in the class?”
CLARYSSA: “No-one in this class deserves to be drawn by me!”
SEBASTIAN: “Well maybe you’d like to draw the inside of Ms. Muir’s office!”
CLARYSSA: “MAYBE YOU’D LIKE TO DRAW THE INSIDE OF MY ASS.”

THAT’S FUCKING RIGHT. So anyway, I read Moth at 2.30am and when I fell asleep, I dreamed that Declan met me on a deserted field one morning before dawn, and showed me where to stand so that the sun when it rose would pass through me without illuminating me.

I’ve never seen Hadley in any other pose with any other expression.

The other extraordinary script of the week was Hadley’s MISERY AT PUMPER HOUSE, which is even more extraordinary seeing as it’s not a script, it’s a collection of notes and ideas about a potential future script. Set in the stately manor of the Pumper family, MISERY follows what happens when Monsieur Pumper’s boss, Mr Smash, comes over for dinner.

Almost, except instead of being that script, MISERY is five paragraphs of narrative, character exposition and staging notes, hammered out in a bizarre mess that is somehow still both evocative and theatrical. Here’s the opening three sentences:

Opening, Dippy is working on her latest experiment, attempting to use science to reanimate her recently murdered cat, Josef Stalin. Her father bursts in from a rain storm, she hides it beneath a dinner plate lid on the table. Poto is in a state because his boss, Mr Smash, is coming over for dinner, and he has to impress him for a raise.

Is that not theatre?

Mr Smash is coming over for dinner.

So part of me thinks that these paragraphs represent a set of instructions/stimuli that an ensemble could translate into a stellar live performance. Another part of me thinks that the paragraphs are perfect and they should just be read, as is. No actor is going to be able to improve on / make sense of the beguiling poetry at the heart of lines like:

Sedentary floats in, fresh from a session with her psychic advisor, Mr Glass, who has instructed her that soon the alien armada will be ready to be birthed in her flesh pod and fly back to their home planet. Poto hopes that Suds has been practicing his violin. VEEYOLARN.

Anyway, midway through outlining his plans for the Pumper House script, Hadley decides that MISERY is merely one episode of a series of four chilling gripping tales of terror. The audience might come to all four, or just attend one or two out of the selection. Alongside MISERY AT PUMPER HOUSE, the others are:

The Creature of Dick Hell Park - Paranormal investigators Loach and Thistlethwaite solve the mysterious goings on in Dick Hell Park without even leaving the office.

Young Lovers - young lovers separated by some sort of evil Spanish dictator hatch a plan to escape him, by faking their own deaths. they hide their bodies, their love, for a thousand years, where they will be reunited?

Swine, Swine, Swine - a famous young dental surgeon commits his elderly mother to a horrible, run down mental asylum as he must work all the time to look after her.

I want this duo on the case of the Creature of Dick Hell Park

Such scenarios are, to my way of thinking, elegant signposts that point you towards excitement without holding your hand the entire way. The whole MISERY AT PUMPER HOUSE project has the feeling of capturing the writer’s mental state at the moment of invention. This is Hadley’s creativity, freeze-dried and available for $0.71/packet, just above the soy sauce on aisle 8. Stock up while you can.*

*what am I even talking about

underage house party play

Matt Kelly in Underage House Party Play

This week is the Street Theatre’s production of my script Underage House Party Play. Directed by Green Room Award-winner Stephen Barker, featuring performer Matt Kelly and with lighting design by Gillian Schwab, Underage House Party Play runs from Thursday 3 - Sunday 6 June.

I was commissioned last year by the Street Theatre to create a one-act script which could be double-billed with Angela Betzien’s Hoods. The double-bill did not take place, and instead UHPP is being presented as a stand-alone work as part of Solo at the Street, the Street Theatre’s 2010 season of single-performer works.

The original image for Underage House Party Play was a workshop in which the performer taught the audience how to use basic household ingredients to construct a water-pipe, or bong. I was thinking of a series of exercises isolating each part of the process, from using a lighter to burn a hole in a plastic bottle to sawing up lengths of garden hose. In the end, I imagined the audience would be led out to an underpass or a quiet carpark to repeat the whole process in the dark. Maybe an exhibition space outside the venue showing the most successful and elegant examples of the form. A well-crafted bong pleases me aesthetically in a lot of ways, and I think that the artform deserves greater recognition. The most best bong-makers I’ve ever known were dedicated pot smokers in their late teens, and their most extraordinary works are usually created under difficult circumstances in a dark underpass or the back seat of a car.

we put pottery in art galleries, so why not?

As I began to draft text for this bong celebration, I found myself distracted by other forms of teenage creativity: constructing fake IDs, formulating new drinking games, developing unique makeout styles, inventing ways to hurt each other and causing exciting new kinds of property damage. I began to gather an assortment of teenage characters, with the intention of subjecting each of them to a series of traumatic experiences. Finally, I decided to house these characters under one roof and compact their journeys into the space of one messy teenage party.

The result is a 40 minute play in which performer Matt Kelly takes on the role of all five characters, including having deep and meaningful chats with himself:

Mott - Hey Anna, are you friends with Gwen?
Anna - Yeah, a bit. Why?
Mott - I kind of like her.
Anna - Really? No way, I didn’t know that.
Mott - I like her teeth jewellery. You know how she has these two gaps in her top row of teeth, and she’s got these little chains hanging down where her teeth should be?
Anna - I think that’s to help her teeth grow. Like, two of her teeth didn’t grow down into her mouth, so the dentist put these little chains to weigh them down.
Mott - I think they’re kind of hot.
Anna - You know she’s had ecstacy? Her ex-boyfriend took her to a party and she had a pill.
Mott - That’s so stupid. Why would you take something that destroys you?
Anna - I know, it’s just like, It could have killed her.

Jesus is still alright was the hit single from DC Talk’s groundbreaking 1992 record Free At Last.

Also, and it’s no exaggeration to say I’m extremely fucking excited about this, the production includes a dancefloor sequence to the joyous raver beats of Christian hiphop outfit DC Talk’s 1992 hit Jesus is still alright. Click on that link. Watch that video. Shake your head in bewilderment. Allow a smile to creep across your face. Yes? Oh yes.

Underage House Party Play is on Thursday 3 - Saturday 5 June at 8pm, and Sunday 6 June at 4pm. Go here for more info and booking details.

Boy President 4. Boy President saves Christmas

In 2006, we tried to get banned from the National Multicultural Fringe Festival by presenting four episodes of The Adventures of Boy President. Shown over four nights of the Fringe, each episode was a half-hour highlight from the first series of the hit TV series about the first ever boy to become president of the United States of America.

like this, but a boy.

Described by writer/director David Finig as “gritty, raw and stylish” and “a disturbing and high-impact expose of US politics”, Boy President was described by everyone else as “trash” and “violent, rambling idiocy”. Produced by King Of Boy President Nickamc, each episode included special DVD commentary from the show’s director Hadley (played by Hadley) and the actor who played Boy President in the original TV series, former child actor Chris Finnigan (played by Jack Lloyd).

4. Boy President saves Christmas

A lot of television shows have trouble pulling off the climactic end of season finales demanded by their audiences. Not so The Adventures of Boy President – in an innovative masterstroke, the show’s director made the brilliant decision that the series would conclude with A CLIPSHOW!

GODDAMMIT A CLIPSHOW   image by frosty.

What does this mean, in stage terms? Well, there was no script for this performance, but if I recall it correctly, the entire cast re-enacted key highlights from the previous three episodes: the battle between Boy President’s Immune System and the Anthrax Virus – Ricochet Jensen’s film adaptation of Boy President’s election night debate with the Two-Headed Arab – Boy President’s body being hijacked by the Magical Pimp while he was sexing Rusty Centre – and all these scenes enhanced by the inclusion of DVD COMMENTARY

provided live by the director of the TV series and the actor who played Boy President. 15 years on, they look back on their work and discuss how these scenes were created, they share tidbits about the talented cast and crew, and they reflect on their lives since The Adventures of Boy President was cancelled by the network. Since his big break at age 9 with the role of Boy President, actor Jack Lloyd divides his time between film appearances, including a recent John Leguizamo vehicle in which Leguizamo is an undercover cop who infiltrates a gang of bikies, and travelling around Los Angeles following the endless party circuit, living in strangers’ houses for days at a time until they force him to leave.

any of these John Leguizamo hangers-on could be Boy President.

Which is, after all, isn’t it, the true meaning of christmas?

See other episodes of The Adventures of Boy President.

Boy President 3. The Magical Pimp

In 2006, we tried to get banned from the National Multicultural Fringe Festival by presenting four episodes of The Adventures of Boy President. Shown over four nights of the Fringe, each episode was a half-hour highlight from the first series of the hit TV series about the first ever boy to become president of the United States of America.

like this, but a boy.

Described by writer/director David Finig as “gritty, raw and stylish” and “a disturbing and high-impact expose of US politics”, Boy President was described by everyone else as “trash” and “violent, rambling idiocy”. Produced by King Of Boy President Nickamc, each episode included special DVD commentary from the show’s director Hadley (played by Hadley) and the actor who played Boy President in the original TV series, former child actor Chris Finnigan (played by Jack Lloyd).

3. Boy President and the Magical Pimp

Like the Arabian Caliphs of old, Boy President sometimes disguises himself and walks amongst the common people of the USA, partly so that he can learn the truth about the American peoples’ fears and hopes, but mostly to carry out his election promise of harming beatniks.

Like the Caliphs of old, Boy President walks the crowded marketplaces of his city and harms beatniks.

One after another, the men and women that Boy President encounters express their hatred and disgust for their country’s ruler. One after another, the Chaos Marines beat these miserable backsliders into a sidewalk-shaped pulp. But while the people speak of Boy President in the tone of voice that you take when you are swallowing a mouthful of burning gravel, there is another name spoken in a different way – a name pronounced with love and respect. All across America, the people are chanting ‘pimp – pimp – pimp – magical pimp –‘

Usurper: They say this is the lair of the famed Magical Pimp.

Boy: I’m not scared by a damn pimp.

Standard: They say she can breathe fire. And electricity.

Boy: There’s no such thing as electricity. Or fire.

I am a Magical Pimp.

And when the Magical Pimp emerges, she is nothing but politeness to Boy President and his servitors. Indeed, she offers the young Emperor a free rut with skilled courtesan and yo-yo champion Rusty Centre! How can any 10 year old resist? Boy President and Rusty Centre clasp hands and

Boy: We’re sexing! We’re sexing!

We’re sexing! We’re sexing!

But as soon as they finish sexing, Boy President seems strangely subdued. When he offers the Magical Pimp a cabinet position as his new chief advisor and commands that Rusty Centre be hurled into the poison-pits, Voice of Reason suspects something suspicious has taken place. As the Chaos Marines rough her up and kick her out into the street, Rusty Centre howls in rage that she is Boy President, and that the whore has taken her body! Voice of Reason straightaway realises what has happened, and damned if Voice of Reason is going to stand by while the Magical Pimp’s creature takes power in the country – there must be a battle!

In an earlier episode, Boy President deliberately infected the Voice of Reason with anthrax.

After a brutal showdown, Voice of Reason finally slays the Magical Pimp, and grabs the arm of the person who is in Boy President’s body.

Reason: Now, you little scratch. You’re not really Boy President, are you?

Boy: Please don’t kill me! I’ll do anything.

Reason: All right, here’s how it goes. When I suggest something, that’s what you do. If I hear that you’ve made a decision on your own, I’ll reveal you and the wolves can feast on you. Understand?

Boy: Yes.

Usurper: Voice of Reason – this broad wants a word with you.

Rusty: Voice of Reason, you’ve saved me from the Magical Pimp! Thank you so much.

Reason: You’re welcome.

Rusty: Now we just need to find a way to switch me back into the body of Boy President.

Reason: And why would we want that?

Rusty: Because… I’m the President. I’m Boy President.

Reason: So you are. Boy President, there’s something I’ve always wanted to say to you.

Rusty: Say it.

Voice of Reason punches Rusty in the face and sends her reeling.

Reason: Chaos Marines. Drag this tart out into the trash and stomp on her.

Standard: Tart-stomping ahoy!

Trumpeter: I like the pretty lights!

I like the pretty lights!

And with those joyous words, another of Boy President’s exciting adventures comes to a triumphant end! Where can the series go from a high watermark like this? From strength to strength, presumably – tune in to the season finale episode: Boy President Saves Christmas!

Download Boy President 3: The Magical Pimp.doc

See other episodes of The Adventures of Boy President.

Boy President 2. The Movie of Boy President

In 2006, we tried to get banned from the National Multicultural Fringe Festival by presenting four episodes of The Adventures of Boy President. Shown over four nights of the Fringe, each episode was a half-hour highlight from the first serious of the (sadly fictional) hit TV series about the first ever boy to become president of the United States of America.

like this, but a boy.

Described by writer/director David Finig as “gritty, raw and stylish” and “a disturbing and high-impact expose of US politics”, Boy President was described by everyone else as “trash” and “violent, rambling idiocy”. Produced by King Of Boy President Nickamc, each episode included special DVD commentary from the show’s director Hadley (played by Hadley) and the actor who played Boy President in the original TV series, former child actor Chris Finnigan (played by Jack Lloyd).

2. The Movie of Boy President

Walking at high speed in between the tables and down the corridors of power are four of the most powerful people in the United States: Boy President’s right-hand man Cardinal Usurper (Joel Barcham), poison-taster The Voice of Reason (Alison McGregor), and the Standard Bearer and Trumpeter for the Imperial Chaos Marines (David Shaw and Mick Bailey). They are, naturally enough, concerned about a political crisis. Without going into too much detail, there has been a small kerfuffle with the Minister of Education diverting a sizeable percentage (say more than 40%) of the US’ education budget towards the purchase of LOTS OF SMACK. Johnny Free Press and Susan Informed Voter are going to want an explanation. What will Boy President do?

Rogue filmmaker Ricochet Jensen works for a little thing called The Truth!

The answer: Boy President doesn’t care about the political crisis, and he has invited rogue film-maker Ricochet Jensen (Robbie Matthews) to the White House to make a movie of Boy President! The motion picture of the summer! And who will be playing the part of Boy President? Why, none other than the United States’ most famous actor, explorer, shot putter and sniper: Richie Rich!

Actor, explorer, shot-putter, sniper, heart-throb. Richie Rich.

(Word to the wise: Richie Rich (Sam Burns-Warr) and Boy President have not seen each other since Primary School Prom, where their famed dance-off became a thing of legend.)

But to the film! Ricochet is shooting the climax of the film, the highlight of Boy President’s rise to fame – his election night debate with his opponent, the Two-Headed Arab (Jarrod Emmanuel). Boy President and his staff watch closely as Ricochet Jensen, Richie Rich and the Two-Headed Arab recreate the debate which secured Boy President his throne. And yet something is not right. In this re-enactment, Boy President appears to be a bigoted lunatic, far from the rational and fair-minded leader we know and love. Clearly it is a stitch up, an attempt to defame Boy President’s good name.

Is it possible that the Two-Headed Arab is more lucid and reasonable than our beloved Boy President?

Boy: This is not what happened. I remember different things than these things!

Ricochet: What’s the matter, Boy President? A little too close for comfort?

Boy: I thought you weren’t going to put this bit in, Ricochet.

Ricochet: Sorry, Boy President. I work for a little thing called THE TRUTH.

Boy: Is that so? Well I work for a little thing called I’M GOING TO SLAY YOU! DIE!

Alas, Boy President’s minions are next to worthless in this battle. Each of them is guilty of a mountain of crimes (mostly war crimes), and stand to face trial in international courts for war crimes and human rights violations – they scurry and flee the incriminating eye of Ricochet’s camera! The battle comes down, as we always knew it would, to Boy President and Richie Rich. A dance-off. Just like Primary School Prom.

Cue the Avalanches’ Rock City, from their El Producto EP.

Swimming pools, Brian Jones, Rolling Stones-ah! That’s Rock City!

After a mere 100 seconds of dancing, the gentleman playing the Two-Headed Arab intervenes. With a single wave of his arm, he stills the chaos around him. It is no actor – this is the true Two-Headed Arab! This is the man who won the election in a landslide, and then abdicated in favour of his opponent because, as he puts it: ‘America deserves you, Boy President. America deserves you.’

A sobering thought. All that remains is for Boy President to solve the political crisis from the beginning of the episode (which he does skilfully and imaginatively) and we are back where we started, ready for next time!

Download Boy President 2: The Movie of Boy President.doc

See other episodes of The Adventures of Boy President.