My issue with MTC's The Crucible

Depending on who you ask, MTC’s production of The Crucible sits somewhere between a sensitive and faithful interpretation of Miller's masterpiece and an excruciating poo.

It has been accused of depoliticising Miller’s text and likened to a staged reading. There’s even been a review of a review of the show.

But none of these commentators has identified my particular issue with this production: the depiction of Abigail, the 17-year old girl who starts the whole witch-trial cauldron bubbling.

High School students have been chewing pens over whether Abigail is villain or victim for decades, so I find it devastatingly disheartening that at a time when awareness of the ongoing vilification of women online and in real life is reaching a new tipping point, a mainstage production with the capacity to expose upwards of 15,000 people to this classic text has chosen the path of least consideration and settled on Abigail as bad-girl.

Let me explain.

Abigail Williams, as written by Miller, is a girl living in puritanical Massachusetts with her uncle after watching her parents get bludgeoned to death in their bed. She gets a job working for a family as a maid but sleeps with the man of the house and loses her job when his wife finds out. Problem is, she’s fallen in love with this man and now he wants nothing to do with her. Cue hysterical finger-pointing and contagious chaos.

Now look, you can talk about feminine wiles and manipulation all you like but a married man in his thirties who has sex with an unmarried 17-year old in the British Colonies of 1692 has a pretty good idea of the kind of future he’s sentencing her to.

And while I’m not saying that an interpretation of Abigail as vengeful accuser and villain isn’t plausible, there is certainly room for a much more considered, compassionate and socially relevant direction. One in which Abigail’s choices are a product of the cultural prejudices and situation in which she finds herself. Where we can see the fear in this girl, the helplessness, the adolescent selfishness and yes, the desire for revenge, but also the terror.

Otherwise what is this but a highbrow exercise in slut-shaming hidden behind fancy sets and award-winning acting.

On Step-Parenting

Falling in love with a man with children is not something I would have chosen for myself. But falling in love is rarely a choice. 

And the longer I’m in my current relationship, the more I’m able to look back on the past two years objectively and see that I’ve tried to fool myself into believing it’s no different to dating a childless man. But it is. Very much so.

And it has been difficult.

From that first awkward meeting in his lounge room being presented to an interview panel of two single-digit-aged boys, through fortnightly visits and school holidays trying to be friendly but unimposing, coming up with ideas of things to do, making them feel comfortable talking about their mum, and the girlfriend who came before me, it has been hard.

But it got easier. I told myself it did. And perhaps that’s true. Or perhaps I grew accustomed to the feeling of being a living reminder of what these boys would never have.

And then the youngest came to live with him, when we still lived separately and my struggles involved remembering to pack spare clothes for work and sharing his towel and always forgetting where I’d left my shoes.

And even though I knew it would be hard, that it would change him, that it would mean making lunches and supervising homework and trimming toenails and steaming vegetables, I supported the decision. I encouraged it. I reassured him that it wouldn’t scare me away and that I wouldn’t love him any less. That it was the right decision. Because I wasn’t one of those heartless women who turn a man away from his children, distracting him with a shiny new brood.  Because I wouldn’t deny a son the chance to live with his father. So I told him it would be fine.

And it was. In a way.

And it wasn’t.

Because four months later we decided to move in together, and in one weekend of removalists and delicate negotiations about interior design, I became the woman this child would see more than any other. His city-step-mum. The primary focus of his attention.

And I’ve welcomed it, and loved him, and worked hard to fill the gap left by not having daily access to the things only a mother can offer. But I wasn’t prepared for the sheer relentlessness of his need for attention. And despite my best efforts to remain disinterested, an instinct I can only classify as ‘maternal’ has doggedly put down roots in my cynical soul and I feel as if, in that weekend, I leaped from carefree kidulthood to middle-age, without any say in the matter.

Because whilst I’ve grown to love my boyfriend’s son and treat him as if he were my own, the fact is he isn’t. Not only because that position is already filled but because he was not a choice for me. He was a choice made by the man I love and another woman in another time and though I will continue to love and care for him as long as I’m afforded the privilege, I can’t help but be reminded of their love and failed hopes every time I look at him.

Which, I get it, isn’t really a big deal. Except that it denies me the bliss of ignorance. It reminds me that what you are certain could be the one thing that will carry you through the rest of your life in a cocoon of awesomeness is actually just as likely to turn out to be horseshit.

But the worst part is that I’ve begun to question whether I actually want to have kids of my own, when I’d never had any doubts about their inevitability, and I feel as if I’m in mourning for my own children. 

And that’s a feeling I don’t quite know what to do with. 

How many ways can you lose a friend?

It still amazes me how well I can function even from within the depths of deepest darkness.

And I step outside and the world is bleak and beautiful in the same breath of wind. And I listen to Paul Kelly sing Careless on repeat and allow my eyes to well and dry in a pathetic loop of self-pity.

And I think back on all I have experienced, suffered, been blessed with, and overcome in my 32 years and wonder if I will ever actually learn to live with myself. If all this endless work to self-improve, to be kinder, to forgive, to let things go, to accept what is, has really made any difference at all.

And I sit in my comfortable, White, able-bodied certainty and feel sad because apparently that is my right.

And even my depression disgusts me. But it's still the safest place I've ever been.

___________________________________

How many cabs in New York City? How many angels on a pin? How many notes in a saxophone? How many tears in a bottle of gin? How many times did you call my name, knock at the door but you couldn't get in? I've been wrapped up in a shell nothing could get through to me. Acted like I didn't know I had friends or family. I saw worry in their eyes, it didn't look like fear to me. I know I've been careless. (I took bad care of this) Like a mixture in a bottle. Like a frozen-over lake. Like a long-time painted smile I got so hard I had to crack. You were there, you held the line, you're the one that brought me back. How many stars in the milky way, how many ways can you lose a friend?

Call me beautiful..

He built his wife a nest on the ground

The power of true love: a stork goes against instinct and builds a nest directly on the ground, because his partner can no longer fly.

The couple met in the Fedaczynski Rehabilitation Centre in the Carpathian Mountains in Poland. She came in with a broken wing; he with severe poisoning. Although the birds were emaciated and had very little chance of survival, the doctor managed to save them, and through the long months of rehabilitation they slowly fell in love.

"The love of storks is great," says Dr. Fedaczyński. "Birds are very attached to each other and when they couple, it is for life.”

When it became clear that the female would never fly again, her fully-recovered partner chose to remain with his new wife and spend the winter in Poland, not departing for warmer climates. And then in the Spring he began to build a nest, collecting sticks and laying them directly on the ground, so that his wife would not have to suffer. Mrs Stork sits by patiently and clatters her bill in happiness while their new home grows bigger every day, and in a few weeks it should be home to a couple of chicks.

The unusual pair have become a great attraction in the area. People are watching the behaviour of the birds in disbelief; nobody has ever seen a stork building a nest on the ground like a duck.

And now there are signs that the pair's inventive solution is being adopted by other couples. The clinic is home to other sick birds, including those who had lost the ability to fly years ago. To date not one of them had made attempts at building a nest, but seeing the actions of the devoted couple they too have begun to tackle the construction of nests directly on the ground.

Source: fakty.pl

The Lie Becomes the Truth

My people

are cleaners, taxi drivers, waitresses and strippers.
They bathe the elderly and repair potholes in roads.
They pull (heart) strings to send their children to schools that they can’t afford,
because “education is everything”.
They swallow their pride, forget their egos, grow skin thick as bark, and learn not to fight back.
They smile rarely but laugh easily.
They skype home.
They pray to a God who doesn’t speak English.
They drink home-made spirits and eat white pork-meat sausages. Around tables covered from centre to stomach in make-do food over white lace tablecloths.

My people
held onto their language
through a hundred-and-fifty-years of not existing as a nation.
They rebuilt a city from war-ravaged rubble into an exact replica of its former glory.
They are fathers of modern astronomy, Nobel-prize winning physicists and poets, world famous composers, novelists, film directors and Popes.

My people are my blood.
My blue eyes.
My bone structure and my ashen hair.
My beliefs.
My weaknesses.
My fire and my fight.

My people.

My Poland.

I love you.

Tips for Men

Tip for Men #1: Never cancel a date via text within 24 hours of the date. You've already ruined her day and made it clear you're not that into her. At least be a man about it.

Tip for Men #2: Shower. Every day. And wear deodorant.
There is no exception to this rule.

Tip for Men #3: Never washing your jeans was a marketing gimmick invented by Nudie to make more money. They age better if you wash them every couple of months. Wash your jeans.

Tip for Men #4: Own a peacoat. Preferably in navy. Every man looks good in a peacoat.

Tip for Men #5: Get your teeth cleaned by a dentist once a year. I am deadly serious about this. You think I'm exaggerating don't you? I'm not. Noone will tell you that you have bad breath so just do this ok?

Tip for Men #6: Let women into and out of elevators and trains first. Yeah it's old-fashioned but it makes everyone feel special. (Women: if a man does this ALWAYS smile and say thankyou).

Tip for Men #7: Women are less overt in their flirting than you think. If a girl smiles at you, smile back. If she's still smiling she wants you to talk to her, I promise. Don't walk away it'll break her heart.

Tip for Men #8: When a woman uses the word "fine", it never is.

Tip for Men #9: Don't take other people's advice too seriously. Even mine.

Such be life

A recent avalanche of significant events has me feeling discombobulated. I’m fluctuating between sickening bliss, terror, fury, and fervent motivation of a kind usually reserved for evangelical extremists.

Here are the reasons:

1. First of all, there’s the problem of dating one person exclusively, and seeing them every day for two three (holy shit) solid months. Not only has my hard-earned independence disappeared, but so too my ability to be alone without pining for my lover’s company.  I mean, seriously, who am I? The saccharine quality of the time we spend together is so cloying I’m getting diabetes. But I CANNOT. KEEP. AWAY. Heroin would consume less of my time.

2. Then there’s the housemate who refused to leave when asked to do so. And who has become so Dexter-like in personality that I’m finding it difficult to physically and emotionally manage the level of terror, dread and fury she elicits in me.

God help my filthy pride, which would serve me better by shutting its dirty mouth and just letting me give in to all her unreasonable demands.

3. It’s three days until Polish family Christmas. Enough said.

4. And finally (well not quite, but some things don’t bear mentioning, even by one as honest as myself) there is my desire to finally get the theatre work up that I’d started planning 6 months ago but haven’t made any progress on since August, due to a combination of point 1, and fear. As well as my almost fanatical desperation to be involved in a film project with someone I consider an inspiration and (reluctant) mentor. Which, incidentally, I’ve already been told I can help with and which I’ve already put a little time into but which my impatient personality won’t allow me to stop obsessing over.

So.

No, wait. Hold up. I just thought of another thing.

5. That thing where when you start to love care about someone, you involuntarily begin to take on all their stress and pain as if it were your own. That thing’s happening to me too. 

So. That’s where it stands with me right now. Can you see why stuff be crazy in my head, heart and stomach?

Yeah...

So.

Such be life.

Afterword

I’m aware that as my readership slowly grows, and inevitably amongst people who actually know me, some of the life facts that I choose to disclose may seem overly candid. If that’s the case, I apologise. Albeit insincerely. If I can live with it, so can you.

The Unbearable Weight of Staying

I have discovered, recently, an overwhelming and almost uncontrollable urge to escape any situation that makes me feel anything too strongly.

Because I am terrified with my current situation. With the potential for hurt, and disappointment - both my own and his. And the possibility, or inevitability, of the discovery of ugliness. And the future realisation that we are not perfect, neither individually nor for eachother.

And I wonder what the fuck I am doing here.

And I am reminded once again why I chose a solitary life.

On such a full sea are we now afloat

Why am I feeling so lost and discombobulated? Is this how it’s meant to feel when you meet a person you are attracted to and enjoy spending time with? Because if so, I think there may be a terrible flaw in the way our emotions develop and someone needs to say something about it.

I feel excited, scared, distrustful, happy, beautiful, anxious, exhausted, nostalgic, uncertain, protective and confused. In equal parts.

I mean seriously.  How is that a positive combination?

I’ve lost 3 kilos and I haven’t been to the gym in weeks. My room is a mess, I've got almost no clean underwear, I haven’t changed my bed linen and my dogs have forgotten what the park looks like. My parents are permanently annoyed with my lack of communication, my housemate is pretty much living alone, I have done no work on either of the theatre projects I had in planning, and I spend my work days writing about and reading up on things completely unrelated to work. I am, in a word, distracted.

And the most disturbing thing is that it’s gotten increasingly worse until today my head has screamed with the hurtful thought, “What am I doing?” and my instinct is to cut and run before I lose the wonderful relationship I’ve cultivated with myself over the last 3 years. But then what is the purpose of life if not to love and what will my life be if I forever run from that?

Well, peaceful for one. And lonely. Productive. Focused. Centred. And safe. Safe. 

Safe.

That's it isn’t it? Safety.

Predictability and equilibrium. Things I have chased my whole life and will continue to chase because that’s the legacy left by my childhood. But with that emotional security comes self-doubt, and longing, and nights curled up in bed with a Kelpie and an old teddy bear wondering what might have been had I not made the choice to live my life alone. Because I had made that choice. Whole-heartedly. And now the chipping away at my resolve is something terrifying and disorientating. And I long for my boring solo existence when emotions were rational and linear and my own company didn’t feel like there was someone missing from it.

So.

The world according to Ricky Gervais.

"I don't know what happiness is but it's definitely NOT just going with the flow. Going with the flow, for Christ sake? Don't ever go with the flow. Stop the flow, go against the flow, start the flow, but don't under any circumstance just go with the flow. It may ruffle a few feathers, but some people's feathers need a little ruffling. And remember: just because someone is offended doesn't mean they're in the right."


© Rich Hardcastle

Read the entire article here

Peter Temple via Jack Irish

He can write. The man can.

From the novel Black Tide by Peter Temple, soon to be made into a telemovie starring Guy Pearce.

Oh, That Way Madness Lies

A friend recently asked me if I have a “list” of dating non-negotiables.

I can’t remember my exact reaction but it was probably somewhere between a cringe and a guffaw. To me, the idea of making a checklist of desirable qualities seems prescriptive and calculating. It takes the one thing in my life that I approach spontaneously and instinctively, without much thought for my well-being or future, and turns it into something controlled, angst-ridden, and safe… which is how I handle almost every other aspect of my life.

So when it comes to men, I don't have a type. Or a set of requirements that must be met.

But.

There are some things I find very difficult to resist…

Like checked shirts. Blue eyes. Black-framed glasses, and bed hair.
Tattoos.
Hyper-intelligence.
Extensive music knowledge and a Penguin classic beside the bed.
Being good with children. Old-fashioned manners. The ability to fix computers or cars.
The courage to sometimes tell me what to do.
An uncontrollable urge to throwdown(1). 

Any one of these things in someone will immediately get my attention. A handful may start to overtake my thoughts. But all these things in one person aren't perfection, they're madness.

So no, I have no list.
But... if a man in a check shirt and messy hair, with tattoos and glasses, doing the cryptic crossword with a Bulgakov sticking out of his bag on the way to a gig, were to stop and open a door for me?

Well, I may just disappear forever.


1. throwdown
an act of sexual passion in which one of the persons involved is so overwhelmed with the urge to makeout/hookup/have sex with the other person that he or she loses control, taking passionate, almost aggressive charge, and intensely makes out with the other. this act may involve pushing someone against the wall or onto a bed and may also include grabbing of the face and hair.
Source

One day...

 
Portia Nelson (1920-2001)
I have carried this around with me since 1997.

Train Song...

Traveling north, traveling north to find you
Train wheels beating, wind in my eyes
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
Call out your name love don't be surprised

It's so many miles and so long since I've left you
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
But suddenly now I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long

Nothing at all in my head to say to you
Only the beat of the train I'm on
Nothing I've learned all my life on the way to you
One day our love was over and gone

It's so many miles and so long since I've met you
Don't even know what I'll say when I get to you
But suddenly now I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long

What will I do if there's someone there with you?
Maybe someone you've always known
How do I know I can come and give to you
Love with no warning and find you alone?

It's so many miles and so long since I've met you
Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you
But suddenly now I know where I belong
It's many hundred miles and it won't be long

For my birthday I would like...

full-body hugs, Aesop products, the end of animal suffering, Body Type tattoo books, clear skin, gin & tonics, no anxiety, the DJ to play Moloko, a self-cleaning room, all my friends within arms length, this book, love.

Thankyou.

the reasons why

That night on Russell St when you offered me your jacket, even though you were only wearing a T-shirt underneath
The evening you took my hand and kissed my fingers after I told you something sad about myself, even though we'd only known eachother a couple hours
That time you lay back on your bed with your eyes closed and played your guitar for me
The way you gently, relentlessly and passionately challenged my views on religion and God every time we met
How you would mimic my voice whenever I said anything you thought was cute
The time you used a whole tray of ice on my body to slowly cool me down, in the hot bedroom of your house during that never-ending, Perth Summer
The text message you sent me when I was living in New York that said I was the coolest girl ever to breathe the mix of gases that enables a human to live on this planet
The cupcake you bought me that I never got to eat
That day I forgot my lunch and you made me a toasted cheese sandwich and brought it all the way into the city on the train so that I wouldn't go hungry
The time you dragged me through your front door and into your bedroom, leaving your friends standing in the hallway, because you couldn't wait another minute to have sex with me
The YouTube video you made me
That heartbreaking day we spent together after our awful choice that you somehow made into something wonderful and fun and full of joy
The way you would prepare my dinner every Saturday night, while I was sleeping, to help me get ready for work
That horrible night you got blindingly drunk and called me saying you'd kill yourself if I didn't go out with you
The flower you left on my windscreen after I broke your heart

I don't love you any more.
But I did.
For a moment, a few months, years.
And these are the reasons why.
Thankyou.

fruit trees in bloom..

"The world is a den of thieves and night is falling. Evil breaks its chains and runs through the world like a mad dog. The poison affects us all. No one escapes, not even our children. So it shall be. Therefore let us be happy while we are happy. Let us be kind, generous, affectionate and good. It is necessary, and not at all shameful, to take pleasure in the little world. Good food, gentle smiles, fruit trees in bloom, waltzes."
— Ingmar Bergman

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

My heart belongs to

It takes a lot to win my heart. This'll pretty much do it.