NATIONAL PLAY FESTIVAL
I've just spent the weekend in Melbourne for the National Play Festival run by Playwriting Australia, an organisation I have previously worked closely with and am currently undergoing their dramaturgy mentorship. The play readings themselves, the industry talks and the cups of tea in between have been so enriching and I thought I would jot down a few highlights and learned words of wisdom here.
Here are some little pearlers from my notes in during industry events that I will be taking home with me...
“I used to think that doubt was necessary in equal amount to faith. Now I realise that doubt is useless.”
“The heart of creativity is uncertainty and chaos.
Matter. Mess. Meaning. = a play in three stages.”
“All drama is about avoiding conflict. The desire to avoid conflict drives the play rather than conflict itself.
There is always narrative because your audience will supply it/ project it.”
“Some useful questions.. Is there a moment that is an attempt to express the inexpressible and how? Is there a submerging in the play? And/ or a rising or surfacing? What lingers? ”
I was asked to help put together a late night session during the festival titled "Write Like a Man" centred on female playwrights for which we asked the delightful Maude Davey to perform and MC in drag. She was sensational and just made the evening. And while many of the segments consisted of inverted and sarcastic comments from women within the industry, I asked the young playwright Julia-Rose Lewis to write a love letter to the women who have inspired her. It was read by the beautiful Sophie Ross and I think captured the sentiment of the evening perfectly, so I have copied it below:
“Write a love letter to female playwrights, Nell asked me… I want to do this, so badly I want to do this, I should be able to do this, I’ve written so many love letters in my mind to you all (yes my notebook is covered in scribblings- Julia heart Patricia…Mrs. Julia Katz… Julia-Rose Murray Smith).
…But now I find myself sitting in a dressing room at the Brisbane Powerhouse waiting for the first public reading of a new play I’ve been writing to start. The stage manager is telling me to go out into the foyer, but this feels more important.
I’m trying to figure out how I can possibly capture the love and admiration that I have for you before the fifteen-minute call…. You, Playwrights I’ve never met who occupy a place in my heart that you may not even know you hold. Women that have come before me, have paved the way, have given me permission to follow this path, to stand up for my work, to consider myself worthy as a woman to call myself a playwright; Joanna Murray Smith, Patricia Cornelius, Sue Smith, Jane Bodie, Hannie Rayson, Maxine Mellor, Lally Katz, Noelle Janaczewska , Kate Mulvaney, Caroline Burns, Suzie Miller, Young Jean Lee, Debra Oswald, Van Badham, Hilary Bell, Katherine Thomson, Leah Purcell, Alana Valentine, Mary Rachel Brown, Dorothy Hewitt, Jane Harrison, Nakkiah Lui.. and here at the festival Melissa Reeves, Melodie Reynolds- Diarra, Liv Satchell. This is to name only a few…
We have been told for so long that we aren’t good enough, smart enough, quick enough, funny enough, or intelligent enough to stand alongside men as equals (imagine my surprise to discover that I was perfectly capable in this field, despite this pesky vagina I’ve been carrying around my whole life). This message is hidden, buried deeply in the structures of our society. And everyday women are choosing to ignore it, not asking for permission to succeed but instead just doing it.
There was for so long a big fucking wall in our industry that stopped female writers from fulfilling their potential, from being inspired as children and young women, from dreaming of becoming a writer in the first place. I know you know this…because you said ‘No, not good enough’ out loud, came along and smashed through the wall. Leaving a hole big enough that some others could climb through behind you, over bricks and rubble and all manner of bullshit, but they could get through all the same, and those women committed to continue breaking the hole in the wall bigger, picking up bricks and clearing a path for those of us that are following behind. Me. My peers and further back young women and girls who are now seeing it as a possibility, as a road open to them.
I’ve had it easy, I’m walking through the hole in the wall, I’m picking up a brick or two on my way through, stepping over a bit of misogynistic debris here and there, but it’s been made profoundly easier by those who went before. Soon we’re gonna pave the path, throw down some bitumen and make it suitable for vehicles, big trucks even, three trailer long road trains filled with Australian women who have something to say, something we need to listen to.
I believe vehemently that when you love someone, whether that is real deep love, or acquaintance love, or even “I’ve never ever met you, but your last play blew my mind” kind of love, that it should be spoken out loud, because what else do we really have?
So here it is… female playwrights of Australia, I fucking love you. Thank you.
Xx Julia-Rose”