Theatre Tuesday
October 9, 2017
So you’ve been feeling a bit past your use-by date, and a little tarnished by time. Perhaps you are terrified that you are losing your way, and becoming the type of writer who repeats themselves, not to work and rework ideas like an artisan kneading bread, but because they can’t do anything else. You meet that type, and they piss around the corners of conversations, lest new ideas insinuate and undermine their certainties.
And then someone* finds one of your poems, tucked away on this very blog, and includes it in a theatre work, and it is given a new voice and body by an actor**. And you listen to it take its place in the work, and feel glad that someone felt its energy and its humour; a humour wedged between despair and hysteria.
Because you’re a total dag, you adopt a horizontal position in a photo amongst some of the other poets, and the actors. You*** would underline how much the production meant to you in some alien form of punctuation. You really need to discover decorum, rather than dwell in a cellar of rum.
*Adele Chynoweth, who directed the work Under Sedation, currently showing at The Street Theatre, as well as selecting/arranging the poems
**Ruth Pieloor (The other actor is Ben Drysdale and you can probably spot him in the photo above.) The photo below shows Ruth adopting a Polonius stance, after the production.
***You obviously doesn’t mean you, dear reader.
Tuesday poem: Blood elephant and theatre news
September 26, 2017
Blood elephant
bathes in human river
tusk intact
PS Cottier
Now, next time someone is saying what a beautiful sport surfing is, bear this photo in mind. The person who injured his head (and inadvertently caused the painting of the blood elephant to drain itself onto his shirt) drove two hours home from the coast, with a head injury that required six stitches. Past at least two hospitals.
I think that goes beyond the merely gnarly.
***
In other, less gruesome news, my poem ‘The ineffable boredom of Polonius’ is one of many making up a performance anthology of Canberra poetry, being produced very soon. The play is called Under Sedation: Canberra Verse Remixed, and it will be at the Street Theatre, from September 29 (preview) to October 14. The director (and the person who compiled the anthology) is Adele Chynoweth, and the actors are Ruth Pieloor and Ben Drysdale.
Here is a list of the poets whose work will appear (apologies for any typos):
A.D.Hope (whose work provided the title of the production), Andi and George Band, Greg Appel, Dorothy Auchterloine, Burrows, Michael Byrne, Adrian Caesar, David Campbell, Coda Conduct (Sally Coleman & Erica Mallet), Malcolm Coller, P.S.Cottier, Vesna Cvjeticanin, Michael Dransfield, Chris Endrey & Bec Taylor, Niloofar Fanaiyan, Bela Farkas, Fun Machine, Kevin Gilbert, Paul Hetherington, Suzie Higgie, J.C.Inman, Subhash Jaireth, Aaron Kirby, Victoria McGrath, Mark O’Connor, Lizz Murphy, Omar Musa, Geoff Page, Anita Patel, Sandra Renew, Sarah Rice, Fred Smith Melinda Smith, John Karl Stokes and Monique Suna.
I can’t wait to see the production. Here is the director, Adele Chynoweth, who recently (last night, in fact) launched a book by Sandra Renew at Smiths Alternative. I hope this is the image you remember from this post!
PS Cottier 