Well after leaving home yesterday to attend one of the briefing sessions at the Victorian Arts Centre about the $128.5 million Stage 1 of the Southbank Cultural Precinct Redevelopment) which is actually a refurbishment of Hamer Hall, I suddenly realisedd just how my mood state shifts up a gear once I head up the road towards the CBD! (More on this in a separate blog).
Earlier on the journey in I realised just how much I actually missed performing on stage (not just behind a microphone on radio although that is exceptionally wonderful also). I had been spending a month or more prior to my hospital stint, re-learning and revisiting some songs that had been being put together for a small two hander (and for a younger me [prior to birth of my son]). As I increasingly approach the old me (in body size) the desire to perform is growing stronger with each kilo shed.
However, Fate steps in and a redeveloped plan to get this cabaret back on is cancelled due to my partner in crime having other irons to fry in London and not able to head home. Oh well, something always happens for a reason, even if I can't see that reason (as it unfolds for me).
Also another friend from days gone by (a person to whom I had become detached due to a clash of professional roles once in the late eighties) is now in rehearsal in Brisbane. This exceptionally talented performer has been absent from Australian stages for far too long (but again motherhood becomes the focus at certain stages in life). She was expressing the all-so-typical reheasal doubts and frustrations at this early stage of production, and I had to giggle. (Yet, part of me was just so envious).
So it is with all the theatrical buzz spinning through my increasingly active mind that I sit and objectively process all the Hamer Hall news at the Briefing. It was held in the ANZ Pavillion and for those who knew me in 'the old days", you can imagine the sense of deja vu, that accompanied this. I focused very well, took all the pertinent facts and key issues (no, not number of toilets and arrangement of stalls seating and legroom... more the fly tower, scenery dock, improved accoustics and the staggering fact that to refurbish the organ would cost $10m [a sum not budgeted for in this State Govt funding]). Now all I have to do is find the angle and pitch for the article and the correct outlet for publication of a series on the redevlopment over the coming three years.
I think I have the 'peg', now all I need to research is the market and write the piece. The old media/pr headspace is firing up again. And was I buzzing... just ask my friend and colleague, G (who came with me for company). No sooner had we left the Theatres Building do I suggest that we attempt to catch a show in town... yep with less than 10 minutes to most curtains.
We headed up to the Princess as neither of us had seen Jersey Boys. We were somewhat late but lock-out hadn't finished. We also managed with our concession cards to talk box office into C reserve (behind a pole)... It saved us each $50 on the ticket price, without which this little impulsive adventure would not have happened. And then looking at just how many sighing people (literally) would have to stand to let us get to our seats I opted to drag G to the back row. Much better idea. Still restricted viewing because of circle overhang but enough vision to see the main platforms and entryways. Also had a ball that we scraped together enough for a Jersey Boys cocktial at Interval with those really fun tacky light-up fluro plastic cocktail glasses!
What a show! We were lucky to have the main cast (without swings), and that's something given the length of time it has been playing and that they had done a matinee earlier. I never knew the backstory to the Four Seasons or indeed Frankie Valli himself. A true NY fable. The four-part harmonies were exceptional and spine tingling, and the band simply brilliant. It is a feel good musical in the best possible sense of the phrase. 100 times better than Mamma Mia (and that was very entertaining). This show deserves large sell-out audiences and seasons. The talent onstage made me feel proud of our young Aussie actors/singers. Yet, despite the youth I still left the theatre feeling like singing, dancing and going back to the spotlight myslef one day.
One magic moment was when the Four Seasons were upstage, backs to us (audience) performing to their audience and we sat under the glow of the spotlights. That magnificent warm blackness from where the lights shone down on the singers (and by extension us) made my night. It felt like being home, expecially the virtual white-out effect at the end. The wire mesh fancing conjured memories of Godspell. Sitting in the Prinny (where I had auditioned for Reg Livermore and the original Pirates) was a very special feeling. I remember fondly how Martin got down an accompaniment for Lady from LA (Billy Liar) from a sound recording of Andrew's and how stunned Livermore was to hear it sung in Melbourne.
Sitting there also took me back to seeing my first ever Opera, The Thripenny Opera. Again thanks Martin, even though we were in the Gods and I was having acrophobia. (I eventually got used to the 'nose-bleed seats' whilst on a student budget).
Life may have changed courses a number of times but I can now say I feel privileged to have seen some of the greatest performers on stage (here and in London). Just quickly coming to mind is Peter Brooke's Dream at the Maj, Derek Jacobi's Hamlet and Iago with the Old Vic here in Melbourne, Beckett Does Beckett at the Universal, Steven Berkpof's East, Burton in Equus and our own Stephen Oldfield in the MTC version, STC's Nicholas Nickleby ( a tour de force with Ruth Cracknell, John Howard and my dearest Tony Taylor amongst the stellar cast), Nimrod's Ventian Twins, the amazing Anna Volska, Ivor Kants, and Tony Sheldon in Much Ado About Nothing at the Space in Adelaide, Tony S again in Torch Song Trilogy at the Universal with the magnificent Debra Lee Furness, Mamma's Little Horror Show, most of Nigel Triffett's astounding works, attending the original APG, early La Mamma, Candide, Chicago (first season) and Nine at the Comedy theatre, Kennedy's Children at Russell Street, Jack Davis' No Sugar at Fitzroy Town Hall... the RSC and ESC. So many memorable and acclaimed productions have all gone into making me who I am, the arts lover and would-be regular patron.
All I want(need) is the cash (outside indulgent mania phases) to see Sir Ian MacKellan and the wonderful Roger Rees in Melbourne later this year, Marvin Hamlish and the MSO, Stephen Swartz in concert, and also William Hurt in Long Days Journey in Sydney. Ah, 2010 does look good through my 'theatrical goggles'.
If I could just get the writing and publication stuff under control. At least today I can honestly say that I am confident it will happen... slowly but successfully.
How's that for a positive on the scale... and in the normal range not amidst the delusions?
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