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Written by Garry

Created: 12 November 2011

Tonight I went and saw a local production of the ancient Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus. I really don’t intend to write this post as a theatre review, but I should point out that it was a very good show, and Kadek Hobman, who played Prometheus, absolutely nailed it. If you’re an adult reading this in Darwin any time before November 17th, then I recommend getting down to Brownsmart and seeing it. If you’re a child prodigy reading this anytime after 2047 in Sulaweyo, sorry you missed it. And if you’re a midget in Bangalore reading this anytime prior to April 7th 1873… kudos.

Aeschylus, it seems, really knew what he was doing, in that thousands of years later, the themes that Prometheus expounds on as he is bound hand and foot to a rock at the end of the world ring as true today as they (presumably) did when Aeschylus was cutting edge and all the cool uni students were talking about how he was a visionary while they sat sipping anachronistic lattes at the forum and whinging about how the establishment would never understand them.

In the first place, while it may well be a symptom of my specific cultural perspective, I was struck by the parallels between Prometheus and Christ: The divine friend of humanity, showing compassion and teaching wisdom to the human race, only to be forsaken by the gods and then crucified (the English translation of the text actually used that word, interestingly, although obviously I don’t know what the term would have been in ancient Greek). It’s not unusual for plays about morality and justice to allude to Jesus, but it’s pretty cool when he shows up in plays written at least four hundred years before he was born.

More humanistically, and probably closer to what Aeschylus was on about, I really loved the way that Prometheus, the mythical benefactor of human knowledge and understanding, dealt with the fact that everything around him sucked. Afflicted with every imaginable humiliation, injustice and suffering, Prometheus has the choice to give in to despair and renounce his support of humanity, but even as he is bound to a rock by indestructible brass brackets and threatened with hungry eagles, he is still shouting his defiance and goading his tormentors to do their worst. The image of Kadek shaking the metal cross he was strapped to and yelling “I am one whom you cannot kill!” is going to stick with me all week.

So bollocks to it if my job sucks, my friend’s teeth are falling out, my uncle dies, the Australian cricket team gets bowled out for 47, my pile of job application rejections grows more pathetic daily, 2011 is basically a write off, girls are dumb and I’ve run out of yoghurt; I’m with Prometheus on this one.

I am one whom you cannot kill!

Garry with 2 Rs

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Written by Garry

Created: 18 October 2011

I think there may be something seriously wrong with me.

The reasons for this are manifold, but most prominent among them at the moment is that, despite having spent the last three weeks complaining bitterly about how being in a show has been taking over my life, and how desperately I need a rest, I’ve gone and auditioned for another one, rehearsals for which start this Wednesday.

Mind you, you could hardly blame me for grabbing this one by the throat when it came along; Darwin Theatre Company are putting on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. I’ve wanted the chance to act in this play since the first time I saw it, which admittedly was the recent movie version starring Colin Firth and Rupert Everrett, which varies noticeably from the original text in a few minor ways.

Interestingly, everyone I’ve spoken to about this has told me I should audition for it. In the words of a few members of the Princess Ida cast, I’d be Jack Worthing down to the ground. A group of well meaning yet fierce-faced sopranos made a great show of telling me how much they were looking forward to me trying out for Jack. And, as is ever my wont in the face of so many well intentioned women telling me what to do, I knew there was only one course of action available to me.

I tried out for Algernon.

For one thing, Algernon Moncrieff has been on my bucket list of characters to play since I drew up said bucket list, which was really only quite recently after a discussion on Facebook with Kirribilli Kim about what characters we would put on a bucket list if we had a bucket list. The point is... there is a bucket list, and Algernon is on it.

For another thing, I don’t really know why people would associate me with Jack more than Algy. I suppose the confusingly reality-based idea that I’m a mild mannered bank manager by trade might lead to romantic speculation about what I get up to when I visit my estate in the country. To tell the truth, the idea of a double life does intrigue me sometimes. But this has more to do with imagining what it be like to be superhero than it does with impersonating my recalcitrant and entirely fictional younger brother.

But surely if I’m any character from Earnest, it’s got to be the cynical, mischievous cheeky not-a-gentleman who spends most of his time producing lines that don’t really makes sense and getting away with it because no-one really knows what he’s on about anyway. Hell, I’ve got five years worth of blog entries to support the claim that Oscar Wilde based the character of Alernon on my life. Or at least my blog. He really was a man well ahead of his time, old Oscar. And since in my last three shows I've played a sexually confused construction worker, a turn of the last century French aristocrat and a war mongering medieval king, I think the chance to play a cheeky single know-it-all is something to be celebrated, not avoided.

Finally, the best reason to suggest that Algernon’s place on my bucket list is well justified is that he’s no longer on it. He’s just been crossed off because I’ve got a message from the director to say I’ve got the part. HELL YEAH! Rehearsals start this week on Wednesday and run for the next six weeks. Oh good grief.

So suck on that, soprano face! That’s right! See if that doesn’t make you look even more like you’ve swallowed something extremely sour than usual.

Make of that what you will… and please don’t hurt me.

Garry with 2 Rs

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Written by Garry

Created: 27 October 2011

I remember as a child being extremely confused by my utter and consistent inability to remotely move objects around my room by faith. I would read passages from the gospels like “I tell you the truth; if you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could tell this mountain to go jump in the lake, and it would” (or something like that), and later I would come back from some church camp or big youth rally with my heart “totally on fire” (that was our metaphorical expression of choice in the charismatic church during the nineties. It’s a bit odd when you think about it) and so absolutely convinced that I knew everything I needed to take the city for Jesus. I would focus all my will on my collection of lego men and boldly command them in Jesus’ name to fly up out of the corner and onto my desk. It didn’t matter how resolutely I believed that I could do it, it didn’t work. Not even a little bit. There was one time my sister walked in in the middle of it and kicked them all over. I counted it as half a point.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that I was getting Christianity confused with Star Wars. Proper faith has very little to do with telekinesis, and much more to do with finding the strength to keep going and keep believing when things around you continue to suck the big one.

I got another job application rejection letter this week. Normally I would just add it to the pile, but this one was just a little more disheartening than usual. I made it all the way through to the interview stage, and felt like I had successfully put my best foot forward. Not only that, but the timing for this job would have been perfect. I could have walked out of a job which is, inch by inch, killing me and taken off to Perth for Daniel’s wedding and come back to job that I actually might have some basic interest in. I was so determined to get through this time that I got prayer chains in two cities backing me up. I prayed up, suited up and rocked up, and it didn’t work. Not even a little bit.

I think somewhere along the line I’ve gotten Christianity confused with The Never Ending Story, where if you can believe something hard enough it comes true. Yeah I know… find the strength to blah blah blah suck the big one.

For my next trick, I’m going to try confusing Christianity with Back to the Future 2. I don’t know what that will look like, but if I’m going to keep on living my life in a series of complete delusions, I might as well make it a good one.

Let's see if you bastards can do ninety.

Garry with 2 Rs

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Written by Garry

Created: 17 October 2011

So waking up the morning after the first night of a show is always interesting. In my case, I’ve almost always stayed up into the early hours of the morning after the show, waiting for the opening night euphoria to settle down enough for me to be able to sleep. Consequently, the next day I usually wake up some time mid morning with an applause hangover and some vague confusion over the idea of turning around and doing it all again tonight.

Usually, I get woken up by my phone vibrating on my bedside table to alert me that I have sixteen text messages and five missed calls from eligible young ladies’ mothers who have been to the show and wanted to say how much they enjoyed it and that they would definitely be bringing the rest of their families along for the show the following night because they’d all, on hearing their respective matriarchs’ glowing revues of the show, been dying to come, live the experience for themselves, meet the cast and get lost for an hour and half or so in a little bit of theatrical magic of their own.

I say “usually,” but the fact is it hasn’t happened like that the last three times. Or ever, actually. But it strikes me as the sort of thing that should be happening more often.

No. what happened this time around was I woke up to discover a sagely looking mandrill had snuck into my room overnight and was nibbling on the edges of my Back to the Future poster. I threw my pillow at him to make him stop, but he simply dodged to the left, turned and blew me a raspberry, before boldly exclaiming “you follow old Rafiki! He knows the way!” I had to admit, the crazy old primate had a point, so I followed him out the window onto the front lawn where I found Oxfam Girl and Biscuit Lady having a light sabre duel, accompanied by the theme from The West Wing. It was at that moment that I realised I was a seahorse.

Okay, that one didn’t really happen either.

I was woken up by my phone ringing. It actually was a young lady on the other end, but the young lady in question happened to be my sister, which took some of the excitement out of it. That is, until she said this:

“I’m just ringing to tell you… I’ve been cast in the lead role in an Italian version of the Sound of Music, and I’m moving to Florence to follow my…”

Stop it!

…

That is, until she said this:

“I’m just ringing to tell you… I’m engaged”

My typically eloquent response was the product of severe shock, recent awakening and applause hangover and basically came something like:

“WHAT?”

After some incoherent babbling I think I managed a ‘congratulations’ in there somewhere. But honestly, if you’d put all the previous scenarios in front of me two weeks ago and asked me to bet on the outcome, I would probably have picked the monkey one. It’s strange, and possibly a little disrespectful to my sister, not to mention her fiancé, but that’s where I would have put my money.

I’m not really a gambling man. Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs