28 June 2011

Typecast

A week or so ago I went along to the university theatre to try out for this year's Opera NT production. They’re putting on Gilbert and Sullivan’s Princess Ida (Or Castle Adamant) which has the demographic advantage of having an unusually large number of female roles for a G&S (I say advantage due to the ratio of women to men in our company) and the thematic advantage of taking a cast full of women and using it to poke a large and comically painted stick at radical feminism.

“But what of the males?” I hear no-one ask.

There are enough roles to go around, but rather unusually only two roles for tenors. After last year’s effort, which basically involved me poncing around with an outrageous accent and waving a sword around every once in a while (and hell, sometimes I just do that on weekends), I figured I was going to have to lift my game. It’s just one of those little challenges that present themselves when you join an opera company but can’t actually sing.

Not that I was going to let that stop me. I fronted up to the auditions with my most trusted and experienced accompanist (ie. Phil, who had nicked Pastor Holly’s guitar for the afternoon) and filled the auditorium (well, maybe half of it?) with the dulcet tones of Joss Whedon’s “Everyone’s a Hero”. It went alright, and I totally nailed the big finish, but I’m not sure the casters appreciated it when I called them a bunch of scary, alcoholic bums. It was totally in character, okay?

Much to everyone’s surprise, I got a call-back for the following evening. So now the big question was which part could I possibly be in the running for? There were only two tenor roles going after all.

Would I be Prince Hilarion, the dashing, heroic and completely mental leading man, storming the castle walls and winning the heart of the wilful, demure and completely mental Princess Ida?

Or would I play Cyril, Hilarion’s true, valiant and completely mental companion through thick and thin, who for reasons which seem to have more to do with harmony structure than with plot development, accompanies his master on his quest to Caste Adamant?

If you know me and my theatrical persona well enough, then by now you’ll have guessed which one I came away with.

Neither.

I’ve been cast as King Hildebrand, who is father to Hilarion (I’m only twenty-mumble plus one…), king of all the good guys (that doesn’t sound right either), completely mental (well…) and, most notably, a baritone (?). Mind you, it’s a pretty cool role. At first I assumed it would be mainly speaking with a few ensemble bits like last time, but it turns out I’ve got a few solos to put together before October which will be … interesting. Fortunately none of them drop below what I can sing, so I can get away with it. Best of all, the choirmaster has offered to give me some help improving my singing voice between now and then, which will be awesome and will hopefully go a long way towards making me look a little less silly on the night. In the meantime I’ll just work on memorising lines and figuring out how to approach opera in my own way.

In my own not-that-operatic way.




Garry with 2 Rs

23 June 2011

Just Beneath the Surface

I’ve been doing some thinking lately about what faith looks like. I’ve decided it looks like uncoordinated British tourists in Bouly Rockhole. I expect the metaphor is clear enough, but just in case I’ve made myself a little too obscure, allow me to elaborate. Or you could get over it and go read XKCD instead. Whatever.

Bouly Rockhole is a popular swimming hole in Litchfield Park, just outside Darwin. In the wet season, the current gets quite strong, but in the dry there’s still enough water going through it fast enough to make it really pleasant and not too cold. It’s a series of large rock pools, linked by small cascades and it’s one of my favourite places in the world when it’s not packed with loud tourists. Unfortunately it almost always is.

Most of the rock holes aren’t very deep. The deepest ones are maybe a couple of body lengths for an adult. But because of the way the water rushes, if you keep your head above water you don’t actually see how close you are to reaching the bottom. So every time I go there some stupid English woman swims out into the middle of the current, feels it start to pull against her and then panics. She kicks her legs around like an electrocuted cane toad, but can’t quite touch the bottom, so she gets swept toward the lip of the next cascade. By the time she reaches it, she’s run out puff and can’t do anything to stop herself being swept arse first over the waterfall. It makes me laugh every time.

The thing is, if she would just duck under the water, she would realise that she’s only a foot or so from the bottom. She could kick off from there to the side of the pool without any trouble and save herself some embarrassment and a bruised scapula.

That’s what real faith in a secular culture is like for me. When I’m getting yelled at by all three of my bosses because the three things they’ve asked me to do at once aren’t being done fast enough, I tend to freak out and start kicking around like I’m out of my depth. In the craziest parts of my day, it’s easy to feel like God, the rock, is miles away.

However, I am no stupid English woman. If I pause for a moment and go deeper, just below the surface, there He is, like He always is. I can set my feet, push off and start swimming again. No sweat.

It’s not a perfect metaphor. For instance, periods of intense reflection will not cause you to suffocate after three minutes. Also, living for more than forty minutes won’t necessarily cause the skin on your fingers to wrinkle up. Although I suppose that does happen eventually. Furthermore, in the great rock pool of life, whether you are sitting on the bottom or falling over a waterfall, there are no spaceships. And that’s a problem for me. My comparative philosophy demands more spaceships, both metaphorically and … aquatically?

Shut up.



Garry with 2 Rs

21 June 2011

Career Path

I’m at a strange point right about now. I’ve been reflecting a lot on the things that really matter to me and the things that really don’t.

In March I took up a new position with the company I work for. It’s still in the financial services industry, so it still has nothing to do with anything I’m educated in or passionate about, but it was a step up in terms of money and lifestyle (not so much late notice travel out to the middle of nowhere) so at the time it seemed like a logical step. But more and more lately I feel like I’m in entirely the wrong place. I’ve realised that, as glamorous as it might seem from the outside, I really don’t care that much about the Financial Services Regulation Act.

As a company, we’re having a drive at the moment to update all the contact information we have for our members. We’ve had a lot of trouble implementing the drive because we’ve discovered that most of the staff, including me, have an automatic script that runs in our heads as we verify a member’s identity and tell them how much money they don’t have. It has taken an inordinate amount of effort to convince people to add an extra step to ask members if their contact details are up-to-date. It’s a little bit depressing to realise that your job is running on auto-pilot to such an extent that you can’t change your routine even if you’re supposed to.

So I did something a little bit weird this week. I put in an application to join The Punch as a cadet.

In Sydney.

It would be a dream job for me. After five years of Far From Home/Cum Tacent Clament the idea of writing online articles for a living is almost too good to be true. And in a lot of ways it is. I would imagine that every journalism student in Australia will have applied for the position, so I’m philosophical about the chances of even making the shortlist since I 1) don’t live in Sydney and 2) am a little old to be a cadet (I turned twenty-mumble plus one today. Egads).

So now I have to figure out what’s more important: My dream of actually being able to call myself a writer instead of a blogger, or my dream of investing my time into acheving something meaningful for the local church in Darwin. I felt compelled by the sheer awesomeness of the position on offer with the Punch to apply for it, but if I leave Darwin now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to look myself in the eye.

I’ve got another job application pending with the Northern Territory public service as a media liaison officer. As usual the Business and Employment Department are taking their sweet time about getting back to me. Taking on that would be a much more conscionable idea, although if the unthinkable happens and I have to choose between them, the indecision I’d feel would almost be enough to split me in half at a quantum level, resulting in two Garrii, one of whom could go be a writer for a national website while the other put his head down and got on with actually achieving one or two of the things he’d promised to.

So for the time being I’ll keep banging my head against a wall of FSRA compliance requirements and crazy old ladies wanting to check their balances.

Make of that... whatever you can. Good luck.



Garry with 2 Rs

13 June 2011

The Whole World Revolves Around Meme

I’ve been memed again. Jess has sent me a “one lovely blog” award.

The "rules" are:

1. Choose five other people who deserve this award and pass it on.
2. Tell 7 facts about yourself.
3. Let the people you gave the award to know.
4. Thank the person who gave you the award.

Now I’m really in a pickle. I have to find a combination of sentiments that can, while retaining my trademark aloof disinterest, convey both how grateful I am to be considered for this award and also the extent to which Cum Tacent Clament is way too cool for internet chain letters.

Also, apparently I’m supposed to write seven things about myself. So here we go:

1. I am extremely grateful to have received this award, even though my blog has nothing to do with child rearing, botanic photography or hipster book reviews.

2. I am way too cool for internet memes.

3. I am of the opinion that, while there are a myriad of adjectives that might be applied to this blog, “lovely” probably isn’t one of them.

4. Sometimes I dress all in green and wander the night, fighting crime and planting horseradishes.

5. I am afraid of sopranos

6. I like self referential sentences, such as this one.

7. There is no way on God’s Earth that I am passing this on to five other people.

I think that about covers it. Make of that what you will.



Garry with 2 Rs

A Bit of a Tease

I’m edging closer to crossing another goal off my 2011 checklist. So far this year I’ve already appeared in two improvised comedy performances with some local comics. They don’t really take a lot of preparation, and by definition require no rehearsal, so I’m lumping them and the two or three more we plan to run later this year together and calling them one theatrical performance.

Next weekend I have my audition for this year’s Operatunity production. Last year’s audition and eventual production was such a crazy experience I decided to try it all again this year. I’m still working on something suitably classy, impressive and appropriate for the try-outs. I’ll keep you posted.

More interestingly, I’m getting involved with a local performing arts group called Corrugated Iron, who put on a show-case review of local talent every year called Tease. Phil suggested I submit a short one-act play I’ve been writing for a while. I went along with it to humour him, and surprisingly enough they’ve decided to go with it. All of a sudden I’m a playwright. Craziness.

Initially the idea was to just submit the play and possibly assist with the direction. But after agreeing to present the play, Corrugated Iron went and cast two of my good friends Phil and Danielle in the two main roles. That just left them with the problem of who to cast in the third role. I couldn’t help but my hand up for it, so now I’m finding out what it’s like to be writer, director and actor all in the same show. Traditionally, writers are supposed to get affronted by directors’ arrogance, directors are supposed to be disappointed with actors’ ineptitude and actors are supposed to lament the writer’s lack of vision. I don’t know if I can manage all that, but I’ll try not to beat myself up about it.

Once more, with feeling!




Garry with 2 Rs

06 June 2011

The New Game

Way back some time in the last century when I was in high school I was part of an unusually close group of friends. There were five of us in total. It’s not really clear what bought us all together as we didn’t have anything observable in common except for irreverent senses of humour, an incination towards the theatrical and a tendency to call “bullshit” when we saw it (usually emanating from one of the other four) which tended to alienate us a little from other students, not to mention the teachers.

Chris, Phil, Jess, Garry (well…) and Dan.

Actually, the other thing we had in common was that all of us had parents associated with the staff or governance of the school we all went to. It was an extremely poorly kept secret that said parents had a number of informal betting pools running.

1) Which of the five would be the first to get married?
2) Which of the four guys would end up marrying Jess?
3) Which of the five of us would turn out to be gay?

Our school being of the fundamentalist Christian persuasion, obviously there was no actual gambling involved, especially on that last one.

Shortest odds for first married were almost certainly on Daniel, who was the oldest of the gang and had been voted the southern hemisphere’s most eligible bachelor (his parents had objected to the use of the term ‘sexiest man alive’) three years straight, albeit by a panel that consisted of the other four of us. Consensus on which one of us was going to marry Jess depended on whose mother you were talking to at the time.

In the end Chris was the first to go, in what was described in hushed tones as something of an upset. However, he had to go all the way to New Zealand to do it, which was agreed by most to be cheating. Jess went next and threw a spanner in everyone’s mother’s works by not marrying any of us (actually, Jess’ mother was probably quite relieved). At least she had the common decency to marry a local. Just a year later it was Phil’s turn.

And then there were two.

Ever since Phil’s wedding back in 2006, Dan and I have been engaged (huh?) in a gentlemen’s wager. I say gentlemen’s wager, but I really just mean friendly competition, as there were no stakes riding on it, and I’m not a gentleman. Basically, we decided to see which of us could go the longest without getting married.

If that seems like a reasonably pointless (not to mention backwards) competition, that’s just because… it is. But when you think about it, it makes much more sense than trying to see who can get married first. For one, it provides an extra layer of disincentive to do something stupid too soon if you get romantically entangled (“Maybe we should take this to the next level… nah, I wouldn’t want to lose a bet to Dan”) and also it has the added benefit that if you lose, at least you’re getting married, so that’s some sort of consolation. As endurance sports go, doing it this way has also made it much more competitive, as remaining single has historically been something both Dan and I have been pretty good at. It’s been six long years, and neither combatant has shown any sign of flagging.

That is, until now.

Yes that’s right, I have an announcement to make, the repercussions of which could shake the very firmament, but probably won’t. It has come out of nowhere and taken more than a few people by surprise, especially me, but… I, Garry with 2 Rs, am now officially…

The winner!

Indeed. Dan announced his engagement last weekend, and I am now The Last Man Standing. It has been suggested that perhaps I shouldn’t be as happy about this as I so obviously am. However, these suggestions have, without exception, come from people who gave up and got married years ago and are just jealous. As Josh Lyman so eloquently put it:

“I drink from the keg of glory. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land”

Or as Horatio Nelson said:

“First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.”

And as Sachin Tendulkar put it:

“You can’t hold a ceramic tiger with a pair of size nine mittens made out of apricot jam”.


The point is that, the wager now being won, I can stop playing. All this time people have assumed I am single because I’m a cynical cranky debt-ridden misogynistic bastard (or possibly that I turned out to be the gay one. I don’t know what the odds were on that and I don’t think I want to), when all the time I was just trying to win a bet. And now I have.

So it’s time for a new game. I was going to call this new game “Travel Monopoly Junior” but apparently that’s already taken, so I’ll leave the title open as a work in progress. Everyone else around me having been disqualified on grounds of matrimony, the new game is a variation of solitaire and begins when the person left of the dealer rolls a seven. Winner is the first person not to die alone. Spades are trumps, it’s tippy-go and only one person gets to be the top hat.

Make of that… nope. Just forget it.




Garry with 2 Rs