The City That Doesn't Sleep

It seems like such a cliché to write  a post about New York City. Everyone who’s ever gone there has written a story, or a song, or a poem, or something about hustle, bustle, never sleeping and being completely nuts. Yeah, well… I went there and I had a great time, so I guess I’m adding to the cliché. Deal with it.

Kim and I were there about four days all up, and we managed to cram a fair bit into those four days. Day one was mainly taken up with just getting there from Ohio and finding the people we were staying with, but we found some time late in the day to get out and find a dodgy underground comedy club. That was really fun, and really encouraging because it turns out that dodgy comedy clubs in New York City run their nights almost the same way we run our dodgy comedy club back home. We must be doing something right.

The next day started with church with our billets. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go in American churches, but this one was a traditional Methodist congregation, so this Darwin Uniting boy was right at home. They even had a digital organ and a guy who knew how to handle it.

After church we took the train into town to visit the Ground Zero memorial. The museum was still under construction, but the memorial pools that sit in the ground on the site of the original two buildings are open and quite moving. They’re inscribed with the names of all the victims of the 11^th of September attacks, and they sit in the shadow of the buildings that have been redesigned and rebuilt.

There was a lot of talk about renaming the new towers things like “Freedom Tower” and “Liberty Tower”,” which each have their merits, I guess. But I really love the new tower names. The old towers were called World Trade Centre 1 and World Trade Centre 2. So what are the new ones called? World Trade Centre 1 and World Trade Centre 2. Suck it terrorists.

To make our contemplative morning complete, we had lunch in a pub across the road run by firefighters. As luck would have it, the firefighter serving drinks that afternoon had been one of the first responders on the ground on the morning of the attacks. He had a scrapbook full of photos and clippings of stuff that was going on that day, but it was just fascinating to hear a story from a guy who found himself buried alive under tower 2, and against all the odds survived, only to have to dig himself out. Then he went back for the others. Crazy heroic stuff.

After Ground Zero we headed for Broadway for our first show of the trip: The Lion King. I hadn’t seen the stage version before, although I loved the movie when I was a kid. I enjoyed remembering all the old songs, but more impressive than the music (apart from old Rafiki, who was sensational) were the sets. The elephant graveyard, Pride Rock and the stampede in the gorge were all very cleverly designed, particularly the way they would appear and then disappear into the floor.

It was a matinee show, so we had some time to kill in town that night. We grabbed some dinner and then caught another comedy show in town. It was a slightly more professional set up this time, but at the same time the comedians were not as good. We still had fun.

The next day was a New York icons day. We started out with a trip up the Empire State Building. That was pretty cool, and we stayed up the top for about forty minutes before riding the lift back down again. Then we caught a subway down to the Statton Island Ferry to get a look at the Statue of Liberty. We would have had to have booked months in advance to actually go over onto Ellis Island, but the ferry ride passed close enough to the statue to get a good look.

We had lunch on Statton Island and then rode the ferry back to Manhattan and walked along the High Line, which is a raised walkway with plants all along it constructed up above the streets. It was really nice walking along there, particularly at sunset.

That night we saw an off-Broadway show called Sleep No More. We were quite excited about the concept of the show, which was based on Macbeth. It was set in an old abandoned hotel, with different scenes of the play being played out in different orders in different rooms of the hotel. Or so we thought. The different levels were all there, the random order was all there, but someone had neglected to let us know that there was no Shakespearean text being done; it was the Macbeth story presented through interpretive dance. I’m sure it was all very modern, cutting edge and symbolic, but it didn’t really impress either of us, so we headed home and got ready for our last day in the Big Apple.

We spent that day strolling through the Museum of Modern Art and Central Park. We hadn’t really been finding time to eat properly with all the sightseeing and show taking-in we were doing, and having had ice cream for lunch we were feeling a bit zonked, so we had a nice dinner at a favourite restaurant of Kim’s before we saw our final show for the trip.

This was probably the highlight of the whole trip: We saw Pippin, which has been revived from its 1970s form and brought back at the Music Box Theatre. I hadn't realised it was a Stephen Schwartz show before we went in, but in hindsight that does explain why the songs were so catchy, original and fun. But the music wasn't the whole event, the show was a combination of cabaret, acrobatics and magic, like a blend of a circus and a Broadway musical. There was always something different happening and some of the acrobatics were astonishing. You can always tell when a show has impressed me, because the first thing I do is look for the music score, which I found in the Broadway souvenir shop. Nice.

And then before we knew it the whirlwind had blown itself out and it was time to head for the beach. But I'm pleased to announce that New York City really was one of those rare places in the world that can live up to its own hype.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

On the Road Again

Last year I got involved with a couple of shows with the Darwin Chorale. One of them was a fantastic program of greatest hits from Broadway, with the Symphony Orchestra and a whole host of great (and some ordinary) solo performances. The other one was a slightly less salubrious but still reasonably charming review of Australian folk music. So you can guess straight away which one got funding from the government for a regional tour.

Yep.

Australian Horizons made its grand return to the NT circuit last weekend, with a troupe of about a dozen of us trekking off down to such well renowned concert venues as the Adelaide River Show Society (ARSS for short) and the Pine Creek Community Centre. And a weekend away with minibus load of sopranos was just what the doctor ordered.

My doctor has some unresolved issues. We’re working on it.

Adelaide River was a bit of a laugh. We all booked in to our accommodation and set up behind the stage at the Show Society platform. A few of the locals rocked up, but it wasn’t really clear whether they were there for the concert or the bar. I guess they got both either way.

The next morning we set out for Pine Creek. It was only an hour away, but by the time we got there:

-          One of the basses had sprained his wrist packing up the set

-          One of the altos had given herself a hernia carrying heavy boxes around

-          One of the sopranos had face planted the driveway at Adelaide river and cut her face to pieces

And it wasn’t even lunch time yet.

Meanwhile, Pine Creek surprised me by being a surprisingly good venue. The community centre there has a ranged stage, lights and even a back stage area, although it was full of … something and we couldn’t use it. Also: the accommodation out there blew me away. Someone obviously decided that a tropical resort would be a good idea in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t complaining, but I can’t imagine it will make enough money to keep it running long.

And tragically I couldn’t take full advantage of it, as I was needed on Sunday morning in Darwin, and had to drive back Saturday night. But now I get to say I’ve done a show in Pine Creek and Adelaide River, and next weekend we’re off to Jabiru.

I can’t wait.

Garry with 2 Rs

PS Jill's face was fine.

A Month of Crazy: The Queen's Birthday

After the unexpected awesomeness of last weekend, I decided to return the favour by jumping on a plane to hang out with Kim in Sydney for a weekend. Unlike Kim’s effort, mine was pre-planned, so we were able to schedule an action packed weekend of glitz, glamour and excitement.

I got in terribly early on Saturday morning after a sleepless flight (thanks Jetstar for once again making everything as inconvenient as possible) so after a quick nap on Kim’s couch we were ready to roll. First up was a trip to the cinema to see the Great Gatsby, which we had both been waiting to see until we could see it together. We both enjoyed it, and spent a considerable part of the bus ride home comparing and contrasting it with the book. We came to the conclusion that naturally the book was able to go into more detail, but that the book could have been improved by the inclusion of Leonardo DiCaprio, who basically carried the film. And the movie was more colourful.

After Gatsby we called in to Saturday Night Church at CBTB in Kirribilli. It was nice to catch up with everyone again, and after church we all went back to a friend’s place for a fellowship meal like the good parishioners we are. That was really cool.

Sunday was even more spectacular. We headed into town for a matinee showing of Jesus Christ Superstar. I’ve been a fan of this show ever since my mum bought the Australian cast recording back in the early nineties and it didn’t disappoint this time either. Tim Minchin as Judas Iscariot was an inspired casting choice, and Andrew O’Keefe was surprisingly good as King Herod too.

After Superstar we had dinner at one of Kim’s favourite restaurants and then wandered down to Darling Harbour to watch the aquatechnic displays for the Vivid festival. That was pretty cool and a nice way to cap off the evening. By the end of all that we were both completely exhausted, so we said goodnight and I crashed in my hotel room.

Monday was a public holiday (thanks Your Majesty) and we met some friends of ours for a nice picnic lunch at Balmoral. And by the time we got back from that, we had just enough time to recuperate before heading off to the airport for my flight back home.

Thankfully I was able to head into work on Tuesday to have a rest from the long weekend.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Surprisingly Awesome

So our monthly comedy gigs at Happy Yess are ticking along nicely. Last night we had a virgins night- A night for all first timers doing stand-up comedy. It had potential to go either way, but we were all blown away by how much fun the night was.

It started out with the usual panic attacks when we realised that we had an hour and a half to fill, and only two comedians on the list. None of the regulars had prepared anything, so we were all wandering around figuring out what we could pull off at short notice, when Amy wandered in with four other comedians in tow and we went from there.

You wouldn’t expect to get seven good ones in a row at a first-time amateur comedy night, but that’s exactly what we got. Everything from dark yet somehow self-deprecating socio-political commentary (from someone else this time) to an entire string of mother jokes made about the comic’s own mother (who was in the audience). And one particularly inventive man who attempted to pick up the previous comic by impersonating an amputee construction worker.

Basically the point is that Darwin is awesome, hilarious and packed full of more talent than most would expect. I suspect it’s something to do with laughing to distract ourselves from the weather. So next month we’re having Ladies’ Night at Happy Yess Comedy. A night when we all get to make fun of… no wait, that can’t be right…

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

As Raw As It Gets

About nine months ago I started doing stand-up comedy with my friends at Happy Yess. We started out small and token, but this year we’ve launched a re-vamped and rejuvenated version with themes and headliners and organisation and everything. I’m really excited to be a part of it, and putting some time and energy into developing my own stand-up stuff. Having tried a few different ways to stand up on a stage and make an exhibition of myself, I can confidently assert that comedy is both the most challenging and the most instantly gratifying of all the theatrical arts.

On Friday night I took it to the next level. I decided to enter the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Raw Comedy, which is a national amateur comedy competition. It was a significant step up for me, having only tried out comedy in the comfortable shelter of Happy Yess, and it was certainly a much larger audience than I’ve ever tried to be funny for before. Apparently there were about 400 people in the audience. Not that I could see any of them for the bright stage lights.

A few of my fellow contestants were trying out comedy for the very first time. And I was surprised at how many of the others had never been backstage at the Darwin Entertainment Centre before. These days I’m as at home backstage as I am in a bar or a church, but I suppose not everyone has had the same theatrical background as me, or lived in Darwin for as long.

There were about a dozen contestants, all of whom did a pretty good job, and the crowd were, for the most part, really good and generous with the laughs. There were only a couple of instances of heckling, and they were reserved for those who could obviously handle it. And at one point a little girl jumped on stage and asked if we had any fish for her.

Phil had assured me that the best strategy with Raw Comedy was to do a musical number, so that was what I did. I’ve been writing little musical numbers for Happy Yes for a few months now, so it wasn’t a big stretch to write full song for the competitions. And it went over pretty well.

I really hadn’t been too fazed by the whole process, but when the winner was announced and it wasn’t me, I discovered I had wanted it a little bit more than I realised. I was a little disappointed, but no so much as to harbour any ill feelings.

In the wash-up, Phil asked me why I had done a song. “I’ve spoken to the organisers,” he said (apparently this is still the sort of thing that just happens to him), “and they told me they’re really not looking for musical numbers these days.” I don’t know… one of these days.

I think I’ll probably give it another go next year. We’ll see what happens.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

People Who Can Or Can't Sing As The Case May Be

I've made a point of not watching the Voice. Reality TV irks me, and musical reality TV gets me downright upset. I’m not sure whether it’s a snobby superiority complex, whether I’m just plain jealous, or whether having walked behind the scenes of the phenomenon and experienced the level of professionalism that isn’t involved has left me (more) jaded and cynical to the whole thing, but public celebrations of the triumph of public relations over actual musical ability tend to make me want to throw things.

Over the last couple of nights I’ve been visiting friends at their houses, and have therefore taken in a couple of performances from the finals of the Voice. I found myself getting extremely annoyed at the fact that even in the finals of the competition, after all the inferior acts had supposedly been voted out, there was at least one competitor who was consistently singing flat.

I say at least one. Actually she was the only artist I ever saw. Every time I walked past a TV with the Voice on it, she seemed to be on stage being all … pink. As usual I got all puffed up in my musical indignation over a flat pop star, but then something really weird happened. My internal dialogue (don’t ask me how one person manages to have an internal dialogue. Just go with it) went something like this:

Gw2Rs: Ugh, that just makes me so annoyed. She really can’t sing.
Gw2Rs: Don’t be so negative, you’re just being a snob.
Gw2Rs: No I’m not. It just annoys me when someone who obviously can’t sing is being hailed by thousands of people as a great singer.
Gw2Rs: Like you could do any better.
Gw2Rs: I certainly couldn’t. I haven’t had the necessary training. Neither has she. That’s the point.
Gw2Rs: So what makes her different to you?
Gw2Rs: I don’t get up in front of thousands of people and say “look at me, I think I can sing.”
Gw2Rs: …
Gw2Rs: …
Gw2Rs: …
Gw2Rs: Shut up. That’s different.
Gw2Rs: …
Gw2Rs: Shut up! At least I don’t dress all in black with weird coloured hair.
Gw2Rs: …
Gw2Rs: I’m going to slap you in a minute.

All things considered, Hats Off to Broadway went very well. Certainly we’ve had a lot of great feedback from the audiences. One old friend of our family told me it was the best night of entertainment he’d ever had at the uni. I think his memory might be starting to go, but it was high praise nonetheless.

It was also nice to hear a lot of nice things being said about the Chorale. In the past a lot of people, including me, have tended to dismiss the Darwin Chorale as not really worth the effort. It’s safe to say we made an emphatic statement to the contrary last weekend, easily holding our own and at points even overshadowing the larger and much better funded Darwin Symphony Orchestra.

The after party was a bit of a laugh. There were the usual hugs and drinks and then more hugs and then more… well you know how it goes. Everyone expressed the usual remarks about how much fun it was doing a show, and how we should all get together and put on something really big and how much fun it is, and I just love you man, and how much fun is this?

I’ll believe the sentiment when I see the outcome.

Well… rehearsals are already beginning for the next Chorale show. Sometime in October there’ll be a big choral concert of all Australian music. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I’m not certain I’m prepared to sacrifice every Wednesday night from now until then to the gods of rehearsals, in addition to whatever other rehearsals get called along the way. We’ll see. In the meantime … um … what an incredible journey it’s been.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

One Day More

Hats Off To Broadway opens tonight at Charles Darwin University. It’s my first outing with the Darwin Chorale, and certainly my first foray into singing solo into a microphone without a valid excuse (church, comedy, and karaoke are all perfectly reasonable exceptions, obviously). Actually, in many respects, it’s just like standing up to do comedy for the first time, except instead of getting up in front of a room full of people and saying “look at me; I think I’m funny,” tonight I’m going to stand in front of hundreds of people who’ve actually paid money (at least comedy was free) and say “look at me; I think I can sing”.

There’s been some kind of horrible mistake, I’m sure. While on the balance of things, I can get away with claiming to be funny, as long as I’m not charging anyone for it, it remains a scientific fact that I can’t sing properly. I certainly don’t belong out the front singing ensembles from Lés Mis with a world renowned tenor on one side of me and a pretty, trained, talented and utterly terrifying soprano on the other. Either I’m about to wake up in a cold sweat, or I’m about to attempt the silliest performance yet in a career that includes impersonating a lustful photocopier. I guess we’re about to find out.

Tomorrow we’ll discover what out God in Heaven has in store…




Garry with 2 Rs

The Importance Of Not Being Algernon

A few posts back I wrote about how thrilled I was about landing the role of Algernon in a local production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Well, we opened last night to great reviews and I’m still extremely happy to be involved, particularly with such an awesome role. But I have to say, ever since I got back from holidays and plunged head first into production week (with a resounding splat, I might add) I’ve been battling the rather disconcerting feeling that, as much as I’m enjoying being Algernon, Algernon seems, in a strange way, to enjoy being me.

The most enjoyable part of the whole play for me is the chance to poke a bit of (thoroughly deserved) fun at the aristocracy and the upper class culture. Algernon’s persona as we’ve come to develop him over the last few months is glaringly ostentatious, absurdly dandyful (shut up, yes it is) and poncy to the point of being overtly camp.

Put more simply, Algernon is English.

I, on the other hand, am Australian and take pride in the fact. It’s one of the few categorisations or labels that I will allow to be applied to me without any objection. So the startling tendency for Algernon’s ridiculous affectations to hang around on my person long after we’ve taken the final bow is causing me an intermediate amount of cultural distress. I don’t have the broadest of Australian accents to begin with, but I’ve taken great care over the years to cultivate the few Strine diphthongs I do use to the ultimate level of inner ear rupturing nasalisation.

Nowadays, thanks to my spending every waking hour either at work or at Earnest, not only do I sound more pompous than Mark Nicholas interviewing the Duke of Edinburgh, I’ve managed to develop a slight labialisation of my rhotics, despite the fact that not even Algernon has that particular speech impediment anymore. We got rid of it about a week and a half ago because it sounded ridiculous. And now I’m doing it.

Earlier this week at a staff meeting I was inviting my co-workers along to see the play when I got this gem from one of the senior managers:

“I was just saying that you’re perfectly suited to the role (take that sopranos). You just look like you would fit right in in Victorian England”.

What. The. Hell?

For one thing, we wear a uniform at work, and it’s about as far from Victorian as you could get without being downright unprofessional. For another, it is a well established fact that if I were a product of any historical era, it would be the Spanish Civil War. Or possibly the Early Cretaceous Period.  I certainly don’t belong in England. I have the documents to prove it. Mind you, this was from the same manager who has described me in my performance review as “shy,” “methodical” and “too compassionate,” none of which remotely apply to me. That last one doesn’t even make sense.

The point is I’m a little disturbed by my inability to shake Algernon off when I’m not being him. I’m not a method actor by any stretch of the imagination and I’ve never had this sort of character invasion before. I didn’t start bossing people around or standing around being ceremonial and useless (well…) while I was playing King Hildebrand. It probably has something to do with the fact that a single, twenty-something year old mischievous cynic has a little more common ground with me than a fifty something year old monarch from a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta in the first place, but I’d love to be able to convince myself that it has something to do with becoming a better actor.

Either way, there were still no messages from fans, agents or pretty girls’ mothers on my phone this morning. But at least no-one in my family got engaged this time. Make of that what you will.




Gawwy with 2 Ws

Prometheus Bound

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

The Importance of Being Algernon

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

Or Castle Adamant

Wow. What a weekend. No, really. I don’t think I can get all this in one post. So here we go. Part one. I know you’ve also been waiting ever so patiently (or less patiently in your case K.Kim. Geez woman) for the Princess Ida post. Well, here we go then.

After last year’s effort I decided to give Operatunity another go, partially to beef up my portfolio of in involvement in local productions and partly to check off resolution nine from my 2011 checklist. Mainly however, it was an attempt to finally deal with my acute irrational fear of sopranos.

It didn’t work. Nor is it, I maintain, all that irrational when you look at.

I must confess, as recently as a couple of weeks ago I was quite convinced that the show was headed for a monumental collapse. The cast, which is constructed from a motley assortment of chronologically disparate performers in the first place, suffered a huge setback when the lead tenor had to pull out with three weeks to go until opening night. Combine that with an ever dwindling chorus and an orchestra that was still figuring out how the music was supposed to go on the night of the final dress rehearsal and I wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence going into opening night.

It's been rather a strange experience, trying to turn myself into a king each night. I'm the least monarchistic (a recent poll of about the only three people I could find whose opinions I trusted has concluded that monarchistic is a word. Deal with it) person I know. For one thing, everyone knows kings have beards. So now I have a beard. Sort of. It puts one more in mind of an unemployed theologian than of an imperial monarch, but as my character is supposed to be at least fifty years old, I think it's best to say the effect is... impressionistic? Thankfully I've been able to draw a lot of extra regality from the deferential endowment of the rest of the cast. And when you think about it, that's really what being a royal is all about.

My autocratic crisis of identity notwithstanding, on the whole, the show has been a great success so far. We’ve done three shows, with two shows to come next weekend. Crowds have been growing steadily, and although we’ll have to sell out the last two shows to break even, general morale among the cast and crew has been great. I’ve been run absolutely ragged taking a small cadre of baritones under my wing, who show great promise in their aspirations to take on the mantle of chief cheek-giver and applecart discombobulator. They’ve some real natural talent, but they do grow up so fast, and unfortunately there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

But the show, as they say, must go on. Twice. And then we’ll pack the sets away for another year and start all over again in a few months time. And just for now that suits me fine, as I have more than enough other things to think about for the next few weeks.

But that’s another post entirely.




Garry with 2 Rs

The Show Must Go On

Last weekend was all about the show.

For one thing, it was the Show Day long weekend. Every year the Royal Darwin Show unfolds itself on to the showgrounds. For three glorious days people stream through the gates, and then walk around in circles trying to figure out what they’re doing there. It seems to me that if you’re not a small child, a carnie or a farmer there isn’t really much to get excited about apart from eating things outside in glorious dry season weather, which we could do anyway. And then three days later the livestock, balloons and rides fold themselves up into temporal stasis for another year, ready to emerge again, unscathed and unchanged, in twelve months time.

I swear: it’s even the same cows.

Meanwhile, there was another show on in town. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, Corrugated Iron decided that show weekend was a good time to put Tease on. Having long since backed away from an acting role, I was quite keen to put on my writer’s hat (I don’t really have a literal writer’s hat, although I do have a black fedora, which is just about the same thing) and sit and watch the words I’d written come to life on stage. I’d never had that experience before and it was kind of awesome.

I really need to give credit here to the cast; Kadek Hobman, Danielle Andrews and Dylan Bennett, and also to the director Alex Galeazzi. Those guys were awesome, and put in performances that made the play seem a lot better than it was.

All in all it was a great success. I got a lot of really positive feedback from people whose opinions I respect and I’ve had more than a few people ask me what my next project is. It’s a bit embarrassing to have to say I don’t have one. Still, I’m feeling more than a little inspired to find one; after all, you know what they say:

A splash of apple cider never hurt anyone.

Garry with 2 Rs

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

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

A Night at the Opera

Okay, that’s enough philosophising about dead celebrities. I promised you all a write up of my insights into the swirling morass of emotion, drama, fame, riches, bright lights and fast women that is the Darwin opera community. And now that Nanowrimo is successfully done and dusted (refer right) I'm in a much better position to do it

Of the above list, “dramatic” is probably the only term that actually fits, being inextricably linked with opera and all, but apart from that it’s hard to find the right words to describe the experience. ‘Aquatic,’ ‘polynomial’ and ‘vengeful’ don’t even come close.

We, the good folk of OperatuNiTy, put on "The Merry Widow from Gumtree Creek," which is a modernisation and Australianisation of the original Merry Widow by Franz Lehar. There were plenty of laughs and a generous helping of good old fashioned racial stereotypes on display. I got to play a French nobleman, which called for my 'unique' talents in accent mimicry. If you can imagine the French peas from Veggietales having a conversation with John Cleese on top of the wall in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, then you probably need to take some sort of medication. But you'll have the basic idea of the vocal effect.

From the outset, it was clear I was always going to be slightly out of my depth with this one. Whereas I was approaching the production from the point of view of an actor who could hold a tune, most of the other cast members came from a background of singers who could hold a plot. That’s not to say that any of them were bad actors – far from it – any more than it is to say I’m a terrible singer – a little closer to it – but it did bring to light some critical differences in the way we approached the preparation for the show.

For me, learning lines and knowing where to stand when you’re saying them was the easy bit, while learning overlapping melodies for vocal ensembles was a daunting challenge. For most of the rest of the cast, it seemed to be the other way around, which made for some crazy upside down rehearsals for me in which from my perspective we spent five minutes quickly going over the impossible bit and then three hours hashing and rehashing the really simple bits. Fortunately I was just the comic relief and most of my time on stage was either spoken our sung with the whole chorus, so if I couldn’t land the musical bits it only really mattered for about seven seconds out of a two hour show.

We managed to get our costumes sorted out just in time for the dress rehearsal. My character was a master swordsman, and one of the other cast members was a fairly high ranking officer in the Australian Defence Force who lent me his military dress uniform sword for the show. It was, without exception, the coolest prop I have ever used. Although the plastic Voltron blazing sword we used during rehearsals was pretty awesome too.

And as always, it all came together on the night. We put on three really good shows to much bigger crowds than I was expecting, and I made it through the whole experience without succumbing to my morbid fear of sopranos or poking anyone's eye out with a sword.

So I guess that's a win for the good guys.



Garry with 2 Rs

Nanowrimo Again

I’ve been crazily busy these last few weeks. That opera I posted about a few months back? It turns out I got in after all. And consequently I’m spending every waking hour either at work or at the CDU theatre. It’s all great fun, but there are just a few more sopranos per square metre than I can generally handle without tucking my head inside my jacket and crouching down in the corner.

The point is (sort of) that due to this slight over commitment of time on my part, my efforts towards getting sponsored for Nanowrimo kind of became a non-event. Also, apparently the poll I posted on the subject was getting blocked by certain versions of Firefox, so now I’m left pondering who the hell has been voting if it wasn’t my family. I’m looking squarely at you, K.Kim, although I will confess that the one who voted for ‘it is cheese’ was me, purely because I was absolutely determined that someone had to.

So yes… “Nanowrimo against global poverty” was a bit of a flop. However, due my being an attention seeking knob and a glutton for punishment to go with it, I’ve decided to go ahead and try it for free.

Consequently my usual semi-regular dispensing of inane drivel may have to take a slight hiatus here for November, while I concentrate the nonsense generation faculties on a slightly larger goal. But I will try to update the running word total (over on the right) so you can see my glorious progress, or calamitous lack thereof, depending.

Breath and wind. It is cheese!




Garry with 2 Rs

The Random of the Opera

Yep that’s done it.

Last post I suggested that in the comparatively calm wake of the madness that was a Midsummer Night’s Dream, I would find some new and creative way to throw my life into the general chaos that I tend to prefer. The usual techniques for turning one’s life upside-down include tried and true methods such as quitting your job, meeting a special woman or experimenting with a new religion. And as usual, the usual techniques don’t apply to me.

I auditioned to be in an opera.

It seems like an almost logical step, following my re-emergence on the local theatre scene, apart from the small hiccup that I’ve never been in an opera before, and haven’t sung properly since I left college five years ago. A fellow cast member from Midsummers emailed me to say the company was desperate for tenors and invited me to go along for an audition. I suspected there was no way I was going to get into the cast of an opera. But I had also suspected there was no way I going to get in Midsummers either, so I impulsively decided to give it a go. What the hell.

About half an hour before the audition started, it suddenly occurred to me that I would probably be asked to sing something. I started to panic a bit here. Most proper singers, or at least those who’d had any sort of vocal training experience, would have thought to come along with something prepared, complete with sheet music and possibly an accompanist. By contrast, the only time I ever sing these days is when I’m accompanying myself on a piano in an empty church and that’s only when I’m confident no-one else is around. I frantically went over every song I knew trying to come up with something that would sound halfway presentable.

I had it narrowed down to two equally ridiculous possibilities when the audition room door opened and I walked in. I stood in front of a table with three people I’d never met looking back at me. It was kind of like “Australia’s Got Talent” except with out the TV cameras. Or the talent. And then came the $63.50 question.

“And what are you going to sing for us today, Garry?” Snap decision time.

“A Song of Freedom, by Murray Gold.” Odd decision, but it was either that or Psalm number 40 by U2. Besides, it was dramatic, melodic and in Latin which automatically made it sound like a proper audition song. The fact that it’s from the sound track to series four of Doctor Who is obviously irrelevant.

I finished my song and was rewarded with polite smiles form the casters.

“What language was that in?”
“Latin”.
“… Oh. … Really?”

Fortunately the next step was a script reading, which I could do with a little more confidence. That was, until casters asked me if I could read the same part again, but in a French accent. I ended up sounding like cross between Russian and Chinese, so I’m not sure how that all went down with them.

Finally, to check my ability to hold pitch with an accompanist, they asked me to sing the national anthem while one of them played it on the piano. Given my previous performance with other languages and accents, they were kind enough to let me sing the Australian national anthem, and to sing it in English. By this stage I was so tripped out by the whole experience, I very nearly forgot the words, which never happens to me; not with the national anthem anyway.

Having crashed through the final hurdle, I thanked the casters for their time and got the hell out of there. I still don't know quite what's going on with final casting. Apparently I'm going to find out tomorrow, but I think I know what the answer's going to be.

…




Garry with 2 Rs

I offer absolutely no apologies to those affronted by the use of 'random' as a noun. Get over it.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

So over the last few weeks I’ve been gearing up for a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by Shakespeare. It’s all been a bit random, as I only auditioned for the play on a whim and on about a day’s notice. I wasn’t really expecting to get in, let alone have a speaking role, but the next thing I knew I was issued with a script, a contact list and a month’s worth of rehearsal dates. They may have been blown away by my raw and untapped theatrical potential. They may also have been struggling to locate enough male players. We may never know for sure. All we can say for certain is that, for some reason, for the last week and a bit I’ve spent every evening pretending to be Francis Flute the bellows-mender. There’s been a bit of life imitating art going on, and it’s getting harder and harder to tell where Shakespeare ends and normal Darwin life picks up.

Flute is one of a group of amateur actors who randomly decide to put on a play, but don’t really have any idea what’s going on. People start behaving in peculiar ways because of love, largely due to the mischievous influence of a tricksy fairy. And it all takes place as the forces of nature and order seem to be out of alignment somehow. Also, just before the actors’ show, one of them gets turned into an anthropomorphised donkey.

Okay, the donkey one doesn’t really work.

Actors and other theatre types are a funny sort. They (I suppose I should really say “we”, but I like to pretend I’m different) seem to spend a great deal of time and effort showing how well versed and experienced they are in matters of the theatre, and the rest of their time trying to show how they don’t buy into it at all, but are really just there for the love of the art. They also occasionally learn lines, but obviously that’s over-rated. I spent most of my time figuring out what the hell was going on and how to make it look like I knew what the hell was going on.

Maybe I’m not so different after all. Either way, we ran the show for a week and sold out most nights. It was all great fun and the director and production staff all seemed really happy. For a cast and crew comprised entirely of locals (it was just the director who was a complete ring-in) I'd have to say we broke some serious legs.

Now, I know I promised you all some juicy backstage gossip but to be honest there really isn’t any. Most of the cast had full or part time jobs and by the time we all finished a day’s work and then put another four hours in for the show, we really didn’t have much energy left for any shenanigans. However, I can make the following observations:

1) Shakespeare is well renowned for his genius use of imagery, rhyme, metre and wit. However, the fastest way to impress an audience is still to have two chicks fighting in a paddling pool.

2) Despite the Fairy King’s assertions that everything had been restored to its natural order, no-one seemed to mind that Demetrius finishes the play still under the fairies’ enchantment.

3) There is absolutely nothing that an audience finds funnier than a man dressed as a woman.

And what with all the high-culture fun going on, there hasn’t really been much else to write about lately. Or has there?

…




Garry with 2 Rs