My Week, By Alison: and a Recommendation ~ theatre notes

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

My Week, By Alison: and a Recommendation

I'm going to be very bloggish today, gentle reader, and tell you all about my week. As always, I've had a problem with hats. My misfortunes began when I accidentally finished a novel. I say "accidentally" because I am working on something else, and around Monday I realised that I couldn't continue it until I had dealt with an earlier idea which I had abandoned, at last count, three times, but which was still taking up space in the "novel" department of my head. Last Thursday I light-heartedly typed "THE END", totally forgetting what happens when I finish a long project.

It's always followed by inexplicable physical collapse, as if my body is taking revenge. Partly as a result of the resulting migraine, on Friday I twisted my foot on the way home from Rimini Protokoll's 100% Melbourne. This meant that on Saturday night, instead of heading off to see Hayloft's new show, The Seizure, I was at home watching my foot turn an interesting shade of purple. Several people have pointed out that, since The Seizure is an adaptation of Philoctetes, a play about a man with an injured foot, this was strangely appropriate. These people are smartarses: worse, they are smartarses with classical educations.

I caught up with The Seizure on Monday night, and since then have been attempting to note my responses to both shows. But there's another thing that happens when I finish a project: my mind packs up and goes on holiday, possibly in a galaxy far, far away. So far, I have been almost completely unsuccessful in transferring into decent written English any of the thoughts that 100% Melbourne and The Seizure have set in flight. Worse, I am leaving Melbourne tomorrow for some other business. I'm traveling first to Adelaide, to be part of a panel at the Adelaide Festival Centre on Thursday night (Everyone's a Critic) and then on to Darwin for Wordstorm and the Poetry Festival, where I will be wearing a couple of other writer hats.

I can only say that if you missed Rimini Protokoll, you missed something special: and recommend that you click here and book tickets to The Seizure, an elegantly realised, austere and compelling work that demonstrates a new departure in the evolution of one of the most interesting independent companies we have. I'm hoping to say why next week, when I return from my round trip of the continent.

The moral of this tale of woe, children, is to be less careless about headgear.

3 comments:

J-Lo said...

Off-topic; just wondering if you saw / intend to review last two Red Stitch shows (Beyond the Neck and Stockholm)?

J-Lo said...

Another off-topic - have you considered (or done already and I just haven't found it!) creating a Facebook feed for TN?

Alison Croggon said...

Hi J-Lo - I'm refusing a lot of shows I'd like to see lately, and sadly those were among them. A Facebook feed? Hmmm...