Matthew Zajac’s Australian Tour Blog
7 Apr 2009 in Dance & Drama, Highland
MATTHEW ZAJAC is an Inverness-born actor and writer. This blog follows the tour of his award-winning show The Tailor of Inverness in Australia.
Adelaide, 6 March 2009
Adelaide Fringe Festival parade
What an auspicious day to be starting this blog from the Adelaide Fringe Festival – Caley Thistle are off the bottom of the Scottish Premier League ! Another gritty victory away to Glasgow Rangers. Come on lads, we ‘re staying up !
On other cultural matters, Dogstar Theatre Company is in the fortunate position of having a residency with “The Tailor of Inverness” at the Holden Street Theatre here in Adelaide for the duration of the Fringe, courtesy of being recipients of the inaugural Holden Street Theatres Award, which aims to take one production annually from the Edinburgh to the Adelaide Fringe. We also received additional support from the Scottish Arts Council and HI~Arts, enabling us to take our director Ben Harrison and Production Manager Laura Edwards with us, vital insurance for maintaining the quality of the show. Adelaide’s is the 2nd largest fringe festival after Edinburgh and, fingers crossed, it seems so far that its bucking the credit crunch, with ticket sales apparently holding up well.
We stumbled off the plane last Tuesday, bleary-eyed into the searing 40 degree heat and after meeting and greeting our hosts and a couple of hours at our digs, we were straight into the “bump-in”, Australian for the get-in and technical rehearsal. Jet lag took us a few days to get over, during which time we had 2 previews, both sold out, with the first including a host of critics, so no pressure… Edinburgh last August was pretty sweaty, but last Thursday’s show here easily out-sweated that. Hopefully the workout intrinsic to the show is doing a good job of expelling my impurities !
Friday was a day off and the official opening day of the Fringe. Our director Ben Harrison and I hob-nobbed with the VIPs on the balcony of The Stag Bar, an excellent vantage point for viewing the colourful diversity of the Fringe parade. I was strangely moved to see that this included a group of Holden Street’s volunteers, who had taken the theme of tailoring to produce a series of wacky costumes: giant pin cushion hats, flowing skirts made from dress patterns, sewing machine parts and measuring tapes. With the show itself so focussed on war and survival, this joyful carnivalesque expression, one of many different kinds in the parade, was a revelation to me, a kind of uplifting counterpoint which brought home to me that we’re in a country full of diasporas, where brash optimism is part of the fabric of society.
As in Edinburgh last August, the well-attended previews have been followed by a few lower turnouts. But the response to this show remains consistent: fantastic concentration from the audience, tears and a few folk every day who wait to talk to us about the show afterwards. It looks like the word of mouth, so vital at events like this, is beginning to work its magic.
I’ll be posting short pieces on our stay here regularly during the next couple of weeks to March 22nd. I promise not to mention the mighty Caley Jags every day. Bye for now.
8 March 2009
Matthew Zajac in The Tailor of Inverness
It’s Sunday evening and I’ve just risen from soaking my tired limbs in a long bath, looking forward to a day off tomorrow and a trip with the Holden St. Theatre staff to a couple of wineries and a beach.
As we hoped our audiences have been growing, with last night’s virtually sold out. Word of the show has reached a large number of Adelaide’s Polish community, and others of Eastern European descent, Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians and of course, many other Australians. But the first, second and third generation Poles are turning up in force. We swap stories after the show, so many variations on a theme, the twists and turns of survival. Two people I’ve talked to had fathers who survived Auschwitz. I’ve been invited on to Polish Community Radio on Tuesday, some ladies on the board of the Polish Museum, 130km away, have invited me there for a visit and we’re going for Sunday lunch to the Dom Polski, the main Polish centre in the city. Sunday evening’s show could be weighed down by pierogi …
I’ve learned that Adelaide, when it was being settled by immigrants from Europe and elsewhere, was part of the free state of South Australia i.e. its genesis was not as a penal colony. This seems to be an important part of the city’s heritage and I think its reflected in a great openness here. The city’s cosmopolitanism is a given and it is celebrated, a source of strength for its inhabitants. Large Greek, German, English, Italian, Chinese, and Indian communities. As well as the East Europeans and people from all parts of South East Asia and the Pacific Rim. And of course the Irish and the Scots. Our main street in North Adelaide is O’Connell Street. There’s a bus going to Blair Athol (one L), and we can swim on Glenelg beach or take a trip to the fastest town in the south, Nairn (mun). The producer on the ABC radio show I was on a few days ago was from Oban and Gavin’s dance band is called Cielidh Minogue. Its all cohering ! The museum houses a great exhibition of Aboriginal culture where you can marvel at the indigenous genius for medicine, storytelling, hunting and nutrition. Pouring a tranquillising poison into a pool to stun fish, carrying water in the dried skin of a wallaby. On a square in the city centre, white and aboriginal musicians point their amplified didgeridoos at each other across a square in the city centre, taking turns to play. This truly feels like a global village. Its not all rosy: a taxi driver tells us this is “the murder capital of Australia” and I’m told that when there’s a power cut, which happens from time to time, the poor neighbourhoods, of which there are quite a few, get their metered supply cut first. Nevertheless, this place has a vibrancy which is making me feel very good indeed ! G’day, slainthe & Czesc ! Do zobaczenia !
Adelaide, 11 March 2009
Just back from another performance of The Tailor of Inverness and another enthusiastic audience. It’s a tiring show to do, but the consistently intense concentration from our audiences creates an energetic tension which will always sustain me. And it doesn’t really stop when the show ends. Every night there are people who want to talk to me. Tonight I had a long conversation with Pamela, a Czech woman who was in the middle of her training at the Prague Drama Academy when the Soviets invaded in 1968. She fled from what was then Czechoslovakia and ended up here in Adelaide, where the theatre world was not so open to a Czech-accented actress as it probably would be now, so her acting career stuttered and then stopped. She has taught drama and Spanish ever since, but her daughter Natasha has entered the acting profession and is doing well.
Pamela is overwhelmed, full of gratitude and admiration, delighted to have seen what she describes as “true European theatre”. Her opinion of Australian theatre, with a few exceptions, is not good. The only Australian production I’ve seen so far is Scarborough, by the Geordie playwright Fiona Evans. Its on at Holden Street with an Australian cast and directed by Martha Lot, the HST director, a short intense, beautifully-written dialogue between a schoolteacher and her 15-year-old lover/pupil, set in a downbeat seaside hotel room which the audience occupies, flies on the wall. Its excellent, so I guess it would be listed as one of Pamela’s exceptions
Monday was our day off. The Holden Street staff took us for a day out to two wineries, Pertaringa and K1, part-owned by the Hardy family, Hardys being one of the best known wine brands from Australia. We drove south through the Adelaide Hills to the verdant Maclaren Vale, covered with vineyards. Our charming German host Michael talked us through six different wines at Pertaringa, which sponsors Holden Street Theatres. It was the middle of the morning with the sun beating down. Thankfully, the tasting involved small quantities of wine, so were only mildly light-headed as we departed for K1. This second vineyard is set in a wooded valley with a drive down a hill to a small lake. On the other side of the water is a large wooden and glass house with verandahs and walkways built out into the water, a gorgeous spot. We tasted the wines there with lunch, thus avoiding intoxication (just about) and kayaked on the lake. Then it was off to a beach south of the city for a dip and a bit of beachcombing. Martha presented me with a witch’s stone, one with a hole in it which apparently brings good luck and a Port Jackson shark egg, which looks like a stubby thick drill bit made of seaweed. I think she’s pulling my leg, but after a google back at the flat, I gather it’s the real McCoy. Oh, it’s a great life being a tartist.! *
tourist/artist
MZ
21 March 2009
A sound like a distant swarm of bees reaches my ears as I begin to write this. It’s the racing cars of the Clipsal 500, a four-day event which sees parts of Adelaide city centre converted into a racing circuit. It’s a major event, as is ours, the Adelaide Fringe. Last night, after the show, a Polish woman voiced her opinion that in Australia, “the religion is sport.” She’s not the first to express such a view and evidence of the worship of the body beautiful is never far away.
Our nightly communions with our audiences continue to fizz and as the Fringe hurries towards its close, there’s been a rush of ticket buying. There are very few tickets left, if any. We’re also delighted to have received two nominations for the Fringe Awards: Best Theatre Production and Best Theatre Performance. The ceremony is tomorrow night, after our last performance.
23 March 2009
In the air east of the Timor Sea on the way to Singapore. Its all over. Going home after nearly four weeks in Adelaide. The final show was a stormer, packed to the gunnels, and very sweaty. We got a standing ovation.
Then it was off to the glitzy Fringe Awards, held in the grand Masonic Hall. A canopy of multi-coloured giant streamers, dotted with gigantic lampshades hung above us as the comedians, dancers, puppeteers, musicians, visual artists and theatre makers were commended and awarded. We won neither of our categories, but we can’t complain. Our award was to be given the privilege of being here. The great reward is the powerful connection the show has made with audiences here.
31 March 2009
I haven’t quite got the hang of this blog thing. Its meant to be a spontaneous thing. Its now a week since I sleepwalked off the plane at Edinburgh Airport and only now do I feel like I’ve fully returned. The images, sounds and smells of the Australian trip are still vivid. The many faces of those who gathered round me after each performance; the pierogi and bigos at the Dom Polski; the lorikeets and parrots squealing in the trees; the great wine and chemical beer; the Bakery on O’Connel Street, pie heaven; the multitude of sensations, people and consumables which make up the Adelaide Central Market; partying into the early hours on our last night and finally dancing !
So many people urged us to take the show to Australia’s other cities, particularly Melbourne and Sydney. Maybe one day. For now, we have a new tour of the Highlands and North East coming up in May and before that, a visit to northern Sweden for performances at the Skelleftea Storytelling Festival and at Umea University. Hejdo !
MZ
