One lens on these past five silent months:
Two pieces of coverage for Auckland Prideâone for Sheâs Crowning: Rebirth, one for The Teaches of Peaches Anniversary Tour 2023
The release of Starling Issue 15
The first of several upcoming Comedy Festival reviewsâHayley Sproullâs Ailments
And, now, a couple more.1
At some stage over the past few monthsâthe second week of March, if I had to get specific about itâthe world and I seemed to reach energetic equilibrium.2 Between a fizzing, marathonlike Festival and Championsâ premiere season, the clamorous restlessness I so frequently feel, and struggle to channel into something beyond myself, was matched by the demands of my circumstances. My generative drive had somewhere to go. For a timeâand, crucially, without resentmentâI didnât have to supply the container.
From March effectively through to May, I had a life mapped out for me: three non-stop weeks of Festival delivery, during which I also managed to sneak in attending the TÄmaki stop on the Dance Fever tour;3 two weeks of reporting, and final rehearsals for Champions; a contract that wrapped up with a day to spare before we packed in at Basement theatre; a week of shows. Then the shows sold out, and another was added. H arrived, too, for three weeksâand to a largely unavailable host, that first week and a halfâhaving come all the way from England.4
I should contextualise, particularly with regard to Champions. It wasâand, naturally, remains to beâa play, following four emerging visual artists vying for a prestigious award. âWhen one finalist rejects a proposal to split the $50,000 prize,â the blurb details, âthings begin to fall apart.â
I first heard about Champions at the beginning of last September, when I reunited with my friend Harriett, after years apart (owing to You-Guessed-It). Harriett is a brilliant director, and a cherished collaborator, and another H, though sheâs been publicly associated with Champions, and with me, for months now, so naming her here doesnât feel so much like a theft of something.5 We were walking around the waterfront, battling the elements, and she told me she was directing a play reading. She gave me the premise (âOh, love that,â from me). âItâs by this phenomenal woman, Isabella McDermott,â she said. âI think you two should meet.â She told me Isabella had poetry on her bathroom wall.6 And she asked, subtly, if Iâd ever produced for theatre.
I met Isabella the following week. Coincidentally, and romantically, weâre almost neighbours. She and Harriett and I spent an evening discussing the play, and random little jokes we loved, and a particularly good piece of onscreen multitasking-with-spaghetti acting.7 And, from there: a reading, and being programmed at Basement, and casting, and rehearsals, and a season, and then a bit more. And I adored Isabella, and still doâand the same with Harriett. And we built a company along the way of people so open and funny and precise and generous, with their time and with their talent, and then the play met its audienceâits audiences8âand I found myself standing on the street at the tail end of the season, looking over at Isabella as we branched off toward home, and saying, âI think this is what it feels like to be within something.â
Much of the past few months has felt like that, to differing degrees. Stops on the trail of warm, slightly alien moments plucked from somewhere outside the realm of the anticipated; the kind of experiences people chart as near-imperceptible evolutions on a perceived climb toward a dream, a self, a life realised. I donât know that I go in for the idea that weâre on a spiral upward, that thereâs some summit to reach, or to otherwise miss out on. I think a key part of aspiration, especially with regard to creativity, is that wherever youâre trying to get to doesnât actually exist. The path will keep extending ahead of you forever: a liberation, or a nightmare corridor. Thereâll always be some other room wherein whatever Proper World youâre thinking of is taking place.
That doesnât have to be a defeat, I donât think. That expansion can only occur because youâre accumulating skills, experiences, understanding you previously didnât have.9 These past months have been thrilling, and trying; days and weeks taken half-inert but vaulting, like corners at speed. Iâve been delivered things I wanted, once, and realised I didnât need them: realised that certain things âhappen to other peopleâ because theyâre meant for someone elseâs life; that we mustnât prioritise Narrativeâą, no matter how neat; that Iâm actually, all things considered, doing alright.
There is, yes, so much more to be found, and cherished, and gleanedâbut that same so much more also does occasionally barrel into the present, into our hands, and we owe it to ourselves to sink into it when it does. Let it encourage us to renegotiate the way weâre living, as the light did when it âburst ⊠like crystal gauzeâ into the room in Jay Wrightâs âThis Morningâ.10 Exist within the thing, enriched, exhausted, ecstatic. Watch the road stretch yet further out ahead. And then rejoice in each new chance to force it to.11
So thatâs that, and weâre here in the last wash of May together.
As a matter of logistics: Iâm also on Instagram, if thatâs your thing; and I have a website (including exactly one [1] Succession Easter egg, if you can find it).
My poetry collection, Short Films, is available directly from Tender Press and in bookstores across Aotearoa. You can also read Starling, full of wonderful work from New Zealand writers under 25, right here.
Go well.
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Lenses, that is. A couple more lenses! Doesnât have the same quiet gravity in the cadence, though, does it? Either way, on we go!
The preceding weeksâFebruary, and even January before itâhadnât quite matched the magic.
There were consistent moments of ongoing delight, of course: I saw Rina Sawayama at The Powerstation (incredible; effervescent; just the greatest way to start a year); I became briefly, but nonetheless deeply, obsessed with CĂ©line Dionâs discography, specifically âI Want You to Need Meâ (a glorious and/but overwhelming crush song!); I reached the denouement of a newsletter through-line and actually watched Sex and the City (!!!!).
I was also faced with the sudden and very confronting physical toll of sustained and unrelenting exhaustion. This was the result of a combined resilience Iâve otherwise come, especially since the age of sixteen, to pride myself on, and my significant tendency to disregard my own wellbeing in the name ofâwhat?âbeing noble, and itâs not the kind of thing I need to spend much more time detailing, but February threw it firmly to the fore.
NowâMarch. Letâs hold to March, and April, and May.
âFestivalâ capitalised throughout per the company style guideâold habits, etc.
Iâm realising with every passing newsletter that many of my friends share a first initial. Weâre packing in the Hs and Ks, especially. What to do, what to do.
In hindsight, Harriett is one of very few people Iâve ever properly named in these newsletters. Cue 2019.
A detail I love, but hope isnât invasive.
Bonus points for anyone with a correct guess as to which onscreen multitasking-with-spaghetti acting garnered a mention. 2022 release, not mad niche, brilliant naturalistic performance.
I usually have a pretty accurate measure on where I am emotionally, moment to moment, but when the cast left the stage together after curtain call on our sold-out opening nightâthe four of them filing out, one turning back half to waveâI put my head in my hands and burst out crying. Love, I think, and overwhelm. A degree of pride for them, probably; for the others, for the effort. Relief. Weâd got there, in the end! Feel free to find this nauseating and indulgent. Iâm intrigued by it, slightly, because it caught me so off guard.
Weâll always be thwarted in some part by circumstance. Even just by time. Thereâs something so daunting-wonderful-upsetting-real about reading the below from a recent Deadline interview with Martin Scorsese:
DEADLINE: Youâre 80. Do you still have that fire to get right back behind the camera and get the next one going?
SCORSESE: Got to. Got to. Yeah. I wish I could take a break for eight weeks and make a film at the same time [laughs]. The whole world has opened up to me, but itâs too late. Itâs too late.
DEADLINE: What do you mean by that?
SCORSESE: Iâm old. I read stuff. I see things. I want to tell stories, and thereâs no more time. Kurosawa, when he got his Oscar, when George [Lucas] and Steven [Spielberg] gave it to him, he said, âIâm only now beginning to see the possibility of what cinema could be, and itâs too late.â He was 83. At the time, I said, âWhat does he mean?â Now I know what he means.
Wrightâs brilliant poem in its entirety reads:
This morning I threw the windows
of my room open, the light burst
in like crystal gauze and I hung
it on my wall to frame.
And here I am watching it take possession
of my room, watching the obscure love match
of light and shadowâof cold and warmth.
It is a matter of acceptance, I guess.
It is a matter of finding some room
with shadows to embrace, open. Now
the light has settled in, I donât think
I shall ever close my windows again.
TEEHEE to THAT! đ€ đ€đ