Three chickens at Fortress Mamea (West Auckland), 2011.
Auckland Theatre Company are hosting a reading of Still Life With Chickens next week.
Directed by Andrew Foster, featuring Goretti Chadwick, Julia Croft, and Fasitua Amosa, with a workshop chicken puppet by Katie Parker, and under the watchful dramaturgical eye of Philippa Campbell Jo Smith, it’ll be 45 minutes of laughs, clucking and gardening.
If you’re in the neighbourhood next Thursday, check it out:
Thursday 4 May 2017 at 4:30pm
Auckland Theatre Company Studios 487 Dominion Road Mount Eden Auckland
I saw Ghost in the Shell the other week. It was fun: it had gunfights, sci fi techy stuff, Beat Takeshi and flashes of me oul’ hometoon of Wellington under layers of set dressing and CGI.
Victoria Street, Wellington. (Photo: www.imfdb.org.)Victoria Street, Wellington. (Photo: www.filmnz.com.)Victoria Street alley, Wellington — in a previous life, I worked in the building on the right there. (Photo: www.atlasofwonders.com.)
Last Friday was pizza night (yes, we still have a pizza night), and I was chopping onions when Bobby Brown’s Every Little Step came on through my headphones.
I was happily chopping and singing — including each and every whoop and holler — when I realised half-way through that I knew every goddamned word of that song and it must’ve been at least twenty years since I last heard (and danced) to it.
The moral of this post? Some things can not be un-remembered.
Bonus moral? Don’t bust any dance moves whilst holding a kitchen knife.
I’m chuffed. Have I already said I’m chuffed? (Yes.)
I even like the photograph that accompanied the press release at The Big Idea:
This looks like it was taken at the 2015 Adam Awards. Photo: Philip Merry.
I also rather like this description of it:
It is full of delicious detail, funny, heart wrenching and intensely moving. It is a work unmistakably growing right out of New Zealand soil; distinctly Samoan but with absolutely universal appeal.
The script will have a workshop with actors, director and dramaturg in the coming month. The workshop will end with a kind of rehearsed reading that may be open to the public. You’ve been warned.
I’m in Melbourne at the moment so 2016 Adam winner Maraea Rakuraku very kindly accepted the award on my behalf, with something I prepared earlier:
Still Life With Chickens was going to be a co-writing venture with my Lovely Wife. She came up with the title and the concept, and I suspect she envisioned a situation where she would roam the study reeling off dialogue and scenes while I sat dutifully at the keyboard and typed everything in.
Because I love my wife dearly and I value our marriage, I worked on the play in secret for two years, and presented the script to her — crediting her appropriately, of course — as a fait accompli.
I acknowledge my fellow longlistees, in particular Maraea Rakuraku for kindly accepting this award on my behalf.
Thanks to Creative New Zealand for its support in getting the first draft to the finish line.
Thanks to Playmarket: Murray, Salesi, Kirsty, Allison — and before Allison, Stuart Hoar — for their tireless work in developing, supporting and hustling for New Zealand playwrights.
Thank you to the Adam aiga for these awards.
And thank you to my Lovely Wife who believes in me more than I do.
So — don’t tell anyone — but I was doing a little light research when I read the following passage:
[French explorer de Bougainville marvelled at the skill of the Samoan sailors who knew] how to use the sun and stars as a guide and how to take advantage of prevailing winds. Furthermore, they seemed to have a wonderful sense of direction that would tell them the right direction of travel no matter what strange surroundings they were in. And, like a bird of migration, the Samoan sailors unerringly returned to the island from which they had set out.
And I flashed on this early exchange:
WELLINGTON -- 2008
Our PET WRITER and his GODDESS seek directions from the writer’s AWESOME SISTER.
GODDESS
We just want to find the nearest supermarket.
AWESOME SISTER
Easy-peasy: you take the first left and you’ll see a KFC on the corner. Drive past it for three blocks until you see a McDonalds, take a right before the golden arches, and you can’t miss it.
GODDESS
... I have no idea what you just said.
PET WRITER
It’s okay, I got it.
GODDESS
(off writer and his sister)
... It’s an island thing, isn’t it?
Pet Writer and Awesome Sister try not to smile patronisingly at her.
Wellington, 2008: there’s a KFC two blocks down to the right there.
The excellent Toby Morris piece below calmed me down the other day.
Toby Morris’ Pencilsword at thewireless.co.nz — click through for the rest of the comic.
It’s much more resonant than a “Keep calm and [INSERT EXHORTATION]” meme or what-have-you.
Finding the balance between knowing one’s limits and pushing beyond them is an ongoing challenge.
Yes, on occasion I have rued the consequences of an “How hard can it be?”-inspired adventure.
But however they end, when the smoke clears and I’m either still standing or not in handcuffs (or better, both), I’ve at least learnt something new about the world, my craft or myself.
Some of my limits are just because. Others are there to be extended.
