WORLD PREMIERE directed by Lucinda Gleeson starring Sean Barker Lucy Miller Jeremy Waters
Friday 25 May 2012
High School Hell: Interview by Roslyn Helper, Brag
[THEATRE: Review] Crushed
Crushed
High School Hell
By Roslyn Helper
High School Hell
By Roslyn Helper
Melita Rowston began writing plays at art school. “I actually started out as a painter,” she tells me. “I went to the Victorian College of the Arts, and started hanging out with actors and seeing a lot of plays; I wanted to tell stories in my paintings, but I realised I could tell better, more detailed stories if I put them on stage.” Over a decade later, Rowston has carved out a reputation for writing theatre with a distinctly Australian voice – and Crushed, playing at New Theatre this month, is no exception.
Crushed is set in a fictional NSW bayside town, up past the Northern Beaches. It’s 1998, and Susie, the most popular girl in school, is having her 16th birthday. To celebrate, a group of high-school friends have gathered in the scrublands on the side of town – “You know, where you go and listen to rock music and drink warm beer,” says Rowston. That night, Susie is abducted from her bed and never found.
Fast-forward 22 years, and workmen excavating the same scrubland uncover the Poison T-shirt Susie was last seen wearing – slashed and covered in blood. The ensuing criminal investigation brings three friends – her best friend, her boyfriend and the town rebel – back together, to confront their memories of a night they’d hoped to leave buried in their adolescence forever. “It’s what I call a high-school reunion from hell,” Rowston quips.
It’s a story inspired by Rowston’s own experiences growing up in a small town on the Victorian coast. “Where I grew up, a little girl was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night and never found. I was a toddler at the time, and it was literally two blocks away – my mum still talks about it,” she says. As she researched the story, however, Rowston quickly realised that the ‘missing child’ theme runs a rich vein through Australian history and culture. “In the 1980s, we had the highest rate of child abduction in the world,” she tells me.
Rowston says the biggest challenge with Crushed was constructing a believable narrative arc. “I think the struggle was the suspense plot – the murder mystery – because it’s so detailed with the clues and the evidence. It was that struggle of making it believable and telling the characters’ relationship stories as well,” she explains. In the end, she drew heavily from her own past to create her characters. “They’re all really angry, but I love them; and the lead is a mixture of a couple of girls I went to high-school with, who I’m still friends with on Facebook”.
Ahead of the production at New Theatre, Rowston handed over her story to director Lucinda Gleeson, with whom she bonded over the play’s social milieu. “Lucinda calls herself a Canberra bogan, and grew up in a more Canberra-like town,” Rowston explains, “and she’s really connected with [Crushed], because just before we got into rehearsals, she started reconnecting with her high-school friends as well. She’s just like, ‘This is too close to home, I know these people; I know this world’. So that’s been really great.”
On her hopes for the upcoming production, Rowston says, “I like it when people have extreme reactions to my work. I’ve gotten to the point where I know that could also include extreme hate, but yeah… feeling something really resonant is what matters.”
What: Crushed by Melita Rowston
Where: New Theatre / 542 King St, Newtown
When: May 16 – June 9
More: newtheatre.org.au
Tuesday 22 May 2012
The Lost Child of Gen X: Interview by Elissa Blake, SMH
The Lost Child of Gen X
By Elissa Blake, 20 May, 2012
Playwright Melita Rowston recalls her teen years being filled with the sounds of hair-metal bands - Guns N' Roses, Poison, Motley Crue and Skid Row. Growing up in the 1980s in a beachside Melbourne suburb, she also remembers being haunted by the story of a little girl who was stolen from bed one night. It's a memory that has proven hard to shake off.
The crime made headlines and terrified her neighbourhood. ''Mum would say, 'Keep your bedroom window closed! You don't want to get taken!''' Rowston says. ''I was scared. It affected everyone.
''Our suburb had a lot of bushland and we'd be walking to school or the shops on our own as kids. The idea of 'stranger danger' was new then, so we were just becoming aware of dangers lurking in bushes.''
Photo by Dave Quinn
Vast past ... Melita Rowston describes Crushed as a "high school reunion from hell".
Inspired by that incident, Rowston has written Crushed, a fast-paced, darkly comic story about old friends who are connected by the summer night in 1988 when a not-so-sweet 16-year-old girl disappeared.
Twenty years later, the T-shirt the girl was wearing has been unearthed - covered in bloodstains - and as the police comb the ground for more evidence, the surviving friends are forced to confront memories of their adolescence they thought were long buried.
Directed by Lucinda Gleeson, the production features actors Lucy Miller, Sean Barker and Jeremy Waters. Rowston describes it as a ''high school reunion from hell'' filled with music from her teen years.
''This is a play written for Gen X,'' she says. ''We were children in the 1970s, raised with parenting ideas about colour and creativity and thinking differently and changing the world. We were told we could do anything and that we had so much choice. There was a lot of excitement but there was also a lot of pressure on us.''
But then the recession hit and the hopes of Gen X were stunted. The term ''quarter-life crisis'' was coined for a generation of those in their 20s whose hopes seemed to hit a brick wall.
''I like the metaphor that this generation is somehow lost, like the 'lost child' in Australian mythology,'' she says.
A NIDA-trained theatre director, Rowston turned to writing after working at Griffin Theatre, the launch pad for many new Australian plays. Crushed is her fifth full-length play and her first for New Theatre's Spare Room program, which is dedicated to new Australian work.
''The Spare Room is really supporting new Australian playwrights, and particularly female playwrights and directors, which is so important at the moment,'' she says.
''There are a lot of blocks and barriers for women in the industry. I'm really enjoying working with like-minded artists who make it all happen somehow.''
Rowston's next play, The Wonder from Downunder, is about giant earthworms.
''It will be a very strange one-woman show with holiday slides,'' she says.
''There are these huge earthworms found only in Gippsland. They became a phenomenon in the '80s, with Daryl Somers getting involved, and this guy creating a huge pink worm puppet that travelled the world. It's a great story.''
Crushed plays at the New Theatre until June 9. Tickets $10-$30. Bookings 1300 131 188.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/theatre/the-lost-child-of-gen-x-20120519-1ywvm.html
Going Back: Interview by Dave Drayton, Drum Media
GOING BACK
Playwright Melita Rowston talks to Dave Drayton about the drama of disappearance.
In January 1976 eight year old Eloise Worledge went missing. Despite the biggest missing person’s search in Victoria’s history and a $10,000 reward posted in that year that remains unclaimed, no trace has ever been found. When Eloise disappeared Melita Rowston was still young, but as a fellow resident of the Melbourne beachside suburb of Beaumaris, and with her parents being friends of the Worledge family, Rowston still had some sense of the disappearance, even if she could not yet fully comprehend its gravity.
“Everybody knew about it,” recalls Rowlston. “I was very young, but my mum was a friend of the family. I guess the impact for me was because I was so young – and the girl was seven when she was taken from her bed, I was a bit younger – my mum would always tell me that story and say, ‘Keep your window closed at night because you don’t want to get taken like little Eloise was taken.’ So it was more the impact of mum talking about it and her friends talking about it and growing up with that knowledge that a little girl was taken from her bed.”
When Rowlston was accepted into Griffin’s emerging playwrights residency, then under the guidance of David Berthold, Eloise’s disappearance, an interest in telling Gen X’s stories, in the myth of the missing child – as seen in stories such as Picnic At Hanging Rock – and frequent trips between Sydney and her Melbourne hometown inevitably led her to the crux of Crushed.
“I was visiting home a bit at that time and was having all those experiences you have after not living in a city for a while and going back to your childhood home and returning and remembering your childhood. I really liked that idea of ‘coming back’, a reunion of sorts, I think I was connecting with a few old high school friends as well, so that was really interesting to me. At the same time, where I grew up a little girl did go missing and I think it came up in a family conversation during my visit and I thought that would really impact on your life, if you were returning to this place full of childhood memories and there was this one friend who was still missing, and the mystery around that.”
In Crushed the missing girl’s best friend, Kelly, returns home from Prague, where she has been making a new life for herself, in order to assist in a re-opened police investigation into the missing person. More than being transported back geographically, Kelly and co are thrown back in time as they attempt to recall the fateful night during a series of police interviews and friendly reminiscences.
“We were also noticing the woman who’s gone missing in Brisbane,” Rowston adds, citing more recent cases that have influenced the rehearsal process for Crushed, “They’re putting mannequins out on the pavement and that sort of thing. And the mannequin features quite prominently in my play as well, this image of this weird child frozen with a wig on and the clothes that she was last seen in. So we were all last week looking at the news going, ‘Wow, this is really – even though it’s set in the past – something that is so real now as well.’”
Crushed runs until Saturday 9 June at New Theatre
Dave Drayton
Drum (May 15, 2012)http://themusic.com.au/interviews/all/2012/05/17/melita-rowston-crushed/
Crushed: Interview by Angela Bennetts, Alternative Media Group
CRUSHED
Photo by Dave Quinn
Maddy. Caylee. Jaycee. Natascha. Daniel. And now Susie, a ‘Sunny Girl’ in a Poison t-shirt. It’s the summer of 1988 her sweet 16 is turning out to be anything but … With Crushed, writer Melita Rowson (Sugarbomb, Solitude in Blue) has certainly dipped her nib into an ink pot darker than most, with a tale of innocence corrupted and a most macabre high school re-union …
What drew you to the myth of the ‘lost child’? When I was at art school, I studied 19th century Australian Impressionism and was captured by this recurring image of a lost child (usually a girl) in her white colonial dress being consumed by a menacing Australian bush. The myth was born of a real fear – many pioneer children were lost to the bush, but it is a particularly Australian anxiety as the landscape was so foreign to early Australians – many who were sent here by force. I’m interested in exploring the contemporary manifestation of this myth by replacing the bush with a suburban wasteland.
What kind of nuggets did you unearth while researching Crushed? I grew up in a suburb that was traumatised by a gunman siege, the abduction of a girl from her bed and many assaults that occurred in the surrounding scrublands. ‘Stranger danger’ and ‘safety house’ were the pervasive catchphrases of my youth. I thought this was particular to my experience, but the big nugget for me was when my research uncovered a statistic that showed during the 80s, Australia had the highest rate of child abductions in the world. I wondered what that said about our culture – did we have a national death wish?
How much does the world evoked reflect your own past? I started writing for the theatre because I felt my experience of this complex and beautiful country I call home was not being portrayed on stage. The world of Crushedcomes directly from my teenage years in suburbia. This is a story from my generation, (Gen X), written for my generation.
Is it difficult to bring humour into what is essentially a tragic murder mystery? Not at all. Odd, I know! I’ve focused this murder mystery around a ‘high school reunion from hell’ scenario. Most of us have experienced the torture of a high school reunion, so there’s plenty to laugh at and cringe about there. These characters are also quite cynical because of their loss; humour is all they’ve got left. My writing has often been called ‘darkly humourous.’ I find humour fuels tragedy. Besides, eighties cock rock provides such fertile ground…
Crushed is the first for The Spare Room … The New Theatre’s Spare Room program is in its second year and we’re proud to be first off the bat. The space hasn’t changed; it’s the good old New opening its doors to independent producers with vision and guts. When I write for theatre, I like to imagine the space I’m writing for, which is tough at the moment as there’s not a lot of venues willing to back female writers and new Australian work. The opportunities for women are narrowing. For awhile there, I was at a loss to imagine any space at all… If I invest years of my life into writing a play, I want my words to be heard, so programs like The Spare Room are crucial.
The title has us intrigued… Can you tell us a bit more about your next show, The Wonder from Downunder: One woman’s search for Gippsland’s Giant Worm? I stumbled across The Worm when I was researching a travel piece on kitsch tourism in Victoria. It’s a real earthworm that is only found in Gippsland – it’s the largest worm in the world! In the seventies, The Worm inspired a tourism phenomenon; a festival, a giant pink puppet, a big concrete worm… The worm saved a region from economic disaster but its success ultimately tore that region apart. Last year I took a camera to Gippsland and was invited onto farms and into homes to learn the truth behind the worm saga. Another trip is on the cards as more people have come out of the woodwork. The fruits of all this will be crafted into a one-woman corporate keynote/holiday slideshow. It’s been quite a ride!
May 16-Jun 9, New Theatre, 542 King St, Newtown, $10-30, 1300 131 188,newtheatre.org.au
Monday 21 May 2012
Out of the comfortable numb
The Crushed team have asked a few of our
close friends to guest blog a response to our play (which is playing now!) Third
to pick up a pen, is Bollywood actor, singer, songwriter, and screenwriter Nicholas Brown. Like our female lead Kelly,
Nicholas left Australia many years ago. We asked him to muse on what’s it’s
like being an Aussie expat and to riff on the notion of homecoming…
‘Leaving Australia was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made.
It’s the build up that’s the hardest. The anxiety, the fear of the unknown,
losing all your personal and business connections and having to start over. You
feel like you’ve spent years getting to a certain point just to throw it all
away.
Once I got on the plane though, it all seemed like a distant memory. In
my new surroundings, all I could do was live in the present.
Most people leave because they’re fed up with things being safe, they’re
frustrated with their careers and need some sense of risk to catapult them out
of the comfortable numb. That was certainly the case for me. Leaving Australia
helped me find my inner electric boogaloo. Although, these days I need to
return home to find it!
I left Sydney in 2007 for Mumbai to pursue an acting career in
Bollywood. I had no idea what I was getting myself into or how I would cope. I
wasn’t sure when I would return, but when I did, I would’ve damn hell have got
my ‘Bolly’ on!
Being an ex-pat was a lot of fun. I was ‘exotified’ for being Aussie,
which was refreshing, because back home being exotic was a hindrance. I think
that’s starting to change…
I remember my first trip home after my initial Indian adventure.
I’d become used to being constantly visually, emotionally and spiritually
stimulated. India is such a fascinating country. Mumbai is constantly evolving.
Bollywood is booming and constant change is part of its psyche. One of the
basic tenets of the Hindu philosophy is that you need to destroy to create and
because of this, Mumbai is progressing at the speed of light! And so, I had
changed. I had grown. I had become accustomed to chaos and risk and I wanted to
bring some of that back home to my friends and family.
Of course, when I returned, the only thing that had changed were a few
restaurants on King St in Newtown.
There’s something about the Australian sense of humour, it’s so dry,
that it often glosses over what’s at its core – racism and jealousy. “Getting
too big for ya’ boots are ya?” The tall poppy syndrome is definitely something
you become more aware of when you return to Australia.
When I come home now, I internalise, because sharing my stories and
adventures often results in being labeled boastful.
I love Australia and am proud of being Australian, but I think we can be
so much more. If we don’t really look at ourselves, how can we move forward?
Despite two new prime ministers and the ridiculous cost of living, not
much has changed since I left. The nostalgic part of me is pleased by this, but
the revolutionary within wishes that we were more ephemeral.
India is steeped in religion, tradition and mythology, but still manages
to evolve. India evolves by embracing its history. I believe the only way
Australia can become an open-minded, free country is to look to our indigenous
past for guidance.
Maybe we could get rid of the Union Jack from our flag and replace it
with the Aboriginal flag?! And can we make Yothu Yindi's 'Treaty' our National
Anthem?’
Like what you're hearing? Then book your tickets to
Crushed!
Check out Nicholas getting his
Bollywood On here:
Monday 14 May 2012
A Blog Post In Which I Attempt To Work Out Exactly What Is Happening In November Rain.
The Crushed team have asked a few of our close friends to guest blog a response to our upcoming play. Second to take the stand is Dr Who expert, shark lover, former Senior Producer/Programmer of ABC’s rage, former Series Producer of Raw Comedy and current Researcher for Kitchen Cabinet, Madeline Palmer. Given her years as rage programmer, we asked her to use her witty music knowledge for good and offer us an interpretation of the popular Guns ‘n’ Roses music video: November Rain…
‘It’s a tale as old as time; love is only found before it is cruelly lost. It could happen to any of us, for it happened to Axl Rose in November Rain…
Axl sits on the edge of a four-postered bed lit by the most poignant blue moon in the history of
love, poetry and lunacy. He seeks solace in a handful of pills washed down with whiskey, but no relief comes. Instead, he tosses and turns in a suspiciously large amount of silk bed sheets, as he dreams of summers past.
love, poetry and lunacy. He seeks solace in a handful of pills washed down with whiskey, but no relief comes. Instead, he tosses and turns in a suspiciously large amount of silk bed sheets, as he dreams of summers past.
He dreams of the glorious hours wiled away lighting each other’s smokes in the basement of a
bikie roadhouse, of the time Jesus himself shed a bloody tear for the beauty that was their love,
of their resplendent wedding filled with the most magnificent collection of steampunks ever.
bikie roadhouse, of the time Jesus himself shed a bloody tear for the beauty that was their love,
of their resplendent wedding filled with the most magnificent collection of steampunks ever.
Ah, their wedding. Axl’s hair had been perfect all day. His fiancée’s face was demurely hidden
behind a lace veil, while her wedding dress revealed a less demure amount of leg. Slash had
been his best man. If only Axl had known...
behind a lace veil, while her wedding dress revealed a less demure amount of leg. Slash had
been his best man. If only Axl had known...
Slash forgot the rings, of course, which should have immediately served as warning… Instead,
Axl accepted a ring offered by his drummer, unaware that this small act would directly lead to
Four Weddings And A Funeral and the mainstream infiltration of Wet Wet Wet.
As Axl slid the ring onto his bride’s finger, joy flooded his most manly heart. Slash looked on, his jealously burning as fiercely as the cigarette he inexplicably smoked during the entire ceremony. As Axl and his bride shared one of the most tonguiest of kisses of all time, Slash could no longer bear to watch, (I know how you feel buddy), and he charged out of the
chapel. For he could not continue to hide his terrible secret – his greatest love was none other than Axl’s leggy bride.
Axl accepted a ring offered by his drummer, unaware that this small act would directly lead to
Four Weddings And A Funeral and the mainstream infiltration of Wet Wet Wet.
As Axl slid the ring onto his bride’s finger, joy flooded his most manly heart. Slash looked on, his jealously burning as fiercely as the cigarette he inexplicably smoked during the entire ceremony. As Axl and his bride shared one of the most tonguiest of kisses of all time, Slash could no longer bear to watch, (I know how you feel buddy), and he charged out of the
chapel. For he could not continue to hide his terrible secret – his greatest love was none other than Axl’s leggy bride.
How does one handle such torment? By removing his shirt, standing in a desert as barren as
his life, and ripping out one of the most EPIC GUITAR SOLOS OF ALL TIME.
his life, and ripping out one of the most EPIC GUITAR SOLOS OF ALL TIME.
The wails of Slash’s instrument drew helicopters from far and wide for they could not but
bear witness to his spread-eagled expression of pain.
bear witness to his spread-eagled expression of pain.
And far away, the other side of the church presumably, (for some reason not in the desert and not even the same church), the bride and groom were ushered to their wedding car, rice raining
upon them and the bride looking wistfully off into the distance. (Perhaps for her secret lover
Slash?)
upon them and the bride looking wistfully off into the distance. (Perhaps for her secret lover
Slash?)
Ever the entertainer, Slash shredded for long enough to bridge the annoying gap between wedding and reception, giving the guests something other to do rather than wait in a nearby pub trying to make conversation with someone’s aunt.
The wedding party reconvened at a Tuscan villa, (no doubt close to the desert church), for
champagne, cake, blue velvet, saxophones and more smoking. The bride and groom looked
happy. All was as it should be. Even Slash appeared to have been somewhat relieved of the burden of his secret love.
champagne, cake, blue velvet, saxophones and more smoking. The bride and groom looked
happy. All was as it should be. Even Slash appeared to have been somewhat relieved of the burden of his secret love.
Their joy was however, as all joy is, ultimately fleeting. The dark clouds rolled over and rain poured down on their special day. This was portentous and tragic and not at all ironic in any sense whatsoever. To escape the deluge, a waiter leapt over the table and their fragile wedding cake collapsed in a way that is not portentous, tragic or at all ironic. The spilled wine flowed like blood.
In the months to come, Axl would dwell on this moment, (he had endless hours to fill), and it is
better to think of a wedding day than what came after. The day he would return to that same
church with his wife lying in a coffin, her face split with a mirror - apparently common with death
by gunshot wound to the head, (and nothing to do with the movie Face Off).
In the months to come, Axl would dwell on this moment, (he had endless hours to fill), and it is
better to think of a wedding day than what came after. The day he would return to that same
church with his wife lying in a coffin, her face split with a mirror - apparently common with death
by gunshot wound to the head, (and nothing to do with the movie Face Off).
Axl would look to the heavens. His heart would cry out. A dozen violins would play for his sorrows (literally). You know what I said earlier about Slash’s guitar solo being the most epic
guitar solo of all time? That was until now. Right now. For Slash is also heartbroken and
wracked with guilt about his forbidden love. He leaps on to the piano in front of the screaming masses at the concert I’ve neglected to mention until now, and his guitar screams with grief as Axl pounds the keys in rage.
guitar solo of all time? That was until now. Right now. For Slash is also heartbroken and
wracked with guilt about his forbidden love. He leaps on to the piano in front of the screaming masses at the concert I’ve neglected to mention until now, and his guitar screams with grief as Axl pounds the keys in rage.
As red roses lie across his dead bride's coffin, Axl remembers her wedding bouquet, and looks
to the sky as another storm rages above him and within his heart.
to the sky as another storm rages above him and within his heart.
Because, as he might have sung but didn’t, ‘Nothing lasts forever, except November Rain.’
Like what you're reading? You can follow Madeline
Palmer on twitter: @msmaddiep
Like what you're hearing? Then book your tickets to
Crushed!
Thursday 10 May 2012
High School Reunions...from Hell
Missing your school chums? Fondly reminiscing about when you were 16?
Send them this page and organise a reunion at the theatre courtesy of Crushed...
Tuesday 8 May 2012
(BITTER) SWEET SIXTEEN (or Nirvana in the Bananas)
The Crushed team have asked a few of our close friends to guest blog a response to our upcoming play. First up is Independent Theatre's Superstar: writer, director, producer and all-round-creativity-facilitator Augusta Supple. We asked her to respond to Crushed's tag line: BITTER SWEET SIXTEEN...
Living in a small coastal town in the banana belt of NSW, there was little that linked me to the outside world. TV was limited to 4 channels, (I was secretly obsessed with Paul Reiser from Mad About You), and I was glued to Helen Razer's voice and song choice on Triple J like a grommet clings to his surf board. While my face was buried in suspiciously pristine ancient history text-books with the vain hope that education would set me free from the shit hole I was trapped in.
It was the 90s.
The dawn of the information age. The Gulf War. The Chechen War. The Bosnian War. Kosovo. Australia was having a recession it had to have. Bill Clinton played the sax and his sperm was found on a dress owned by a woman he did NOT have sexual relations with. Kurt Cobain had moaned his way through gritted teeth and a floppy fringe, then blew a hole in his head.
Sixteen for many was not so sweet. It was the age of pregnancy, the school certificate, apprenticeships and expulsion. Sixteen was my year of joining a punk band, writing abusive songs, the obligatory occasional social binge drinking, studying Hamlet, unrequited love affairs with boys who listened to Tool and Pink Floyd, memorizing slabs of T.S Eliot - all while topping my class and dreaming of my emancipated adult life.
I dreamed of a bright future where I didn’t have to ever, EVER confront the boring, dull, flat unprofitable world I was forced to grow up in.
I feared the future school reunion hoping I could forever avoid it… and earnestly hoped by the time it rolled around that I had made something of my life. Something. Anything better than the here and now.
At my local high school, kids wearing an improvised uniform sucked smoke from juice bottles and grinned through red eyes at their future. Flannelette shirts flapped as teens set fire to bins. Grunge was born. I dressed in my grandfather’s clothes and listened patiently as boys my age fumbled around with Metallica riffs on nylon string guitars. River Phoenix died and girls at my school attempted suicide. We were lectured on AIDS ad nauseum and spent long afternoons rolling condoms onto bananas, whilst the cooler kids were practicing the real thing in the scrubland that surrounded my school.
It all felt pointless really.
Skinny girls with no opinions got the boys, then had scrag fights on the school bus. Their earrings ripped out of ears. Blood. Torn singlet tops. Swearing. The boys would look on with dull eyes and not dare intervene. I sat quietly and wrote letters to people I had met who went to 'other' schools.
Inevitably, someone’s cool parents let us have a party at their place. I’d sit planning my future escape and watch as others had fun: Passion pop and Jim Beam. Malibu and Coke. Bongs. Magic mushrooms. Teens gnawing sloppily at each other's faces, having a casual vomit, a micro-sleep, then continuing. At some stage a posse would form and we’d go on ‘missions’ stealing street signs or garden gnomes from unsuspecting homes. We ventured into the banana fields and sang Nirvana songs to keep each other awake. Lying on the ground on deserted country roads under the stars, we soaked up the warmth from the black bitumen and raged over arguments about reality and perception (teenage philosophy a plenty.) We knew it was all empty, all pointless – the universe too big, the world uncaring. Everything had been thought of before, everything had all been said before. We knew poverty could not and would not be ended by Bono or any other aging rock star who chose to wear rose-coloured sunglasses.
It wasn’t sweet. It was bitter.
Flash forward 16 years.
At the start new millennium the school reunion is unavoidable. It’s not a phyisical thing – it’s the casual surprise of a Facebook 'friend' request… sometimes from someone who has changed their name and judging by their photo has either regressed thirty years or had a baby.
Although I’m a world away from a drunken pash in the banana fields, the sting of school remains: the pointlessness, the feeling of being trapped in a shit hole, the dreams I had, the pressure I felt, the boys I loved, the friends I had. I watch the film clips, sing along to Hole or Pearl Jam. Yet the memory is not bitter. Not at all.
It’s sweet.'
One of Woolgoolga's popular tourist attractions.
Like what you're reading? You can follow Augusta's blog write here, write now:
www.augustasupple.com
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http://www.newtheatre.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=99&Itemid=129
'There wasn’t much that was sweet when I was sixteen.
Living in a small coastal town in the banana belt of NSW, there was little that linked me to the outside world. TV was limited to 4 channels, (I was secretly obsessed with Paul Reiser from Mad About You), and I was glued to Helen Razer's voice and song choice on Triple J like a grommet clings to his surf board. While my face was buried in suspiciously pristine ancient history text-books with the vain hope that education would set me free from the shit hole I was trapped in.
It was the 90s.
The dawn of the information age. The Gulf War. The Chechen War. The Bosnian War. Kosovo. Australia was having a recession it had to have. Bill Clinton played the sax and his sperm was found on a dress owned by a woman he did NOT have sexual relations with. Kurt Cobain had moaned his way through gritted teeth and a floppy fringe, then blew a hole in his head.
I dreamed of a bright future where I didn’t have to ever, EVER confront the boring, dull, flat unprofitable world I was forced to grow up in.
I feared the future school reunion hoping I could forever avoid it… and earnestly hoped by the time it rolled around that I had made something of my life. Something. Anything better than the here and now.
At my local high school, kids wearing an improvised uniform sucked smoke from juice bottles and grinned through red eyes at their future. Flannelette shirts flapped as teens set fire to bins. Grunge was born. I dressed in my grandfather’s clothes and listened patiently as boys my age fumbled around with Metallica riffs on nylon string guitars. River Phoenix died and girls at my school attempted suicide. We were lectured on AIDS ad nauseum and spent long afternoons rolling condoms onto bananas, whilst the cooler kids were practicing the real thing in the scrubland that surrounded my school.
It all felt pointless really.
Skinny girls with no opinions got the boys, then had scrag fights on the school bus. Their earrings ripped out of ears. Blood. Torn singlet tops. Swearing. The boys would look on with dull eyes and not dare intervene. I sat quietly and wrote letters to people I had met who went to 'other' schools.
Inevitably, someone’s cool parents let us have a party at their place. I’d sit planning my future escape and watch as others had fun: Passion pop and Jim Beam. Malibu and Coke. Bongs. Magic mushrooms. Teens gnawing sloppily at each other's faces, having a casual vomit, a micro-sleep, then continuing. At some stage a posse would form and we’d go on ‘missions’ stealing street signs or garden gnomes from unsuspecting homes. We ventured into the banana fields and sang Nirvana songs to keep each other awake. Lying on the ground on deserted country roads under the stars, we soaked up the warmth from the black bitumen and raged over arguments about reality and perception (teenage philosophy a plenty.) We knew it was all empty, all pointless – the universe too big, the world uncaring. Everything had been thought of before, everything had all been said before. We knew poverty could not and would not be ended by Bono or any other aging rock star who chose to wear rose-coloured sunglasses.
It wasn’t sweet. It was bitter.
Flash forward 16 years.
At the start new millennium the school reunion is unavoidable. It’s not a phyisical thing – it’s the casual surprise of a Facebook 'friend' request… sometimes from someone who has changed their name and judging by their photo has either regressed thirty years or had a baby.
Although I’m a world away from a drunken pash in the banana fields, the sting of school remains: the pointlessness, the feeling of being trapped in a shit hole, the dreams I had, the pressure I felt, the boys I loved, the friends I had. I watch the film clips, sing along to Hole or Pearl Jam. Yet the memory is not bitter. Not at all.
It’s sweet.'
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