{"id":399,"date":"2018-07-23T23:36:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T23:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imaginedtheatres.dustysheldon.com\/?post_type=theatre&p=399"},"modified":"2018-07-31T03:12:44","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T03:12:44","slug":"one-scene-one-person-one-song-musical","status":"publish","type":"theatre","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/one-scene-one-person-one-song-musical\/","title":{"rendered":"One-scene-one-person-one-song-musical"},"content":{"rendered":"

An imagined cast <\/strong>\u2013\u00a0a very tall, shiny-domed, environmentalist, ex-politician, musician, male<\/p>\n

An imagined acknowledgement of country\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019d like to thank the Plairhekehillerplue people from Emu Bay NW Tasmania, for their ecological stewardship, and their diplomatic governance for over 2000 generations, and apologise for my role in the ongoing disruption of last 10 generations. I also ask for assistance with the infancy of our understanding of country \u2013 on which our species survival depends.<\/p>\n

An imagined over used word<\/strong> \u2013 the disruption of the common usage of the word disruption.<\/p>\n

An imagined context<\/strong> \u2013 language as insidious genocide weaponry<\/p>\n

An imagined opening and closing scene<\/strong> \u2013 Portrait of another disruption, circa 1981.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You are staying at the Menai Hotel South Burnie, NW Coast, Tasmania, circa \u201881<\/p>\n

Staring from a smudged 5th<\/sup> floor window,<\/p>\n

Morning after the gig the night before,<\/p>\n

Picture the sticky BOAGS soaked carpet of that Menai band room, Mr X playing support,<\/p>\n

A crowd of flannies and mullets, thongs and crutch-huggin-stubbies, middle of winter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next morning, awake, looking out over South Burnie\u2019s, lichen-tinged, asbestos rooftops,<\/p>\n

Pure povo,<\/p>\n

Pulp \u2018n Paper chimney stacks belching that addictive smell of slightly off sweet meats,<\/p>\n

An Easterly whips up the Bass Strait surf,<\/p>\n

A bank of chlorine foam the colour of mucus piped from pulp to surf, blow back,<\/p>\n

Piling up off the beach and across the highway in front of the mill,<\/p>\n

Families whoop in delight driving through, car disappearing into mucus,<\/p>\n

Kids squealing, belt free in the back of the rusty commodore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5th<\/sup> floor Menai, looking through your misty window breath, you see a couple of surfers,<\/p>\n

Out riding steep ashen faced dumpers, clawing up out of shallows,<\/p>\n

Waves browned by sunken woodchips,<\/p>\n

Dumpers slap the grey beach sands,<\/p>\n

Washing up, ancient forest chips and a few tenacious spiky blowies, impervious to poisons<\/p>\n

Slapping the sands where three skanky kids play, near the storm water drain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rub that foggy Menai window, stooping tall man, rub with your jumper sleeve,<\/p>\n

There see it, across the road,<\/p>\n

A picket line outside the rusty Pulp and Paper mill gates,<\/p>\n

Look closer, who is that, a young Brian Green \u2013 an also-ran-Labour-opposition-leader,<\/p>\n

In brown vinyl jacket, with collars wide enough to trigger op-shop hipster ejaculate,<\/p>\n

Barking slogans handed down from Chiffley, to high-viz acolytes, cupping cup-a-soups.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And here you are, too tall and hungover \u2013 haven\u2019t touched a drop –<\/p>\n

From passive smoking under the Parcans on that squat Menai stage, ears ringing,<\/p>\n

Trying to build a career in this god forsaken place,<\/p>\n

You, with your Sydney Northern Beaches birthright born of the fortunate people,<\/p>\n

Where every day the surf is caressed by a warm, sea breeze Zephyrs,<\/p>\n

Here you, in the poorest electorate, in the poorest State \u2013 the Menai, cunt of a place,<\/p>\n

With a one bar radiator and a guitar case full of broken dreams,<\/p>\n

Fallen from pop-grace like only a silent, private Christian can fall,<\/p>\n

And you can\u2019t believe what\u2019s outside your window\u2026<\/p>\n

So you write these words\u2026 in the tradition of the great 18th<\/sup> century Hymn-sters<\/p>\n

The social media of its day\u2026 a perfect evangelis song of horror and redemption (who cares if it doesn\u2019t scan. It\u2019s a cry from the heart, from within the devil\u2019s lair, the Menai\u2026)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Brought up in a world of changes
\nPart time cleaner in a holiday flat
\nStare out to sea at the ships at night
\nNo anaesthesia, I’m gonna work on it day to day
\nNo zephyr no light relief it seems<\/em><\/p>\n

But maybe it’s a dream<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my home
\nThis is my sea
\nDon’t paint it with the future, of factories
\n<\/span>I want to stay, I feel okay
\nThere’s nothing else as perfect
\nI’ll have my way<\/em><\/p>\n

Brought up in a world of changes<\/em><\/p>\n

Two children in the harbour
\nThey play their game storm-water drain
\nWrite their contract in the sand, it’ll be gray for life<\/em><\/p>\n

But you can’t stop the sun
\nFrom shining on and on and getting you there
\nTide forever beckons you to leave
\nBut something holds you back
\nIt’s not the promise of the swell or a girl
\nJust a hope that someday someway it’ll be okay
\nSo you stop and say<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my home
\nThis is my sea
\nDon’t paint it with the future of factories
\n<\/span>This is my life
\nthis is my right
\nI’ll make it what I want to
\nI’ll stay and I’ll fight<\/em><\/p>\n

“Burnie”\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 Midnight Oil (1981)<\/p>\n

The City of Burnie the love child of disruption long before a multi-millionaire Prime Minister, started bandying that word around with the help of his agile speechwriters.<\/p>\n

‘Disruption’ callously and implicitly says, “come on people, it\u2019s your fault if you didn\u2019t see change coming.” So what if this \u2018disruption\u2019 means your kids won\u2019t ever be able to afford to own a home; it\u2019s your fault\u2026 it\u2019s not this creeping rot of silent inequality, this global shift that means that apparently 17 people control 80% of the world\u2019s wealth \u2013 according to Christine Legarde \u2013 it is just disruption, nobody is pulling the policy levers to make it happen; wake up people it\u2019s your fault if you didn\u2019t see it\u2026 like I did, when I had my exciting start up called ozemail\u2026 I saw that daggy name had a shelf-life\u2026 sold it at just the right time, with a couple of larrikin lads from Sydney\u2019s Private schools\u2026 alright future white-collar crims, but don\u2019t split hairs\u2026 politics of envy, politics of envy, people\u2026 wake up\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s your fault if the Paper Mill closes \u2013 with minimal global change-management \u2013 and you take a package, and your son will never have that apprenticeship you and the missus were hoping for, and your drinking spikes with self-medicated-depression, and your wife leaves you with self-medicating-adultery, and you get a bit punchy with the bouncer at the Menai, and get locked up a night or two, and your boy doesn\u2019t wanna come home every night, and you\u2019re a man, and you don\u2019t ask for help, and you worry about him, and you\u2019re a man and you don\u2019t say anything to him, but you look\u2026 you give him that look\u2026 and he\u2019s almost a man and he\u2019s supposed to understand\u2026 and you don\u2019t know it, but he\u2019s trading blow jobs for a six pack of BOAGS in the council car park\u2026 wake up buddy, it\u2019s just a disruption.<\/p>\n

And if Brian Green \u2013 the wide collar worker \u2013 had made it to Federal Politics, he could\u2019ve given the rebuttal: could the politics of disruption be just the shadow of the politics of envy. Could it be an insidious way of saying to the less fortunate masses, “you have nothing to be envious of\u2026 you just didn\u2019t see it coming you, loser… this stagnation of wages growth\u2026 come on, a bit of agility people please\u2026”\u00a0Brought up in a world of changes\u2026<\/em> Fuck the theatre\u2026 The toothless theatre, playing to subscribers and status junky festival audiences. Let\u2019s have a song.<\/p>\n

Brought up in a world of changes\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my life
\nthis is my right
\nI’ll make it what I want to
\nI’ll stay and I’ll fight<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my home
\nThis is my sea<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a playwright by trade, and like Wainwrights and Shipwrights, in this modern world Playwrights are pretty useless. It is a dying art. Seriously disrupted.<\/p>\n

Where I live on the NW Coast\u2026 is the home of the Tommeginna people. So actually\u2026<\/p>\n

This is their home, <\/em><\/p>\n

This is their sea.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my life<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my right
\nI’ll make it what I want to
\nI’ll stay and I’ll fight <\/em><\/p>\n

And fight they did \u2013 even further up the coast at Cape Grim (Pennemuker country) \u2013 the warrior, Tunneminawaite fought hard, when his sisters and aunties were taken for the sex trade to Kangaroo island \u2013 servicing the whaling industry. He fought, he murdered and he was the last man publically hung in Australia \u2013 in Melbourne, just down the road from Flinders Street station.<\/p>\n

Was this just a kind of disruption? Or did this have another more appropriate name \u2013 genoruption perhaps? Have to be careful of the insidious violence of word weaponry.<\/p>\n

Listen careful when they harnessed against their will. “Cleansing” is a beautiful word (West Germanic \u2013 Klainson<\/em>, via Old English Claensian<\/em> \u2013 purity, chastity, justifying)<\/p>\n

But put “Cleansing” beside the word “Ethnic”\u2026<\/p>\n

This is my life<\/em><\/p>\n

This is my right\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Disruption \u2013 from the Latin Disrupto<\/em> \u2013 to split apart, break into pieces, to shatter.<\/p>\n

Fuck our insipid toothless theatre. I\u2019ll never write again. Can\u2019t even imagine it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Scott Rankin is the Creative Director of <\/em><\/strong>Big hART, which began 25 years ago in Burnie as a response to the closure of the Pulp Mill.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(with thanks to Midnight Oil)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a playwright by trade, and like Wainwrights and Shipwrights, in this modern world Playwrights are pretty useless. It is a dying art. Seriously disrupted.","protected":false},"menu_order":0,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/theatres\/399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/theatres"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/theatre"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}