Behind The Scenes - The Dark Room
Alicia Clements - Set & Costume Designer
Before studying at WAAPA I hadn’t had any real set or costume design experience. However, my mother is an artist so she’s always been highly influential on my creative abilities. I also did TEE Art and Drama in year 12 which has since been a great help in the sense that I have had some acting experience and can relate to the actors who I am working with.
Being part of Black Swan’s HotBed Ensemble has been a fantastic opportunity to meet other young performing artists and designers. The Dark Room is our first ensemble production for 2009. Designing for The Dark Room has been both exciting and challenging. Since the initial design conception for the play our ideas have seemed to have changed astronomically and yet in other ways not much at all. Director, Adam Mitchell and I have considered designs ranging from colossal in scale to minute, but most of what the final design emerged from was our initial conversations. In this I have learned that sometimes the first ideas are the best!
The most important piece of advice that has helped launch my career so far is that ideas are cheap. You don’t have to be precious with your ideas - if one isn’t working just throw it out and come up with 100 more. And don’t be afraid to listen to and take on other people’s ideas – a great design is always a collaborate effort.
Angela Betzien - Playwright
Before writing The Dark Room I was working on a community project in central Queensland visiting a small, one teacher school located outside of Rockhampton. Many of the students who attended the school were foster kids living with one or two foster families from the area. I spoke at length with the principal of the school about these kids and she told me there was a severe shortage in foster care placements and accommodation for young people at risk. These children are often supervised by Youth Workers in what is termed ”commercial accommodation”, until a placement in a foster home or residential facility becomes available. This can take several days. It is a last resort, but it occurs frequently.
This conversation prompted some further research. In Queensland, in the month of June 2006, 78 children on Child Protection Orders were housed in commercial accommodation, spending an average of 5.3 days there. Generally the children who end up in motels are those that are the most difficult to re-home; the kids who are seriously disturbed with severe psychological and behavioural problems.
This was the starting point for the play.
The work attempts to explore the notion that violence leaves a stain or a memory within a place. Gothic literature personifies that notion in the form of the ghost that haunts a particular environment. I’ve always been obsessed with the gothic concept of the ghost as a form of repetition; of guilt. I think that this quote embraces the consciousness that underpins the work: “Justice comes only when the living acknowledge what the dead have suffered.”
Only then can the ghosts of the past be released.
I also gravitate towards issues of social justice and so when I see gross injustice I want to write about it.
I’m aware that many people have justified the intervention in the Northern Territory because the situation of Indigenous people in remote communities is at crisis point. It is an emergency absolutely, but how absurd to think these problems can be resolved through military intervention. One can make parallels with our invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
If this were truly the motivation for intervention/invasion than we’d send in armies of doctors and teachers and in doing so assist communities in establishing their own autonomy.
Having said all this, the references to the Northern Territory Intervention are not overt in the play; I wanted those ideas and issues as well as the desert landscape to seep in to the world on a subtle level and to potentially resonate with the audience.
The characters of The Dark Room have been inspired by a number of different sources. I met a young couple who were working in a regional town some years ago who influenced the characters of Stephen and Emma. The couple had been transferred to the town by the police force and the education department and it seemed they were really struggling to survive in this environment having grown up in the city. They’d both started out with idealistic notions about the difference they could make in their fields but after a few years seemed deeply disillusioned. I was particularly interested in how the man, a cop, was dealing with the traumatic experiences he was encountering on a daily basis. Drinking was a huge part of cop culture and it seemed the only therapy available.
In regard to Anni, the social worker, I interviewed a child protection worker about the job. There is an extremely high turnover in the field and as with police culture, a high level of drug and alcohol use. This information informed the development of Anni as a character. She is someone that is strong but at the same time emotionally fragile and deeply damaged by her experiences.
The development process of The Dark Room included a one week workshop with The HotBed Ensemble. This was a great opportunity to meet the ensemble and the director and discuss the work in terms of its key themes and ideas. I arrived in Perth with only a treatment for the third narrative in the play and while there I wrote this narrative scene by scene each night and brought in new material every day for the actors to read. This is a brilliant way of working and it’s really responsive. I enjoy working very intensively for short periods of time (sponsored by instant coffee of course).
I think it was easier knowing the actors when writing the script. I tend to write for particular actors with an awareness of their strengths and abilities. I find this really helps shape the characterisations. This is how it used to be done, writers working within an ensemble and writing for specific actors. I’d love to do that all the time.
I absolutely love writing for young audiences because I find they are open to new ideas and new forms. I write for an audience that is not yet rigid, whose view of the world is just forming. You can’t get more exciting than that. I don’t know why more writers aren’t producing work for this generation. It’s also a huge challenge to write for young audiences, they are highly critical and have little patience for self-indulgence.
I’m interested in writing young characters because they are often the most vulnerable in our society. I believe it’s the responsibility of writers to give voice to the voiceless. I want to write about the characters that inhabit the fringes of society, the shadows.
Jacinta John - Anni
Having grown up in Perth, I have vivid memories of going along to see Black Swan shows as a child. Productions like Bran Nue Dae were hugely instrumental in my decision to become an actor so working with the Company is something I’ve always wanted to do. Now, to walk into the Black Swan building for rehearsals where posters for those past productions line the walls is really inspirational.
Whilst I have experienced and enjoyed all three main mediums of acting; being theatre film and television, theatre is the reason I got into the industry. My love for theatre stems from my experiences as an audience member. Seeing a world brought to life right before your eyes can be tremendously exciting and thought provoking; so, to be able to participate in creating that world is pretty cool.
My character in The Dark Room is Anni and she is quite a curious person. She doesn’t reveal a lot about herself to the other characters, in fact she is purposefully guarded, but there are clues in the script that hint at who she is. It’s been a lot of fun trying to figure out how these clues add up.
As a Child Protection Worker, Anni has to maintain a sense of control in her working life (which is the capacity we see her in on stage) even though Grace – the child in her custody, is constantly trying to undermine her. On top of this the script suggests Anni’s personal life is in shambles. Therefore, it is a fantastic challenge for me to find the balance of the character’s strengths and weaknesses and to be able to portray them in a playable way on stage.
Tom O'Sullivan - Craig
The thing I appreciate most about working in the arts industry is the variety of opportunities and experiences. I have written, directed and performed for film, television and theatre. I think given the size of our industry and the opportunities out there, the more strings you can have to your bow the better. But apart from that, I thoroughly enjoy all aspects of theatre, film, television and find being involved in any capacity engaging and rewarding.
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that being involved in a broader range of tasks and roles only helps develop skills in other areas. By this I mean, having worked (albeit, not extensively!) as a writer, this has given me different scope as an actor and perhaps opened up possibilities and choices I wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Same goes for directing and working as an actor on stage or on camera. It’s all part of the process of storytelling and it all ties in.
Having based myself in New South Wales after travelling for the best part of 12 months I decided to audition for NIDA, however I was keen to head abroad again. In fact if I hadn’t gotten into NIDA I was planning on heading back overseas. I’d heard only great things about WAAPA and knew it was a great school, but I had already done one degree in Perth and was looking for different experiences.
The most exciting thing about of being involved in The Dark Room is the fact that it’s a brand new Australian work, having someone like Angela Betzien as the playwright is the icing on the cake. As for Craig (my character), he’s someone on the edge, at a pivotal point of his life, with lots going on beneath the surface but perhaps not the capacity to process or articulate his emotions effectively. There’s strong opposing forces at work in him and it’s fascinating exploring what it’s like being someone in that situation. Plus I get to play with a gun.
Nicole Gillespie - Stage Manager
When I was in high school I had plans to start a career in sports management, but then my school entered Rock Eisteddfod and I assisted on the lighting design. Part of my job was calling cues and it just clicked, I thought – hey, I love this, this could be an awesome career path!
The thing that I most appreciate about my job is the challenge. All of the rural towns on The Year of Magical Thinking tour provided us with enormous challenges as each of the performing spaces were completely different to one another. The number of wall panels we used depended on the height and length of the venue, and on some occasions we couldn’t use the sand due to the floor surfaces. But I do have to say one thing, working on the show in Exmouth where it was 43 degrees with no air conditioning was definitely one of the most challenging moments on tour!
Upon returning to Perth from the regional tour of The Year of Magical Thinking, I commenced work as Stage Manager on The HotBed Ensemble’s upcoming production The Dark Room. I literally flew back to Perth on the Sunday night, and was starting rehearsals for The Dark Room the next day. So it was difficult getting my head into a completely different mindset for the show, especially since the tour wasn’t completely finished as they still had one more show in Kununurra to complete. I just had to clear my head, start afresh and get on with the new job at hand.
My most memorable production with Black Swan would have to be The Messiah which was directed by Tom Gutteridge back in 2007. It was my first proper stage production since finishing WAAPA and it was simply a brilliant and entertaining show! Working with designer Bryan Woltjen and the wonderful cast of Max Gillies, David Lee-Smyth and Rosemary Barr was a wonderful experience. The regional tour was also a fantastic highlight!
