The fortnight (or so) that was #11

Darren Hanlon

On December 16, Darren Hanlon played at the Grace Emily, in what seems now to be an annual Christmas show. I’d already seen him once this year but I’m happy to see him again, since he’s one of my favourite singer/songwriters – and it’s not as if he asks all that much for tickets; these were $20, which I think is the most I’ve paid to see him. But it’s money well-spent.

If you aren’t familiar with his work, he falls into the genre of ‘urban folk’; you can see/hear a couple on YouTube – Falling Aeroplanes, Punk’s Not Dead and A to Z. Somewhat unusually (though less so these days than a few years back), he sings with a distinct Australian accent.

Falling Aeroplanes is what got me interested in his music, so I bought Early Days - the EP that contained that track - and found that I liked the other songs as well. A couple of years later I was able to catch him in Adelaide playing live at the Jade Monkey and was stunned to find that he, too, was from country Queensland – specifically, Gympie¹. After the show I ended up talking to him for a while and he was a little surprised to find that someone in Adelaide not only knew where Gympie was but had spent some time there.

I’ve managed to see him most of the times he’s been to Adelaide, excluding the gigs I didn’t manage to hear about or where he was playing as part of a festival (i.e. the 2008 Laneway festival). I’ve seen him play with the other artists on the Candle Records roster (The Lucksmiths, Golden Rough, Jodie Phillis – amongst others) at the Enigma Bar and then at Jive earlier this year.

Over that time I’ve picked up a couple of his albums but not all; I don’t seem to like the songs he releases as singles as much as I liked the earlier songs, and that’s kind of put me off – though I’m almost 100% there’d be album tracks that I’d love. I suspect I’ll eventually collect them all, but for now I’m happy with those that I’ve got – when I saw him at Jive I bought his b-sides/oddities collection Pointing Rayguns at Pagans which has some great songs like Pinball Millionaire, Eli Wallach² and Perfect Day, the cover of a Fischer Z³ song that I remember liking the original version of.

But the songs of his I do like – a lot. He has exactly what I look for in a singer/songwriter – he’s genuine⁴ and writes funny and extremely intelligent lyrics. A to Z in particular is full of some of the cleverest phrasings of any song I’ve ever heard; my favourite section is this gem:

‘But there’s never an argument
I don’t need an apology
It’s all half a dozen eggplants
Or six aubergines’

To a word-nerd like me that’s pure gold. On pure lyrical value alone I would struggle to think of too many examples that better that, other than one or two Elliott Smith songs. That it’s paired with some exquisitely composed music – and that overall feeling of genuine emotion - makes it even more enjoyable.

Falling Aeroplanes is my other favourite of his songs, and, while not quite as epic in the lyrics department as A to Z, certainly matches it in terms of genuine feeling – and it’s played (primarily) on the banjo, adding to the charm.

I may have mentioned in one of the posts about weddings that I tend to dislike the music of most weddings and that, if I did ever get married⁵ I’d be putting together a playlist of songs that are meaningful without being nauseatingly fake – and, so far, that’s a pretty short list. But both A to Z and Falling Aeroplanes are on it – which I think is a heck of an achievement.

Anyway, back to the gig – he played both Falling Aeroplanes and A to Z (the latter I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard him play live – or if I have, it was a while ago; he definitely didn’t play it at Jive earlier this year) as well as a range of songs from the other albums and some great new songs – so good that I’m really looking forward to the next album coming out. And he not only played Pinball Millionaire but told us a story about how, when he was in Seattle, his booking agent entered him in a pinball competition that he ended up making to the semi-finals of – so it turns out (not all that surprisingly) that he’s a good storyteller as well.

Pretty much the only downside to the whole evening was how late it went – it was a Wednesday, and I didn’t get home until after midnight. Still, I think it was probably worth a poor night’s sleep – and I’ll certainly be seeing him again when he’s in town.

¹It’s in the south-east part of Queensland, slightly north-west of Noosa. My brother and his family live there, and I’ve stayed with them a few times.
²An actor, best known for his role as ‘The Ugly’ in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – arguably the best western of all time.
³Don’t worry if you don’t know them. They weren’t particularly big.
⁴By which I mean I believe that he feels what he’s singing about. That’s a very big thing for me, and something that, in my opinion, the vast majority of music lacks.
⁵No, Mum, that doesn’t mean you should get your hopes up.

The Work Xmas Function

We had our work Xmas function⁶ at the Hyatt this year, where we’d had it two years ago. I wasn’t intending to go but got talked into it by the cube-neighbours, who seemed to think I should be there.

I don’t enjoy such things as a general rule. While there aren’t that many people at work who I don’t get along with, there also aren’t too many that I have enough in common with to have an extended conversation about non-work things about – and no-one should be talking work at a Xmas function. I like and get on well with my cube-neighbours, but we see each other every day and, as a general rule, talk about anything significant when it occurs; as a result we don’t have a lot of ‘catching up’ to do, per se.

Which kind of means I don’t see the point of going to such things – if you’re me that is. But I let myself get talked into it and put my name down.

Nearer to the day itself I came very close to pulling out – because a number of people other than those in ‘my’ group (i.e. those people who sit in the same row as me, plus one partner who was also coming) had invited themselves to sit at our table, and I wasn’t sure exactly how many seats the tables had. Since not sitting at that table would make going an entirely untenable position, I had two choices – have it confirmed that the numbers we currently had weren’t going to be too many, or pull out.

Turns out the tables sat ten – which was exactly as many as we had. So I didn't pull out.

By the time the day itself rolled around I was somewhat regretting my decision, mostly for the reasons I’ve already mentioned – it wasn’t as if I was going to be able to spend much of the night talking to anyone I didn’t already spend eight or so hours a day with.

And that was pretty much how it panned out. There were a few people from the other office (Kidman Park) who I know well enough to be able to talk to, so I caught up with them – but the rest of it was kind of subdued, at least compared to the sort of conversation that I prefer to have if I’m having conversation. I guess what it comes down to is that, while my range of interests is broad (as far as I can tell), it doesn’t seem to stretch far enough to overlap with people I work with.

Of course, there might be people at my work who are interested in literature or film but if they are it’s a mystery to me because finding out would involve overcoming the other barrier I face at any work-related function – or even within the workplace itself – which is that I lack the ability to engage a significant segment of people from my workplace in conversation about anything.

I’m not entirely sure why this is. I don’t pretend that I’m charismatic or charming – in fact, I’ll argue ‘til I’m blue in the face that I’m the antithesis of either – which I suspect has something to do with it. Admittedly, I don’t really try all that hard anymore – but a lot of that is down to resentment, because I have tried with a few people, on several occasions, and gotten nowhere. There are really only so many dead horses I’m prepared to flog, and I’ve made the decision that I don’t care that much if I don’t speak to other people at work beyond basic banter.

Not that this is limited to work, though. These days I’m finding it harder to talk to people I don’t already know well – and sometimes even those conversations aren’t going as smoothly as they once did. I have no idea why this is; I don’t believe that I’m doing or saying anything different from what I’ve always said and done – in fact, it may just be a perception with no basis in reality. What I also don’t know is if there’s anything I can do about it. But I do know I have to keep it in mind when I’m asked if I’m doing anything social – since I’d far rather stay home than risk being out somewhere feeling uncomfortable.

So, having made my decision not to bother people who don’t have time for me, I ate my food, kept to myself and then sat and suffered through the nightmarish selection of music provided by the DJ – a setlist comprising almost entirely of wretched 70s and 80s dancefloor standards.

Choosing the work-organised bus home was a mistake ‘cause it meant I had to stay there about an hour longer than I should have. But home time rolled around and off we went. As a result I didn’t have too late a night and, since I only drink heavily when I’m in a very good mood, I hadn’t had so many drinks that I was feeling too out of it – though I had had a few beers and a few wines, which did impact me somewhat the next morning; something which will prove significant in the next topic I cover.

Anyway, short of developing a few more friendships around the office between now and this time next year I doubt very much I’ll be attending the 2010 function.

⁶It sometimes gets referred to as a ‘show’ – but I don’t think that’s accurate; ‘show’ implies some kind of presentation or performance, and that hasn’t happened at any of the functions I’ve been to.

Tempest

The morning after the work Xmas dinner I had an audition for Mixed Salad’s 2010 production of The Tempest – for which they appear to be dropping the The⁷. I would have preferred for it to be another day, but one doesn’t often get to choose these things. As it was I was down for the 11.30 slot rather than the 9.30, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

My performing plan for 2010 had included doing a Shakespeare – but not with Mixed Salad; I had intended to audition for (and get a part in⁸) whichever Shakespeare the Adelaide Uni Theatre Guild would be doing in mid-year – since they seem to have established a tradition of doing mid-year Shakespeare’s it was not an unreasonable assumption to make.

But, as they say, when you make an assumption you make an ass out of you and umption⁹– while they are doing a Shakespeare mid-year, it’s going to be a student production. Since I’m not a student – and have no intention of becoming one again – I don’t have the option. Admittedly, they are doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream and, while that is one of my favourites, it is also one I’ve done before, and in which I know I’d only be prepared to take certain roles – specifically Peter Quince, Oberon or Puck. And I suspect those would be roles I wouldn’t get anyway.

I was a bit annoyed about this at first – I’d actually emailed them to find out which show they were doing; I was told they weren’t announcing yet and, as a result, didn’t audition for another show I was contemplating doing – Curtains, with Therry. But if they had told me, I’d have auditioned for Curtains, may well have gotten in, and not even considered Tempest; since I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d have gotten a part in a Mixed Salad show, I’d wouldn’t have auditioned.

But, I hadn’t auditioned for anything else and it was looking like the first half of next year would be sans performance. But I heard about Mixed Salad doing a production of The Tempest (minus, as I mentioned, the The) and though I might as well give it a shot – more because of the fact they were doing it as a group audition (which I tend to enjoy) and because their people have such a good reputation that I expected that a group audition with them would be a learning experience and valuable in its own right.

Mixed Salad, if you’re not familiar with them, have put on some of the best amateur productions in Adelaide over the last few years. My friend Bonnie was in their excellent production of Five Women Wearing the Same Dress a few years back; I saw their contemporised Two Gentleman of Verona in 2007 and enjoyed that; this year they put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, The History Boys. Their casts have included some of Adelaide’s best amateur performers, and from time to time one or two ex- (or currently on hiatus) professionals.

So, high standards. I would have been a lot more confident of getting a role in a Theatre Guild production than I was of getting into this.

Anyway, back to the audition. I woke up feeling somewhat under the weather from the effects of the work Xmas function – bad, but not hideous. I had toast and tea and dragged myself ‘out west’ to the Star Theatre in Hilton. After I got there I filled out the form, had my photo taken (blech) and waited around for the audition to start – I chatted to a girl named Carla, who’d been in the St Judes production of An Inspector Calls that I’d reviewed earlier this year.

Before the audition itself started, Sally (the director) took us into the main theatre (I’d been there earlier this year to see Rent) and explained what the setup for the show would be; they’d be using a thrust stage designed to look like a jetty, with a beach section (featuring actual sand) and an overturned boat – all in keeping with some of the key plot-points from the original, which includes several of the characters being shipwrecked on the island where the story takes place.

Then we went into the smaller theatre in the building (which I’d never seen before) and went through some interesting exercises – the first, hilariously, was to act as if we’d fallen asleep on the beach after a night of heavy drinking; thanks to the night before this wasn’t exactly a stretch of my acting talents. After that we had to develop a way of moving that corresponded with one of the four elemental properties (air, water, earth or fire) which was a bit more challenging because I wasn’t entirely sure of how to go about that – but I gave it a damn good go anyway.

After that we were divided into two groups – masters and servants – and let free to act how we felt our characters would act. I got ‘master’ so I hounded one guy and then, when it was pointed out that one of the ‘servants’ hadn’t been given any orders, set her to work as well. I was reasonably happy with how that went.

Next we were split into pairs and given different scenes to work on – I went with a guy named Keith (maybe), who I’d seen in a few things before; we had a scene featuring Prospero and Caliban that we tried a few different ways: switching roles and so forth. We were given a different scene that we struggled with – but it still gave us the opportunity to try out some comedy.

And that was it. I’d had a fun time and learned a few things – the whole ‘moving like the different elements’ was new to me, but I can imagine it’s a technique I can use in the future.

Later that afternoon I got the call – imagine my surprise when Sally told me she was offering me a role in the show. I’m in the ensemble (holiday-makers, party-goers and drinkers) as well as Alonso, one of the supporting characters – in the original he’s the King of Naples who helped betray and exile Prospero (the main character) to the island he now calls home. Of course, since they’re contemporising it, I can’t imagine Alonso will still be the King of Naples, but I suppose there’ll be some kind of parallel.

Not that I’ll find too much more out before March, when rehearsals start – apart from whatever information is provided with the script I seem to recall them mentioning they’ll be sending out. A few names I knew were mentioned, but I believe they were fellow ensemble; I’ve no idea who’s playing any of the principals.

I’m kind of hoping that I’ll be in the mood to document the whole process – keep a rehearsal journal, if you will – so expect to hear a lot more about Prospero, Ariel, Caliban and Alonso in the coming months.

⁷It does has more impact without it, I guess.
⁸This isn’t arrogance, by the way. I’m a male, I’m at the very least a competent actor by amateur standards, and I’d have been happy to take third spear-carrier from the left if that’s all that was offered to me - and they seem to like having as large a cast as they can get. Those things combined would make it highly likely I’d be offered a part.
⁹I’ve never quite understood this joke.