Beyond Byron

I wonder what a Festival like Byron’s does to the collective consciousness.

We gathered for those three days – hundreds of us – bringing the best of ourselves to conversations, meetings and panels, down the road from the lighthouse at Australia’s eastern-most point. Another Finisterre – land’s end. Under open skies, our bodies unwinding in the warmth, we argued and posited and reflected. We listened to other ways of seeing and possible ways of being. We heard stories and songs. We looked at sculptures. We turned pages. We honoured the word.

And then we left. Many of us, anyway.

Where does all that go, that goodwill and possibility? I keep imagining the site, vibrating, highly charged, humming. I wonder, if I walked there now, would my feet feel the changes? Would I know that this was a place where people had tried to be at their best?

And back home, how are we changed? How do we bring that spirit of openness and curiosity into our everyday worlds?

I’ve struggled a bit.

Like this morning when someone sent me a link to a site because there was a complimentary review of my book. I scrolled down and of course I found another from someone who had hated it, who had not understood my intentions, who clearly loathed my writing.

And what do I recall now? The negative response, of course!

So all those voices of experience at Byron Bay, and all that generosity of spirit, didn’t prepare me for facing down my own ego and hubris, or my desire for the book to be liked. For me to be liked!

It’s possible that it is partly because the book is written in the dreaded “I” voice, so it does seem that someone liking or disliking the book is commenting on me, the person; but in truth, I think it is something else.

Post-Byron, after three days in a bubble of considered discussion and respectfully expressed differences of opinion, it has been a big transition back to the world of blunt opinions in which we mostly exist.

Watching Q and A on the ABC last night, I was struck by the polarising, shouted, argumentative discourse. No-one was heard and nothing of value was said. Reading the daily papers, it’s rare to find an article critiquing a situation where the writer has first endeavoured to see clearly the position of the person being rebutted.

I don’t know how commentators and public figures continue in this environment, but it must be bruising on some level. I was struck, at Byron, by how accessible and warm Bob Brown is. I was bowled over by the grace and generosity of Anna Rose. Both of them have suffered vicious personal attacks and received bags of hate-mail, yet both stay open and engaged; both step toward you with a smile and no caution. This seems to me a miracle, when their first response could be to withdraw and assume that the world is made up of people who will dismiss them or attack them on personal grounds.

Forgive me if I seem to be drawing a long bow. I’m not for a moment comparing one person’s response to a book to the tsunami of hate Brown has weathered, or the battering taken by the elegant Anna. What I’m trying to do is to extend myself out from a personal response to something larger – something bigger than ego and pinpricks of pain. Because that is what Byron asked of all of us. That is what any gathering asks, when the parameters are respect, attention and dignity.

We were invited to be the biggest versions of ourselves that we could be. From what I saw, that meant that all opinions, whether in rabid agreement or disagreement, were then able to be heard. Perhaps readers are more able to do that, but I don’t think so. We are all capable of it, all the time. And it doesn’t have to look like political correctness, or shutting down of discourse. It might just look like respect.

So today I’m going to channel my Byron self, and try to listen harder, to take a breath before responding, and to let some things slide away if they are simply not helpful or comprehensible to me in the limitations of my mind.

Luckily, there’s sunshine outside to remind me of Byron and its warmth.

The sky is helping.

And there are the days to come. Hopefully.

Because that is the other reminder that lodged firmly at Byron – the preciousness of these days, and how we can’t take a breath for granted. Gore Vidal died as I was travelling up there. Today I heard of the passing of Robert Hughes. Funeral parlours and crematoriums are always busy. Flesh dissolves into the earth or is burned to dust. Each breath I take is a victory and should be celebrated. I knew that when I saw a distant spume blurt from the ocean last Friday, just after hearing that a whale had died in Sydney Harbour. I think about that burst of water and air on the horizon now, and try to remind myself that each time I exhale, that is what I’m doing – pushing a celebratory plume into the air.

And speaking of celebrating. Thank you to Jonathon Parsons for the festival and for programming us all so thoughtfully; to those with whom I was lucky to share panels – Jill Eddington, Anna Rose, Jessica Watson, John Bailey, Mike Ladd, Tony Taylor, Caroline Baum, Hannie Rayson and Charlotte Wood; to those who came to the workshop I taught; to those who spoke on the panels I watched (many of them my heroes), and to all of us who listened. Here’s to all of us, readers on the grass.

Gratitude too, to the Duchess of Malfi company, whose run in Sydney ended on Sunday.

And to you for reading and subscribing here, beyond Byron.

Thank you. Gracias.

And looking ahead…

Please check the EVENTS AND MEDIA tab up above, or visit my Facebook page if you are inclined. This Thursday I will be in the centre of Melbourne at a wonderful event where seven writers reflect on their love affair with writing. On Saturday I will be performing a sin/poetry/walking monologue in Daylesford, and on Sunday I’ll be sharing a Spanish celebratory lunch and stories at the mighty Pavilion Cafe in the Valley of A Thousand Hills. Maybe come out and join us for some paella, some hills and some air.

And sky.

Converging

Just over six years ago, Hugh Colman and I began work on an adaptation of John Webster’s thrill-ride The Duchess of Malfi. In December 2006, our production of the script opened at Red Stitch in Melbourne, under the title Hellbent.

Today, I’m going in to chat on radio about a new production, opening at the Opera House in Sydney this Wednesday, directed by John Bell for the Bell Shakespeare Company, under the original title.

Preparing for that interview, I have been re-reading our text and also the original. I am surprised by how much we changed. I had grown accustomed to our version, but have been reminded of the boldness we achieved, in company with Rachel Burke and the original cast. More importantly though, I’ve been reminded of the exquisite, muscular, original and imaginative power of Webster’s language – and of its immediacy and accessibility.

That’s why we didn’t tamper with the words. Our version re-arranges and re-assigns the text; it tells a different story; it has a shift of focus – but it leaves the glory of Webster’s words intact. There are times when I think he might have bettered the bard.

Gasp!

But consider these lines, as the heroine faces her death, explaining that the rope with which she will be strangled holds no fear of her:

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds? Or to be smothered

With cassia? Or to be shot to death with pearls?

 

Or this sharp poke at politicians:

I would sooner swim to the Bermudas on

Two politicians’ rotten bladders, tied

Together with an intelligencer’s heart-string,

Than depend on so changeable a leader’s favour.

Or his mordant humour, in this exchange between the Duchess and her twin brother:

– Diamonds are of most value they say, that have passed through most jeweller’s hands.

– Whores, by that rule, are precious.

And this wisdom:

Though some ministers hold it presumption

To instruct leaders what they ought to do,

It is a noble duty to inform them

What they ought to foresee.

I could go on. And on. Bur for those of you who live in Sydney, I hope you might come along and experience the wonders for yourself. The play is not often staged, due to the sprawling, wayward length of the uncut original. I hope ours makes a strong case for the resonances and value of the writing.

In another funny convergence, it was while revising our adaptation just over two years ago that I came across the detail about pilgrims that began my sin-walk. There were pilgrims in the original Webster script, and I was wondering if we should reinstate them. I began hunting down pilgrim lore, and learned of the sin-carrying custom. Webster’s pilgrims went, and I went on the road! And so the play led to the walk, which led to the book, Sinning Across Spain.

And so this week, many roads lead to the one place. The Opera House.

Our version ends with the words:

Mine is another voyage.

What a voyage Mr Webster has given me!

I thank him, my beautiful script collaborator Hugh Colman, the generous and wise John Bell, and all those who have wrangled and questioned the script through two productions. It has been a miraculous, gifted journey.

For those who don’t know them, the top photo is on the freeway at the entrance to Melbourne, and the bottom is crossing the bridge – that bridge – in Sydney.

More convergences!

A postscript.

Reviews for Duchess of Malfi can be read at these links:

The Radio National interview about Malfi can be found here:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/the-duchess-of-malfi/4118124

The coming of the Duchess

This post has nothing to do with walking, but a lot to do with SINS!

Today I went to see a rehearsal of The Duchess of Malfi. Lust, murder and poetry!

Hugh Colman and I adapted John Webster’s astonishing and lurid script, and this production is being directed by John Bell. It will open at the Opera House on July 11th. If you click on this link, you can see the trailer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bgy-GkSQ7Mk

And if you click on the next link, you can meet the cast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC3n8NDSH2U

I think I will just say that I am bursting with excitement and can’t wait for opening night. This is a master class in sinning – and theatre.

And for something completely different!

The Fairfax papers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane published a little Q and A with me in their Traveller section. You can read it here. Another link!

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/frequent-flyer-ailsa-piper-20120621-20q67.html

Thanks to Robert Upe for the fun questions.