Lokomotiv Cove FC

After a year away from the terrors of sunday park football, I've joined a fine bunch of old men called Lokomotiv Cove FC. With a name like that, how can we go wrong? It's a football club formed by the supporters of Sydney FC. Which means we have a naff light blue outfit... kind of like washed out (washed-up?) Manchester City.

It'll be my first year in a team without my son Joe for awhile. He's busy at university. I wonder if anyone will pass me the ball? Joe was always good for a defence-splitting pass, leaving me one-on-one with the goalkeeper, wondering what the hell to do next.

Occasionally , it worked a treat. 

There were only nine teams in the league and yet the winners got a one hundred year old trophy that needed three people to lift it! Please note in the background, drab toilet block and trees without leaves. Lithgow, oh fair city.

Whereas today I experienced the delightful surrounds of Tempe, watching the planes swoop low during those boring moments of the game. A good trial hit-out. Yes, we won 12-1. Oh, okay, I got four goals, but that's enough of gloating.

What was a sheer joy was the whole ninety minutes was played without any referee - just twenty-two blokes huffing and puffing and calling fouls on themselves. Congrats to the players from Hurlstone Park Wanderers. And Lokomotiv.

the simple gift ... stage play

I have just returned from Coffs Harbour where I had the pleasure of sitting in a 200-seat theatre with a capacity audience watching my verse-novel the simple gift performed as a play by the creative crew of Bootlace Productions. They did a wonderful job. 

Brilliant set, crisp direction by Sue Dickinson and fabulous acting by all the cast transformed, incredibly, 100-odd "interior monologues" of verse into a dramatic... well, I'm not quite sure what... 

you see, the actors don't address each other as in a normal play, they address themselves... their consciences if you will, and the audience... 

How does that work?

It's hard to explain... 

Imagine... performing a whole book of poems to an audience of two hundred seventeen-year-olds. Who laughed, cheered and appeared to be fully involved (at least in the two sessions I saw).

I've been trying to understand why it worked, apart from the quality of the production and the brilliance of cast and crew. 

And I quickly claim no credit here - this is entirely the work of a dedicated bunch of theatre people from the Coffs Harbour region.

I think the answer lies in the "interior monologue" being transformed into soliloquys (Hello Mr Shakespeare). That is, the power of each character's thought given a voice. When Caitlin, in the play, says, 

"I'd met someone

who I could lie naked beside

and not feel foolish

or embarrassed. 

I'd met someone

I could trust

and feel safe with...

... I wanted to go to Billy

tonight

and tomorrow

and next week

and I wanted to prove it to myself

before I tell the world."

it seems such a forceful statement of intent (when delivered by  an actor as good as Rhiannon Pettett), that the audience seemed to hold it's collective breath. 

It's not naturalist theatre by any means, but I like it.

I've read my poems in thousands of schools over the past twenty years. But, to witness these poems, this book, brought to the stage in the care of dedicated actors and crew, and the inspired direction of Sue Dickinson, was a very humbling experience. I thank them all for allowing me the chance of seeing my words, my characters given flesh and form.