Madness

David Walliams plays a character in the television series Little Britain who walks through scenes making 'boock boock' noises ... clucking noises ... like a chicken. 'She' is one of the least sentimental characters in what is most certainly one of the bleakest of scenarios in the show ... and I have always been curious about the likely motivations for her inclusion - but no more so than this afternoon, when, on my way to the office with my takeaway coffee, a woman was walking along behind me making identical sounds. I glanced over my shoulder to see whether someone was taking the piss, as it were ... but no. Here, on Chapel Street (the very epicentre of Melbourne's Fashionista set and an almost impossibly ironic choice of location), was a woman as mad as the day is long, clucking away while strolling along the footpath.

Our little gaggle of pedestrians arrived at a set a traffic lights and a Little Red Walking Man. Others, perhaps as bemused and bewildered as I, moved out of her way. Some struck a pose of airhead aloofness ... others giggled. I looked on with a sanctimonious, self-rightedness pity. As the Little Red Walking Man was replaced by a Little Green Walking Man, we all stood completely still. Mad Woman glanced briefly from the middle-distance surrounding her to the ground and said "I hate going first". As I stepped from the footpath onto the road, Mad Woman followed and began to cluck away again.

My thought, as I wandered down a side-street toward my office was: "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

****

Madness has always fascinated me. A large number of characters in plays I have written could quite easily, if not a little too lazily, be described as 'Mad'. I wrote a play many years ago called Memories, Melodies and Madness which enjoyed a world premiere in London (and great reviews!) and a season in Melbourne.

In the play, four dead women relive the final night of their lives and, guided and encouraged by a Virgil character, are given the opportunity to take responsibility for each of their roles in their shared tragedy and cross over to the Afterlife. One of the characters succeeds. The others do not ... and for them, their fate is to continue to re-live the final night until they are at peace with their responsibility for what occurred. As the character who was finally at peace began to cross-over into her new life, the play began again - playing identically to the way the performance had started. It was my interpretation of the Catholic 'Purgatory' ... the Christians' 'Hell'.

In London, it received rave reviews and played to packed houses. In Melbourne, at the height of an unseasonal Melbourne heatwave (such is my fucking luck!) we had to cancel several performances due to the fact that the old theatre we were performing in had no air-conditioning which resulted in a temperature in the back few rows of raked seating of close to 40°C.

At the conclusion of one performance, as the play 'began again', a woman in the audience suddenly realised what was happening. She let loose with an audible gasp of recognition and an almost painful whimper of realisation ... as the lights snapped to black. She sat in her seat in the theatre for almost half an hour after the performance had ended ... staring at the stage. The rest of the audience had long since left and she remained - at one with the work and her experience of it.

I have been incredibly fortunate to experience a number of moments like this throughout the many years I spent making theatre. There was the young man who, upon seeing my play The World ... According to Timothy Cross promptly returned to another performance with his Mum, having gone home and 'come out' to her. He brought his Mum to see my play because he believed that the experience of it would be something that would inform her understanding of who her son was ... and what he was going through.

****

At some point in the not too distant past, something else came to mean something more to me than the collection of these experiences I was proudly gathering to keep my heart and soul fed and at peace.

I wish I knew what it was.

The Struggles

I have a nickname for the last five years of my life. It's 'The Struggles'. I adopted it, in style at least, from a land (the memory of which) lies percolating in my heart and soul - Ireland. The Irish, with their characteristic mastery of understatement, referred to their seemingly interminable conflict with the English as "The Troubles". Sometimes it is the accuracy and economy of understatement that results in the very essence of the issue being pinned to a floating speck of dust ... the kind that is visible only in the brightest, almost paint-strippable ray of light. And as a bomb (courtesy of the IRA) exploded only 100 metres from me in London's Victoria Station in 1990 - I knew we were, indeed in trouble.

I remember my first visit to Ireland vividly. I had met an Irish woman - Annie O'Brien - in London when we were both cast in a season of the Stephen Sondheim musical The Frogs. Annie and I instantly bonded ... and many of my special memories of the time I spent in Europe were as a direct result of our vast and wonderful friendship. It was Annie who rented me a room in her beautiful house in West Ealing ... and when the advertising agency I was working for went bust overnight, she guaranteed a roof over my head until I found another job. It was Annie who raced to The Green near our home in Ealing one fateful morning to help me up from the grass. It was Annie who found the perfect space for a season of another play of mine in London ... and it was Annie's brother who, being an Aer Lingus pilot, flew us from Heathrow to Dublin - with me perched wide-eyed, stunned and amazed in the jump seat!

Upon our arrival in Dublin, we went to Annie's brother's favourite pub for lunch. We sat in a beautiful courtyard and drank Guinness. I realised I was in trouble when I started to notice that people were smiling. Real, genuine almost heart-felt smiles. It made me feel uncomfortable ... and Annie laughed at the increasing level of my discomfort. I remember ordering a chicken sandwich for lunch ... and minutes later, when it appeared in front of me on the table - I promptly burst into tears. There, sitting on a serviette within a small woven basket was a fresh roast chicken sandwich. I touched it gently, and the bread sprung back from the small indent the tips of my fingers had made in it. For the first time in what, at the time, seemed like a lifetime, I was about to eat a fresh roast chicken sandwich ... not the thin, salmonella-prone slices of processed and compressed 'pretend' chicken I had become used to in London - the taste of which was always one of life's little, unsolved mysteries.

Touring Ireland was one of the highlights of my years in Europe. I hope to do it again as soon as possible. Images and experiences of my time there haunt me still. The Hill of Tara, Newgrange, theatre at The Abbey, wandering through the grounds of Dublin University, spotting bullet holes in buildings and ranging far south to the wilds of incomparable coastline ... epic, romantic, sweeping grandeur. A magnificent collision of the elements that can only be written about by people who - possibly innately - understand the power, scope and range of the cultural and historical significance of the perfect meeting of time and place.

****

Last night, in the time and place I occupy for the time being, I finally realised why my life has turned out the way it has. It's because the one I lived prior to the one I am now living was better! Much better! So much fucking better it almost defies description! Almost. You see, in my previous life, I was a Pharaoh! I was! I may very well have been the Pharaoh! How good is that?!

I have to be honest. It's not the first time I've been confronted with this fact. But prior to having this sacred vessel (see?) with which to record my every second rumination, it's only ever been a little-known fact of ... whatever the word is that means the opposite of motivation. Yes, that's it - consolation. When everything I've achieved has eventually ended, I have religiously consoled myself with the knowledge that everything I achieve in this lifetime is intended to be the very anithesis of everything I achieved when - to monstrously wonderful effect - I was The King of Egypt!

Bouncing balls of distraction

Sometimes it's as though time has stood still. Sometimes it's as though I never went away. The resistance to change is something that, deep in the database of my experiences in this lifetime, I am fighting to reject. Sometimes I feel as though I am winning ... but then that snide little voice that patrols the filing cabinet of my memory reminds me that I am, in fact, losing. Hopelessly. The shackles of habit and the fatigue of getting up in the morning and expecting it all to be different are wearing me down. Thank the Universe for Wimbledon!

I went to Wimbledon when I lived in London. As you do. I used to go to The Australian Open as well when I lived in Melbourne in my previous incarnation. I love the tennis. And apart from the excellent perve value, it provides me with the opportunity to stretch my spectator muscles ... those particular muscles certain people possess that ensures they never compete in a sporting arena of any kind. We watch. And cheer. Criticise and cajole. We are attached to the sport in a unique way. We are the energy that makes it possible for those playing whichever game it happens to be to indulge in the spirit of a true, honest and fair contest. We are the atmosphere. We represent a share of the prize money (and if you've ever been to Wimbledon you'll know what I mean!) We are the reason. We are what makes it all worthwhile. Sport in the absence of spectators is, well, training.

Much like much of the last ten years of my life.

I love Tim Henman. He's a cute little English tennis player who, now 32 years old, is nearing the end of his career. I've always related to Timmy, in a strange kind of way. He's the one who has never been quite good enough. Good, yes, but not quite good enough. He's never won Wimbledon ... in fact, I'm not sure that he's ever won a Grand Slam anywhere in the world. But he shows up and gives it his best shot. It's just that there is always, eventually, someone on the opposite side of the net whose shot(s) are better than Timmy's best.

Two nights (AEST) ago, his match against Carlos Moya (an outstanding 9.5 on the perve value scale) was stopped due to bad light. It resumed the night before last at two sets all and 5 games a piece in the final set. There was not an empty seat in the fabulous 2,000 extra seats stadium when Timmy and Carlos resumed their battle. I was, literally, on the edge of my seat. The usually subdued and polite English crowd were almost rowdy ... as rowdy as they know how to be in any case. Timmy was giving it his all ... and Carlos was face down on my pillow ... oh, sorry ... giving it his all too. The final set went with perve ... oh shit, sorry ... serve – until Carlos served a double fault and handed over the match. Timmy had won! ... and in a split second, the perennial loser had become a winner. A big winner!

It was a sensational match ... and a moving occasion. As the camera prowled around Timmy, I could tell that this win was especially important to him. There was no knee-bending ... no artful and indulgent collapses onto the grass ... no crass, grand winner-takes-it-all gestures ... no racquet gymnastics. Just an almost quaint smile and humble acknowledgement of the support of the capacity crowd. Each one of those spectators a force of will and determination ... that when combined, quite possibly gave Timmy something of the force he needed to conquer his opponent.

I couldn't sleep for hours that night. The Universe dropped a concept into my mind. "Geoffrey", she whispered ... "are you intending to reach the end of your life and be prepared to accept that, even though you were good, you were just never good enough"?

Last night I started watching Roger Federer play. I didn't last long. Quite suddenly, something made complete sense.