I am a female playwright over the age of forty who has been working professionally in theatre in Darwin and Perth for over ten years. I have now moved to Melbourne, where I have been advised to introduce myself to young directors, hang about in foyers, get up a good independent production and invite the right people to see it. I may still do this.
But I’m a mother. All my patience goes on my children, and so does most of my money. Melbourne, while you are getting political over your pinot grigio in a cool bar (I’d write the name of one but I don’t know any), I am sitting in front of The Bachelor.
I’ve done lots of good shows already. I know you haven’t seen them, but then I haven’t lived in Sydney or Melbourne for thirteen years and I still know who’s been making theatre there.
It’s difficult to point out in a dignified way that one feels like a victim of systemic injustice. Especially when you’re an artist, whose worth is necessarily validated by other people. When it comes to art, the concept of “justice” melts away even more smoothly into concepts of “merit” than it does for your average female politician.
What I really want to do is call out unfairness without appearing shrill, ungracious, petty or bitter, and actually achieve a result. But if a prime minister can’t do it, what hope do I have?
There are so many instances in my writing career which point to cultural obstacles standing between me and success as a playwright, over which I have no control, and which operate independently of my talent.
In Perth, my work was passed over in favour of similar work by male playwrights and playwrights who had established themselves in Melbourne or Sydney. This happened to other Perth-based female playwrights who, like me, worked consistently and won prizes. (Hello Hellie Turner, Shirley van Sanden, Lois Achimovich, Suzanne Inglebrecht, and Tiffany Barton.)
Work of mine that was successfully produced in Darwin never made it to the stage in Perth, and work I wrote in Perth has never made it to the stage anywhere else. There is a handful of very talented playwrights in Darwin whose work also seems to have difficulty penetrating the big cities. (Hello Sandra Thibodeaux, Mary-Anne Butler, and Gail Evans.)
I’ve been rejected by people who are now in very powerful positions, and accepted and supported by others who are now out of a job. Meanwhile the first professional company to commission me, Darwin Theatre Company, no longer exists. The last one to commission me, Deckchair, was just about to produce a play of mine when it fell in a heap.
So, in an already-failed attempt to enlighten the difficulties of maintaining a presence as a playwright that doesn’t sink into a mire of angry frustrated self-entitlement, I’m now going to stop focusing on the obstacles. There are so many reasons to give up, the extraordinary thing really is that I haven’t. So I would like to focus on why that is.
The biggest reason is the passion I have for the work that I do. I actually believe in it. While I feel terrible about myself a lot of the time, for all sorts of silly reasons, I respect myself for writing and for having written. Because in doing so I honour the value of my own voice. This is the voice of someone who is both dripping with social privilege and hounded by culturally ingrained doubt in her own worth. It’s an interesting paradox, and it will keep me writing until I physically can’t do it any more.
Another reason is the people who have supported me. This includes those who have inspired me, those whose stories I have told, and those who have encouraged me with money, time, space, residencies, commissions, prizes, tickets, positive feedback, hugs, champagne and chocolate. I couldn’t have done any of it, or continue to do it, without support. So all you gorgeous precious people who have helped me along the way: you’re partly why I don’t give up. I endeavour to stay worthy of your belief in me.
The last reason, and the only institutional one, is the Australian Writers’ Guild. I was nominated for two AWGIEs in 2005. I was living in Darwin, I had just been diagnosed with a mild anxiety disorder that may have had something to do with working on a ridiculous number of projects while trying to study law and be a mother to a pre-schooler and a toddler. I got over myself, bought a nice dress, came down to Melbourne and was absolutely flabbergasted when I won. Any of you who were there might remember my Anna-Paquin-winning-for-The-Piano pause of astonishment.
Now, eight years later, I am back in Melbourne with no commissions, no residencies, no productions scheduled anywhere that I know of, and after years of profligacy on an artist’s wage I am back in a casual customer service job. I give very fine tours of Arts Centre Melbourne. In this atmosphere of desperation, I have been nominated for another AWGIE, for a play I wrote on an unpaid residency with a theatre company that has folded, that was produced by a tiny company on the campus of QUT in Brisbane. I think only a handful of people saw it. So to have this play nominated in with the big kids is, quite frankly, the most awesome thing that has happened in my career for a while.
Of course any prize is brilliant, and one might assume that a prize that includes stacks of cash, a reading or a production would be even more so. But for me, the great thing about the AWGIEs is that they really are just about being recognised by your peers. They don’t come wrapped in an expectation of production, you don’t have to fit a company aesthetic or funding parameters. It’s the only major prize for playwriting I know of that does not snake its roots back to the Australia Council. It is therefore outside the small, powerful and self-perpetuating circle of influence that the Australia Council exerts over our country’s cultural output.
This circle determines the value of our art. Its processes continue to favour the young, the city-based, the childless, the willing-to-work-for-nothing, the group-based, and the male. I am not in favour with this circle. Having an AWGIE nomination reminds me that I can write outside the circle, and still be appreciated.
I’m writing another play and I’m going to put it on some time next year. Come and see it.
I’m Kate Rice.Image: The Mozart Faction by Kate Rice, starring Phil Miolin, performed at The Blue Room in Perth in 2007.
