Communion in the dark 1 www.alexbroun.

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Communion
in the dark
a play

By

Alex Broun

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© Alex Broun 2007

Communion in the dark 3 www.alexbroun.com

CHRIS: “He slimed me.”

I’m six years old and I’m sitting on the floor of the Church Hall at my primary
school, St Judes, Scoresby, East Melbourne. Very suburb. Sort of place Kath and
Kim would downgrade to.

Next to me Brad, my older brother, and on the other side Dad. Maybe another 50,
100 people.

I’m wearing my pyjamas. Long pants, long sleeves, heavy cotton variety. And as
kid I was very blonde. In a word - cute.

It’s summer, night time, weekend – 1986 - and before my previously virgin eyes
images are dancing on the grubby brick wall. A man and a woman – talking,
moving - alive.

"Your girlfriend lives in the corner penthouse of spook central."

The man I will come to know as Bill Murray, the woman – Sigourney Weaver –
and the movie - Ghostbusters.

It is the first film I’ve ever seen. Not such a great place to start I know ... but my
eyes are glued. I’m transfixed, entranced, transported. It’s just me and the people
on the wall.

The build up had been very exciting. A notice on the school bulletin board : “Free
screening of Ghostbusters – bring your kids and pyjamas. Saturday night.”

Getting there had also been exciting. We lived quite close to the school so it was
a short walk for my brother and my dad. A quite long one for me.

"Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance."

For a six year old kid School after dark is not the same as it is during the daytime.
It’s a place of mystery, mucking around, discovery.

When we arrived there was already lots of people in the room. Sitting, lying on the
floor, illuminated by sickly green fluoros. What were they doing ? Waiting … but
for what ?

We took our spots on the floor, faint smell of BO. And then the lights went off. A
flick of a switch on the ancient projector from Father McKay and soon Dr Peter
Venkman and Dana Barrett were living large fifty feet high on the back wall of St
Judes Church Hall.
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"You are so odd."

The strangest thing was that although this was the first time I had ever seen a
movie – and it was in an old Church Hall in Far Eastern Melbourne - it seemed
like I had been here before.

Watching those fifty feet people fighting ghosts in New York was the most natural
thing I could do. The film didn’t transport me anywhere. It brought me home.

I understood exactly what this ritual, this communion in the dark, was all about. At
the ripe old age of half a dozen years I had been introduced to the wonder of a
movie and I put out my hand to welcome a long lost friend.

Kids have a very uncanny way of accepting where they belong, what they know.
Well I knew this.

It was like sometime in the past I’d been whispered dangerous secrets, curious
understandings, magical incantations – breathed to me while I was half asleep –
preparing me for something to come, a great event that was about to unfold.

And now the moment those incantations had spoken about – had arrived - and a
life long obsession, love affair – was about to begin.

But it wasn’t the movie itself that I found so wondrous. Actually that was pretty
crap.

Even at six years old I was seeing through things – I was a very precocious kid.
The whole set up was a bit amateurish. The projection, the sound, all a bit shoddy
really. A puny arse projector up against the back wall of a Church Hall.

It was the act of people coming together to watch the movie. That was special.
The experience of cinema - excited me more, stayed with me longer, than
Ghostbusters ever would.

But I do remember certain parts of the movie and a first taste of that popcorn
movie staple - self induced fear.

The most frightening part of Ghostbusters is the librarian scene – I thought twice
about going back in to the school library after that.

The Ghostbusters get a report of a ghoul in the city library so they check it out.
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There’s an old lady standing up reading a book and you can tell she’s a ghost
straight away – she’s half transparent. They keep talking among themselves,
pretending they don’t see her.

Then she “ssssshhs” them but they just keep talking.

She suddenly turns around aggravated and now she’s this very scary mother
fucking ghost – not sure if those are the precise words I used as a six year old but
you get the gist.

Later I remember the Stay Puft Marshmallow man – that was fun – but the
moment that stayed with me was not big cuddly white giant – it was that moment
of being scared shitless.

It wasn’t real – it was a long strip of flickering celluloid being projected on to a

dirty brick wall of a School Church – but to the eyes of this six year old it was the
realest thing I had ever seen.

And another part when Rick Moranis is being chased by a demon in Central Park.

He finds this restaurant – this beacon of light – and it’s full of all these really
wealthy people, dining on really expensive dinners, sipping French champagne -
behind these huge glass windows.

And Rick is being hunted by this huge angry Gargoyle with razor sharp teeth - so
he throws himself against the glass, desperately trying to find a way in.

And all the people in the restaurant slowly just turn and look at him, then go back
to eating their roasted spatchcock and braised fennel.

So Rick starts running through the park – past trees, off paths - and he finds
himself in a spot that’s quiet and dark.

Suddenly he’s far away from the lights and sound of the big city, a long way away
from the camp fire.

And now I wasn’t scared for him anymore. I was scared for me.

What if I too couldn’t find the door into the safety of the restaurant ? What if the
people inside wouldn’t let me in ? What if I found myself far away from the
campfire ?

I cuddled in closer to dad.

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LIGHTS CHANGE.

All my life I’ve been going to the movies. And for me – movies have been so
much. Best friend, lover, teacher, guide – even at times – enemy.

I can map out the important moments in my life, my stages of growth, through the
movies.

You know how for certain people a special song will bring up memories of a
person or a time or an event – something important in their lives. Well that’s the
same for me – but it’s not songs. It’s movies.

I’m never more comfortable than when I’m sitting in the dark watching images on
a screen. Whether it’s a church hall in Scoresby or the latest cinemaplex in
Chadstone.

Movies have been my parents, siblings, husband, wife. And they taught me all
about life.

It began with Ghostbusters – that taught me about fear. Robocop gave me an

understanding of violence, a friend’s porno taught me about sex and Moulon
Rouge about love. Okay – it wasn’t a great education.

But there were moments – Good Will Hunting taught me not to give up, Raging
Bull taught me about acting and Amadeus taught me to listen to my own instincts.

So much given, so much gained from people so far away who I’ve never met and
probably never will.

So many of the big lessons in life – I’ve learned from them.

BRIEF DIALOGUE FROM ROBOCOP

I’m eight years old and I’m in my living room at Wantirna South - centre of the
known universe. Well, my universe. Dad and mum have split by this time and I’m
living with dad. But he’s not home now. It’s just me and Brad - who’s 13.

Dad was kind of liberal on what my brother was watching at the time but I’m not
sure he would have approved of him watching a movie like this. And he certainly
wouldn’t have approved of me watching it.

I’m not sure how Brad got his hands on it. Maybe somehow he was able to hire it
at the video sore or maybe he convinced Dad to hire it: “It’s not that violent”
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So when Dad was out my brother popped it in our ancient VCR.

My bother was very independent. He had a great intelligence and initiative to start
things up from nothing. Any sort of hunger he felt - he found a way to feed. Any
thing he felt he had to do or could do - he would. Usually just for the experience of
it – to grow from it. And because I hung around him a lot I shared in those
experiences.
He had weird kind of enjoyment about sharing his mischief with me. I was the
guinea pig for experimentation – with power, rebellion, corruption – you know…
big brother stuff.

But this was more about him than me. In those days it was just Brad, Dad and
me. It was a very masculine charged house – and my brother quite literally was
wanting to become a man.

And an important part of becoming a man it seemed was watching Robocop. This
was self initiation for my brother and I was along for the ride.

Prior to this I did have an understanding of violence. Controlled violence, in the

form of combat – I’d been doing karate since I was seven.

But this was graphic, unbridled, celebratory violence – an eight year old boy
should never watch a movie like that.

Detroit - in the future. Crime spreading through the city. The people need a
saviour, a god like kick up the butt – so technology or OCP intervenes and
creates a supercop. And then people start getting killed – in gorier and gorier
ways.

Blood, explosions, bullets, death, blood, murder, injury, human bodies ripped limb
from limb, blood, blood, blood. Pretty tough stuff for eight year old eyes.

At the start of the movie Murphy, before he becomes Robocop,is showered with
bullets.

As a kid I can’t stop looking cause it’s so surreal. Decimating everything I

understood to this point about goodies and baddies, right and wrong, life and
death.

I thought humans were quite fragile. That’s what other movies had taught me. If I
ever got a punch in the face from a cowboy “Look out, I might die.”

But then I see 100 million bullets going into this guy. I see the violence that one
human can administer on another human. I see what really bad shit can happen
Communion in the dark 8 www.alexbroun.com

to you in this world. And then he gets up and walks away. As a Robot maybe –
but he was still alive.

For an eight year old kid - it set a benchmark on how much violence can be
produced by human beings. I realised the atrocities this world and its inhabitants
can commit.

Also I now had the power to imagine myself committing that kind of atrocity. Or
worse still - someone committing that kind of atrocity on me.
Violence had entered my consciousness and the possibility of those kind of acts
was now alive and well in this eight year old’s mind.

My world perception had changed. It was the end of innocence. The first steps
along the path to growing up. If growing up was something I still wanted to do.

But something sustained me, got me through the 100 minutes or so of non-stop
gore. The film did have one greatly redeeming quality. It was cool.

A man turning into a robot and kicking baddies arses. This to an eight year old
boy was ultra cool – because you could pretend you were Robocop – maiming,
dis-membering, butchering - and still feel like you were doing the right thing.

Robocop still had a heart, had memories or at least emotional recall – he still had
his human side but when it came to the crunch, the bullets just bounced off him.

He was a legitimate superhero that you could pretend to be - half machine, half
human. You could kick baddies arses and you were indestructible.

And in the tradition of all great action flicks of the 80s he was witty and creative in
the way he despatched the villains and often with a super cool one liners:
“Looking for me ?”

Young boys play with lego and transformers. They want to find a bit of an edge
towards their own failings that they instinctively recognise as part of being human.

They get grass burns, fall over on asphalt – they bleed, they hurt. In a little kids’
way he wants to toughen himself up –and who was the toughest of all - Robocop.

If there was a Robocop action suit I would’ve bought it – the helmet, the metal
plated thigh with hidden gun compartment. Plus you got bragging rights at school
– “I saw Robocop”.

But deep down something had changed. Somewhere inside me a gash had been
carved and the real world was flooding in.
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I’d had my first taste of pornography. The pornography of violence. It would be

nearly ten years later before I would experience the other variety.

LIGHTS CHANGE.

So what had movies taught me so far. Ghosts are running around Central Park in
New York and when you get shot a hundred times – you don’t die.

This bruised eight year old soul needed an antidote. Some spiritual healing. A
rebellious teenager called Daniel LaRusso and the eternally wise, Mister Miyagi.

The Karate Kid came out when I was very young. I must’ve seen it on video when
I was 4, because I mentioned it at kindergarten.

I bumped my head on a horizontal metal bar on some of the play equipment. I

came back the next day sporting a bandage around my forehead, a la Karate Kid.
I then proceeded to assure all the kids that I am a-ok and that I am Junior Karate
Kid. Mainly to avoid the embarrassment of having a silly looking bandage on my
head.

Now in the post Robocop world I turned to Karate Kid for salvation.

To me the Karate Kid represented all that was good about life - honour, discipline,
focused energy, patience and Elisabeth Shue. It’s actually spelled E-l-i-s-a-b-et-h
– like you care ! The whole romantic subplot hooked me in and would reverberate
in other key moments in my life. More of that later.

But even TKK – The Karate Kid - had its negative side. Now, the baddies were
terrors of a new kind for me. They weren’t ghosts or beasts or baddies with big
guns. They were – other kids.

They went to your school, walked down your streets, ate at the same McDonald’s,
hung out at the same milk bar you buy your lollies - went to the same movie
theatre. They represented a much closer threat. Something a kid growing up in
the suburbs can experience all too much.

These kids can catch the same bus as you, be in the same maths class, watch
your every move. They can plot to hurt you, because they know of your activities,
your movements, your physical weaknesses. They can sabotage personal events
– anything from stealing your basketball (because they knew where and when
you would frequent the local court), to making you look like a dickhead in front of
others (in the case of Daniel, he winds up with spaghetti all over him because he
thinks Johnny and Elisabeth Shue are a couple).
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I experienced this to a certain degree with my brother – but in the end there was a
limit. He’s my brother – he isn’t going to hurt me that bad. But other kids – they
were more menacing. There were no limits.

So when my mum asked me, when I was 7, if I’d like to take up karate, I thought,
“Wow! Hell yeah!” I started fly-kicking around the house at once! It was like asking
a kid if he’d like to become Batman.

Everything I learnt at karate lessons, echoed what I had seen in TKK. With the
exception of the Crane Kick, the old Japanese recluse teaching me one-on-one,
the laying on of ‘healing hands’, the Hollywood-style tournament that is the climax
of the movie – everything else was exactly the same.

I translated, in my head, what I saw on film to what I did nearly everyday. I

transformed the American suburbia from the screen, into my daily life. The accent
was something I accomplished with aplomb.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t start talking with an American accent full-time or think
I went to Valley High and start wearing Terminator sunnies. I was (and still am) an
Australian, but I did begin to think I had supernatural powers.

Which Daniel La Russo doesn’t actually have – he’s just very good at karate - but
I wasn’t that good at karate so I needed something more !

I began to think I could make patterns on my bedroom wallpaper move, just by

staring at them long enough. And they did! Of course, I would discover much later
that it was an illusion from not blinking for 4 minutes straight.

I did the same thing when I stared at the sun for the same amount of time - it
began to dance. Probably explains why I wear glasses now…

But there was a universe around me, and I seemed not only apart of it, but could
also float through its dimensions and alter its ever-changing and growing states.

I would need all these magical powers if I was to survive the combined enemies
of movie land who were now gathering in my imagination to attack me.

I would also need help from a certain gentlemen by who lived in a chocolate
factory.

SCENE OR SONG FROM WILLY WONKA (Pure imagination)

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is of course the story of God. Or a
traditional anglo-christian god. Don’t laugh.
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A God that is not seen, not heard but you know he exists because he sends you
delicious chocolate bars from a magical chocolate factory.

And he hides in his chocolate bars - five golden tickets to enter the magical
chocolate factory – heaven - and meet God.

And who are the five kids who get the tickets. Five archetypes of humanity. Four
who must be cleansed of their sins:

Veruka Salt – spoilt kid, gets everything she wants

Augustus – large kid who consumes too much chocolate
Violet – kid who won’t shut up and can’t stand losing.
Mike TV – kid who watches too much TV (movies), lives in his own world of
fantasy and flickering images on the Church Hall wall. Sound familiar.
And then there’s the good kid, the pure child – Charlie. Total contrast, humble -
comes from a poor background, selfless - puts everyone before himself,
hardworking - works his guts out so his family can have some cabbage soup for
dinner. In short – a heart of gold.

I always liked to think I was Charlie – we all did – but I was probably Mike.

If the other four are examples of human weaknesses then human strengths are
personified in Charlie.

So when Willy Wonka brings these children – these sinners – to his factory – his
heaven - where he creates everything - they are so wrapped up in themselves
they don’t have the capacity to understand where Willy has brought them – the
opportunity that is before them.

They have been chosen. They can learn great things if only they’d look around.

The very first thing Willy gets them to do is sign the form - and it’s ridiculously
long and the writing’s so small that they can’t even read the bottom.

But Willy asks them to sign it anyway. Like he’s signing away all his responsibility
– like God saying “I am not responsible for your time on earth”.

And in the factory they’re still only concerned about themselves. Veruka’s dad is
only interested in health and safety issues. Violet’s dad tries to do business with
Wonka – in “heaven”.

They bring in all these earthly concerns into the kingdom of paradise. They don’t
have the eyes to see what Wonka is offering them.
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And then Augustus falls in the chocolate river and Willy gets upset. But not
because Augustus is drowning – because he is contaminating the chocolate like
God getting upset that the human race is fucking up the earth.

But Willy doesn’t punish Augustus. He just lets things run their course.

(WEAKLY) “Stop Augustus, stop.”

The mechanism that Wonka has put in place will punish him and Augustus is
sucked down to somewhere else. He is no longer Willy’s concern.

Willy knows about the five children before they come in to the factory. He just
allows them to make their own mistakes.

Along the way all face temptation and all except one succumb. They are all
expelled from the factory – all except Charlie, the good soul.
But then at the end Charlie faces one final temptation. Wonka gets angry at
Charlie, for sipping the fizzy lifting drink, he tries to expel him from heaven.

But Charlie still doesn’t succumb. He returns the everlasting gobstopper and :

“So shines through a good deed in a weary world.”

Charlie is given the keys to the kingdom, the keys to heaven, just like the meek
who shall inherit the earth.

And in the end with the glass elevator – now that’s extremely metaphoric, it’s
obviously metaphoric – Charlie’s going up to the skies. It’s Jesus ascending to
heaven.

He’s become responsible for the factory, for bringing joy to the world. Charlie is
elevated to god like status. He has become Christ.

Which brings me to “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” - which is of course the
story of Jesus. Jack Nicholson as McMurphy is Jesus Christ. Stay with me.

At the start he voluntarily enters the asylum, like Jesus voluntarily coming to
earth.

Then he makes a decision to help others, just like Jesus. McMurphy doesn’t
exactly want to do that right at the start - but he soon realises what’s going on and
he accepts his role. Just like Jesus in the desert.
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Louise Fletcher as Nurse Mildred Ratched is the Jewish hierarchy - or at least a

combination of that and the Romans – who are threatened by McMurphy’s
teaching, the growing rebellion.

The other inmates are his disciples:

Danny De Vito is Mathew
Christopher Lloyd is Paul.
Vincent Schiavelli, the big tall spooky one – who was also in Amadeus, which
coincidentally was also directed by Milos Forman but more on that later - is
James.

Judas is Brad Dourif, Billy Bibbit - loud and clear. Jesus talks to him about the life
Judas could lead rather than the life he is leading – that he shouldn’t be ashamed,
that he is a good person.

But then Fletcher-Ratched-Pharisees stroke Romans gets Brad-Billy-Judas to dob

on Jack-Jesus-McMurphy because she says she’ll tell his mother about having
sex with the prostitute that McMurphy organised, just like Mary Magdalene. I
mean Judas.
And then Brad-Billy-Judas confesses and Jack-Jesus-McMurphy goes in for
shock treatment. So what does Billy do ? He kills himself. Classic Judas.

And then McMurphy has an opportunity to escape like Jesus when he’s in the
garden of Gethsemane.

The window is open but he realises others will be punished so he offers himself -
taking the burden of all their sins on to him.

Will Sampson as Chief Bromden, the Big Indian, well he’s St Peter of course -
who Jesus gives courage and faith to realise he is alright.

After Jesus-Jack-McMurphy gets a lobotomy he is left in a vegative state, like

Christ dying on the cross. And the Chief sees him in that state, like Peter at the
foot of the cross.

So Will-The Chief-St Peter escapes – to go and spread the word of St Jack.

Of course Peter doesn’t actually suffocate Jesus with a pillow in the bible or
smash a giant water machine through the wall, but you get the general idea.

LIGHTS CHANGE

I’m 17 and my life has changed. Again. I’m living in Mackay with my mother.
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This follows my very own, very painful real life version of Kramer vs Kramer. Or in
this instance – Pender v Pender.

In the end I had to choose between staying in Melbourne with Brad and Dad, or
moving to Queensland with Mum. Brad gently put his arms around me, gave me a
hug and said: “If you go, I won’t be around to give you these…” But I still moved
to Queensland.

It’s a pool party at my friend Nathan’s – his birthday. I went to school with him –
St Patrick’s. How appropriate.

Guys and girls, mostly kids but some parents – general shenanigans in the pool.
The eating of burnt but strangely undercooked sausages, drinks from the esky,
music from the stereo – Spice Girls, Puff Daddy, Chemical Brothers. Presents, a
cake.

Later – most of the adults had buzzed off but we boys were still in the pool. The
girls had drifted off to do their own thing so it was time for the guys to do their own
thing.

His older brother – they’re not a good influence so far are they ? – had given
Nathan a video and so half a dozen of us trooped into his room.

My cinema driven education was ready to take it’s next awkward step.

LIGHTS CHANGE. MUSIC.

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, if the ordinary happened to be an ordinary

porno.

The first thing I noticed was the music, your basic “wah wahs”. I think it even had
a horn section.

The second was the non-existent plot line – a critic, even then. The ease with
which one had to fuck. “Wow, I thought it was really hard, but this is so easy. I’ll
have to try this one day and see how far I’ll get.” A quick: “Hello” or “I’ve come to
cut your grass” and … you’re in.

I remember one scene where a husband is cheating on his wife and their fucking
away, and then the wife comes home. She feels horny – of course - and so the
mistress has to hide under the bed while the husband and wife go at it hammer
and tongs above her. You marvel at the genius who thought up that.
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It was another surreal moment, like Ghostbusters or Robocop, where I knew what
was happening. But I didn’t.

And I wasn’t experiencing this with my family in the sanctity of a church hall or the
relative safety of our lounge room.

I was standing in some other guy’s bedroom. With half a dozen boys my own age.
Some I knew pretty well, some I didn’t. I think we all felt the same – nervous,
embarrassed, self-conscious. Anything but what we were meant to be – aroused.

Collectively I think we tried to hide our nerves by laughing at the music or the
dialogue – release that nervous energy. It’s not like you’re watching a game of
football.

It was 5 or 6 guys, none who’d seen a porno before, desperately trying to pretend
we were cool – but clearly we weren’t. We were watching sex – on film.

Everyone was glued to the screen, including me. I wanted to grab a quick peak at
what everyone else was doing but I didn’t want to risk being caught out.

Here we were, half a dozen almost men watching a cheap porno in Nathan’s
bedroom in suburban Mackay. It wasn’t just naughty – it was educational. Our
own private, very graphically illustrated, Sex Ed class. But without the teacher to
explain or contextualise.

Here was a totally new world of human behaviour. A million things to discover.
Not just about sexuality but the human condition.

The complete different perspective you have when you know what is possible,
what human bodies are designed for.

The film was bringing up about ten thousand questions per second in our
adolescent minds and none of us had the tools to answer them. And worse –
questions being answered by misconceptions.
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Long held pre-conceptions of sex were being annihilated. I saw people fuck in
different positions, which to that point I didn’t think was possible.

Is his dick in her vagina or her arse ? Sometimes you couldn’t quite tell. What
does a vagina look like when it’s got a dick in it ? Twosomes, threesomes,
foursomes.

One person on top of the other both facing the same way and you can actually
have sex like that. Up to that point I thought you couldn’t fuck a woman from
behind in her vagina – because I didn’t precisely know it’s accessibility when a
woman bends over.

But then I saw this porno and I thought: “Oh.”

Like Robocop had given me an insight into the many different ways the human
body could be ripped apart this showed me new and various ways “pleasure”
could be given or taken.

MUSIC FADES. LIGHTS CHANGE.

Violence was like Robocop, sex was like the porno after Nathan’s pool party. I
was growing up a well balanced adult of the celluloid society.
Communion in the dark 21 www.alexbroun.com

LIGHTS CHANGE.

I actually came up with the concept of The Truman Show. I had many times, in
my head, the idea of being secretly video taped. My whole life, from my birth. I
thought, “Shit! That’s a lot of tape they gotta have in those cameras!”

These cameras would be in the sky, in trees, in buildings… Much like an actual
film, rather than ‘hidden’. But you still wouldn’t know they were there, so good and
sneaky were the ‘production crew’.

This recurring imaginative obsession would make me quite vain. I was ‘on
camera’ many times during the day and night, so I’d try to look my best, be polite,
obey and take orders like I was a soldier in a war film…

But most importantly, find substance. Because I knew of the stuff of fluff, of
bubblegum, of glam and style and the immediate.

I wanted my viewers back home thinking I was a very mature young person.
Someone to be taken seriously - beyond the stuff that I may have been immersing
myself in - bad American ‘80s TV and film.

Already it was clear - I was longing for another reality, apart from the one I found
myself in.

I would discover this other world on the screen in the form of fantasy flicks such
as The Never Ending Story, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Labyrinth hit home the most as it reflected the way I viewed the world around me.
Like Willy Wonka, it was like an entertaining moral story. Full of substance. Even
at this tender age, I was hungry for ‘the grand idea’, the ‘bigger picture’ a
particular film had to offer. I knew it wasn’t just mindless entertainment - although
I did enjoy my fair share of that!

I was not entirely aware of whom David Bowie was, nor did I take extra notice of
the ‘bulge’ in his tights. I thought he must’ve been an ex-ballet dancer. But I was
spellbound by the images and characters and places Jennifer Connelly, as our
hero Sarah, was to visit.

The concept was simple: get through a maze in 13 hours (easy-peasy) and get
your baby brother back. Done. But from the very beginning all is not what it
seems.
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What is great about Labyrinth is that it has the ‘real’ world set up as a dream –
and the world of the Goblin King and his maze and castle, as reality. For it is in
this ‘reality’ that Sarah experiences dreams, illusions, delusions, temptations,
confusions, friends and foes, and all the diversions and hurdles that ‘real’ life
throws at you.

This so-called ‘fantasy world’ contained more reality in it than the life she was
living.

And this is the thing young kids are always privy to – they understand reality in
fantasy and make no prejudices about it. Images seen, sounds heard, food
tasted, odours smelt, surfaces touched, lessons learnt - and many more to be
learned - can be transported between the two realities.

Like Neverland with Peter Pan, so the fantasy - and these days, the CGI
animation - flicks create not only a sense of perspective for kids in this universe,
but enough stimulus for imagination to create a sub-universe – full of rich ideas,
ideals, absolutes and compromises and things to draw upon when they get older
– when they need to ‘grow up’.

Labyrinth also teaches basic things that kids learn - and hopefully take with them
to adulthood. The difference between a threat and a helping hand - Sarah has
the sense that Ludo, the monster, is just a big teddy bear, needing some sort of
affection and should not to be tortured.

That even if wrong has been done upon you - Hoggle dobbing on Sarah or the
Goblin King taking the baby in the first place - there is the power to forgive and
right the wrongs. To cross the line of right/wrong can be a two-way street.

The complexities of choice, of responsibility, of compassion, of loyalty, of love -

yes, that old chestnut – Sarah did love her baby brother, after all - were
personified in the various characters - made more life-like as puppets, if you ask
me - and physicalized in the environment she found herself.

The moral echoes of Wonka: be careful of what you wish for because it might just
come true. But most importantly, don’t underestimate yourself. Don’t disregard
your own self-importance to do some worthy act that will transport yourself above
and beyond the self-obsessed, the mundane, the creatures of harm - both real
and unreal - that lurk behind the scenes.

“Everyday a child is born, but eventually that child will die and will be survived by
an adult…”
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Thus, the emotional confusions and ‘blocks’ many young males seem to have, I
too, seemed to share.

A different longing for ‘substance’ in my movies started to take shape. Stories

about emotional dealings, friendships, relationships, isolation, seemed important
– as they could shed light on my own situations and could educate me on how to
cross certain bridges and climb certain walls that I would otherwise stumble on.

After the stumble of my first fuck I needed some inspiration and I was about to
receive it – in the guise of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Or at least Tom Hulce, you remember from National Lampoon’s Animal House,
playing Mozart in Milos Forman’s adaptation of Peter Schaffer’s play “Amadeus”.

LIGHTS CHANGE.

I’m 21, and I’m in first year at Drama School at James Cook University,
Townsville.

I live on Campus and one of my floor mates, Bongo - I can’t remember his real
name. In fact I can’t even remember why he was called Bongo. Then not even
Bongo knew why he was called Bongo.

We once got into a fight cause he wouldn’t tell me why he was called Bongo. I
thought he just wouldn’t tell me then one night at some party this really gorgeous
girl thought Bongo was kind of a cute and was fascinated how he got the name
“Bongo”.

But Bongo couldn’t tell her so the really gorgeous girl started to think he was not
so cute after all. Maybe he really didn’t know.

Anyway Bongo hired the odd DVD and we would watch it on his computer.
Usually American teen flicks – Dude, where’s my car ?, classy stuff like that.

As I walk into his room he’s just about to start the movie on his computer and he
asks me in Bongo speak if I want to watch.

MUSIC – MOZART.

Straight away I knew it was something a little different from his usual fare.

He said he’d seen the cover and it looked interesting. A quick glance from me
saw the DVD proudly declared “8 Academy Awards.”
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I knew classical music all my life, my mother used to be a frequenter of ABC

classic FM – but I hadn’t started to listen to it really until I took a subject “Bach to
the Beatles” in first year. Very cutting edge at JCU.

So I was aware of Mozart but his music was everywhere in the film and it worked
so well with the drama that you couldn’t help being pulled in by it.

The first thing that struck me as amazing was the fact that a man such as Mozart
ever existed. To write what he wrote at the age that he did, to have these perfect
compositions fully formed in his head. He seemed to have an alien like response,
something unworldly, to music and life. It’s like an alien coming to earth and
giving us this beautiful music and operas – I thought that was very profound.

One of the scenes that struck me most was when Constanze, Amadeus’ wife,
goes to see Salieri to ask if Mozart might be appointed as the music teacher to
the niece of Josef the Second. To prove Mozart is skilled enough for the job she
takes along some of Mozart’s compositions.

She hands them to Salieri and casually mentions that these are the only copies –
as he only ever needed to write one copy. And as Salieri looks through the scores
he’s at first surprised then horrified to see that there is not a single correction.

Mozart has just written the score down on paper as the notes sprung forth in his
genius mind. But his genius wasn’t what really struck this first year drama student
from far northern Queensland, Australia.

It was the way Mozart lived his life. Here he was broke, dying, tragically haunted
by his father but he still had a love of life, a child like view on the world around
him – and love. In so many ways he was just a kid – but in his work, in his work ...

He had a philosophy on how music should be listened to and why it should be

listened to. That it should be light and airy not dull and plodding. He was nowhere
near much heavier contemporaries like Beethoven and Mahler.

And his dedication to his art – his discipline to create – his sheer obsession with
the work, the work.

There’s another scene where Mozart’s father comes to see how he’s doing in
Vienna and the father soon realises his son is doing it pretty tough so he
suggests to Wolfgang that he takes in a few students to help cover costs.

But Mozart refuses – saying that to take on students would take away from his
real work, the composing. “Ah yes” his father says “but compositions don’t pay.”
Mozart fobs him off saying “Then I won’t eat.” At this stage Mozart’s father’s eyes
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wander to Amadeus’ wife and young son. You can see him thinking: “Then neither
will they.”

Mozart saw himself as a creative entity – a person who would not create art
because it was a job, or because he was told to or for money to invest in
properties – like so many other so called artists of the court. He did it for the sheer
act of creation, for the desire to create beautiful things, to let out the music in his
head and heart.

And that started me thinking do some of my character traits mirror Mozart ? Am I

like that – do I have that desire, that obsession, that discipline ? And if I do then
might I be talented, might I be good at this acting caper that I’m about to dedicate
three years of my life too.

I saw a true artist – and what it took to be a true artist – and I was inspired by
that, I longed for that. But was I the sort of soul that can do this ? That can
actually be genuine about art.

For me watching the film was like being sprinkled with magic stardust. Could
channel Mozart, his power, his creative genius ? Could it flow through Bongo’s
computer screen and touch me ?

But like all good movies Amadeus has a sting in the tail. Because his creativity is
matched by another’s destructiveness. Salieri.

There’s another scene when Mozart and Salieri are trying to finish off the requiem
in Mozart’s bedroom and Amadeus tells Salieri about “the fire inside you that
doesn’t go out, that keeps on burning” and he asks if Salieri has that.

And Salieri says “yes” but he doesn’t mean fire in the same sense as Amadeus,
He means Amadeus is the fire than burns within Salieri and he longs to put that
out. And in the end he does. Mozart dies a pauper at the age of 36.

If Mozart was the yardstick, who could do no wrong, was I willing to risk that ?

And deep down there was a fear that I didn’t have that talent, that genius, that
purity that Amadeus possessed. That I didn’t have what it took to be an actor. But
that didn’t last long.

Overall the film made me feel reassured. I discovered what all artists need to
survive the many slings and arrows of this many slinged and arrowed business –
my artistic ego. Gall. A part of me that said although many before and after have
tried and failed – I could and would be an actor.
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You know how artistic stimulus reflects your own state of mind. If you’re drawn to
certain influences – it reflects certain character. Where you are at that point.

You start to seek things artistically that you harbour in yourself – but you don’t
know exactly what it is – so you’re searching in the dark. You’ve got your hands
out and you can feel things – and gradually you find things that show you who you
are and where you’re at and what you’re capable of or not capable of. And also
where you’re going – whether you need to backtrack or take a different tangent.

Watching Amadeus that day in Bongo’s room I was given a tiny inkling that
maybe – I was on the right track.

Amadeus told me to follow my dream and Mozart became my own personal

mythology that carried me through drama school. Through his own life and music
Mozart gave me a philosophy of how to live my life.

Amadeus, with its use of Mozart’s music throughout, gave a higher level of drama
to movies I hadn’t seen. I suppose it’s more the music then, and not the movie
that makes it special, but then there was F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri. A
conviction that I hadn’t seen on screen in such a way. Subtleties, too, that were
rare in some American actors.

But then it was only re-affirming another film I had seen three years before which
also said follow your dream, but in a very different accent.

LIGHTS CHANGE. SCENE FROM GOOD WILL HUNTING.

I first saw Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s breakthrough movie Good Will Hunting
in Mackay, when I was 18.

At the cinema where I worked. I was an usher there for 18 months. The junkie
had moved into the crack house. And better still I got my fix for free.

I watched everything that came out at that time. Even the bad ones to see what
made them bad.

I watched Good Will Hunting five times. Mainly because I found myself in town
with nothing to do – so I’d drop into the cinema even when I wasn’t working - and
I couldn’t be stuffed watching Godzilla.

I instantly related. Just like Will Hunting and his friends I was also in a group of
misfits.
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Will and his posse never did much, worked odd jobs, but they had this ritual of
meeting up – the camaraderie between them was very close and that was how I
felt with my friends.

You’d be hanging around Mackay, so you’d ring them up and get together. You
wouldn’t really do anything, just hang out, talk about mundane things, fart jokes.
But being a misfit in a small Australian beach side town, to hang with other misfits
– made you feel slightly less fucked.

And with Will it’s his friends who see his special gift. That he’s this mathematical
genius that’s destined for so much more. I kind of wanted my friends to see that in
me. Not the maths part, the genius.

There’s the scene when the Ben Affleck character, Chuckie Sullivan – okay, the
movies not perfect. Ben Affleck is in it playing a character called Chuckie –
anyway Chuckie goes around to knock on Will’s door and he says: “You know
what I really hope ? I hope one day that I’ll come around and knock on this door –
and you won’t be here.”

So that got me thinking: do I have something to offer ? Or more precisely – what

do I have to offer ? Was I like Will Hunting who had special talents that just
needed to be discovered by Robin Williams college professor. Or was just
another Chuckie. Nothing special. Destined to live out my life in dullsville, doing
not much.

And Robyn Williams’ character, Sean Maguire, also hit me hard – a man who had
seen both the good and bad sides of life. Who tasted the good fruits then
discovered some of those fruits had been poisoned.

But he knew what life had to offer and he knew it was your own responsibility to
seek out the good and not to be afraid if you fall on your face. If you see down the
track that it’s not as easy as you think you still have to keep going, you have to
find enough strength and optimism to carry on. You don’t just give up.

Maguire had great times with his wife but then when she had cancer it just wiped
him out. And he gave up. He doesn’t want Will to make the same mistakes.

He wants Will to risk the bad for the good. To understand that although at times
the journey maybe far from perfect – it’s still worth going on.

He was reminding Will that life wasn’t always going to be wine and roses but at
the same time urging him to grab his share of both. For a young guy in Mackay –
looking at what he was doing, where he was going – this message kind of stuck.
Especially the bit about wine.
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I wasn’t happy with my life there – or more to the point I felt there was so much
more out there waiting for me.

But would I let fear – “Chuckie-ism” – stop me from taking any risks. Trying for
something better.

Here I was in a safe dead end, but did I have the guts to go the other way ?
Leave my small town and be ready for all the good - and the bad – the wider
world had to offer.

Of course in the end Will leaves - to go to California to follow Minnie Driver. Kind
of like Matt Damon leaving Boston for Hollywood.

Chuckie gets his wish. He knocks on the door – and Will is gone – and Maguire
opens a card and reads – “Sean - If the Professor calls about that job, just tell
him, Sorry, I had to go see about a girl."

So just like Will Hunting drives off from Boston to California - or Daniel LaRusso
and his Mum in The Karate Kid - to embrace a life of uncertainty, so did I from
Mackay to Townsville in my mum’s car to attend Uni. With the car packed with all
my worldly possessions, off I drove, Guns N Roses on the tape player, air-con
blowing in my face - it was still Summer - and a fantastic feeling of liberation and
independence. To start my new life. Couple of years later I met my very own
Skylar. Her name was – and I guess still is – Renee.

LIGHTS CHANGE. FRENCH MUSIC.

Moulon Rouge is a film directed by Baz Luhrmann. It stars Nicole Kidman and
Ewen MacGregor – who is a very fine actor.

Moulon Rouge is a film that is good in theory but if you ever thought Baz
Luhrmann was a wanker, Moulon Rouge is the film that proved that.

Okay that’s very harsh – but what he tries to do on film is a bit of a wank.
Complete over indulgence, over the top for over the topness’ sake, colourful
clothes for colourful clothes’ sake.

The countless snippets of songs – maybe I can’t talk but if you’re doing a musical
isn’t it at least important to cast people who can sing - of dialogue from soppy
films that was already bad in the original. It was unashamedly romantic – and that
is why Renee wanted to see it.

Too many times do people see the illusion of what they deem as love (and call it
such), yet shortly I was to find out just what is the real nature of the beast.
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I met Renee Graham on “O” day – start of my second year in acting at James
Cook University, Townsville. I was in a meeting room downstairs where all the
Fossils went to get their room keys back for the start of the new term.

If you were in your first year you were a Fresher in JCU speak. Any longer than
that and you were a fossil.

In walks this energetic, bubbly, confident young woman with brown curly hair
asking where do first year’s get their keys.

The assistant principal directed her to the reception and she turned to go but as
she did she caught my eye and gave me a big smile and I couldn’t help but feel
an overwhelming sense of warmth. That stayed with me. I thought to myself: “I
might have to find out who she is.” Or words to that effect.

So just as Robin Williams passes on the 6th game of the World Series to ‘see
about a girl’ in that movie, I seemed to be bypassing social activities with friends
in order to strike up a conversation with this intriguing fresher.

Borrowing music off her as an excuse to visit her room, timing my visits to the
dining hall, making sure I was in ‘the right place at the right time’.

This often lead to late-night talks in floor hallways that would stretch on towards
dawn. I was at ease with her more than with anyone.

Then at dinner in the dining hall one night, I made my move. Not unfortunately a
la Shakespeare-in-love, a la American Pie 1, 2 or 3.

It started with playing a silly little ‘game’ with her. Trying to disarm her, ‘warm her
up’.
I recited the alphabet Sesame Street ‘spy-muppet’ style: “A”, “b”, “c” - You’d have
to have seen it to know what I mean…

This backfired somewhat. She thought I was a bit of a loony.

“I know my alphabet”.

I hadn’t even passed the letter K!

So fresh from this success I quickly moved in for the kill!

“You’re coming to dinner with me on Thursday at Cactus Jack’s”. (The local cool
eatery.)
“Oh am I?”
“Yup.”
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Pause. This is going as well as the alphabet.

“You didn’t think of perhaps asking me first?”
“Nope, I’ve decided you’re coming”.
Not the most orthodox approach I admit, but it seemed to work.
“I’ll think about it.”

One benefit of this bizarre approach was that later that night it gave me an
opportunity to go to her room and apologise for my eccentric behaviour.

“Sorry.”
“About what ?”
“Being so stupid in the dining hall. Hoped I didn’t embarrass you in front of
anyone.”
“Only most of my friends.”
Pause. She hasn’t kicked me out yet so – here goes.
“But I am serious about the dinner on Thursday.”
Pause. She considers. Is that good ?
“Your behaviour, although bizarre, was OK” dot dot dot.
“But ?”
“But I just ended a relationship back in Cairns and I’m not really interested in
dating someone so soon.”
“Date ? Who said this was a date ?”
“It’s not ?”
“Well okay it is a date – but not a “date” date. It’s a “friendly” date.”
That went down as well as the bit from Sesame Street.
Digging hole deeper.
“It’s not a formal invitation to ‘go steady’. I just want to get to know you better. As
a friend.”
Now I know what you’re thinking – exactly the same as her - “Bullshit!” – but
I can tell you that wasn’t the case.

Although I was ultimately pursuing a romance, I can say the friendly courting we
experienced for those couple of weeks were some of the best times I had with
Renee, and it was to be something we would continue to do well into our
relationship.

A week later we were on the bus – her suggestion - together to Cactus Jack’s for
dinner. Just as friends. Getting to know each other.
And we did get to know each other. Building up the common ground for a
friendship. A friendship that lasted all of a week. After that - we were going out
together. Well it’s a campus – you do see each other every day. Things happen
fast.
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I was 21, she was 18. She wanted to study medicine but she couldn’t get in
straight away so she was doing bio-med in the interim.

And we went out together for two years. The two years we had together were a
ball of fun, best couple of years of my life. Those two years seem now like they
blended into one year – one great long chunk of fun.

During those two years together Renee and I watched a lot of movies together –
the first one we saw was “A Beautiful Mind”, then the first two Harry Potter films –
we had enough magic of our own - but the one that stays with me from that time
is Moulon Rouge.

Maybe because Renee was so excited to see it – she liked Nicole Kidman, she’d
like to have been Nicole Kidman, my voice coach at Uni - Jonathan Hardy -
played a cameo in it, I even bought her the soundtrack for Christmas that year.

Big mistake. She’d sing the bloody songs from it out of the blue. The dress she
wore to the college formal was even based on the Bollywood one that Nicole
Kidman wore in the movie. Renee was a Moulon Rouge fiend. It was the
unashamed romanticism of it that just appealed to her. It mirrored her life as a
romantic soul, it captured her essence. The whole romantic fantasy.

I didn’t not want to see it. I was excited to see it because she was exited to see it.
But to me the romantic fantasy was just that.

As another opulent set was rolled out, another 1000 costumes, another dance
routine - I just kept thinking how silly it is. Baz, seriously, get your hand of it.

At the end of Moulon Rouge – warning, spoiler coming – Nicole Kidman’s

character dies. And I certainly ruined the mood when she was lying in Ewan
MacGregor’s arms in her neverending death throes when I thought I whispered,
under my breath, “Just croak”. But apparently it wasn’t that under my breath.

But that didn’t stop Renee enjoying it. She was too far gone. Too into it – too
escaped into her own fantasy. Like Williy Wonka had said: “A world of pure
imagination.”

And if I guess I did get one thing out of Moulon Rouge it was watching someone I
loved, enjoying something they loved.
And I did love Renee. It was my first real experience of love. And confirmed the
general order of things in movies – after violence and sex comes love.

One of the more extraordinary things about me falling in love was the
unconscious decisions you make when tested for generosity, kindness,
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compassion, loyalty and tolerance - not to mention many others. If one is in love,
these thoughts morph into action as easily as slipping into a bathrobe after a
relaxing shower.

You feel both happy for your love and somewhat blessed that your defences that
you thought were of major benefit, are now - for the time being - as easy to
penetrate as fog, and once your love glides through it to reach its destination, its
very presence is enough to part the cloud of shame, guilt, stubbornness,
selfishness, coldness, temper and insecurity.

What was the best thing about being in love? The obliviousness. The thought
that, while in it, you are oblivious to any consequence. It could be your last day on
Earth, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. Even if you did, you wouldn’t
necessarily care either. Indeed, you might embrace death, knowing that you could
leave the world having known one of its most intimate secrets.

Waking to the scent of Renee’s hair – the texture and rustle. Her breathing…

The simplicity of her beauty while she was asleep. Her sweet denial of it when
awake. The humble smile she gave when she embraced my words of love. Her
skin was always warm. Blood close to the surface. A passionate creature.
Wonder and charm, vitality and grace, sincerity and boldness, courageous and
life-giving.

Her soul was visible through her face, and you could consume it with her kisses,
her embrace and her conversation. Her heart was felt through her touch and
unwavering devotion. Her head was proven through her study and achievements.
Her body was tasted with her openness and trust. Her vulnerability a confirmation
time and time again that you had with you a precious being, with which everyday
you’re thankful for holding and being with.

But after two years I had finished my acting degree and she by this time had got
into medicine. So my choice was clear – stay in Townsville, get some crap job –
maybe the local cinema needs an usher – give up all my dreams of being an actor
but enjoy a wonderful life with the glorious Renee.

Or leave the warmth and sunshine of Townsville, the scent of her skin and go
down to dirty old, grubby old Sydney and try to make it as an actor.

Staying with Renee, true love winning out – a real life romantic fantasy - but try as
hard as I could I just couldn’t immerse myself. Just as I couldn’t give in to Baz
Luhrmann’s fast paced, cleverly cut Academy Award winning wank-a-thon – I
couldn’t lose myself in a life of love with Renee. Or would’ve that have been Mrs
Pender ?
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It had been foreshadowed early in our relationship. She realised that I had wanted
to be me an actor – that was my dream, like hers was becoming a doctor – and it
had always been understood that I couldn’t be an actor in Townsville.

While she needed to stay in Townsville to finish her degree. She hadn’t got the
marks do to medicine at a University down south.

So when the time came it was actually her who said it and when it came it was
just like a scene from Moulon Rouge.

Deserted beach, warm night, two young lovers. She breaks from a heated kiss:
“We mustn’t hold each other back from the very reason we’re here. From their
passion.”

She used that word “passion”. A very Moulon Rouge word. And phrased just as
badly.

But this wasn’t Moulon Rouge. If it was – one of us would’ve given everything up
to stay with the other – who would’ve then died of TB in the final frames. This was
real life and I wanted to act.

We could’ve tried to keep it going long distance but we both knew it wasn’t going
to work. Not like Moulon Rouge – if we were Satine and Christian we’d have been
writing long letters in silver ink, delivered by golden lyre birds and meeting in the
clouds nightly to sing snippets of bad Elton John songs.

But this was real life land not Baz Luhrmann land – and our hands were definitely
off it.

So when I did get to Sydney I missed her – of course.

Because although she had spoken the unspoken words it was me who had
instigated it, me who didn’t even try to stay in Townsville to see if I could act
there, me who came to Sydney to audition for a play that I didn’t even know if I
was going to get, me who lived destitute in Redfern realising that I had just given
up the best thing in my life, me who ran away.

There I was poor, cold and alone – in a some garrett, very Moulon Rouge.
Suffering for my art. In a terrace house with seven others – none of who spoke
English.

One of my housemates – Joey, a Belgian guy born in Africa - is now in jail – doing
twenty five years for murder – although I doubt he did it. The “wheely bin”
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murderer. You probably heard about it. Fantastique, incredible, unbelieveable.

Maybe I was in Moulon Rouge after all.

Or maybe I had begun to enter another world of fringe dwellers, outsiders, tough
guys and street crims. I was about to walk around the corner and run straight in to
Travis Bickle and his alter ego, Robert De Niro.

LIGHTS CHANGE. SCENE FROM RAGING BULL.

“You didn’t knock me down Sugar Ray. You didn’t knock me down.”

The first time I ever saw Robert de Niro was as Louis Cypher in Angel Heart. I
was 14. At home on the Tele.

I remember watching it as a midday movie – pretty odd choice for a Midday

Movie. “And now here’s something to give all the Mum’s at home a lift”:
“And your soul is mine”

Before that time I knew the name Robert De Niro but I didn’t immediately
recognise him as the person I’d heard of.

At that time if you said Robert De Niro you’d say Al Pacino in the same breath. Or
if you were watching De Niro you’d be wondering if you were actually watching
Pacino.

For somebody who didn’t know any better there wasn’t much difference between
them.

The first time I really got interested in De Niro was when I was 18, working at the
cinema. Although music was right at the top of my priority list of what I wanted to
do – I was in my “playing drums in a rock band” phase – De Niro was responsible
for turning my focus back to acting.

After all, acting had been my first love. I had already enjoyed a stella career as a
Vaudeville star in Boronia.

LIGHTS CHANGE.

I’m five and Mum has dragged my brother and I off to the Boronia Community Hall
in East Melbourne. Or maybe it was the Senior Citizen’s Club.

There were four reasons for this:

a) Mum had an artistic sensibility
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b) She thought that getting two rat bag boys into the arts would straighten them
out or at least stop them riding their BMX bikes up and down the street for at least
half an hour,
c) She was part of the group, if she bought us along – she didn’t have to organise
a baby sitter. Very smart, and
d) You didn’t have any choice with Mum in regard to extra curricular activities.
She tells you to do it – and you’re doing it

Some of the other extra curricular activities she was keen for me to take part in
some time or another were – in no particular order - piano, karate, swimming and
for a brief and very unpleasant period, ballroom dancing.

My mum’s a very Jewish mother, except she’s not Jewish.

I don’t how she actually found out but Boronia Community Hall was where this
local Vaudeville group used to rehearse every second Saturday. They did
everything from choirs in the park to full stage productions of “The King’s New
Clothes” – which in 1985 was pretty big on the amateur Vaudevillian circuit.

When I arrived, there was a group of five or six other young hopefuls. And of
course – we all got a role.

We were little cooks, dressed in little cooks’ uniforms and mini chef hats. We’d get
in to a line and go on stage and sing our little cook song, which was terribly
embarrassing because we were meant to be cute. And I didn’t want to be cute.
Especially when I was ten and I’d been doing the same routine for five years and I
was busting out of my little cook costume.

But of course the audience loved it. The only place I can actually remember doing
a show was in Tarnagulla – which was a mining town in country Victoria.

We also used to sing old war songs at old folks’ homes and in the middle I’d look
over and they’d all be crying and I didn’t know why. My singing wasn’t that bad.

My mother even took to giving me acting tips, which luckily I knew even then to
avoid: “If you’re talking to someone face the audience – don’t face them – but talk
as if you’re talking to them”.
At around the age of 7 – something changed. It was around the time we were
rehearsing for the big shows at Tarangulla – on stage at the Community Hall.

When we weren’t on stage rehearsing we were playing around elsewhere in the

hall and I suddenly had the realisation that the playing around I was doing off the
stage was just the same as the playing around I was doing on stage.
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But on stage people watched and applauded, which was better than not being
watched and applauded, so right there and then I made a decision to play around
on stage.

Thus I began a quite productive career in upstaging which some of the veteran
members of the Vaudeville troupe found a little annoying as it took the attention
away from them.

I didn’t escape the Vaudeville until Mum and I moved to Queensland in 1990. And
with that being my sole experience of acting to date, I was well and truly cured.
But then Robert De Niro was waiting to punch me straight back in to the spotlight.

What really struck me was his intensity - the Raging Bull, Jake La Motta - the Taxi
Driver, Travis Bickle – and the Cape of Fear, Max Cady.

But it wasn’t so much their intensity - it was his character’s convictions. No matter
how insane their particular beliefs were – and if we’re talking Travis Bickle they
were quite insane – De Niro’s characters believed them one hundred percent. De
Niro’s skill was that he would make those beliefs legitimate.

And like any good De Niro disciple, of course I became obsessed. Watched every
film he’d ever made nineteen times, watch how he turned his head, how he
looked the way he looked when asked a specific question, what he did to
transform himself on film and how I could do that.

I unconsciously or consciously set myself on a path to replicate the acting of De

Niro. If I’d come across Brando or Pacino first it might have been then. But it was
De Niro I stumbled upon first so I became Christopher De Niro.

Problem. At University they actually wanted Christopher Pender in the acting

course, not Christopher De Niro.

And the influence of De Niro was obvious. In any impro I was asked to do I would
quickly slot into a De Niro stereotype – never mind how appropriate or
inappropriate:

“Doctor, Doctor – is my son okay ?”

“I think they should flush it all down the sewer.”

“The building’s on fire”

“You fuck my wife”

“Ding dong. Avon calling”

“I think we’re alone now”
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And by then I was obsessed with acting as well as De Niro – so I had a private
acting coach – and of course he asked me to do a scene from a movie and of
course I chose De niro.

But being who I am – a complicated ball of something – I decided to do the scene

from Raging Ball where at the end of the movie Jake La Motta is now working as
a nightclub entertainer and he’s warming up to go on stage and he does the bit
from Brando in “On the Waterfront”.

"It wasn't him, Charlie. It was you. You 'member that night in the Garden you
came down my dressing room and said. 'Kid, this ain't your night. We're going for
the price on Wilson.'

De Niro doing Jake La Motta doing Brando doing Terry Malloy . How post modern
is that.

But in my version in was De Niro doing La Motta doing De Niro doing Terry
Malloy. No Brando came into it. Because De Niro’s version of Terry Malloy was
always going to be much better than Brando’s.

My teacher gently suggested to me there may be another way of doing it.

“There is ?”
“Yes you could do it as Christopher Pender doing De Niro doing La Motta doing
Brando doing Malloy”
“Why would I want to do that ?”

Anyway, who was he to talk ? He was an acting teacher. Let me tell you about
acting teachers. If all actors are just con-artists, Acting Teachers are the greatest
con-artists of all.

Con artistry is rife in the field of acting. Unfortunately, many actors - and even
more viewers - believe it is all you need. And when perfected, you, the Con
artiste, can be considered one of the greatest actors there ever were.

Because you’ve found the secret of ‘great acting’. The great Con. Then you
wonder why you haven’t been discovered as the ‘next best thing’. “What’s wrong
with people?” you, the great artiste, ask yourself.

Then you realise “Of course! These people can’t discover how great my acting is,
because only I know how the ancient art of replicating and reproducing the great
Con Artist came to be. So I will start telling others! I will teach others about my
discovery! “
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“I will allow others to know this great secret of the highest order of acting. A
privilege they will have to pay for, of course. Anywhere between $50 and $500 an
hour should do!”

Thus is borne the most horrid, the saddest, the most disturbed and most
venomous of creatures in the arts industry – the acting teacher.

But there were a few good teachers at JCU who gently prised my obsession with
Big Bob out from my white knuckles and gave me soothing words that it was okay
to just be me.

“That was great”, they’d say after yet another De Niro mock-creation. “You’re
clearly very smart and know De Niro very well but could we just see Chris doing
the scene.”

They wanted me to get out of De Niro’s head and into my own heart. And ever so
slowly I realised – they were right.

The teachers gave me idea that there was another tiny little voice inside my body,
desperate to get out. A voice that was being completely swallowed up by a tough
Bronx accent of La Motta or Bickle or Cady.

My voice.

By the time I reached 2nd year drama my obsession was thankfully starting to
wane. I’d started to watch De Niro’s later films: The Fan, where he just seems to
be imitating himself as Max Cady; Men of Honor, the stupid sailing one with Cuba
Gooding Jnr; Analyze This and That, so he’s playing himself – so what ? - and
then in 15 minutes he’s playing himself playing himself. What is that ?

Even in one of his early shockers, Midnight Run with Charles Grodin, there was
something original. In those later films he’s just like watching re-runs of his other
movies and giving us the potted highlights.

And then Rocky and Bullwinkle – I mean is he short of cash ? Does he just need
money for his production company ? I mean how can the man who played Jake
fucking La Mottta play Fearless fucking Leader.

The last really good scene De Nriro did was in Casino when he had to chuck
Sharon Stone where she belonged - out of the house – and that was in 1995. So
finally my obsession with De Niro was well and truly dead.
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As you change the things you like change. And I had changed – my critical
faculties were growing up - and what I once thought was legendary I now thought
was … less than.

And besides by then I’d discovered my next obsession – or it discovered me. I

was about to re-discover porn – but of a very different kind.

LIGHTS CHANGE.

At the end of 2003 I’d given up Sydney for Melbourne and I’d started sending out
my CV and headshot to various calls for actors.

I answered an ad for some playreadings that some guy was doing at La Mama.
He then emailed me back to meet me at ACMI at Federation Square. So I went
there and I met Gary.

He seemed quite professional, almost like a businessman – not in looks wise or

clothing – but in his manner. Very efficient, focused. Like a theatre director – in
my imagination – should be.

At that stage I was already disillusioned about being an actor – ten months in
Sydney will do that to you – and so when I met Gary I told him I thought I might go
back to drama school, try out for VCA.

Gary thought that was a waste of my time. Why do more acting training when I
was already trained ? He had some real work coming up - and if I was willing to
work hard …

A week later I got emailed a script and I was asked to turn up at some rehearsal
rooms in Elwood.

When I arrived there was quite a few people already there. It looked like he was
rehearsing a couple of plays at the same time. This as I was to discover was quite
common for Gary. He wasn’t a director. He was a one man industry.

Gary asked me what I thought of the play – and because it was about Christopher
Isherwood and W H Auden I made the stupid mistake of saying something like:
“Well, as a straight guy I tried to enter into the mind of gay folk.” (Did I actually say
folk ?)

Wrong thing to say, especially to Gary.

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He thought I was talking about him. That I was saying because he was gay and I
was straight that I couldn’t understand it. Suddenly Gary got really offended and
turned on me. This I would discover was also a regular event with Gary.

Anyway, he did let me read the scene and it was okay and then he said I could
come back but if I was to come back, work with the group and maybe learn
something, I shouldn’t say things like I’d just said.

I thought “Like what ?” But I didn’t say it. It was years later, after many years of
working with Gary, I finally realised what he meant.

That I was wrong to label characters on the basis of their sexuality - gay or
straight. That wasn’t important. What was important was the emotional
connection between me and the character.

It’s not about sticking a dick into a hole – or which hole you stick that dick. It’s
about what you feel for the character you play – the characters they interact with
– and that’s the same whether you’re gay, straight, bi, trans or frigid.

Years later when a very prominent straight actor played an equally prominent gay
character in a play we were doing – including many numerous and often graphic
love scenes – the actor went to some pains to point out that he could only
connect with the character up to a point. He couldn’t connect with that part of him
that was actually wanting to have sex with other men.

And I thought how stupid I must’ve sounded on that first afternoon in Elwood.

LIGHTS CHANGE.

When I first met Gary I was living at my dad’s place in Wantirna and each
morning on my way to rehearsals I use to walk past the Church Hall where I first
saw “Ghostbusters”– my life had come full circle.

Back then I didn’t have much to do so I started to come in more and more and
just hang around the rehearsal room with this semi-professional group who were
actually doing theatre.

At the time I was reading an Alec Guinness auto-biography – my very own Obi-
wan - Kenobi and he said at the start he’d do anything – cleaning whatever – just
to hang out around the theatre. Well I didn’t have to mop floors. I just had to get
on a tram.

Then one day I was at Gary’s and he said something very strange:
“How long will it take you to learn a 50 page script ?”
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“I don’t know. I’ve never seen a 50 page script.”

It turned out the actor who was doing one of the plays Gary was rehearsing had
personal issues – a “relative died” - and he couldn’t do the play. In Gary’s round
about way he was offering me the role.

Being asked to do a one man show for me at that time was being like asked to
play the lead role in a film, so I said “Yes”

In a couple of days I was confirmed as the lead and only role in a play called
“Homme Fatale” which turned out to be about a bloke called Joey Steffano. Not
the script writer who wrote “Psycho”. The American porno star of the late 80s and
early 90s. And – he was gay.

So began the most intense acting period of my life. It was like some weird kind of
gay porno boot camp. All day, every day, while trying to learn 50 pages – no
paraphrasing, no dropping sentences, words, syllables – if I got one wrong twenty
pushes up.

And of course I had to watch his films. Seedy, steamy, stained gay porno with
titles like Billboard, More than a Man, Tijuana toilet tramps – he did that near the
end of his career when he was really fucked up – and the classic Dildo Kings.

It seemed pointless to travel in to Elwood for rehearsals everyday as I was always

there - so on New Year’s Day in 2004 I moved in with Gary at his place. I didn’t
even actually ask. I just did it.

The show opened at Theatreworks in mid-January 2004, which was a very odd
mix of relief and terror. Relief that boot camp had stopped - terror that I now had
to do this in front of an audience.

The Dance routines, the stripping, the sex scene. I’m lying on a cushion, arse up
in the air, pretending I’m being fucked – screaming out “Harder, harder – don’t
fuck around” as Joey was want to do. I don’t think I’m thinking as a straight guy
any more.

In fact what I’m thinking is - what would the Boronia Vaudeville Society say now ?
I could’ve asked them I guess –half of them were in the audience on opening
night. Along with my mum.

To my astonishment it was a big success. The next year I did it in London. I was
getting my not so straight arse fucked nice and hard right across the globe. And
after that my relationship with Gary was set. As set as it would ever be.
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He’s directed me in every other show I’ve been in since then – except this one.
And I’ve continued to live with him in Elwood.

Gary is a mix of everything - usually all at once. A bull at the gate, bombastic,
sensitive, passionate, loyal, ruthlessly loyal, contradictory – he can be very very
selfless where you might expect him to be selfish and then incredibly greedy with
something that you think totally doesn’t matter.

He’s just very different. He has a very different way of viewing life and his
relationship with people but there is a method behind his madness. At times with
Gary you have to think outside the square.

My relationship with Gary is very intense. We share a lot of things. Being around
each other so much – day in, day out – you share experiences, points of view,
osmosis occurs with personality. It can be quite intimate but like Will and Chuckie
there’s a certain aspect of camaraderie, of people not just as working partners but
as human beings.

The first couple of years was very topsy turvy. Like riding a dinghy in the perfect
storm, but in the past 6 to 12 months it has stabilised quite a bit. Or I have – or he
has.

We’ve sorted out each other’s immediate insecurities unconsciously, by just being
together. In the first 12 months he was very touchy. You say one wrong word and
he’d storm out of the room. Or you say the right word the wrong way and he’d still
storm out.

Why did I stay with it ? I could’ve just moved out, said thanks for everything, got
on with my acting career – but I realised my relationship with Gary – both working
and personally – is worth it’s weight in gold. He’s taught me so much.

I used to hang around with adolescent people and do adolescent things – and
now years later I see those same people doing the same things but they are not
adolescent any more.

Thanks to Gary I’m no longer an adolescent. I just think my relationship with Gary
has been far more beneficial than it has brought me grief.

Professionally it’s done me a world of good. Personally the things that maybe I’ve
taken for granted in life I now don’t. This relationship allows me to appreciate
things differently.
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He offloads a lot of stuff on me – which once I was burdened with – but now I see
a different way. He’s giving me this gift of things that happened in his life and by
telling them to me – it makes him feel better – and I’m glad for that.

My strengths are his weaknesses. My weaknesses are his strengths.

It’s like I’m testing myself for a breaking point. Where are my levels ? If this is bad
– then what is good ? If something happens I’m not going to take the negativity.

It gives me another perception on the life I’d previously known – before Gary.
He’s plucked me out of what could be destructive on my behalf and showed me
another way to do things.

Plus there’s this feeling that I’m not alone. When I get home from work there’s this
warmth from another person that you should never take for granted.

I spend more time with him than any other human being. He is the most important
person in my life. For many purposes – or interpretations – we are inseparable.
And I do love him.

Does that make me gay or straight ? Is that the label you should place on me ?
Would that that make you feel better ? Me feel better ? Is that what you need ?

Gay, straight – what does a word mean ?

Gary and I watch a lot of movies together. A lot. It’s one of the main things we do
together. If my relationship with Gary was a movie – it would be a movie they
haven’t made yet.

It might be about Joey Steffano and the man who directed all his films – Chichi La
Rue – not his real name – a very infamous porn director. And drag queen.

They lived under the same roof. Chichi desired Joey. Did Joey return the feelings
? You’d have to see the film.

We did of course see Broke Back Mountain together. But if I tell you that – you
might get the wrong idea. But it was the last great movie we saw together. For
now.

LIGHTS CHANGE.

I’m back in Wantirna South. It’s a weekend, night, a cold school yard but I’m no
longer five years old. Twenty two years have passed but strangely I’m drawn to
the place where it all began – a little Church Hall.
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I walk up to the door and try the lock. Mysteriously it opens.

I step in to the darkened, silent space – the only illumination coming from the
open door behind me.

I walk towards the far wall and as my eyes adjust I can make out the rough
brickwork, the human stains, the grime. Is this where it really all began ?

And slowly, gently images begin to float before me.

Bill Murray as Dr Peter Venkman fighting the ghouls in Central Park.

Peter Weller as Murphy, the Robocop with a re-awakening soul.
Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka and his amazing chocolate factory.
Nicholson as McMurphy caught in the Cuckoo’s Nest, Matt Damon as Will
Hunting desperate to get up and out, De Niro as La Motta, De Niro as Bickle, De
Niro as Max Cady – Joey Steffano, arse in the air.

And now other faces appear – Dad, Mum, my brother, Gary, Renee, Katherine,
the Stay Puft marshmallow man. Real or unreal ? Does it matter ?

And now I’m no longer 27. I’m five and the images on the wall of the Church hall
are more real to me now than most of things that happened in my life.

All my life I’ve been going to the movies. And for me – movies have been so
much. Best friend, enemy, lover, teacher, guide – even at times – god.

My knees falter beneath me and I kneel. Kneel in front of the wall, the images, the
characters, the lines, the stories, the emotions, the rush - my own god of all great
things.

My hands cup together and stretch before me. I look up to the altar – a willing
supplicant. I call upon this wondrous being to come into this worthless soul – to fill
me from tip to toe. To give my life direction, purpose, meaning.

Give me salvation, succour, communion.

I am ready. Take me. Take me now.

FADE.