Memorable Characters, Onstage and Off

During my first full week as an official Melbourne resident, I took advantage of discount ticket specials and went to see a number of different plays and art exhibitions. The city’s reputation for the arts certainly lived up to the hype! But first, let’s set the stage.

My new Carlton apartment had a shared kitchen and living room, and I started to meet some of my fellow residents. James was from Hobart and worked at a bike shop. Alex was from France and also on a working holiday. Ruth and Dani were medical students, from Scotland and Spain, respectively. An interesting mix of people, all about my age, on different trajectories.

The kitchen was spacious but pretty bare bones when it came to cookware and utensils. I had successfully made jambalaya for dinner the previous night, but urgently needed kitchen supplies. ​

I headed to a thrift store (they called them “op shops” in Australia) and bought a variety of plates, glasses, and utensils. I also found a well-stocked restaurant supply store that had some professional accessories, including a mini French press that was perfect for my morning coffee.

​As for my room itself, it was simple but had everything I needed. One major perk was a private bathroom. The shower heated quickly and had good water pressure, perfect for a post-run shower. I appreciated having three places to sit – the desk swivel chair, a lounge chair, or the bed itself. The airflow wasn’t great, with just one window that could partially prop open, but the fan helped a bit. My unit was on the second floor, in the back corner facing into the neighborhood, so it was sheltered from street noise and kitchen noise. However, the room caught the afternoon sun and tended to significantly heat up in the late afternoon. I was thankful it was a cooler summer.

​The location was also excellent. It was a short walk to Lygon Street, the heart of Little Italy. And in the other direction, it was a short walk to Brunswick Street in the inviting Fitzroy neighborhood. Each area had a grocery store. At the Coles, I was pleasantly surprised to find fresh pasta for sale by the kilo – presumably part of the Italian influence!

​On Friday night, I went to see a play called Seventeen at the Melbourne Theater Company (MTC). Located in the Arts Precinct, the building’s recognizable façade was a network of PVC pipes.

On the surface, the play was about a group of high schoolers celebrating the last day of school by drinking in the park. But the “twist” was that all the teenagers were played by older adults. It was an interesting concept – encouraging different generations to “see themselves” in each other. The playwright was an Australian named Matthew Whittet, and there were a few Aussie-specific references but overall it was a universal storyline.

A​s the drinking intensified, the characters’ secrets and fears emerged, including a few dealing with abusive families. It was a character-driven play, and the actors successfully created believable friendships and rivalries. MTC billed them as all-star cast, and though I didn't know their reputations, I agreed that it was a very strong and balanced ensemble show. The cast even got to show off their TikTok dance moves, which were part of the partying.

One highlight was the set design, a tanbark playground that slowly rotated 360 degrees at an imperceptibly slow rate over the course of the play. This allowed the play to maintain a sense of spatial continuity while offering the actors a variety of swings, slides, and benches that provided a unique backdrop for each heart-to-heart conversation.
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For $23 USD, the discounted ticket was great value. I even had a good seat just a few rows from the stage. Walking away from the theater, I had to laugh at the timing of seeing a play about underage drinking, as I had just completed my Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) online training the night before. I tried to take a tram back to Carlton, but it happened to be the first hour of a multi-week construction project, a project that cut off an entire branch of the tram network. I took the tram as far as I could and walked the rest.

The tram detour threw a monkey wrench in my Saturday morning plan as well. I was heading south to pick up a guitar from Zeah, and normally the 67 tram would take me directly from Carlton to Carnegie. Instead, I had to take a bus downtown and catch the 67 tram from a platform it normally would never visit. But it all worked out!

​Zeah had very kindly arranged for a guitar rental from a former student and had it ready for me to pick up. It was also a nice chance to see her teaching studio, a detached unit behind her house. The studio had all the familiar trappings – hardwood floors, footstools, sheet music, and games. There were even a few pictures of Frank hanging on the wall. It was a nice day and I stayed for a little chat on the patio.

​I wolfed down some leftovers and doubled back to the Arts Precinct to catch my second theater production of the week, called Overflow at the Arts Centre Melbourne (ACM). It was another theater with an easily recognizable building due to the giant skeletal spire on top; it forms part of the Melbourne skyline. Before the show I talked with the friendly lady sitting next to me, also there by herself.

​Overflow was a one-woman show about being transgender, a string of funny and dismaying stories, all of them captivating. The main character (Rosie) was trapped by unseen tormentors in a gritty bathroom, using these monologues and flashbacks to wait out the situation, but becoming increasingly frustrated. The opening monologue about “pre-emptive peeing” (to avoid bathrooms entirely) set the tone perfectly. Another monologue described rallying to protect a woman from a creepy guy – using the bathroom as “HQ” and sending out scouts for anyone who could be a “Matt.” The actress, Janet Anderson, delivered every line perfectly, and the audience was loving it.

The set was a realistic bathroom with two stalls and functioning water – from the sink, leaking overhead pipes, and yes, the toilets. Having real water onstage is messy and not something you see very often, and Overflow was a masterclass in using it for dramatic effect. As Rosie became more frustrated, she intentionally clogged the sink and let it spill over onto the bathroom floor. The sound of running water and the anticipation of the spillage ratcheted up the tension as Rosie continued monologuing. When the tension was too much, Rosie went ballistic and started throwing trash and wet toilet paper onto the walls, kicking up water in the process. It was cathartic and ugly and inspiring and horrifying all at the same time. There was a buffer between the set and the audience, but I suspect a few people got splashed! Thematically, it worked well – Rosie was tired of being seen as a boogeyman and found comfort in doing something that could rightfully be blamed on her.
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Melbourne being an arts city, I ran into more performances on the way out of the theater. Fed Square had a free opera performance in progress, complete with a live orchestra. The crowds were clustered around the umbrellas, each an oasis of shade on this hot afternoon. And in the CBD, I encountered a street violin player using a loop pedal to create some lively modern tracks.

​Since I was in the downtown shopping area, I looked for new running shoes at a few stores, but couldn’t find an exact replacement. I also checked out the Melbourne Lego store – which had a lifesize Lego tram!

​Back in Carlton, I pulled out the guitar for my first practice in ages. It was a good feeling to play my favorite tunes again, though it was strange to use a footstool after so many years with the leg-rest style support. I had all my sheet music downloaded on my computer, so I could easily re-learn pieces.

Sunday was a surprisingly social day. The medical student from Spain, Dani, was having breakfast at the same time and we had a nice conversation. I learned he was from Galicia, also into running, and also staying at the apartment complex until mid-June. He was a pretty experienced traveler, mentioning a trek in Nepal, and wanted to travel as much as he could before settling into his medical career.

It was a hot day, so I went running mid-morning instead of waiting until the afternoon. It was already 85 degrees, and eventually reached around 95. There were lots of cabbage butterflies in the Carlton gardens, and I was thankful for the water fountains.
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An unexpected highlight was having coffee with a friend-of-a-friend, Madoka, who had moved to Melbourne on a working holiday visa about a year and a half ago. It was helpful and reassuring to hear her practical tips on getting a hospitality job and finding meetup groups. Madoka had studied in Ashland, Oregon and worked a corporate job in Tokyo before quitting and heading to Australia. Given these familiar places (and parallel journey to my own) there was plenty to talk about. The café, located in Fitzroy, was also excellent. I had been cutting back on eating out, so having a loaded grain bowl with crispy kale and flavorful dressing was a treat.

In the afternoon, I got an invite from Gail (my Servas host) to see an art exhibition called the LUME. It was a multimedia projection gallery showcasing works from Aboriginal artists, with a special live music performance by Alice Skye. The LUME was located in the Melbourne Convention Center, an enormous and modern complex that felt like an airport terminal.
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The art projection show was excellent, following a rough thematic outline of Land, then Water, then Sky. The floor, walls, and hanging screens were filled with images of each artwork, both zoomed out and zoomed in, often side-by-side with real footage of the landscapes they evoked. Each work was displayed for 20-30 seconds and accompanied by a matching song from an Aboriginal artist. The show lasted about an hour, which gave time to walk around the gallery and see it from different perspectives. There were several wine bars, a mezzanine overlooking the scene, and side galleries with physical paintings. One of these galleries explained that there is no word for “art” in the Aboriginal languages. Their traditional "art" is an expression of connection to the land itself, and not created for aesthetic reasons.

​The musical performance from Alice Skye was relaxing and sincere. Her compositions were slower, melancholy songs accompanied on the piano. At one point she switched to the guitar, but fumbled the chords, and returned to finish the song on the piano. In between, she shared anecdotes about growing up in a remote village and a conference in Canada where she connected with other indigenous people from around the world. Each song had a different artwork projected as the backdrop, which complemented the music wonderfully.

Gail had also invited another former Servas guest, Emilia, who caught up with us at the LUME. Emilia was from France, and was wrapping up a stint in Melbourne. We went to a restaurant on the river for a post-show meal, and after fumbling through the QR code ordering system, had a nice conversation. Emilia was house-sitting and pet-sitting in Australia, and had future gigs lined up in the US, specifically Washington and Oregon. We reflected on the themes of home and connectedness to place, which had featured in the LUME show. She expressed a sense of disconnectedness from France and found the people there challenging to deal with. She often hosted fellow travelers but some of her neighbors didn’t understand the concept of couch-surfing and complained to the landlord. She had encountered similar issues while serving as a house-sitter, when neighbors complained to the house-sitting app, which deleted her account. Though bitter about these incidents, she didn’t seem deterred from the nomad lifestyle.

We shared a few small plates, including mushroom and beef fritters, that hit the spot. After dinner, Gail, Emilia, and I walked along the river to the tram stop, where we headed off in different directions. It was so nice of Gail to bring us together for a memorable evening of art!

Having spoken with 3 different “nomads” over the course of 3 meals – Dani from Spain, Madoka from Japan, and Emilia from France – I couldn’t help but reflect on how different their motivations and methods for traveling were. Whether inspired by optimism, pessimism, or a mix of both, we had all found the courage to leave home and ended up in Melbourne.

If one thing unites nomads, it’s thinking about the next destination. During this stretch, I spent time sorting out flights for two future trips – to Canberra in March, and to the Galapagos in July.
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The fourth and final show of the week was Shakespeare in the Park at the Botanical Gardens. I brought a picnic dinner and arrived early to stake out a spot. It was a surprisingly cold evening, and I needed every layer that I brought. The girl sitting next to me was a student who had just moved from Queensland to Melbourne for an acting program. She worked at a movie theater that had just opened, and she tried to explain a candy called “maltesers” that I had never encountered. 

​The play was a Midsummer Night’s Dream, a perfect choice for this outdoor venue. Although I’d seen it enacted many times, this was the first with cameos from real forest animals like bats and possums! The production pushed the comedy to its limits, with lots of non-Shakespearian jokes and one-liners mixed into the script. There were fun modern touches: exuberant Nick Bottom was hyped up with Red Bull, Lysander and Hermia escaped using a golf cart, and Snug the “Lion” burst through a poster with the MGM logo. I thought the second act was a little overdone, with too much energy for energy’s sake. The costumes and lighting were excellent, with great use of smoke and special effects for the fairy scenes. I particularly liked seeing the tall trees in the background illuminated with vivid colors.

After the show, the theater student and I compared our critiques while walking past the Shrine of Remembrance , impressively illuminated at night.

When I got home and thought back on the week’s memorable characters, both onstage and off, it was like a surreal midsummer night’s dream.

​“If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.”