Theatre, films & books for breky, lunch & dinner

"Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown up world."
Shirley Hazzard

The Sydney Festival has happened every January since 1977, the year my dad left us. I remember my mum taking us to some of the free events, theatre in the streets, concerts in the Domain Park in the city.We didn’t have any money, so I think this was her way of getting out of the confines of her loneliness for the day, walking around in crowds, something I grew to hate as I became older.

Tonight I was booking a number of events for the upcoming festival season. These are1 hour  dance productions. It is the first time I will have attended the festival since being an adult. It is the first time I could afford to. Most of the events I am attending will be at the Sydney Opera House:
"The space between"
"White cabin"
"Kiss of life"

Last week, I booked in to Review Sans Frontieres at the Wharf Theatre at the Rocks. The week before that, I booked to see 6 plays for next year, either at the Opera House or at the Wharf:
"The season at the sarsaparilla"
"The art of war"
"Love-lies-bleeding"
"A midsummer night’s dream"
"Don’s party"
"Riflemind"

I was just thinking that for all of these plays I have purchased two tickets. I was wondering why I am completely comfortable with going to see a film on my own and why I felt that I wanted to have company at the theatre. Then I stumbled on this quote:

"Theatergoing is a communal act, movie going a solitary one".                                     
Robert Brustein

I have a group of people in my life that I am going to ask to come along with me, as I re-enter society (but not drinking). One is AC, a girl I used to work with who went to the UK to live last year, the week after the London Bombings. No-one in the world can make me laugh like her. She is a lawyer by trade and has the sharpest most non-sensical wit I have ever encountered. She is intelligent, insightful and compassionate. She has sent me the occasional e-mail concerned about not hearing from me, knowing that I would be low with depression.

The other is another girl who used to work for me CC, who has moved to another role in our company. She is Irish and has the dryest sense of humour I have come across. She is good at stringing out a story in social situations, which I wonder if she does to take the pressure off me from having to speak. She will come with me to the "Review Sans Frontieres" in a week or two.

My friend CR and I are going to see a comedy piece at one of local pubs called "Love song dedications", which is a send up of a daggy light night radio program.

The other person is my close friend SS who is a teacher who is a little lonely like me and I think going to do something different will hopefully give her the same lease of life that theatre has given me.

I will also take the eldest of my three younger sisters. Amber is studying drama in Woop-Woop in New South Wales and I know that she will love the tickets I have bought for us. It is called "Small metal objects". It is being held out in a busy Sydney CBD street in peak hour. We will be wearing headphones and listening to the dialogue of two actors somewhere in the crowd.

"Compare the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema by contrast, transports its audience individuall, singly, out of the theatre into the uknown".

By next Saturday, I will have completed my first full year at University. I have plans to see many movies when I can be study free. They include:

"Little miss sunshine"
"The departed"
"God on my side"
"Shortbus"

Oh yes, the other thing I am going to do is read a book. No more academic readings. Just pure fiction. Yummy.