Another Elusive Maybe

“Amidst all the rabble about the true meaning of Fringe, I can tell you that this is it. Real art that pushes the boundaries – art that is completely different to anything you’ve experienced before.” Jen St Jack, Great Scott

 

Every show performed in a different lounge room. A one woman theatre experiment asking “How can we feel so alone surrounded by people who love us?”

 

“The sound of a baby crying

The sound of a kettle boiling

The sound of a dog howling

The sound of a closing door”

 

 

Another Elusive Maybe was a performance experiment presented as part of the Adelaide Fringe 2016. Each ‘show’ was presented in a different (real life) lounge-room for a maximum of 8 people per show. The performance incorporated poetry & soundscape (via silent disco headsets), live text message conversations (with each individual audience member) and expressing breast milk.

 

What does motherhood, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding and mummy worries have to say about how we all connect in a world overloaded with sorrow?

 

“Nine people – performer and audience – sit in a suburban lounge room. We are ostensibly together, hearing the same words and seeing and doing the same things. We are intimate, and yet, we are isolated.” – Jenn St Jack, Great Scott

 

“There are so many simple, yet sophisticated layers to this wonderfully human work providing deep food for thought about the issues Herrmann set out to explore and experiment on. You feel comforted by what you hear, because the delivery takes the sting out of the real struggle those words are dealing with, as much as you love the genuine warmth and joy there too. Equally, because of this, you feel at ease anonymously having a frank and honest discussion about some deep things. You are in a comforting place known to most, a lounge room.” – David O’Brien, The Barefoot Review

 

Anonymous audience feedback (via text message)

“A BIG WoW!!! Thankyou!!! Really made me think….and feel! x”

“Wow. I’m literally blown away by how you guys create art. Like what makes you think this is the way I want to perform this story!! Yes well job well done!!! I hope you feel proud to try and make your way through this fucked up beautiful world!!”

“I really enjoyed it and I think I talked to my partner about it longer than it went for. I read the whole leaflet afterwards. Even yesterday. And that’s the thing with art and with what you did, you don’t know how long it lasts or when it takes hold. (….) I like that you talked about what we (I) think about. (…) Thanks again, so much for the inspiration. You at least made a difference here.”

“How do you this with kids? It must nearly break you surely. I feel like crying right now. From inspiration and appreciation, sadness for what I’m not doing. (….) Thank you for sharing. I loved and appreciated it. Hugely.”

“Impressed with your ability to maintain mulit threads of convo. I keep forgetting to listen while typing/reading. Which in itself is interesting..”

“This (your performance) is the strangest combination of intimate yet distant, personal yet remote, familiar yet unusual. Fascinating.”

“Very tightly structured, rich, densely packed with poetic fantasy and reality.”

 

 

Another Elusive Maybe

By Alysha Herrmann & Ryan Morrison

Public season, Adelaide Fringe 2016

16 & 23rd February, 8th March

Various lounge rooms.

Another Elusive Maybe Program Zine PDF

Listen to the headset audio from AEM: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2q9aa1fwf80rmvo/Another%20Elusive%20Maybe%20%28Final%20Draft%29.mp3?dl=0

 

Interview with The Upside News, which sheds light on the impetus and ideas behind Another Elusive Maybe: https://theupsidenews.com/2016/02/11/interview-another-elusive-maybe-the-fringe-show-in-your-lounge-room/

Great Scott Review by Jen St Jack: http://greatscott.media/2016/03/09/another-elusive-maybe/

The Barefoot Review by David O’Brien:http://www.thebarefootreview.com.au/menu/theatre/119-2014-adelaide-reviews/1292-another-elusive-maybe.html

*

A Red Lid. A #draft #poem by me.

Her dreams taste too small. Too big to lean into. So she folds herself into block mazes on tiny screens and cries quietly behind her eyelids. We are all of us trying to escape ourselves.

Two children to tow along, through the currents that try to drag her under. All of them have seaweed nesting in their hair. Sometimes she ties their hands together with salty shells. And together they float beneath a sun turned angry.

She has forgotten how to recycle. Can’t even spell it without thinking really hard. The palms of her hands are soft like the inside of her discipline. And she is trying. Trying to tread water with her mouth full of sand. It’s all she can.

Seashell Dreams #writeme30

 

The Photo Contributor:

Joey Kennedy. Actor. Artist.

And now proud mama.

I met Joey when she was co-facilitating a program run by Riverland Youth Theatre about youth entrepreneurship for young artists – Joey’s been in a couple of films you might have heard of (Shine and Red Dog) but the film featuring her you should most see is ‘Dance Me To My Song’. We’ve maintained a casual connection through facebook, as so many of us do, and I particularly love seeing Joey’s ‘Mimism’ statuses sharing the funny and adorable things her new little person says and does.

Joey sent this very special and personal photo of her little person for #writeme30 with the following (which I wanted to include here because it’s so precious):

“Sleeping Beauty, Jemimah Rose. Love this co-sleeping/family bed photo of our milk-drunk cherub. Sam took it quietly in the darkness, whilst Mim & I slept peacefully, dreaming contentedly, Mother & Child. Yep, she has this Mama Pyjamas wrapped firmly around her little finger as she holds me & I hold her. She still shares my bed, sleeping cradled in my arms & heart… Circles end where they begin, Alysha. Truly blessed. xxxx

“Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.” – John Donne “

 

The Photo:

Photo supplied by Joey Kennedy

 

The #writeme30 Response – Seashell Dreams:

 

Softly now.

Into suckled hands.

Wet shoulders, warm with love.

Ear shells curled into startled waiting.

Fingers gripped accidently onto hair rocked free.

And these two arms held suspended by love made flesh and hope.

 

Stretched by hunger.

Gripped by fear laced words,

On the edges of warning labels that sing.

Cheeks upturned, towards lights that dim and twist.

Fluttered eyes that wait in dreams overfull with shape and colour.

Legs bent straight by hopes unspoken before we whisper them quietly.

 

Sighed into life.

Delivered into skin’s echo,

Love’s fragile shadow held, gently.

Rocked by woolen comforts made warm,

By skin slept in and woken again and again and again.

These nights we lean into. Stitching futures into the dark. Together.

 

 

* I will be a few weeks short of photos so if you would like to submit a photo for me to respond to, you would be very welcome to. Email it to me at: pressurelandsATmeDOTcom

** #writeme30 posts are published ‘as is’ (rough!) without any editing or curating as the project is about exploring my responses to the photographs supplied. Some posts may plant the seeds for future writing projects but they are not written with that in mind.