i too love the theatre process, roguemaze.

so some actor dudes have been encouraging me to take up playwriting again.

i say "again" because i dabbled in the art of play in my formative years. i think i was pretty awright at it too cause i placed in two young playwriters competitions and saw my major year 12 drama work (a mindfuck of a one-acter which emerged from my dark place) workshopped by the sydney theatre company.

you see i started out as a budding theatrical actress, attending every drama class i could convince my parents to pay for and vowing never to compromise my integrity by appearing in feminine hygiene commercials. i did a few plays in high school before ending up in a state drama company when i was 17. it was this experience, combined with a nasty case of the self-starvies, that showed me the error of my ways. that is, that i could never possibly be an actress because quite frankly i hated being looked at. i also had a major problem with the traveling orgy of drama queens that is the theatre company.

and so i decided to write instead. this would mean i could still be a part of the theatre world, yet at a safe distance from both the stage and the actors on it. but alas, during my final year of high school i discovered a new passion, a passion that was to take over my life informing my choices of both university degree and political persuasion. i discovered human rights (or lack thereof i suppose) and i made it my mission to heal the world. for you, and for me, and the entire human race.

i volunteered for several years for various social causes, spoke out publicly (well, at my parents' dinner parties at least) against...well...everything, and hugged a damn lot of trees while sipping soy lattes and singing kumbaya. but then people in my own little world started dying and my attentions got diverted to more personal challenges. i still want to heal the world, i just have to do it through less hands on and more cop out "have some money young english charity collector" means for the moment.

i would indeed love to put pen to paper once again - or fingers to keyboard as is the case these days - and churn out a work of theatrical mastery to rival chekov. however there are two major factors in my life preventing me from dazzling the sydney theatre scene with my astounding wit and my penchant for (over)punctuation. these are:

1) finding the time to write amid the plethora of commitments that doth be my burden. they currently be the essay on the third wave of western feminism, the essay on kristeva's thesis on the power of horror, the mini-thesis on the cultural implications of inter-country adoption, the increasingly long work hours, the constant care of my terminally ill mother, and the rampant alcoholism rendering me incapable of performing almost all of the above duties in recent weeks. and;

2) a total lack of inspiration for anything to write about that would be worthy of the theatre.

nevertheless i have decided to once again dabble with the writing of plays. or at least to dabble with the idea of it. that way when people ask what exactly it is that i do i can say "oh, i dabble in playwriting". i can also get bitch slapped for sounding like a pretentious wanker. but i guess that's the plight of the dabbler.

cotton says i could take inspiration from the recent sequence of events that has comprised these most fucked up two years. but why write an angsty, self-indulgent play when i already write an angsty, self-indulgent blog? i believe that one must diversify their genres or people will get bored.

so i will let you all know how my dabbling turns out. and hey, if anyone has any thematic suggestions for me, feel free to pass them on. i'll be sure to credit you when i'm heaps famous and stuff.

oh, and as for you, young vixen lady, i'm still intent on that joint venture we've so often discussed these past few months. move to sydney so we can get crackin' already!