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A Month in the Country: whatever it is, it works.
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by Chris Thompson
Earlier this year, Margot Fenley, Jane Bayly and I spent two weeks in HotHouse Theatre’s Month in the Country house dismantling, examining, questioning, exploring and, in the end, completely rethinking our performance project, Fugue for an Unreliable Companion. It was exactly what the project needed and is the kind of experience that artists don’t get access to all that often. But that’s the sort of thing one might expect from a programme offered by HotHouse Theatre.
Right from its beginnings, almost ten years ago, HotHouse Theatre has been based on the principles of creative collaboration, a strong focus on new work and, perhaps most importantly of all, a commitment to the idea of regional isolation. Often considered as the downside of working away from the city, the HotHouse version of isolation is, in fact, a powerful, creative stimulant that offers the artist a freshness and focus that just can’t be achieved when working in close proximity to the distractions of home and daily routines. Whilst these ideas may well be the secrets of HotHouse Theatre’s success, they are by no means, closely guarded secrets. On the contrary, it is one of the Company’s passions to share these experiences as widely as possible across the Australian theatre community. That’s the philosophy behind A Month in the Country.
I should, of course, declare that as a founding member of the Artistic Directorate of HotHouse Theatre, I’m a bit of a fan of the Company and its approach to theatre making. It’s one of the things I’ve missed since I came to the end of my time on its Artistic Directorate in 2002. It’s also the reason we jumped at the opportunity to participate in A Month in the Country when the call for applications went out this time last year. It’s a programme that’s almost too good to be true, offering theatre makers the luxury of unpressured, sharply focussed and well supported development time; something we all sorely need in our creative processes, but rarely find the means nor the opportunity to engage with.
So what exactly is it?
A Month in the Country is a developmental programme that invites creative teams to apply for residencies of between a week and a month working in a quaint, rambling country farmhouse about six kilometres outside of Albury. It pays expenses but no fees and once the keys are handed over, leaves the group pretty much to its own creative devices. The farmhouse is perfect for this kind of programme. It’s far enough away from town to feel well removed from distractions, but close enough to nip into the supermarket for an emergency litre of milk or drop into the HotHouse office to do a bit of photocopying or just join them for Friday afternoon drinks. The farmhouse has five separate sleeping areas, a big living and working area, two bathrooms and a well-equipped kitchen. It’s such a solid old place that when one or two of us wanted to work late, start early, or just stay up watching telly, you could make as much noise as you like without waking the others. Out the back, between the corrugated iron watertanks and the ramshackle out-buildings, is a brand-spanking new studio; a large, open working space that just begs you to get up on the floor and experiment with your ideas.
For us, a Month in the Country completely changed the nature of our project. Fugue for an Unreliable Companion began in 2003 as a personal solo performance concept being researched and developed by performer, Margot Fenley. Following a period of interviews and initial development of ideas, I joined the project as writer to produce a first draft. At the end of 2003, following the completion of that draft, Jane Bayly joined us as dramaturg. All this happened, as is often the case, around kitchen and living room tables with the furniture pushed back and the occasional whiteboard precariously balanced on an armchair. We stole bits of time in the cracks between our freelance work, family responsibilities and the general demands of day to day life. By early 2004, we had a clear idea of where we wanted the second draft to go, and a bit of a plan as to when it might be completed and how we would proceed beyond that. Of course, like all best laid plans, it went astray and by the end of 2004, the development of the project had ground to a halt, a victim of the haphazard nature of self-propelled, unfunded projects. Then came A Month in the Country.
Our fortnight in the farmhouse not only reinvigorated and refocused our creative energies, but it gave us an extended period of time where the project was the priority. It allowed us to ‘live’ with the work in such an intense way that we were able to gain much greater clarity and a deeper understanding of the direction in which the project needed to be pushed. Just being able to plan ahead with some certainty, even over a relatively short period of time, gave momentum and consistency to the process and a freedom to try new ideas, to let old ones breathe and expand or, if necessary, quietly fade away. As it turned out, this more thorough engagement with the work revealed a number of elements that just weren’t working. In this creative environment, we found the headspace to pursue tangents and different perspectives and to discover that the story we were trying to tell needed to be told in an entirely different way.
But the real drawcard of the A Month in the Country is, as it’s name suggests, ‘the country’. Apart from the rustic views of cattle grazing in the fields outside the kitchen window, or the scent of lemon on the breeze from the glorious citriadora in the front yard, the farmhouse just happens to be across the road from both the mighty Murray River and the magnificent Wonga Wetlands. This might sound more like a holiday destination than an artistic workplace, but the fact is, the environment of A Month in the Country prompted us to work in an entirely different way which, in turn, promoted a whole new set of creative discoveries. In the farmhouse, our day began with a good breakfast, strong coffee and reflections on what we’d worked on the day before. Then a pretty full day of trying out ideas, testing bits of writing, reading, brainstorming, workshopping, more writing, rewriting and then, as the sun began to set, a long walk along the river or in the Wonga Wetlands to clear our heads, sharpen our perspectives and set ourselves an agenda for the next day’s work. And so it went until our second draft emerged.
And after all this creative energy, what does HotHouse Theatre want out of it? Well, apart from acknowledgement of their support, and a community workshop during the residency, not much else. The integrity of this programme is that, apart from the selection process, HotHouse Theatre has no artistic involvement in the work. There is no expectation that artists will justify their time by ‘showing’ what they’ve done and the Company doesn’t demand that the work, when finished, becomes a HotHouse production. It seems it’s enough to have opened up the ‘HotHouse’ experience to more artists than can ordinarily be included in the Company’s annual programme. The reward is in having made a contribution to the quality of new Australian work, not just within its own season, but in the wider artistic community. Perhaps this is what makes A Month in the Country work so well. Perhaps it’s the fresh air. Perhaps it’s the river tracks and the wetlands. Perhaps it’s the intensity of the creative experience. Perhaps it’s the silence or the clear skies at night. Perhaps it’s the isolation.
Whatever it is, it works.
Chris Thompson was Artistic Director of St Martins Youth Arts Centre in Melbourne from 1988 to 1996 and was a founding member of the Artistic Directorate of HotHouse Theatre in Albury/Wodonga between 1996 and 2002. He has written for theatre, film and television and has won two AWGIE Awards for his plays, Shady Characters and The Bridge. He was co-creator and head writer for the television series Shock Jock, broadcast in Australia and the UK and his current feature film screenplay, The Tumbler has just been selected for the Screen Producers Association of Australia’s annual market. He is currently lecturing in Drama for the Australian Catholic University and will shortly complete work on a script for a new show with the Planetarium at Scienceworks. Chris is Chair of the Victorian Writers’ Centre, Deputy President of the Arts Industry Council of Victoria and a board member of the Australian Script Centre. Since their Month in the Country, he continues to work on Fugue for an Unreliable Companion with Margot Fenley and Jane Bayly.
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