A Mother's Day

Normally I'm not big observer of the 'commercial' celebrations like Mother's Day and Valentine's Day but today I was happy to make an exception. The Young Dragon and I just arrived back from a few days in the City and there, sitting on the kitchen table, was this lovely group of gifts. It was made all the more touching by the fact that the envelope holds a voucher for a session of aromatherapy indulgence, something I've been yearning after for a few months. So, thank you, to two very important males in my life.

The show I've been working on recently caused me to consider the concept motherhood and how my attitudes have changed. It's a powerful play. A fairly 'in-your-face' factual portrayal of a gay relationship set mostly in Melbourne in the 80's. There's nothing gratuitous about it, although the antics of 16 yr old schoolboys on a sleep-over are a bit 'too much information' at times.

The music and scenarios are very familiar to me and evoke a time when I was single and partied to the sound of Supertramp and The Violent Femmes. Several of my friends and acquaintances died of AIDS at that time, as do both the main characters. It was so much a part of the industry we worked in that it wasn't shocking, just tragically sad.

Stephen Dunne's review puts it well;
"Australia's experience of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and '90s is thus ancient history, and so much of that time is gone: a time of the dead and the dying; vigil shifts at ward 17; watching brilliant and beautiful men sliding into garbled dementia; ... anger and love and screaming horror at the waste of so many lives. Surprisingly easy to let all that go."

The final scenes of this play not only brought back memories of watching friends slowly waste away but also evoked in me a new emotion; the fear of being in the same position as the parents sitting beside the hospital bed and the tragedy of watching a child die. I only operated the show with the sound up once.

It's a long show but it has the audience laughing and crying throughout - I recommend it to all whatever your inclination or situation.