Comments Off on A reminder to feed your dad: “Third Storey” debuts to packed audiences
Easily the bravest choice of NUTS’ 2024 season was their first ever full length student-written play, Third Storey, written and directed by Eli Narev and Adam Gottschalk (pictured above). We had little to no expectations walking into this show, and upon leaving could only describe it as “on crack, but in the best way.”
Third Storey follows prank influencers Jax and Gene, who have been awarded a grant to make a feature film. The play follows the chaos of their creative process as characters slowly stray from sanity in their attempts to adapt Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis into a one-woman motion picture. Locked in a three storey house, the script explores complex systems of rules, family dynamics, the hunger for perfection, and an attic full of possum shit.
The original script was witty, deeply funny, heart warming and often unexpected. Narev and Gottschalk should be commended on the multi-faceted nature of the characters they created, building an ensemble of individuals easily recognisable to a modern audience. Many of the script’s most tender moments occurred between Annabelle Hansen’s Judie and Beth Fuccilli’s Bev, where the writing touched on some of the difficulties of parenting, questioning to what extent we are all impacted by the choices our parents make. A standout writing and directorial moment in the first act came from an attempt by director-character Jax (played by Adelaide Hayes) to shoot the one-woman scene sequentially one line at a time. As the characters scrambled to perform quick changes, the comedic direction of Elizabeth Barnes’ Alison counting down by ones each time she switched personas had the audience dissolving into laughter.
While the script was excellent overall, it could have potentially benefited from further editing. The production — especially the first act — felt overlong at times. This length can be attributed to attempts to give too many characters tragic backstories, which were at times rushed, and lengthy duologues that could have been shortened or cut.
Turning now to the cast, both of our stand-out performances came from Fuccilli and Mischa Rippon as Bev and Graham, the loveable, stereotypical Aussie parents. The moment they stepped on stage they brought a refreshing lightness that cut through the length of Act One, being comedic, touching, and most importantly giving a sense of humanity to the show. The pair’s talent was further highlighted in the dramatic twist at the conclusion of the show, where despite blood pooling from his mouth Rippon, with stoic determination, refused to break character, whilst Fuccilli continued to movingly comfort her husband.
Paralleling their parents’ dynamics, the sibling duo of Hayes’ Jax and Callum Doherty’s Gene highlighted the range of these actors. In particular, Doherty’s raw, haunted expression at the end of Act Two silenced the audience. Another actor of note was Thomas Neil in his portrayal as the dorky, golden retriever boyfriend Dom who arguably had one of the more significant character developments throughout, emphasising Neil’s versatility as an actor. However other characters, like Pip and the Producer, felt a little rushed and underdeveloped.
An unconventional inclusion for this production was an original garment from Bridget Matison who created a one-of-a-kind cockroach inspired showgirl costume. This bold choice highlighted the eccentricity of the film being created, enhancing Barnes’ dramatic interpretation of Kafka’s Gregor as a cockroach. Additionally, the evening wear used for the award show scenes provided contrast to the otherwise ordinary costumes used throughout the rest of the show. Overall, the costume design led by Lara Connolly was cohesive and enhanced the portrayal of each of the characters.
The set for this production was exceptional. Credit must be given to set designer Katja Curtin and assistant set designer Grace Fletcher who managed to transform Kambri drama theatre into a convincing family home. There were two major sets, the first being the exterior of the house, with well-executed painting of black flats making the set look three-dimensional. The second set displayed the interior of the home, utilising a raised stage to highlight two of the three storeys. The set was further enhanced by the cohesion of the actors’ entrances and exits, at times circling behind the stage to illustrate the journey of travelling to the second floor. Furnished with effective props, this set is certainly a stand-out from the sets we have seen in Kambri this year.
Unfortunately, during the blackouts where set and numerous prop changes occurred the backstage crew moved at what felt like a glacial pace, with a lack of transition music, forcing the audience to hone in on the movements of the crew. Where the script was already long, this elongated the show further.
The lighting design by Jessica Peacock was effective, using spotlights and blackouts where necessary for the script. Whilst at times slightly delayed — Kambri lighting is notoriously unreliable — more creative lighting may have enhanced the script. An inclusion we might suggest would be varying the lighting when the camera was rolling to dramatically differentiate. Further, Genevieve Cox’s sound design was apt for purpose and well-timed.
Neither of us were quite prepared for the dramatic twist at the denouement of this production. All we can say from that ending for those who did not get to see the show is…remember to feed your dad. Overall, the show proved an immense success and we are excited to see what is next for the witty writing duo of Narev and Gottschalk.
I downloaded Letterboxd in November. For the uninitiated, Letterboxd is an app where you can rate and review and add new movies that you watch to your watched list. I wasn’t bothered with the rate or review function, to date I’ve only reviewed two movies. No, the downloading of this app precipitated the awakening of something much worse: a deeply competitive streak centred around beating everyone in my life in one category: number of movies watched.
Many late nights followed as I tried to remember obscure childhood movies to add to my watched list, and a burning desire was born to watch every new film released in cinema. A desire that I indulged as much as I could. I haven’t reviewed these films on Letterboxd, so what follows is a Woroni Exclusive (that no one asked for).
Here is my review of every movie I watched in cinema this summer, in the order that I watched them.
BIG SPOILERS AHEAD
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The Boy and the Heron
This didn’t have the same magic as the rest of Haiyo Miyazaki’s filmography. But the five minutes of screen time Florence Pugh’s character had made me very happy.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
As someone who read the book… boy am I glad they didn’t include Snow’s internal monologue in this movie. It allowed me to focus on what’s really important: the #slay of his silly little outfits.
Saltburn
I watched this sitting in between my parents. Still loved it. I honestly can’t articulate why I love this film except to say, visually, intellectually, spiritually, conceptually, hornily, I loved it. I have a crush on every single person involved in the making of this film. I want to kiss them all directly on the brain.
Poor Things
I also watched this sitting in between my parents. This was worse. However, Emma Stone was incredible. The sets, costumes, world building and cinematography were similarly inspired. What I can’t get past is that they showed us a woman who had had her unborn child’s brain transplanted into her head and then we were expected to find it attractive when we saw her masturbate and have copious amounts of sex (with the brain, mannerisms and speech of a toddler). It’s important to note that the narrative does not condemn these men for finding her childlike personality attractive. I’m all for celebrating womens’ sexuality and sexual liberation, just maybe not when their vocabulary still includes the words “goo goo” and “gaa gaa.” The second half when her brain matures was great!! I’m just side eyeing the baby sex part.
Trolls
This was not released in cinemas this summer. In fact, it was released in 2016. I just felt it needed to be included in this list. Me and my Dad watched it the day after we saw Poor Things, in an attempt to heal from the trauma. It did not work. In fact it nearly made me delete Letterboxd and swear off movies altogether. I rate this movie negative 5. Do not interact.
Next Goal Wins
So cute! Truly a Taika Watiti film. While it didn’t hit like Boy or Hunt for the Wilderpeople, it more successfully healed the Poor Things trauma than Trolls did (this wasn’t hard).
Dream Scenario
I didn’t expect watching Nicolas Cage cum untouched as a girl takes his belt off during an ill-advised failed affair then farting loudly and running away to be as funny as it was. Say that sentence twice, my GOD. I enjoyed this film. The tram ride home (again with my parents, yikes) was silent but in a vaguely good way?
Bottoms
I wanted to love this movie but just… didn’t. I think it was a me problem? This film was like a cake which had all the right ingredients and followed the correct method but then the oven was a bitch and didn’t like it. I’m the oven.
Anyone But You
Such a cute romcom, truly one of the better of its genre to come out in a while. And may I say, a Shakespeare retelling to rival 10 Things I Hate About You. The lines that came directly from the play made me happy, but it was also equally as enjoyable for people who were unfamiliar with the play. Really fun. I loved that it was set in Australia. Added a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’.
Napoleon
JOKES I did not watch this movie. A 3 hour long, historically inaccurate Ridley Scott film? Not even adding another notch to my Letterboxd bed post could entice me.
Wonka
As soon as the film finished the girl behind me said, “thank GOD that’s over”. I did not agree with her. I thought it had the perfect amount of whimsy and fun. My mother, who is the biggest Timothee Chalamet fan in the world, gives it 5 stars.
Mean Girls
This was… boring and unnecessary. Auliʻi Cravalho as Janice was a standout performance though.
The Holdovers
For all sad nerds, this movie is like Dead Poets Society but if all the characters were cantankerous assholes (affectionate). I was hungry when I arrived at the cinema so I spent a lot of the movie thinking about the sausages they showed in the establishing shot of the kitchen. On the way home (via Coles to buy sausages) I figured out what I thought of the film: it had a beautiful soul. You could tell a lot of heart went into making it, the use of film rather than digital, the editing, the soundtrack, the performances. I forgot I was watching a film made in this millennium and not an actual film from 1970. Super lovely.
Priscilla
Like Mean Girls, this movie was boring and unnecessary. It tried to say something new about Priscilla and Elvis’ combined legacy but failed. It meandered.
All of Us Strangers
This movie made me grin from ear to ear and also clutch my chest like I was dying of heartbreak. It was filmed so beautifully. It looked warm, and felt like a hug goodbye. Every performance was intentional and masterful and the result was truly breathtaking. But for my own mental health, I will never ever rewatch it.
May December
I had a really embarrassing asthma attack in the middle of this movie (ironic since the main character suffers from chronic asthma herself) and had to leave. I never saw the ending and can’t bring myself to stream it and find out. It was well acted but didn’t compel me.
Anatomy of a Fall
Holy shit. When I wasn’t distracted by how beautiful Vincent, played by Swann Aulaud, was (seriously, he is stunning, and what nice hair), I was jaw-open marvelling at what a great film this was. The pacing especially was perfect. It managed to be interesting and compelling as well as thoughtful and picturesque. Highly recommend it.
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Honourable mentions go to two of the ads I had to see at every single one of these screenings:
The confusing Budget Direct ad which featured an evil sentient pool cleaner (?). Stay weird Budget Direct.
The Toyota Hilux ad about a divorced couple refinding their love for one another through sharing joint custody of their car. This ad made me tear up.
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Is there a single thematic takeaway from this experience? Any additional wisdom I have gained by conquering these 15 films? Not really. But it was a fun way to while away the summer.
The Stella Prize longlist was announced March 4, which means twelve new books to add to your “To Be Read” list (actual reading optional, unlikely, and encouraged).
The Stella Prize is the foremost Australian literary award specifically for women and non-binary authors. Founded in 2012, Stella works to place the writing of women and non-binary authors at the forefront of conversation, promoting gender equity within the Australian literary scene and contributing to a ‘vibrant national culture’.
The $60,000 prize is awarded annually to one book deemed ‘original, excellent, and engaging,’ and among the winners (and those long- and short-listed) are some of Australia’s most recognisable literary names. Think Hannah Kent, Michelle De Kretser, Alexis Wright, Melissa Lucashenko, Ellen Van Neerven (ANU’s own 2023 HC Coombs Fellow), Georgia Blain. Last year, the Stella was awarded to Sarah Holland-Batt for The Jaguar, and in 2022 was taken by Evelyn Araluen for Dropbear (which I can vouch for as a brilliant collection, even as someone who mostly associates contemporary poetry with Instagram poetry and therefore actively avoids it, preferring arrogantly to remain ignorant).
The 2024 lineup is a noteworthy one. In a deviation from the past two years, only one poetry collection has been longlisted, and almost all of the titles come from smaller independent publishing houses. In fact, only two — Maggie Mackellar’s Graft (Penguin) and Stephanie Bishop’s The Anniversary (Hachette) — have made it onto the longlist from ‘Big Five’ publishers. The Big Five consists of HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, and Penguin, which tend to collectively dominate the publishing industry. It’s a big year, then, for indie presses and prose writing.
This year proffers some very well-established names — many of whom have previously been listed for (or, in the case of Alexis Wright, won) the Stella — as well as some who are newer to the game. The shortlist will be announced on the 4th of April, and the winner on the 2nd of May.
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright
Undoubtedly one of the greatest living Australian writers, Alexis Wright’s latest epic novel Praiseworthy seems to be just that — the New York Times calls it ‘the most ambitious and accomplished Australian novel of this century.’ Each of her three other novels — Plains of Promise (1997), Carpentaria (2006) and The Swan Book (2013) — have been similarly received. Carpentaria won the 2007 Miles Franklin, and her ‘unconventional’ (Sydney Morning Herald) memoir Tracker (2017) won the 2018 Stella Prize, which makes Wright the only author to hold both the Miles Franklin and the Stella.
Wright, a Waanyi woman, blends the real, the surreal, and the magical and draws on the rhythms of oral storytelling to create sprawling, sharply intelligent works of profound commentary on ‘contemporary Aboriginal life’ (Giramondo Publishing) and the ongoing nature of colonialism.
Praiseworthy has already taken the 2023 Queensland Literary Award for Fiction, and looks set to be a fierce competitor for the 2024 Stella.
She is the Earth by Ali Cobby Eckermann
Notably the only poetry collection longlisted this year, Ali Cobby Eckermann’s She is the Earth ‘is unlike any other book in Australian literature’ (The Conversation). In 2017, Eckermann won the international Windham-Campbell prize, becoming the second Australian ever to do so.
She is the Earth is a novel-in-verse (however notably lacking a distinct plot and characters) inspired by landscape, natural elements, and ‘the healing power of Country.’ (Magabala Books) It narrates the process of healing and its inherent relationship with the permanence of trauma.
If you’d like to read more about this one, I really enjoyed this article from The Conversation.
Feast by Emily O’Grady
Emily O’Grady’s sophomore novel Feast is already raking in international recognition with a nomination for not only the Stella, but also the Dublin Literary Award. Feast looks at darkness, isolation, secrets and their exposures, familial relationships which are equal parts love and cruelty, and ‘the unmet needs of women’ (The Guardian).
In the Scottish mansion of a retired actress, Alison, and rock star, Patrick, we observe the complicated consequences of the appearance of a nearly-eighteen-year-old daughter and her mother, an ex-partner of Patrick’s.
Feast centres on the women of the family, ‘connected by something far darker and thicker than blood’ (Readings), ‘and what happens when their darkest secrets are hauled into the light’ (Allen & Unwin).
Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the Dead by Hayley Singer
‘Can anyone smell the suffering of souls? Of sadness, of hell on earth? Hell, I imagine, has a smell that bloats into infinity. Has a nasty sting of corpses. What was it Dante wrote?’ (Upswell Publishing)
Hayley Singer teaches creative writing at UniMelb, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that Singer’s debut essay collection is stylistically experimental and steeped in figurative language. Abandon Every Hope ‘map[s] the contours of a world cut to pieces by organised and profitable death’ (Upswell Publishing) — specifically, Singer centres on animal cruelty and the inhumanity of the slaughterhouse industry.
The Hummingbird Effect by Kate Mildenhall
Simultaneously historical, contemporary, and futuristic, The Hummingbird Effect follows four women dispersed through time, connected by ‘the mysterious Hummingbird Project, and the great question of whether the march of progress can ever be reversed’. One working in a meat factory during the Great Depression, another living in a retirement home during COVID, a third some sixty years in the future, and a fourth further still, ‘diving for remnants of a past that must be destroyed’ (Simon & Schuster).
The Hummingbird Effect grapples with climate change, artificial intelligence, and ‘the enduring power of female friendship.’ (The Guardian)
Body Friend by Katherine Brabon
Katherine Brabon’s previous two novels The Memory Artist (2016) and The Shut Ins (2021) have, between them, accumulated a pretty sizeable list of awards and nominations. These past wins include the 2016 The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, the 2022 People’s Choice Award at the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, and the 2019 David Harold Tribe Fiction Award.
It’s a shock to no one, then, that Body Friend is up for the Stella. This one looks at chronic pain, female relationships, and the distance between body and self.
‘Body Friend shows that pain can be a friend and a friend can be a mirror, but what they reflect is more than just a mirror image, and contains many possibilities.’ (Sydney Morning Herald)
The Swift Dark Tide by Katia Ariel
‘What happens when, in the middle of a happy heterosexual marriage, a woman falls in love with another woman?’ (Gazebo Books)
One of two memoirs longlisted, Katia Ariel’s The Swift Dark Tide is ‘a diary that doubled as a breathing exercise and tripled as a love letter.’ (Ariel) The Swift Dark Tide chronicles the author’s journey of self-discovery, interlaced with the stories of her husband, mother, and grandparents to create a ‘matrix’ (Ball, Compulsive Reader) of desire, heritage, selfhood, and family.
West Girls by Laura Elizabeth Woollett
West Girls is interested primarily in beauty and race, in a way that feels like a more unhinged, more rooted in physicality, more innately feminine reconstruction of The Secret History’s ‘morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.’ The female body becomes something at once displaced from and deeply connected to the self. The body is the identity but also belongs to everyone outside of it.
West Girls is interested in the modelling industry, racial inequality, cultural appropriation, the sexualisation of girls’ bodies, and the normalisation of sexual assault.
Our half-white, half-Maltese protagonist Luna Lewis, obsessed with beauty and a modelling career, presents herself as a ‘17-year-old Eurasian beauty, discovered while dismembering an octopus at a southern-suburbs fish-market’ in order to launch her career. This review from The Guardian talks about the act of yellowface in West Girls and looks at the thematic parallels with R.F. Kuang’s novel Yellowface, which was one of the most internationally popular releases of 2023.
Graft: Motherhood, Family and a Year on the Land by Maggie MacKellar
‘To attempt to sum up this book is to do a disservice to the delicate and finely woven lattice of narrative threads that comprise it, like reducing a glimmering spider web to its geometry.’ (Sydney Morning Herald)
A kind of hybridised memoir/nature writing number, Graft is a lyrical, ‘gorgeously written’ (Penguin) account of life spanning one year on a Tasmanian sheep farm. We see birth and death on the farm, interwoven with reflections on childhood and motherhood. Graft is a meditation on mothers, the land and what inhabits it, and home.
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
Melissa Lucashenko, winner of the 2019 Miles Franklin for her last novel Too Much Lip, is producing a not-insubstantial catalogue of fiction and non-fiction. The bookshop I work at generally has a significant chunk of shelf space occupied by her books (even better, they’re all being released in new, visually cohesive editions, which always makes my heart happy). Lucashenko writes predominantly literary and YA fiction, which are very sought-after in the shop.
Edenglassie ‘slices open Australia’s past and present’ (The Guardian), elucidating the dark, ongoing realities of colonisation by vacillating between and drawing together two narratives set in colonial and contemporary Meanjin country, Brisbane.
Hospital by Sanya Rushdi
Hospital is about psychosis, mental illness in general, and the medical system. A research student is diagnosed with psychosis, and spends the book questioning her diagnosis and the medical system — ‘indeed questioning seems to be at the heart of her psychosis’ (Giramondo). Rushdi approaches time with skilful indifference, ‘braiding past and present’ (Westerly Magazine), and blends reality with ambiguity. The reader is left wondering where her episodes start and end in a state of constant disorientation.
At just 128 pages, Hospital is the shortest novel longlisted. First published in Bangladesh in 2019, it was translated into English and published in Australia for the first time last year.
The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop
From the author of Man Out of Time (2018), The Singing (2005), and The Other Side of the World (2015) comes The Anniversary, a ‘compulsive, atmospheric’ (Hachette) psychological thriller which looks at gender, power, art, and the craft of writing.
When her filmmaker husband dies falling overboard on a cruise, novelist J.B. Blackwood navigates her past and her suddenly successful present, visiting and revisiting events and ideas with ‘increasing honesty and nuance.’ (New York Times)
To the New York Times, Bishop writes, ‘A lie told well should sound true. The Anniversary is about the lies we tell ourselves when the traumatic facts of our lives become unbearable and we need to twist them into a story we can stomach.’
This year’s lineup has pulled through with banger after absolute banger, and I’m hedging my bets by saying that it’s really, genuinely, anyone’s game. Every last one of these fits the criteria of ‘original, excellent, and engaging.’ If I had to make a guess, though, I can see Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie coming out on top. It’s super relevant and thematically significant, and the way that it is selling and being received makes me think that it especially brings home the ‘engaging’ requirement. But I’ll leave it up to the infinitely more qualified panel of judges to do the judging, and follow along with bated breath.
Editor’s Note: Edenglassie didn’t even make it to the shortlist. Sorry Caelan.
At any given moment in time, there are countless ripples travelling through spacetime, traversing the very fabric of our universe. These ripples are known as gravitational waves, and were first predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916 in his general theory of relativity.
Almost a century later in 2015, direct evidence of gravitational waves was finally obtained when the Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) detectors, located in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana, USA detected the long-awaited signal.
The 0.2 second audible signal, which was described to resemble the “chirp” of a bird, was actually the product of a black hole collision. This event occurred more than 1 billion years ago. Two massive black holes merged into one, warping the fabric of spacetime and sending ripples through the universe which were eventually detected on Earth as tiny vibrations.
The successful LIGO experiment sent its own waves through the science community. The search for gravitational waves had consisted of decades of unrelenting hard work by over a thousand physicists around the globe and billions of dollars of investment, so the news was both extremely exciting and highly anticipated.
Now you might be wondering what is next for gravitational wave research. After all, the amazing detection of gravitational waves was already accomplished in 2015.
However, in reality, the exploration of gravitational waves has only just begun as researchers continue to use LIGO and a growing network of detectors around the world (e.g. LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration) to investigate the nature of our universe. In exciting news, the ANU, as part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), will play a central role in this global venture.
Last year I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Dr Lilli Sun and Dr Jennie Wright, astrophysicists from ANU’s Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics to gain some further insight into the current field of gravitational wave research and ANU’s new LIGO remote control room.
Firstly, could you explain what a gravitational wave is in simple terms?
Jennie: A gravitational wave is a sort of stretching and squeezing of spacetime itself. When we have mass in the universe, it causes spacetime to curve, as explained in the theory of General Relativity. A gravitational wave is like a ripple instead of just a curve that stays still.
Lilli: You can also think of an analogy like a water wave – for example, dropping a stone in water and then seeing ripples spreading out. When we have something very heavy, like black holes that collide, they trigger those ripples in spacetime.
What are your specific research focuses and what are you currently working on?
Lilli: I do mostly astrophysics; using gravitational waves to study black holes, neutron stars, and even searching for dark matter. I do a lot of data analysis to see what the gravitational-wave signals tell us – e.g. whether it tells us that Einstein and his general theory of relativity is right or if there is something unexpected.
One of my projects is about searching for dark matter particles using gravitational waves – we don’t know if they exist or not, but analysing gravitational wave signatures is one possible way to look for them. I also work a bit on detectors, working with instrumentalists like Jennie.
Jennie: What I work on is somewhat related. I’m an instrumentalist as Lilli said, so I’m an experimental physicist and my job has two parts. Half of my time I spend at ANU, working on technologies that we can use to improve gravitational wave detectors of the future. We’re making them more sensitive so they can see further out into the universe and also can see a wider range of signal frequencies. And so, I work on developing technology that basically tries to distinguish things near the detector that look like gravitational wave sources, but actually aren’t – like a truck breaking near the detector, or just air moving near it.
The other part of my job is to help improve the current detectors. Since we use light in the gravitational wave detector to measure the stretching and squeezing of spacetime, we want to have as much light in there as possible. But, because mirrors and optical systems aren’t perfect, we sometimes lose quite a lot of light, so I look at those diagnostic measurements to try to figure out where we’re losing light.
Now that gravitational waves have already been detected, what is next for the field of gravitational wave research?
Lilli: There are many aspects actually: the 2015 discovery was only the beginning. The 2015 event for two black holes colliding into each other and the famous 2017 event for a two neutron star collision are very highlighted events, but now we are collecting many more of them including some special systems. The large number of detections will bring us important information of the population.
There are other types of gravitational waves. For example, we are looking for very faint gravitational waves from a single spinning neutron star. Neutron stars are not perfect spheres, so when they rotate they can generate very weak gravitational waves, which is something we are searching for. Another example is to probe dark matter using gravitational waves. So, we need more sensitive detectors and more of them in the network.
Moving onto the ANU remote control room, what exactly is a control room and how specifically would the remote control room work?
Jennie: So, a control room is usually a room you have next to a lab with an experiment in it: usually one that needs to be in either a really clean environment, or a slightly dangerous environment. So, you set all the physical parts of it up, so you can obtain electronic signals through to your control room that tell you what is happening. And then you can do all the data-taking and analysis from that control room.
In LIGO, they have the control rooms right next to the detector because they don’t want to be walking around next to the detector while it’s running, as they might introduce noise to it. They also have a whole bank of screens which decipher how each sub-system is working.
About the remote control room: whilst we don’t have a gravitational wave detector in Australia, many Australian scientists have been involved in gravitational wave detection from the start, and so this allows us to participate in improving the detector remotely. So, you can see on some of the screens here, I have a read-out of the different sub-systems and if they’re working correctly. For example, green tells us that they’re observing data and red tells us that they’re down and need to be fixed. And this is all in real time.
That’s really useful, because before we had this, we just had the little screen on our computers, and you had to try to view everything simultaneously and it was quite difficult. My colleagues and I will also occasionally do shifts when the detector is running, because we might have to call up people in other countries. If there’s an exciting gravitational wave event, we sometimes need to announce things to other astronomers, so they can point their telescopes to certain parts of the sky.
Lilli: Although it’s a ‘remote’ control room, you can still control some of the sub-systems of the detector. It’s just that we need to be very careful, especially during observation. There will be someone in charge in the real control room, and we can collaborate with them. The advantage of having the remote control room is that it makes it much easier for Australian colleagues, as we are not close to the detector, but we can read off the real-time information in a much more convenient way, on the other side of the world.
So, the detector isn’t always on all the time?
Jennie: There’s a trade-off between the physicists who work on improving it, and the astronomers who want to collect data using it. If you improve the sensitivity, you’re more likely to see really exciting events we haven’t seen before. But if you increase the time the detector is on for, you’re also more likely to see more events. So, there are sometimes periods where we’re not touching the detector for around 18 months, and periods where there is no data collection for a year, and maintenance and upgrading occurs.
From a bigger perspective, what role is Australia and ANU playing in the further research of gravitational waves?
Lilli: Australia is one of the major collaborators in the large international LIGO-VIRGO-KAGRA collaboration. There is a large group here working on gravitational wave astrophysics and detector science. These days, Australian scientists also want to propose and work towards building an Australian detector in the future, which is pretty exciting.
Right now, we are also thinking about the next generation detectors – like what kind of design and technology is needed that can give us a one-order of magnitude increase in sensitivity, which can get us much deeper into the universe. Australian colleagues are working on both the existing science of gravitational waves, but also the future.
Jennie: In the past, Australia has developed sub-systems which are now used in the detector, contributing mirrors for example. Also, Lilli is in charge of the calibration group for LIGO, and that’s just an example, but we have a lot of staff in Australia who are leading some aspect of the LIGO scientific collaboration’s research. We’ve also been instrumental in the design of something called the Squeezer which is used in LIGO to improve its sensitivity, making the detectors the quantum instruments that they are.
Lilli: Regarding astrophysics and data analysis, there are quite a few large groups from different Australian universities within OzGrav working on the data being collected these days. A lot of studies are carried out in Australia, but we also work very closely with international colleagues.
What are some benefits of these large-scale projects, e.g. do they help bring countries closer together and encourage international cooperation?
Lilli: I think yes, definitely. These days, it’s getting difficult to do small narrow research projects by yourself. With projects like gravitational wave detectors, you have large instruments, and that involves many different aspects: you need to work with engineers on different sub-systems, theoretical physicists to understand how the astrophysics work, software engineers and data analysts for dealing with huge amounts of data, and also astronomers who do different kinds of follow-up observations. All these people are playing important roles, and they come from different countries, different parts of the world. Close collaboration is critical.
Jennie: I think it’s really useful to have these big projects, because any falling out between countries can get in the way. It also definitely broadened my horizons, as I’m from Scotland, which isn’t as multicultural. Without science, I definitely wouldn’t have travelled and experienced different cultures as much.
Last question, what’s your advice for students looking to get into this field or just interested in your research?
Lilli: I think there are lots of chances for students to talk to us and do small projects. If they’re really interested there are lots of ways to get into the field. We do lots of summer/winter projects and we also teach undergraduate courses, where we discuss gravitational waves at a more basic level. Many students are interested, and we have extended discussions and they come to us for small projects or Honours and end up staying for PhD.
Jennie: I think definitely the best way is just to email someone who works in the fields. Academics love students being interested in their research, otherwise they wouldn’t be working at a university and teaching. I’m really happy whenever a student asks me, and I think that’s how I got involved in the field too.
Lilli: Yes, definitely talk to academics and lecturers in the field if you’re interested.
Jennie: And I think that’s the same in all areas of science as well, people are super keen to tell you about their research, you just have to ask them.
Photograph of some of the screens in the control room.
Dr Jennie Wright (left) and Dr Lilli Sun (right) in the remote control room.
A huge thank you to Dr Lilli Sun and Dr Jennie Wright for taking the time to do an interview and for so generously sharing their knowledge.
Comments Off on Review: How to Date Men When You Hate Men
Fair warning: if you’ve come here in search of some profound insight into the matters of the heart, I apologise. I’m just an 18-year-old girl with uncommendable dating experience, who is also severely prone to falling into a pit of crippling anxiety at the mere sight of a text from a guy (it takes me five hours and a solid brainstorming session with three other friends to respond to a simple “Hey” followed by a series of sleepless nights). So, for the sake of honesty, I’ll admit I don’t know shit.
Perhaps now you can also see how a ‘self-help’ book called How To Date Men When You Hate Men would entice someone like me. To be clear, neither I nor the author hate men, we just hate the troubles we’ve to endure to date them and the patriarchal bit of it all.
For a long time, it was a running joke in my friend group that this book held the key to fixing our love lives. Armed with foolproof strategies to sail through the treacherous waters of dating a guy, we’d be unstoppable! So here I was, embarking on this transcendental journey, flipping through the pages of the book like a madwoman and hoping to finally learn the art of dating men just in time for Valentine’s Day. No more being lonely and miserable, I had declared!
By the first chapter, bitter disappointment had settled in. I had fallen prey to clickbait. The book was (unfortunately) neither misandrist propaganda nor, as the author herself admits, a proper “how to” book.
It hypes you up in the beginning, and you, naïve little you, are convinced that you’re about to read something so earth-shatteringly revolutionary that you will single-handedly end patriarchy and the systemic sexism prevalent in our society. But you’ll soon realise this is just a patronising version of your girls’ group chat.
‘It’s not that there are “good men” versus “bad men” (though there are some obvious monsters): all men have received this coding. They aren’t born evil, they’re born into an evil system! It just didn’t sound as catchy to name the book How to Date Men When They Are Born into and Brainwashed by an Evil System That Mightily Oppresses Women.’
The author, Blythe Roberson, is an American comedian and humour writer, who has previously written for publications like The New Yorker and The Onion. As expected, you can sense the immaculate sarcasm and wit right off the bat. Unexpectedly, though, it quickly falls flat.
Throughout the book, Roberson makes various attempts to put modern dating problems in a comedic and engaging light. Sadly she misses the mark almost every single time. Roberson fills the book with quirky little displays of her hilarity, but because the book is so inconclusive everything she writes becomes almost irrelevant due to the lack of direction. The snarky comments that probably would’ve gotten her a good laugh in a different format soon turn annoying (looking at the 125, 689, 871 Trump jokes).
This humour severely lacks purpose. Roberson describes the book as ‘made up of so many opinions all clumped together that they just might have congealed into some sort of worldview’, taking a step further to boldly call it a ‘comedy philosophy book’. I like to call it the ‘Roberson’s Attempt at Turning Her Journal Therapy Journey Commercial’ book. It truly does seem like she was advised by her therapist to try to pen down her feelings, and she thought, well, why not turn this into a book and make some money out of it?
Her personal reflections and all the bottled-up frustration she harbours towards dating finally find the light of day in these pages. She talks so extensively about patriarchy and its impact on modern dating that you wonder if you really are about to read a social philosophy book, but she doesn’t explore this problem with any depth or nuance and you’re just left pondering. The book ends up being a collection of Roberson’s dating expeditions. So, while I yearn to learn more about the nitty gritties of Roberson’s ‘intersectional-socialist-matriarchal revolution’, I find myself learning the superficialities of Roberson’s date with some film student named Luke instead.
While the first half of the book might irk you, to give Roberson due credit, the second half does get better.
‘And so: you, right now, are a full tree. You don’t need to be in love to count as a human. Look—you already ARE a human, existing!’
Even though it’s cliché big sister advice and I know at this point we’re all tired of listening to the ‘you can only be loved if you love yourself first’ crap, it is undeniably true, and Roberson’s take on it is, dare I say, quite refreshing! She preaches against overthinking by emphasising that ultimately people will always do what their heart desires and so, if they are talking to you, it is because they want to! Probably nothing you haven’t heard before, but it’s the unwavering conviction with which Roberson almost commands the reader to stop over-analysing every little thing that almost has me convinced every guy is in love with me.
Okay, I don’t actually hate How To Date Men When You Hate Men. I know by now I might’ve convinced you otherwise, but genuinely, my only qualm with this book is that it shouldn’t have been a book. The way Roberson describes her dating mishaps and all the valuable lessons she’s gleaned from dating guys all these years make for solid entertainment. Not for a book. But, perhaps, as the set for her Netflix special. Oh, what wasted potential the book has. It’s relatable and charming, with seamlessly woven humour, while also targeting the idiosyncrasies of modern society. It could have been a 10/10 comedy show.
For me, the true measure of a book lies in the emotion it evokes. Often, over time, plots and character arcs get buried and decay with memory, but the emotions etched in the heart stand the test of time. The brain forgets, but the heart remembers. And while this book did have moments of Roberson’s glittering wit, it failed to leave an imprint. All I’d remember five years later would be the riveting title.
So, final remarks. Firstly, nobody really knows what love is. Some days it’s peeling an orange, while other days even taking a bullet might not be enough. All we know is that love is cataclysmic in the most beautiful ways and sadly, no book will ever have the answer to all your questions. You just have to wing it, as frightening as that might be.
Secondly, don’t read this book. You probably won’t read it til the end (unless you’ve thought it’d be cool to review it for Valentine’s). I recommend spending that time hating some other aspect of your life.
Lastly, if you do plan on spending Valentine’s alone, all sad and pathetic (like me), remember that it’s just a day. A Wednesday too, literally nothing special. The human experience will have us all being melancholic the rest of the year, even those cringy people in love (I’m just jealous). Go get yourself an ice cream and be a hater for a day.
Comments Off on An Official Ranking of (most of) ANU’s Student Theatre
Before I start this ranking-slash-review, I want to establish two things. A list before the list.
First of all, I’m not a theatre critic. I don’t have any professional qualifications. I’m just a guy who’s been to a lot of ANU theatre productions, so if you don’t like my ranking you can tell yourself I’m wrong and dumb and just don’t get the sacred art of the stage. Or send Woroni some anthrax in the mail, whatever makes you feel better.
Second of all, every one of these theatre productions were worth seeing. While I enjoyed some more than others, I have an incredible amount of respect for everyone involved. As somebody who got a solid 60 in high school drama, I can’t imagine all the work that goes into making these performances actually good, and definitely couldn’t do it better.
But not all art is created equal, and it is with a sort-of-heavy heart that I must rank (most of) this year’s ANU theatre productions. (Apologies to the Musical Theatre Company, I’m sure Grease was great.)
Away
Michael Gow’s Away follows three sets of parents and their high-school-aged children (or lack thereof, in the case of grieving Coral and Ray) as they embark on their summer holidays. It’s mercifully set in Australia, and therefore none of the actors speak with American accents. As you’re about to learn, bad American accents are an inexplicably common pitfall for ANU student theatre.
Mothers Vic (India Kazakoff), Gwen (Genevieve Cox) and Coral (Grace Fletcher) are standouts, especially Gwen and husband Jim (Eli Narev). Cox and Narev work so well together you’d believe they really have been unhappily married for decades. Their troubled connection with daughter Meg (Chloe Tyrell) made for some of the play’s most dramatic and moving moments. The play deals with some heavy themes – classism, terminal illness, grief – and the actors are talented enough to handle these themes with care, even bringing humour and light to the darkness.
The costuming (Tess McClintock) and hair and makeup (Zara Faroque) were show-stealing: Coral’s blue dress and Leonie’s (Lily Wilmott) green look deserve their own special mention.
However, despite a strong cast and excellent costuming, the play was a little slow. While some scenes would have you laughing or on the edge of your seat, others dragged. No disrespect to Michael Gow, but directors Maeve Ireland-Jones and Ellie Shafir could have been more ruthless in cutting down the script.
Accent ranking: No complaints.
Then I’ll Be Brief
For those who aren’t as dedicated to ANU theatre as I am, Then I’ll Be Brief (TIBB) is an annual show made up of scenes from various Shakespeare plays adapted, reimagined and reprised in whichever way their director chooses. For example, this year I was treated to a bogan version of King Lear (how dare Cordelia go off to ANU), A Midsummer Night’s Bush Doof, and a skit delivered alongside a video of Subway Surfers gameplay, for the iPad babies in the audience.
It’s hard for a show of snippets and skits to stand on its own against the full-length plays on this list, but TIBB is quick and funny. It feels like a bunch of theatre kids (complementary) having fun, and the audience is drawn into that fun too. The atmosphere is mostly light and silly, with songs like Something Rotten’s ‘God I Hate Shakespeare’ breaking up scenes of fratboy Sir John Falstaff and modern-day Merry Wives.
I say mostly, because there were one or two surprises. Macbeth’s final speech was performed Shakespeare-accurate and serious, except for the fact that Luke Lourey’s Macbeth was dressed like a character from the Matrix and the scene was lit like Upstairs Moose, for reasons unknown. I spent half the scene waiting for a punchline, but that’s the fun of TIBB: you never know what you’re going to get.
Accent: Good and normal.
The Taming of the Shrew
The fact that this is fourth is a testimony to the quality of the shows above it, because ShakeSoc’s The Taming of the Shrew was probably the funniest play I saw this year. It’s inexplicably set in the Wild West, which just means that the actors wear cowboy hats, say they’re from Reno, Nevada, instead of Pisa, Italy, and speak with a Southern drawl (more on the accents later).
The thing that really brings the humour of this centuries-old comedy to 21st-century ANU is the performance of the actors. Adam Gottschalk’s Tranio is fine-tuned right down to the facial expressions, and Annabelle Howard’s Baptista incorporates some impressive cane choreography. My personal favourite, however, was Jarrah Palethorpe’s brief but inspired performance as the random merchant pretending to be concerned-father Vincentio. There’s no way I can really describe this, except for saying it was like watching an alien in a human suit. I mean that as positively as possible: it was hilarious.
Now, onto the accents. They have their moments – there is something inherently comedic about country-and-western soliloquies – but the play is long and sparsely edited. The accents hamper the already-unwieldy Shakespearian, and at some points it’s difficult to understand what a character is even talking about.
This is most apparent in the ending. I’ll admit, before this my exposure to The Taming of the Shrew had begun and ended with 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). But I’m pretty sure in the original Shakespeare, the shrew, doesn’t walk her new husband offstage with a gun.
Maybe it was meant to be a feminist twist, but somewhere between the accent and her assumedly ironic speech about why women suck, the ending gets lost, and you’re left with a confused ‘good for her?’
Accent ranking: High highs and low lows.
Mr Burns
Anne Washburn’s Mr Burns, directed by Lachlan Houen and Isiah Prichard, is split into three sections, and there was no point at which I knew what was coming next.
It opens on a world without electricity a year after some vague apocalypse, where strangers bond over their attempts to recall a particular Simpsons episode. The tragedy of this situation was accompanied by the tragedy of my realisation that, once again, they were all going to be speaking with American accents.
The first section was a little slow, as you’d expect from a scene that is just people talking around a campfire, but there were genuinely poignant, painful moments. You watch each character’s hopes rise as they encounter a newcomer, and fall as they are told no, they haven’t seen their loved ones. Seven years go by, and these same characters are struggling together as a troupe of actors. Colleen (Natasha Lyall) and Quincy (Tess McClintock) are excellent additions, and Gibson’s (India Kazakoff) breakdown as the pressure of their dog-eat-dog world gets to him is a heartbreaking watch. It’s almost immediately followed by a post-apocalyptic Pitch Perfect-esque mashup, thanks to musical directors Lachlan Moulds and Paris Scharkie. You really never know what’s coming next.
The third section goes completely off the rails. The original cast is abandoned. Now the actual Simpsons – credit to costume designers Malachi Bayley and Natasha Ludlow for an excellent Marge hairpiece – are escaping on a riverboat in the middle of a storm. They’re escaping the titular Mr Burns (Thomas Neil), only this time he’s been combined with Heath Ledger’s Joker to create a villain whose monologues are sometimes ironically overwrought and evil, sometimes just a bit too long. At one point he starts rapping. He and Bart (Annabelle Hansen), who has the pluck and earnestness of a Victorian orphan, duel on the deck of the riverboat as the storm rages around them.
While all the actors were excellent, a special commendation has to go to Eli Powles and Liah Naidoo as Itchy and Scratchy, Mr Burns’ violent animal henchmen. It’s very easy to sit in the audience and write a snarky review where you whinge about accents. It’s undoubtedly much harder to screech and leap and scrabble across the stage dressed as animals. Lesser actors (or cowards like me) wouldn’t have committed as hard as they did, and their resulting performance was both hilarious and more than a little terrifying.
Accent ranking: Eh.
macbitches
macbitches takes place almost entirely inside a dorm room, where five female theatre students celebrate and commiserate after the casting of Macbeth. It explores the complicated, love-hate-respect-devotion-envy ambition dynamics between theatre kids. Watching it, you can’t help but wonder if ShakeSoc is self-reporting.
Trapped in just the one set, the tension builds throughout the play until it’s almost unbearable. You want to look away, but you can’t. Anisha Mujib and Hana Sawal carry this tension with good performances – one feels especially bad for Mujib’s Cam, pathetically in love with a girl who doesn’t seem to care about her – but the eyes-wide, car-crash feel of the play reaches its fever pitch thanks to Natasha Lyall, Winsome Oglivie and Lillia Bank.
Playing new freshman Hailey, who’s snatched the role from the more senior Rachel (Natasha Lyall), Bank nails the grating combination of wide-eyed naivete and constant humble-bragging, but it’s Lyall who steals the show. She is terrifying, stalking the stage, closing in on oblivious Hailey until one can’t help but think of a panther closing in on its prey. I don’t think I breathed during her fight with partner-in-crime Alexis (Winsome Oglivie), who has a sickening scream fit for a slasher movie – sort of what the play devolves into by the end.
But despite its gory twist, this play works so well because it’s grounded in reality. The set design creates a realistic, lived-in college dorm, with dialogue and references that refreshingly reflect how young people actually talk – with the exception of the accents.
macbitches is set in the US, and rather than trust us to suspend our disbelief and accept that these students at a vaguely-American college say words like ‘sophomore’ with an Australian accent, the cast all adopt American accents. It hampers what are otherwise excellent performances – some are strongest when they slip out of the accent altogether.
I saw macbitches with a group, and after we left one of the guys asked us whether this was actually what female friendships were like. The answer was a resounding yes. It’s a warped but strikingly accurate depiction of female group dynamics, as powerful love wars with powerful resentment.
But macbitches goes further than that. Though it’s an all-female cast, it points to the man behind the curtain. Would these women have been pushed to this depravity at all if there were more roles for them, if the roles were better, if they weren’t beaten down by constant dismissal and mistreatment? As director Caitlin Baker puts it, macbitches asks ‘whether the violence lies in the hands of the women we see onstage – or the men off it.’
Accent ranking: Wish they hadn’t.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
This delightfully gory dark comedy has everything you could want from a play: disembodied torsos covered in blood, Toby Griffiths covered in blood, a stage covered in blood, and Irish accents that are actually good.
Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore (not to be confused with The Banshees of Inisherin or The Cripple of Inishmaan), brings levity to The Troubles, and in her director’s note, Liat Granot writes that cast and crew wanted to ‘[toe] the delicate line between humour and trauma’. While this production falls far more on the former than the latter, it was still an exceptional performance.
If you’ve reached the end of this review you might think I harp on about the accents, but I think here they’re emblematic of why The Lieutenant of Inishmore was so good: its attention to detail. Set and props designers Marty Kelly, Tali Backmann and Jamie Cardillo decked the Kambri Drama Theatre out with all the trimming of a typical Irish home, complete with the essential photo of Queen Elizabeth II (rip) with her eyes scribbled out and ‘die bitch die’ scrawled across her face. The stagehands crept and rolled commando-style across the set in balaclavas, like they were planting bombs rather than moving chairs. Costume designers Eleanor Cooper and Natasha Ludlow blessed/cursed Davey (Wyatt Raynal) with a painfully 90s mullet-hair piece-thing. This was obviously a performance with a great amount of thought and care put into it, at every level, and it really paid off.
Of course, a script making light of such a dark time in Irish history couldn’t have been carried through without an incredible cast. Adam Gottschalk is, again, excellent and hilarious with his equally funny IRA (or ILA?) lackeys (Paris Scharkie and Anna Kelly). Jamie Gray’s Donny and Raynal’s Davey play off each other like a standup duo who have toured together for several years – which they should consider if theatre doesn’t work out.
If you didn’t see this, you missed out. Raise a glass to the cast, crew, and an Ireland free.
Accent ranking: Derry Girls!
An earlier version of this article did not credit Marty Kelly as set and props designer for The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
Comments Off on ANU Arts Revue: Sending Brian Back to Kansas
Arts Revue opens with a joke. Not a skit, a single joke. The keyboard player gets up, walks to centre stage, and announces that he’s going to tell a joke that’s ‘okay to say’, because he heard it on the radio.
“How does a pornstar get paid?
Income.”
(Get it, because it sounds like in-cum?)
It wasn’t a bad joke – it was fine, it got a laugh – but we were left confused. Who was this guy, who didn’t appear in a single skit after his one joke? Why was this the opener? Were they stalling while they sorted out technical issues? Did he just really want to be a part of it, while also playing his keyboard?
Arts Revue left all of these questions unanswered, but it gave us a great show to make up for it. The just-fine pornstar joke is thankfully followed by an excellent ‘Life is a Highway’ parody, ‘Life is a Parkes Way’, full of jokes about the perils of driving in Canberra. This was the first of many solid parodies. A special shoutout to ‘Love is an Open Door/There’s Vomit on the Floor’, an ode to a scenario many a Senior Resident has faced on a Thursday night, and a long but funny and oddly heartwarming skit where the Phantom of the Opera joins the Backstreet Boys. Though these were all good, the highlight had to be the number about society keeping Miss Piggy and Kermit apart. The costuming – a frog suit, a dress and a cheap wig – was exactly what you’d expect, and Georgia Mcculloch’s performance as Kermit was especially moving. From Kermit to Brian Schmidt’s American accent to the practised cadence of a newsreader, Mcculloch’s unique talent for impressions – ie. ‘doing funny voices’ – meant she never once broke character.
If a powerful, poignant anthem about the enduring power of frog-pig sex doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, then Arts Revue provided plenty of ANU-related comedy for the average revue enjoyer. A breakup between ANU and Schmidt, where his Nobel Prize is the other woman, captured the heartbreak of Schmidt’s departure. Even the Devil himself, accompanied by a grovelling minion he had an insane amount of sexual tension with, visited to announce his plans for a new and improved ANU. These ranged from not-that-bad-maybe-an-improvement-actually (sinking Wamburun into the depths of Hell) to downright evil (quadruple-factor authentication for every sign-on).
Not all of the skits were this good. A few were just drawn-out puns. A woman goes to the doctor about a lump on her arm; it’s Taylor Cyst, a cyst that plays Taylor Swift songs. Bird watchers make jokes about seeing nice pairs of tits. The latter does get points for walking right up to my co-writer and implying they had thrush, though. Excellent audience participation, almost as good as the bit where they turned off all the lights and ran a guided meditation, lulling us all into a false sense of security so that they could steal our belongings. Thankfully everything was returned after the show – no need to press charges.
Charlie Joyce Thompson deserves a special mention for bringing an extra laugh to every skit he starred in. His delivery, accents, acting and improv were fantastic and he had us keeling over, whether he was playing Miss Piggy or a South African High Court judge.
We saw Arts Revue on the opening night, so we were ready to forgive any tech issues. Which is good, because there were a fair few of them: lights going up randomly during scenes that were supposed to be dark (at least we think so), Taylor Swift playing during the devil’s speech and the wrong Powerpoint playing during a student presentation skit – somehow, this last one was still kind of funny.
Nonetheless, Arts Revue proved a funny, well-coordinated, well-acted performance. Its strengths were its actors and its parodies and musical numbers, each one somehow better than the last. It ended with a bang: a parody of ‘I’m Just Ken’ to the tune of “I’m Just Brian” and mashed up with even more Backstreet Boys. A fantastic way to the end night, and a charming and funny end to the revue season.
It should be a surprise to no-one that I’m back with more book content. I’m not apologetic yet—you can prize my silly little novels from my cold, dead hands.
Let me begin by establishing that, for my purposes here, what constitutes a “classic” book is its bearing the following qualities:
Period – written during and about a society in a particular historical period. (I haven’t included any works post early 20th century here for the sake of keeping the list a reasonable length. My unsolicited opinions on modern classics next time??)
Relevance – remains a faithful portrait of human character and relationships, and continues to have something to say today.
Significance – contains something which I feel is important, be it anything from an entertaining story to elaborate social commentary.
Note that I am mainly looking at these books as historical works of fiction which I believe to be significant (or just plain fun) more than especially well-known, in light protest against our funny habit of labelling certain books “classics” and entirely forgetting others. In general, the term “classic” and its meaning is very unclear and rigorously debated. As an English major, it’s one of those random things that I think about weirdly regularly (think: men and the Roman Empire, apparently). I can understand the virtues and evils of many arguments—even traditional ideas where long-lasting fame is necessary for the distinction of “classic” hold a lot of weight in my opinion. But here I have included both very famous and also a few lesser-known works because I think they’re all worthy of the title.
I totally understand that classics can be super intimidating, but I genuinely think that all the books on this list are such a joy to read. If you’re not always a fan of older writing, I recommend listening to audiobooks, maybe reading along. I find audiobooks are great for getting through that first slog where you’re still undecided and the book hasn’t caught your interest yet. Obviously, I also need to come to grips with the fact that not everyone is obsessed with the same things I am, so I’m intervening here to add that if these aren’t your vibe, that is completely valid and fair as well.
My reading is generally guided by very specific little inclinations, and classics by women is one of those niches which I often gravitate towards. I love my classics, but there are only so many early forms of the manic-pixie-dream-girl you can read before it starts to tire you out. Men writing women makes my head hurt and the only cure is Elizabeth Bennet running around Regency England laughing at men. It can prove a nightmare, though, when it seems like there are all of three women writers in the classic lit canon—so here are a few of my faves which I think are worth the hype (or deserve way more).
Without further ado, this list is brought to you by: my annual binge-reads of classics written by women (because they’re super cool and smart and vibey).
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)
Look, I’m the first to acknowledge that Woolf is not for everyone. Personally, I sometimes find her wandering style difficult to stay invested in. But I also know die-hard fans of her work, and she was ridiculously cool.
Superficially, Mrs. Dalloway details a day in the life of fictional upper-class Englishwoman Clarissa Dalloway as she hurries in last-minute preparations for a party she’s to host in the evening. But beneath the surface lies an intricate narrative of class, war, and female sexuality.
It’s a short read, like a lot of Woolf’s works, so super doable.
For other fiction if you’ve read this one, Orlando has very ahead-of-its-time discussion on gender, gender roles, and gender fluidity. If you prefer non-fiction and haven’t read it already, I also suggest A Room of One’s Own, which is my favourite of Woolf’s books.
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (1864)
Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters is all vibes and very little plot, but in the best way. We follow seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson, daughter of a widowed doctor, as she navigates social expectations, class, sisterhood, new family, and love in all its forms.
This was one of my favourite reads of 2022. I read somewhere that one of Gaskell’s biggest strengths is her female characters, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that it’s true. The women in Wives and Daughters are deeply complex and so beautifully written.
It’s a longer read at around 600 pages depending on your edition, but I promise it’s worth your time!
Full disclosure, it’s unfinished because the author died before completing the final chapter. It’s devastating to be ripped out of their little world at the end, but in my copy (the Penguin Classics edition) it explains Gaskell’s intentions for the conclusion.
Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald (1932)
No, I will never shut up about this book.
Save Me the Waltz is an infinitely underrated work of sheer brilliance (go read the essay I wrote on it earlier this year here). Written by the wife of the significantly more famous F. Scott Fitzgerald, the novel is semi-autobiographical and recounts their early marriage and the years they spent in Paris during the 1920s. Zelda wrote in the face of her deteriorating mental health and opposition from her husband, and she produced a masterpiece.
This book is feverish and intelligent, filled with life and surrealist influences. Save Me the Waltz captures the wild spirit of the Jazz Age, and if you only ever listen to one thing I say, let it be that everyone should read this book.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
This is one of those rare books that leaves you feeling totally aimless once you’ve turned the last page. You wonder how you can possibly return to your daily activities as though everything is normal. (Because it’s not normal, because you’ve just read one of the most beautiful, profound, heart-wrenching books you’ll ever read.)
Hurston chronicles the life of an African-American woman in early-20th-century Florida, challenging the inherent racism and misogyny which permeates her society. Hurston’s criticisms are quiet yet striking, and intensely moving. The writing is exquisite, the characters so full of life. Hurston explores the intricacies of the human character with extraordinary empathy, and leaves nothing wanting. Their Eyes Were Watching God is deeply feminist and absolutely beautiful.
If you read this one (please read it, you won’t regret it), I implore you to listen to the audiobook on Spotify narrated by Ruby Dee. I don’t often listen to audiobooks because I’m very picky with the readers, but Dee does such a phenomenal job that I don’t think I can say enough good things to adequately describe the experience of listening to it.
It’s a super short read, too, so I see no reason why you should put it off! Do yourself a favour and get your hands (or headphones?) on this book.
The Viper of Milan by Marjorie Bowen (1906)
Written when the author was just sixteen, The Viper of Milan is enthralling, and I was invested all the way along. Richly Gothic, Viper is set in medieval Italy under the tyrannical rule of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. We follow multiple sets of characters through deceit, treachery, rebellion, and villainy, and I found every one of them compelling.
This one is a fun read, and not too long either. You may have some difficulty getting your hands on it – my copy is a very old one which I found second-hand—but if you can, I highly recommend it!
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
Every time I reread Little Women, I’m flawed by the beauty of it—especially the second part, sometimes bound together with Little Women as Part Two, sometimes separately as Good Wives. Little Women is the loveliest coming-of-age story following young Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March from childhood through to adulthood.
Each sister has a dream which she pursues with all her might—and that, in my opinion, is truly feminist. Jo is a writer, Amy an artist, Meg and Beth homemakers. Each is given the space to carve her own place in the world.
I first read Part One several years ago, but it was only this year that I finally found a copy of Part Two second-hand. I loved the former, but the latter is simply gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as in love with a set of characters as I have been with these.
The writing is lovely, but also super accessible. If you’ve struggled or been disappointed with classics in the past, I would give this one a shot if you haven’t already.
Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1929)
Plum Bun follows Angela Murray, a young Black woman in 1920s America. As a child she finds that she can pass for white, and following her parents’ deaths moves to New York in hopes of pursuing her art and escaping the racism of her hometown. But Angela soon discovers that gendered and racial discrimination cannot be evaded, and not all problems can be solved with the financial and social stability offered by marriage.
I have a great love of 1920s literature. I think there’s a spirit about it that we haven’t captured since. I absolutely love this one; it has so much to say, and remains deeply relevant for today’s society. Highly recommend.
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
A fun fact about me is that I am a die-hard Jane Austen fan. I have two different decks of Jane Austen-themed cards and a whole dedicated Jane Austen section on my bookshelf. There are a solid three of her books that I reread basically every year, and at thirteen I basically modelled my personality on Elizabeth Bennet. I honestly stand by that—it was not the most cringeworthy thing I did at thirteen, and it was kind of valid.
Now, I know you’ve been recommended this one hundreds of times. It’s practically the poster child of classic literature—but I swear to you it is worth the hype. This is the original enemies-to-lovers, with all the wit, social satire, cool female protagonists, and pretty Regency dresses you could possibly want. The characters are so distinct and I love every one of them, even silly little incel William Collins.
If you liked this one, my next favourites are Northanger Abbey, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. You can’t go wrong!
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
Another one for fans of the Gothic, Jane Eyre is utterly spellbinding, and bleak in all the best ways. Raised by a cruel aunt then sent off to a strict boarding school for girls, the titular Jane eventually finds some freedom when she takes up work as a governess. She is tasked with the care of the ward of Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Mysterious, but this book goes way beyond just a romance—as stated on the Penguin Classics edition’s blurb, Jane Eyre is a “passionate depiction of a woman’s search for equality and freedom” within a society which opposes her at every turn.
Brimming with gorgeous Gothic imagery and armed with a very compelling plot, I could not put this one down.
If you enjoyed Jane Eyre, you’ll probably like the rest of the Brontës’ works. I also loved Wuthering Heights.
*Note: as with many classics, from memory this one has some fairly questionable lines. We’ll have to accept the internalised misogyny as the result of its time, and these issues can also be great food for thought.
Comments Off on Barbenheimer: A Return to the Golden Age of Cinema
In the weeks preceding the simultaneous theatrical release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the internet was ablaze with the buzz of a double feature. Two starkly different feature films, two excellent directors, one release date; what was I to do but follow through?
At 10:45 am on release day I found myself at the cinema ready to embark on a 3-hour long escapade into the world of physics and catastrophic atomic bombs. Oppenheimer, an epic biographical thriller written and directed by Christopher Nolan, is based on the biography, American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The film follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist credited as the father of the atomic bomb.
The film consists of three storylines. First, a chronological biography of Oppenheimer’s life, which commences when he is a student at Cambridge and traverses through his professorship at Berkley and directorship of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos during WWII. This is intercut with the 1954 sham hearing concerning the revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance and the 1959 Secretary of Commerce Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss during the Eisenhower administration. Shot on 65-mm film, Nolan shifts between colour and black-and-white photography as a storytelling technique to portray Oppenheimer’s subjective perspective and an objective viewpoint respectively. Evidently, Nolan is advocating for the future of skilled filmmaking during an increasingly troubling time for cinema where short-cuts, CGI, and lazy cinematography have become the norm.
A star-studded cast delivers a magnificent performance. Even minor parts are played exceptionally by talented actors, including Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh. Cillian Murphy stars as the eponymous protagonist. His depiction of Oppenheimer ranges from a neurotic student to a confident professor to a conflicted engineer of the world’s most dangerous weapon. Emily Blunt plays Oppenheimer’s alcoholic wife, Kitty. She is magnetic and fierce, particularly when questioned during her husband’s hearing. Blunt’s delivery is so powerful that it transcends the loyal wife trope to a woman who is fervently protective and assured. Matt Damon, as Colonel Leslie Groves, also delivers a striking performance, making his presence felt in every scene he features in. Robert Downey Jr. plays Lewis Strauss relatively well, however, following the reveal that he was behind Oppenheimer’s sham hearing, his acting becomes a comical caricature of a villain. It is melodramatic at best.
From sweeping and beatific shots of the New Mexico landscape to the recurring nightmarish visuals of cosmic imagery, the cinematography is beautiful. This is supported by an exceptional film score by Ludwig Göransson. Music is a constant, ominous presence throughout the film that functions as an ode to the dangers of scientific advancement. The violin serves as a motif associated with the erratic and convulsive mind of Oppenheimer; its ability to switch between sentimentality to the horrific is uniquely apt for such a protagonist. The soft melodies of strings and the piano transition to a thunderous base as the film approaches its climax: Trinity. The booming soundtrack subsides, leaving the cinema in an eerily anticipatory quietude.
The gymnasium scene following the bomb dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a masterful moment of cinema where the sped-up editing depicts Oppenheimer’s collapsing worldview. The cheering of the crowd and the stamping of feet culminates in a chilling scream, a floor besmirched with ashes, and papery skin falling away. The film’s closing scene is also perfect. Flashing images of the cosmos, interspersed with shots of the bomb making process, and the crescendo of the violin all amounts to a finishing shot of Oppenheimer, in his signature fedora, jamming his eyes closed at the unbearableness of what he has created and the screen cutting to black.
While some critics have admonished the lack of Japanese perspective in the film, I believe that to be the correct choice, as depictions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be exploitative. Christopher Nolan rightfully understands that he is not the person to tell the story of the catastrophic destruction imposed upon the Japanese people. The film spares no one from critique, especially not Oppenheimer and the US government and military. A powerful moment occurs in one scene, where a military official opposes the targeting of Kyoto because of its cultural significance to the Japanese people and that he and his wife honeymooned there.
After watching Oppenheimer, I was exhausted. Sitting for three hours and staring up at an IMAX screen is tiring! But as 6:45 pm approached, I dragged myself out of bed and back to the cinema for Barbie. And I am glad I did. Barbie is a fantastical comedy based on the line of fashion dolls produced by Mattel. It is directed by Greta Gerwig and written by both Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.
Like Oppenheimer, Barbie has a stellar cast. Margot Robbie delivers a moving performance; she brings soul and humanity to a plastic doll as she transforms into a complex and emotional human. She is transcendent and radiant; she is Barbie. Likewise, Ryan Gosling was born to play Ken; he has perfect comedic timing. America Ferrara, as the Mattel employee Gloria, is magnificent. Her monologue is the beating heart of the film; it perfectly encapsulates the contradictory, impossible and messy reality of being a woman. “It’s too hard,” she says, and it is.
The film begins with a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the narrator – Helen Mirren – explains that once there were only baby dolls for girls to play with, confining them to the role of mothers from a young age. This changed with Barbie. As Margot Robbie pointed out during an interview, Barbie was extremely revolutionary as she went to the moon before women could own credit cards. Barbie could be anything and she was everything.
The film is effortlessly funny without being cringe, which apparently is a lot to ask these days. The comedy is well-timed, thoughtful, and effectual, so much so that the whole theatre erupted into laughter and applause several times. When Barbie is called a fascist, she tearfully quips, “I don’t control the railways!” I personally felt called out by the Depression Barbie advertisement, although I am miffed that anxiety and panic attacks are sold separately.
Following an existential crisis, Barbie and Ken journey to the Real World to repair the tear in the space time continuum. Barbie is immediately cat-called and sexually harassed, while Ken feels admired. Barbie Land is refreshingly magical and fantastical, while the Real World is a cesspool of misogyny. This is telling of the expectations and the reality of womanhood; we are constantly disappointed.
In the Real World, Ken discovers patriarchy, which he decides to implement in Barbie Land in response to Barbie’s romantic rejection – a commentary on the all too familiar extreme reactions by men to being friend zoned. Barbie returns to find that Barbie Land is now Ken-dom, that the dream houses have turned into mojo dojo casa houses, and that the Barbies have become the long-term long-distance casual low commitment girlfriends of the Kens. The only Barbies not affected by the Ken takeover are “either your brainwashed or weird and ugly”, the same insults that men fling upon women who refuse to fit within the status quo they have established. Eventually, the Barbies regain their power, using strategies like getting the Kens to play their guitars at them and mansplain Zack Snyder’s Justice League and how amazing The Godfather is (something I dare any man to try with me just so I can quip back, ‘Well since you love it so much have you read the book?’).
The film’s ending is extremely moving. Barbie decides to become human as a montage of the family and friends of the film’s cast and crew plays alongside Billie Eilish’s What Was I Made For? Ken also learns that he can exist without being an extension of Barbie. The film is filled with positive messaging that I wish I had been exposed to as a child. It is about female friendship, individuality, self-love, and confidence.
A central scene of the film is one that Mattel initially wished to remove. Barbie is sitting at a bus stop and sees a vision of Gloria with her daughter, Sasha. A single tear slides down her cheek as she feels the aching pain of being human. She then turns her head and sees an old woman for the first time and tells her she is so beautiful. The woman replies with, “I know it.” Barbie, who minutes earlier panicked at the prospect of cellulite, sees the beauty in aging. Similarly, every woman can see themselves in Barbie as she says, “I’m not good enough to be anything.” Pressure often seems insurmountable, but we forget that we surmount it every time. I can understand why conservatives like Ben Shapiro are so offended by Barbie; they want women to stay in their boxes, but what they do not understand is that we want more from life and Barbie shows us that we can have that.
Some viewers have reproached the film’s lack of intersectionality. However, personally, Barbie still made me feel seen. It was self-aware in its limitations. Plus, there is only so much that anyone can accomplish in a movie, and one of the critiques made by the film is how women are so often criticised for not doing enough and not being enough.
Truthfully, I was only really interested in seeing Barbie. Having played with Barbies as a child and having watched the movie catalogue religiously (top picks were always Princess Charm School and Barbie as the Island Princess), I was excited to enter the world of Pantone 219C. Without the double feature, I wouldn’t have seen Oppenheimer, and I’m glad I did. Both films are outstanding and left me feeling nostalgic of a time before films were merely insignificant sequels, unnecessary remakes, or a score of poor contributions made solely to expand a studio’s catalogue (read: MCU). Oppenheimer is an examination of a talented man’s dangerous creation, something that is incredibly relevant today with the ever-changing nature of AI. Barbie is a feminist blockbuster about womanhood, individuality, and friendship. Do yourself a favour and see them both. But, maybe not on the same day.
In the weeks preceding the simultaneous theatrical release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the internet was ablaze with the buzz of a double feature.
Comments Off on Clubscore’s Fantasy Museum of Trans Excellence and Portal to Other Dimensions
One of the most innovative and exciting elements to emerge from the Unchartered Territory festival is Clubscore’s Fantasy Museum of Trans Excellence and Portal to Other Dimensions.
The Fantasy Museum, located in the Kambri Gallery at ANU, is a free installation which acts as a portal, transporting guests to another dimension, in which openly trans and gender diverse people have always been included and celebrated in sport.
The museum allows guests to move through the space in their own time, and engage with the ‘artifacts’. These artifacts represent the sporting careers of imagined trans and gender diverse athletes from this fantasy universe of acceptance. The artifacts are historical, sensory and interactive, and at times funny. The installation invites viewers to “take a step back from the complexity of this reality” and focus on joy, inclusiveness and the possibilities of the future.
The Fantasy Museum is the brainchild of Clubscore, which is made up of Ketura Budd and Zev Aviv, two non-binary artists and sports fans. Clubscore, started in 2019, is a queer sports and art collective which aims to centre the experiences of trans and gender diverse people in sports, and the Fantasy Museum is the collective’s first public art work.
“Sadly there are not that many trans and gender diverse heroes, we wanted to highlight that” says Katura.
“But more importantly, we wanted to create something that is silly, and fun and joyful and imaginative, that invited people to use their own creativity to think about what the world would need to be like in order for trans and gender diverse people to actively participate in sport and be celebrated for that.”
And that’s precisely what the Fantasy Museum achieves. The space resembles a museum in the ways one might expect, but scattered throughout are careful and hidden elements of joy and creativity.
“I think because for queer people, particularly for trans people, our lives and participation are debated constantly and it’s really exhausting, and so we wanted to create a space for joy. For queer joy, and for trans joy. We wanted to create a space that felt as safe as possible for trans people, and I guess a bit of respite from the debate and from the pressure that’s put on us all the time to prove ourselves and have these arguments that are really taxing.”
The installation leans strongly into the concepts of ‘other dimensions’ and portals, and this creativity oozes out of the installation – literally and metaphorically. The exhibition is interactive, inviting guests to choose from an array of items and insert their own trans fantasy historical figures into the museum.
“I don’t really enjoy making work that doesn’t have a conversational element to it. I always want to know what the response is and I want to know what it stirs or what it creates for the people who are interacting with it” says Katura.
The Fantasy Museum is free to visit and open 12:00 – 5:00 pm upstairs at the Kambri Gallery, every day until Sunday the 16th.
There are also free workshops on Saturday, one is ‘sporty’ and one is ‘crafty’. You can either register or just rock up.
On Sunday night there will also be an “Opening Ceremony for Queer Futures”, which Katura describes as an opening ceremony for “all of the queer futures”. This ceremony aims to celebrate the opening of the “portal” and call into being a world in which openly trans and gender diverse people are included and celebrated in sport.
The ceremony will include drag performances, fun playlists to boogie too, and be an overall “cute, daggy, fun event”.
One of the most innovative and exciting elements to emerge from the Unchartered Territory festival is Clubscore’s Fantasy Museum of Trans Excellence and Portal to Other Dimensions.