THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
Malthouse Theatre acknowledges the Land and Songlines of the Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Kulin Nation.
The Lockdown Monologues were supported by The Malcolm Robertson Foundation. First published August 2020 by Malthouse Theatre. Š Copyright All rights whatsoever in this text are strictly reserved. Neither this PDF (digital document) nor its printed copies may otherwise be copied, distributed, emailed, stored or saved on a shared or public server or file service, in whole or in part, without the express prior written permission of the Authors. Any performance or public reading of The Lockdown Monologues is forbidden unless a licence has been received from the Authors or the Authors agents. All applications for public performance should be address to Malthouse Theatre, admin@malthousetheatre.com.au, Aurora Artists’ Management Pty Ltd, justine@auroraartists.com and HLA Management, hla@hlamgt.com.au.
THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES BY / JANE HARRISON, TOM HOLLOWAY & JEAN TONG
02—— INTRODUCTION 03—— CAST & CREATIVES 03—— ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 04—— THE CLOWN 08—— PING 12—— COCOONING 16—— BETTER, TEMPORARILY 19—— CAT LADY SANS CAT 23—— THE DRUMMER 27—— THE SINGER 31—— AT YOUR OWN PERIL 35—— WHAT MATTERS
INTRODUCTION / WHEN COVID-19 HIT AND THE THEATRES SHUT WE DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO RESPOND. All of a sudden we weren’t able to gather, everyone kept saying the word ‘unprecedented’, arts and culture ground to a halt—but something huge was happening that we wanted to talk about. From our little fortresses of isolation, we wanted to hear from each other. We wanted to know how other people were coping, what they were experiencing. And so we conceived of a work that would draw out those stories. Our playwrights, Jane Harrison, Tom Holloway and Jean Tong spent weeks finding interview subjects, speaking to them, and then developing short monologue scripts to be performed online from actors’ homes. The work they created over a series of months has become a time capsule of how this virus and the experience of lockdown impacted ordinary people. We started making The Lockdown Monologues thinking we would unearth explosive, wild stories, but as the writers worked they discovered that something else was coming to the surface—that in our collective containment and isolation there was a shared experience of pressure, uncertainty, and vulnerability. We didn’t know when we started this project that we would be living in this state for the greater part of 2020. In this collection of nine works it’s clear that the COVID-19 pandemic changed and continues to change us. We’re familiar with global change— natural disasters, wars, things that are quick, delineated, and visible. This was different. Being in lockdown gave us a moment to pause. It made people start looking back outwards at the world with greater clarity, greater conviction. Lockdown became an opportunity to see where we’ve come from, what’s missing, and to name the kind of society we each want to see when we come back out. There’s no doubt that we’re changing, that we have changed. This project was our attempt to capture that transformation as it was first occurring. Bridget Balodis / Director Page 2
CAST & CREATIVES /
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS /
The Lockdown Monologues were commissioned and first produced by Malthouse Theatre. The first performance was online via live stream on 3 June (Part One), 17 June (Part Two) and 3 July 2020 (Part Three). The cast and creatives were as follows:
THE WRITERS WISH TO THE THANK AYU ASTRID MAYLINDA, MELISSA HO, CHRIS WALL, ADRIAN DEL-RE, ANTOINETTE BARBOUTTIS, CLEMENCE WILLIAMS, JAMES GALES, JENNIFER MEDWAY, MATILDA HOULIHAN, JYNICE ONG, LEE-LIN LOH, RACHEL RUI QIAN LEE, REIS LOW, ROBBIE, RONNI, RAY, KAMARRA BELL-WYKES, JASON TAMIRU, AND ALL THOSE THAT GAVE UP THEIR TIME AND PERSONAL STORIES TO HELP WITH THIS PROJECT.
CAST / IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE Daniel Schlusser Sophie Ross Harry Tseng Margot Tanjutco Maude Davey John Marc Desengano Emma J Hawkins Bernard Sam Lisa Maza DIRECTORS / Bridget Balodis Kamarra Bell-Wykes Ra Chapman DRAMATURG / Mark Pritchard PRODUCER / Annie Bourke BROADCAST OPERATOR / Brendan Jellie TECHNICAL MANAGER / Baird McKenna PRODUCTION MANAGER / David Miller PRODUCTION COORDINATOR / Tia Clark
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
THE CLOWN BY / TOM HOLLOWAY
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A CLOWN appears. Laid out on a table in front of him are all the things he needs to apply his clown makeup, including a small bowl of water, soap and a towel for washing and drying their face. So, I’ve been thinking about your question and yeah, I think it would be good. Fun. For you. To meet him. And it’s been way too long. Maybe seven weeks? Nine even? I don’t know. You know? The CLOWN looks off screen, and then back. Oh. And my daughters… My teenage daughters… They’re watching too, if that’s okay? If you’re all right with that? Back to the daughters. You two… Come and say hi. Don’t be losers. They don’t come. I want them to see me do this. Be here for this. He lays the cleaners and makeup out just as he likes, but he doesn’t apply. You know, I was doing this three-times a day, six days a week, ten months a year. Applying. Preparing. Performing. Removing. The CLOWN wets a flannelette. And I have to do it fresh for each show, because the clown is the clown. He doesn’t put a load of washing on. Or make lunch. Or clean the caravan. Or teach the kids. The clown doesn’t sit on the loo to do the daily... Unless that’s part of the act and… I don’t know… Maybe glitter shoots out the back of the prop toilet as he… The CLOWN stops. The CLOWN writes the idea down in his CLOWN IDEAS book. The CLOWN comes back to us. And so, when you do it three times a day it becomes a kind of… Me…. These things in front of me… Sure, there would be others around changing costumes or limbering up or dressing one of the llamas, but I feel like I am alone. Every time. Like, you know those blurry pictures… Like how cars at night become blurs of light. Like how a whale’s heart beats four-to-eight times a minute, which must blur its whole idea of time and do you ever think about that? I do. Heart beats… Animals… I think about it a lot, so… I started hanging out with the clown when I was fourteen and… Well, now I’m fifty-one. Which is thirty-seven years. Which is four hundred and forty months. Which is thirteen thousand, five hundred and fourteen and a quarter days. The CLOWN finally starts cleaning his face. So, I should probably say that I don’t know what this is going to be like. For the girls. For you. Seeing the clown come… And into this world with people everywhere at home. In their homes. Loving it. Hating it. Or sick or scared Page 5
or angry or dying. People… The world… And him in here… The CLOWN looks at the stuff. The CLOWN looks to his daughters. The CLOWN looks back to his stuff. The CLOWN starts applying the makeup. Teaching kids… Home schooling… I’ve done it their whole lives, but it’s tough, you know? You need routine. They need it. For sanity. I make them wear uniforms so that school time can be school time. To keep us all sane, which is hard to do at times, but getting to see your kids change in front of your eyes as they realise something new about the world, or maybe help you realise something new about your world… Well that can be… I mean you learn… And this time… This thing… It’s making us closer right? And it feels amazing and great and really great and we’re all loving it here, I think. To the girls. Huh? No. I’m fine. Back to us. I wish they’d let me put them on camera so you could see how big and strong and amazing they are because these two are probably the most the most the most amazing thing in my whole the most really amazing thing that I I I can’t find the words to… He looks to the girls… You two are. No. I mean it. He looks back to us. Routine is important. For the travel… The shows… And then the act too. Gags have to land and wonder really needs to hit the mark. That’s what clowns are aiming for… Giving back wonder and joy and happiness and laughs to those leading ‘real lives’. The girls… Just listen. Back to us… Teachers. Doctors. Cops. Cleaners. People with real, essential jobs doing real, essential things... Jobs that matter… Lives that mean things… It is our responsibility to give them joy so they can have a break from their lives. I do what I do what I do so all of them can do what they what they do except now they’re having to do what they do without me and I don’t know I don’t I don’t know how it feels like they probably need us more than ever but we can’t we’re not allowed to we’re not it’s dangerous for us to do our jobs I mean it’s dangerous and what I know this is selfish but what am I supposed to do how am I supposed to cope the clown shouldn’t be in a crappy little flat the clown shouldn’t be on a laptop the clown shouldn’t be cooped up and locked down and left out to dry or the the clown the clown the clown we should be together us humans sharing time sharing space hearts beating together you feel it in the ring when the crowd is all heaving as one Page 6
it doesn’t always happen sometimes it’s hell really hell like I want it all to stop but when it does work when we’re all working when we’re all lifted we’re all growing together like the the the murmur of fucking swallows that happens to us too and we need it to I need it to I need it I’m blurred I’m beating I’m blurred I’m... The girls have stood up. What? Where are you going? I’m fine. No, don’t… Please? I have to say… I have to tell you that… But they go. ARGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!! The CLOWN hasn’t finished his makeup. The CLOWN stops applying. The CLOWN streaks the makeup he’s applied all over his face and hands. One-hundred-and-fifteen to six-hundred-and-seventy beats-per minute. The CLOWN pulls out a bottle of whiskey. He drinks. A lot. Sorry. I should probably… He slams the lid of his computer down.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
PING BY / JEAN TONG
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The PARALEGAL works late into the night at home, hunched over their laptop. They speak with the brazen confidence of someone older and more powerful, but this masks a buried anxiety. The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. 12 new emails. That’s what happens when you take a 15-minute break for dinner. I work at a major law firm. You’ve heard of us. I’m a paralegal there, which is basically a glorified word processor. My entire life is font size and margins and punctuation. And emails like this. ‘Brief by 9am tomorrow.’ Thanks Martin, you’ve also told me this on Slack and by text, and in the daily Zoom meeting. When my seniors send something by email, it’s just, ‘this is what I feel – send’. They forget there’s a human being on the other end. Getting these is like going through that laser beam obstacle in every heist movie you see. The emails are laser beams, obviously. Cause they sting. The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. Zap zap bitch. ‘Where’s the client correspondence? Reminder high profile, URGENT. ASAP.’ That’s in all caps. The PARALEGAL leans back, rubs her eyes, sighs. I never thought I’d miss sniffing someone else’s armpits on the morning commute, but I do. As soon as the scale of the virus became clear, the firm pivoted to restructuring and insolvency, so we’re thriving. Maybe thriving too much? Yesterday one of my senior associates had her first meal in two days – 48 hours. Which is why lowly lil’ me is still going through these documents – The PARALEGAL holds up a thick stack of papers, checks on-screen clock. – at [current time during monologue]. You didn’t see the name did you? Good. The client a major airline that hasn’t been profitable for eight years. Without government support, it’s going to a new owner. Probably come back with a facelift. Hopefully it’ll come back. Otherwise we’ll have just one national carrier, and we all know how monopolies work… Those are my personal feelings, obviously. The firm is just here to protect the directors and to protect the value of the company. Which usually involves preventing the directors getting sued or going to jail. Generally speaking, anyway. I am in no way suggesting this is currently happening for this airline. The PARALEGAL returns to squinting at their documents. Page 9
However, this font size 5 here. Always a sign someone doesn’t want someone else to see something. One of the things we do is make sure small shareholders are ‘crammed down’. This means finding ways to force an investor to accept that their shares are worth jack. By the time we come in, every single person has become a number on the balance sheet, and some numbers are more important than others. Corporate value is number one. And that’s sad, truly sad. It’s hard being around such ugly talk all the time. Sometimes, the shareholders are people who invested their pension fund, but the way we talk about them is like. ‘They should have prepped for the worst. Never assume returns. Nothing is forever.’ Is it that stupid to be hopeful? The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. They get visibly antsy. ‘Summary on dividend payout research?’ I sent that yesterday, check your inbox before you come after me, you old bag… In law school, I thought I would save the world. Hah. We’re all just corporate bodyguards with crippling anxiety. Sometimes it’s hard. Blocking everything out. I have to be like one of those horses with the blockers? Blinders. Shit – that’s it. I’m a workhorse. A typesetting workhorse trying to navigate a laser obstacle. Have to ignore the human cost. Mortgage to pay? Corporate value. Credit card debt? Corporate value. How am I going to do this one more day? Corporate value. I used to picture myself quitting. Throwing a plant through the boardroom windows. Pissing on the nice Persian carpets in the foyer. Pissing on the stupid named partner merch. All the… fancy paper. Not the same in my own house. You know what would really – if I sent these [holds up documents] to The Guardian or something. Now that. That would really be. The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. I could. The PARALEGAL stares at their screen. A moment. The PARALEGAL opens the email. ‘Dear all, I’ve just had the chance to read… Thank you for all your work picking up… Special thank you to.’ Oh. ‘Special thank you to [actor name] for the many late hours! Regards.’ The PARALEGAL leans back. A long-ish pause. Page 10
This role is the garbage collecting of the legal world. I do so much small shit that feels invisible, but in the grand scheme of things, if no one takes the garbage out… And if I can prove myself during crunch time, then… Long-term goals, right? The fact is we all gotta make money. The PARALEGAL looks back at the email. ‘Special thank you’. The PARALEGAL’s laptop pings. They sigh. They’d just get another me if I left, anyway.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
COCOONING BY / JANE HARRISON
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The ANAESTHETIST, mid-forties, clean-shaven, speaks directly to camera. He’s going through the steps to don PPE. One. Wash hands thoroughly. Two. Go into the next room. The donning and doffing room. Three. Take off any jewellery that could puncture the suit. Wedding band is fine. Four. Any loose hair is tied back. Five. Latex gloves. Six. The mask. Seven. Put on the suit. Eight. Tie the suit up at the back. Nine. Suit’s secured at the wrists and neck. Ten. Make a small tag on the zipper with duct tape so it’s easier to pull down when I’m finished. Eleven. Boots. Non-slip. Twelve. Make sure the pant legs are over the boots. Thirteen. You can actually be infected through the eyes. So I went to Bunnings. Most of the population was also at Bunnings, 1.5 metres apart. And I grabbed some goggles. They’re handyman ones but they’ll do. Thirteen. Put on the goggles. Fourteen. Put on the mask. Curved bit at the bottom. Fifteen. Put on the respirator. In Italy people were using snorkels Sixteen. Pull the hood of the suit over the respirator. Seventeen. Put on the shield over the mask and respirator. Make sure you can see. And breathe. That’s what I do. Help people breathe. I’m an anaesthetist. It’s not about ‘knocking people out’, it’s about keeping them breathing through an op, or if they have a serious illness. Like now. Eighteen. I put on the second pair of gloves and I’m sterile. Eighteen steps. It takes, maybe eleven minutes? The first time it took twenty-three. Back in March, it was frantic. Ordering PPE. As much as we could. From wherever we could get it. Order more respirators. Daily. Hourly. Page 13
Did we have enough drugs? What drugs? Talking with colleagues overseas. Heard about the new symptom? What? Thinking. Improvising. The face always reading ‘calm’. Can’t let the mask slip. Planning. How are we going to keep our staff safe? When I read the stats on frontline health workers overseas who have died... Or passed it on to their families… How could you live with that? Briefing the staff. One of the nurses is pregnant. She’s terrified. They were long days. Then I was up half the night. Watching the reports from Italy. Iran. Seeing the photos of New York. The makeshift hospitals. Mass graves like something from a third world genocide. In New York. Boning up on topics I hadn’t touched since my residency. Not sleeping. But I knew I’d have to be back on my toes the next day. Clive came in yesterday for an emergency op. Severed finger. Nothing to do with COVID. We asked the usual questions – any symptoms? He had been unwell, he said, but was on the mend. Maybe the flu? No one thought he had it. But we tested. And PPEd up for the op. Even though it’s a palaver and slows everything down. Before he went under, Clive joked that he’d bought his own toilet paper and a spare roll for the doctor who saved his finger. Or his life? I said, it won’t come to that, but if it does, I’d be happy to accept. Clive also said he loved to ten-pin bowl so that finger was really important. The surgeon said he’d have him bowling in no time. It was straightforward. Re-attached the finger with no issues. Yesterday Clive was joking with us. Overnight he was moved to ICU. He has COVID. This morning he needed to be intubated. Urgently. In my hazmat suit, I step into the theatre. The nurse already has the IV line in. I put an oxygen mask on him, so his lungs have a reserve. You use intubation when the patient, like Clive, is struggling to breathe. Once they’re out cold, you don’t have much time. Which is why the residents get anxious about the procedure. You take hold of the handle of the laryngoscope. You tilt the patient’s head back slightly. You angle the blade of the laryngoscope down the throat. Making sure not to make contact with the teeth. You ease the tube past the epiglottis – that’s the flap that protects the larynx and stops food going down your windpipe – and into the trachea. That’s the tricky bit. Once the tube is in a small balloon inflates to keep it in place. You remove the laryngoscope. The nurse tapes the tube to the corner of his mouth. Page 14
Then you inflate the lungs with a hand held bag to make sure both are inflating evenly. Finally, you attach the ventilator. It forces air, with added oxygen, into the depleted lungs. You’re monitoring throughout. Checking that the levels of oxygen are not too low, and CO two is not too high. Otherwise you can damage the heart and brain. Once intubated the ICU nurse watches over the patient for the rest of their shift, when another ICU nurse takes over. They can go down so quickly. Unexpectedly. Randomly. I hope Clive pulls through. He’ll be in ICU for at least a week. Then in quarantine. His family won’t be allowed to see him. I’ve had to speak to a number of family members who just don’t get it. Especially if their loved one is close to death. ‘Why can’t I see my boy?’ The risk’s too great. But I’m sure Clive will survive. Will he come good with the offer of the bog roll? Not sure. I might have to face off with the surgeon, who did a very neat job on his finger. I’ve been in a serviced apartment for two months. Eating Mee Goreng noodles like I’m back at Uni. My wife and I agreed I should isolate. Every night, no matter what kind of day I’ve had, I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to my son Ollie. He’s three and it’s his favourite book. He holds it up to the screen and waves it about, so it’s hard to read and he corrects me if I get it wrong. But I know it off by heart. I love the bit where the caterpillar finally emerges from its cocoon as a butterfly, but Ollie just likes all the eating it does. So we use that – ‘eat your broccoli just like the hungry caterpillar does’. I ordered a toy caterpillar online and had it sent here. I’m excited to give it to him. He can do some imaginative play with it. I’m keen to go home. But… I need to be sure I’m not putting them in danger My wife agrees. Tonight I told her about the toy and she said… he’s over that. He discovered dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus? I love them! No, she says. Triceratops. Definitely, adamantly, and very specifically, Triceratops. He breaths out, like a release of tension. If I could sum it up? We prepared for the worst. It didn’t happen. It’s the best anti-climax we could have had. Page 15
THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
BETTER, TEMPORARILY BY / JEAN TONG Page 16
The GAMER is gentle, even shy – the camera is their enemy. A nerd in the sense that they don’t try to be anything they’re not. They play on their Nintendo Switch as they speak, increasingly drawn to the game over speaking. I don’t want lockdown to end. I’ve had a lot of free time that I didn’t have before. Cause I lost my job when everything. You know. But I’ve been playing a lot of Animal Crossing, so. That has been nice. Animal Crossing is a game on Nintendo Switch. It’s basically an über-cute feudal system where you build up your getaway island. You play a little character version of yourself – I went through this evolution of like, the ‘me’ in Animal Crossing, I wanted it to look exactly like me, then I wanted it to look exactly not like me, then I circled back and now it looks like the kind of me that I want to be, but am maybe a bit too scared to be in real life? That’s something I’m not doing a lot at the moment. Putting on new outfits for things. I’m gonna need to again, soon… You can custom design your outfits in the game – pixel by pixel. Some people are recreating designer looks that you can then download for free. I get this weirdly intense pleasure of dressing my me in Rick Owens or Prada or exclusive Nikes or whatever that I would just never be able to afford. But here I can deck out my me for free, and just run around looking so fucking cool. Sometimes the in-game villagers will even comment, like, wow, you’re wearing ‘Adidas A24 Cap’ by ‘ettoi’ – that’s the user who made the custom design – which really makes me feel like the villagers are responding to the actual me. The writing’s just really – wow, you know? Like, my birthday was last month, and my villagers threw me a surprise birthday party with balloons and cake and confetti and everything! And then when I went to leave, Carrie, my favourite villager, she’s a kangaroo with a baby joey in her pouch, she said something like ‘Oh, is it that time already!’. And it sounds stupid – but. That really hit me in the feels. It felt like my friends being like, ‘don’t go, I’ll miss you’. A moment. I mostly play solo. Been playing… Upwards of 6 hours a day? I should be looking for another job. I’m on Jobseeker but. That’s all going to end soon… To be honest… I’m probably playing 8 or 9 hours right now. If only someone would pay me to play Animal Crossing. I’ve been doing a lot of landscaping on my island. I think I’d really enjoy working on designing public space in real life. Actually, some people have figured out how to make real money. They’re selling rare furniture, and then they use the custom clothing app to make QR codes, which people who want the furniture can scan to send money… There’s a particular kitchen set called the ironwood kitchen set, and it’s stunning, Page 17
with wooden surfaces but black iron frames, and it looks so modern and sophisticated – everyone is on the hunt for it. It does feel a bit like the black market. I don’t really do that. I mostly play to tune out from real life. A lull – they focus on something in-game. You know what’s weird though? I was walking along the other day and I saw this stick that was shaped exactly like the sticks in the game – it’s a very specific looking stick – and I had this moment where I was like, pick it up! I gotta pick that up! That’s when you know you’ve been playing too much. It’s not like separate worlds – I do experience real life satisfaction. Like when I pay off my home loans that the overlord Tom Nook gives me. It’s just millions and millions of Bells that I can pay off in my own time. Interest free. Which is funny because I’ll never own a house in real life. Much less a two-storey, 3-bedroom house with a basement. That’s probably why something like the ironwood kitchen set got so popular. We’ll never get that in real life. Beat. I used to wake up feeling guilty, ask myself what can I do to take another step forward, take another step forward. Stop wasting your life. But actually, this whole thing has nothing to do with me. So right now I’m just letting myself be happy. I put so much time into this game but it’s full of tiny miracles, which you can only find by putting so much time in. The rewards feel so detailed and kind of endless, and if I can find one of those new little miracles each day, or just notice something in the world that I’ve never noticed before – then I can leave feeling like I have achieved something. Yesterday it was the slow sunset that started around 5.30pm – I got this orange glow that was so stunning – like the real-life sunsets you get where it makes everything a little too sharp and like the world is about to get set on fire but it’s still beautiful. I stood on the beach and turned the volume up. The sound of the waves breaking, crashing… the wind through the palm trees, that incredible orange glow… It was like I was there. The GAMER has turned away from the camera, and is now fully focussed on the game.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
CAT LADY SANS CAT BY / JANE HARRISON Page 19
WOMAN, in her early sixties, is sorting through dresses as she talks to the camera. All these dresses. And yet I’m living in trackies. Like the rest of the world. And one of Toni’s old Fair Isle jumpers. I’ve let myself go… Lets down her hair from bun. Puzzled look. A dreadlock. Crap. It happens incrementally – and Iso makes it so much easier. Hair colour growing out? ‘Transitioning’ to elegant grey. The trackies? I bet even Boris Johnson did them. You start showering every second day, then third. Ah. Saving water. Even if trackies have a little bit of widdle from when you sneezed. Before you know it… You’re like that woman who came down from the hills once a year to have a haircut. The hairdresser pulled her bun down, and there was a nest of cockroaches in it. Urban myth? I don’t think so. It’s the underlying fear. Ask any woman of a certain age who lives alone. Descent into ‘Cat Lady’ territory. Ugghhhh. Not me. I prefer dogs. Although cats don’t eat the face off their owner when they’ve died. Alone. That’s the other fear… I love clothes. I’ve loved them since I was a kid Even though they were mostly hand-me-downs. Apart from when my best friend’s mother made us matching dresses. People would ask, are you twins? Except she was pretty. My best friend’s mother, Mrs Norton, was a dressmaker who worked from home. She loved gossip. Her clients would tell her stories, then she’d tell us. One client… Apparently, this lady’s kitchen window overlooked the neighbour’s overgrown garden. But he’d cut this niche in the bushes so that the lady could see him. And, basically, he’d flash his willie at her. I’m sure that story’s true. Cos I used to see that fella with his willie, like a pink salami, hanging out of his shorts. Maybe oddballs were tolerated more in those days? Page 20
Or maybe that lady and her neighbour – maybe they were both lonely, and maybe they had an unspoken agreement? There’s characters in the city too. My favourite homeless person – if you’re allowed to have a favourite – is Fay. She bunkers down near the Library. I try to stop and say a few words and slip her a few dollars. She never asks, except once. She wanted some lip gloss for her cracked lips. I was on my way to Big W so she hooked her arm in mine. I had a moment of – wooo – that was before the war on germs – but I scolded myself – and off we went. Actually, I’m glad she tucked her arm in mine. It was nice. I think she got a strawberry lip gloss. Some days I sit on my balcony. Have you noticed how the native birds have come back to the city? Shrieking and warbling. They start so early, when all I want to do is sleep. But the pigeons and seagulls? They’ve vanished. None on the library steps. Maybe they’ve starved to death. The city’s so quiet. Was it Ava Gardner who said Melbourne was the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world? But I did see a fox. I miss the buzz. I miss… criss-crossing the lanes on the way to work. Past the old Greek shoe repairer. The cafe where the girl with the face tattoos almost knows my order. She looks at me… as if I am just an old woman who’s had a dull life. No. I did crazy things when I was her age. Naughty things, even. I was a punk with blue hair. I guess I am a dull middle aged woman. Who works in a library. Well, I did work at the library... I got laid off. I don’t feel I should be looking for another job when there’s so many young people out there looking. Like the girl with the face tattoos. So. No job, but I’m keeping busy. I’ve tossed out all the old out of date spices. Recipes ripped from magazines. I put a stack of paperbacks in the little library. Thanking them, Kondo-style, with gratitude for their service.
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The bedroom’s the last and hardest room. The wardrobe’s the last and hardest task. Hard enough doing my side... All these dresses... Swishy, colourful dresses. Even as a punk I couldn’t do all black. Too many when I’m living in trackies. When would I ever wear them? When I hardly leave the flat. I did have one excursion during the lockdown. A friend knocked on my door. I was shocked. Wasn’t expecting him, or anyone. Didn’t know what to say. He was going for a walk… did I want to join him? We walked through the gardens. We chatted. About the state of the world. All the upheaval… Afterwards, we had a G&T on his verandah and his wife asked me how I was going, like really? I brushed it off. When I got up to leave he and his wife went ‘bugger it’, and hugged me. Like an electric shock. My eyes filled with tears. It’d been so long since anyone had touched me. It’s five months since Toni died… We’d been together 26 years. I’m tactile. We used to hold hands watching TV. I wake up at 1am and I roll over to the slight indentation in the mattress. I’m not afraid of grief but I’m not wallowing in it. She stops folding. I can edit the dresses. But I can’t clean out that side of the wardrobe. Not even Toni’s old shirts that are missing buttons… They spark joy. And longing. They still smell of Toni. Very faintly. I don’t have to wear the Fair Isle jumper every day. I’m not a ‘Cat Lady’. Not a ‘Cockroach Lady’ either. But I could get a rabbit. And call it Alfonso. And – I could stroke its ears while I watch TV.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
THE DRUMMER BY / TOM HOLLOWAY Page 23
The TEACHER joins the meeting, fiddling with a drumstick. Hi, mate. The TEACHER reads a message. Your camera and mic? Dude, you’ve gotta get a new computer. The TEACHER reads a message. No. We should do it today. And I really want to talk to you, so it’s okay. This is how I was teaching anyway. The TEACHER reads a message. They’re teenagers and they were just in their bedrooms and sometimes probably in their pyjamas, so we thought… You know… No cameras… So, an icon just appeared when they log on and I just talk at the blank screen. Sometimes, to test if they were really there, I’d slip into a bit of French or I say something like ‘it’s really unfair that Saddam Hussein isn’t remembered for his romantic novels’, but they never said anything. The TEACHER reads a message. Four love stories set in Ancient Iraq. The TEACHER reads a message. Look, I didn’t want to say this in my text to you, but I want to talk today, because… Well, he died this morning. The TEACHER reads a message. Just a text, but would you want to have to make twenty calls saying the words over and over? No thanks. And we’ve all been waiting for it for weeks anyway, because it started way back before lockdown. The TEACHER reads a message. Peter. The TEACHER still plays with the drumstick. He was told that his condition was deteriorating and that he’d have to go into hospital right back when this was all kicking off. We were still at school and in a bit of a panic. Most of us teachers didn’t want to be there at all, especially in the humanities. I don’t know why we felt it more than the sciences or maths, or RE, but we really did. The TEACHER reads a message. He was told he had to go in and that would mean he wouldn’t come out, but because of the virus he’d only be allowed one visitor. Not one at a time. I mean he had to nominate the one person who could come in and see him. It was his wife, of course, but… Well… He’s got two kids. Six and three. And she’s pregnant with the third. So, the last few months of his life he hasn’t been able to see either of his kids and she’s had to wear a mask the whole time, and they weren’t allowed to touch or kiss while he lay there, dying and God knows what it’s like going into a Page 24
hospital right now when you’re pregnant to visit your dying husband and you can’t touch him. You can’t even kiss him. You’re not even allowed to hold his hand. And how do you go back home each day and talk to your kids and tell them about how they’re daddy is dying and no, they can’t see him and no, they will never get to see him again and no, they might not even get to go to his funeral because if they go to then his own parents might not be able to go because of the restrictions in place. The TEACHER reads a message. I’m fine. Sorry. I took the day off, so, it’s good to get all this out. And you’re a mate. The TEACHER, still playing with the drumstick, realises something. We’re going to have to tell the kids. Maybe some of them are getting told today. The ones that are back. And others are going to have to find out through their blank computer screens that the greatest teacher they’ll ever have has… The TEACHER grabs a second drumstick and plays with both. Let me tell you about Pete. If I can? About what he means. Meant. When you’re in a classroom and you’re struggling, and the kids are bored or lost or whatever it is, it can be really hell, but not for Peter. I saw this when I started here and I observed his classes. He’d sense he was losing the room and an idea would come to him and he’d find… I don’t know… A different way to communicate… Some tiny change… Yes, he’d aim it at the smart kids first, because it can be hard to be much brighter than your peers. You can turn in on yourself and your intelligence can become a burden, which is one of the saddest things I can possibly imagine. So, he’d turn to these bright kids and… I don’t know… I don’t really know what he did… It might have even just been that he changed the way he was talking or something. Anyway, it would spark something in one of them, and the kids around them would pick up on it and then the kids around them and the kids around them and you could feel it spread through the whole class like… Like… I don’t know… A murmur or… Like swallows, and… And he did that. And before I knew it this bored class of teenagers was all suddenly completely engaged and getting high on the feeling of it, and I felt it too. I would laugh. Out aloud. Everyone would stop and look at me, the new guy watching at the back of the class, and they would all laugh too because we all knew that Pete had suddenly put this fire in us. You understand? The kids were feeling the thrill of learning, and that’s what teaching is all about. No. That’s what leading is all about. And this world… I don’t mean to sound pessimistic even though it is my natural state. I was a drummer in an instrumental dark pop band, so… You know… But this goddamned ‘war is peace… who controls the past controls the future’ goddamned Big Brother 2020 world is in dire need of… I mean, these goddamned men… And it is men. It is the male leaders who are really caning us. It’s not Jacinda. It’s not Angela. It’s the fucking Donalds and Boris’ and let’s not forget the Hawaiian holiday here. And so, where are the good ones? Where are the ones lifting us up? Getting us excited and engaged and wanting to be part of the effort to… Shit… I don’t know… To improve. As a man who has to stand in front of people and try to inspire them, where are the men to inspire me?? I mean I hate talking like this because I prefer complaining about how fucked everything is because it’s easy to complain about how fucked everything is. Risk comes from standing out and standing up and fighting for some kind of Page 25
optimistic… hopeful… And I’m not usually one of those kinds of people, but Pete… He was one of those rare, amazing, special, once-in-a-generation-kinds-of-fucking men that we’re desperate for right now and he… He… He… He… Him… Dying… That is cruel. That is unfair. While all these goddamn narcissistic, greedy, sociopathic See You Next Tuesdays tear our world down and... Worse... Profit off it, Pete’s had to say goodbye to his kids and not get to kiss his wife and not get to see his baby born and not get to go on and make the kind of change to the world that only someone like him could have really… The TEACHER stops for a moment. Look, I should… I think I should go into school after all. I should go and talk to the kids. A message comes back. Yeah. You’re right. I should be saying all this to the kids. The TEACHER is about to go, but… Oh, can you take the swearing out? I got a bit carried away. The TEACHER reads a message and smiles and shakes his head. The TEACHER reads a message and smiles and nods and goes.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
THE SINGER BY / TOM HOLLOWAY
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We see the OPERA SINGER. She’s weaving something from a handful of long dry grass. It’s hard to see what. I’d just moved to Freiburg to join the company on a two-year contract and so I’d got to town, found somewhere to live and leapt on into rehearsals for a couple of big chorus works. Normally you don’t think twice about spending your days in a big old rehearsal room with fifty or sixty other people or having lunch in the canteen with them and the other eighty-odd from the orchestra, or even being in the theatre at night… Fifteen hundred in the audience… The orchestra in the pit… Stage filled with my new singing buddies… then backstage, maybe another twenty or thirty crew… She weaves a particularly difficult bit, and then keeps going. Eventually the news got out about the virus and then a few people were turning up with the sniffles and then the company thought one or two tests should probably be done and before you knew it, it was right there, in our corridors, and all around our grand house, and… Well… Before I knew it I had the sniffles too. There was a lot of nittering and nattering at the house, so I just took myself off to the doctors and did the test myself, and, of course, you guessed it. She stops weaving for a second and breathes in and then breathes out. I like working. Being busy. Working hard. One of my favourite things about working in opera is the need to be at it all the time, day and night, performance after performance, making sure each evening is as good as the last… Each show is as strong as the one you did yesterday… There’s a kind of meditation to it all, sure, but it’s also just a whole lot of hard work and I like having to do a whole lot of hard work. I guess I was a bit annoyed at my test result, you see… I’d just moved to this town ready to hit the ground hard and then I was kinda suddenly in lockdown in my new tiny apartment with nothing to do. I was wanting to sing. I needed to keep practising, at least, and I was calling the rehearsal director day after day… Give me more music… Send me more scores… Let me use this time… Help me keep working… But what I was told to do, what the doctor told me and what Freiburg ended up telling me, was just lie down and rest a while. That’s it. Lie there. Someone like me… And they were right, of course. You can’t sing when your lungs are infected… You can’t perform if you can’t breathe right… And I mean I didn’t want to die from the thing. I’m young and healthy, so it was unlikely to do me much harm, but if I pushed myself too much or put too much strain on my pulmonary system, then Page 28
really who knew what might’ve happened. How would that be? Some tragic opera singer dying alone of 21st century consumption in a tiny apartment in a tiny German city?! It’s an odd kind of sensation for a singer to lie there and feel this thing in your lungs and to picture what it must look like in there when you’re used to imagining it pure and clear and strong and resonant. Knowing that it is… I don’t know… Rotten. Rotting. Yeah, I didn’t like lying there so much. I talked to my priests through zoom… My old family one and my new German one. My friends from church back home too and my new friends there in Germany too… There was also this nice man from the opera, the pianist. He would drop food boxes around at my door and we’d talk through the keyhole for an hour or two, just sitting on the ground and talking together about music. About life. About how great it is to be surrounded by people and music and, for folks like us, God too. I read books as well. Scores… Librettos… Music… I listened to music. Listened to podcasts. Listened to the radio. Listened to sermons… Philosophical programs… Poetry… All of it. Why not, right? It’s all humans grappling with being humans, after all. And so, I thought a lot. About us. About who we are. Or more about why we gather like we do. Why we want to be around so many of our fellow homo sapien sapiens… Why we make things for each other. Make art, sure, but also just make… things. To share. We all work together and play together and live together and create together and although it doesn’t always feel like it, the world hasn’t ever been as together as it’s come to be right now, and the speed the virus spread has made that more clear than anything else really could have. We are billions working as one in a beautiful, conflicted kind of polyharmony. My church… I’m Greek Orthodox. I mean I’m not Greek and my family’s not Greek, but then my dad got reading about the Greek church and he just packed us all up and off we went to this whole other way of communicating with God. Or with each other, if you’re not too keen on the idea of God. It’s all the same to me. Anyway, in Greek there is this word that’s come to mean ‘person’. Prósopo, but it also means… I don’t know… Face-to-face. Something like that. So, the word for one person actually means two people facing each other. She’s been weaving throughout and now holds up the figure which looks like two people doing just that. Look, when all this is over, and everything is up and running again in whatever kind of world has grown out of this… Take yourself off to a service or a concert or game or whatever you want. Just sit at it, shoulder to shoulder, with a few friends or strangers and let the music or the action wash over you. She does. Then, while you’re doing it, do something really radical… Stop looking straight ahead for a second and look around either side of you. No one ever looks at the crowd at these things, but they should, because they’d see something really special… Page 29
They’d see a sea of faces and in those faces they’d see how we can be one and many all at the same time and it’s bloody beautiful. She holds the woven figures right up to the camera, turning it around a few times to show off all its sides. She smiles. She winks. She goes.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
AT YOUR OWN PERIL BY / JEAN TONG Page 31
The STUDENT is ethnically Chinese – probably Chinese-Malaysian/ChineseSingaporean. The STUDENT is video-chatting with someone from back home. They know what they’re saying is just a tad spicy. Everyone’s asking this question now, the question of whether Australia is racist. Beat. Look, before you get scammed into hand over 100K for an Arts degree, which is more than double what they charge locals, you should probably know that Australians do not like Asians. My parents had to take out a loan to send me here and like, was it worth it? Shrug. Anyway, it’s a bit like in Malaysia with the Malays taking over the Orang Asli – white Australians are technically Malays. They went into the country, made it for themselves, and anyone who tried to enter after them, like the Chinese – good luck! Which is like, whatever, there’s a lot of us, I get it. But yeah, it’s been three years and I haven’t been able to make local friends other than Asians. And I’ve tried. But in class, white people will sit with white people, and then the Chinese, international students like me, basically all other people from Southeast Asia will sit together. It’s like high school. I think it’s because they see us like a special category – ‘international student’. It’s like they think we don’t have the full range of thinking and communication skills they have, so why bother trying to talk to us. Still, if you had asked me before COVID if Australia’s racist, I probably would’ve said no. Now… Beat. It was very early on during COVID. Maybe February? Australia put the lockdown on people travelling from China, so people were suddenly really aware of anyone with an East Asian, Southeast Asian face. Suddenly we’re all freaking ChinaChinese. Which I guess isn’t that different from what they thought before. Anyway. I was on the train, I think it was 10am so not that crowded. This middleaged white dude came up to me and he was like, ‘why aren’t you wearing a mask’? In my head, I thought, ‘what the fuck’? Of course, my mouth just went, ‘What?’. And he said, ‘The virus is spreading.’ My hands start sweating, and I’m like, ‘Uh, no one here is wearing a mask.’ And he goes, ‘I think you should, didn’t the virus come from your people?’ I’m like, ‘hello, the virus doesn’t discriminate, unlike you, racist asshole’. I didn’t actually say that last bit. I just walked away.
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Beat. You know, I did used to wear masks. Especially on the plane. I feel like after bird flu and shit, Asians are just like yep, slap that mask on. But white people freak out. Like people stare at you all the time and when COVID started, I wasn’t wearing one cause I didn’t want to make myself a target. Guess Train Guy felt my face was enough of a target. Beat. Anyway that didn’t exactly inspire me to put a mask on again. I’d rather get COVID than give people another reason to look at me. Beat. Generally, people did try to hide it. There’s a lot of ‘woke’ people who were like ‘I’m not racist, but dot dot dot’. And it’s like hello, you’re racist. I’m racist. We’re all racist. I mean, even the freakin’ Prime Minister of Australia basically said we should all just go home. He’s definitely a racist. I did think it was really funny when this minister was like, we’re such a successful multicultural country, look at Masterchef! Someone collected like 400 reports of racist harassment against Asians between April and May. But look! Poh’s making another pie on Masterchef! Beat. I didn’t tell my dad what happened to me. He’s already freaking out about the Singaporean and Malaysian students who were attacked. The other day, he sent me these articles about Indian students being targeted and I’m like that’s from 2009, dad... I actually forgot that happened though. No one talks about it here. It’s like everyone forgot it happened, or decided it didn’t matter because it’s in the past. Sorry if this is freaking you out. Beat. Like ultimately… it’s fine. If you do decide to come over, just know that there’s way more international students who are political now, and personally it makes me a feel safer because it means you’re not alone. Like for example, a group of us went to the Black Lives Matter rally together and previously I would’ve avoided it out of fear of being arrested or fear of getting corona, but now I’m like. No, I know my rights, everyone’s distancing, and if we can’t get out there and convince Australians to even treat their own Orang Asli properly, there’s no way they’re gonna give a shit about Asians either. Plus I was just feeling like, fuck you Train Guy. It was nice to see so many other people like, care?, that racism exists. Page 33
Maybe those people will be in your tutorials and they’ll treat you like a normal human being. As long as this doesn’t end up like the 2009 Indian student attacks and people forget again. Beat. You know what’s funny? That was the first time in months that I actually felt like it was safe to wear a mask to go out.
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THE LOCKDOWN MONOLOGUES
WHAT MATTERS BY / JANE HARRISON Page 35
A First Nations MOTHER, around 40 years of age, very matter of fact and not sentimental, speaks to the camera. Well, us mob are more susceptible – of course we are. Plus there was the thought of spending three months locked inside. In suburbia. Fighting over screen time with my son. Staying in the city felt all wrong. I know how to get shit together quickly. So I raced around – there’s that camping shop down the road. I got this really solid canvas tent. They use them for ‘glamping’ now days. I got a camping stove, axe, buckets, rope. I’m thinking: Holy shit. I’m losing all my employment and I’m maxing out the credit card buying all this stuff. I throw a futon in the back of the station wagon, doonas. Me and Yarrum, he’s just turned ten. Heading to Country. Not my country, but at least my Gunditjimara friend’s. Bush block with a shed. And a teepee. I grew up in tents, sheds, makeshift camps. The block’s snuggled into the base of a mountain. Really, really beautiful country. Pristine. Tall timbers, a creek. Steep. Solar and dam water. The lot. And big enough for our little clan group – fourteen of us – not to get under each other’s feet and to have different conversations every day. The others live there full time. They’re engineers, tradies. People with skills. Yarrum hangs with the eighteen year old, collecting wood, chopping and stacking it. The axe I bought him is just the right size and weight. Best of all, there’s a Border Collie bitch that dropped a litter the week before… Five of them. Yarram goes spacka. They’re funny; they fall over their own paws. He’s keen on the black one. Calls it Phantom. I’m like: a freaking American cartoon? But for once I shut up. He’s happy. There’s been all these comets and solar flares lately. I read that the earth’s magnetic poles are shifting. Yarning with the others, we all feel there’s… like, something stirring, changing. Maybe nature fighting back. But there’s still mining and fracking going on. Blowing up sacred sites. Violence. But, in that beautiful place, we were inoculated from all of that. Then… it’s time to come back. I need to earn a living. Yarrum begs to take Phantom. But I’m a tough mother. Page 36
‘Who’ll be responsible for it?’ ‘I will. I promise.’ ‘Yeah, for a week.’ The car’s packed. We’ve said our goodbyes. Yarrum’s almost crying, giving a last hug to Phantom. ‘Oi!’ I yell at him. ‘Don’t leave the mutt behind…’ He grabs the puppy, almost squeezing it to death, huge grin. Some tough mother. Halfway home, my phone blows up. I pull over, worried. Who’s sick? Who’s in trouble? Who’s George Floyd? Back in suburbia and Yarram wants to take the pup over to Luke’s. ‘Nuh. He needs his last needle. And there’s a pandemic, remember?’ ‘It’s not fair.’ I hadn’t missed hearing that, the past three months. ‘You said you’d be responsible’. That night I’m scrolling through all the messages and feeds. There’s gonna be a rally in town. Heaps of mob are going. We’ve spent three months in quarantine so I can live with myself for not going this time. But I toss and turn all night. By morning I’ve made up my mind. I’m going. Yarrum yells at me. ‘You’re a hypocrite!’ How do you explain systemic racism to a ten year old? Or cognitive dissonance? But then he says, ‘Is it because of what happened to Aunty Vanessa?’ Yes. And Tanya. And Mark. ‘You said it was dangerous...’ And that made me think real hard. Would I lay down my life for this?’ I’m going because I don’t want what’s happened to them to happen to you.’ Beat. ‘Then I’m going too,’ he says. ‘Because I don’t want it to happen to you or anyone I love.’ So we go. Me and my precious son. We wear masks. We’re careful. It’s calm. Respectful… and beautiful. Thousands of us coming together to stand up for human life. And I feel hope. This is the world I want. For all of us. This is what matters.
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#MALTYLOCKDOWN
